Our Stories

We have had a very busy end to November, kicking off with a Christmas luncheon with our pastors who are Experienced in Ministry. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and reunion for everyone.

We also held two big events – SEND and IGNITE Discipling Youth Symposium.

When Aini first visited Camberwell Baptist Church (CBC), her only goal was to learn English. “I went to church on a Thursday night thinking that there was going to be an English class but there wasn’t. Instead it was a Simple English Bible study class. I listened to worship songs for the first time and even though I didn’t understand the lyrics, I felt touched,” shares Aini at the recent CBC Baptism Service.

Changes in a church community might be small and quiet, but that’s often how it is with Kingdom activity – a seed is sown, you don’t see it growing, then something sprouts. “We sense the Spirit moving and we are convinced in the role of prayer when it comes to sowing seeds for the Kingdom,” says Jeremy Van Langenberg, Pastor of Bacchus Marsh Baptist Church.

When the Eighth Day Church’s community realised that a large proportion of their church members were born in Bangladesh or had Bengali friends in Melbourne, they decided to hold their first Bengali Gathering in September of this year. It was a success and last month, they held their second Bengali Gathering where Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and people of no religion came together to meet and eat, share stories and pray together.

Kew Baptist Church celebrated the release of their debut worship EP ‘Daughters and Sons’ with a special Launch Event earlier last month. It was a wonderful night of celebration, featuring musical performances from the EP worship team, creative artworks on display from some of our resident artists, and times of worship in song together as a community.

Here is some fun in the form of a skit produced for a church concert. It was produced and presented by Dorothy Morgan and the family while they were at Naringal. The item illustrates one way a modern minister’s wife may contribute to church life. While the focus was on the role of the pastor, he was not present but was represented by a puppet.

VBHS was set up to ensure that we keep a record of our Baptist history and stories of people’s responses to God’s calling. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in Baptist history. We meet three to four times a year and at our most recent gathering, we had the privilege of having Dr Ros Gooden as our guest speaker who reflected on her lifetime of service and mission.

Longevity in fruitful church ministry requires a foundation of discipline – one that Mark Purser has cultivated over the last twenty-three years in his various pastoral roles. Mark reflects, “Finding healthy rhythms with work, family and rest has been crucial to my enjoyment and effectiveness in pastoral ministry and life in general.”

Not long ago, the Officer region consisted of paddocks and cows, but it is now a key suburb in the rapid expansion of the South East Growth Corridor, with significant infrastructure and housing estates being developed in the area. This means that there are thousands of people moving into our region and it presents great Gospel opportunity to represent Jesus through sharing the good news, blessing the local community, caring for the poor and lonely and raising disciples on mission.

North Church is a church whose purpose is to serve the people of Craigieburn and surrounding communities with a message of hope. What started as a small group of twelve people that met regularly, is today an established, growing community that gathered together from diverse backgrounds, ages and stages of life.