Gerringong enters new home base for mission

For Gerringong Uniting Church, opening a new auditorium during a pandemic is far from ideal, but the church congregation hopes that it will lead to future mission opportunities.

Gerringong Uniting Church’s minister, Rev. Peter Chapman, said that the church’s first in-person meeting on Sunday 2 August brought with it, “a huge sense of relief and joy at being able to gather alongside our church family once more.”

“Even the humble post-worship cuppa was a precious moment with a sense of sacredness about it,” he said.

Not everyone will be able to rejoin face-to-face worship.

“Some of our older folk have flagged they are not yet comfortable returning to in-person worship,” Rev. Chapman said.

“Whilst we miss them, we respect their decision and will be focussing some special pastoral care for them in order that they don’t feel forgotten.” 

The congregation is also meeting in a new space: After five years’ preparation, the church has a new auditorium that they hope will serve as a “home base for mission.”

“The new space is a huge blessing,” Rev. Chapman said.

“We are calling it our ‘home base for mission’ as a way of keeping front and centre in our minds the fact that we gather as church in order to be equipped for mission in the week ahead wherever God may choose to place us.”

“It also represents a massive step up in terms of technological ability, and this brings with it the need to train a new generation of ‘techies’ to run our audio-visual and streaming requirements. We have already had several community groups keen to use our premises which is great too.”

“After having waited such a long time to get the keys, and then finally to get occupancy approval mid-COVID shutdown was extremely anti-climatic, but we are hopeful that having a new space will induce local folk to come and check it out, and perhaps, in the process, check out Jesus too.”    

For more information on Gerringong Uniting Church, visit their official Facebook page here.