Connections: Issue 1
Issue No. 1, Jan-Mar 2022
Connections is the quarterly newsletter publication of LifeConnect.Church and communicates the ministry highlights of the church.
Welcome To Connections
LIFECONNECT.CHURCH NOW READY TO SERVE! We’re legit!
LifeConnect.Church was incorporated on 7 December 2021 and received the Charities registration (CC59882) on 23 February 2022.
As an approved donee organisation, LifeConnect.Church is tax exempt and our donees can claim a donation tax credit. Congratulations to our trustees and elders who have worked hard towards gaining this status.
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
“We cannot give what we don’t possess. We can only give what we do possess”
Our leaders have been equipping and preparing to serve the people and community the best we can through training; Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is the first course in the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship journey.
Following an 8-session program we have shifted focus to ‘being’ with God before our ‘doing’ towards people, and held a graduation ceremony as part of our first service on 13th March 2022
Hybrid Welcome Service
The heart of LifeConnect.Church is to be a congregation of many house churches. This enables us to adopt an approach that is both physical and digital: hybrid.
With Omicron rapidly spreading, the Government announced the nation of New Zealand would be moving to “Alert Level Red”. With restricted capacity limits, particularly in allowing services which welcomed both vaccinated and unvaccinated members, the church opted to launch on 30 January as a hybrid service - in our homes and online.
On the 30th of January at 1:30pm, we gathered in our homes as LifeConnect group bubbles and connected together as a church using Zoom. And it was great!
We still experienced the preaching of the Word, fellowship and communion without leaving the one or the ninety nine! Further to this, we now have a ‘blueprint’ on how to bring Jesus to the people instead of bring people to the church building.
First In Person Service
While the hybrid model works well when it’s needed, we still place a strong importance on physical and in person fellowship.
After a couple of false starts, we were able to finally meet together as a congregation on 13th March 2022. The McFaddens Centre were gracious hosts and we look forward to continued use of their facilities. In continuing to include the one and ninety nine, we operated as a mixed service, with a separate entrance for KidzConnect to keep in line with the required capacity limits. We also made our service available to watch via Zoom for our partners and supporters in other regions.