Hope25: Ideas and resources
Features
Our Diocesan Hope25 planning group members share ideas and resources as the Hope25 season — Easter to Pentecost — approaches
We thank God for all we are already hearing and seeing from our parishes planning to share the hope of Jesus this Easter, and into the Hope25 season until Pentecost.
Please explore the Hope25 website for inspiration from some of the popular outreach resources used by Anglican parishes across Australia. Parishes of all sizes are finding new ideas and learning from each other.
The Hope25 Facebook page is also a good platform to hear the stories of what parishes are doing.
A number of special How-to guides have been created for different creative event ideas, including:
· How to run a guest service
· How to run an open day
· How to run a wine and cheese night
· How to run a faith formation video course
· How to host a festival
· How to host an op shop ball
· How to host an op shop fashion show
Some parishes are using these guides to spark new ideas, applying best practices from the existing resources in fresh and creative ways.
Have you listened to any of the Hope25 podcast episodes? They’re available on major platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
May parish lay and clergy leaders be blessed as they plan events and activities to share the hope of Jesus.
This is what we are getting up to:
The Rev’d Mel Conway: “In addition to our scheduled Movies that Matter in June, we are planning an open house at each church. St James’ is the oldest church in Toowoomba, so we will include talks on history and architecture in the program for the day and advertise to local historical groups and schools.”
The Rev’d Dr Ann Edwards: “The Gap is inviting our community to an 80s singalong fundraiser for Ukraine schools, that will speak to the themes of the Hope25 Lent Study. The intention is to gather with our neighbours — especially the people interested in where to find the good and hope in our conflicted world — who may also be interested in our Courageous Conversations series. We are building warm relationships and trying to be the best neighbours so that people might meet the person, Jesus, who is the hope and heart of our community.”
The Rev’d Claye Middleton: “The Parish of Freshwater is planning to hold a Hangi in the parish in order to invite the community. We have diverse cultures in our local community, and this will be a fun and engaging way to break bread/ground and reach out.”
The Rev’d Michael Calder: “Here at St John’s, Wishart, we are getting involved with Hope25 by running a Holiday Kids Club, running a lunchtime Alpha in Term 2, and also shaping our Sunday services to be very invitational and evangelistic during this period. Our preaching will be through a series of topics of hope. Our hope and prayer are that these three in combination will create a safe space for newcomers to come and hear of our great hope in Jesus.”
The Rev’d Tania Eichler: “We are aiming to have weekly side-walk chalk art based on HOPE so that people passing by can engage, intentionally connecting with the Street Chaplaincy team for late night and early morning foot traffic. We are also going to host a HAT party — HOPE Afternoon Tea with a guest speaker, videos of people answering the question “What gives you hope?”, and HOPE speech bubbles for us all to write our message of hope. On a Deanery level we are aiming to have a passing of the hope flame from each community, ending up at Holy Spirit, Coolum for their Patronal festival at Pentecost.”
The Rev’d Catherine Govan: “Our St Stephen’s, Coorparoo working group is meeting and ideas are flowing! We are aiming to have a street library positioned so walkers by can choose a Christian book they may not have considered before (including the Hope 25 Gospels of Luke). We are also going to run Hope Explored over three sessions, as well as a four-part sermon series with challenges for the congregation each week. In conjunction with this we will have banners posing questions for drivers sitting at our traffic lights posing thought-provoking themes based on hope. And possible other ideas as we see what others are doing!”
Editor’s note: For more Hope25 please visit the Hope25 website for resources and ideas and a step-by-step guide for parishes.
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