Community

By Jack Chui

Last Saturday the leaders of STAY gathered to catch up over dinner. It was the first time we've caught up for a while and as a team without the leaders who established STAY from the beginning. Usually we would catch up once a month over Skype and face to face quarterly to discuss all things STAY. There was a lot to discuss and was reasonably productive in the basic things I hoped to at least achieve.

There was a comment shared by most of the other leaders which I found interesting because I didn't share their opinions. Our church, St. Augustine's has been without a permanent parish priest for the last 3 years or so. We have had temporary priests over the years staying no more than a year, sometimes less and so there has been no continuity and less care in making things better in the church. As such, the spirit and the numbers attending the church have been in decline since its glory days and this has had an impact on some of the ministries that are part of the church. With Father Victor coming back in October, there seems to be a renewed hope amongst the leaders and a feeling that it was a struggle without a shepherd to guide us.

I guess I have not really felt this decline or lack of a priest since we started having 'temporary' priests. Was it because I'm kind of naive or probably didn't really care about the decline. I didn't really share this opinion because as far as I'm concerned, God's spirit was still with the church. But as I thought about why I didn't think like the others, I realise that my experience of St. Augustine's was different to the others.

In St.Augustine's I was part of a community with fairly strong fellowships in a parish cell group. We were small at first, but we continued to meet each Tuesday evening at church to share each other's company around the Word of God. Many of my good friends are there and most of them are many years older than me. But because we see each other so often at cell group and then usually at church, it felt like I belonged and the spirit that was seemed to be gone from the church was still alive in me because I had some close others to share it with and for us to lift each other. I think it was this community spirit that helped me believe that I was part of something amazing in this church.

It was this word 'community' that the STAY leaders agreed on that would help take STAY to the next level. Our aim now is to build this so that young adults in Melbourne have a place to be able to share their faith, be vulnerable, grow, be supported and to lift each other up. The journey is already a hard one and God had designed the Church so that we would not have to do it alone.

The absence of a priest also shows how important and key a figure he is in running the parish. But I found, its like going through a desert - that the lay people will have to rise up to take responsibility for keeping the parish going. The opportunity is there when we don't have a permanent priest and I think its amazing to see people rise up to new challenges. It helped me realise that the priest is only one man, and things would run so much better if the community came together to help him do his job. Like the church, he can't do it alone.