STAY Half Year Report Card

By Jack Chui

I've been on a 2 week break overseas - a break from not just work, but also STAY... I'm not foreign to being busy having worked, studied, team sport, maintaining relationships before but STAY or ministry has been one area where the workload has increased. So busy that I haven't had a chance to write here since the beginning of the year...

So its time to provide an update from my perspective on how STAY is going.

A STAY member sent me this video which can summarise how STAY has grown over the past year in 3 minutes.

If STAY Cell Group is a measure of how many people there are then STAY has just over 50 people, up from about 20 at the end of last year and just one or 2 a year ago. Its growth in numbers was phenomenal itself last year, but it has continued to grow and the growth has not stopped. It gave me great joy each week to keep adding a person to the STAY Whatsapp group which is not used anymore because it can't support groups of over 50...

Its a nice problem to have so many people coming to Cell Group each Tuesday and available for other ministry but too difficult for me to lead them alone. So I have formed leaders for the ministries and brought them together to form a leadership team with me. They are:

Prayer - Andrew (Pray for STAY)
Cell Group - Pat
Outreach - Nicole (Friends of Refugees)
Worship - Aaron (Firebrandz)
Choir - Karl (Firebrandz Choir)
Dance - Christabel (Firebrandz Dance)

My role in STAY has changed from keeping STAY alive, then looking after its members and now growing new leaders. I am now doing the role that my predecessor Kenny spent much of his time with myself and previous leaders. I have learnt much from Kenny, STAY and from others about leadership but at times I feel unqualified to mentor about leadership because I myself am not good at it. I've gotten better but its so hard. I guess this was why it was always said to me is that the church lacks good leaders - they are hard to find if they are born and its hard to train for... Now its my turn to take on this responsibility... A new challenge!

As leaders we have met together a few times but as my poor experience tells me, its hard to gather lots of people together for a meeting and 7 of us is large enough. There was no real formula to how I chose some of the leaders... some were natural because of their expertise, some were calculated risks (and not so calculated) and others were inexperienced or unexpected. My history of choosing leaders hasn't been great - I don't pray much about it, but try to pray while we're in it. The group is diverse and should produce enough healthy conflict to make sure we act in the best interests of God, the ministry and everyone in STAY.

One thing that seems to be constant in the last half year is what I could call a 'Midas touch'. Everything STAY seems to get involved in seems to turn to gold... Its quite amazing to see because God had to have a hand in all the things we do for it to be so successful. I'll see if I can explain with all the ministries below:

Pray for STAY

The most important ministry, because if there's only one thing I want to do in STAY that is to get young people to pray (vision for STAY is to bring God to young people). Prayer allows God to work through us/STAY to bring the success and success is God's responsiility. Andrew has been faithful in leading this each Monday evening over Skype which is timed so that we can pray for the next day's cell group amongst other events that require prayers. Andrew has also been diligent in lifting up all the individual intentions of all STAY members of which there are many. I would not assess progress based on turn out which is around 5 per Monday but by how God works through the other ministries and that has been nothing short of amazing --

STAY Cell Group

Of all the leaders I have known Pat the longest from the first STAY retreat in 2011. The vast majority of people in STAY are completely new to me as I've only met them through STAY over the last year. Cell group is so big now that we are using every room we can in St. Joseph's Hall (including the hallway...) to split into 5 smaller groups. Choosing a leader for Cell Group was hard - its arguably the most time consuming role and most involved with the individuals in STAY on a week to week basis. Pat was a left field choice, she has the passion and commitment plus the pastoral skills but no demonstratable (at least unknown to me) leadership skills. I have been guiding her and she has taken this role by the reins and just ran with. The group is now running an 8 week course on elementry reading of the bible which has through word of mouth attracted interest from other groups outside STAY. Cell Group faces the problem of becoming less intimate and controllable as it grows so this will be a challenge for Pat and the other leaders to make sure that cell group's primary purpose and attraction doesn't deteriorate - fellowship.

Friends of Refugees

STAY's outreach ministry has continued to grow even though I thought it could not and was reluctant to because it was big enough as it was. Moving Day moved quickly from 1 truck in January to 3 in March which meant organising 3 times as many volunteers, donations and refugee families than before. Managing this by myself would be impossible without the help of Nicole and the organising team of 3 others who have been active with the outreach month to month. Nicole was reluctant in accepting leadership as she feels unqualified and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of risk and responsibility of leading a group like Friends of Refugees. I have had to continue leading Friends of Refugees and it will probably consume most of my ministry/management time - it was my original position after all...

Needless to say, the organising team with Nicole has been instrumental in allowing the outreach to grow and STAY members have been active in volunteering. The more it grows, the more we can reach out to befriend more refugees and also allow God to reach young people through service.

Firebrandz

Firebrandz has an agenda independent but not separate to STAY as it is led by Aaron and tied to the ICPE group. STAY and Firebrandz work together and are synomous with each other and has contributed to each others growth and success. STAY has brought people to Firebrandz events and Firebrandz events has brought people to STAY events. Its core activity is a monthly worship night which is held on the last Wednesday of each month which brings young people together for Praise and Worship and Catechesis from a guest speaker. The parish is also invited to the Worship nights and on average about 75 people would attend. Its almost a copy of the Friday Catechesis nights which STAY used to run and as a newish ministry they have started requesting for feedback through forms to get a better idea of what the community would like. There are also plans for an in house (or more 'in-church') retreat in June. STAY should organise a retreat towards the end of the 2nd half of the year as well.

Aaron is a well formed leader and informally he oversees the other 'Firebrandz' ministries -

Firebrandz Choir

The choir was a new initative for the start of this year with STAY having enough people to be able to support a choir and maintain our other ministry commitments. The choir now has over 20 people which is about half of the STAY members which I see as a good but also challenging problem. They don't all fit in the choir stalls but the choir has drawn people who would not have otherwise thought themselves as good singers/musicians to serve the church in this way. They are led by Karl who was one of several possible choices of leaders and is led by their well trained conductor in Aaron. Aaron was undoubtedly the most obvious choice to lead the choir, but it was also an opportunity to develop a new leader that may have few of the talents and skills and see God work through them.

The choir started with serving at one mass a month and now has been requested and has capacity for 2 masses a month which is the same as the regular choirs in St. Augustine's. The choir practices every other week usually the day before their service. It won't be long before they will serve at Firebrandz worship night and perhaps even weddings...

Firebrandz Dance

This largely unknown and rarely practiced ministry is the initiative of Christabel who had grew up in New Zealand learning it within her family and community. I have not been closely involved but I know we have something very special in our midst. From what others tell me, there are about 10 girls taking part most if not all except Christabel without much dance experience. Thus there is a learning curve involved and much of it was about the concept of dancing for God (rather than for others). There was plans to have the ministry debut in July during Firebrandz Worship Night first anniversary but we managed to bring that forward with a somewhat abruptly planned Stations of the Cross event which our parish priest asked the group to host. Along the with the choir, the dance ministry helped the passion of Christ come alive to those that attended the event. I had seen liturgical dance once before but the 2 dances performed during the Stations event gave me a glimpse of more amazing things to come. This ministry will likely be the most video taped of all of STAY's ministries =)

Other Notes

I will need to keep other adhoc events coming into STAY such as the Stations of the Cross to give our growing number of members active, to create an extra sense of belonging and importance in being part of the group. Some activities we said we'd get involved in (but may not have actioned yet) is:

- Services in the Church - readers, collectors, acolytes, Eucharistic ministers

- Fellowship in the Church - fundraising BBQ for parishoners, other church events

- Socials - Events organised by the Archdiocese like Indoor Soccer Competition, dinner nights out

- Reflecting by writing in this blog

A most amazing thing about STAY is not just the number of people now that are being drawn to the group but also their willingness to help and participate. In past, it always felt like a struggle just to get people just to help that I simplified things for them to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. I probably wasn't trusting enough not humble and courageous enough to ask for help especially when few seemed to want to get involved. There is a great energy in the group that has continued wanting to seek and know God, and they'll do whatever it takes (like studying a book together) to give the Holy Spirit a chance to work through them and their friends. All of this could not have been done without the Holy Spirit's work in the group and in the hearts of those who we have reached. So all praise and honour goes to God for being the true victor and source of success in this group.