Church Review: Hawera Baptist
Hawera Baptist – Faith, change and great worship.
I visited the Hawera Baptist church recently. The first thing I noticed was their motto "Living faith from the inside out" which I loved. See their website at www.hawerabaptist.org.nz or www.facebook.com/hawerabaptist for more info.
The second thing was that they are in a transitional state. Next the music struck me, and it was lovely. The sermon was good and the people friendly. The small size and possible lack of people my age was the only drawback I could see. This church was fun to visit.
The motto was fantastic. I love the concept that faith*1 is not something that you have inside you as a secret. But that the faith inside you, changes you and you live your life according to it.
The bible says that “faith without deeds is dead” (in the book of James chapter 2, verse 14). I take this to mean that you can have as much inside faith as you want, but until you start helping others, and doing something practical with your faith, you may as well not have it.
So a church that has chosen to base itself on “living faith” is definitely in-line with my understanding of the bible, and something I can get behind.
The church is going through some changes and transition. As an outsider I am not sure what is going on, except that the current pastor and his family are moving away. The church is going to be looked after for the next 12 weeks by a lovely man named Robert who is finishing his pastoral training. It is an exciting time for the church with this transition and the changes coming up.
Changes in a church are a great thing, they allow ideas to be examined. Thought is put into the direction of a church. It tends to be a time when lots of enthusiasm comes into a church and things start to happen.
The music was great, all in key! I find communication with God so much easier if the music is in key and I can lose myself in it. Off notes make it hard for me to relax. The songs were all ones I knew (which is a bonus) but some of them were very old, so I knew them from childhood when my mum was learning piano and would play for hours.
Another thing that is crucial for me is the sermon. Robert did the speaking and it was a lovely sermon with lots of biblical teaching but also a lot of relevance to us in real life. A big tick here.
It is so easy to spend a whole message talking deeply about the biblical origins of x and y, without making it relevant to real life. Or some speakers like to talk solely about real life, which just makes me feel like I am reading a self-help book (“how to get healthy in 10 days” etc). If a sermon has little reference to the bible, the risk is that it is just the pastor’s opinion you are listening to, and you have no idea how he came to that opinion. When the bible is clearly the basis you can feel confident you are not just hearing one man’s (or woman’s) opinion, you are getting a view from the bible. But you still need to know how this is relevant for your life. Getting the balance right is so important.
But the most important thing that people have said to me about going to a church is the friendliness and atmosphere. No one wants to go to a church where you are told you are going to hell the minute you step through the door! We want to feel encouraged, listened to, maybe even have a discussion with people who think differently to us. But whole hearted condemnation and narrow mindedness is certainly off putting!
Hawera Baptist was not like that, it was friendly without being too intense. The people I spoke to seemed kind and caring. Of course with any church you are going to get a wide range of views, but that is a good thing, so long as they are balanced out and most people are willing to discuss and consider new ideas.
The small size did make me wonder if it was the right church for me. I didn’t see anyone around my age who wasn’t busy roping in a child or two. It makes me wonder if people my age only go to church if they have kids. If they don’t have kids maybe they are sleeping in on a Sunday morning?
I love kids, they are hilarious, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a massively hard job raising kids and I have all the admiration in the world for those who are doing it and staying sane. I just wonder if we will have anything in common. The women who have young families tend to be really busy and/or tired, and when they get out and socialise they like to talk to people who understand what they are going through.
Which is not me. I am busy raising 2 cats, and gosh they are such a handful, I mean this morning I had to put cat biscuits in a bowl before I left for work. Talk about stressful….
However I really enjoyed my visit to this wee church and I will be visiting again.
KG
*1 Faith - see my christianese definition page here for clarification
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