COMMUNITY Report

Our community ministry area is definitely gaining more presence in our wider community. This area is made up of both Community Services and other Community outreach initiatives including our BLESS outreach strategy. I would like to say a big thankyou to the great staff and volunteers who work to love and bless our community every day.

BLESS
We ran two BLESS Sundays in 2023 where we focused on encouraging and inspiring our church to put our BLESS principles into practice. Our Children's Ministry also ran a BLESS teaching series and then followed up with putting BLESS into practice supporting the Christmas Hampers initiative and Youth did the Angel Tree project.  The BLESS Gathering continued to have between 10 to 20 people each week.  A group of 5 to 8 people met weekly for our Bless prayer time.

COMMUNITY GROUPS
A big thank you to all the volunteers involved in helping run our community groups including Mum Club, Open House and the Craft Group. Mum Club and the Craft Group have now moved into the Herspace ministry area lead by Bec Ellery.

BEYOND LOCAL COMMUNITY MISSION
We continue to support YouthCARE Chaplaincy and Eagle City Mission where Liz Roberts preached regularly throughout the year. Our local chaplains contact us regularly for support from Lifestreams Community Services and we ran a number of mental health programs at Como Secondary College.

LIFESTREAMS COMMUNITY SERVICES (LCS)

EMERGENCY RELIEF
Our emergency relief area expanded significantly in 2023. We held 227 care appointments as opposed to the 130 in 2022. We issued 278 food hampers compared to 75 in 2022. We provided 628 food vouchers in 2023, 254 in 2022.  We can see from the data that our emergency relief area is gaining a presence in the community. We hope to see continued growth with providing support to those who need assistance. A big thank you to Amanda Mills-Ghani who did an amazing job overseeing our emergency relief area and to Mark Alosi who faithfully picked up food hampers every week.

Amanda, in partnership with Kids Church organised and put together 193 Christmas Hampers over two Sundays, whereas in 2022 we issued 110 hampers. We saw more people from the community and church being a part of this project which provided a great avenue for outreach and raising awareness for those in need.

MENTAL HEALTH CARE
The mental health area continues to contract Raelene Newall to work as the Mental Health Consultant as well as providing counselling. We supported 69 counselling sessions throughout 2023. Raelene also facilitated Resiliency Plus, a course designed to assist people in building their resilience as they cope with the unexpected challenges in life. The course was held through March, June and July.  She also ran Thrive, an anxiety recovery course through July, August, September, October and November.

COMMUNITY BELONGING
The Community Lunch attracted between 25 and 40 people each week. The Loop Café provided fantastic food, with approximately half the people who attended being from the community and the other half from the Bless Gathering. Jan Barnard made beautiful cards each week to help us celebrate birthdays. Our Christmas Community Lunch was very popular this year with over 100 people attending, mostly from the community.  Senior Events were well received, with Quiz Mornings held in Terms 1 and 3 and a Bingo Morning in Term 2.  We introduced sing along’s within the events which proved to be a highlight for many, using songs from the past that seniors connected to. Ian Pickford assisted with organising the quiz questions and music, playing the guitar and facilitated the events with immense enthusiasm, for which we are most grateful.

INDIGENOUS CARE
Unfortunately, our Indigenous Coordinator, Jasmine Fitzgerald, only stayed with LCS for 7 months. During this time, we piloted a number of programs including an after school children’s program, a women’s art group and a Sunday afternoon gathering in East Victoria Park. These programs were not able to continue without an Indigenous leader. LCS continues to care for Indigenous people on a weekly basis and build good relationships. We received positive feedback from our Indigenous clients that they liked our relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.  31% of LCS clients are Indigenous. 

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS
The group met monthly after the Sunday service during 2023 and 30 to 40 people attended.  Anu & Jonathan Benjamin with a great team of volunteers did an amazing job of facilitating this group. Many team members were also helping with the potential new gathering in East Victoria Park.

After much prayer, the team decided to trial moving International friends to East Victoria Park and reach out to new migrants coming to Australia, but also being inclusive and inviting Indigenous people. 

GROUND BREAKERS
This program continued to run at Curtin Primary School. Jess Thompson, Program Coordinator did a fantastic job overseeing the program on Wednesdays which had nine mentors and children at risk.

Liz Roberts

Community Minister