Doing Life Together

What does "life together" look like at The Billabong? Below are some reports from our various groups and programs about what they got up to last year. We hope you enjoy reading these, and that it piques your interest in joining a group or serving in one of these ministries. 

Looking for our 2022 annual report? You can find it here. 

AEGIS SERVICES
Nigel & Georgina Jones

In early 2022 Sarah, Martin and Luke honoured Nigel and I by asking if they could pass the baton to co-ordinate Billabong’s monthly church services, held at local aged-care residence Aegis Amherst, onto us… after prayer, when the Holy Spirit confirmed that He would be there to lead us, we agreed! 

Lyn, John, and Luke kindly took turns to attend services with us for the first few months until we were comfortable running the services ourselves. Each 2nd Thursday of the month we arrive at Aegis at 10am to sign-in and set-up for the service that starts at 10.30am. Aegis staff play hymns on their laptop until 10.30am.

Three other local churches provide services on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th weeks of the month, including Anglican and Catholic churches, one of which provides a monthly communion service for residents. If there is a 5th Thursday in a month, residents and staff organise the service that week.

When it is Billabong’s week, we bring a laptop with PowerPoints of Bible reading passages, prayers, and hymn lyrics for the residents to follow along with. I am fine with the creation of the PowerPoints, but am thankful we have Nigel’s IT expertise to help with the connection to the aged-care’s projector, etc! 😊

Any volunteers need to know that the worship song ‘Blessed Assurance’ is on permanent weekly request from the Aegis residents and staff and cannot be forgotten! 😊 They do all love to sing hymns!

The service runs for half an hour and initially we would stay after the service to speak to and pray for residents, but with Covid restrictions this has ceased and recent services have ended promptly at 11am.

Any volunteers need to show evidence of up-to-date Covid vaccines and annual flu shots prior to entry. Most of the year we have also had to show evidence of a current negative RAT test, have our temperature taken and wear a face mask. Although recently there are signs some conditions might be lifting.

Due to Covid restrictions, there were times during the year when volunteers were denied access to age-care and services were cancelled at these times. During this time, a decision was made by Aegis to move church services to a smaller, enclosed room, which has limited attendance space. We pray that as Covid restrictions ease, Aegis may be able to move services to a new larger room, as the original space has been repurposed.

Despite restrictions, the services have continued strongly, and have received positive feedback from residents and carer staff. As we say to the residents, it is an honour to be invited to worship God with them, and we always experience a Holy Spirit led and blessed service together! 

If you feel led by Father God to visit, join or help this ministry, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks! God bless!

BREAD RUN
Marhun Limpah

Since we stopped delivering bread to the African families back in 2021, our focus is to encourage our brothers and sisters at The Billabong to take some bread home and to share the bread with their friends or neighbours. It is an opportunity to share the love of God to someone through sharing the bread.

Besides providing morning tea for the congregation, we are still sharing the bread with The Spanish church. We are no longer delivering the bread to the Church of Christ in Rockingham due to logistical matters.   

At this moment we are struggling a little to find people to join our bread run team. If anyone feels called to help with the run, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am sure you will get the job!!!

As always, I would like to thank The Bread Run Team (I call them: “The faithful servants”) for their support. Without them this ministry wouldn't be able to run well.

Finally, I also want to thank my brothers and sisters at The Billabong, who are very supportive and helpful in taking the bread home. Otherwise it would end up in the bin!!

LADIES BIBLE STUDY
Frances David

This group of 6 – 8 meets weekly on a Thursday morning from 10am–12pm at the Billabong.

We are a flexible group of women who share the journey of our lives together, learn of God’s love for each other and how we can respond to Him and share that love with the world around us. We pray for each other, our families and friends and the world. We cry and we laugh A LOT.

Usually, we work through a Life Guide Bible Studies booklet. This may take us a term, a semester, or even a year, depending on what other important events may take precedence at the time. Perhaps we may need to stop the study and focus on one person and prayer one week, and another week it may be more appropriate to just meet at a café for coffee.

In May 2022 we ceased meeting for a time while a Ladies Alpha was held at the same time. Some members participated in or prayed for this weekly. This was a bonus for us, as we scored a wonderful new member when we restarted.

LIFE GROUP
Kevin & Jenny Tan

Our Life Group is about 20 in number and 10-14 are regular attendees, mostly retirees. A key emphasis has been to encourage the group to contribute and share in our meetings. Overall, attendance was consistent throughout the year. 

We covered topics and also concentrated on the Book of Galatians with a focus that Salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone and nothing else.  We also discussed John Piper's teaching on Ephesians 5 - focussing on spirit guided husband and wife relationships (verses 19-33). Often a very sensitive study, it was received well and couples contributed to the discussions. 

We supported a number of families who went through health issues. Also a member who suffered (and continues to suffer) chronic back problems over a prolonged time.

Openness was encouraged and even those who are usually more  reserved started to share more. There is a great wealth of testimonies as some of us have been Christians for many years

We also encouraged group outings so as to foster friendships - a lunch followed by going to the movies was enjoyed by all and also a dual birthday celebration earlier in the year.

LIFE GROUP SOUTHEAST
Andrew Hunter

The Billabong Lifegroup Southeast continued to meet when feasible over the past year. A number of distractions caused us to miss some meetings or for the meetings to have just a few of us. On a few occasions we were able to meet with most members. The distractions included hard things, particularly health challenges, and good things, such as vacations and opportunities for work. Despite these distractions we continued to grow closer as a small part of the Billabong community. Time spent studying scripture or series like The Ripple Effect have been fairly rare but we have lived life and prayed together whenever we’ve met and in communication in between times.

The future looks to be more of the same but we continue to pray for resolution of the hard things and for opportunities to meet more consistently.

LIFE GROUP SUNDAY TACOS
Sarah & Mike Sheehy, Vince & Karen Stagno

Sunday Tacos is a home group meeting on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month at 12 noon at the Billabong building and various parks and homes for a BYO lunch and fellowship.

We discuss the sermon for the week, share testimonies about what’s happening in our lives, pray for each other and aim to encourage each other in our walk with God. Recently we have been doing the Ripple Effect studies and are finding them thought provoking and challenging.

We have a desire to see more community connection in the wider Billabong and as such we’ve planned to start organising some church-wide activities over the next year, the first one being a picnic.

We have a mix of ages in our group, from kids in late primary school to people in their retirement.  But we welcome anyone to join in and be part of the fun and encouragement.

"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing" - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

PRAYER GROUPS WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY MORNINGS
Marhun Limpah

Pray without ceasing is the way of communion with our Father in heaven. It is soul fulfilling when we can talk to Him individually or collectively.

The prayer meetings are on every Wednesday at 6.30 - 7.30am on Zoom and Thursday at 7.30 - 8.30 am in the prayer room. Everyone is welcome to join in.

The setting is very casual/informal, we share about all sort of things such as the current affairS of the world, nations, communities, churches, leaders, congregations, bible verses etc. We pray over the things that we are sharing about (whatever we share in the room, will stay in the room). Sometimes we pray without any specific prayer points, but only through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Most of the time we pray for people in our congregation and outsiders (who needs a Saviour).

We would like to invite more people to join the prayer meetings, so we can grow in faith and number too. God bless!!

PRAYER GROUP SUNDAY MORNING
Samuel Annan and Georgina Jones

Billabong Sunday Prayer group is a group that meets every Sunday an hour before the worship service, to reflect on the impending worship, share an exhortation as the Holy Spirit leads, and pray for the worship and for the leading of the Holy Spirit during the service. We are a group that believes God’s power works through prayer. Our prayer life is not only limited to this space; prayer is also a lifestyle in which we encourage all to be involved. We reflect on the prayer requests we may have for the week and pray for those situations and individuals. We constantly connect beyond Sunday prayers, on WhatsApp, on any issues during the week that require prayer. In those instances, we share on our social platform and pray individually, committing the situation to God.

We occasionally create a space after the worship service for individuals who may need someone to pray with. Sometimes we check with people we discern the Holy Spirit is prompting us to pray with, and when they agree, we share a prayer with them.

We welcome anyone who wishes to join in prayer on whichever Sunday morning you are available, to come and join us. Whoever is available (eg. from other serving commitments) will meet in the prayer room from 9am to about 9:50am. We encourage all who may need someone to journey with in prayer to connect with us and to pray together. We know that prayer is the means we can communicate with our loving God, and challenge all to join us in this journey. God bless you all.

Samuel, Rachel, Emelia, Georgina, Anita, Karen, Erina, David, Ros, Glenice, Terry, Julie, Sheila, Luke.

(With Sylvia & Juliann joining us from the countryside and overseas on WhatsApp)