A history of Cumberland Uni Church through chairs #1

I try not to watch too much television. The intellectually elite amongst my friends recently got me onto The West Wing. To counter that, I'm guiltily enjoying Glee. But my favourite show at the moment has to be Grand Designs.

I'll let wikipedia fill you in on the program;

Grand Designs is a UK Channel 4 TV series covering unusual architectural house-building projects, presented by Kevin McCloud. The properties featured in the series vary wildly from homes underground to converted water towers, with the only common factor being that they are all rather unusual or extravagant in some way.

Each episode covers the construction of a single home, from first design to completed structure. The show works largely because of the host, Kevin McCloud. He is brutally honest with people about his opinion of their construction methods, philosophy of building, and analysis of the final product.

One of the big themes that comes through the series is the psychological effect of architecture on individuals. The design of a building is oftentimes a reflection on the people commissioning the building. But the reverse is also true, building dynamics influence the people that dwell inside.

I have recognised this similar phenomenon in myself over the life of Cumberland Uni Church. We're a small congregation. And to me we feel small. But we havn't always...

A history of Cumberland Uni Church through chairs #1

Cumberland Uni Church sprung to life in a small school hall in the Sydney suburb of Lidcombe. Like all births, the conception had come many months prior. And really the intricate web of relationships needed for the conception itself had started many months before that. This would be a good time to stop the pregnancy analogies before I start equating the first supper with the afterbirth.

We were only small (20~) but that was fine. The core planting team of 13 had been meeting and praying for the three months prior to prepare as best we could for the start of the plant and commit our hopes and plans to God. The location wasn't our first choice. It was quite literally on the wrong side of the (train) tracks. It was extremely dark. The toilets were in a separate building across a stretch of about 70 metres from the hall in almost pitch blackness. In order to relieve yourself you were required to grab the toilet key (it wasn't safe to keep it unlocked), a torch (it was always dark regardless of the activity of the moon), as well as a friend (for safety.) But God was very generous in providing a dry room complete with piano for only $10 per week. Despite the irregularity of the space, the price was right.

As we were meeting in a primary school, many of the school chairs were built for midgets, so Uni Church had imported about 30 regular grey chairs from the main St Paul's site. There wasn't enough people to feel like the room was full, but enough that we didn't seem empty. It was quite common for more chairs to be needed to be put out after the service had begun, if we had a particularly large number of newcomers.

The overall structure was quite simple really. Meet together on Sundays for prayer, serious study of the word of God including question time, songs of praise, and time to fellowship. Meet together in two separate smaller groups during the week for prayer, serious study of the word of God and time to fellowship. And finally, to generally have time for one another. Our goal: to bring all people under Christ, with a specific focus on students living in the local area.

From the very first week, we had non Christians joining us. We immediately had a number of first year students show up, catch the vision and stick*. And the procession of one-off and occasional visitors began. After that first year as we looked back at the statistics, over 100 people had visited. For a church of twenty people which was relatively seasonal (We'd drop to single figures outside of semester time), to average two visitors for every week of the year was a great encouragement. I am confident to say each visitor, regardless of the week they came heard the good news about Jesus.

A church was born on grey seats.

*As a side note, this group included my lovely wife S who I met at college. S had met Gloria, a ministry trainee at Cumberland who had told her to find me at college to get a lift to Uni Church. The first conversation I ever remember having with my future wife was "Are you Izaac? Can I get a lift to church?"