The Journey

1998 Richard Clinton inspired a dream, a dream of churches based around relationship and relevance. He spoke to Steve Swain about what he felt was Steve’s part in this dream. This idea birthed dreaming, conversations and the partnership of Steve and Sonia Swain and Kim and Maria Hammond and led them to start a missional community.

So in 2002 they went out from South Eastern Christian Centre and with ten friends they formed a core group of people on a journey of discovery, the aim being to find out what it means to be Jesus to their culture.

We asked questions such as: what would it be like to be a church that wasn’t about a building or the Sunday morning service? To live in community, and to focus on mission to the first and the third world?

The name “the junction” came from the idea that we, as a community, wanted to journey with people as they wrestled with life. We wanted to meet people at the crossroad, where perhaps God and people intersect, a junction in their life.

So we began to meet and talk about what we truly valued. Our core values began to emerge from the group, to become the foundation on which we would begin and focus our life as a community. To crystalise this, we went away for a weekend and shared our hopes, dreams and plans for the future.

We told stories about how, for the first time in years for some, we spent time with those who wouldn’t normally go to church. We asked ourselves about how we spent our time and how we expressed our faith in the context of our culture.

After 6 months we were ready to do something public as a community. We hired the function room at The Berwick Inn, a local hotel in Berwick, for a night and gave all the profits to Windermere Family and Child Services.

A church giving away money to a non-religious charity at the opening of their first meeting and having that meeting in a pub which was a party with a live band and a tab on the bar!

We began meeting every week in different formats. Twice a month, we would have a reflective gathering based around stories, liturgy and teaching. Then we committed to share a meal together once a month, and to go out once a month, into the community doing community projects.

We worked at Kambrya Secondary College, the Beaconsfield Community Centre and Windermere’s house for “Kids in Crisis”. Church was not restricted to a Sunday service or a church building, but to whenever we got together to BE the church.

Some of the young adults started hanging out at the Berwick Inn, regularly. There is nothing quite like reading and talking about the bible in a public place. To ask the hard questions about being salt and light in the middle of a place filled with those who would not call themselves followers of Jesus.

So the journey continues for a group of friends who want to be a missional community. A community committed to each other and God.