CRAVE & The Power of Story

The weeks are simply flying by and once again there have been a lot of exciting things happening in the life of York St. One of the highlights for me has been the Crave young adult events that have taken place in the past week.


Last Tuesday we had a Crave worship night and it was a great time of encouragement. Thanks to Tim Drough for sharing with us a little about his life and reminding us how important it is to abide with God and encourage one another through life’s ups and downs.

On Sunday afternoon Crave had a change of pace and we exchanged our bibles for balls as we took on teams from One2One, Wendouree Baptist and Ballarat City AOG in an afternoon of sport. There competition was fierce but we had a lot of fun. It was great to join together with the wider Ballarat Christian community. Thank you to Matt Johnson for pulling it all together.

During our Sunday services we continued with the Just Walk Across the Room series. This week we were challenged to think about the power of stories. In particular we were encouraged to consider two of the most important stories in our lives as Christians, God’s story and our own story of the way God has made a difference in our lives. If we were given an opportunity would we be able to clearly articulate God’s story? Our own stories are also an important tool for personal evangelism. Tim challenged us to start thinking about our own ‘before and after’ stories. People want to know why we have chosen to follow God and what difference he has made in our lives. Can you write your story in 100 words or less?

If you’d like to attempt writing your story and sharing it with the Church send or email it in. You might even like to post it here on the blog.

Just Walk Across the Room...

Hello there!


It has been awhile since I’ve written. I’m sorry we have not kept it up - As you may or may not know, I have been out of the office for awhile grieving the loss of my two precious babies – Isaiah and Tori Jane. We know that they are with Jesus but our hearts are still hurting. However, in it, God has been so faithful. We have seen Him use this experience to draw others closer to Himself. We are grateful for all that He is doing through it all. Thank you to those who extended their well wishes. We are so blessed and encouraged by our church family and community.

This week we excitedly begin a new series called “Just Walk Across the Room” by Bill Hybel. We are selling books and study guides - $25 for both or $17/book and $13/guides. Contact the office if you wish to purchase them.

The focus is to get outside of our comfort zone to connect with others around us in the hopes that we might be able to share the love of Jesus with them. It begins by extending yourself by “just walking across the room” or neighbourhood, or front yard…it’s as easy as that. We don’t have to pretend to have all the answers. People are craving connection and you will find how easy it is to show the love of Jesus to others by just spending time with them.

Here’s a prime example. This Sunday we were celebrating the launch of this new series so we decided to order pizza for after our 6pm service. During Tim’s service, the pizza guy – SAM – arrived and dropped them off. As he stood in the foyer with Blake, his attention was caught by the words that Tim was saying through the foyer speaker, and he asked if we could pray for him. We stopped the sermon to spend time praying for him. It was a great example of how easy it is to connect with someone. It is our hope that he will be able to connect with Blake again, this week.

Another example: A group of youth girls from the church decided to walk down the street and offer to rake leaves for the neighbours of the church. They met a man named Charlie who felt so blessed by the girls. Though he lost his wife recently, he exclaimed with tears in his eyes, “This is the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a really long time.” The girls look forward to connecting with Charlie again. It is not hard to “walk across the room”. You just need the courage and commitment to do it.

Maybe there is someone in your sphere (work place, community, etc) that you could connect with this week? Tim asked us to consider doing 3 things this week:
1. Look for opportunities this week to “just walk across the room”
2. Connect with the person who brought you to Christ and write them a note about how it impacted you.
3. Pray for Sam – the pizza guy

I hope you are able to find great opportunities to connect and love people in your community. I look forward to hearing great stories of what God is doing in and through you!