By Amy Galliford
It’s Sunday morning, and numb fingertips are gripping a guitar fretboard as a melody puffs steam into Canberra’s crisp air. Hands pull scarves and coats tighter around bodies that sway in rhythm to a worship song beneath the bare branches of deciduous trees.
If you happened to stroll past, you’d be forgiven for not realising this was a church service. But, as a church that found its genesis in Senior Pastors Jason and Kelly Hayduk’s heart for those on society’s fringes, the people of MissionHeart find that the easiest way to keep their doors open to everyone is to get rid of the doors altogether.
Held in a park in Canberra’s city, church begins at 11 o’clock… sometimes. As Kelly explains, “We’re not a countdown church; we start when we’re ready.” This unstructured, Spirit-led approach to church makes it feel more like a family gathering than a service, and it is exactly this feeling that is so important for many of the people who participate.
MissionHeart gathers in a park in Canberra’s city centre.
The mission of MissionHeart is crystal clear: this is a church for the unchurched. Visitors from other churches are not esteemed guests but missionaries in outreach. New people are the priority on Sundays, and gatherings like the post-church BBQ are an opportunity for congregants to practise their gifts by serving others.
MissionHeart members gather around the post-church Sunday BBQ.
Services are very participatory; everyone contributes to the set-up and pack-up and, once the message gets going, many contribute to that too. With the congregation frequently invited to pray, answer questions and add their voice in dialogue, the message often functions more like an open discussion or Bible study than a sermon.
Kelly reflects candidly on the awkward or tricky moments that sometimes accompany such a participatory format. “You have to be willing to take the weird comment with the fantastic, Spirit-led comment. We unpack it together. We give people permission to answer, and we give people permission to be wrong.”
However, it is this permission to be wrong that Jason and Kelly believe is so crucial to the unity and the genuine growth of their people in their relationship with the Holy Spirit. Jason explains, “Sometimes we come to church and use all our energy trying to impress people, that we are not living or growing or becoming. We’re trying to set a culture of becoming. That’s why we are always happy for people to be wrong. We let people be wrong so that they can be right.”
They recently pressed into this “culture of becoming” by dedicating three of their services to exploring spiritual gifts, encouraging individuals to pray about where God might have gifted them for the benefit of others and teaching them to hear Him.
“We were trying to help people take ownership and realise that we are all God’s gift to this community and to the spaces and places he has put us, and so we need to actually be that gift to each other,” Jason says.
“Ask, and expect Him to answer,” they urged their church – a philosophy of prayer that is characteristic of their own walk of faith. While many of their congregation are encountering faith for the first time, Jason and Kelly assure them that they are as able as anyone to hear the voice of God.
As Jason says, ‘If God can talk through a donkey, He can talk through us.”
At every stage, Jason and Kelly find themselves on a frontier that requires nothing less than the backing of heaven for sustenance. Their endeavours rarely follow a paved path.
In addition to their Sunday gatherings, the MissionHeart team run regular community events, Bible studies and a drop-in centre for locals – a ministry they have recently expanded with the addition of a bus. When the demolition of key public housing and increased cost of living forced many out of the city, they needed a way of reaching the suburbs. They’ve called the bus initiative ‘Mobile Mission’.
Their newest form of incarnational ministry is MissionHouse, which is a home opening on 21 September for individuals in challenging life circumstances. They will be invited to live alongside Kelly and Jason and their daughters, as well another couple and their family, within an intentional discipleship community that will support them in re-establishing their lives.
They regularly hold events and gatherings at MissionHouse; the official ministry is due to launch on 21 September.
This frontier of ministry has come with its challenges. Jason explains, “We’ve had lots of obstructions. Being in long-term ministry, you learn that the tide comes in and the tide goes out. It will come in again. In the early days, things would happen, and we would think the sky is falling. Then you get through those seasons and say, ‘Thank you, God, because now we are where we are.’
“It would have been easy for us to look at things and think God didn’t want us to do them, simply because they were difficult. Quite often, the things He wants us to do are really difficult, but they’re really worth it.”
Jason and Kelly’s heart for mission in Canberra demands miraculous provision for even the most practical needs, but depending on God for the impossible has seen Him deliver it. They’ve had surprise cheques in the mail, bank deposits out of nowhere, a stranger showing up at their house with money, and another individual knocking on their front door with $10,000 in cash.
“He wasn’t even a Christian – I think he was as surprised as we were!”
They laugh at the memory with a laugh of seasoned travellers; those who have learned to bear a heavy cross with a light touch, whose confidence in God’s goodness has been tried and tested and proved true.
“You have to put yourself out there. It is easy to play it safe and not have to take risks, but if you feel God is taking you somewhere, then usually, it’s going to take a step of faith. You may not have the resources yet, but you have to choose to trust Him,” Kelly explains.
As Jason puts it, “We often limit ourselves by looking to the resources of ‘me’ rather than the resources of heaven.”
Jason at MissionHeart’s drop-in centre in Canberra.
In such a space of trust in God, learning to hear Him has been essential. For Jason and Kelly, honing their listening has been a process indistinguishable from honing their patience.
Kelly reflects, “There’s a lot of waiting in the process of hearing God. Sometimes, I think we don’t wait long enough. We race off and miss what God is saying. There are times when God is speaking, and we are not listening, and we need to stop and wait. We need to ask God, and then wait for His answer… and look for His answer!”
“When I hear God’s voice, it’s like I knew something from the beginning of time. It’s just this confidence, as if I always knew it. It’s like a knowing of something beyond me that is communicating with me. The sheep know the voice of the Shepherd. If we want to get good at following the Spirit’s leading, we have to know Him,” Jason adds.
Discerning the promptings of God cannot be done in isolation; beyond being impossible without community, spiritual breakthrough is supercharged within it. It’s for this reason that collective prayer and fasting is so core to MissionHeart.
“Our foundation is prayer because that’s where we began. We spent a whole year praying before we started MissionHeart, and we’ve tried to keep it as our foundation within the community.”
Jason emphasises the accountability and unity necessary within a team pursuing a God-given dream. When Jason and Kelly originally felt moved to plant a church, they brought the proposition to the elders of their previous church, saying in full sincerity, “If you don’t believe this is from God, we won’t go.”
“For decisions that matter, we believe they have to be unanimous. God always agrees with God, so if we’re actually praying and asking God if something is His will for us, the Spirit of God in me is going to agree with the Spirit of God in Kelly and the Spirit of God in our leadership team, and there is going to be a unanimous decision. If there is a no, then we return to prayer. Our trust isn’t in the people; our trust is in God.”
MissionHeart’s community gathers at a recent baptism.
There’s no unanimity without unity. The unity of the people of MissionHeart makes their often-challenging ministry possible. Rejecting the paradigm of the untouchable, infallible leader, Jason and Kelly are intentional about remaining honest and vulnerable in community. The last season of Jason and Kelly’s lives has provided them ample opportunity to do so. When the loss of both their mothers coincided with the death of multiple other family members, friends and their MissionHeart co-pastor, James, they turned to their community and encountered the consolation of the Spirit through the care of others.
Recalling the loss of her brother several years ago, Kelly and Jason reflect,
“We just showed up and cried. We had nothing else to offer, but we wanted to be with our people, and we wanted to be with God.
“We have this beautiful community where we don’t have to perform. It’s not about ‘keeping the machine going’. We chose to remain in community rather than disappearing, and we just let people take care of us.”
What Kelly and Jason have built at MissionHeart is a family. They reflect with deep humility on the life they lead and their walk with the Spirit.
“We are not special; we are just normal people. At the end of the day, we would love people to see our lives and say, ‘God is good.’ When it comes to walking in the Spirit and seeing God do wonderful things, our heart’s desire is just that people would taste and see that the Lord is good.”
This story is an example of one of the seven facets of the ethos of our network of churches: Empowered By The Spirit. MissionHeart, while only one example among many in our network, reminds us that God’s Spirit is drawing His people to champion this value for His Church today.
To learn more about the churches of Christ in NSW & ACT ethos, check out our Who We Are resources.
Read more stories from churches of Christ in NSW & ACT HERE
