Renovating The Building, Building The Church: Northgate Leverages Property Grant

29 Jul 2024

By Amy Galliford

“There’s a language we need to speak to the community in showing that stuff is happening to the building, which means stuff is happening in the building,” says Duncan Robinson, Senior Pastor at Northgate Church of Christ.  

There is plenty of “stuff” happening within Northgate Church’s building. Twice a week, they run a food pantry, redistributing food from OzHarvest to the community. They have a café on site, which doubles as a covert evangelism ministry to locals. The space is home to a local sewing group that meets regularly and a weekly kids’ playgroup where parents from the area can find support and connection. 

Duncan explains, “Every church wants to change the world, but many churches barely impact the corner of the block they sit upon. We began to ask the question, how do we become a church that impacts the corner we sit on before we change the world? How do we become the best local community church we can be?”  

 

The new gardens along the street front.

While they have faithfully leveraged the gift of their property for the good of the community for years, a recent grant from the churches of Christ Property Trust has enabled them to give it a much-needed polish. The community had been fundraising to upgrade the old carpet in the children’s room, fix the rotting boards of an outside deck and improve the gardens along the street front. When their fundraising received a dollar-for-dollar match from the Grants Committee, they were able to swing into action.  

Not only have these renovations improved the space for the many ministries operating within it, but as Duncan sees it, the upgraded building itself is a form of outreach.  “When people drive by a facility where nothing has changed in 40 years, they assume the people inside also probably haven’t changed in 40 years. There’s a language we need to speak to the community in showing that stuff is happening to the building which means stuff is happening in the building. These flourishes of energy, however small they might be, speak to the community to say something is happening.” 

The new outside decking.

Even the process of renovating the properties brought blessings to the Belrose community. Tearing up the carpets revealed a welcome surprise of beautiful Tasmanian hardwood floors hidden beneath for decades. The church enjoyed this surprise together in a great reveal of the new floors on a Sunday. Beyond this, coming together in a working bee to improve the gardens was a unifying and strengthening experience for the church.  

The renovated flooring in the children’s room.

“People in church always want to buy into vision. It gave people an opportunity to contribute. That shared experience, where people are just in the trenches together, putting in a hard day’s work, is really good for formation,” Duncan says. 

For Duncan, investing in the space is investing in the people. Making a space enjoyable to inhabit is a way of honouring the people who enter it, and a building that is cared for suggests that those who dwell in it are cared for as well.  

“For our community, it’s just a different language of love – acts of service.” 

 

Read more stories from churches of Christ in NSW & ACT HERE