William Chong

Website: www.cityside.org.nz; Ph: (09) 377 3512; 8A Mt Eden Rd, Newton, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Brenda Rockell; Sermon topic: “teach, heal and cast out evil“; 15.6.08; 10.30am.

Rating: none given
(A=return worshipper, AA=excellent and growing, AAA=must be my home church lol)

You’ll like this church if you: want an all-inclusive community of faith, are looking for a church that’s moving away from polished feel-good concert worship, seek new ways of thinking and practising your faith outside the confines of “church” or “doctrine”.

You won’t like this church if you: stick to propositional truths of the Bible, don’t approve of women serving in leadership roles, take exception to emergent theology and its lack of clear and Bible-based definitions, see church as a place to fill your spiritual needs rather contribute to conversations and doubts.

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One of the hallmarks of the Baptist church in general is a certain degree of independence of each church from a main organisational hierarchy, or a structure. This means that, though there are generally some common threads between different Baptist churches (for example, believer’s baptism), each church does certain things differently from the next. Our ongoing quest to find a home church has showed quite clearly that no two Baptist churches, or no two churches of any sort, are quite the same. So perhaps it’s in this environment of greater religious freedom that you’d find one of New Zealand’s emergent church communities at Cityside Baptist Church.

What is emergent? It’s hard to nail this right, but generally it could be church which is actively trying to reinvent how “church” is done, is open to people of all orientations, races, and gender, and promotes an ongoing dialogue and discussion rather than set-in-stone doctrine and truths. I’d say that Cityside is a particularly attractive place for Christians who are disillusioned with being washed up in corporate-style megachurches, as well as attractive for people who don’t consider themselves Christians but relate with this community’s social mission and push for interfaith dialogue. In any case, we knew this would be an intriguing experience from the moment we walked up the antique wooden steps and sat down in one of the many trademe couches, arranged around a room filled with hand and footprints on the walls, avant garde artwork and lighting fixtures, and offering bags sewn out of colourful, woolly socks.

Worship: A very informal affair, led by Fergus McKinlay who put some songs up on an overhead projector in between short, simple prayers. The song choice definitely reflected Cityside’s social activism focus, with song lyrics that implore worshippers “to make the earth the place in which the kingdom comes”, and most importantly, to “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. I’m a bit mixed about the efficacy of the social gospel (since we’re fighting against a world that’s irrevocably breaking down), but the sincerity of the worship relaxes me. It’s a joy to observe an interesting demographic mix, from Remuera mums to young couples, men in jandals to beanie-wearing ladies in long, flowing dresses and half-dreads, all singing “Jubilate Deo” in canon form. All songs were accompanied on the humble chords of a well-used piano – definitely no mike amps or guitar riffs in this time of worship.

Speaker: Brenda Rockell offered a half-hour discourse on her thoughts on what it was like to be one of the 12 original disciples, and what the “Good News” was actually being preached in Jesus’s years of ministry. Her main argument was that the good news of Jesus didn’t depend on His resurrection, summing up JC as a man of substance and a great role-model. Rockell urged the 50-strong congregation to look at a different commission: rather than proselyting and converting people to be Christians by title, she contended there was a different focus to the actions Jesus told his disciples to do when they were sent out into various townships of the day. [edited 29.7.08]

It all sounded very well and good, but even a cursory glance at the most well-known verses would quickly reveal that Jesus wasn’t just a preacher of positive action. His execution was the direct result of His making claims that He was God, not that He was a good role model for society in helping the poor and the sick, as applaudable as that may be. Even the verses surrounding Jesus’s proclamation of the Great Commission at the conclusion of the book of Matthew shows how the disciples not only modelled Christ, they worshipped Him too (Mt 28:1-20). Rockell’s scant use of Biblical references to back up her thoughts on meant that it ended up being almost a blog-post like opinion (much like this one here) surmising what may or may not have happened – it just felt like a thread in an forum post, rather than any sort of detailed look at God’s Word. Perhaps this one verse could sum up the viewpoint of Cityside Baptist: “Whey they saw Him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” (Mt 28:17). Nevertheless, I appreciated the subsequent open discussion that gave a very smallgroup or bible study session feel to the service.

Church history: If the building looks like its seen a lot of history, that’s because it has. It was built at its present site a stones’ throw from old-school pub Galbraith’s in 1906, and Mt Eden Baptist Church enjoyed its status as one of the larger Baptist churches in New Zealand at the time. Increasing suburbisation led to the decline of worshippers and the building was turned over to the Auckland Baptist Mission in 1960. Eventually a change to a church-focus saw the name changed to Cityside Baptist Church and City Mission in 1993. Cityside retains its strong roots in missional service, and chatting with members of the congregation reveals the same enthusiasm for serving the community as their forebears.

Visitor treatment: After the service we chatted with two friendly women; Pauline and Kristin, as well as a father-of-two. Everyone we spoke to was friendly and amiable, and all shared their common passion for helping each other and the community at large. Pauline also shared her experiences of serving on a short-term mission onboard the Logos II, which is an OM sister ship of the Doulos that we went off to visit after the service.

Other faculties: For its size, the church had a surprisingly large number of children frolicking around with great abandon, running between chairs and tables in the kitchen area in front of a small fair-trade espresso machine station ($3 for a good conscience/cause). With church attendance “rather fluid” (there’s around 100 registered members but attendance levels vary greatly), as put by someone, it’s good to know that there’s still a range of activities like Playgroup (small child not a requirement), Monastic Group, and even after-work drinks. It’s hard to say what exactly some of these events entail without actually attending one or two of them – I’d say a Cityside brochure would be one of the few places you’d find a Benediction next to a call to drinks at Galbraiths.

Conclusion: Church on couches, love all your neighbours, sincere postmodern thought and banter – yet on the day, nary a mention that Christ crucified is why we have a church in the first place.

N.B. [29.7.08]: Have a look at the comments section below for a responses and clarifications on the sermon from Brenda Rockell, and visit this link for the full sermon.

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(Disclosures: none.)
Next week: cession|community.

(This review may not be representative of all of the church’s ministries, or their overall teaching. Opinions expressed in this review are that of the author, and may not wholly reflect all aspects of the church or its national body: nevertheless, comments have been humbly made in both truth and love as much as possible. Please contact the church for more detailed enquiries about their services.)