Children at the new Ingestre Street Rally hand stitching the hems for their sashes. Next time they will be eligible to get their members badges to stitch onto their sashes.
Church On Ingestre in Whanganui recently revived their Rally ministry, with an encouraging start to the year.
Elder and Community Pastor Doug Benn says the church was once connected to four different Rallies in the wider Whanganui community and actively involved in regional NZ Rally activities. But as times changed and assemblies moved or closed, interest shifted to other ministries.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that the team began considering the possibility of running a Rally again. “Mark Grace (who was the Rally Board Chair at the time) sowed the seed in my thinking,” says Doug, acknowledging the supportive team from NZ Rally. “Tony and Angela Foster (CEO and Administrator), and Sarah Chalmers (Communications) have been amazing in getting the details and materials sorted.”
A new team from Church on Ingestre formed:
“We started Ingestre Street Rally on Tuesday 3 February, with a fantastic crew of six adult leaders and three awesome older teenagers who have agreed to serve the children as Rally Cadets (junior leaders).
“We had seven boys and six girls turn up—a good start for the first night. 10 were church family kids and three were new to our church community, although connected with one of our church members who invited them to come and see.
“The kids all loved it and it was such a joy to see them receive their Rally Bibles and enthusiastically read them during the Bible talk. I was told later that one of the boys, when he got home, burst into tears and said to his parents that he loved it so much that he didn’t want it to end!”
Doug says the whole church family has been supportive.
“The spiritual component has been a real draw card for parents—with the one compulsory aspect of Rally being the Bible teaching element. Most of our leaders are also parents to children who are attending, so are highly invested and have seen real value in a program that some of them were unaware of previously.
“On our Rally night this week, the leader who was doing the memory verse brought in his violin and taught the memory verse Genesis 1:1 to the tune of ‘Frère Jacques’. It was ingenious and creative and the children loved it.
“I’ve also had older adults in the church say they’re praying for us, as they’re not physically able to serve as leaders.”
The team hopes to see fruit develop across ministries. “We see this as a great way to support and feed into our youth group—both in developing young people in their leadership capacity and in growing biblical literacy of kids joining youth group via Rally.”
