With help from another niche ministry pioneer, Dominic Steele of Christians in the Media, it’s time for Charles Brammall to launch his new ministry.
Dominic Steele graciously helped us launch ourselves as a new, independent mission, “The Entertainment Bible Ministry” (ENTER). He gave us some seeding finance and a group of entertainment workers (and, in one case, their spouses) to help us plant the work. All Godly, ministry-minded believers, including some with Mental Health issues, some with same-sex attraction, and some who sometimes experienced suicidal ideation. They were a great blessing for many years! Living evidence that God, in His grace, uses our weakness to flex His Kingdom muscle. And we discovered this was quite typical of Christian people in the industry.
We chose the name ENTER for several reasons. Firstly, as a reference to entertainment. Secondly, because it sounded welcoming, embracing and warm, and many entertainment people are feelers, emotional and affectionate. And they don’t always feel accepted and loved by Christians and churches (whether or not this is accurate). Thirdly, because we wanted it to suggest entering God’s family, to signify inclusion, relationship and community. Also, as an opportunity to introduce people to Jesus.
So our young family moved from our rental in Abbotsford and bought a tiny little old Californian Bungalow in Epping with my parents-in-law’s generous help. To them, I am (literally) eternally grateful. So small was the house that one of our kids had to sleep on a folding bed on the back verandah. Then we had a fourth child, and he had to sleep in a portacot on top of our double bed until we were ready to go to sleep. At that point, we folded it up (with him in it) and moved it down onto part of the floor we didn’t need access to, as we were in bed. We joined Christ Church Gladesville, which welcomed us with open arms as the” itinerant gospel preachers” we were becoming, 3 John 1:6-8:
“You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth.”
The Rector Brian Telfer was the perfect embodiment of this passage- encouraging, hospitable, gracious, and keen to support our new mission. My brother and his family were already at the church, which was a nice link and meant we were already known to God’s family in that place. This went a long way to creating a degree of ownership with ENTER among the Gladesville congregation. We were there for just over a year as our planting group met each Sunday afternoon to plan the first stage of the new mission- our entertainment church. We called this “Christ at Ryde”, and had our services in North Ryde Public School hall.
At our launch night, there were over a hundred people (not all of them planning to join the mission), but they were there to support us. It was a thrilling night, and we got the group of twenty-two who had committed to planting the mission with us (including the group from Dominic) to come out the front, and we prayed for them. Some of these people had no direct connection to entertainment but were excited about the ministry and wanted to be involved, Richard and Kathy Hawkins being cases in point.
In God’s kindness, people from many of our past churches where I had been student minister also decided to commit to us. These included Fliss and Tim Webb, as well as Vicky and Geoff Deane from St James’ Turramurra. Also, Alistair and Jane Carroll from St John’s Parramatta. And from our lunchtime groups, Ros Hicks from the Wesley Institute group, and Alex Chambers from McDonald College of Performing Arts. The LORD even gave us the dad of a boy in the Tanya Pearson Ballet Academy group, who had graduated and emigrated to Germany to dance professionally.
We appointed an “Admin Committee” (Parish Council), which met monthly with a splendid and supportive group of people. It consisted of Architect David Cook, “Rector’s Warden” Richard Hawkins, his wife Kathy, our treasurer, medical doctor Alistair Carroll, and another elder. David Cook (completely understandably) later resigned because of, sadly, this elder’s micromanagement, controlling personality, and inappropriate forcefulness.
In addition to our Admin Committee, we invited a group of ministry colleagues to form our Advisory Panel, or “minders”, to look after me personally, spiritually and ethically. They never met physically but made themselves available to me whenever I needed to chat. They included Archie Poulos, then Senior Minister of the Greek Bible Fellowship; and Jane Tooher, Director of The Priscilla and Aquila Centre at Newtown. Also Ray Galea, then Senior Minister of the Multicultural Bible Ministry Rooty Hill; and Phil Campbell, then Senior Minister of Mitchelton Presbyterian Church in Brisbane.
In addition, David Cook, then Principal of SMBC; Owen Chadwick, Director of Overseas Christian Fellowship at ANU; and Greg Clarke, then CEO of Bible Society. Also, Simon Manchester, then Senior Minister of St Thomas’s North Sydney, and Colin Marshall, Director of The Ministry Training Strategy (MTS). Finally, Rev Roy Davidson, Senior Minister of Unichurch Brisbane, and Phillip Jensen, then Chaplain of UNSW. These friends were a great support over the years, and they gave me invaluable counsel, and still do.
Some of the twenty two who planted the church were “thinkers”, highly planned and organised, and some were “feelers”, and intuitive and spontaneous. God was kind in giving us both. Some were entertainment people, and others were not, and this was crucial too. A homogeneous church for entertainment people alone would never have worked long term. Not all entertainers are married to other entertainers- nor are all their friends entertainers. And entertainment people want to be able to invite their friends and family to their own church. We chose the name “Christ at Ryde” carefully because entertainment people didn’t need “entertainment” in the name to feel comfortable coming, and local non-entertainment people may have felt alienated by a name with “entertainment” in it.
Vignette- ENTER Structure
Our structure was unusual for an evangelistic niche ministry. Most are a single entity without a church, like TAFE Bible Fellowship, AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students), Club 5, Medical Fellowship for Evangelism, etc. But we were not a single, but a double entity.
ENTER was our overarching “Umbrella” structure, within which we had two major arms:
1) our mission and Chaplaincy to the industry and
2) ENTER’s church.
Church was a subset of ENTER, and many local people who weren’t entertainers came. Our supporting churches and individuals were fully aware of this atypical broader-than-entertainment-church and church-within-a-mission strategy and were fully supportive of it. About half of our budgeted costs each year came from giving at church. The other half came from our link churches and individual Christians who supported the mission, and I was the evangelist.
netThat is, we actually needed the church as part of the mission, firstly to provide half our budgeted giving. Secondly, it is a place where entertainers would feel comfortable and not alienated or judged for not always being able to come regularly. They tell me they feel this in many other churches. It can be hard for performers to be regular at church and small groups, as their schedules are irregular. They might need to suddenly go to a ten-week movie shoot in the country or an audition or shoot on a Sunday morning. Because of the dearth of work in the industry, it’s difficult for them to say no to potential opportunities like these, for financial reasons. A boy or girl’s gotta eat and buy clothes to audition in.