We follow Jesus into the adventure of whole life and authentic community.
As a group of people and as individuals we want to be following Jesus in every aspect of our lives. That is both our goal and our motivation at Citywide Baptist Church. We are a group of everyday people who are growing in our faith as we follow Jesus, bless the community around us and share life together.
Those three simple words capture our heart, our vision and our mission.
FOLLOW BLESS SHARE
Just as simply trying to run a marathon will be unsuccessful without training, following Jesus, blessing others and sharing life won’t happen by simply trying hard. Core Practises are the kinds of things a person can actually make a choice to do that ultimately train us to do what we could not do by simply trying.
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FOLLOW
Jesus’s first and last recorded words to his disciples were “Follow Me.” At Citywide we think following Jesus is the path that leads to hope and we want to live that hope in the places where we live, learn, work and play.
Fast and Pray
Observe Sabbath
Listen to God
Learn the Bible
Offer Tithe and Time
Worship
BLESS
At the very start of his famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus makes it clear that his followers are to be a blessing to the world when he talks about us being salt and light. At Citywide we want to support and encourage one another on the adventure of living our whole lives as a blessing for the world.
Bless people
Listen to the Holy Spirit
Eat with people
Study Jesus’ way.
Sent with purpose
SHARE
Jesus’ prayer for his followers is that we would be one and that we would love one another. At Citywide we want to be an authentic community where nobody stands alone on the journey of life.
Speak the Truth in Love
Have Space
Actively Listen
Reflect Grace
Encourage
The arrival of our current Senior Pastor, Matt Garvin, coincided with three important anniversaries for our church: 40 years for our Mornington congregation, 70 years for our Lenah Valley congregation and the 10 year anniversary of our congregations joining to form Citywide Baptist church.
As we celebrated these anniversaries and remembered where we came from we also identified some of the things that were unique and precious about our church, and also identified some of the kinds of mistakes we don’t want to repeat. You can view some of these videos here.
Where we’ve come from
Citywide has had a history going back for decades. We are a church made up of three different congregations that have come together to create a church for everyone across this city. Each congregation has had its own distinctive flavour and
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Lenah Valley Baptist Church
Starting in the early 60’s Lenah Valley was founded by a group of
Eastern Shore Baptist Church /Citygate Baptist Church
When the Tasman bridge was tragically broken in 1975 there were many families that could not get from their homes to their churches on the western shore. This led to families from the area creating Eastern Shore Baptist Church that started meeting at Rosny College. This church grew and even after the reconstruction of the bridge the congregation continued to meet together and become a vibrant group of young families and strong elders. The church had a reputation for a casual style and inspiring worship and evangelism that became known across Australia.
In 1994 the church finally took the plunge and bought their own building. The former Mornington Bowling Centre was renamed CITYGATE which then led to the name change to Citygate Baptist Church.
Hobart Nepali Church
Hobart Nepali Church joined forces with Citywide in 2019 and have brought an amazing energy and vibrancy to our church community. We love join together with them to worship, eat together and
Our Vision and Direction for 2019 – 2020
The assumption we have in discerning direction for Citywide is that Jesus is the functional head of the church.
Pastors and leaders come and go but Jesus has been at work throughout the history of our church and our job is to discern what he is doing amongst us and through us.
2019-2020 Citywide Vision & Direction
The arrival of our current Senior Pastor, Matt Garvin, coincided with three important anniversaries for our church: 40 years for our Mornington congregation, 70 years for our Lenah Valley congregation and the 10 year anniversary of our congregations joining to form Citywide Baptist church.
More Information...
As we celebrated these anniversaries and remembered where we came from we also identified some of the things that were unique and precious about our church, and also identified some of the kinds of mistakes we don’t want to repeat.
Following our anniversaries, we began a process of discernment about the future. Through conversation, prayer and a series of sermons we reached agreement about the vision and direction for the church, at least for the next few years.
We agreed that the statement that best captures the direction God is calling us to go is that:
We follow Jesus into the adventure of whole life and authentic community.
We produced a simple document that outlined what that statement meant in practice over the next few years and also our core commitments that came out of our reflection on our journey to this point.
Our leadership refer to this document on a regular basis and it forms the scaffolding that enables us to make strategic decisions about our future.