Our History
A subtitle like ‘Our Journey’ may vaguely suggest that we have now arrived at our destination. On the contrary we have started and will continue to journey as we allow the Holy Spirit to shape and guide us. We could not have envisaged that we would have had so many paradigm shifts already, particularly with regard to the way we value people and the way we follow the pattern of Church laid out in scripture.
On 1st January 2006, 16 people gathered at one of the pastor’s homes to simply pray about the year ahead and to seek the will of God. There was a strong sense from many in that group that God was speaking. The group continued to meet in that home for a number of weeks and slowly began to increase in numbers. After prayer, much discussion and clear leading from the Holy Spirit we launched our first ‘public service’ on 12th March in a community hall in Samford, Qld.
One of our initial intentions was to have a strong element of spiritual and emotional ‘safeness’ for all who would be part of Impact Christian Centre, and as we moved forward God also began to guide us in the direction of radical discipleship. It was very clear at the outset that God was in this as Impact Christian Centre gained favour from God and man. This also encouraged us to press forward.
There were a significant number of people from the Strathpine area meeting with us at Samford, and on 27th August 2006 we began to meet with this group in a home in Strathpine on Sunday evenings for prayer. On 7th January 2007 this prayer meeting became a church service, still meeting in the home on Sunday evenings, and later on 11th March we commenced public meetings on a Sunday evening in a cinema at Westfield Strathpine. At the end of June we transferred to the Strathpine Community Centre, with a Sunday morning service.
We have progressed at a steady pace and looking back we can say that even though people have come and gone, God has certainly been gathering and establishing a good foundation, without any organized ‘recruitment’ or advertising!
N.B. Impact Christian Centre was not started or established from any ‘church split’. No individual who has been attending other churches has ever been invited or encouraged to join Impact Christian Centre by any of the pastors or church leaders.
We are very conscious that we are not THE Church, but are a part of the Church in the Moreton Bay Region. It is our desire to connect with other congregations who are seeking to see God’s Kingdom come in this region.
A Stream in the Desert
God has given many words of prophecy, dreams, etc to individuals and to Impact Christian Centre as a whole. The Bible tells us to ‘test’ prophecy and ‘prove all things’ as prophecy can only be a confirmation of what God is saying or wanting to say to us personally.
We have had, and continue to have words regarding the plan of God for Impact Christian Centre. Many of us sense that God wants to birth something different through Impact Christian Centre.
During the first few months of our journey God gave us the same message three times in three days from three independent witnesses: Isaiah 43:19 (NIV) “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland”.
A Mighty Hammer
Someone who is not part of Impact Christian Centre wrote: Whilst praying for Samford Impact Christian Church I saw a huge hammer being held up in the air and the words came” The hammer is about to fall” – (It will smash the rocks to pieces.)
This hammer looked like it was being held by a tiny person and I wondered about the control over such a huge hammer but I felt that the Lord said that He was in control, not the person with the hammer because they were far too small in stature, like an ant in comparison to the size of the hammer. This hammer would be used to break up the old ways and the fallow ground and make way for a well of righteousness to open and the water of life to flow. It is like there has been hardness over the area as in ‘between a rock and a hard place’ as the saying goes, like there has been a real resistance. It is going to go deep! Not just surface stuff – a well of LIFE. “IT WILL BE A GUSHER” and I could see people come running to see what was happening saying “I have never seen anything like this before!” as they looked at the water gushing forth. “To see and taste that the Lord is good”!!!
Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not My word like fire” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”