20 September 2026
Three consecutive evenings, offered twice over — Friday or Sunday — that take people from meeting the minister to belonging to a congregation and serving in it. Six nights, two tracks, one aim: 75 households serving densely at St Paul's Kogarah by 31 December 2026.
Welcome Home is the Integration step on the KOGPathway — the one that follows Meet the Minister and feeds Church Life, Grow and Serve.
The Meet the Minister lunch answers who is this church and who are you. It is one sitting, it is hosted by the Rector alone, and it ends with a next step named but not yet taken. Welcome Home is where that step is actually taken. Three evenings, a household at a time, ending with a person on a team and in a Home Group.
The three nights each answer one question:
Who is this God, and what has he done? The gospel, plainly, from Ephesians 2 — you were far off, you have been brought near.
What kind of household is this? Reformed evangelical Anglican, two congregations, one church; what we believe, how we are governed, why we do what we do on Sunday.
Where do you fit? The G7 teams, the Home Groups, membership, baptism and confirmation.
The name is doing real work. People who have been at St Paul's three months already know they are welcome as guests. This is the invitation to stop being a guest — Ephesians 2:19, no longer strangers and aliens, but members of the household of God.
Two tracks, same content, paired week by week — so each night is prepared once and delivered twice, two days apart.
| Week | Friday 6:00–8:00pm | Sunday 6:00–8:00pm | Night |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 November | 22 November | Who is this God |
| 2 | 27 November | 29 November | What kind of household |
| 3 | 4 December | 6 December | Where do you fit |
The Friday track could not be 6, 13 and 20 November as first planned. Parish Council meets on second Fridays, which puts it on 13 November and again on 11 December. Sliding the Friday track to 20 November, 27 November and 4 December clears both, and pairing the Sunday track to 22, 29 November and 6 December keeps the two a week apart rather than five.
What that gains, beyond the clash:
It lands one week before Baptism and Confirmation Sunday on 13 December with Bishop Stead. Night three names baptism and confirmation as a live option, and the Sunday to act on it is the next one. That is the strongest finish available this year.
Nothing collides. The G7 team meetings are Sunday afternoons at 2:00pm and finish at 3:30pm; Sunday mornings are full to 12:00pm but the evenings are clear. Tuesday's 8:30pm prayer meeting is untouched. Hearts on Fire (24 October) and the TICI learning days (29–30 October) are well clear.
The cost is that 6 December carries both the December Meet the Minister lunch at 12:00pm and the last Sunday night. That is a long day for the Rector and for the Gregarious team. It is survivable, and the two events feed each other — but if it is one thing too many, moving the December lunch to 29 November is the cheapest fix.
Two hours, the same shape every week, so the third night feels like home.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 6:00 | Eat. Tables of six to eight, hosts seated among the guests, children at the same tables |
| 6:40 | Children move to the Hut with two KOGKids leaders; adults stay |
| 6:45 | One reading, one talk — 25 minutes, no more |
| 7:10 | Table conversation on two questions, hosts leading |
| 7:40 | Back together: one testimony from a member, the week's next step named |
| 7:55 | Prayer, and the invitation to next week |
| 8:00 | Finish on time |
The talk is the Rector's on both the Sunday and the Friday track — same manuscript, delivered twice. Mandarin runs through the translation desk as it does on Sunday, with receivers on the tables.
Night 1 — Who is this God, and what has he done. Ephesians 2:1–10. The gospel told to people who may have been coming for months without ever hearing it put plainly. Table question: what brought you here, and what did you expect to find?
Night 2 — What kind of household is this. Ephesians 2:11–22. Why we are Reformed, evangelical and Anglican, and what each of those words costs and gives; two congregations and one church; what happens on a Sunday and why. Table question: what has surprised you about St Paul's?
Night 3 — Where do you fit. The G7 teams, Home Groups, membership, baptism and confirmation. Every guest leaves having written down one team and one group. Table question: what would you love to do here if someone asked you?
The third night is the one everything is built for. It is not an information session with a soft close — it ends with names on paper and a team leader who will make contact that week.
This runs on four of the six G7 teams that already meet this quarter, so nothing new has to be invented — each team takes it as a Term 4 action out of the meeting it is already having.
| Team | Owns | Raised at their Q4 meeting |
|---|---|---|
| Gregarious 關懷團隊 | The meal, the welcome, the table hosts, all follow-up calls | 8 November |
| Go 差派團隊 | The invitation push — who gets asked, and by whom | 29 November |
| Glue 後勤團隊 | Room set-up, slides, printing, translation desk, Safe Ministry for the children's room | 25 October |
| Giftedness 恩賥團隊 | Night three — the team pipeline, and who receives each name afterwards | 18 October |
Grow and Glorify are not carrying anything here. Grow receives the graduates into Home Groups; Glorify is already loaded with Thanksgiving, Pledging and Advent.
Table hosts are the whole method. Six to eight hosts per track, one per table, chosen for being ordinary rather than impressive — people a newcomer could imagine becoming. They sit through all three nights with the same guests, and they are the ones who make the follow-up call. Recruit them at the Gregarious meeting on 8 November, which leaves twelve days before the first Friday.
The meal. Sunday Dish already caters. Six nights at roughly 30 people is the whole ask. Keep it simple and keep it hot — rice and two dishes works for both congregations and costs little.
Children. Two KOGKids leaders in the Hut from 6:40. Safe Ministry clearances checked by Glue before 20 November. This is what makes the course possible for families rather than just for singles, and it is the thing most likely to be left too late.
The target is twelve households across the two tracks — six or so per night. Small enough that every guest is known by name, large enough to fill four tables.
Who gets asked, in this order:
Everyone who came to the 4 October and 1 November Meet the Minister lunches. They have already taken a step; this is the follow-through they were promised. The Rector asks each of them personally at the lunch itself, and the December lunch on 6 December then becomes the feeder for the next round rather than this one.
The welcome cards and ChurchSuite follow-ups from the past six months who never made it to a lunch. Gregarious works the list.
Regulars of two or three years who have never joined anything. The quietest and most fruitful group, and the one a general announcement will never reach. These are personal asks from table hosts and team leaders, not a notice from the front.
A notice from the front and the invitation on the screen from Sunday 1 November — four Sundays out — in both congregations.
A general announcement fills a room with people who were coming anyway. A personal ask fills it with the people this is actually for. Weight the effort accordingly: three named people each, for every table host and team leader.
The invitation. An A5 card, portrait, bilingual, carrying both tracks and a QR code to the booking page — printed for handing out, and the same file posted to WeChat and Facebook and shown on the screens. It is deliberately plain about what the evening is: a meal, a talk, a table, home by eight.
Sign-up is live at the Welcome Home booking page. Two services, one per track, 30 places each. Each opens only on its own three evenings at 6:00pm — nothing else in the calendar is bookable. Four questions on the form: how many adults; how many children and what ages; dietary needs or allergies; and whether Mandarin translation is wanted. That last one is what tells the translation desk how many receivers to set out.
The course fails if it ends warmly and nothing happens. Three things are fixed to the week after.
Within seven days, every guest is contacted by the team leader they named — not by the Rector, and not by a general email. Giftedness holds the list from night three and hands each name to the right G7 leader on the Monday. A guest who named Gregarious hears from the Gregarious team leader; one who named Glorify hears from the Glorify team leader. That is the handover from Integration to Serve, and it is the single point where this course usually breaks.
Baptism and Confirmation Sunday is 13 December, one week after the Sunday track finishes and nine days after the Friday track. Anyone raising baptism or confirmation on night three has a date to say yes to while the conversation is still warm. Bishop Stead is already coming.
Home Groups are the January step. Grow carries it: each graduate is matched to a group before the year ends so there is something to return to after the summer, rather than a fresh start in February.
How we know it worked — four numbers, counted on 31 December:
| Measure | Target |
|---|---|
| Households attending at least two of three nights | 12 |
| Guests who named a team on night three | 20 |
| Guests actually contacted by a team leader within 7 days | 100% |
| Households added to the 75-household serving count | 10 |
The last row is the one that matters. It is roughly a seventh of the whole year's milestone, out of six evenings.
6 December is a double. The December Meet the Minister lunch at 12:00pm and the last Sunday night. Keep both, or move the lunch to 29 November?
Confirm Parish Council for November and December. Nothing past 9 October is on the Outlook calendar. The Friday dates assume second Fridays — 13 November and 11 December — and both are avoided. If those dates are wrong, the Friday track moves.
Who preaches the three talks on the Friday track? Same manuscript twice in one week is six talks across three weeks on top of Advent. Worth deciding whether another preacher takes one night.
Table hosts. Six to eight per track, recruited at the Gregarious meeting on 8 November — twelve days before the first Friday. Tight but workable.
Safe Ministry clearances for the two KOGKids leaders in the Hut, checked by Glue before 20 November.
Where Welcome Home sits on the KOGCycle. The congregation-facing pathway runs Welcome to Life → Welcome Home → Home Groups → Welcome to the Team, which puts Welcome Home exactly here, after Meet the Minister. But the KOGCycle doc maps Welcome Home onto stage 4, which is Meet the Minister itself, and Welcome to Life onto stages 5–6. One of those is wrong. The arrow order says the KOGCycle's stage numbers are the ones to fix.
Printing. A5 cards through Glue, in time for the notice on Sunday 1 November.