Cityside Baptist Church, generally referred to simply as Cityside, is a church on the edge of inner-city Auckland, New Zealand. It has been built from the ground up on a series of evolving principles and values. Sometimes these have been biblical values such as respect for the marginalised and hurting. Often the values have reflected our reading of the culture we are part of — participation, creativity, open-endedness, questioning. More often than not biblical and cultural values have overlapped and intertwined. We have discovered that values are interdependent and build one on top of the other. So it isn’t easy, or sometimes even possible, to isolate and analyse what is important to us when it comes to our practice. Most of our development has been intuitive, rather than carefully planned and executed according to a long term strategy. At the time of writing we have 75 to 100 adults in attendance on any given morning worship service out of a community of about 160. Our virtual community is larger again.
Cityside is more than the sum of its parts. Those outside our community who seek to analyse and dissect and then to reproduce in their situation what has worked for us are usually doomed to failure. For instance, participation in leading worship the way we do (we call it curating), isn’t possible without also valuing and practising non-judgemental acceptance of creativity, or having a congregation that can cope with non-orthodox views being expressed. It’s not easy for most churches to make that much change to the values they operate under.
Over the years many articles about Cityside have appeared in magazines and newspapers. Some of them have captured the essence of who we are, others have not. Below are some articles that do capture something of who we are and what we value. They aren’t necessary to understanding or using the rest of the material in this resource, but they may help you to understand where we are coming from. We reserve the right to have changed our minds about anything by the time you read them!
‘Cityside — thinking allowed, thinking aloud allowed.’ (Weekly news bulletin/newsletter note)