‘Today Peter and Liz Kenny from our Salvo community launched a Family Gathering at the Bellarine Estate,’ reports planter Peter Hobbs. ‘We have been partnering with them in training young people from the Bellarine Secondary College in how to run a restaurant. We have been building genuine relationships with the staff and students for over a year now.’ This came to a head when Peter Hobbs challenged Peter Kenny to listen to God and do what he said. He said “I feel God is telling me to help you guys (Salvos)”. Since then we have been partnering in the Faith Restaurant Project.

The staff don’t attend church due to their hours in the hospitality industry. The students don’t attend church or believe in God. Tonight that changed and 25 of the staff and students gathered together in their normal work surroundings to share in a meal and to read from the book of Luke. For the first time in their lives people were reading about the virgin birth, that angels came to visit Mary. The issue about whether Mary was “kind of raped” by God came up… yes the conversation was very real and touched on some really tough subjects. But God was good and people asked questions and engaged with the text. It was seriously an inspirational, normal and fun night. All of the unbelievers said they would like to come back again. We had one of the Bellarine’s best musos support the night; he came for the gathering and played while he was there. Awesome music.

So many great stories connected with tonight, but hopefully they will come out soon.

‘What we love about this all is that disciples are now making disciples,’ says Peter Hobbs. ‘Hopefully this is the start of a movement… which in 10 years time will be so out of control we won’t be able to keep track of where the kingdom is expanding.’