Even before summer had started last year, Australia was struggling …
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About Us
We are a husband-and-wife team committed to loving our local neighbourhood and seeing it flourish. We believe that God is active in the neighbourhood as much as in the church. Neighbourhoods matter. God is also active in the diversity and complexity of the urban space, even though this is sometimes a forgotten area for engagement. Radical things begin to happen when we ask: “God, what are you doing in my neighbourhood?” We want to help people look beyond the four walls of the church and develop the skills to listen deeply to what God is showing them in their own communities. It’s only after we listen that we can discern contextualised opportunities to bring about peace, justice and mercy in the ecology of the neighbourhood. We believe that through our Spirit-inspired relationships and initiatives we can embody the transformative love of God in our world.
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski
Inner city dweller. Explorer. Writer. Leaf blower hater. Flâneuse. Neighbourhood enthusiast. Lover of all things urban. Tea snob. Shalom builder.
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski has worked in the fields of English teaching and journalism, and has also been a Senior Minister in the Church. She has a doctorate in missional formation. She currently teaches at Morling College in Sydney and also writes and blogs about spirituality, mission and theology. Karina has also been on various denominational boards and vision committees. She loves forming people for leadership and speaks regularly at churches and conferences on neighbourhood and community mission and activism. She is the facilitator of The Happiness Lab at the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre where she is a board member, and is involved in a storytelling project called Surry Hills & Valleys with locals in Surry Hills, an inner city village in Sydney. She has written a book called Urban Spirituality: Embodying God’s Mission in the Neighbourhood.
DR ARMEN GAKAVIAN
Dr Armen Gakavian has mentored young leaders and men from disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia and Armenia. His PhD was in cultural identity and longing for place. He has lectured in sociology, politics, social change and leadership and has worked as a researcher for universities and NGOs in the areas of social inclusion, social policy, faith-based social services, community development and multiculturalism. Armen was a founding member of the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, and of various NGOs and initiatives including the Australian branch of Mission Armenia NGO and an Armenian-Turkish peacemaking group. He pioneered the Ministry at the Margins for The Australian Navigators, in partnership with The Salvation Army in Ivanhoe Public Housing Estate in Sydney’s northwest. He is currently Coordinating Editor and Associate Director of Ethos: EA Centre for Christianity and Society.
What we offer
- Teaching/Preaching
- Workshops
- Training
- Mentoring/Spiritual Formation
- Research
- Creation of resources (toolkits, Bible studies, other material)
- Writing and Editing
Drawings by Richard Briggs
On topics such as
- Neighbourhood work
- Community Capacity Building
- Spiritual Formation
- Social Change
- Urban Spirituality
- Social Justice
- Placemaking – Theology of place
- Peacemaking
- Cultural Exegesis and Contextualisation
- Displacement and Homelessness
- Urban Mission
- Intercultural Relations
- Theology of Mission
- Inclusion
- Missional Ecclesiology
MEDIA
Love your neighbour
As seen on ABC Compass, August 2019
Blog
have a read of our blog posts
Making this world our home again
Recently a Facebook friend posted this photo on his wall …
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Finding sacred spaces in Advent
Advent is a time of waiting and longing. This season before …
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Human extinction and being prophets of hope
Recently I read an article that a friend sent me …
Read MoreOur Partners
HopeStreet
Neighbourhood Matters is coordinating and teaching an Urban Internship program at HopeStreet Woolloomooloo to start in 2020. Check out their webpage for more details.
The Salvation Army & Macquarie University
Neighbourhood Matters is working with the Salvation Army and Macquarie University on a project called Vertical Villages which has a research focus around urban density but also has an aim to equip churches to reflect on how to build community in the context of high rise buildings.
