[{"id":2502,"order":0,"imagePath":"https://admin.ezystream.com/static/images/article/837ec4ac-6951-4c6b-b5a8-dfbcd550b61d.png","type":"image","content":"https://admin.ezystream.com/static/images/article/837ec4ac-6951-4c6b-b5a8-dfbcd550b61d.png"},{"id":2503,"order":1,"contentText":"Some years ago a small bunch of suburban Christians surveyed their neighbourhood to find out what locals felt was missing. The answer? A sense of belonging. In response, that group created a cafu00e9 to provide a space where locals could connect. Crave cafu00e9 has since grown through several stages and recently won u2018Outstanding Cafu00e9u2019 in the 2019 Lewisham Awards. Blue Bradley tells us about one of Craveu2019s initiatives: a biannual street party.
Iu2019m a hunter. One day while I was driving back from the Bay of Plenty with a wild boar in the back of my car, I had the crazy idea that maybe we could feed our community with this pig.
Mosaic, our faith community, had not long moved into Morningside, a semi-industrial suburb on the fringe of Auckland city. There was no real community feeling or sense of belonging in our u2018hood. We wanted to take risks, to try out ideas that we didnu2019t think could really work to see if they just might... and decided to throw a street party to try to bring us together.
A Kiwi parable
The idea was pretty simple: put the pig on a spit, roll it out onto the roadside, put a couple of orange cones out to make it legit, and stand there cooking it for seven hours. If anyone walked past during the day, they must be from our u2018hood so we invited them over for dinner at 6pm. They laughed at us, avoided us, and even swore at us.
Well, 6pm came and went and... no one showed. Ha, shame! We laughed withu2014but mostly atu2014each other and reminded ourselves that u2018we knit our parachute on the way downu2019. To us this meant taking risks with no sure outcomes, the result being we were looking at eating a lot of pork by ourselves!
A mere 15 minutes later, a small group had appeared. Before long, more than 80 people were crowded around and eating together at our party that night. The relief!
We talked about life, love, belonging and the neighbourhood. Some talked about how it used to be and others how it yet could be. Hopes and dreams were shared through tears from people who had never felt love given and shared like that. That night the community we had dreamed of belonging to was birthed right there in front of us. I felt like I was caught up in some Kiwi parable: u201cA man caught a pig and cooked it on the side of the road, and invited his neighbours to dinner.u201d
Crave street parties
The following year we hosted another street party; more than 200 attended. The next year 400-plus came and ate pizza and danced in the rain. Things took off from there as we gathered momentum. Neighbours would always ask, u201cWhatu2019s happening this time? What are we cooking? What needs to be done? Where can I help?u201d
We always put just enough organisation into the party that it might fall over if it was left entirely up to us, yet somehow on the day everybody chips in and helps to make it work. There are usually bands, bouncy castles, endless queues for the milkshakes and drinks. We have cooked epic paellas, wood-fired pizza, and a range of meats from spit roasts and smokers, to name a few.
The great thing about it is that everyone is welcome: the u2018down and outu2019, u2018the u2018doing wellu2019, young and old alike. Our u2018hood is an eclectic mix of folk that is hard to define by one demographic. All they have to bring is themselves, and everything is free and gladly given.
We want to create a space in which it is safe to be known. Crave cafu00e9 hosts our street parties but in a real sense it belongs to our u2018hood (just like your church does), to the people who sit in the cafu00e9 every day or who work or live around here. Weu2019re not bringing something into the u2018hood with some weird evangelist strategy; we want to be part of creating a neighbourhood that we too want to live in.
We host two street parties a year attracting 800 to 1,000 people each time. At a rough count, we reckon we have cooked, served and given away around 13,000 meals since our first street party in March 2010.
Not a bad result for a wild and random idea.
Story: Blue Bradley
Blue is the director of Northern Easter Campu2014he is as passionate about young people as he is about all things outdoors. Blue has a knack for storytelling and connecting people, and likes to think he also has a knack for fishing. He literally wants to change the world and believes the next generation are fully equipped to do it. Blue lives with his wife Katey, kids Aengus, Torin and Ciara, and dog Jed. He co-pastors Mosaic Morningside and is all about making the neighbourhood a better place to live and work.
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