Brotherhood CMC Sydney 3.21

When Brotherhood Christian Motorcycle Club began in 1977 it found itself thrown into the world of bikers and young people who call the streets home. When some of our new friends started a ‘saving relationship’ with Jesus Christ, we started taking them along with us on our monthly Church runs to various denominational churches, thinking that they would get used to going to church as a regular activity.
However the formal styles of most church cultures was not appealing to these young Christians. Add to that their rough and ready outlook to life made church referral less than successful. So in 1981, after several years of prayerful consideration, Brotherhood established a house church and named it Street Level Community. The idea was to provide a sound theological and spiritual base for the club and an informal church experience for young Christians as a stepping stone into the mainstream Christian world.
Besides providing spiritual oversight for Brotherhood CMC in its ministry and support for its evangelistic and advocacy activities within the motorcycle community, Street Level started to develop ministry partnerships with local Church and community groups to respond to the many social needs within the local community. During the early 1980’s it began assisting Christian Scripture classes at Parramatta High School under the auspices of St. John’s Anglican Church. This proved so successful that it expanded to Arthur Phillip High School and included Scripture Seminars for years 10 and11 at both schools with the Youth For Christ’s Auslife Schools Programme.
From 1982 Street Level, through the ministry of Brotherhood CMC, has supported and encouraged the motorcycle community to constructively engage power structures in society in order to win a voice over a range inequities relating to legislation, social inequities and general community stereotyping. Over a nineteen year period it prayerfully supported Brotherhood’s Greg Hirst in his work to unify the various motorcycling organisations in order to maximise their influence over decision makers, both in Australia and overseas.
In 1989 it approached Anglican Home Mission Society (now Anglicare) to develop ministry with homeless young people in Sydney’s West. The resulting partnership raised over $150,000 through a Midnight Oil Concert at the 1991 Royal Easter Show and a fundraising dinner at the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre for the 1991 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix. This meant the establishment of a streetwork project aimed at helping homeless youth in the Parramatta area and is now fully funded and run by Anglicare.
In 2004 Anglicare decided to go a different way in service provision to the homeless and Street Level approached Parramatta Baptist and St. John’s Anglican Church to join it in the Parramatta Street Youth Project in order to continue the development of ministry to the homeless and ultimately a crisis accommodation unit for homeless youth. Anglicare is continuing an informal relationship with Street Level, Parramatta Mission and the Parrramatta Council for the development of the annual Homeless Persons Week activities.
In December 2003 Street Level officially opened its ‘Caring and Ministry Centre in South Parramatta. Joining us on the occasion was the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Rev. Peter Jensen, Bishop Ivan Lee, Assistant Minister at St. John’s Cathedral Andrew Heron as well as other local pastors and politicians who joined over 150 of our friends from the motorcycle scene and streets.
The centre provides a place of contact and drop in for our friends on the edges of society. It has weekly house church service, administrative office, counselling room, Brotherhood CMC clubhouse plus storage and meeting facilities.
It currently holds pastoral, administrative meetings, ministry training sessions, advocacy meetings, in 2006 hosted the Australian Christian Motorcycle Club Conference and in 2009 the Inaugural Conference on Christian Ministry with Homeless People in partnership with Parramatta Baptist Church and St. John’s Anglican Church Parramatta.