More than toys: how Arda values families from diverse backgrounds in her ministry

WIMSS grantee Arda Cholakyan is the Children and Families Minister at Lakemba Anglican Church, and she’s using the funding to support ministry to children and their parents.

Growing up in an Armenian family, Arda Cholakyan reflects that going to church was just part of their Armenian identity. She says that as a child, she knew about God and learned about Jesus, but the Christian faith wasn’t something that she understood on a personal level.

“I don't think I had a personal relationship. I never remember actually asking Jesus to come into my life or anything like that. I just went to church because I'm Armenian, and that's what we did,” she remembers.

But these days, Arda is the Children and Families Minister at Lakemba Anglican Church.

So what took Arda from a somewhat disinterested young girl, to passionate minister of the gospel, sharing Jesus with kids and families in Lakemba?

It was partly thanks to her older brother Mark. When Arda was a teenager, Mark had begun to attend a church with a more evangelical outlook and focus. Arda recalls a number of conversations at that time with Mark about the gospel. She shares, “I remember one conversation around the dinner table where I said, ‘Mark, I'm a good person. I don't do anything bad. I haven't killed anyone and I'm going to heaven’ to which he responded, ‘no, sis, you're not, because you don't know who Jesus is’. I told him I disagreed with him and that he could believe what he wanted.”

But while she may have brushed it off then, this conversation stayed with Arda.

Fast forward around 20 years later. Arda had everything: a great job in early childhood education and great friends. But she still felt that something was missing and she began to question her life. Mark’s comments came back to her.

“I remembered that conversation I’d had with my brother and he was still attending church and still willing to talk about Christianity with me. I started to ask him about the end times and what was going to happen when the world ended. He suggested I read the Bible with him and his wife, and we looked at the Gospel of Mark and my eyes were opened to the truth! I met Jesus for the first time and that’s when I gave my life to him.”

The next step in Arda’s faith journey was to join a church that taught the Bible faithfully, and so she started attending an Anglican church with Mark and his wife in North Sydney. Due to her experience in early childhood education, Arda joined the children’s ministry team and her commitment to the Lord and to her church only grew from there.

With a new perspective on life, Arda eventually decided to leave her career in early childhood education behind to study theology. Arda went on to study at Sydney Missionary Bible College (SMBC) and had the opportunity to move to Lakemba and join Lakemba Anglican Church to learn about cross-cultural ministry.

Arda remained interested in working with kids, and so while she was still studying she took over the children’s ministry at Lakemba as a volunteer role. Once she’d finished her studies she was invited to join the staff team at the end of 2020, two days a week as administrator and three days working with children and families.

The main religious demographic of Lakemba is Islamic, with 60% of the population identifying as such, and around 33% identifying as nominal Christians.

“We've got a kids program at our morning service and that service is made up of many different cultures which reflects the suburb. The youngest member is a couple of months old and the oldest would be in their seventies, there's a big range of people from different cultures,” Arda shares.

The night service runs a Discovery Bible study method where they open God's word and ask a series of simple questions to get people thinking about God and what each passage says about him. “We've got people from so many different backgrounds and understandings, many from Muslim backgrounds, and some who are seeking answers. We have dinner before our service on Sunday where everyone brings something to share and we all sit down to a meal together,” Arda explains.

Mid-week, Arda is involved in a number of other ministries, including a mobile community pantry and running the church’s outreach-focused music playgroup.

Arda shares that around 95% of the women bringing their children to the playgroup are from an Islamic background. The playgroup provides Arda and the others running the ministry with the opportunity to speak with these women about their beliefs. “This ministry has provided many opportunities to build relationships with women, to learn about each other, to show Christ's love and to share Bible stories. We can have over 50 women and children attending,” Arda explains.

Lakemba Anglican, like many churches, does struggle with finances. Arda has felt the impact of this in resourcing the children’s ministries at church. “Across our parish and congregations, we don’t receive a lot of offertories and so buying resources is a big expense for us. Most of the resources that we have, have been donated to us by kind supporters who don’t need their toys anymore. We are blessed to get these donations but a lot of the toys come to us used and they don’t last very long and we have to get rid of them,” Arda explains.

That’s what led Arda to apply for a financial grant through ADM’s Women in Ministry Support Scheme (WIMSS).

WIMSS provides Christian women with small grants of between $200 and $2,000 to be used for ministry resources, or for professional and theological development. The scheme is open to women in both paid and unpaid ministry roles, to those who are ordained and to women in lay ministry. ADM awards up to a total of $25,000 in the WIMSS scheme each year.

Arda felt that there was a specific need for new, good quality resources and activities for the kids church and playgroup at Lakemba Anglican and this was the focus of her grant application.

“We wanted to provide quality things for the people who use them. Because I come from an early childhood background, I know that the environment is one way to show people that you respect and value them. Giving them quality resources and things that are interesting to look at helps to start conversations with children and their mothers. It helps them to want to come back, they know that this place is somewhere where they can feel safe and valued.”

Now that the funding has come through, Arda is purchasing new resources including new magnetic toys, some furniture including a lockable set of storage shelves, and chairs that are child friendly.

Arda hopes that having new and better resources will ensure that families keep coming along to the playgroup, and she can keep having conversations with the mothers in particular. Of course, she also hopes that the children who use the resources will have lots of fun and feel valued too!    

A lot of the women at playgroup ask her if she’s married and has children, to which the answer is no. “Then they ask me why, and if I’m sad about it. I share with them my longing to have children but also the fact that God’s plan for me is this ministry. I talk to them about how Christ satisfies my needs. We get to talk about marriage and what it means for them in their holy book. I also wear a wedding ring on my finger which says forgiven and so I always point to that and talk to them about what it means to be forgiven. It’s a great opportunity to share the gospel story with them. I share with them how God had abundantly blessed me with children through my work and ministry and through friends and family,” she shares.

Arda says that in south west Sydney it is a lot easier to share faith and Christianity with people there as many of them are already quite faithful to their own religions. They are happy to be prayed for and it’s much easier to start conversations because people are more willing to share their own faith and practices.

Please pray for the ministry that is taking place in Lakemba through Arda and the others who are serving there. Pray they can be a light for Jesus and that people will be drawn to the church through their outreach ministries including the playgroup. Pray that as a church, they can share Christ’s love in the way they interact with others, and that more believers from a Muslim background will join the church.

“Here in Lakemba, we are always ready to share the joy that we have in Christ,” Arda concludes.