By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
ALL are invited to enjoy gospel music — in its loud, holy, electric splendour — at the heart of a new church in Doveton.
Over the past two months, the Divine Restoration Church has transformed a gloomy post office in Autumn Place into what looks like a flashy music venue.
Gone are the vinyl-topped service counters, and in are white walls with a plethora of chrome lights, speakers and instruments.
On stage next to the pulpit, a band plays bongos, a drum kit, electric guitars and keyboard. Beside the entrance is a swanky mixing desk.
Pastor Decal Nono couldn’t wait to hear this 100-strong congregation fill the space with song, dance and joy. He said the band members were part of a church but in a different department — not the department of rock but the department of prayer and worship.
“Music is the No. 1 way to praise and worship God,” he said. “It makes God feel like God. It’s not just for people to feel high. It’s to boost Him.”
Mr Nono has been at the site every day for the past 10 weeks as its interior designer.
He has overseen the building’s transformation not through any formal qualifications; God’s wisdom had a fair hand, he said.
From a young age, Mr Nono knew his “calling” as a church leader. He set up a “family” church soon after migrating with his wife and children on a humanitarian visa from Zimbabwe to Dandenong in 2007.
It is a congregation that welcomes everyone, not just Africans, he said.
Since 2009, his church has nomadically lodged in lounge rooms, a second-storey office space and at Chisholm TAFE meeting rooms. Mr Nono proudly says it has now found its long-term home.
A graduate in social sciences and human services, he said there was a lot of pastoral work to do, supporting people “emotionally and spiritually”.
He knows too well the challenges faced by migrants who arrive with “high expectations”.
Mr Nono offers a place where they can talk to someone; a place they can feel at home. The church’s gatherings are at 24-26 Autumn Place, Doveton, at 10am on Sundays.
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