Month: December 2014

Two become one

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 31, 2014

In 1977 the Uniting Church in Australia came into being when the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches joined together. Since that time, Albany Scots Uniting Church and Albany Wesley Uniting Church have continued to lead independent lives.

After several years of working closely together the decision was made to become one congregation under the name of Albany Uniting Church.

Extensive discussions discerning the future role of the church led to mutually agreeing that worship should be held in the Duke Street property and endeavour to use York Street to raise an income.

Tags Uniting Church

Stories & Feature Articles

Bring down your walls this Christmas

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 27, 2014

‘Joshua fit the battle of Jericho…and the walls came tumbling down!’

This song and the story have been in my head since the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The stories about these walls are different: the Jericho wall was built to protect its inhabitants and to keep intruders out; the Berlin wall was built to stop East German people leaving their country en masse.

The stories about these walls are also similar: they were both brought down without violence, by people power, by persistent trust in a future that could be better than the present, by faith, as the Hebrews author puts it.

Yes, Jericho was invaded after the walls crumbled and its population butchered, but that is not the point. The point is that walls can be brought down – no matter how long, high, big or strong they are. The point is that when they do come down, there is reason for celebration.

Tags Christmas, Theology and Spiritual Reflections

Stories & Feature Articles

New preschool underway in Sri Lanka

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 25, 2014

The Uniting Church in WA has been in partnership with the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka since 2012, and in 2013 members of the Annual Meeting of the Presbytery and Synod agreed to support the church through its Interfaith Preschool Project.

The project provides an environment for children to participate in education, free from violence and other trauma induced circumstances which have been affecting Sri Lanka in the after-math of civil war. It also provides nutritious meals to the children who attend: a $10 donation can feed a child for a month.

Rev Dr A W Jebanesan, President of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, has recently notified the Uniting Church in WA of the most recent development from donations provided.

Tags International, Uniting Church

Stories & Feature Articles

Paving a way forward

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 23, 2014

All this year, we’ve been reporting updates from Rev David Kriel, Strategy and Mission Planner for the Uniting Church in WA in his work looking towards building strategies for the future. In our final article in the series, David offers some ideas for a way forward for us as a church.

David shared that in this journey, it’s vital for congregations to do some active soul searching.

“For the future it’s a question about faith formation and faith sharing,” he said. “Congregations need to discover who they are as a faith community and how they’re going to share that faith with their neighbours, their community.”

Part of being able to share faith with our communities is to know our communities.

“Congregations need to see who their community is and how they are going to engage in their community; not asking people to come to the church all the time, but getting out and engaging with the community. I think that’s very important,” he said.

Tags Church and Community, Uniting Church

Stories & Feature Articles

Where is our belief, our hope, and our faith?

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 21, 2014

By the end of this year – twelve months since I retired – I will have taken at least 26 services – probably the most since I stopped being a parish minister in 1978. I have loved it as it has given me a different experience of the church. And it has also alerted me to an alarming emerging challenge for the Uniting Church in WA and I think the wider church community here.

Most of the congregations, in my opinion, run the risk of simply becoming ‘retiring villages’.

I was North Metro Regional Pastor for 3 or 4 years. In that time I visited all the congregations and worshipping communities in the region at least once. I have also been a member of the Pastoral elations and Placements Committee (PR&PC) twice in the last 10 years. One of the things I did as regional pastor was to arrange for a bus tour of the northern regional development.

Tags Our People and Agencies

News & Announcements

Wanted! A nuclear free future

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 17, 2014

Rev Steve Francis, Uniting Church Moderator says, “At Christmas, I am reminded of the angelic choir on the Galilean hillside, who in anticipating the birth of Christ sang a chorus of “Peace on Earth”. Uranium mining can lead to the growth of nuclear weapons, thus making the world a more dangerous place and a less peaceful world in which to live.”

Steve made the comments following the decision of the General Council of the Uniting Church in Australia, Western Australia on Monday 8 December, to call on the Federal and WA State Governments to ban the production, deployment, transfer and use of nuclear energy and weapons and reintroduce the uranium mining ban in Western Australia.

The Council also re-affirmed the commitment of the Uniting Church in Western Australia to divest from businesses and financial institutions involved in the production of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy and related exports, including uranium.

Tags Environment

Stories & Feature Articles

Santa’s workshop for WA families

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 15, 2014

Who knew that Santa’s Workshop was nestled away in the northern suburbs of Perth? They call themselves the WUCMen, and each Wednesday they gather in a shed in the semi-rural area of Gnangara and make wooden toys for UnitingCare West’s Christmas Appeal – The Target and UnitingCare Giving Box. The toys are then distributed to families in WA to spread hope, joy and love to people at Christmas.

A group of Men from Wanneroo Uniting Church wanted to start a men’s group for church members, but wanted to spend their fellowship time doing hands-on projects rather than sitting around chatting and listening to speakers. And so the WUCMen was formed – standing for Wanneroo Uniting Church Men.

Keva Barnard, a WUCMan, said that the group consisted of men from various backgrounds who just wanted to use their time doing practical things together.

“We’re interested in working, so we formed this group,” Keva said.

Throughout the year, the group make wooden toy cars, pull along trolleys and building blocks, usually donating around 20 toys a year. Some of the toys also get donated to Princess Margaret Hospital for Children.

Tags Church and Community

Stories & Feature Articles

The church of the future: Oh the possibilities

Post author By revivewa
Post date December 13, 2014

You’ve heard it before, we all know it’s happening: the Uniting Church is in steady decline. Despite the good intentions of many who try to encourage us to change our ways so we can thrive again, the truth is the church is currently heading towards a gloomy situation.

Dr Keith Suter, futurist, well respected Australian social commentator and Uniting Church member, has independently researched and completed his third PhD: The Future of the Uniting Church in Australia, as a labour of love through the University of Sydney. Using the ‘scenario planning’ method, which Revive has previously featured in relation to work of the Uniting Church in WA’s Strategy and Mission Planning Commission, Keith has come up with four ‘possible’ futures the Uniting Church in Australia could head down.

To clarify, a possible future is different to a predicted or preferred future, in that it may not be a scenario which we all want and it’s not the only option available to us. Instead, Keith has put forward a number of realistic scenarios that could or could not play out depending on how we manage the organisation from here on.

Tags Uniting Church