A Closure of Ministry Service was held for Rev Karama Ioapo and Rev Brian Thorpe on Sunday 27 August at Trinity North Uniting Church, Greenwood Worship Centre.
Both Karama and Brian had been serving with the congregation for 17 months, Karama began as a supply minister and moved into a ministry placement, while Brian served in Intentional Interim Ministry. Karama will be moving to a placement with Frontier Services in Atherton, Queensland, and Brian while be retiring from active ministry.
For the past eight years, Uniting Church in the City, Ross Memorial West Perth has been running a series of sessions focusing on our environment, to coincide with Sustainable September.
This year, all sessions will commence on Tuesday evenings at 6.00pm, with refreshments available from 5.30pm. Each session will last one hour, with time set aside for questions.
On Tuesday 5 September, David Galloway, from the Curtin University Sustainability Program, will reflect on how thinking around sustainable development has evolved over the past 30 years, and how his understanding of faith has developed and been informed by his work.
On Tuesday 12 September, Felicity McGeorge will talk on the importance of the wetlands.
The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Stuart McMillan, has condemned plans to cut Federal Government support from a group of asylum seekers living in the Australian community.
Widespread media reports suggest that several hundred asylum seekers transferred to Australia from offshore detention for medical reasons will be placed on new category ‘Final Departure Bridging E’ visa.
Those affected will be left with no income support and forced to move out of government-supported accommodation. They will also be expected to leave Australia or return to offshore detention after six months.
A third of those affected are children. More than 20 are women who are survivors of sexual assault or rape.
On the afternoon of Saturday 24 June, members of Beldon-Iluka Uniting Church shared art from their homes, brushes, chisels and needles with the wider Beldon community, as part of our 40th anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia celebrations.
The local Beldon Primary School was excited to join in the celebrations too and their young artists put on a brilliant display of art work.
We were amazed with the talent in our area. Quilt makers, china painters, modern artists, wood workers, machine and hand embroiderers all submitted art for the display. People brought in favourite purchased art works too, some reminiscent of countries they had spent time in.
Through UnitingCare West’s Winter Appeal, enough funds have been raised to turn the lights on at Tranby on Saturdays for the first time, on 15 July. Funds won’t last the year yet, so initially only core hours and services, including a free hot breakfast, showers, clothing, groceries and support from experienced staff, are offered from 7.00–10.00am on Saturdays.
With no sheltered Saturday morning services available in Perth for the homeless community, UnitingCare West made it their mission this winter to offer services to those most in need. Tranby, in East Perth, offers free breakfast, shower facilities, support services and a warm venue to the homeless community. As a mission based organisation, all of UnitingCare West’s work is person-centered: starting with the individual, and building programs and supports around their needs. Working where others don’t, UnitingCare West deliberately researches needs and implements solutions, where it finds that individuals are falling through the cracks.
Building on work done in 2014 and 2015, as well as this year by Rev David de Kock, General Secretary of the Uniting Church WA, members of the Uniting Church Synod of WA will have an opportunity to engage with the new Synod Strategic Plan at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Synod of Western Australia this September.
In June, a Strategic Advisory Group, including members from Uniting Church WA schools, agencies and congregations, gathered to offer feedback on the plan before it is presented to the Synod meeting for final evaluation.
The Strategic Plan recommends that the church accomodate localised Centres for Mission, which will establish one place as a resourcing centre for several nearby congregations. These Centres for Mission will act like a Uniting Church hub, creating more support and resources for new activities. The plan also incorporates a three-year roll-on budget, which will provide more forward planning than our current one-year budget.
I heard a story recently about a fight between two wolves, which were both fierce and competitive. The question was asked ‘which wolf will overcome the other?’
The simple answer is whichever wolf we feed.
Ethics is rather like this. There is a growing awareness that ethics matter. We live under the shadow of the tragic findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. There has been story after story of the most horrendous misuse of power and of the failure to bring the perpetrators to account.
As a Uniting Church, thankfully we have become much more conscious of the essential need for the church to be a safe place for everyone, especially children. We have a strong Code of Ethics for people in ministry and a Code of Conduct for Lay Leaders that guides us in areas where there is ethical ambiguity, and points us to ethical wholeness. Ethics must matter to all of us. While the Gospel offers grace and forgiveness, it comes with the call to discipleship, to live a holy life; to pursue a lifestyle of behaviour that models the highest Christian standards of ethics.
It was with a sense of excitement that three Western Australians travelled to Adelaide to attend the inaugural Uniting Church National History Conference from 9–12 June 2017. With Sheena Hesse, Archivist at the Uniting Church WA, Rev Dr Alison and Robin Longworth joined the fifty or so archivists and historians at Pilgrim Uniting Church. The Conference was hosted by the South Australian Uniting Church Historical Society and focused on the history of the Uniting Church in this 40th anniversary year.
The Welcome to Country by Sean Weetra and the opening worship led by Rev Myung Hwa Park, Moderator of the Uniting Church NSW/ACT led us into the keynote address by Assoc Prof Renate Howe, who spoke on “Challenges for the Uniting Church in a changing Australia.”
The new Makes You Wonder app puts a program developed by Rev Dr Ian Robinson, while on beach mission, into the hands of people in their busy lives.
Ian said the materials were originally designed for “people being people and talking to each other about what was on their hearts. And if you open your heart to somebody, they meet the Jesus who lives there.
“Makes You Wonder is a resource which helps people connect with their communities and their world. The overall theme is to help people find their voice, with their own faith, in their own world. It doesn’t ask people to run more programs, but put this kind of authenticity into the people you already are,” said Ian.
The Uniting Church WA celebrated over the weekend, as Rev Hannes Halgryn and Rev Dr Herman Nienaber were admitted as Uniting Church Ministers of the Word during a service at Uniting Church in the City, Trinity Perth. Hannes and Herman were both previously ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa and have currently been serving in placements at Uniting Church in the City.
Rev Dr Ian Tozer, Deputy General Secretary of the Uniting Church WA, shared some of their past with the gathered congregation. He said that both Herman and Hannes grew up in South Africa.
“Hannes studied there and trained for ministry at the University of the Free State; Herman at Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria where he completed his doctorate and has worked at the University of South Africa,” Ian said.
“They both served a number of congregations in South Africa before moving to Australia.”