Helping to strengthen family bonds under pressure, Mount Hawthorn St Peter Emmaus Church recently helped families with a parent in prison celebrate Christmas. Through Angel Tree, incarcerated parents can ask to send a gift to their child along with a hand written card as a way of celebrating Christmas together.
Celebrating a ministry of care Rev Isobelle Shortreed organised a retirement service for Rev Tom Wilson last November at Noranda Uniting Church.
After many years in congregational ministry, including as a home missioner, Tom served at the Wasley Centre from 1980 providing counselling and training in the field. However when the centre moved outside the Uniting Church – to the Wasley Institute – his role was no longer officially a church placement. Tom has been of great service to the church throughout his ministry, and his work is appreciated by many.
Good Samaritan Industries (GSI) has teamed up with Postcare, a new mobile phone and device app which allows users to take a photo on their digital device and send it via the post as a good-old postcard.
Launched last year at the Uniting Church in the City Centre, each postcard is processed by staff at GSI, a community service agency of the Uniting Church in WA providing employment for people living with a disability.
The Uniting Church in Australia is saddened to announce the death of the late Rev Ian Tanner who passed away Friday 27 December 2013.
Ian was a past President of the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly from 1985 to 1988 and served as the first Moderator of the Synod of South Australia from 1977-1979.
Rev Betty Matthews, the first person to be ordained as a deacon in the Uniting Church, will be celebrating 60 years since she was ‘set apart’ as a deaconess with the Presbyterian Church in 1954.
Three members of the Uniting Church in WA have been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), announced this Australia Day.
A celebration of the life of Errol Ruth Phillipson was held recently, after her passing in January.
Errol was born in England in 1933 to an English father and an Australian mother. The family returned to Perth when Errol was 14 months old. In 1949, John Phillipson was appointed assistant minister to Victoria Park, Carlisle and Welshpool as a home missioner. Errol and John became friends and that friendship developed into a lifelong partnership of marriage.
Uniting Aid, a community service organisation of Nedlands Uniting Church, has for the past 32 years supported marginalised people living in the City of Stirling. Here, Uniting Aid secretary John Ward and long-time volunteer Gaye Goddard express their delight at the 25 laundry baskets full of food and gifts collected by students at St Stephen’s School for distribution by Uniting Aid. A Uniting Church school assisting a community service of the Uniting Church.
As I gather my thoughts for this edition of Revive, on Intentional Living, I am reminded of a DVD based course Viv and I bought some time ago. The course was entitled Practicing Mindfulness. The lecturer, Professor Mark Muesse, asserts that most of us live in a state of mindlessness most of the time. Mindlessness being “A mental state in which the mind generates a constant swirl of remarks and judgements that create a barrier or words and images that separate people from their lives.”
When we think about what we are scared of, what comes to mind? Debt? Crime? Death?
Dr Keith Suter, managing director of Global Directions and Uniting Church member, is a leader in global thought and a member of arguably the most prestigious global think tank in the world, the Club of Rome. While you may not realise it, he believes that many Australians are fearful of invasion.