The Eastern Wheatbelt Uniting Churches welcomed their new minister, as Rev John McKane was inducted into the region on Sunday 24 August at Mukinbudin Uniting Church. John is now the new minister at Muckinbudin, Merredin, Bruce Rock and Southern Cross Uniting Churches.
John has come to the region fresh from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he had been serving as a minister to the Linden Presbyterian Church. He said that he considers the local church to be the hope of the world.
“If you want to go fast, you go alone,” John said. “If you want to go far, go together.”
Rev Zak Cronje was inducted into Bicton Uniting Church on Sunday 10 August. Zak moved to Australia from South Africa in 2001 and has previously served in ministry with the Eastern Wheatbelt and Maylands/Mt Lawley Uniting Churches. He has also been involved with various councils within the church including in ecumenical and community settings. He was ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa in 1979.
Rosemary Hudson Miller, acting general secretary of the Uniting Church in WA said at the induction “Zak comes to Bicton today with a great sense of passion for Jesus as his Lord. He knows well the power of God at work in people’s lives and enjoys sharing in the ministry and mission of God with others and together seeing positive change take place.
Uniting Church leaders from across Australia are joining interfaith and ecumenical friends today in a statement of solidarity with Australia’s Muslim community.
Uniting Church in Australia President Rev Prof Andrew Dutney is one of more than 150 faith and community leaders who’ve signed on to a declaration that “We’ll Love Muslims 100 Years.”
The statement is a reference to the banner headline in the Weekend Australian on 9 August “We’ll Fight Islam 100 Years.”
“Recent public statements and media coverage about Muslim-Australians in some sections of the Australian media have been inflammatory and divisive,” said Andrew.
“In our multi-faith society, Jesus’ call to love your neighbour means that Christians are called to meet, befriend and care about our neighbours who are Muslim.”
“Because of this, we can’t just stand by if they are unfairly insulted or marginalised.”
UnitingCare West CEO, Sue Ash, was recently awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. The Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) is awarded for distinguished service of a high degree to Australia or humanity at large. Sue’s award recognises her “distinguished service to the community, particularly in the area of social policy development, reform and implementation, and to the provision of services to people in need”.
As CEO of UnitingCare West, Sue brings a deep and passionate commitment to UnitingCare West’s mission. This commitment has been shaped over a lifetime by Sue’s strong Christian ethos, and by her desire to ensure people are heard and provided with access to life-enhancing opportunities. Sue has been a part of the community sector for over 45 years and is passionate about building a civil society for future generations.
Advocates for children suffering in detention welcome today’s decision to release SOME of the children from detention, but intend to stay until they have a timetabled commitment from the Government for ALL children to be released.
Christian leaders concerned about all vulnerable children in Australia’s detention centres are holding a prayer vigil inside the Camberwell electorate office of Josh Frydenberg, Liberal Member for Kooyong and Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
The group entered Mr Frydenberg’s office at 10.00am and say they intend to remain until they get a timetabled commitment from the Government that all children will be released from immigration detention centres.
The group welcomes today’s decision by the Government to release a small contingent of children and celebrate this as victory for the whole movement and is a step forward in the right direction. However, there are still grave concerns for the 662 children outside the criteria of release who will remain in detention and we will not stop until every last child is released from the cruelty of detention.
Church groups in Western Australia have called upon the Hon Bill Marmion, Mines and Petroleum Minister to embrace renewable energies instead of thinking of uranium as the fuel of the future. The group said Mr Marmion’s recent comment was ill-informed and dangerous. All of the groups have expressed deep and abiding concerns about the social and environmental costs of uranium mining and the nuclear industry into which Western Australia’s uranium would be sent.
Spokesperson for the group Rosemary Hudson Miller, Associate General Secretary Justice and Mission, Uniting Church in Western Australia said, “Nuclear technologies that utilise non-renewable resources such as uranium, while at the same time producing toxic by-products that have been proven to interfere with human and ecosystem health, are not a sustainable way of providing energy for human consumption. Renewable energy technologies need to be given primacy instead.
During a recent meeting of the top governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC), its Central Committee said “no” to investments in fossil fuels. Prior to this announcement some member churches were already committed to the divestment of fossil fuels, including the United Church of Christ in the United States, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia and the Church of Sweden.
In April last year, the Uniting Church Synod of New South Wales agreed to divest in fossil fuels and created national news. Other churches around Australia are in talks about how they too can divest. And in May of this year, people from all over Australia withdrew their investments from Australia’s ‘big four’ banks – ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac – choosing to invest their money in more sustainable methods as part of Divestment Day, organised by Market Forces and 350.org.
Mukinbudin Uniting Church will be celebrating their 50th anniversary while also welcoming Rev John McKane as the new minister to the Eastern Wheatbelt Parish, which also includes Merredin, Bruce Rock and Southern Cross Uniting Churches.
Well before the union of the three churches which formed the Uniting Church, the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches were already worshipping together in Mukinbudin. Rev Terry Tero, the minister at the time, used to take services in the local Country Women’s Association (CWA) building, before encouraging the congregation to build their own church in 1964.
The church was named ‘Mukinbudin Pioneer Church.’ A Sunday School hall was built in 1973 to cater for a number of young families that were attending. The congregation are now looking forward to welcoming Rev John McKane. John, his wife Bronwyn and his two young children will be arriving in Australia from South Africa, where he has been the minister at Linden Presbyterian Church, Johannesburg. He was ordained in the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa around 15 years ago and has had a connection to our land prior to his move, his father being Australian.
The plaque unveiled on 21 March, 1964.
Bob French, from the Eastern Wheatbelt Parish is looking forward to the fresh new faces in the region.
“It’ll be the first time that we’ve had a minister with school-age children in a long time,” he said.
The induction and anniversary service will be held at Mukinbudin Uniting Church on Sunday 24 August. Past and present ministers and members are invited to commemorate the occasion.
Top image: The assembled community for the opening of Mukinbudin Pioneer Church in 1964.
On 21 June, church groups, political groups, non-government organisations (NGOs) and caring individuals gathered on a hill facing the Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre to show the detainees inside that we did care about their plight and that they weren’t forgotten. We stood on our hill, waved banners, lights and shouted chants. In turn detainees would chant back. They knew that we were there and they were thankful.
That evening, as an Amnesty International representative, I gave a speech where I reflected on how I first came across the problems faced by refugees in Australia. I was about 10 and found a picture of a barbed wire fence with children behind it on the cover of a magazine. I assumed that far away something terrible was happening and we were being asked to help fix it. We were after all the lucky country and we were often using that luck to help others.
Busselton Uniting Church will once again bring the bush indoors for their annual Wildflower Exhibition from Thursday 18 to Friday 19 September. Come and enjoy the wonderful presentation of specimens and displays.
Also on display will be beanies, woodturning, a video, photos, the Geographe Community Nursery plus teas, lunches, cakes, crafts and produce. Tammie Reid, Rural Leadership Fellow is the guest speaker and Vasse Primary School Choir will perform.
The official opening is at 2.00pm on Thursday 18 September. Admission is $10 adults, $6 pensioners, and children are free. For more information, contact Linda Stephenson at bsnuca@westnet.com.au or call 9752 3304.
