The Uniting Church National History Society Biennial Conference took place at the Centre for Theology and Ministry in Melbourne from 7 to 10 June.
The theme of the conference was ‘Finding a home in the Uniting Church?’ We reflected on what it means to belong to the Uniting Church in this day and age.
Over the two days 20 papers were presented by members of the society and interested historians. These papers covered a wide variety of subjects.
Yesterday, Tuesday 11 June, Bicton Uniting Church celebrated the 40th anniversary of their CARE Centre. As past and present friends and volunteers of the program gathered and shared memories, it was clear that this program means so much to many people.
The CARE Centre (Christian Action Requires Empathy) is a friendship group for elderly people in the community. For one morning a fortnight, volunteers pick up people in the local area, by a bus gifted from Fremantle Wesley Uniting Church, and bring them back to the centre for entertainment, craft, memory days, laughter and love.
By Diana Butler-Bass, Harper One 2018.
Reading small chunks of Grateful has been my morning reading for the last month. Gratitude, I learnt, is often missing as a spiritual practice in a selffocused world.
More and more people are finding this experience of God beyond the walls of traditional religious institutions, but often miss the church community itself and its shared spiritual practices such as gratitude. Gratitude can easily get buried in rote liturgy with religious words that have lost their meaning. Many claim gratitude in their daily lives, but Bass finds that claim to be at odds with the discontent that permeates modern society and dominates our political discourse.
This highlighted a gap, she argues, between our desire to be grateful and our ability to behave gratefully—a divide that influences our understanding of morality, worship, and institutional religion itself. In Grateful, Bass challenges readers to think about the impact gratitude has in our spiritual lives, and encourages them to make gratitude a “difficult and much-needed spiritual practice for our personal lives and to inspire us to work together for a better world.”
Directed by Randall Wright, Heritage Films, 2018
This review was published in the April 2019 hardcopy edition of Revive. Sadly, Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, passed away yesterday. We keep all those who knew and loved him in our thoughts.
In this heartfelt documentary, we are invited to spend time in a L’Arche community. This film is not so much the life story of Jean Vanier, but a peek into his everyday life and the community he founded.
The L’Arche community was founded in France in 1964 and aimed to do away with institutions for people living with disability and build life together instead. People with varying levels of ability live together in community, sharing day-to-day activities and becoming friends – equals – rather than residents and staff.
After visiting an institution for people living with disabilities in 1963 France, Jean was deeply affected by the suffering of those who lived there. He left his job teaching at the University of Toronto and moved to France to live with the people he met, helping to revolutionise the care system in the western world.
The violence, he says, was hard at first, but over time it became a place of peace.
In early September 2018, I walked the Larapinta trail. The Larapinta is a bushwalk starting just out of Alice Springs and traverses the West Macdonnell ranges, ending 230km later at Mount Sonder.
I have enjoyed bushwalking for a while, but what drew me to this place was a question we were asked in church the year before: How do you see and experience God?
One of the great challenges of the work of Uniting Church school chaplains and school principals is to be receptive to God’s Spirit moving in their communities. Our schools are full of the joy of children and the energy of youth. When you meet at a school you can feel the vitality of youth throbbing through the culture of these important places.
However, schools are not only celebrations of youth and places for learning. Clearly, learning is central to the work of schools; however they are also places where the Spirit of God moves among the community. We know God moves ahead of us and that faith and the values of the Gospel are gifts and graces from God (Eph 2: 1 John 4).
Meredith Lake knows how to tell a story with soul. She’s the award-winning author of The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History and one of the keynote speakers at the upcoming Uniting Church National History Conference. In her latest venture she’s hosting Radio National’s new show, Soul Search. It’s about what we believe and the difference it makes in our lives. So who does Meredith speak with on the show?
I get to speak with a whole range of people – so far including soul singers, poets and Indigenous activists; mindfulness experts, theologians, even a life model and a liturgical designer!” she said.
On Thursday 17 January, 120 young adults from all across Australia, including a group of 21 from Western Australia, came together at Nunyara in Adelaide, South Australia, for the National Young Adult Leaders Conference (NYALC). The group of young, passionate, driven faith leaders from each synod, were at Nunyara for four days, coming together to grow as leaders in the Uniting Church.
I first heard about NYALC from Janine McDonald, Uniting Generations Co-ordinator for the Uniting Church WA. She is so passionate about the young people of the church in WA and motivating us to do more on a local, state and national level where possible.
Victoria Park and Districts Star Street Uniting Church has made a promising first step towards a fresh expression.
Following the first weekend of the ‘Mission Shaped Ministry’ course, church representatives agreed to make our first attempt at practising what we’d learnt, at the local dog park. We advertised a dog walking prayer group on local social media and on Sunday 10 March just two of us with our trusty hounds met and talked with the locals.
When I bought my first car, I was encouraged to do regular checks on key components of the car. Checking the water, oil and tyres is standard practice to maintaining a healthy functioning car.
Just as my car needs regular attention, so do other aspects of my life. I try and go to the doctor and the dentist at regular intervals, so that my physical and dental health is in good shape. In more recent months, I have been thinking about how I check my levels of empathy.