As we head into the New Year, the team at UnitingCare West would like to thank everyone in the Uniting Church community for the generous support shown during its 2018 Christmas Appeal.
Amanda Hunt, CEO of UnitingCare West, said demand from families for food and gifts over the festive season was unprecedented, with hundreds of hampers delivered from each of their three Service Hubs in Perth City, Merriwa and Fremantle.
If you get the chance to meet the Uniting Church WA’s new Presbytery Minister Mission, Rev Alison Gilchrist, you’ll soon find out that she’s ready to get into the thick of it and get the job done – she’s a ‘doer’.
Alison was ordained in the Church of England and came to Perth six years ago to work with the Anglican Diocese of Perth. Having started her role with the Uniting Church WA in September last year, Alison has already begun making her mark, with the introduction of the ‘Light on Every Street’ campaign. The campaign saw congregations sharing the light and love of God in the lead-up to Christmas by giving candles and postcards with a message to people in their communities.
For decades, kids and young people have attended church camps as a fun way to build community and grow in faith. While there has been a decline in church camping within the Uniting Church WA over the years, a number of new opportunities have also arisen.
Kid’s Camp Out (KCO), originally called KUCA Camp, is still going strong as the Uniting Church WA’s longest running camp, held annually since 1984; the second annual Messy Church Summer Camp was recently held in January; CampFIRE encourages families in their faith; some Uniting Church WA congregations have been organising their own camps; and the Uniting Church Campsite is back in operation after years of neglect.
Many Uniting Church members will attest to camps playing a strong part in their faith and spiritual identity. As Rev Greg Ross, minister at St Augustine Uniting Church, Bunbury, said, many members will often share how camps have helped shape them, or led them down certain paths.
So what is it about camping that creates so many fond memories?
When you’re going to Bali, it’s rather cool to be able to say you are going “on work!” Especially when talking to other West Australians going there for the usual reasons.
Rev Marie Wilson and I were able to say this as we fronted up to the Jetstar flight out of Perth on a recent Saturday night. We had a job to do! Our task was to introduce some of the senior clergy of the Balinese Protestant Church (Gereja Kiristen Protestan di Bali – GKPB) to the discipline of professional supervision.
We soon discovered they knew a lot about ‘supervision’, but that what they knew was more about top-down management than professional supervision, and anyone who has experienced that kind of top-down management tends to steer clear of supervision. It’s a common misunderstanding, even among our enlightened Uniting Church ministers.
Dr Scott Hollier, Digital Access Specialist and member at Kalamunda Uniting Church, shares his five top tips for making church more accessible for people with vision impairments.
As a young Christian in the 90s, there was great community support in helping me understand my early Christian journey. As a person with a degenerative eye condition, there wasn’t much opportunity back then for the materials to be designed in a way that worked with my failing eyesight.
While the support of my church has remained steadfast all these years, something that has changed in a positive way is technology and the
wealth of opportunity to make worship accessible to congregation members with disability or seniors that may have difficulties seeing or hearing
the service.
In a similar way to installing a wheelchair ramp at a church entrance, reviewing and improving your digital processes can significantly strengthen the
message of support and inclusivity as we continue to become more reliant on digital content.
As such, I’ve put together my top five tips on how you can improve your content to support the one in five Australians with some form of disability – many of which are likely to be coming along to your service.
Stuart McMillan, Assembly Consultant for Covenanting, shares his thoughts on remembering a Day of Mourning, annually on the Sunday before Australia Day.
This January, Uniting Church congregations across the country are being asked to hold worship services that reflect on the effect of invasion and colonisation on Australia’s First Peoples. The observance of a ‘Day of Mourning’ was endorsed by the 15th Assembly at the request of members of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC).
Rather than seeking a change to the date for Australia Day as some propose, the UAICC asked the church, in the spirit of the Covenant between us, to declare the Sunday before Australia Day as a Day of Mourning. Assembly members enthusiastically agreed.
Morningstar Press, 2018.
Rev John Queripel is a retired Uniting Church minister in NSW with a varied career in congregations and chaplaincies. He is known for his social justice concerns and his scholarly approach to understanding Christianity today.
His latest book is informed by scholarly understanding of the differences between factual writing about what happened and the power of metaphor and myth to convey deep meaning. For many modern readers it will be a new experience to read the chapters that describe conditions in Judea when the
gospels were written and which show the very different agendas of the only two New Testament writers who provide more than passing reference to the birth of Jesus.
The chapters guide the reader through the strange world of first century story and myth to an appreciation of the meaning of the stories about Jesus’ birth for us today. We may also reflect, sadly, on the way many churches celebrate Christmas giving prominence to magical stories of a baby, but little focus on the transformative life and teachings of the man who gave rise to such stories.
For more about other publications by John Queripel at www.facebook.com/JohnHenryQueripel/
David Merritt
Pan Macmillan Australia, 2018
No Friend but the Mountains is a piece of literary genius, calling all Australians to account for the atrocities done in our name. The very way it was written, smuggled out of the Manus Island detention centre through text and Whatsapp messages, then painstakingly translated from Farsi to English, is astounding.
Written by Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani who has been incarcerated in Manus Island detention since 2013 and translated by Omid Tofighian, it is a first-hand witness account of – and an act of resistance to – our nation’s policies of detention and deterrence.
Behrouz Boochani tells his own story – and that of his friends – with empathy, respect and vivid descriptions bringing them to life through the pages. He mentions by name only those who have died on Manus Island, referring to others by nicknames and monikers. For those of us familiar with the men who have sadly lost their lives; The Smiling Youth (Hamid Khazaei) and The Gentle Giant (Reza Barati), his storytelling brings back the grief and anger we experienced when these avoidable tragedies occurred.
Each story is heartbreaking, personal and political.
With an official population of just 104 people, at first glance Yealering seems like any other small Wheatbelt town. A grand old pub, some silos, a small general store, and a row of houses lining the few streets that make up the town; you could be forgiven for thinking that’s everything this quiet and peaceful town has to offer. But those of us that take the time to linger and look beyond the main street will discover much more.
The town was gazetted in 1912 on the shores of the spectacular Lake Yealering. Originally a fresh water lake, it was an important source of water for traditional custodians of the area, the Ballardong Noongar people.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God’, was the theme on Remembrance Day, Sunday 11 November, at Wanneroo Crossways Uniting Church.
Early in the worship, the children were told of various symbols of ‘Peace’. After the story of Noah and the dove returning to the Ark with a small olive branch, the children distributed small olive branches to all in the congregation.