Category: Stories & Feature Articles

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Stories & Feature Articles

Being messy, being church

With the full support of Rockingham Uniting Church, my home congregation, I flew to Melbourne to attend the Australasian Messy Church Gathering, in February. Having only a small idea as to what Messy Church was about, along with fellow youth leader, Kelly Crothers, I was keen to find out more with the hope of bringing this concept back to our church.

The gathering was held in the Centre for Theology and Ministry in Parkville, a magnificent heritage building that was itself inspiring. In attendance were people from all over Australia, New Zealand, UK and Malaysia. We were very blessed to have Canon Lucy Moore, the founder of Messy Church from The Church of England, as the special guest and keynote speaker. Lucy’s enthusiasm was infectious.

The other keynote speakers were Rev Greg Ross, a Uniting Church WA Minister who has a long established Messy Church in Bunbury; the talented Rev Brenton Prigge a former Uniting Church WA Minister who played guitar and sang hymns that he had written; and Rev Debbie Smith from New Zealand who spoke to us about maximising the potential of your Messy Team. At this point, I realised how important having help and working as a team will be.

We learnt the values of Messy Church and that it is not just for children. It is a Christ centred church in its own right for all ages, gathering together to enjoy creativity, celebration and hospitality. Sharing a meal isan important part, as Lucy said, “You can’t share the abundance of Godwith a biscuit.”

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Mentoring Program enriching lives

Trinity North Uniting Church are running a Mentoring Program for its high school age members who attend the vibrant church in Greenwood.

Instead of attending the regular Sunday worship service at 9.00am, mentees between the ages of 11 to 17, are whisked away by their mentors to a nearby park or café for a chat. The first session in February 2018, saw seven mentors and mentees attending. The organiser of the Mentoring Program is former Kids Church Co-ordinator at Trinity North Uniting Church, Kylie Steed.Though the church has a regular Youth Group, Kylie and other church members felt something more needed to be done for the younger members to feel more connected to their local church.

“The idea came out of our Children and Youth Ministry team that we try a Mentoring Program. One of the aspects we wanted was a small group discussion on a Sunday morning during worship time,” said Kylie.

“The benefit of this program is our teenagers have someone else at the church who knows what they are up to. Someone other than their parents are having a conversation with them and are interested in them, and that makes such a big difference for a teenager,” said Kylie.

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Louise Pekan: living the love of Christ everyday

Pastor Louise Pekan loves babies, families and communities. She’s also passionate about encouraging others to be leaders in their own contexts, so it’s no surprise she’s begun working with families and children in and around Melville as the new Community Engagement Pastor at Melville Uniting Church.

After hearing at a Presbytery of WA meeting recently that the Uniting Church WA has been in steady decline for a number of years, Louise – alongside the Melville congregation – is ready and  prepared to try a new way of being church. While these ideas may be new to some, Louise has already seen the success of community engagement projects she’s run in Perth, as well as been a part of in Chicago in the United States of America, where she lived on and off for five years.

As Melville Uniting Church started thinking about selling up and joining other nearby congregations, Louise, with the help of Rev Mark Illingworth, Pastoral Relations and Placements Co-ordinator at the Uniting Church WA, will instead work with them to create meaningful networks with the local community. And as I sat with her over coffee, it was pretty clear she not only has the  experience to do this, but also has a deep passion for hospitality and building a space where all are welcome.

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Moderator’s column: Seeking wisdom

It is nearly fifty years since my wife, Jill, and I moved to Western Australia. The plan had been for us to stay four years, but Perth made such an impression upon us that we never left.

We have so many vivid memories from those early days in Perth and one of those for me is of the beautiful Reflection Pond in front of Winthrop Hall at the University of Western Australia (UWA). The Memorial Seat that looks down the length of the pond from the eastern end bears the inscription: ‘Verily by beauty it is that we come at wisdom’. The motto of UWA itself is: ‘Seek Wisdom.’

In the season of Lent that will be just concluded by the time this edition of Revive is published, I’ve been prompted by a few things to reflect upon the nature of wisdom, within the context of a Benedictine concept of renunciation.

What is truly important in the journey of following Christ, and what should be renounced in order to pursue it more fully?

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Vulnerability and ageing: recognising elder abuse

The Australian Government recently announced a national plan would be developed to address elder abuse in Australia. Many organisations in the sector have welcomed the announcement, which was one of the key recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s 2017 report on the issue, Elder Abuse: a national legal response.

Elder abuse is widely seen, rightly so, as an abhorrent crime. But sadly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) report that 15.7% of people aged over 60 have reported abuse, which means that
75 000 people in Western Australia are potentially affected. It is estimated that many cases go unreported. Most cases are forms of financial abuse; however, there are many different types of abuse. WHO defines elder abuse as “a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.”

As well as financial, reported types of abuse also include psychological, social, physical, neglect and sexual.

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Did Jesus survive Easter?

Of course he did! Easter celebrates the faith of the first disciples that Jesus’ death was not the end. God raised him to new life.

He did not survive in the sense of not really dying. For he died in one of the bloodiest ways possible, executed on a cross: dead for all to see. When, as the earliest records tell us, Peter reported that Jesus appeared to him in Galilee, despair turned to hope, disappointment to joy. It generated stories and experiences.

It was not that Jesus was to be found wandering around Galilee or Judea in flesh and blood. Rather they spoke of Jesus appearing and disappearing, clearly understanding his resurrection as like the spiritual resurrections expected at the climax of history.

But what did it mean that God raised Jesus from the dead?

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Hope and renewal in the cross

One of the most moving services in the Christian year occurs on Good Friday when we retell the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. The story involves betrayal, lies and violence.

Our world is awash in violence be it terrorism, the war on terror, street violence, domestic violence, or violence against creation. The rhetoric of violence is alive and well among a number of world leaders. The recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has unearthed systemic violence and abuse against vulnerable young people.

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Time for a new Reformation? – Or should we just take the first one seriously?

In the October 2017 edition of Revive, John Squires noted the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses and asked whether it might not be time “to kick off the shackles of old traditions and practices” and “reform ourselves once more”. He takes “12 references to newness, renewal or reform” in our Basis of Union as “clear pointers in that direction.”

But does a call “to kick off the shackles of old traditions and practices” point in the same direction as the Reformation or the Basis?

Reformation became possible, because Luther’s distress at his sinfulness drove him to look again at what Paul meant by “the righteousness of God.” The discovery that God’s righteousness revealed in the Gospel does not make demands or judgments, but graciously justifies the ungodly (Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-26; 4:5), increasingly informed Luther’s lecturing on the Scriptures at Wittenberg University and preaching in the town.

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Review-The Men in the Window, by Judith Amey

As she sat in the pews at St Aidan’s Uniting Church in Claremont, Judith Amey’s gaze would often fall on the stained glass window on the eastern wall during Sunday service.

At the base of the window were 16 names inscribed in the stained glass, men who had died in the First World War. It was an honour roll of men from the Claremont district, many of them with families connected to the church.

Amey began to wonder who they were; what was their background, who were their families, when and how had they died in the war?

Amey decided to investigate further. Her research has resulted in a slim, but evocative book, The Men in the Window.

Typical of the 16 men was Lieutenant Gordon Gemmell, whose Irish family moved from Melbourne to Perth in 1900. Gemmell trained as a teacher at Claremont Teacher’s College and was among the first intake of students at the University of WA. Gemmell saw action at Yypres in 1917, and in 1918 was leading a charge of his men in the final assault against the Germans when he was killed by machine
gun fire.

Coincidentally, Gemmell’s 15-year-old great great niece in Queensland, Meg Gemmell, won the 2015 Premier’s Anzac Prize for high school students for her essay on her relative, which won her a trip to Gallipoli.

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Thinking the Faith, Living the Faith: An introduction to Christian Theology, by Chris Walker

A ministry colleague and friend tells me that only theologians are interested in theology, and many of the introductory books are heavy in both weight and terminology. By contrast, this very readable book is relatively short, conversational and reliable. Perhaps just as significantly, it makes clear the relationship between theology as thinking about faith, and theology as living out that faith in everyday ways.

As an experienced disciple, minister, teacher and leader, Chris Walker is well placed to write this introduction to theology from the context and perspective of the Uniting Church.

The book enables conversations by providing questions for personal reflection and group discussion. Instead of seeing such questions as a test, view them as an invitation into the conversation with Chris, and with the Christian faith. Chris writes with confident hope in the good news that Jesus Christ still offers – afresh in each context and time – to a desperate, broken and hurting world. Living out this good news is the task of every disciple, and of faithful communities together, and this introduction to theology helps us navigate the challenges of the contemporary world in thoughtful ways.

Rohan Pryor