Category: Stories & Feature Articles

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Stories & Feature Articles

Unearthing gold and God in the west

A recent advertisement in a church newsletter for free accommodation in return for providing Sunday services sparked an adventure from Queensland to regional WA. Ruth Duncan reflects on her experiences moving westward and how she struck gold in the faith community.

A small advertisement in a newsletter from the Uniting Church Queensland late last year popped up the day after hearing my last lecture in New Testament within the Lay Preacher’s course at Trinity College Queensland. The ad offered free accommodation in Kalgoorlie in return for providing Sunday services. What a great opportunity to see a different part of Australia and practise  what I’d been learning over the course.

Among the jaw-dropping from my local congregation members, they managed to ask questions like, “Where will you stay?” and “What is the congregation like?”

To these questions and more, including those that were in my mind, I had to say, “I don’t know.” I just heard the voice of God saying, “Come and see.”

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Hope for a promised land

Rev John Barendrecht, Manager of Pastoral and Placements for the Uniting Church WA, is retiring from his placement on Sunday 30 July, after taking long service leave from Friday 9 June. As the Uniting Church in Australia approaches its 40th anniversary, John reflects on his 39 years of ministry.

I began my training for ministry as a student from the Congregational Church, and finished with the Uniting Church. My first placement was at Dalwallinu in 1978.

After 39 years of active ministry I will retire in July 2017, meaning I have been in placements for nearly all of the forty years that the Uniting Church anniversary celebrates this year.

I began my journey of ministry with all the hope and enthusiasm that the church I was part of was indeed a hopeful sign of how to live the message of Jesus in a contemporary way. Those who have been in the Uniting Church as long as I have will remember early days where the mainstream and church-based press referred to the Uniting Church as the ‘Australian’ church.

My ministry has always been both as an outsider who is looking in, and at the same time, an insider looking out.

Called into ministry with a congregational setting, I felt like an outsider within my own faith tradition. I saw worship styles and ecclesiastical habits which made no sense to me, yet mattered more than life itself to my congregations. Tradition mattered more than mission, and to this day I still don’t understand why.

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Amanda Hunt: Connecting passions and building potential

Amanda Hunt has always been passionate about community services. As a 16-year-old, she volunteered with a Catholic agency providing care for people living with an intellectual disability. From there began a lifelong passion for creating difference in people’s lives; a passion which has led her to become the new CEO of UnitingCare West, the Uniting Church WA’s community services provider.

Following a career in arts management, Amanda has 20 years of experience working in the community sector, having come to UnitingCare West from the role of State Director at Mission Australia  for WA and SA. She has also been CEO of Gowrie WA, an early childhood organisation, and the Recreation and Sport Network, now known as Inclusion WA.

Amanda’s passion became cemented further when family illness showed her the importance of community care. While working with Recreation Network, Amanda’s dad became unwell with Parkinson’s disease, a battle which lasted 12 years. After an accident resulting in a head injury, he became frail and the family rallied around to support him.

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Are they home yet? 20 years of Bringing Them Home

On Saturday 15 October 2016, speaking over the sound of a grumpy portable generator, I stood on the worn and creaking floorboards of the Mogumber mission church, reading a letter. It was a statement of support on behalf of the Uniting Church WA, to the people assembled that day. It was a difficult letter to read aloud.

The words of the letter are fairly simple, but they spoke some truth, pointed to justice and, for those present, brought a little bit of healing.

Mogumber, or what was previously known as the Moore River Native Settlement, became part of Methodist Mission in 1951, when the government handed over control of the site, until 1974 when it reverted to the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

For the people who came to Mogumber mission on that sunny October day last year, there were many mixed emotions. Some of those present had originally been taken there without choice, and in that event they lost their families, language, culture and country. Others were Uniting Church members who had faithfully served or worked there as part of their Christian service.

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Review: The Art of Interfaith Spiritual Care: Integration of Spirituality in Health Care Regardless of Religion or Beliefs, by Walter Blair Stratford

Walter Stratford explores spirituality as a common thread across all religions. As a retired Uniting Church Minister, he experienced how creedal boundaries tend to exclude, but discovered as a hospital chaplain and ecumenist, ways to breach these boundaries for spiritual care to be provided to those from different faiths and cultures. Spirituality, which he considers cannot be easily  defined, derives from our being deeply connected to and dependent on the natural world. He considers fostering this sense of connection as vital to spiritual care, but all too often neglected.

The book emphasises the importance of imagination and openness; the lack of it, leading to the exclusion and dogmatic inflexibility of fundamentalism. It led me to conclude that it is deeds and  not creeds which validate the faith that achieves peace through acts of justice, instead of the quasi-peace through acts of rhetorical violence that blights our present age.

This book may help the church adapt to the millennial generation that has left in increasing numbers, to welcome new comers and counter the fear of those we perceive different from ourselves.

Richard Smith

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Intergenerational bonding in Busselton

Finding common ground and activities for people of different ages is not always easy, but when you do, it can be a beautiful thing. The ‘blokes’ of Busselton Uniting Church semi-regularly get together for a meal at a local pub, but their February gathering was different. They were looking for something they could invite younger people to that would help foster relationships and  connection across the generations, so decided on lawn bowling.

On a balmy summer’s evening, 29 of us gathered to compete and eat pizza. Players ranged in age from 7 to 89 with everyone placed in an intergenerational team. There was plenty of banter and no hamstring tears to report.

The best part of the gathering was seeing the interaction between the different ages; common ground was found and relationships formed that will no doubt cross over to Sunday morning and  beyond.

Andy Broadbent

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Experiencing Perth through the eyes of Mowanjum’s youth

The January school holidays were a special time for 16 students from Derby District High School who spent 11 glorious days in sunny Perth. The students were members of the remote, Indigenous community of Mowanjum.

This is the fourth time Derby students have travelled from the West Kimberly to Perth to experience a different way of life, away from the bush. Their journey to Perth is a long one – 4 500km on a bus with several stops, which included an overnight stay at Port Hedland Uniting Church and Karalundi School in Meekatharra, before reaching their destination: Ern Halliday campsite at  Hillarys, Perth.

The excursion was hosted by the Boab Network based at All Saints Floreat Uniting Church, which have been running school holiday programs in Mowanjum for 10 years. There are many reasons  why the trip is important for Mowanjum.

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Review: Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible and the Church, edited by Preston Sprinkle

two-views-on-homosexualityHomosexuality commonly draws out strident views. Oppositional positions seem to be the norm; dialogue is often elusive. The editor notes this is not a ‘Christian’ versus ‘non-Christian’ debate: it is a discussion within the church.

Seeking to encourage deep engagement, evangelical publisher Zondervan asked two scholars to present an ‘affirming’ and two a ‘traditional’ view. Elsewhere, the editor says, the “question of homosexuality defies simple answers … I refuse to give thin answers to thick questions …” These scholars do the same.

Two authors were new to me. Knowing little about intersexuality, DeFranza’s work intrigued me. Holmes sees no room for same-sex marriage and with Hill (a self-identifying gay man) perceives celibacy as the only same-sex Christian option.

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From the Archives: 1977 Inauguration

inauguration-picThis year the Uniting Church in Australia celebrates its 40th anniversary. Throughout 2017, Revive will feature significant events for the life of the church during that time.

On Sunday 26 June, 1977, a celebration to mark the Inauguration of the Uniting Church WA and the Induction of its  first Moderator was held at the Perth Entertainment Centre. A free ticketed event, members of the newly formed Uniting Church WA enjoyed a moving and joyous service at the venue, which has now been replaced with Perth Arena.

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RenewWA: standing with the Pacific

For Fijian Methodist minister Rev James Bhagwan, climate change is not a theoretical concept. For many people in the Pacific, the impacts of rising sea levels and severe tropical cyclones are an all too real experience of a changing climate.

James, the Methodist Church in Fiji’s secretary for Communication and Overseas Mission, is a keen advocate for strong action on climate change, having seen its direct impacts in his community.

“Our small nation, Fiji, was the first to ratify the Paris Agreement and almost immediately, as if to underline the importance of the convention on climate change, we were faced with Severe Tropical Cyclone (STC) Winston, a category 5 cyclone and the most powerful in the southern hemisphere — a symbol of the earth’s groaning and crying to the rising temperatures and sea levels,” he said.

“Before STC Winston and since we continue to suffer from other extreme weather patterns – droughts and floods – as a result of climate change.

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