With joy, members of the recent Annual Meeting of the Synod and Presbytery recognised and welcomed the Eaton Millbridge Community Project (EMCP) as the Uniting Church in WA’s newest faith community.
Almost three years ago, a fresh expression of church, the EMCP was planted as a form of church for our changed culture and primarily, for the benefit of people who currently have no connection to the church. The EMCP practices incarnational mission through acts of loving service, listening and radical hospitality in the community of Eaton and Millbridge. Regular events held in local parks, such as Easter egg hunts, Movies by Moonlight, Christmas events and most recently a Spring Fiesta draw in crowds from the local community.
The Metro West Region held their first Church and Community Tree Planting Day in 2012. It was less than three months after I started as the First Third specialist in the region. I needed an event that would be intergenerational and active, that could involve the local community and which would build relationships between people in my group of churches as well as making a difference. I settled on planting trees at Lake Claremont with the help of the Friends of Lake Claremont, who are conducting a major volunteer revegetation program at the lake.
On the day, about 25 people showed up to help restore the wetland and provide habitat for local fauna. Some of the children participating had never planted trees before, but they dived in with energy. Everyone played their part. The ministers helped to plant, families worked together, children too young to plant collected the empty pots, and some older church members who couldn’t plant brought delicious baked goods for the friendly morning tea afterwards.
It has been fifteen years since the 1.6 hectares at 225 Campbell Road was purchased in hope for the new Canning Vale Uniting Church faith community. The consultation, planning and crowd funding for The Billabong Community Centre has taken too long, the final piece coming through a generous grant from the Presbytery earlier this year. It was therefore with much disbelief that the Billabong congregation met onsite on Sunday 15 June for a time of worship and encouragement together in preparation for the new building. It has been three and a half years since the on-site tent we used to worship in was packed away.
The new building plan was marked on the ground using stakes and string and a balsa wood model helped people imagine what is about to be built. Everyone gathered on the ‘verandah’ for afternoon tea served from the ‘kitchen’. They were then invited into ‘Multipurpose Room 2’ to take a seat on one of the camping chairs. After a time of singing and prayer I took up a small trenching shovel that I was given at my induction as the church planter in February 2000. The battered looking shovel had seen a lot of work and was a great symbol to break the dirt for the construction of the long envisioned Billabong Community Centre.
While the congregation at Dowerin Uniting Church may be low in numbers, Shirley Hagboom, member of the congregation, is a life-giving member of the community – a ‘go-to-girl’ for spiritual needs.
Shirley is the chaplain for two days a week at the local school, Dowerin District High School, but said that her role reaches well beyond those walls. Often, while she is out running errands around town, people approach her in the street to talk about things which are troubling them.
“I thoroughly enjoy being chaplain,” she said. “It’s not always at the school site; it could be down the road. You just never know when God is going to use you. God uses us as a conduit to help people.”
These meetings in the street occur so often that Shirley has started packing a ‘chaplaincy grab bag’ which is full of pamphlets and bits of information that might be helpful to people she meets while out and about.
Carramar Uniting Church held a Kids’ Fun Day during the school holidays at St Stephen’s School, Carramar, where the congregation meet for worship. The event was a huge success with many children turning up on the day for craft, music, games and worship. Centred on the theme of the Parable of the Sower, kids got to make their own potted plant for the garden while also taking part in Godly Play and drama activities.
Cooper attended the day and said that he enjoyed planting the seeds and he learnt a lot from the parable. “It mean’s Jesus is good,” he said. “He’s the good soil, and we’re trying to be the good soil,” he said.
On Sunday 9 February at Guildford Uniting Church, Wesley Chapel, a special Dedication Service was conducted for the Sumatra Memorial Plaque. The dedication was preparatory to the plaque’s approaching placement in the Changi War Museum in Singapore, beside many other Regimental and commemorative plaques, on Saturday 22 February. A couple of years ago, Nola Elizabeth Hudson who turned 101 in April, made contact with family members to enquire how she could commemorate both family and friends who were lost and/or incarcerated during the Malayan campaign of 1942.
Nola’s grandchildren took up her cause and after extensive consultation with the Australian Branch of the Malayan Volunteers Group and the Changi War Museum, a plaque was developed to commemorate the British, Australian, Dutch, New Zealand, Chinese and Eurasian men, women and children and the Allied servicemen and women who suffered severe deprivation during three and a half years captivity at Muntok on Banka Island, and in Palembang and Loeboek Lingau camps on Sumatra from 1942–1945, as well as the many people who were killed in the evacuation of Singapore. An overall feeling of the fortitude and bravery shown by those held captive in the many camps within Sumatra was apparent to the congregation.
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.
Since the last edition of Revive, Rev David Kriel, mission planner at the Uniting Church in WA, has collected and analysed all the data from interviews with people around the church and the Listening Workshop, held in April. Some changes have been made to the process. The original plan of Scenario Planning has been postponed until after John Roberto’s visit to Perth, where some of his methods will be adapted to meet the needs of the Uniting Church in WA. The process is now moving to a method of System Thinking.
Using the data collected, David has discovered four key issues which members of the Uniting Church feel the church needs to focus on. They are: communication, lay education and leadership, community services and evangelism and discipleship. The next step is to identify the relationships between these issues, creating ‘loops’ of ‘cause and effect’. David has created four loops all with interdependent relationships to each other. In responding to these loops, David said the church needs to be proactive, rather than reactionary.
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.
