The Swan View Community Garden, at the local Uniting Church, was one of two recipients of a community grant in the Open Garden Scheme, being awarded the grant for Best Community Garden.
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Tag: Church and Community
The South Perth Childcare Centre enjoyed a wonderful week of celebrations to commemorate the anniversary of its 20th birthday in October. Past children, staff, members of the committee, parents, Uniting Church ministers and members of the South Perth Uniting Church congregation met each evening to reminisce about their participation in the centre over the past 20 years.
Khush AmadEn! Welcome! Welcome!
With these words, members of Perth’s Afghan community were warmly embraced as they arrived to support the final event of the Roshani Project for 2013, our Taste of Afghanistan dinner at South Perth Uniting Church in November.
In just 10 weeks from the launch of this project on 24 August to the dinner on 2 November, some 300 people participated in the project across 4 events – the launch and speaker night, the cricket afternoon, an onlin
e component which allowed those not in Perth to show their support, and of course the dinner. In addition to all the community involvement and outreach this project generated, almost $12,000 has been raised for TEAR’s work in Afghanistan with more coming in as Revive goes to print.
This has been a wonderful experience for us as a congregation, providing an opportunity to meet and share with so many people across our local community as well as other churches and of course our Afghan community friends. We feel greatly blessed by all the support we received. We especially thank Andrew Broadbent and TEAR, Phil and Julie Sparrow, John Broadbent and the Nedlands Uniting Church Refugee Group, the Afghan families who joined with us to make the dinner so special, and everyone who supported, assisted, encouraged and attended the various events during this intense but rewarding time.
Together we have made a difference. Thank you so much.
Judy Siddins
Fundraising for Esperance Uniting Church for the last ten years or so has been a tasty endeavour thanks to their trusted donut machine. Selling donuts at various community events has given the congregation a pretty good reputation for the best donuts around. And now they’re sharing the love with other community groups who are also using the equipment to raise much needed funds for their own projects.
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UCAF celebrates in Perth
From all over Australia, Uniting Church Adult Fellowship (UCAF) members and guests gathered at the Esplanade River Suites Como for the eagerly awaited UCAF National Celebration 2013. It is 15 years since the celebration was held in WA.
While many Christians intentionally live their lives in the way of Jesus, Open Table build on that, as a group who seek to live as an intentional Christian community. In the Perth suburb of Lockridge, the group pray together, dine together weekly and not only support local community, but are helping to create it. The group consists of three families, including a number of children. One of these families is currently away overseas, and one more is on the way to joining.
One night as I drove home, I heard an interview with Margaret Heffernan about her then new book, Wilful Blindness. As she explained the premise of her book it occurred to me that we, the church, suffer from this phenomena. Wilful blindness can be seen in marriages (why did she never ask about all those business trips?), in hospitals (why did he skip his check-ups?) and in boardrooms (why did nobody question those deals?). Indeed it can be seen in every walk of life. And I think it explains what’s going on in the church.
For over two decades researchers from the National Church Life Survey, among others, have been telling us that unless we change drastically, church decline will become terminal by around 2020. The researchers were vilified when their first results were published and yet, with very few exceptions, mainline Christian denominations in Australia, the UCA included, have continued to age and decline. And we’re still not doing anything significant about it.
Yes, we talk about it a lot. We tinker around the edges of worship; we even talk the language of emerging church and fresh expressions. But we continue to do what we’ve always done but with fewer and fewer people, and little or no hope. We continue to behave like a church that is considerably bigger and more influential than it is; we continue to place almost all our time and energy and resourcing on Sunday worship despite the fact that we know that any newcomers are most likely transfers from another congregation or denomination.