Tag: Theology and Spiritual Reflections

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News & Announcements

Contemplation on Canvas comes to Perth

Rev Cathie Lambert, minister at Margaret River Uniting Church, will be at Trinity North Uniting Church on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 January guiding participants through an art and spirituality  workshop – Contemplation on Canvas.

Contemplation on Canvas will run on Friday evening, and then all day Saturday. During the retreat, participants will have the opportunity for personal reflection on their own life and spiritual  journey so far. Guidance and inspiration will be given in a large group format, followed by individual reflection time.

At each stage of reflection, participants will begin to create their very own mixed media canvas. Using creative materials, participants will craft an artwork that depicts their life and their hopes for  the future.

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Education & Training

Inspiration to connect

summer-spiritRev Dr John Squires and Rev Elizabeth Raine will be the keynote speakers at next year’s Summer Spirit. John is also the new director of education and formation for the Uniting Church WA, and will take up his role in February 2017.

John and Elizabeth have a passion for doing church in new ways, and have spent much of their recent ministry helping churches creatively connect with their communities. John is currently in a placement with Wauchope and District Uniting Church, NSW, and Elizabeth is serving an Intentional Ministry Placement in Canberra. They have also worked in shared placements, including as Presbytery ministers with the Mid North Coast Presbytery of the Uniting Church NSW/ACT, encouraging others in engaging and new ministry.

With the Summer Spirit theme of ‘Being church in new ways,’ John and Elizabeth will share their knowledge and experience of these ministries, much of which has been spent encouraging congregations to experiment with different ways of connecting with their communities. John said this has happened in various ways, such as community gardens, projects with local schools,  Messy Church, community markets and a nonreligious youth group.

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News & Announcements

Moderator’s column: Do dreams come true?

Recently, I had a bad dream; I woke up suddenly believing that I had been attacked by a large army of cockroaches. Thankfully, when my eyes were fully opened, there was not a cockroach in sight.

No doubt, a good therapist could work out why I had such a nightmare. Maybe it was just the curry from dinner taking revenge on my psyche. Sometimes, thankfully, dreams don’t come true. They are usually the   product of anxious living.

Does God have dreams? Probably not the kind we have. Some Christians, however, think that all the talk in the Bible about ‘the kingdom of God’ is really talk about God’s dream for humankind. Pick up on most of  the Old Testament prophets and you will get this drift. If you read through the long and winding Isaiah or the short and abrupt Haggai, you will catch a glimpse of the hopes and dreams God has for humankind.

Jesus was captured by these Godly dreams when he began his ministry with the words, ‘the time has come, the kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news’ (Mark 1 v 15). Notice how Jesus connects  kingdom with the words “now” and “arrived.” The waiting was over and it was time for the kingdom to arrive.

It wasn’t, however, what most of Israel expected. They thought kingdom equals a king, land and  citizens. The king meant ditching Caesar or the corrupt local king (Herod Antipas) and replacing him with a Messiah. This new king would sit on the throne in Jerusalem and rule the land. The land would flow with milk and honey and everyone would follow the Torah (the Law). The citizens would love and serve the king and the kingdom would expand.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Russia with love

In the last week of September a very special event took place in Moscow. For the very first time, a hundred scholars came together in Russia to focus on the New Testament and its meaning for faith.

The largest contingent came from Russia itself, predominantly from the mighty Russian Orthodox Church. Alongside them were Orthodox scholars from a range of Eastern European countries, including Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, as well as Catholic and Protestant scholars from Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Britain, USA, and Australia.

I made the journey from afar as secretary for International Initiatives of the Society for New Testament Studies, working with its Eastern European Liaison Committee. The Society was able to win the support of Metropolitan Hilarion for the event, who generously hosted us on behalf of the Russian church.

This was a major development in the opening up of the discussion of how New Testament scholarship relates to faith. Some whose faith is nurtured and sustained by the ancient Orthodox liturgical tradition have been reluctant to look beyond it to the world of New Testament scholarship; to ask questions about history and identify diversity, as well as unity among the New Testament writings might undermine faith. We know such fear also from western fundamentalism.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Love, care and non-judgemental acceptance

Edith Smirk is a Uniting Church chaplain at Bentley Health Service. She reflects on her role offering pastoral care to people living with mental illness.

People with mental [illness], like other people, have a need to relate to a god or a philosophical world view that allows them to place themselves and their lives within a larger context. However, for a person who has  been diagnosed with schizophrenia this can be problematical for a number of reasons. For one thing, the onset of the disease often occurs during the same period of life when religious and philosophical beliefs  are in great flux. For many during the early stages of their illness, they may believe they have been specially chosen by God. When auditory hallucination is experienced, these beliefs are usually reinforced. It is  important not to encourage such beliefs, just be present. E Fuller Torrey MD 2006

Jesus listened and told stories. This is something I can do. Just to be there and to listen non-judgmentally is the greatest gift we can give at times. Working in mental health can be very challenging and at the same  time very rewarding; I believe for me it has been a true calling. I believe God has in some way been preparing me for this role throughout my life.

Working with the patients brings me such joy. Hearing their stories sometimes touch on my own. Jesus knows our pain, he suffered and was tempted by the devil, he knows our weaknesses and by trusting in the  Lord we grow strong. When we reach out to Jesus, he touches our hand, and his hand touches God, which gives us life, love and hope. And it is this hope and love I try to bring to our patients.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Parables from the edge

Port Hedland looks like a dot on the north-western edge of this large red country. I arrived there with no answers for Port Hedland and my questions were a jumble. In my backpack was the poster I had made to  remind me of why I had come: “Go, not to collect experiences, but to be transformed.”

I was sent to Port Hedland for a supervised rural placement from mid-July to early August, the best time in the year because that was when it was cool. Eight months of the year, temperatures soar, starting from 38 degrees. The harsh environment has been said to draw more than the average share of misfits, mercenaries, mavericks and missionaries – people who were running away from something or someone, debts, crime  and failed relationships.

It was as I expected: Martian landscape, remote, sparsely populated and industrial.

What caught me by surprise was its strange beauty, an immense, seemingly empty space, suffused with untamed, quiet power. At the beach at Cooke Point one morning, the moist sand bore the contours of the  waves. The sky sent an echo in scallops of white cloud. At my feet, shallow streams of water gargled softly. I could have just walked across the water to the next little patch of sand, but didn’t – rather, couldn’t. Almost shouldn’t.

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News & Announcements

Moderator’s column: Emotionally healthy spirituality

Some years ago, I went to a Peter Scazzero seminar. He said something that has stayed with me: “You can’t be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

“Spiritual maturity is holistic; it involves the mind, heart, will, spirit and body.”

Much of my early training in ministry emphasised an intellectual maturity, growing in thinking and understanding; read lots of books, write smart essays and you will slowly get there. I soon discovered the poverty  of this narrow-minded focus.

I began to realise that John Calvin was right when he wrote, “Our wisdom consists of almost entirely two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”

In other words, we need to know ourselves that we may know God. Augustine prayed, “Grant Lord that I may know myself that I may know thee.”In the early days of my faith development I was taught that feelings  are unreliable and not to be trusted. They go up and down like a yoyo and therefore they are the last thing we should be attending to.

Daniel Golemen, author of Emotional Intelligence, defines emotions as, “Referring to a feeling and its distinctive thoughts, psychological and biological states, and range of propensities to act.”

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Stories & Feature Articles

Towards a theology of welcome

The city of Birmingham in the UK is perhaps one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Some years ago, in response to the question “Is Birmingham a welcoming city?” the city developed a social inclusion process giving hope to locals.

Places of Welcome describes themselves as “a network of small community organisations, including faith communities, who offer an unconditional welcome to local people for at least a few hours a week.”

The program has a set of guiding principles, known as the 5 Ps:

Place: An accessible and hospitable building, open at the same time every week.

People: Open to everyone regardless of their circumstances or situation, and staffed by volunteers.

Presence: A place where people actively listen to one another.

Provision: Offering free refreshments (at least a cup of tea and a biscuit) and basic local information.

Participation: Recognising that every person coming to a Place of Welcome will bring talents, experiences and skills that they might be willing to share locally.

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News & Announcements

Theological curriculum for the 21st Century

For the last eight years a group at All Saints Floreat and Wembley Downs Uniting Churches have been using the Living the Questions curriculum for their theological education. The material of DVDs and study notes are produced by two American Methodist ministers, of which one (Rev David Felten) spent a year at Perth Theological Hall, Murdoch University. The curriculum is now in use in nearly 5000 churches across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

Our churches will be repeating the study again in 2017. Subject to copyright, studies available from Living the Questions which include the DVDs and study notes are being made available for loan at cost through the WA Progressive Network.

The WA Progressive Network has brought leading progressive theological scholars to Western Australia such as Dr Val Webb, Michael Morewood, Dr Greg Jenks, Prof Brandon Scott, Rev Dr Lorraine Parkinson, David Galston, Robin Meyers and locally Rev Prof Bill Loader and the Very Reverend John Shepherd.

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News & Announcements

Lay ministry as important as ever

With more and more Uniting Church WA congregations finding themselves without an ordained minister minister, lay ministry is continuously recognised as an important part of the life of the church.

In rural areas, lay ministry has become especially vital. In WA there are currently only three ordained Uniting Church ministers in inland rural placements; Northam, Wagin and Merredin.

Rev Alistair Melville, a member of the Rural Ministry Team for the Uniting Church WA, recently supported a group of people to enrol in Certificate IV in Ministry and Theology with the Australian College of Ministry (ACOM). There are currently eight Uniting Church members enrolled in the course, and three recently graduated in July. Students are supported financially by their congregations and, through an arrangement between the Uniting Church WA and ACOM, receive a reduced course fee.

Jenny Pollard from Narrogin Uniting Church recently completed Certificate IV in Ministry and Theology. Designed as a three-year course, Jenny managed to complete it in two. Working as a YouthCARE chaplain at Narrogin Senior High School, she earned credits towards the coursework through her employment experience.

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