Author Archives: CraigT

MtE Update – May 16 2018

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  1. After church THIS WEEK May 20 we’ll build on our last conversation about our worship, with a focus on the prayer of the church, as it is found in Sunday worship.
  2. Following worship on Sunday June 3 we’ll have another of our hymn-learning sessions.
  3. For those interested in some background commentary to the readings for this Sunday May 20, see the links here (we’ll hear the psalm and the gospel for the day, and continue with our focus 1 John, picking up some of his reflections on the Spirit (for Pentecost) : 1 John 4.1-12, on which some comment can be found here.).
Other things potentially of interest

Dear friends

Please find attached a brochure from the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce that you can use to take action advocating against the removal of basic financial supports for up to 12,000 people over the next year.  The issue is rather urgent in that the first cohort of people to be removed from financial supports (possibly up to 3,000) will be in June.  They anticipate 12,000 being removed from these supports over the next year.  Any removal of financial supports will result in destitution and homelessness for many of these people and we are also entering winter which is a particularly difficult time for homelessness.  We are aware that faith based agencies are likely to be the ones who will have to do their best to fill this gap.

The Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce is encouraging people of faith to respond to this issue because this is a breach of human rights to cause people to be destitute who are lawfully going through a refugee protection process.

Further resources on this issue can be found at:

http://www.acrt.com.au/dignity-not-destitution-changes-to-support-services-for-people-seeking-asylum-srss/

Thank you in advance for your action on this issue,

Mark Zirnsak

Senior Social Justice Advocate
equipping Leadership for Mission
29 College Cres Parkville 3052
t  (03) 9340 8807  | f  (03) 9340 8805  | m  +61 (0) 409 166 915
e  Mark.Zirnsak@victas.uca.org.au
w  victas.uca.org.au

 

 

You are warmly invited to a public lecture on the relationship between Western Philosophy and Indian Thought by Professor Françoise Dastur (Emeritus, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis) at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne campus.

Wednesday 30 May, 2018

5.30 – 7.00pm

ACU Melbourne Campus,

115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy

Room 404.G.09 (Mercy Lecture Theatre)

About the lecture

Until recently, the matter of the relation between Western philosophy and Eastern traditions of thought had been largely neglected by European philosophers, especially in France. It is the depth of the ignorance of Indian philosophy in Europe that was highlighted by the French philosopher and journalist, Roger Pol-Droit, in his 1989 book The Oblivion of India: A Philosophical Amnesia.

India has been a place of prodigious development in mathematics, astronomy, philology and philosophy since ancient times. However, it was only at the end of the 18th century that Europe began to discover the importance of Indian literature and philosophy, beginning in Germany where writers and philosophers chose to look in the direction of the Orient. In this talk, Professor Dastur will explore the many points of convergence between Western philosophy and Indian thought, suggesting that these need much further analysis and development.

About the speaker

Professor Françoise Dastur taught philosophy in the University of Paris I from 1969–1995, in the University of Paris XII from 1995–1999, and in the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis from 1999–2003. She taught also as a visiting professor in the universities of Mannheim, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas, Warwick, Essex, De Paul (Chicago), Boston College, and North Western University (Evanston).

Professor Dastur was, as honorary Professor of Philosophy, attached to the Husserl Archives of Paris (ENS Ulm), a research unit affiliated to the French National Center for Research (CNRS) until June 2017.  She was a founding member and the President of the École Française de Daseinsanalyse, of which she is now honorary President. She has published many articles in French, English and German, and is the author of several books in French, five of which have been translated into English.

Inquiries: richard.colledge@acu.edu.au

For further information, and to register to attend: http://irci.acu.edu.au/events/western-philosophy-and-indian-thought/

Campus Map: http://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/campuses/melbourne/map

Old News

Friends of Vellore Victoria invite you to a Recital of Choral and Organ Music in QUEEN’S COLLEGE CHAPEL on Sunday, May 20th 2018 at 3 pm, 1–17 College Crescent, Parkville.

David Agg will perform organ works by Pachelbel, Bach, Vierne & Stanley. The Queen’s Chapel Choir will sing 19th century English choral works. The FOVV will also launch their annual appeal for 2018, followed by afternoon tea in Eakins Hall.

Further information from David Runia 0419 419 766 or Viviane Harangazo 0429 933 780.

 

 

Outreach Ministry

Make it Messy! Training Day Saturday June 2 Parkville 

Make it Messy! will assist those already engaged in Messy Church, churches contemplating beginning a Messy Church and people genuinely curious about the Messy Church phenomenon take the next step in their Messy journey. Join with others from churches across the state for a day of active engagement, stimulating discussions, encouraging stories and helpful electives that will empower your ministry in your local context – whether you are already engaged with Messy Church or not!. Across the day you will have the opportunity to connect with experienced Messy Church leaders and engage with…

Introducing Messy Church                                                                    

Starting a Messy Church                                                                        

Extreme Craft for Messy Church                                                        

Opening the Bible in Messy Church 

Growing discipleship in Messy Church

Exploring what makes Messy Church church                                

Messy Church beyond the monthly gathering                                             

Activities and games for building Messy community                 

More information and registration: e-mail ann.byrne@victas.uca.org.au or Make it Messy 2018 (live from May 1);  for more on the ‘messy church’ idea: http://messychurchaustralia.com.au/

Please let Craig know if you’d be interested in being part of an MtE group attending this workshop

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

May 23 – Winifred Kiek

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These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

 

Winifred Kiek (née Jackson) (1884-1975), Christian pioneer

Winifred Kiek was born on 27 July 1884 in Chorlton upon Medlock in the County of Lancaster to the north of Manchester, the second child of John Robert Jackson, a wholesale tea dealer, and Margaret Jane, née Harker. The family were Quakers. Elders in her local meeting encouraged Winifred in her ministry. In 1907 she graduated from the Victoria University of Manchester with a Bachelor of Arts degree, won the university prize in logic, and worked as a teacher in the mixed department at Manley Park Municipal School. While travelling in the Swiss Alps in 1909 she met Edward Sidney Kiek (1883-1959), a student for the ministry in the Congregational Church, and after his ordination in 1910 they were married and Winifred became a Congregationalist. Winifred started a family and served as a minister’s wife and lay preacher. In 1919 Edward accepted the position of principal of Parkin College, Adelaide, and Winifred studied theology. In 1923 she was the first woman in Australia to graduate with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Melbourne College of Divinity. In 1926 the Colonel Light Gardens Congregational Church asked Winifred to fill the vacant pastorate and on 13 June 1927 she was ordained, the first woman minister in a Christian church in Australia and in a dominion of the British Empire.

Winifred served as minister of Colonel Light Gardens Congregational Church in 1926-33 and Knoxville Congregational Church in 1938-46. She preached regularly in other churches and published sermons in the Christian World Pulpit. She also published a work of religious and parenting advice entitled Child Nature and Child Nurture (1927). Winifred served her denomination with distinction: twice as vice-chairman of the Congregational Union of South Australia in 1944-45 and in 1948-49, and in 1945 as acting chairman. In 1941-46 she was president of the Congregational Women’s Association of Australia and New Zealand, and in 1949 she was a member of the International Congregational Council held at Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA.

Winifred promoted the ordination of women. She was a member of international associations of women ministers. She was also a leading minister and office bearer in many women’s societies including the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the National Council of Women; in 1935-38 she was president of the Women’s Non-Party Association of South Australia. During the 1950s Winifred Kiek served as liaison officer in Australia for the commission on the work of women in the churches of the World Council of Churches and published We of One House (1954). In 1963 the state-based women’s inter-church councils formed Australian Church Women and in 1965 awarded the first Winifred Kiek Scholarship, a training program for young women from Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands in church work and community service. After her husband retired from Parkin College in 1957, Edward and Winifred shared interim pastorates in Queensland and New South Wales; she conducted her final service on 9 March 1975. Winifred Kiek died at ‘Spindrift’, the family holiday home in Victor Harbor, on 30 May 1975, aged 90.

Rev Dr Julia Pitman

 

Posted in LitBits, LitBits - People to Commemorate

MtE Update – May 11 2018

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  1. After church NEXT WEEK May 20 we’ll build on our last conversation about our worship, with a focus on the prayer of the church, as it is found in Sunday worship.
  2. Following worship on Sunday June 3 we’ll have another of our hymn-learning sessions.
  3. The latest VicTas Synod eNews (May 9) is here.
  4. Outreach Ministry

Make it Messy! Training Day Saturday June 2 Parkville 

Make it Messy! will assist those already engaged in Messy Church, churches contemplating beginning a Messy Church and people genuinely curious about the Messy Church phenomenon take the next step in their Messy journey. Join with others from churches across the state for a day of active engagement, stimulating discussions, encouraging stories and helpful electives that will empower your ministry in your local context – whether you are already engaged with Messy Church or not!. Across the day you will have the opportunity to connect with experienced Messy Church leaders and engage with…

Introducing Messy Church                                                                    

Starting a Messy Church                                                                        

Extreme Craft for Messy Church                                                        

Opening the Bible in Messy Church 

Growing discipleship in Messy Church

Exploring what makes Messy Church church                                

Messy Church beyond the monthly gathering                                             

Activities and games for building Messy community                 

More information and registration: e-mail ann.byrne@victas.uca.org.au or Make it Messy 2018 (live from May 1);  for more on the ‘messy church’ idea: http://messychurchaustralia.com.au/

Please let Craig know if you’d be interested in being part of an MtE group attending this workshop

  1. For those interested in some background commentary to the readings for this Sunday May 13, see the links here (we’ll hear the psalm and the gospel, and continue to focus on the section in our slow working through of 1 John : 1 John 2.3-11).
Other things potentially of interest

Friends of Vellore Victoria invite you to a Recital of Choral and Organ Music in QUEEN’S COLLEGE CHAPEL on Sunday, May 20th 2018 at 3 pm, 1–17 College Crescent, Parkville.

David Agg will perform organ works by Pachelbel, Bach, Vierne & Stanley. The Queen’s Chapel Choir will sing 19th century English choral works. The FOVV will also launch their annual appeal for 2018, followed by afternoon tea in Eakins Hall. Further information

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

May 7 – John Flynn

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These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

 

John Flynn, Christian pioneer

 

John Flynn (1880-1951) was a Presbyterian minister, missionary, and founder of the Australian Inland Mission. He was born in Moliagul in Victoria, Australia. In 1902, after four years with the Education Department of Victoria, Flynn joined the home mission staff of the Presbyterian Church, working amongst remote communities.

First, through his successful publication, Bushman’s Companion (1910), and then through the Oodnadatta Nursing Hospital, Flynn began a long career of developing services and ministry to bush dwellers. He was ordained in 1911 when he was assigned for two years to what was known as the Smith of Dunesk Mission based at Beltana, South Australia. In 1912 he reported on the needs of remote Aboriginal and white communities in the Northern Territory, presenting a vision of the church’s mission to the sparsely populated areas of inland Australia.

For the next 39 years, as superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission, Flynn was guided by the motto “For Christ and the Continent” and by putting need before creed. In 1928 he founded the mission’s Aerial Medical Service at Cloncurry, Queensland, later known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service.  This fulfilled his dream of a “mantle of safety” for outback Australians. From 1939 until 1942 Flynn was moderator general of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. His image is on the Australian $20 note and there are many memorials to Flynn around Australia.  At Moliagul there is a memorial with the inscription, “Across the lonely places of the land he planted kindness and gathered love.”  The John Flynn Memorial Church in Alice Springs is his official memorial.

William Emilse

Posted in LitBits, LitBits - People to Commemorate

MtE Update – April 26 2018

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  1. Our MtE Day luncheon is THIS SUNDAY, April 29 after worship!
  2. Our readings for this Sunday are off-RCL; you can check some background on Sunday’s text here: Isaiah 52:7-10,  Psalm 98 and Mark 1:4-11
Other things potentially of interest

“Building democratic participation in a connected, but disillusioned world”

Old News

JD Northey Lecture

Visiting South African Senior Professor Gerald West  will deliver a JD Northey Lecture at Pilgrim Theological College from 7pm on Thursday May 3. He will speak on the topic of “The Bible as a Site of Struggle in South Africa, from Apartheid to after Liberation”.  Find out more here.

Please bring a gold coin donation and RSVP by Monday 30 April. To RSVP E: info@ctm.uca.edu.au.

Prof West will also conduct a two-day workshop at Pilgrim Theological College  on Contextual Bible Study as a Resource for Systemic Social Transformation. The workshop runs from 9.30am to 4pm on May 4 and 5. Find out more here.

Cost is $20. Please register by Monday 30 April 2018. Register by E: info@ctm.uca.edu.au.

See other intensive courses and events coming up at Pilgrim here.

 

 

Posted in MtE News, UCA News and Other Upcoming Events

April 21 – Joo Ki Chul & Son Yang-won

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These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Joo Ki Chul & Son Yang-won, martyrs                                         

In 1905 Japan annexed Korea as a first step as a first step in establishing a Japanese Empire in Asia. As time went by, the Japanese insisted that all Koreans should engage in acts of allegiance to the empire. This included in participating in rites in which they were required to engage in acts of obeisance at the Shinto shrines erected in each centre across the country. Many Korean Christians and most missionaries interpreted these acts of obeisance as worship of the Japanese Sun-god, and therefore as a breach of the First Commandment. They therefore resisted either passively or actively the Japanese demands. Co-incidentally this pressure from the Japanese attracted many Korean nationalists to the Christian Church.

Joo Ki Chul  was born in Changwon in 1897, and grew up and learned the Gospel from the Australian missionaries who worked in the South-eastern province of the country. He became a Christian and was later trained and ordained as a Minister of the Gospel in the Presbyterian Church of Korea. He served in two major churches in the Province, and became an outspoken critic of the Japanese demand that all people do obeisance at the Shinto shrines. He was then called in 1937 to a large church in Pyong Yang, where his outspoken refusal to comply with the Japanese demands came under closer scrutiny. Over the next decade, Joo Ki Chul was imprisoned four times, the last time never to be released. He was tortured and abused, and finally died a martyr to his faith, in 1944. He could have compromised. He chose to follow his Lord, who had also refused to compromise.

Many other Korean Christians suffered imprisonment or death at the hands of the Japanese imperial authorities, or suffered in other ways in order to keep their worshipping communities together.

Five years after liberation from the Japanese in 1945, the North Korean army invaded the South. Many more leading Christians were murdered by the North Korean forces, or their sympathizers in the South, simply because they were Christians.

Of these, perhaps the best known was another Presbyterian Minister, Rev Son Yang-won. He had spent time in the Kwangju prison under the Japanese, inspired by the story of Rev Joo Ki Chul. He also wished for martyrdom but was released from prison at the end of the Japanese War, and became the pastor of the large leprosarium at Soonchun. Before the outbreak of the Korean War there were very active insurgents in the region. A group of them carried out murder and mayhem among the local Christian leaders. Two of those whom they murdered were sons of Pastor Son. Having been denied martyrdom himself, Pastor Son adopted the young man who had played the key role in the murder of his sons, rescued him from the hands of the anti-communist authorities bent on executing him, and raised him as his own son.

by John Brown

Posted in LitBits, LitBits - People to Commemorate

LitBit Commentary – Alexander Schmemann on Worship 1

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LitBits Logo - 2LitBit: …the basic and primordial intuition which not only expresses itself in worship, but of which the entire worship is indeed the phenomenon—both effect and experience—is that the world, be it in its totality as cosmos, or in its life and becoming as time and history, is an epiphany of God, a means of His revelation, presence and power.

Alexander Schmemann

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

Posted in LitBits, LitBits - Commentary
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