October 2015 Crosslight now available online
The October 2015 issue of Crosslight is now available online. Click here to access it.
Author Archives: CraigT
Mark the Evangelist Update – October 1 2015
Friends,
the latest MtE news update:
- There will be no congregational lunch following worship this Sunday; the next congregational lunch will be the All Saints luncheon on November 1.
- Following worship (morning tea) next Sunday October 11 there will be a short workshop considering the new preamble to UC Hotham Mission’s Strategic Plan, which is being reviewed after three years. We encourage you, if you are able, to stay for a half hour or so to reflect on UCHM’s work and its link to the life of the congregation.
- A number of you have expressed appreciation for the “LitBits” we’ve been including in Sunday pew sheets, illuminating some aspect of the worship service. Imagining that others might find them helpful as well, we’ve launched a page on our web site making them available to whomever might be interested, and will be advertising their availability through the church.
- The VicTas Synod has recently launched its Keeping Children Safe Policy, available here; the church council continues to work through the new requirements of congregations with respect to this.
- For the Synod’s recent decision about what to do with its 130 Lt Collins Street office block, see the Moderator’s letter and the information sheet.
- Some of you might be interested in a web page I stumbled across while looking for something else — some old newspaper “clippings” on the construction of Union Memorial Church, and the windows in particular.
- Brunswick Uniting Church invites you to to hear of life in Palestine from Dr Bishara Awad, the founder and president of Bethlehem Bible College Monday, October 5th at 7:30pm – 9:00pm – an informal supper will conclude the evening.
– Bishara Awad was born in Jerusalem in 1939. During the height of the Arab/Israeli conflict, Bishara’s father fell victim to a stray bullet, and Bishara became a refugee along with his mother, three brothers and three sisters. Following his high school education in Jerusalem he attended the Dakota Wesleyan University in the USA. After marrying Salwa from Gaza in 1970 and the birth of their first son, Sami, in 1972, Bishara returned to Palestine to work in the Hope School in Beit Jala. He served as principal for ten years. In 1979, Bishara felt led to start Bethlehem Bible College and with the support of other Christian leaders and a $20 donation, began this ministry during evening hours at Hope School. From 1979 until 2012, Bishara has served as president of Bethlehem Bible College. Today, Bethlehem Bible College is a fully accredited institution that enjoys its own campus and serves 130+ young men and women each year. Extension satellites operate in the Galilee region and in Gaza. Graduates of Bethlehem Bible College are serving their communities as pastors, Christian educators, counsellors, and tour guides.
Bethlehem Bible College: http://www.bethbc.org/
Bethlehem Hope: http://bethlehemhope.net/
AND don’t forget that Daylight Savings begins this Sunday morning!
Craig
UCA President’s Syrian Refugee Appeal
The UCA National, Stuart McMillan, has launched an appeal for Syrian Refugees; the letter is here.
Lin Hatfield Dodds, the National Director of UnitingCare Australia, has circulated the following information in response to the offers of assistance for the refugees to be taken up by Australia:
- There will be no “allocation” of people. The new intake of Syrian refugees will come to Australia to be permanently settled. As such, they will settle where they choose.
- Until we are able to find the persecuted groups that the Australian Government has prioritised, assess them, stablise them, and work with them, we do not know where they will wish to settle.
- We do know that refugees more often than not choose to start off life in a new country near people they know, or at least, people from their own country and culture.
- We know that around 70% of the Syrian refugees resettled in Australia to date live in Sydney.
- The new intake of refugees will not be going into people’s homes. It would be really good to get this message out. They will be coming under the Settlement scheme and are thus entitled to housing and supports as they settle. As importantly, these are people who are coming to Australia directly out of the crisis situation. They will be severely traumatised. Our UnitingCare agencies will play a key role in this mobilisation of professional services.
- What we will need from UCA members is people to welcome our incoming traumatised, resilient and hopeful friends into their lives as friends and into their communities. This must be a long run and genuine welcoming to really integrate people into Australian life.
- In addition to this group of 12,000 in the spotlight, there are around 20,000 asylum seekers in Melbourne and 10,000 in Sydney (and I presume large numbers elsewhere) who have no status. This means that they are not allowed to work. They are not eligible for housing assistance, or unemployment benefits. They cannot access Medicare. They live supported by amazing Australians from churches and other movements. It is this population that we might consider welcoming into our homes and donating goods and money to. We are looking to hold a roundtable with the Catholic church to explore leveraging the current outpouring of practical love in ways that will improve the lives of those many invisible people who struggle to live in Australia having fled crisis in their own countries of origin.
- Finally, timing. We may receive some Syrian permanent settling refugees before Christmas. That’s the hope and plan. Or we may not. These processes take time. The Government has established a national taskforce (that I sit on) which itself has established a suite of expert working groups who are getting on with the very focussed job of preparation. I will communicate every step of the way with you.
Thank you for your love in action for sisters and brothers from across the world who are fleeing the unimaginable.
Grace and peace
Lin
Launch of LitBits!
“LitBits” are a new liturgical educational aid for congregations. We have started to develop and use them at Mark the Evangelist, and imagine than others might find them helpful as well! LitBits are text snippets intended to be inserted into a pew sheet in the midst of the liturgy itself or as part of your pew sheet’s “notices” section. For more information, see here.
LitBit Commentary – James Torrance on Worship 2
“Jesus Christ is the true leader of our worship, and if we take our eyes off him we fall back on ourselves, with a false confidence in the flesh, in what we do, in a religion which can never take away sins or lead us into true communion with God.”
James Torrance, Worship, Community and the triune God of Grace, p.107
LitBit Commentary – Rowan Williams on Confession
“Belief in Christ involves (if our discussion has been on the right lines thus far) a vision of the entire human world as a network of oppression and privation, in which no one is wholly free from the responsibility of making victims: so that penitent awareness is indispensably part of reconstructed humanity.”
Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.55
LitBit Commentary – James Torrance on Prayer
We can only pray ‘in the name of Christ’ because Christ has already, in our name, offered up our desires to God and continues to offer them. In our name, he lived a life agreeable to the will of God, in our name vicariously confessed our sins and submitted to the verdict of guilty for us, and in our name gave thanks to God. We pray ‘in the name of Christ’, because of what Christ has done and is doing today in our name, on our behalf.
James Torrance, Worship, Community and the triune God of Grace, p. 35
LitBit Commentary – Timothy Radcliffe on the Eucharist 1
The Eucharist is a mystery not because it is mysterious, but because it is a sign of God’s secret purpose, which is to unite all things in Christ. In the Eucharist we celebrate that the mess of human history, with its violence and sin, its wars and genocides, is somehow, in ways that we cannot now understand, on its way to the kingdom. It is God’s will that we be gathered into unity, reconciled with each other. And so we begin the Eucharist asking the forgiveness of our brothers and sisters, the angels and the saints, the whole vast community of the kingdom. It is a sign that we are willing to be gathered into God’s peace with the rest of creation.
Timothy Radcliffe, Why Go to Church? p.19
Mark the Evangelist Update – September 12 2015
Friends,
the latest MtE news update:
- On Sunday September 20 there will be a congregation discussion following worship (this replaces the previously planned Sunday Conversation). This will be an introduction of the Mark the Evangelist Futures Project (MTEFP), which is the process we will be going through to make a decision regarding our utilisation of the various capital resources we have for mission (including questions of the renovation of Union Memorial Church). The MTEFP is a major exercise which will engage us for the next 6-8 months. Further details about the September 20 meeting have been posted directly to congregational members. We expect to begin after a brief morning tea, and for the introduction and discussion to run between 1.5 and 2 hours (and so to include a light bring-to-share lunch).
- The most recent Synod e-Newsletter is here.
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COMMUNITY ACTION FOR PEACE – MONDAY 14th SEPTEMBER 5.30 – 7.30 P.M.Dr John Langmore will be presenting the next in the Church of all Nation’s series of Spring Conversations: Both Sides of War. His topic will be: Community Action for Peace. All are welcome at the CAN Church Space (180 Palmerston Street Carlton) for conversation and a light dinner on Monday 14 September between 5:30 and 7:30 pm.
- The VicTas Synod of the UCA has recently launched its Safe Church Policy; see here for more information.
- The Assembly of the UCA has called for immediate sanctuary in Australia of refugees from Syria and Iraq; see the press release here.
Craig