1. The latest Synod eNews (May 10) is here.
2. May Social Justice Events Nationwide from the Synod Justice Unit.
3. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday May 19, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   1. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC
   2. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

Our study groups return in 2025, with online read-and-discuss groups meeting each quarter for 4-8 weeks.

FIRST QUARTER

• Our first quarter studies will be our Lenten Studies for 2025. Details and registrations are now open

SECOND QUARTER

• Our second quarter book will be Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith, How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good; details will be finalised and registration become available around Easter

THIRD QUARTER – TBA

FOURTH QUARTER – TBA

You might also be interested in our Quarterly Conversations on the Quarterly Essay

PREVIOUS STUDY GROUPS:

The following is a mostly complete list of study group materials we’ve used over the last decade or so…

2014

Lent: Bruce Barber — four presentations on “Beginning at the beginning, or Why is it like this?

May-July: William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical imagination

November: William Cavanaugh, Being consumed

2015

Lent: Reformation Questions for the contemporary church

2^nd Quarter: Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel [Not the easiest read]

2016

Lent: Called to Holiness in Australia

August: Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer

2017

Lent: Bruce Barber, The Lord’s Prayer

2018

Paula Gooder: on The Joy of the Gospel

August 2015: Northrop Frye, The Great Code

2019

Lent: Rowan Williams The Spirit in the desert – audio of lectures

2020

Lent: Rowan Williams The sign and the sacrifice

April-Dec Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (Christine Hayes, Yale)

2021

Lent: Three studies on Mark’s Gospel (at St Mary’s)

Oct-?Feb 2022: Introduction to the New Testament (Dale Martin, Yale)

2022

Lent: Called to Community (video resource)

May-June 2022: Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as resistance

July-Aug: Miroslav Volf, Free of charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace.

Oct-Nov: Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life. 

2023

Lent: Rowan Williams, Meeting God in Paul

July-Aug: David Ford, The shape of living

Oct-Nov:  Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand, When church stops working: a future for your congregation beyond more money, programs and innovation.

2024

Lent: Samuel Wells, A cross in the heart of God

Aug-Sept:  Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies

Oct-Nov: Angles on world Christianity

2025

Lent: Rowan Williams, Christ on trial

May-June: Miroslav Volf A public faith

Other occasional studies have included

 Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom: How the church is to behave if freedom, justice and a Christian nation are bad ideas.

1. This Sunday our congregational AGM follows morning tea, including the reception of annual reports, financial statements and the election of elders. Please plan to stay for the meeting if you can!
2. This Sunday May 12, we return a monthly treatment of the Ten Commandment from Bruce Barber; for more information, here. This week, ‘honour your father and mother’!
3. The Hotham Mission web site has had a complete makeover. It’s still a work in progress, but have a look here…
4. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday April 28 17, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   1. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
   2. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC
   3. June 22 (Saturday) Hotham Mission Bunnings BBQ – volunteers sought! 

1. On Sunday May 5 there will be a conversation following morning tea on the theme of ‘Music and the Liturgy’ — beginning to explore the place and role of music in our worship.

2. Some works have commenced in the church, including upgrading of the fluorescent lighting and repair of exit signs, installing some hanging points to the walls for seasonally coloured ‘drops’, cleaning, and adjustment of speaker locations. The moveable scaffolding stand for this work will still be in place on Sunday, occupying the children’s table and play-pen area. please take care around it.

3. On Sunday May 12, we’ll return a monthly treatment of the Ten Commandment from Bruce Barber; for more information, here.
4. News from the Social Justice Unit of the Synod.
5. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday April 28 17, see the commentary links here. 

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   
   1. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
   2. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC

1. Mark the Evangelist Day Lunch: THIS Sunday 28 April 2019 – After Worship : On Sunday morning, 28 April, we will be celebrating Mark the Evangelist Day with a lunch after worship.  All are welcome – the more the merrier.  The lunch is always a great occasion for sharing our life together over good food. As usual, we will cater for this event ourselves, with people contributing food. SO, if you have not already please give your names to Rod or Ann if you can come. AND equally important – please talk with Ann, Peggy, or Barbara and let them know what you can contribute for the lunch.
2. Keep in mind that we’ve elections of elders coming up, with nominations due this Sunday
3. The latest Presbytery eNews (April 23) is here.
4. On Sunday May 5 there will be a conversation following morning tea on the theme of ‘Music and the Liturgy’ — beginning to explore the place and role of music in our worship.
5. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday April 28 17, see the commentary links here. 

Other things potentially of interest 

1. Queen’s College ANZAC Commemoration Chapel

The Master, Dr Stewart Gill OAM, warmly invites you to attend the Queen’s College Anzac Commemoration Chapel Service, with Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC, Fellow of Queen’s College
“Anzac: The Guns Are Not Yet Silent”

DATE: Sunday 28 April 2019
TIME: 6:30pm
VENUE: Queen’s College Chapel

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   1. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
   2. May: Worship and Music – an after-worship conversation
   3. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
   4. Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project POSTPONED to a date TBC

1. Holy Week and Easter Services
   • Maundy Thursday: Thursday April 18, 7.30pm
   • Good Friday: Friday April 19, 10.00am
   • Easter Vigil: Saturday April 20, 8.00pm
   • Easter Day: Sunday April 21, 10.00am
2. Biber’s Rosary Sonatas in Holy Week As part of the orders of service for Holy Week, Tim, Stuart and Donald have put together three sonatas from the wonderful collection known as the Mystery Sonatas, by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704). Based on the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary, these works are notable examples of the mid-seventeenth-century German style of sonatas for violin solo and basso continuo (harpsichord/organ and cello). They are perhaps best known for their imaginative use of scordatura, a technique in which the violin is tuned in ways other than the conventional method. This changes the sound of the violin completely, giving it new sonorities and expressive means. As far as the listening experience is concerned, the approach to these pieces has been guided by the seventeenth-century concepts of personal contemplation. These sonatas are written according to ideas expressed in such works as St Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. In other words, they are performed to assist in reflection and meditation. This eschews the idea of a programmatic narrative which serves only a singular goal, namely, to tell the listener what to hear and what to feel about it. As a way of illustrating this: the first four violin notes of the “Crucifixion” constitute a musical emblem of the cross. This is musical device which suggests what the subject of contemplation is to be, but it does not represent an ongoing description of the moment as it is described in the Gospels. For the music to draw attention to itself in this way, would destroy the very concept of personal reflection.
3. Mark the Evangelist Day Lunch: Sunday 28 April 2019 – After Worship : On Sunday morning, 28 April, we will be celebrating Mark the Evangelist Day with a lunch after worship.  All are welcome – the more the merrier.  The lunch is always a great occasion for sharing our life together over good food. As usual, we will cater for this event ourselves, with people contributing food. SO, please give your names to Rod or Ann if you can come.  AND equally important – please talk with Ann, Peggy, or Barbara and let them know what you can contribute for the lunch. 
4. Justice and International Mission (JIM) Unit April Update
5. JIM Unit (above!) on the forthcoming election…
6. VicTas Synod eNews for April
7. Our final Ecclesiastes readings for the present series of reflections are
   • Ecclesiastes 3.1-14 for Good Friday: ‘Catching the wind – the vanity of the crucifixion’
   • Ecclesiastes 8.6-8 for Easter Day: ‘The wind blows where it wills : the vanity of the Christ’

Other things potentially of interest 

1. Queen’s College ANZAC Commemoration Chapel

Old News

The Master, Dr Stewart Gill OAM, warmly invites you to attend the Queen’s College Anzac Commemoration Chapel Service, with Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC, Fellow of Queen’s College
“Anzac: The Guns Are Not Yet Silent”
DATE: Sunday 28 April 2019
TIME: 6:30pm
VENUE: Queen’s College Chapel

1. Advance Dates
   1. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
   2. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
   3. May 19 — Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project
2.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion
3. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are here.

1. Worship this Sunday will incorporate an extended reading of the passion narrative of St Luke, with hymns, prayers and psalms. You might like to read this before hearing it in church — Luke 22.1-23.47.
2. Mark the Evangelist Day Lunch: Sunday 28 April 2019 – After Worship : On Sunday morning, 28 April, we will be celebrating Mark the Evangelist Day with a lunch after worship.  All are welcome – the more the merrier.  The lunch is always a great occasion for sharing our life together over good food. As usual, we will cater for this event ourselves, with people contributing food. SO, please give your names to Rod or Ann if you can come.  AND equally important – please talk with Ann, Peggy, or Barbara and let them know what you can contribute for the lunch. 
3. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are here.
4. News from the Justice and International mission

Other things potentially of interest 

Queen’s College ANZAC Commemoration Chapel

The Master, Dr Stewart Gill OAM, warmly invites you to attend the Queen’s College Anzac Commemoration Chapel Service,
with Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC, Fellow of Queen’s College
“Anzac: The Guns Are Not Yet Silent”

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   1. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
   2. May 12 — Congregational AGM 
   3. May 19 — Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project
2.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion

1. Following worship THIS Sunday April 7 there will be a congregational conversation about the re-drafted ‘Vision and Mission’ statement of Hotham Mission, which is being re-visited in preparation for the development of the next year plan for the Mission. The draft will be available for you to consider before the Sunday of the meeting.
2. This Sunday April 7 there is a fun-run near the church which will affect access on some roads; see here for details. It’s also the end of daylight saving, so you’ll have more time to find your way!
3. For those interested in the recent change of name for UCA Funds Management, a letter from the Synod…
4. Uniting Church accepted into National Redress Scheme [From the VicTas UCA Moderator]:
   Dear friends, I am delighted to be able to advise that the Uniting Church in Australia has been officially recognised as an active participant in the National Redress Scheme for people who experienced institutional child sexual abuse. The Federal Minister for Families and Social Services, the Hon Paul Fletcher MP, notified the UCA on Friday that the Church has met the requirements to begin participation. As you are aware, we have been committed to becoming active members of the Scheme since it was announced last year so this is truly welcome news. I would like to endorse the comments made by National President of the Assembly Dr Deidre Palmer after we were notified of our successful application. “First and most importantly I want to acknowledge those who have been waiting for this decision, which follows months of work and cooperation with Uniting Church bodies across the country, the Department of Social Services and other State and Federal government agencies” Dr Palmer said. “I would also like repeat once more the sincere apology I and past Uniting Church Presidents have made to people who were abused in our care as children. I am truly sorry that we didn’t protect and care for you in accordance with our Christian values.” You can find out more about the Scheme and how to access it at the UCA Redress website http://ucaredress.org.au/ or the federal government’s official site www.nationalredress.gov.au. You can also use the freecall line 1800 737 377.  Grace and peace, Sharon Hollis, Moderator
5. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday April 7, see the commentary links here (with particular reference to the psalm and the gospel reading; our Ecclesiastes text for this Sunday will be Eccles 5.1-20).

Old News

1. Advance Dates
   1. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
   2. May 12 — Congregational AGM and ‘music’ discussion
   3. May 19 — Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project
2.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion
3. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are here.

1. Following worship this Sunday (31st) there will be another of our hymn-learning sessions, from around 11.30 and finishing before 12 noon.
2. Following worship on Sunday April 7 there will be a congregational conversation about the re-drafted ‘Vision and Mission’ statement of Hotham Mission, which is being re-visited in preparation for the development of the next year plan for the Mission. The draft will be available for you to consider before the Sunday of the meeting.
3. If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday March 31, see the commentary links here (with particular reference to the psalm and the gospel reading; our Ecclesiastes text for this Sunday will be Eccles 2.1-11). 
4. Advance Dates
   1. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
   2. May 12 — Congregational AGM and ‘music’ discussion
   3. May 19 — Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project

Old News

1. Our Lenten Studies continue, Wednesday (March 13,20,27 and April 3). The Wednesday group meets at 630pm for a light meal, with the study commencing at 700pm. We are meeting this year at St Mary’s Anglican Church (in the hall). There will also be a FRIDAY morning series at Hawthorn beginning this Friday, 930am (March 15, 22, 29 and April 5). An intro to the series and more details of location, etc. can be found here; hard copies will available at the study group.
2. Hotham Mission is setting up a stall at the Kensington Community Festival Sunday, 31^st March 2019, at Kensington’s J J Holland Park, the stall operating from about 10am – 4pm, with Art and craft activities from the booth and taking the opportunity to promote the work of Hotham Mission. Hotham Mission has also donated some educational books to be provided as prizes. If anyone from the congregation would like to attend, to say hello or to help out during the day that would be great! The Hotham Mission community development coordinator (Joey) can be contacted on 0499 331 554 or at programs@hothammission.org.au to discuss.  
3.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion
4. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are now available here.

The latest Synod eNews is here.

The latest Presbytery eNews is here.

Hotham Mission is setting up a stall at the Kensington Community Festival Sunday, 31^st March 2019, at Kensington’s J J Holland Park, the stall operating from about 10am – 4pm, with Art and craft activities from the booth and taking the opportunity to promote the work of Hotham Mission. Hotham Mission has also donated some educational books to be provided as prizes. If anyone from the congregation would like to attend, to say hello or to help out during the day that would be great! The Hotham Mission community development coordinator (Joey) can be contacted on 0499 331 554 or at programs@hothammission.org.au to discuss.  

If you would like to do some background reading on the texts for this Sunday March 24, see the commentary links here (with particular reference to the psalm and the gospel reading; our Ecclesiastes text for this Sunday will be Eccles 11.7-12.7). 

Advance Dates

1. March 31 — Hymn learning after worship
2. April 7 — Hotham Mission Vision and Mission statements
3. April 28 — MtE Day Luncheon after worship
4. May 19 — Speaker from Lentara on the Asylum Seekers Project

Other things potentially of interest 

Old News

1. Our Lenten Studies continue, Wednesday (March 13,20,27 and April 3). The Wednesday group meets at 630pm for a light meal, with the study commencing at 700pm. We are meeting this year at St Mary’s Anglican Church (in the hall). There will also be a FRIDAY morning series at Hawthorn beginning this Friday, 930am (March 15, 22, 29 and April 5). An intro to the series and more details of location, etc. can be found here; hard copies will available at the study group.
2.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion
3. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are now available here.
4. If you’re still not ‘across’ the communion setting (music) we’re using for Lent, the melody line is available here (an error in the music now being corrected) and you can listen to the music here (this should download to your machine and then you can click the file to play it. The first few notes are intro to each section).
5. For most of the Sundays and special services in Lent, we will be working through parts of the book of Ecclesiastes, using ‘the Teacher’s’ understanding of ‘life under the sun’ as a way of interpreting Jesus’ path to the cross. More information about this can be found here, but in the mean time you might find it helpful to take the time to read Ecclesiastes once or twice before we begin together with it.

Old News

1. Details of our Lenten and Easter services are now available here.
2. For most of the Sundays and special services in Lent, we will be working through parts of the book of Ecclesiastes, using ‘the Teacher’s’ understanding of ‘life under the sun’ as a way of interpreting Jesus’ path to the cross. More information about this can be found here, but in the mean time you might find it helpful to take the time to read Ecclesiastes once or twice before we begin together with it.
3.  A Good Friday performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion