Don's Blog

Hi All,

This is has been an amazing week with the number of activities happening in and around the church. Most significant has been the Labyrinth, which was set up early on Wednesday and continues today. It has been incredible to watch people coming into the church, sitting for while and then taking part in the prayer walk. The whole set up looks stunning, with the pews pushed back, the labyrinth laid out and candles burning around the walls and on the floor. Here are some pictures. If you would like to see a picture, please go to the website. http://www.perthunitingchurch.com.au/viewStory/Wesley

Scroll down the page and you will see two pictures of the event.

On Wednesday at Perth Prayer another moving story was shared.

Firstly by the father of the two children, who were seriously injured, when they were run over by a car. This event happened exactly one year ago and he came to thank Perth Prayer for their support at the time and for their continued support. You may remember me sharing that the driver of the car was a friend of mine and we prayed for her also. It was very moving and reminded me again of how continued prayer is so important.

Secondly Beth Beth Roberton, shared her journey of faith with us. Beth is the Dean of Studies Dayspring Centre for Christian Spirituality and with Rev Isobelle Shortreed, from the Council of Churches initiated the Labyrinth project. Beth story was also very moving as she described a devastating incident that happened in her family but through prayer and meditation she was able to move forward with a deepened sense of God’s presence. By the time Perth Prayer was over I was reeling a bit from the experience of it all. Great stuff though!

Today I am mindful that a number of us will be gathering to attend the funeral service of Joyce Roberts. We will continue to remember Joyce and her family at this time. In the very near future it is intended to remember Joyce during one of our Sunday morning servcies. I will let you know when that is to happen.

Another interesting, yet sad thing happened this week.

Kay and I received, in the post, an invitation to attend the birthday party of one of the members of the Subiaco Congregation who was about to  turn 100 years of age on 16 June. Kay and I were looking forward to attending, as Bonnie was a great supporter of the Warehouse Café. When I was there Bonnie would turn up every Thursday and spend 4 hours washing the dishes for us. It was a great help. Bonnie also used to make special cards, which we sold for $2.50 and we were always running out, as people loved buying them. However, as I was meeting with Rev John Barendrecht, who took over the café from me, we received a phone call to say that Bonnie had died quietly in her sleep early that morning.  A sad moment, but Bonnie was a no fuss person and was not really looking forward to turning 100 years of age. Nevertheless all those who knew her will miss her.

Sorry for another bit of sad news but we have finally managed to have the body of Michael Daly released so that we can conduct his funeral. You may remember me talking about this in previous blogs. His funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Wednesday 6^th June, at Karrakatta. If you would like to join me, I would be very grateful. I am not expecting many people to be there as Michael was a bit of a loner and as far as we know has no family. I would like us to be his family at this time.

The Crossroaders service was just amazing last week. I was nearly reduced to tears right at the beginning as our very own Peter Moir sang the first verse of Amazing Grace. Just stunning. The rest of the service was amazing too as the Crossroaders lead us in worship. I am so grateful to Christine, Donald, the Crossroads staff and all the Crossroaders who gave us such a wonderful service. It was also made special by the comments from Lillian Hadley, the Chair of Crossroads Board, who really inspired us with the prayer and the ‘cracked pot’ story. All in all, a great service.

Kay has been away this week in Alice Springs, meeting with all the General Secretaries from the other Synods and two from New Zealand. It has been a good time for her, and I am looking forward to her return. Tonight we will be attending the Uniting Care West winter appeal launch at Penrhos College. Should be good.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Sunday 3^rd June 20112

8.30am Discussion Group in the Guild Room

10.00am Worship – Trinity Sunday – Holy Communion

Don's Blog

Hi All,

Today, (Thursday 24th May) as I write, I am mindful that on this day we remember the conversion of John Wesley, when he uttered the famous words, “my heart was strangely warmed”. From time to time I remember his experience and realise that the church we worship and meet in would not be here had it not been for that experience of John Wesley and the people who follow his vision. We give thanks to God.

Tonight at Wesley we celebrate the work of John Wesley through special prayers, re-enacting some of his life and by singing some of his brothers special hymns.  People from various to denominations are coming to Wesley to help us celebrate. It begins at 7.00 pm so I hope you might take the opportunity to come and see.

This event of course has been part of ‘Converge 2012’ and it has been wonderful to see the various activities and events happening in and outside of the church. If you would like to see a photograph of me with some of the knitters please go to our website; http://www.perthunitingchurch.com.au/viewStory/Wesley.

Convergent began yesterday and at lunchtime we had a special speaker Mr Graham Power at our Perth Prayer lunchtime gathering. Graham is a South African businessman who began a movement, which has now spread to many countries. He became aware of the need to gather together Christians from many denominations to pray for his nation. Over a period of years this has now developed into many people from many nations praying for their particular countries. His message was inspiring.

This morning I attended our monthly ‘Ministers from the City’ breakfast and our special agenda item was to discuss together some of the things we wanted to discuss with our Mayor, Lisa Scafidi, who will be attending our next months meeting. It will be good to have a conversation with her about our churches and our relationship with the City of Perth.

After this meeting I attended a group gathering, held in our UCIC Centre, of Minister groups from the wider metropolitan area. It was good to hear the stories of what others are doing and how they are working together ecumenically. Following this meeting, I and three Anglican priests, spent an hour singing the psalms in plainsong. It was a fascinating experience and I loved it, especially singing with others and singing the Psalms. Again this was part of the ‘Converge 2012’ event.

Last Sunday evening 25 Armenian people gathered together to hold their first worship service in our church. A guest minister came from the Armenian Uniting church in Sydney and our own Rev Emmanuel Audishio, who speaks fluent Armenian, joined him. It was a good occasion and the beginnings of we hope will be many services for them.

I have already shared with you that Joyce Roberts died this week and I was very glad that the Rev Geoff Blyth was able to be there with her and the family in their time of need. At the time of writing I am still waiting to hear about her funeral.

I have also been in contact with Uniting Church Homes and between us we are organising the funeral of Michael Daly. Once I have this confirmation I will also share that with you to.

I look forward to seeing you either at the special John Wesley Celebration tonight or our Crossroaders Service this Sunday.

Thanks for reading.

From your minister,

Don

Don's Blog

Hi All,

Thanks to all those who helped last Sunday as we celebrated Mother’s Day. Special thanks to Mal, and the children, as they presented the wonderful flowers for our mother’s. I did receive some great comments about the Mother’s Day video clip. Thank you.

For those of you who were not there last Sunday it was an emotional farewell for John Beaverstock, who has been our organist for nearly 14 years. Thank you to those who helped me with the presentation, especially the Murdoch’s and Alison McCubbin. If you were wondering what gifts we gave John, I had heard that he liked reading history books so I was able to obtain a book about Perth and Fremantle, a book on Winston Churchill, a book on Leningrad, and a book about the Antarctic explorer Mawson, plus one more book the name of which I have forgotten the moment. My hope is that he will enjoy reading them.

I began my week preparing for a funeral, the mother of a past Wesley College student, I conducted Graeme and Stephanie marriage 23 years ago and baptised his two sons at Wesley College. I distinctly remember their wedding, as it was the one and only occasion in my ministry life that I had a couple sign the wrong marriage certificate. I spent a distressing evening trying to find them to rectify the situation. We still laugh about it, some 23 years later. Graeme’s mother was quite elderly and lived a good life so the funeral was a special celebration. One of the fascinating incidences that happened after the funeral was four couples independently came up to me and reminded me that I had conducted their weddings all of them over 20 years ago. A little bit scary to think that I did that so long ago, but I was joyful to see them and their happiness together now. I was mildly pleased that I might have got them right!

I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had prepared a video clip on making ministry happened. You can see the video if you go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ZiDEcihh0

This Sunday I will be showing that video clip during our worship service. The following Sunday we celebrate Pentecost Sunday with our Crossroaders. I am looking forward to hearing and seeing them all again as they worship with us. During the service I will interview Lillian Hadley, a long serving member of the Uniting Church in many roles. However she is currently chairperson of the Board of Crossroads and so I will be talking to her about this role.

This coming week on Wednesday we begin “Converge”. A multidenominational activity running from 6.00am in the morning through to midnight. The event is twofold in that we will see people outside the church knitting. They are going to ‘knit bomb’ the church. Come and see if you want to understand more. Inside the church will be various church groups organising prayer meetings in varied styles. Everything from quiet meditative prayer right through to the livelier prayer from our African friends.

A special night for us is the celebration of the conversion of John Wesley on Thursday evening at seven o’clock (24^th May). During this service they will be a dramatized reading and prayers remembering the life and work of John Wesley.

Just a reminder for those who would like to hear more of the music of the Wesley family, St George’s Cathedral is conducting a special evensong this Sunday, 20 May at 5 PM. At that service there will be a guest preacher, who I am told has a breadth of knowledge about the Wesley’s. Past students from Methodist Ladies College and Wesley College will also join us.

The following week Wednesday 30^th and Thursday 31^st Wesley will host a labyrinth in the church. We are moving the pews to the side of the church and placing a 7.5 metre square labyrinth in the middle of the church. A labyrinth is a prayer walk and I invite you to come and experience it while we have it in the church.

This coming Saturday I am involved in a training event at the Church Centre in east Perth. I will be teaching people the how to make a small video clip that can be used in worship or for webpages. It is hoped that by the end of the day we will have three video clips that can be placed on the Synod website on the topic: ‘What the uniting Church means to me’. The group of 10 includes people from Bridgetown and my colleague Chris Crause

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

Thanks for reading.

From your minister,

Don

Sunday 20th May

8.30am Discussion Group in the Guild Room

10.00am Worship – The Seventh Sunday of Easter. Reflecting on “Unity”

Sunday 27th May

8.30am Discussion Group in the Guild Room

10.00am Worship – Our Annual Crossroads service.

Don's Blog

Hi All,

What an enjoyable week. Some preparation, some meetings, some planning, some organizing upcoming events. Let me share with you some happenings.

You may remember that last year UCIC took over the Warehouse Cafe and entered into an agreement with Crossroads for them to operate the cafe again.  The statement that we prepared said; “UnitingCare Crossroads in partnership with the Uniting Church in the City have proposed a new initiative to give clients the opportunity to learn new living skills, give primary carers respite and at the same time help with the integrating of Crossroaders into the community at large.  This project will be based at the Warehouse Café.”

The good news is that since that time, the Health Department and Lotteries West contributed a grant so that Crossroads could refurbish the cafe and run the training programmes.  During the week I visited the cafe to see the progress and am happy to report that the refurbishment is well under way.  It is hoped that in about 9-10 weeks we will be opening again and the programs for people with a disability will commence. So watch this space. 

On Monday evening we held our second full UCIC Church Council. We are slowly but surely getting to the point of understanding the complexity of UCIC and all the things that need to be done. We have now set a date in July for a Congregational meeting and this will take form of a shared meal. We will also commission our new members of Church Council and present the budget with voting to take place a week later in the various worshiping communities. Can I invite you to watch this space too?

Tuesday evening saw Kay and I at the University of WA Prize giving ceremony held in Winthrop Hall. A great event, particularly as we are able to acknowledge our Wesley Scholars, who offer us their beautiful music in worship at Wesley.

This Sunday we celebrate Mothers Day and although I have some angst regarding the commercial aspects of this day, I still want to acknowledge our mothers and the part they play in our lives. This week I have prepared a video clip to show as part of my tribute to this day. I hope you will enjoy seeing it.

Which reminds me to say that Mal Mohan, who shares with our children, is inviting them to help create a special little gift for all our mothers. Of course we need children to help, so my plea again is to invite your children, your grandchildren, your neighbours children to assist. The more the merrier.

This Sunday is also the last Sunday for John Beaverstock. John has been playing the organ at Wesley for nearly 14 years. He has contributed so much and we have much to thank him for. During worship we will have the opportunity to thank John and make a presentation and after worship we will share a special cake to acknowledge the occasion as well.

This morning I met with Sally Morgan (Station No 15 – The Resurrection) and Catherine Czerw (our Curator for Stations). We began a discussion regarding organizing a special art exhibition on the Theme of the Child. We are hoping that this may be part of our Advent celebration and it may become an annual event. So I will also keep you informed.

Converge is now only a couple of weeks away. If you would like to see a full program of events you can go to http://www.gtp.com.au/ucic/inewsfiles/6ppDL_Flyer_PRINT.pdf

Of particular note for those of us who would like to celebrate our heritage is the ‘A Stitch in Time’ event, which is on the Thursday evening beginning at 7pm. This day is the anniversary of John Wesley’s conversion when he uttered the famous words, “My heart was strangely warmed’  On this night we will be taking a step back in time in the form of a dramatized prayer meeting of revival
 prayer and hymns, with the ‘Wesley’s’. It promises to be a good night, with yours truly taking part.

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

Thanks for reading.

From your minister,

Don

Sunday 13th May

8.30am Discussion Group in the Guild Room

10.00am Worship – The Sixth Sunday of Easter. Reflecting on “Love”