Don Dowling's Blog

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.