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Christmas is coming – organise your cards now from the Leprosy Mission, Uniting and Uniting World

Not wanting to emulate the shops, however given the slower delivery rates of letters through Australia Post these days, those of you who still like to send Christmas cards may be interested in the charity cards we have available.

A thankyou from our visiting speakers last year

Leprosy Mission

Val Grills, our Leprosy Mission “champion”, is ordering cards through the mission to sell to our regular church supporters this year.  If you would like to place an order through the church, please send an email to the office and we will let you know what is available once Val’s order has arrived.  You can also support the Leprosy Mission through their online shop here:

Christmas Gifts

They have some beautiful and useful items available which would make great gifts for the people you’re missing.   Our friends at the Leprosy Mission have called to let us know that they are praying for us and to offer their support – some of you may remember the visit of Tim and Amar last year to share the good news of the work they are doing to help people with Leprosy overcome discrimination and have a good quality of life.

Uniting

Uniting Christmas cards are available in packs of 10 for $10 from the office on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Cards can be dropped off to you in the 3216 postcode.

Uniting World

Uniting World is working with our church partners in other countries to try to limit the impacts of COVID-19 as well as other work of poverty mitigation and peace building.  You can support their work through purchasing gift cards which represent things like health care or school packs, or goats and chickens!

If you’d like to place an order, you can check the online “Everything in Common” gift catalogue here:

https://everythingincommon.com.au/

and email the office to place your order and organise payment – or simply shop online!  We do have gift cards left over from last year here at the church.

 

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Worship Online Sunday 11th October 2020 – God and the Pandemic: Learning from Jesus

The altar at St Luke’s, where today’s service was recorded.

Greetings Friends,

In this video we are again delving into some of the themes of Tom Wright’s book, “God and the Pandemic: A Christian reflection on the coronavirus and its aftermath.”

And the theme for this video gets right to the heart of things from a Christian perspective … the place of the man from Nazareth …Jesus … and in particular what we learn through him about God and suffering, God and the Pandemic.

 

For music today, an encouragement to keep hope from Audrey Assad with a beautiful lyric video of “How can I keep from Singing?”

This week is anti-poverty week – and here’s a message from Bronwyn Pike, COE of Uniting VicTas:

And reminder of the beautiful prayer from this week’s service:

Holy God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you bless us in so many ways.

We praise for you the beauty of creation … for the wonder of spring … for bud and flower … for the song of the Magpie.  But most of all, we praise you that you come to us in the person of Jesus, the crucified and risen One.

Compassionate God, we are lost for words when we consider the cross of Christ … the extent of your love made clear on Calvary … we give thanks that through the cross we know you share in the worst that this life can bring.

We celebrate and pray for the witness of Your church throughout the world, in all its colour, diversity and difference.

We hold before you those who have been wounded by life … all who suffer because of hardships, illness, injury, unkindness or abuse. We pray for all who work in caring professions: for the services which seek to sooth and heal the sicknesses of body, mind or spirit.

In these difficult times when we can hardly bring ourselves to watch the news, we pray for our country and the world … particularly remembering before you places of conflict, confusion, oppression, poverty, hunger and thirst.  Help us to be some way a part of the answer to this prayer.

We give thanks for and remember the people who have encouraged us in your way … particularly holding before you those who now share in that great cloud of witnesses .. . the saints in light.

And we offer this prayer in the name of Christ, Amen.

 

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Climate Change Taskforce

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Climate change taskforce

The Justice and International Mission Cluster is asking you to be part of a taskforce on climate change action. The taskforce’s purpose is to identify, encourage and support the implementation of measures across the Synod to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. To lodge an expression of interest, contact Mark Zirnsak at mark.zirnsak@victas.uca.org.au or on 0409 166 915 by October 28.

 

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Worship online – Sunday 4 October 2020

Paul continues to explore Tom Wright’s book “God and the Pandemic: A Christian reflection on the Coronavirus and its aftermath” this week.  Today we reflect on the question of lament. When the Israelites were exiled to Babylon they wrote down much of the Old Testament we have now (previously it was an oral history). The readings from Lamentations and Job offer insight on how God’s people are called to respond in such challenging times.

You can find more on Tom Wright’s book and where to get a copy by this link.

Led by: Rev. Paul Stephens – with thanks to Lynne Rankin from Belmont for the readings and Colleen Lawrence for our prayers.

There is a reflective post and piece of music recently composed by Rev David McGregor from Brisbane.

LOSS

And finish with a new song of confidence composed by Leigh Newton and Craig Mitchell – based on Ezekiel.

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Worship Online 27 September 2020

This week we joined together with Belmont Uniting Church and Western Heights Uniting Church in this reflective service, to start exploring a recent book by N. T. Wright.

Following the insights of Tom Wright’s book “God and the Pandemic: A Christian reflection on the Coronavirus and its aftermath”, today we reflect on the question of God and suffering. As we are confronted with evil and suffering in the world, we should not be asking why suffering happens but how do we respond? The readings from Deuteronomy and Matthew’s gospel (the beatitudes) provide guidance in how the Christians should respond, with care and generosity.

And keep an eye out for Karen and the Western Heights puppets, and I think our first virtual choir!

You can find more on the book and where to get a copy by this link.

Led by:
Rev. Paul Stephens (St Lukes) and Rev. Bruce Waldron (Western Heights)

And enjoy a new rendition of “God of Creation” by Craig Mitchell, just released.

 

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Belgrave Heights Women’s Convention On-Line – Saturday 10 October 2020

This week we received information from the Belgrave Heights Convention Centre about their online women’s conference.  As the conference is online this year, I thought there may be some St Luke’s women interested in attending.

The theme for 2020 is “Generation to Generation” and our guest speaker is Cathie Hillman.  Although this is the year, we will remember for generations the theme is still relevant so On-Line we go.  We will not be holding a physical convention at Belgrave Heights Convention and you need to pre-register for our online Convention.

Cathie will bring two messages and we have four interactive elective options that will be presented twice. The electives are to be chosen when you register which is why we ask you to pre-register.

The program commences at 9am and concludes at 12.45pm with breaks between sessions.

Our Electives this year are:
1.      Mentoring-Helping others to maximise God’s grace in their lives with Vicki Mustafa
2.      Parenting through the ages with Jenny Wraight
3.      Grieving Well with Dot Hodge
4.      Generations sharing their faith with Ruth Newmarch
Please see the website for more information on the electives.

With the theme of Generation to Generation we are wanting to encourage the ladies in your church / organisation to bring their teenage daughter/s (15 years +) and we still encourage their participation as the registration covers the household.

Registration is available on-line https://belgraveheights.venue360.me/public/events/homepage?event=34 at a cost of $25 per household. $20 for concession card holders.
It would be appreciated if you could advertise the Belgrave Heights Women’s Convention On-Line in your newsletters / weekly bulletin, on your webpage and in your notices. Below are some suggested words for you:
Belgrave Heights Women’s Convention – Generation to Generation. Join us on-line with other women for a time of learning and fellowship. The program starts at 9am and concludes at 12.45pm. Registration is per household / device. We encourage mothers and daughters (15yrs +) to join in together. Our Guest Speaker is Cathie Hillman who fills her days with people, coffee and her 3 littlies. She started her career as a high school teacher, has a master’s in International and Community Development and worked in research at Monash University. Cathie is part of a house church network in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne and is passionate about seeing disciples make disciples. There will be 2 main messages and 4 electives presented twice.  Register via the BHC Website. https://www.bhc.org.au/womens. – The electives are to be chosen when you register which is why you must pre-register. Please register by Wednesday 7 October 2020.

If you require more information, please contact me by phone: 9752 6855 or email: office@bhc.org.au.

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Book Group is Back!

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Thursdays 1-2pm via Zoom – contact the office for the link

St Luke’s Book Group and members of the Trekkies study group are now meeting via Zoom to share their journey of reading various books and reflecting on the insights these books offer.

The first book they are tackling is “God and the Pandemic” by Tom Wright.  He introduces the book here:

It is available as

Rev. Paul will also be exploring themes from the book in upcoming online worship videos.

For those of you who have been missing your weekly Trek through the lectionary, the book group may be a good place to connect, however if you are looking for a weekly discussion on our Lectionary Readings, there are a couple of podcasts you may enjoy listening to:

Tea with Two Revs with Rev Amanda Nicolas from East Geelong UC and Rev Ann Key from St Andrews-St Alban’s congregations in Geelong’s Eastern side

And “By the Well” with Revs Fran Barber and Robyn Whitaker (featured in the latest edition of “Crosslight” here: https://crosslight.org.au/2020/08/12/double-take-robyn-whitaker-and-fran-barber/

 

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Worship online – Sunday 13th September: Exodus and Us – Part 3

Recently we have been dipping into the epic story of the God’s liberation of the people of Israel as recorded in the book of Exodus.

This week we will be looking at perhaps the central event of this grand narrative … indeed perhaps of the whole of the Old Testament … the crossing of the Red Sea.

Did you notice in the text that Moses was dealing not just with the rampaging army of Egypt but those who were moaning and groaning in his own camp who thought whips and slavery did not seem to bad compared with the situation they were in?  (Humans are humans … nothing changes in 3,500 years.)

Secondly, let’s be clear that the members of Pharaoh’s army are victims … real people with families … caught up in Pharaoh’s nefarious doings … sacrificed like so many before and since in a pointless battle.

Yet let me say it again core to this passage is an understanding that God overcomes the forces of chaos … represented both by Pharaoh and his army, and the deep scary Sea.

God is a God of new creation and liberation who confronts and deals with the dark forces.

This sisters and brothers is not a purely theoretical affirmation … to know that God will not allow evil to prevail is a statement of profound hope.

For an inspirational listening song, you might enjoy “Baba Yetu” – the Lord’s Prayer, in Swahili:

In our congregation we have people who have come to Australia via the UNHCR refugee program.  We have others who came seeking asylum however they could, using all their resources to escape persecution.  Happily, many of our people seeking asylum have had protection visas granted to them.

But there are still asylum seekers in our community who are being left behind.  Here is Fatma’s story, produced by the Refugee Council of Australia, encouraging us to do what we can to urge the government not to exclude these people from the basic supports that others have taken for granted.

Perhaps this week if you are stuck at home alone with too much time on your hands, you can make contact with the Refugee Council and find out what you can do to help advocate for people in need.

Some of the music from our worship video today was composed and performed by a group called The String Contingent.  If you liked their music, which they freely gave permission for us to use,  I encourage you to visit their webpage and find out more about them here.