Just the Uniting Church Minister

'Aren't you just the Uniting Church Minister?' was the question.
'Well, yes and no.  I'm the Rural Resourcing Minister for this Region."
'UH?"
'It means, I do regular Minister stuff, but my main roles are to train and equip Lay leaders to run their own churches and to look for new ways of being church in today's world.'

As I keep saying those words time after time, and watch the listener's response, sometimes I think I hear from the deep recesses of minds - 'What planet is she from?'  
It is a brand new thing and I really wonder how this work will ever happen, when faith communities have no Bible studies, no prayer groups, and invisible personal spiritual disciplines.

"You need to start these things, if they are not present," I hear.
'At each of the 7 churches? One day a week each....?  I think not.  And distance is so vast over here - well, church stuff isn't football or netball is it?'

The Uniting Church has this vision of being a church for today.
As I listen for God's direction, I'd be interested in hearing what God might be saying to you about new ways of being church.
What would help you have faith?
Grow your faith?
Bless your spiritual  life?

Hang on to the church building? Why?

It's in the middle of nowhere, but where once there was a vibrant community with a football oval and a cricket oval, tennis & netball courts, a school and a community hall. But now all the houses are gone and all that remains in a small tin church, with no power and an old school, where no-one has attended to the old books and magazines and paint brushes.  A couple of weeks ago, I conducted a baptism in the old tin church.  We ran a power cord from a gen-set for the portable organ player and we filled the church with family and locals.  A number of people are interested in creating an engagement with faith as family units.  They don't want it to be one particular denomination: but I also sense they don't want any denomination.  Denomination stands for institutional church, which is clearly rejected by community.  There is a hunger for something new.

Lets not talk denominations.

Let's talk about who will do what and when.

I'll help you do what you want to do.

Will the tin church have a place in this?

Do we keep it to see?

Who pays the insurance? Who deals with the stuff  that the institution did?

A building can't lie fallow like  a paddock. 

75 and young

Rural ministry often struggles to fund ordained clergy, so clergy are often spread very thinly.
Last Thursday night at the induction of the new Uniting Church Minister at Kimba, SA, the moment came when clergy or representatives of other denominations could extend a welcome to the new incumbent. This is alway a fine moment for rural ecumenism.  
Fr Adrian stepped forward. A gentle white headed man with his collar and old, long grey coat, that had faithfully served many winters. He listed the communities to which he ministers, with a simple comment - I'm very young to be doing this. I'm 75.
75 and covering all of central Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Now there is a dedicated servant of God.
May his church be the healing, compassionate Christ to him.

Holy Trinity: Beetle, Mouse & Goat

In the back of the Town Hall, where once the pictures showed every Friday night, a handful of the faithful gathered.  Seated on the picture theatre pews, (sets of 3 seats) we celebrated Trinity Sunday.
 But it was the unexpected guests who stole the show
.
We sang to guitar with gusto....and the sounds of a mouse's scampering feet on 1960's linoleum, a scarab beetles writhing and the bleating of a tethered goat outside, added to our chorus.  Unfortunately they didn't stop during prayers and reflective silence!
We broke bread for communion, just allowing a few crumbs to land on the floor, so the tiniest members of our congregation might receive some blessed sacrament too.  Perhaps the remnant loaf should have been tossed to the bleating member outside.

We remembered the hospitality of the Triune God towards the 6 humans and 3 known creatures who gathered.  Thanks be to Father, Son & Holy Spirit: Beetle, Mouse & Goat

Carawa Cemetery

Grave of Addie Hammat, a child with Down's syndrome,
after whom my granddaughter is named

We went to the Carawa Cemetery today to say our farewells to Aunty Bernice Hammat.  The entrance is grand and long off an unmarked country road. The locals all knew where to go, but we were running blind; pointing the car in the right direction.  Aunty Bernice had been an elder and Methodist/Uniting Church member all her life, yet her family chose to go with a civil celebrant.  (If any of my family are reading this, please don't do this to me.)  But salvation: the celebrant had bought a copy of Rev Dorothy McRae-McMahon's book "The glory of Blood, Sweat and Tears: Liturgies for the living and dying" (JBCE,1996) and used Dorothy's "A Simple Funeral" (page 121) word for word...except for the words 'God' and 'Jesus Christ".  A number of people commented on how much they appreciated the inclusion of the Lord's Prayer at the end and the taped hymns throughout.  
I was reminded of my early funerals as a Lay person in the mid-north, as I observed the sensitivity and clear way the celebrant performed the ceremony.  I would like her to join one of my congregations, so I can use her as a Lay Celebrant from the church - perhaps then she could use the church liturgy with integrity.
I watch the funeral service from the foot of Addie Hammat's grave. And as I prayed for Auntie Bernice and her family, I remembered Addie 1 and 2 in my prayers.
A special day for special people in a special place.

Yantanabie Women: Remembrance and Thanksgiving

They came by bus and car, on a freezing cold morning, to the Yantanabie Hall, these women of the West Coast.  It was The Biggest Morning Tea and the tables groaned under the weight of scones, cream-filled sponge rolls, cream puffs and cakes and hotwater was poured into teacups from the ancient fire urn.  The walls were decorated with old photos, floral arrangements around deadwood and hessian bags, memorabilia of the 50's and 60's.  There were stalls too - children's clothes, home made jewellery, wrought iron art work, home produce, patchwork quilting, floral arrangements.  Women sat in small circles near the heaters with their craft and knitting. Led by the local art teacher, some painted shopping bags.  The Yantanabie Hall, with no ceiling and a holey roof and a claw hammer door knob, opened wide her arms in welcome; safe in the knowledge that restoration was on its way.  The gleam of a new roof beckoning, the promise of a new ceiling....what once was dead and left lying in a graveyard of buildings turned to rubble, will now live again.
Remembrance with thanksgiving.
We all trooped outside and gathered around the single stone memorial to the original Yantanabie Schoolhouse, to pay tribute to a past resident, who was a great netball player in her day, but who had been lost recently to cancer.  The 3 pink helium filled balloons were released in remembrance...and it is Trinity sunday week.  The rest were tied to a waiting bonfire pile as we remembered those whose journey to Christ came through cancer.  We remembered and gave thanks.
And then we happily returned to the hall, where memories of dances and parties added to the chatter over meat and vegetable soup and damper for lunch. 

Rural CPSW's

We commissioned the CPSW tonight at the Lutheran church.
The School Principal was late, but we waited for him...since he was the only senior staff member in attendance and we had changed the service date to suit him...as you do to gain another attendee of note. (Not that we needed another noted person with a very new OAM in the congregation)  The Lutheran visitors from Loxton were shocked and amazed that all the local resident clergy leaders were present and took part in the service.  It took lots of organising.  Our aboriginal pastor led the singing on guitar - lots of confusion about standing to sing or not!  Visitors from every denomination in town.  Rural Ecumencial strength: School Chaplaincy.  But I think we should have had an offering...Sacred Stone is coming in September!
The highlight of the night: our newly commissioned CPSW, responded to the event by reading 1 Corinthians 13 - the greatest of these is Love.
That's ecumenical stuff!