Insights 2021/2022 Summer Edition: Youth Issue

insights S UM M ER 2021/2022

inspired Youth

Social Justice, Inclusiveness, and Climate Change

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W E LCO M E F R O M T H E G E N E R A L S E C R E TA RY

A time to reflect

O REV. JANE FRY GENERAL SECRETARY THE GENERAL SECRETARY IS APPOINTED BY THE SYNOD TO PROVIDE LEADERSHIP TO THE CHURCH BY ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN STRATEGIC THINKING ABOUT THE LIFE, DIRECTION, VISION AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH.

ver the last two years but particularly the last six months of Covid lockdown, I’ve been walking for dear life in company with an entire suburb of people and their dogs (well, pets really because I have seen a few cats on leads as well!). We’ve walked at all hours, in all weathers and we’ve become very nimble at avoiding all the newly mounted Mulga Bill’s who’ve dressed themselves in cycling clothes and taken to the paths with great enthusiasm and boundless confidence.

I confess that I’ve loved every minute of every walk from walking into the dawn and hearing the birds wake up and get busy, to walking in serious rain and watching stormwater trickles turn into raging torrents, to having complicated work-related conversations sitting on a tree stump in the bush and walking late at night as the world quietens down. I was always a walker but it was just for ‘exercise’, now it’s for ‘dear life’ and simple joy and I wouldn’t miss it.

ADVENT IS A TIME FOR THE CHURCH TO TURN INWARD, A TIME FOR REFLECTION AND ACTIVE, EAGER WAITING, FOR FULFILMENT OF THE GREAT PROMISES OF GOD

Most of the story of Covid has been expressed in terms of the threat of illness and death, the need for restriction of personal freedoms in the interest of public safety, the economic consequences for individuals and small and large businesses, the educational consequences for whole cohorts of school children and tertiary students. Mostly and perhaps surprisingly the

community has accepted the necessity for restriction and dealt with or just borne the consequences. In many ways, it’s been a period of enforced public ‘fasting’ from a lot of the things we’ve taken for granted. For many people, it has also been a period of taking stock, a time to reflect on life’s priorities and direction in the light of their Covid experience. Many of us now know that working from home is a real option, there are stories anticipating a ‘great resignation’ as people act on their Covid learnings to make new life choices and we all realise the life-giving importance of relationship – family and friends – as the foundation of a healthy community.

As I write this, the jacarandas are in full shout which always tells me that Advent is around the corner. While we don’t currently associate Advent with fasting, both Advent and Lent are actually penitential seasons (hence the purple colour) – both seasons in which the church turns inward to reflect and take stock and the spiritual discipline of fasting has been integral to that process. Which is to say, quite simply, that there is much more to Advent than ‘getting ready for Christmas’.

Advent itself is a time for the church to turn inward, a time for reflection and active, eager waiting, not for Christmas (which will come ready or not) but for fulfilment of the great promises of God. Admittedly, it does take deliberate effort to ignore ‘Christmas creep’ as the Christmas marketing frenzy ramps up after All Saints Day. It’s hard to focus on Advent when we’re craving the warmth of family and the comforts of familiar routines.

However, it is important that the church remembers that we always live in the Time Between – between the first coming in a stable in Bethlehem and the second coming ‘in glory, to judge the living and the dead.’

Advent is always an edgy time between the now and the not yet – the edginess and disruption wrought by the Covid experience is simply the latest live example. Will pre-Covid and post-Covid be the same? When is ‘back to normal’? What is normal and will it be worth having?

Of course, these and other Advent questions arise in relation to any significant – public or personal – disruptive event and the pandemic hasn’t been the only one to claim our attention in recent times.

Front of mind for me are the bushfires of 2019-20, the murder of George Floyd and the eruption of Black Lives Matter anger, and the catastrophic explosion in Beirut – all of them symptomatic of the larger system failures that press upon us and which must be held in tension with the promise of future glory and the final consummation of all things which Christ will bring.

I well understand Karl Barth’s exclamation – ‘What other time or season can the church ever have but that of Advent!’

Keep awake, watch and be prepared, wait actively for dear life for the God who comes!

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Inspired Youth

From growing up in the church to what they hope for from the future, our writers share their experiences in their own words

REGULARS 3 WELCOME 6

YOUR SAY ONLINE

7 NEWS 32

BELIEF MATTERS

34 PULSE

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41 LECTIONARY REFLECTIONS 46

ENTERTAIN ME

The Uniting Church in Australia is one of the country’s largest denominations.

Our vision is that it will be a fellowship of reconciliation, living God’s love, following Jesus Christ and acting for the common good to build a just and compassionate community of faith.

MANAGING EDITOR Adrian Drayton EDITOR Jonathan Foye PRODUCTION/DESIGN Rana Moawad COVER ILLUSTRATION Rita Guirguis EDITORIAL/ADVERTISING/ DISTRIBUTION INQUIRIES PHONE 02 8267 4304 FAX 02 9264 4487 ADDRESS Insights, PO Box A2178, Sydney South, NSW, 1235 EMAIL insights@nsw.uca.org.au WEB www.insights.uca.org.au Insights is published by the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of New South Wales and the ACT. Articles and advertising content do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or of the Uniting Church. Contents copyright. No material from this publication may be copied, photocopied or transmitted by any means without the permission of the Managing Editor.

CIRCULATION: 15,000. ISSN: 1036-7322 Commonwealth of Australia 2020.

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M O D E R ATO R ’S R E F L E C T I O N

God embraces us, as we embrace Emmanuel “This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

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here are purpling jacarandas, already, in our paddocks and streets. As small children, our daughters learnt that as the jacaranda turns, so does our season, towards the harvest and Advent, then Christmas.

It was the first sign, bearing witness of the celebration and story to come.

REV. SIMON HANSFORD MODERATOR THE MODERATOR IS ELECTED TO GIVE PROPHETIC AND PASTORAL LEADERSHIP TO THE SYNOD, ASSISTING AND ENCOURAGING EXPRESSION AND FULFILMENT OF FAITH, AND THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH.

The contracted lives we have led over these last two years, drawn into our homes and into our selves, has also mean a contraction of experience, of memories and therefore, markers for the weeks and months. Things that happened months ago seem like days, or weeks past and the last two years have collapsed into a journey hallmarked by “before COVID” and everything else.

be drinking white wine in the sun; we have stories of our own which enable us to find our way.

Twenty years ago, soon after my mum had died, I visited Dad at our family home in the weeks before Christmas.

As I entered, there was the sudden perfume of pine trees from the lounge room and, unbidden, memories of excitement and family and decorating the Christmas tree flooded through me.

In the heart of Christmas is a story which is, essentially, all of us – a baby, born.

Something each one of us knows.

The angels and the magi, even the shepherds are not the sign of God in the world, but a tiny infant, at wondrous risk in the world, is the evidence of God being with us, with all creation.

Pause for a moment.

A baby asks something of us; care, protection, a cuddle. Immediately, we are engaged, and the story of God embraces us, as we embrace Emmanuel.

It will be an extra challenge as we prepare for Christmas; creating and crafting worship for our congregation and community after finding our way in this uncertain terrain in which we have found ourselves. Many of us were confronted by bushfires two years ago, so we have been working ourselves out for a while.

Keep up with the Moderator by following these hashtags on Facebook and Instagram. #moderatorinsession #AllOfThisIsUs

Part of the recent destabilising is that many of us have an inner sense of how Christmas should be, how it should “feel”. It is hard to articulate, but we know it when we see – or feel - it. Paul Kelly will be making gravy, while Tim Minchin’s family will

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facebook.com/unitingchurchnswact instagram.com/insightsmag twitter.com/Insightsmag

CO M M E N TS

your say ONLINE

WE’VE ROUNDED UP THE BEST COMMENTS THAT YOU’VE LEFT ONLINE. If you would like to leave a comment on an article or have a viewpoint to share - just go online insights.uca.org.au and leave your comments.

UNITING CHURCH MEMBERS ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE CONCERNS WITH MP

Our group of three Uniting church members met on Zoom with Pat Conroy, the Member for Shortland, for us to learn about his views and his party’s policies on Climate Change.

An open and respectful conversation began with personal stories about why we were led to meet on the topic of climate change and why we were concerned enough to talk to Mr Conroy.

Mr Conroy told a story of when he became interested in climate change.

He has been involved with developing policy as he was an advisor to Greg Combet, a previous Minister with responsibilities for climate change. We pressed him about Labor policy for the coming election and he expressed dismay that climate change had become weaponised in Parliament, with so little action over the last 20 years. He noted that policy would be further developed in response to what eventuates from Glasgow and the COP conference.

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Labor’s policy is net zero emissions by 2050 and introducing policies to subsidise electric cars and batteries for solar power, and the use of funds to transition workers out of coal mining to other greener industries.

Mr Conroy is currently Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change , International Development and the Pacific, Defence , and Government Accountability.

Because of his Shadow Ministry portfolio, we talked about the Uniting Church’s close connection with Pacific nations stemming from Methodist and Presbyterian mission days and our current engagements. He told stories of his visit to Kiribati and seeing the evidence for sea level rising.

The sharing of stories helped forge a respectful relationship.

Mr Conroy encouraged us to talk to neighbours, friends, and parishioners about climate change so that the urgency of the issue is not lost.

We found Mr Conroy personable, and willing to engage. We would encourage others to meet with their MPs (especially those in National Party seats.)

NE RIDA DR AKE, GARRY DE RKE NNE, AND DITA YABSLEY

news

Adamstown Uniting Church’s pudding kitchen is turning 50 this year.

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ach year, the kitchen makes up to 10,000 kilograms of Christmas puddings.

The pudding kitchen supports a number of charitable causes.

It started as an initiative of Adamstown Methodist Church.

Rev. Dr Rod Pattenden is the Minister of the Word at Adamstown.

He previously told Insights that the project, “is a wonderful expression of our hospitality and joy leading up to this celebration.”

“Many volunteers are involved in its packaging and presentation and the Church employs three staff to expertly make the secret recipe.”

The kitchen was started by a congregation member out of gratitude that her brother had returned safely from the Vietnam War.

The kitchen has previously raised money for the Mercy Ships program focusing on women’s health, and safe drinking water programs in East Timor and Africa.

ADAMSTOWN PUDDING KITCHEN

As well as traditional puddings, the kitchen makes sauces, pickles, and jams. The kitchen services orders from all around Australia and as far abroad as Canada and the UK.

turns 50

An ABC Compass documentary about the pudding kitchen aired in 2015.

JONATHAN FOYE

For more information: adamstownpuddingkitchen.org.au

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Flying Padre’s wings temporarily clipped

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The last few months have been a little frustrating for the Flying Padre, David Shrimpton, with his wings being clipped.

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is 1974 Cessna 182 has been grounded while a new engine is being fitted.

Despite the frustration, its is a blessing to give a new lease of life to his hardworking plane which operates out of Broken Hill and covers an area of approximately 200,000 square kilometres in the State’s far west.

The Broken Hill Flying Patrol is a joint project of the Uniting Church Macquarie Darling Presbytery and the Synod of NSW and ACT. The patrol is funded by the Uniting Church through donations from churches and individuals.

In fact individual donations and a very generous $50,000 donation by one Sydney Presbytery was instrumental in enabling the new $70,000 engine to be fitted.

Padre David in now back in the air after getting his beloved plan back earlier this month (November). It is just as well, he says the need in the regional and remote areas of the State is greater than ever.

“Often the impact of COVID-19 has been focused on the big cities, but it has had a big impact on regional communities and remote areas and stations,” he said.

at boarding school have found their kids are stranded interstate and unable to come home.

He says COVID-19 has also worked to overshadow the mental health crisis that had already enveloped many people in remote areas of the state in the wake of the last devastating drought. And while there was some good rain and the dams are full, the spring rains were poor and there is very poor growth of grasses in many parts of the state.

“The pressure on farmers is great and COVID-19 has intensified that pressure in many ways,” he said. “It is very difficult and there is a lot of fear and concern.

There is also heightened concern in the Aboriginal communities that I visit, where vaccine hesitancy is high and vaccine rates low.”

DAVID HAS B E E N T H E F LY I N G PADRE FOR MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS

“For some of the small towns caught up in the COVID-19 lockdown since August, there has been rising mental health issues. People are struggling and many towns are also hurting with a lack of tourists that keep many businesses afloat.

“The internet isn’t as good as it is in the city, so people are struggling. It’s hard to keep up with their work and school. People struggle to know what to do.”

Padre David said that on the remote properties there were different issues. The everyday work on the farm was ‘business as usual’ but it has been much harder to get workers. And many families that have children

David is a Uniting Church Minister who makes himself available to people in the remotest areas of the state – he is available for all religious services including baptisms, weddings, funerals or even to just be someone to talk to over a cuppa.

The area covered by the patrol is approximately 200,000 km2, stretching north and south to the borders of Queensland and Victoria, west 200 km into South Australia and east to Emmdale Roadhouse and Ivanhoe.

In many remote areas there is not a Uniting church and certainly not a Uniting minister in many of the smaller towns around the far west of NSW. “It means people can’t attend a church service, but it also means there is not the same level of support that the church can offer in more larger towns,” Padre David said.

David has been the Flying Padre for more than seven years. It costs $50,000 a year to keep him in the air.

Budget pressures are always high, especially with the rising cost of aviation fuel.

MARTIN THOMAS

We need your help to keep the Broken Hill Flying Patrol in the air.

To support this ministry financially, you can make a direct deposit online or in person at any Westpac branch to: Account Name: Broken Hill UC Ministry Bank: Uniting Financial Services BSB 634-634 Account number: 100017272 (Include the reference ‘BHFP’ and your surname, so your support can be identified) Or mail your cheque/money order (made payable to Broken Hill Flying Patrol): Broken Hill Flying Patrol PO Box 79, Broken Hill NSW 2880 (Please include your contact details so we can thank you and keep you informed about our ministry) insights 9

UNITING MISSION AND EDUCATION

Vital Leadership Courses MONTH

DATE

EVENT

FEB

Thurs evenings from 10 Feb (5 weeks) Thurs 17 – Fri 18

MAR

2022 WHO

WHERE

Exploring Mission (new course)

MA/CE

Online (Zoom)

Ethical Ministry Foundations

JD

Centre for Ministry

Tues 22

Ethical Ministry New Facilitator Training

JD

Online (Zoom)

Tues 22

Ethical Ministry Refresher

JD

Online (Zoom)

Sat 5 & 12 (9am-1pm)

Living Our Values

MA

Online (Zoom)

Wednesday evenings from 9 March (8 weeks)

Exploring the Old Testament

MA

Online (Zoom)

Thurs 24 – Fri 25

Phase 3 of Ministry/Ministry of Pastor Retreat

JD

TBC

Sat 26

Healthy Churches Expo

GP

Centre for Ministry

APR

Sat 9 & 23 (9am-1pm)

Leading Worship in the UCA

MA

Online (Zoom)

MAY

Tues evenings 10, 17, 31; Sat 21 (full day)

Understanding the Sacraments

MA

Online (Zoom) Centre for Ministry (full day)

Thurs 12

Ethical Ministry Refresher

JD

Zoom

Thurs evenings from 26 May (8 weeks)

Exploring Theology

MA

Online (Zoom)

Sun 29 – Wed 1 June

Women in Ministry Retreat

JD

TBC

JUN

Thurs 16 – Fri 17 (1-5pm)

Living Our Values

MA

Centre for Ministry and Online (Zoom)

JULY

Tues evenings from 5 July (8 weeks)

Exploring the New Testament

MA

Centre for Ministry and Online (Zoom)

Fri 29- Sun 31

Out of the Box Mission Conference

CE

Centre for Ministry

AUG

Sat 6 & 13 (9am-1pm)

Leading Worship in the UCA

MA

Online (Zoom)

Wed 3, 10, 17, 24

Mentoring for Ministry Development

JD

Online (Zoom)

Thurs 11

Ethical Ministry Refresher

JD

Centre for Ministry

Tues evenings from 30 Aug (8 weeks)

Proclaiming Jesus Christ

MA

Centre for Ministry and Online (Zoom)

Sat 10 & 17 (9am-1pm)

Living Our Values

MA

Online (Zoom)

Thurs 15 – Fri 16

Ethical Ministry Foundations

JD

Centre for Ministry

OCT

Tues 18 – Wed 19

Understanding the Sacraments

MA

Centre for Ministry

Thurs 27

Ethical Ministry Facilitator Update

JD

Online (Zoom)

NOV

Tues 1 – Thurs 3

Introduction to Presiding at Weddings

MA

Centre for Ministry

Mon evenings 7, 14, 21

Leading Worship in the UCA

MA

Online (Zoom)

Wed 9 – Fri 11

Introduction to Presiding at Funerals

MA

Centre for Ministry

Wed 16

Ethical Ministry Refresher

JD

Online (Zoom)

Thurs 24 – Fri 25 (1-5pm)

Living Our Values

MA

Centre for Ministry

SEPT

MA: MATTHEW ANSLOW

JD: JOANNA DRAYTON

ETHICAL MINISTRY Joanna Drayton joannad@nswact.uca.org.au

CE: CAMERON ECCLESTON

LAY PREACHERS, LAY PRESIDERS, AND LIVING OUR FAITH COURSES Matthew Anslow MatthewA@nswact.uca.org.au

GP: GLEN POWELL

ume.nswact.uca.org.au Please note: Dates are subject to change. Check the UME Events website for updates.

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Christmas Bowl

A PRACTICAL WAY TO SHOW LOVE TO OUR NEIGHBOURS IN NEED

n 2021, the pandemic has continued to have a devastating effect on so many communities around the world, especially the 82 million people uprooted from their homes by conflict or disaster, and the people caught up in the humanitarian crises caused by this year’s conflicts in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Gaza, and Afghanistan.

Frank put a Bowl of Remembrance on Uniting Church President Rev. Sharon the dinner table and asked his family Hollis said that the Christmas Bowl, to place a gift inside to “provides us with a practical way to show help those less fortunate love for our neighbours most in need.” than themselves. The “In the Christmas story, we see God Christmas Bowl was choosing to become our neighbour by born. taking on human flesh,” Rev. Hollis said.

The modern day “This is an act of love from God that Christmas Bowl Appeal draws us into the story of God’s love takes place in churches for all creation and invites us to be and through online witnesses to God’s love through our donations, but the loving action in the world.” sentiment is the same.

“Your gift to the Christmas Bowl will Janet Cousens is the remind our neighbours around the world CEO of Act for Peace, the that they are not forgotten, that they are international aid agency loved and that we are all part of God’s of the National Council of love. As we celebrate Christmas, may our Churches. love for our neighbour grow.”

“The Christmas Bowl is JONATHAN FOYE needed as much now as ever. It enables us to actively express our unity in Christ, to share our faith through positive action and shine a light of hope into the darkness,” Ms Cousens said.

For more information and to donate

YOUR GIFT TO THE CHRISTMAS BOWL WILL REMIND OUR NEIGHBOURS AROUND THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE NOT FORGOTTEN AND THAT THEY ARE LOVED

The contrast between the relative abundance we enjoy here in Australia and the needs of uprooted people is even more obvious at this time of year, and the Christmas Bowl was born of the desire to redress the balance.

One of the longest standing Christmas appeals in Australia, the Christmas Bowl, was established in 1949 by Rev. Frank Byatt to raise money for post war refugees. On Christmas Day that year,

Since the first Christmas Bowl began over 70 years ago, more than $100 million has been raised.

to the Christmas Bowl appeal, visit: christmasbowl.actforpeace.org.au/ donate

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NEWS FROM UNITING CHURCH A D U LT F E L L O W S H I P ( U C A F )

Fellowship news FROM THE NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON UCAF

MARGARET PEDLER Peace to all this Christmas.

As we approach the season of Advent , it is time to reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the celebration of Christmas. For all of us 2021 has been a year of uncertainties of anxieties, of missing special occasions as we experienced restrictions and lockdowns bought about by the pandemic.

So it is with joy that we can celebrate the coming of Jesus’ birth. Many of the Christmas cards I receive have images or words about peace, love, joy, and hope. Peace is one gift of God that we celebrate at this time of year. The rulers of the world continually struggle to achieve this. As we approach Christmas this year, may we be able to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas with family and friends.

May we look forward to the birth of Jesus with love, joy, peace, and hope in our hearts for Christmas and the year ahead. Gods’ richest blessings to you all.

APPRECIATION CERTIFICATES

We continue to receive requests for Appreciation Certificates. These are for 80, 90, and 100-year-olds Congregation who have over time been active in your Congregations. It is just a special acknowledgment of their service.

Secretary Laraine can mail certificates or send the as an email for you to print out.

SEEKING REPRESENTATIVES

To date we have had no response from people, particularly in the Sydney region to be representatives of the Uniting Church on World Day of Prayer Committee, National Council of Women, and PSEWA. We would value some volunteers.

ANNUAL DEDICATION SERVICE

National Chairperson of UCAF Margaret Pedler will be special guest for the NSW/ACT UCAF Annual Dedication Service on Wednesday 9 February. This will be by Zoom and Contact people from Presbyteries in our States are welcome to join in. Please RSVP for Zoom link.

STAMP COMMITTEE GRANTS

Grants from the Stamp Committee totalling $31,070 were distributed to projects as approved by the Synod Standing Committee.

Congratulations to all the recipients. $1.10 trimmed stamps did well at auction recently netting 40-50 cents per stamp. Already sales are $15,500 with $11,800 to go in from the last auction. Please continue to save your stamps.

GATHERINGS

All Gatherings and Rallies were cancelled this year but hopefully things will improve in 2022.

The Hunter Presbytery hopes to gather at Hamilton in late March or April.

Macquarie-Darling Presbytery is holding a special Christmas Inspiration Zoom Gathering with contributions from six Churches and participation by the Moderator, our NSW/ACT UCAF Synod Chair Rev Noreen Towers, National Chairperson Margaret Pedler and the Flying Padre. It promises to be a great initiative and possible pilot for others to follow.

May this Christmas Season be a time of joy, peace, sharing and family times together as we celebrate Christ’s birth. Our thoughts are with those separated by border restrictions.

If you would like to share your fellowship news or have any questions, please contact Judy Hicks: judyh_rnh@hotmail.com

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“Living at Epworth House has been one of my most formative experiences, both as a young adult and as a person of faith. Living with Christians from a variety of different life experiences and theological backgrounds provided a safe space for deep conversations (often into the early hours of the morning). With the support of the Leichhardt Uniting Church community, I was able to make my faith my own and to live it out every day of the week, not just on Sundays.”

The Healthy Churches Expo is back in 2022!

SATURDAY

26 MARCH 2022

Save Saturday 26 March 2022 in your diary to join us at the expo, with face-to-face and online options available.

The expo will focus on how to sustain contemporary, courageous, and growing churches as we engage with our Future Directions plan through a series of speaker sessions and panel discussions.

U M E. NSWACT.U CA .O RG. AU

Stay tuned for more information including registration information and our agenda of speakers and events on the day.

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th u yo Insights is handing the mic over to the Uniting Church’s youth!

From growing up in the Church to what they hope for from the future, our writers share their experiences in their own words.

They tell us about a Church that is often times welcoming, nurturing, and safe, but that has a lot more work to do.

Young people are not the leaders of the future; they are now actively leading in their congregations.

In keeping with our theme of handing the mic over to young people, the cover and centre spread for this issue were illustrated by Rita Guirguis. Rita previously did work experience with Insights and designed a mural for the Synod office. She is studying at Strathfield Girls High School and is pursuing a career in visual arts.

16 DREAMS AND VISIONS 20 RAINBOW STEPS & AFFIRMING CONGREGATIONS 22 SKIN

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n a s m Drea HOW YOUNG PEOPLE ARE SHAPING THE CHURCH

Often, younger people in the church are looked to as a source of hope. They represent something to an ageing church that strives to be intergenerational, that seeks to remain relevant, and that wants to believe it has a future. We are the breath of life that puts smiles on faces just for showing up on a Sunday. But we also have our own dreams and visions.

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he hope that young people represent is not that the church will be preserved as it is now for the future. True growth means allowing young people to offer our own dreams and visions for the church, and to be involved in realising them. They are – right here, right now – already moulding the church into the beacon of hope that they long for.

Many congregations, youth groups, and bible studies have found fresh ways to engage with young people – from contemporary worship services, to providing safe spaces to be in community, to inviting their theological questions into discussions.

As they emerge into young adulthood having been shaped by the church, many are eager to give back. Their gift to this community is being able to appreciate the wonderful things they have benefited from, while imagining new life into the gaps in youth and young adult ministry that many of their peers have slipped through.

But young people do not only offer our dreams for more widespread and well-resourced youth and young adult ministries; they also bring new visions for what the church, as a whole, could be in the world.

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Insights interviewed several young people with different relationships to the Uniting Church about their dreams and visions. A central theme of this hope for the church is an outward focus: speaking into the world and welcoming all into the church. Growing the church young means embracing all different kinds of growth and expanding our understanding of how to do and be church.

Anare Seru studies Screen Media Production and worships with the Leigh Fijian congregation of Parramatta Mission, where he is a youth leader. His dream is that the Uniting Church be known as a “welcoming church” where everyone feels accepted.

“To make this happen, I believe the fundamental action is outreach,” he told Insights. In his experience, outreach programs are mutually beneficial for the those accessing services that a church provides and for the church community itself.

Mr Seru described two food services he has been involved in, the Soup Kitchen at Western Sydney University and Bula Feeding Ministry. “It was not until attending these outreach programs [that] I finally

understood the value of conversation and how it may give a sense of belonging…

For many individuals who are marginalised, the church must continue to remind them that they are welcomed.”

For Andrea Barnes, a newly graduated occupational therapist, inclusivity is also an important part of her vision for the church.

She grew up in the Uniting Church and is now affiliated with Hamilton Baptist Church. She told Insights, “My dream for the church in the world is for the church to do no harm. I believe if the church is to represent Christ it should not discriminate, alienate, or marginalise people.”

“I hope that the church can start to make right the wrongs of the past, [and] work towards justice in racial equality, climate justice, LGBTQIA+ equality, and gender equality,” she said. “In an ideal world, all churches and church institutions would truly believe that all people are equal and are equally as loved by God – and therefore not use power for [their own] gain or spread toxic theology that harms many people.”

Ms Barnes cited World Vision Australia as an

example of a Christian organisation that is currently addressing injustices through a variety of programs “such as to improve the education of Indigenous Australians in early childhood.” She also praised the work of affirming congregations as they actively “re-write the narrative that churches are anti-LGBTQIA+, because not all churches are!”

Danny Ivanovski, who is currently completing a Master of Teaching (Secondary) in Visual Arts at the University of Wollongong, also wants the church to engage with the wider community. He worships at Keiraview Uniting Church and believes that the church “should be a place that preaches God’s word in truth” without watering down the power of that message.

He told Insights that the delivery of this message is important so that it can be heard by young people in the context of an “inclusive and non-judgemental” community.

“The church should be a place [where people encourage] one another to use their gifts to help one another come to God and to be a positive influence in the wider community,” he said. Involving young people in leadership is a crucial part of this vision, so that they can see how their gifts and skills contribute to their church community.

s n o i s nd Vi CHURCH SHOULD BE A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER TO USE THEIR GIFTS TO HELP ONE ANOTHER COME TO GOD insights

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Mr Ivanovski also suggested a few ways to reimagine church, from celebrating multiculturalism through community meals and messy church programs, to holding services in a park, making them more accessible to people who may not feel comfortable in a traditional church service.

Keiraview Uniting Church has already done some reimagining of their own, including holding climate change days of prayer, organising a community garden, and offering mentoring and homework help to local school students.

River Wilson is part of the Leichhardt Uniting Church community, and they study Creative Writing at Macquarie University. She told Insights, “I long for a world where churches are accepting of all individuals, encouraging a sense of comfort and safety for its people.”

Their vision is of “A church that is active in the community, leading in justice and care… Churches often are not seen as present in calls [for] justice for the community.”

However, she noted that many Uniting Church congregations are visibly and vocally present at rallies and protests. “This is how churches make a difference,” they said.

these questions with some “A great example is the sort of answers that enable Christian United for people to feel empowered Afghanistan campaign. Part about their capacity to make of the strength of the church choices, but also gives people comes from the community someone – God – to lean of churches behind it… on when things are out of made up of thousands control.” [of] congregations around Australia and the world. An For Ms Maxwell, the biggest important step in helping the obstacle to this vision of the church act as a force for good church is division. in the world is strengthening the ties between Christians “As a person who participates around the world,” he said. regularly in a few different church communities of Erin Lewis is a children’s different denominations, I speech pathologist who really wish Christian churches worships at Leichhardt would stop fighting among Uniting Church, and a climate ourselves and creating organiser with Christian divisions, which make us look Students Uniting. She all too human and stop us envisions the church “as a from pointing as effectively source of gentle truth and as we otherwise could to our bold witness.”

Father in Heaven.”

She told Insights that denominations should actively seek out common ground, and that “from my experience some of those disagreements are matters of phrasing rather than actual differences.”

MANY UNITING CHURCH CONGREGATIONS ARE VISIBLY AND VOCALLY PRESENT AT RALLIES AND PROTESTS. THIS IS HOW CHURCHES MAKE A DIFFERENCE

“The Uniting Church does better than other churches at allowing people of different backgrounds in, but more needs to be done to highlight that it is okay to have a different opinion, focus on what we have in common, and discuss issues with a compassionate and open mind,” she said.

“I believe there is a path for us to become a known and trusted voice in the world Medical student Anna that seeks to prioritise safe, Maxwell is a mission worker sacred relationships between for Christian Students Uniting people, animals, and planet. at the University of New Michael Henson also This is a realisation of the South Wales. She regularly dreams of greater church that faithfully names attends Catholic and Uniting “interconnectedness” across the Kingdom of God we are Church worship services, and denominational lines, so working towards – while also her connection to multiple that the church can be a holding [a] light to how that denominations gives her a powerful force for change. He Kingdom exists here and now,” unique perspective on the studies Law and Development she told Insights. church.

Studies at the University of “I think Christianity’s worldview, Newcastle, where he is part of For Ms Lewis, this path forward means “developing at its best, is one which Christian Students Uniting. authentic humility as a recognises the divinity of His vision for what the practice.” This is a humility all people and the whole of church could be in the world “that can recognise where we creation, while also pointing has three aspects: “It can have come from and name a to something bigger than be a place which provides difficult history, while actively ourselves,” she told Insights. community and support, it listening and striving to be “People have always wondered can be an advocate for the people of tradition in new why we are here and what our vulnerable, and it [can be] a ways.” purpose is, and I think the community which shares the church ideally would meet good news.”

“I see this work already happening in the way we develop and engage in safe church practices, and the way we lean into our call to act in climate justice spaces,” she said.

This idea brings to mind the words of Mikali Anagnostis’ poem God is a Broken Teacup, featured in this year’s Christian Students Uniting Magazine and excerpted below: God is the breaking, the smashing, the remaking.

Promises of permanence, prophecies of normalcy opened, emptied, forsaken.

God will not be a vessel for that tepid delusion because God is a body longing to be broken.

God will not fit in the cupboard, God will not be stored for the future, God will not take milk and sugar, God will break.

Young people are not waiting for the future of the church to unfold before their eyes. They are getting their hands dirty and shaping the communities that have shaped and continue to shape them.

Some things may be broken and remade along the way, but this is the cycle of our faith. God is constantly working in their lives, in their churches, and in the world to make all things new.

GABRIELLE CADENHEAD

MISSION WORKER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDENTS UNITING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

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Rainbow Steps and Affirming Congregations

ADAMSTOWN UNITING CHURCH STEPS ARE A VISIBLE SIGN OF WELCOME

LEICHHARDT UNITING CHURCH IS A SAFE PLACE FOR LGBTQIA+ PEOPLE

REV. DR JOSEPHINE INKPIN (RIGHT) IS THE UNITING CHURCH’S FIRST TRANSGENDER MINISTER

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PADDINGTON UNITING CHURCH SUPPORTS MARRIAGE EQUALITY

AT ST ANDREW’S UNITING CHURCH LGBTQIA+ PEOPLE ARE CELEBRATED AND WELCOMED INTO LEADERSHIP

RAINBOW CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE MEETING AT TUGGARONG UNITING CHURCH

The Uniting Church across our Synod is home to a rich diversity of congregations, including many which declare themselves to be affirming of LGBTQIA+ people. This affirming stance accepts and celebrates people of diverse genders and sexualities as whole deserving spaces to explore their faith. Being publicly affirming has an impact on how these congregation do church, engage with young people, and embody God’s love in the world. Insights spoke to ministers and leaders from affirming congregations about the gift LGBTQIA+ people are to the life of the church.

PADDINGTON UNITING CHURCH

Rev. Danielle Hemsworth-Smith of Paddington Uniting Church said of her congregation’s theology, “we start from a place of love, with the understanding that all people are loved by God. Because sexuality and gender identity [have their] origin in love, we understand [them] as part of the beauty of each person and, in turn, the gifts of our community.”

Because Paddington are known in the wider community as an affirming church, they receive “more enquiries about weddings and baptisms from the LGBTQIA+ community,” and about 50% of marriages performed there are of samegender couples.

Rev. Danielle Hemsworth-Smith also described the role her congregation plays “through conversation and discussion with the broader community… The potential we have to change perceptions and transform lives through affirmation, acceptance and encouragement of God’s creation, including humanity, is pretty incredible.”

PITT STREET UNITING CHURCH

Pitt Street Uniting Church’s welcome to LGBTQIA+ people is visible upon entering the building. The foyer provides publications about affirming theology, and banners and symbols can be found around the sanctuary. Minister Rev. Dr Josephine Inkpin is the Uniting Church’s first transgender Minister in Placement.

She told Insights that Pitt Street is a church where “all kinds of...people… flourish, just as they are.”

“Our congregation has for decades been at the very forefront of celebrating and empowering, not just welcoming and affirming, LGBTIQA+ people, and this is a core element of our mission,” Rev. Dr Inkpin said.

Pitt Street’s members are “actively involved both in advocacy in the church, including the UCA Assembly process towards an Apology to LGBTQIA+ people, and in critical political issues of concern.”

ST ANDREW’S UNITING CHURCH, GLENBROOK Rev. Ellie Elia of St Andrew’s Uniting Church in Glenbrook told Insights that her congregation has been “work[ing]

inclusive congregation) has meant we have gained new members who have come to Rainbow Christian Alliance gatherings at the church or joined us on Zoom,” she told Insights. In recent years, these gatherings have “more than doubled in number.”

LEICHHARDT UNITING CHURCH

Rev. Adrian Sukumar-White of Leichhardt together to develop a culture where Uniting Church told Insights, “We are LGBTQIA+ people are celebrated and very upfront about our welcoming and welcomed into the leadership of the affirming stance towards LGBTQIA+ church” for many years. people – it can be easily seen on our website, social media, and in our “We don’t always get it right,” Rev. Ellie building. We want to make it really Elia acknowledged. “We are all still easy for LGBTQIA+ people to discover learning and so [we are] practicing grace that Leichhardt Uniting Church is a and forgiveness, and hopefully safe place for them. This is also finding healing in each other’s supported through sermons, company.” [and] the use of inclusive WE ARE This openness to learning language in liturgy and songs.”

PRACTICING has led to growth in St Leichhardt’s visibly affirming Andrew’s attendance, GRACE AND stance has been the and “Many people are FORGIVENESS catalyst for considerable also eager to discover a congregational growth, new theological language of however Rev. Adrian Sukumarwelcome and inclusion that White told Insights, “That’s not had previously been denied.” all there is to it – once people turn up, ADAMSTOWN UNITING CHURCH we work hard to connect with them, by While Adamstown Uniting Church has taking the time to hear and honour their been a safe and affirming space for stories…and [by] naming to them facemany years where “diverse people have to-face that they are beloved children of made it their home and been welcomed God.” into leadership roles,” minister Rev. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR Dr Rod Pattenden found that public YOUNG PEOPLE? perception had not caught up to the Young people in the Pitt St community wonderful things happening in the have responded “very positively” to church. their affirming stance. Rev. Dr Josephine Adamstown decided to paint their front Inkpin told Insights, “A majority of the steps in rainbow colours as a visible younger people who have recently joined symbol of their welcome for LGBTQIA+ our congregation identify as sexually people. This public visibility has led to and/or gender diverse and this has been growth for the Adamstown congregation – a key factor.” in number and through their involvement Rev. Elia said that the same was true with the communities around them. for St Andrew’s young people, who, Composer Heather Price recently “expect that being a church means being created a song about the rainbow steps welcoming and affirming to all.” to celebrate the joy of fully welcoming “It’s just who we are. The challenge for LGBTQIA+ people. them is how best to relate to friends or TUGGERANONG UNITING other Christian circles that don’t feel the CHURCH same way.”

Tuggeranong Uniting Church established According to Rev. Dr Pattenden, “There the Rainbow Christian Alliance six years is usually little embarrassment talking ago, as “a place for LGBTQIA+ people about this part of our human experience to gather and explore their faith.” Rev. and there is a keen interest in working Elizabeth Raine described how “Many out how to live with being a sexual and of our members have been burnt by spiritually alive human being… People conservative mainstream churches and have a great desire to live authentic and this was a deliberate attempt to reach integrated lives.” out to people and affirm and support them.”

GABRIE LLE CADE NHEAD

“Our obvious banner on the street and our website (which affirms we are an

MISSION WOR KER FOR CHR ISTIAN STU DENTS U NITING AT THE U NIVERSIT Y OF SYDNE Y

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skin

by Hannah Roux

The following is a prose piece by Christian Student Uniting member Hannah Roux

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In stories about selkies, possessing the selkie’s skin grants you power over them. The selkie-bride, captured or sometimes willingly married, wishes to return home: but where is her skin? Or, in another version of the story, she has hidden the skin – her true nature, herself – ready for an escape. Returning home one day, her husband finds her gone, vanished into the sea. Sometimes she takes their children with her.

What does “skin” mean here? “Skin” is an outer layer, so it might suggest something we put on and off – something that is not an essential part of who we are. But skin is also what the selkie wears to become who they really are; they take it off to walk on land, but human is not what they are. Their skin is their real self.

We say, sometimes, that someone is self-possessed, or comfortable in their skin. I think we mean that the distance between their inner life and their outer is smaller. It is more apparent who they really are because who they really are is close to the surface. Their skin fits them. But how can we tell if someone’s insides fit their outsides? Only by looking at the outsides. Without the outside, how could we see anything?

this metaphor doesn’t suggest much stability. Clothes are temporary.

The word “skin” suggests something more like the form of a river. Though water pushes, broiling at the banks, the river stays the same. It is the shape of the river that gives it its name, not the water it contains. There is a Greek epigram: “You can never cross the same river twice.” What it really means is: the river’s water is always changed and exchanged. The shape of the river is the same; but its contents have changed. Rivers fall, reliably, in the same places, imprint and carve out homes in valleys – though they are always moving. It is their movement that makes them stay.

Whether the changing contents of the river change its essential identity is a question philosophy asks. The thought experiment goes like this. You own a boat. Over the years, the sail, the deck, the rudder – all need replacing. After seven years of this, every part has been changed. Is the boat still the same? Imagine the cells of your body: over seven years, one by one, all of them have been replaced, until – one bright morning, without even noticing – you are, suddenly, a new person.

THE DESIRE TO FIT SOMETHING. TO BE MADE FITTING FOR THE WORLD, FOR ONE ANOTHER, FOR THE SELF. IT IS THIS RESTLESSNESS, THIS CHANGE THAT SEEMS SO HUMAN

You can, of course, cross the same river twice. The river will be, reliably, where you left it. Your mind roams in dreaming, but in the morning your body is still the same old body. Going down to the docks, you will see the same old boat there, though every part is new. Going down to the river, you will see the same old river, though filled with new water.

In Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Ariel desires transformation.

She has always wanted to live on land; the prince is only an excuse to get there. It is the But even the shape of the river will change same in the Hans Christian someday – like the water, though too Anderson version: the mermaid slow to see. Even the shape of the body. lacks a soul, and she wants to Incredibly slow change might feel like use the prince to get it. She is stability. Perhaps this is the flux, or flow: the movement in time promised that if she can get the prince to love her, this will which feels like stillness. grant her one. The prince in this version is a means to an end. He never does love the mermaid, and so she dies. But, *** at the end of the story, the angels take pity on her, and send The shape of the river is the river’s skin. The form of the river her to purgatory to earn the soul she desires. This is puzzling. gives the river its name. The Christian tradition is full of stories “Purgatory” means to purge. To strip away your skin. But the about identity. Blessed by God, Abraham gains a new name. skin is, in some sense, the real thing. What is a soul if not that act of desiring, if not saying, “I want to be who I really am”? And For wrestling with God, Jacob is called Israel. He carries away a scar: a twist on his hip, a mark on his body. Stories about now, transformed, “I am who I was already.” baptism and conversion are also stories about identity. Paul In both stories, the question is: do I fit in my skin? The says we take off our old self and put on our new. C.S. Lewis mermaid’s skin does not fit her; she needs transformation. The wrote, about his conversion, that he felt like a creature in a selkie’s skin fits them; it is being on land that is painful. But hard shell, being slowly peeled open. their desire to be on land, that is also a real thing. Perhaps, like Lewis returns to this image in part of his Voyage of the Dawn Ariel, some selkies really desire human skin. Perhaps this is Treader. A boy has been turned into a dragon. The dragon-skin what all shifting stories are about. The desire to fit something. is the expression of who the boy is, his sin; his transformation, To be made fitting: for the world, for one another, for the self. It begun on the inside and spread out to the rest of him. The next is this restlessness, this change, that seems so human. transformation must start the same way: on the inside. He tries Another word for “skin” might be “form.” In literary studies, to make up for his sin, even while he is still a dragon. But on his there are controversies about form and content. Is the form of own, he can’t be human again. The Lion (Christ) comes down the text the real thing? Or is it, rather, the content? Outside or to help him. Stripped of his skin (a painful process) and thrown inside? The form, in some sense, creates the content. What is into the well-water (baptism), the boy emerges a new person. It the character “Mrs Bennet” without the words “Mrs Bennet”? seems that the river has completely changed its course. And But the content is what the words make us see. This is like yet – here is the complication – this is the boy’s own skin. It is seeing like a businessman in a smart suit. Would you see the as if the river, flowing wrong, had been adjusted to its correct businessman without the suit? Or just the naked man? But direction. The dragon skin never really fit him; he is now his real which is the real thing: the businessman or his suit? This is self. This is an allegory. Sin is our false self. But where does a theory of performance: we wear clothes to shape us. But true self end and false begin?

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This is the problem: we need a skin. And who is to say that scales to find the snake within/ But born again, is born without someone else’s skin is wrong for them? We are often tempted a skin/ The poison enters into everything.” to do this. We tell other people who they are meant to be.

Baffled is a good word here. And the implied question: what Some Christians talk about God’s design for gender and tell is the snake’s sin? Is it his very identity, “the snake within”? you that women are happier in traditional marriages. Or they How can he rid himself of that by shedding skin? “Sin” and ask, “Why are you putting your identity somewhere other than “skin” rhyme, as if related things. And then the surprise: in Christ?” This is a question for queer people, because we use without the skin, the poison enters in. This is the unavoidable words to shape our skin. vulnerability of religious community. How do we trust that our In July 2021, the self-examination, our openness to General Assembly being born again (and again and again), of the Presbyterian won’t let the poison in?

Church in America The Presbyterian Church’s policy is voted to ban the directed at gay Christians who practice ordination of celibacy. It is designed simply to anyone who calls prevent them from calling themselves themselves “gay” or “gay Christians.” It is, whatever else “same-sex attracted.” it is, a policy that understands the A Christian who calls importance of naming. We use names themselves “gay,” the new Overture 23 states, “undermines to find each other, to share experiences, to access support or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ.” When and community. The name is important, like skin is important.

I was in the evangelical church, this kind of position had, in It says: “I am really here,” and “I am who I am.” It is the shape retrospect, already begun to take shape. We should “love and name of the river that help us find it again. Without its the sinner hate the sin,” my bible-study leader told us. “Sin,” shape, the river is formless water. It is a person’s skin that lets this maxim implied, cannot be a true part of the sinner. It is us see them. something someone sheds, like a snake its skin. A queer sexuality cannot be the Christian’s true identity. The wrong self- *** naming becomes, in this view, idolatry. Idolatry puts the self I must have learnt the word bisexual at some point while I was above God’s plan for you. In Paul’s formulation, this means to in high school. I don’t remember exactly when or how. But put the false self above the true.

I remember thinking I already knew what it meant when, in In one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs, “Treaty,” he sings, my final year of school, a friend managed by some miracle to huskily: “I heard the snake was baffled by his sin/ He shed his get permission to talk to our grade about diverse sexualities

HOW DO WE TRUST THAT OUR SELF-EXAMINATION, OUR OPENNESS TO BEING BORN AGAIN (AND AGAIN AND AGAIN), WON’T LET THE POISON IN?

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and genders. I had never thought of it as a word that might apply to me. Not even when I was writing my friend sappy love poetry. Not even when gripped with a half-understood jealousy when she talked about her boyfriend. I remember feeling uncomfortable, crouched down in my skin. I didn’t understand it. Someone else might have thought more closely, but I don’t remember thinking about words, then. It is because I remember this that I say that without its shape, the river is formless water.

I had other crushes. I called what I’d felt for my friend my first crush, but I didn’t call myself bisexual. I began to read queer romance novels obsessively, but when anyone asked me about what I was reading I kept pronouns ambiguous. At some point that year, I came across the word “demisexual” in one of them and googled it. A few months later, another romance novel featured a demi-sexual main character. When I got to the end, I went straight back to the beginning and read it over again.

I BELIEVE IN TRANSFORMATION THAT NO-ONE CAN ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNLESS THEY HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN Sometimes, these are the words that most seem to fit my skin.

They felt like recognition: this is who I was already. But I am still learning how the words fit me. I have heard labels called a box or human sexuality called fluid. Why would you box yourself in? But for me, the words are an anchor. Reading that book, inhabiting that character, felt like filling in my skin. Knowing the shape of the river helps you find the water.

skin. He needs to trust the lion to transform him. To lie on his back, expose his belly and let the lion dig into his skin. To trust that this will hurt him only briefly. In this story, the lion is Aslan, is God, and he, more than anyone, knows what the boy’s true shape is. But it is not always so clear who speaks God into our lives. Who should we listen to? When we ask the question “where does my self end and my sin begin?” we also need to ask, “who do I trust inside my skin?”

For me, this is the painful dimension. I believe in transformation. That no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they have been born again. In Christ, I am a new creation. I have entered the water of baptism. I want to be challenged to change by a sermon. I want to repent of my sins. But I don’t trust the church to know what part of me is sin, and what part is my real skin.

The selkie takes off her skin, goes onto the land, and starts a family. She is trying out humanity. But she needs to trust the man not to trick her, to give her skin back if she should want to return. And if she does not trust him? She tricks him: on with the skin, into the water. If she still has her skin. Perhaps, if she had told him who she really was, he would not have believed her. Possessing someone’s skin grants you power over them. The boy trusts the lion to strip off his false skin, and not to kill the real him. In some stories, the selkie gives up their skin as a romantic gesture. The gesture says: I trust you not to hurt me. Such daring, to say: I trust you with my true self. In some stories, the skin is stolen. In some stories, the selkie cannot live long without the water.

HANNAH ROUX PHD STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY AND A MEMBER OF CHRISTIAN STUDENTS UNITING

About half a year after I first started using the word demisexual, I was talking to someone about the sex appeal of the leading man of Bridgerton and they asked me if I ever used that word to describe myself. I said I sometimes did. I felt they had seen me.

I have talked to others who can’t see the point of labels like this. They can see why the LGBT part of the acronym is needed, but why all the other bits? Aren’t individuals all unique? What’s the point of using a word so obscure that no-one outside the queer community understands it? What’s the point of the long, infinitely regressing list: LGBTQIA+?

People talk about bi-invisibility: the absence of people who are visibly like you. This absence becomes self-fulfilling. We cannot see anyone like us, and so we are less visible, even to ourselves. What I mean by growing into your skin would be the opposite of this: the inside close to, and acknowledged by, the outside. This is not something anyone can do on their own. I think that if I could get up the courage to say more about the words I like to use to describe myself I would tell say something like this. The act of naming changes the shape of my skin, and this is a good thing. There really are skins that are wrong for me. I really do have a true and false identity. I want my skin to fit me. *** Our identities are not simply individual. There are the questions of community. Who gets to tell you what skin you need to shed, and what is really you? How much does it matter if someone doesn’t understand the skin that’s you? In Lewis’s story about the boy turned dragon, the boy needs help to shed his dragon-

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h t u o Y n i e Lif Ministry Content Warning: This article contains mention of violence, trauma, and sexuality.

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I have had the incredible privilege of being involved in youth and children’s ministry over many years. I started teaching Sunday School at 14 years old, was part of a Christian youth outdoor education camp in the Blue Mountains, a volunteer youth leader, a paid Youth Pastor, and a Mission Worker with a focus on youth. These experiences, along with theological study, led me to teach a number of subjects at United Theological College concerning different aspects of youth ministry. It has been an amazing adventure and an incredible learning experience, as young people taught me as much as I did them.

O

ver that time, there were fun activities, a lot of food, deep conversations, and wrestling with theology, all shared with an amazing and varied group of children, youth, and young adults.

There were a few issues that I saw come up over and over during my time in youth ministry. My top three would have to be the place of young people in the church, significant adult relationships, and, not surprisingly, sexuality.

My father was a lay preacher. When he took a service, my mother would do the children’s talk and my two siblings and I would all have something to contribute.

We were valued as part of the church body, even though we were young. I wrestle with the concept that children and youth are the leaders of tomorrow.

They are part of the church now, leaders now and have valuable contributions to make now. When churches see their young people as only something to add numbers to the congregation’s size, as a source for more income or, and I’d argue worse, something that has to be separated from “real” church with their own service or Friday night youth group, they miss the incredible vitality and value of all that young people have to offer.

When I was teaching, the statistics were that 70 percent of people who had made a commitment to Christ in their teenage years would not be in church by the time they were 30. The places that I saw that trend bucked, was where young people were given a significant role in the life of the church. I’m not talking about a tokenistic “little Johnny can take around the offering plate”, though it might start there. This was more about the church knowing and recognising those young people’s skills, passions and abilities and offering them space to explore those in the context of the church. This may have been in participating in upfront worship because they love to play an instrument or sing. It may have been

giving them responsibility behind the scenes at the sound desk because they loved electronics. It might have been to encourage a young person to share a testimony or give them space and assistance to preach a sermon. It may have been to support them in a fund

couple of other adults for all their support and helping her and two others become leaders in their own right.

These adults had helped the three of them to better see how God was at work in their lives.

ADULTS HAD TO ASK THE THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS AND BE PREPARED TO STEP INTO THE PRESENT LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THAT YOUNG PERSON raising or social justice project for a cause they were passionate about.

This could not have been possible without significant adult relationships outside the immediate family. This is touted as one of the most important factors for young people staying in church. Adults, beyond parents or only the youth leaders, needed to know and be engaged with young people. They had to have conversations that revolved around that young person’s life. They had to be genuinely interested in and concerned for that young person’s spiritual life. They had to ask the theological questions and be prepared to step into the present lived experience of that young person. These were relationships that had to go beyond Sunday and the four walls of the church building, but enter into the realms of school life, home safety, birthday parties, weddings, and even trauma.

Some of my most significant moments in youth ministry were turning up for young people at a Police Station to support an AVO application, a hospital after an assault, a court case, and a few weddings years after I ceased being their Youth Pastor. In my current church, I recently heard the testimony of a young person thanking the youth leaders and a

Sexuality continues to be a very important issue to wrestle with sensitively but openly and honestly. Youth and young adults are at a stage where they are becoming increasingly aware of their sexuality, gender identity and may be sexually active. Dismissing valid questions with an overly simplistic “just don’t do it” is not helpful.

Church needs to be a safe place where these questions can be explored. Two of the best examples of this were having a qualified Christian Sex Therapist come and talk frankly about this topic, and former Uniting Church President Rev. Prof. Andrew Dutney addressing young adults on a theology of decision making. The therapist’s vast knowledge of the topic, lack of embarrassment, and willingness to engage, meant the young people in attendance left with a far better toolkit to understand sexuality.

Rev. Prof. Dutney’s approach challenged young adults to think about how we make decisions, who we are considering in the process and what that might mean for sexual expression.

Youth ministry has been a wonderful blessing and a powerful space for seeing God move in the lives of young people as they wrestle, mature, and make decisions that shape their future as well as that of the Church.

DR K ATHE RINE GROCOT T If this piece has brought up anything for you, help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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What will Christmas look like around the world this year?

SOME OF UNITINGWORLD’S PARTNERS HAVE LET US KNOW!

IRENE IN BALI I spent last Christmas watching the livestream of our Christmas service home alone in my flat, and it felt really hard to be honest! I really hope things are different this year, but I’m not sure they will be.

I think there’ll still be restrictions on gatherings and maybe on travel back to our hometowns as well.

With most people in Bali being Hindu, the Christian festival is celebrated in shops with music and decorations, but present giving isn’t really a tradition. Instead, we all travel home to our family villages where we’d usually have a potluck lunch with traditional Balinese food and some western treats that the kids enjoy like apple and pumpkin pie.

For me, Christmas is all about remembering Christ’s life come to earth as a human because of His love for us. I start listening to Christmas carols in September. I love them – my favourite is “Angels we have heard on high” and “The First Noel.”

JOY IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS Usually at Christmas I would go home to my village from Honiara.

In the months before Christmas all the families plant their gardens with enough extra to harvest for the returning families. They will go and hunt pigs so we can feast together on pork, fish, potatoes, cassava and bananas.

On Christmas Day we go to church in the village and then we celebrate by going house to house to sing for everyone and take small gifts like soap or matches. It’s also a chance for us to give messages about Jesus that encourage people to receive him as a new birth into their lives.

Music is a big part of our tradition – my favourite song is Jingle Bells!

In two weeks’ time the Women’s Fellowship will hold its traditional choral competition and this year we have chosen Good Christian Men Rejoice – the best choir will win, and we look forward to that very much.

SAMSON IN INDIA Most things are opening up in Punjab at the moment and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to travel back to our home villages this year – it’s been a long time!

Christmas Day is about a family outing – maybe lunch in a restaurant with cakes and sweets that families prepare for the day.

Even though Christianity isn’t the main religion, there’s a big focus on buying and displaying lights, decorations and Christmas trees!

I learnt the Christmas song “Mary did you know?” when I was at school and it’s still my favourite.

The main thing I celebrate at Christmas is the love we’ve received and how we can share that with others. It’s not just the worship but about forgetting yourself and sacrificing time for others in need. It’s the tradition of our diocese to spend time at Christmas going to bus stations, to the streets where people live and giving out blankets and food.

Celebrate with the church around the world by giving gifts that beat poverty and build hope this Christmas!

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Check out UnitingWorld’s full catalogue of life-changing gifts to support the work of our global partners at: everythingincommon.com.au

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Theology for Life

“I’ve had a long career in the church doing creative things,” he said.

Rev. Dr Pattenden told Insights he will hand over Adamstown Uniting Church’s unique ministry. He believes that this has grown to the point that it is no longer “dependent on a minister.”

Rev. Dr Pattenden said that Adamstown’s arts ministry, Adamstown Arts, had brought people from beyond the church community.

Adamstown Arts’ work has included using the church building as a space for performances and exhibitions.

“One woman told me, ‘I don’t go to church, but I find this to be a space of joy,’” he recalled.

“Her perception was that this was a place where joy was cultured.”

An

Artful Exit

AFTER DECADES IN MINISTRY, REV. DR ROD PATTENDEN WILL RETIRE IN FEBRUARY 2022 “People have been very appreciative of the work.”

Some of the results of this are work that he is featuring on his new website.

“People have drifted into the congregation because they found that joy.”

As well as galleries of his paintings, the site features some of his written work, where he reviews and showcases other artists’ work.

According to Rev. Dr Pattenden, Adamstown Arts has been a way for the congregation to “express generosity.”

While Rev. Dr Pattenden looks forward to the change of pace, he said that he will miss his congregation and his current ministry.

“We’re concerned about what you’re concerned about… climate change, the common good.”

“We’re celebrating life: that doxological part of our faith.”

From April 2020, Rev. Dr Pattenden took some leave to devote time to his art work, something that he plans on delving into more once his retirement starts.

He said that the process of putting time aside during the pandemic to focus on his art was a practice in moving away from being “agendadriven.”

After spending time toiling away in solitude, he was able to put on an exhibition featuring his work, and that of a few other artists.

“You put it out there, and you have a terrifying moment when you have an opening,” Rev. Dr Pattenden said.

“There’s an interesting bunch of people here,” he said.

He pointed to the layout of the church itself as embodying that the church is open to everyone. This, he said, started with the rainbow staircase leading into the building.

Rev. Dr Pattenden said that he expects that his absence will not hurt Adamstown Uniting Church.

“It’s not dependent on me,” he said.

“This is a highly engaged community that will thrive.”

THIS IS A HIGHLY ENGAGED COMMUNITY THAT WILL THRIVE

An experienced art critic, Rev. Dr Pattenden, was previously the Blake Prize for Religious Art chair from 1990 until 2017. He was also the minister at Paddington Uniting Church and the Chaplain at Macquarie University.

JONATHAN FOYE

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B E L I E F M AT T E RS

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B E L I E F M AT T E RS

What is it going to take?

WE RACED BACK TO HOW IT WAS AFTER COVID STOPPED CHURCH LAST YEAR…ARE WE GOING TO DO THE SAME THING AGAIN?!

There’s an old joke about a man who is washed up on a deserted island after his boat sinks. He cries out: “Save me, God! I know you can do it!”

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short time later a rescue boat appears. They beckon to him however he rejects their rescue. “God will save me,” he tells them. The boat leaves.

A little later a seaplane flies overhead, lands, and tell him they are here to rescue him. “There is no need,” he says. “God will save me.” The plane takes off.

A little later still, a rescue helicopter lands on the beach to save him, and again he rejects their offer. “You can go on your way. God will save me.” The helicopter leaves, never to return.

When God became man, entering this world as a baby, it disrupted everything.

The way people engaged with God. The way they understood grace, repentance and forgiveness.

They rules they followed to stay right with God. Everything changed. Everything.

That our Creator would want to identify with us that God became man in Jesus Christ, teach us about God’s new way, suffer on our behalf, and remain with us as the Holy Spirit is disruptive on a global scale–even today.

In disrupting the way the world had become, God was offering a better way. A new way. A way that DISRUPTION Sadly, the man perishes. He is a faithful man, enabled us to love God and love our neighbours.

CAN OFTEN and on entering heaven, he asks God if he A way that elevated the downtrodden and BE A GRE AT didn’t have enough faith to be saved. God sought justice for the oppressed (the kind of responds: “But I sent you a boat, a plane, and a justice Archbishop Desmond Tutu talks about C ATA LY ST FO R helicopter…” when he says we “shouldn’t just be helping CHANGE people out of the river; we should go upstream What is it going to take for us to recognise we’re and stop what is making them fall in.”). God being given the opportunity to take stock of what challenges us to offer love beyond our understanding we’re doing so that we can make life-giving changes to so that all might experience the kind of abundant life we make things better? Changes that will allow us to engage more live now (John 10:10). deeply in God’s mission so that our congregations are places of warm welcome, generous empathy, and landmarked by our So don’t let this moment pass you by. approach to being neighbourly?

Stop. Pause and pray. Contemplate.

Places that young people might even find safe to explore their Take your shot. understanding of who they are, where they fit, and what their purpose in life is.

Engage with what God is inviting you into in this disruption, and what God is calling you to change. It could be very personal, or Prior to COVID affecting our gatherings we were already in a it could be something that affects your entire community. position where our numbers were shrinking; especially the numbers of people under 30. With COVID last year we had a chance to take stock and re-evaluate what we were doing, and yet as soon as we could turn on the lights and gather together again we fell over ourselves in a race to make church just like it was (except maybe this time we were livestreaming one or more services now).

God’s invitation to participate in God’s mission already at work in the world is for all of us.

What is it going to take for you and me..for us…to notice?

STEVE MOLKE NTIN SENIOR FIELD OFFICER FOR PULSE

Racing back to what we were doing will only deliver us the results we were getting…and they weren’t great.

Disruption – like what COVID delivered us – can often be a great catalyst for change.

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P U LS E

CHANGES TO PULSE P U LS E

NEARLY THREE YEARS AGO WE TRAVELLED THE SYNOD TO LISTEN TO WHAT WAS NEEDED BY OUR CHURCH TO HELP EMERGING GENERATIONS OR THE FIRST THIRD OF LIFE TO THRIVE IN OUR CONGREGATIONS. OUR PRIORITY WAS TO NETWORK PEOPLE LOCALLY TO SEE MISSION AND MINISTRY THRIVE. IN RECENT MONTHS WE HAVE BEEN EVALUATING HOW WE WORK AND HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES TO GROW ON WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR.

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The key changes will be that our networks will now be organised across the whole Synod in areas of interest and ministry practice rather than on a local level. The networks will be organised quarterly, and those groups will offer leadership, will network and support each other to grow ministry with Emerging Gens / First Third throughout our congregations.

pulse

Anyone can join our networks, whether you are a volunteer, someone exploring ministry in this area or a paid worker in this area. There are three main networks you might consider joining:

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES MINISTRY

YOUTH MINISTRY

YOUNG ADULTS MINISTRY

Will be lead by Joyce Tangi. This will include but is not limited to Sunday schools, kid’s club, Messy Church, Godly Play, scripture, chaplaincy, and intergenerational ministry styles.

Will be lead by Ofa Fouakou. This will include youth groups, youth outreach, scripture, chaplaincy, and possible intergenerational ministry as well.

Will be lead by Molk. This will include young adult groups, congregations, church plants, and University chaplaincy.

Contact Joyce: SiosianaT@nswact.uca.org.au

Contact Ofa: MiliseF@nswact.uca.org.au

Contact Molk: molk@nswact.uca.org.au

Our hope in doing this, is for a wider audience to hear the great gifts and skills we have across our church, to be inspired to collaborate for mission and ministry and provide an easy access point for Emerging Gen Leaders to engage with others who are passionate about the same kinds of ministry.

The PULSE team believes God has created a diverse world and a diverse Church which we will support through a wide variety of ministry and styles together, learning to see the best in everything that is God given us.

As a result of this change the team will not be as accessible to support

local congregations as before; however our intention is we can support that work through the networks together.

Where we are already working within Presbytery networks this will continue…our passion to help congregations and Presbyteries to transform their culture by Growing Young also remains a priority.

We are looking forward to trialling this new way of journeying together with you. Stay tuned for your first network catch-up coming soon, or reach out to the ministry lead to make sure that you are included in our database.

Keep in touch! facebook.com/UCAPulse twitter.com/ucapulse instagram.com/ucapulse

tiktok.com/@ucapulse Sign up to our newsletter tinyurl.com/ucapulsenews

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P U LS E

Stop

SOMETIMES THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO IS TAKE A STEP TO THE SIDE AND GET OUT OF THE WAY. I’m a Uniting Church kid. Born in 1973, baptised as an infant, and dragged up on the front pew of Dubbo UC, through Dalby UC as a kid, and then Kawana Waters UC as a teenager and young adult until I took on the world myself and was a part of myriad different congregations across NSW and Queensland, serving the Laidley/Hatton Vale UC congregations in my first taste of ministry.

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ince moving back to New South Wales, my family and I have found our worshipping home at Terrigal UC on the Central Coast. It’s a real joy to be a part of that community of faith, where especially my two teenagers are being loved, nurtured, and encouraged to grow as disciples of Jesus.

I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without the generous love, grace, and support of the congregations I was a part of growing up, as well as the wider church.

I was given opportunities to extend myself, to have my faith challenged and pushed, and welcomed into spaces that there would otherwise have not been a hole for me had a wise adult not stepped sideways to welcome me in.

Especially as we have less young people involved in

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our congregations it can be difficult to open up these spaces. Based on sheer numbers there’s not enough of them to fill all the gaps.

We can also get really precious about how we do things (because, after all, we’ve always done it like this) and it can make us nervous to allow someone else to do those things because they will do them differently…and may even do them wrong.

It’s pretty likely that we were welcomed into leadership opportunities or participate in serving at church because someone saw we had potential and needed a chance. Or they could tell we were champing at the bit to get involved and unless they stepped aside we’d have been left waiting.

I wonder if this is our moment to stop talking about it and start stepping out of the way and welcoming young people into positions of leadership, and then having the courage and faith to follow them as they lead us?

In talking to friends my age who have left the Uniting Church to serve elsewhere, a common thread in their stories is they got sick of waiting for ‘their turn’, and even more sick of the hollow

promises that they’d get an opportunity ‘once they had a bit more experience’.

In no way am I suggesting we should drop anyone unprepared into a service or leadership opportunity. If we did, that’s very clearly on us. We should mentor and encourage everyone as they prepare to engage in the broader life of the church… and what a great way for older people to get to know younger people!

Teach them the ropes, and walk beside them as they dip their toes into ministry and leadership.

Talking Yes, young people bring with them an energy and enthusiasm that is infectious. We’re drawn to it because it reminds us of our time as a young person; full of hopes, plans and dreams.

The stuff that brings new ideas and fresh insight to our lot that can excite us (or threaten to drag us along with them).

At some point we need to acknowledge that we need to step aside, to make a place for young people at the table, and that might mean we need to get out of the way.

Don’t just cut and run, though.

Leaving young people without your experience and wisdom would a massive fail. Here’s your chance to help them on your way out. Mentor them into the gap you’re making by leaving.

They’ll have big boots to fill, and with your and God’s help they’ll do it.

WE NEED TO STEP ASIDE AND MAKE A PLACE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AT THE TABLE We might even need to do some scouting, and tap a young person on the shoulder. Ask them if they’d be interested in learning more about this council or that missional opportunity and that you’d be willing to stand beside them and nurture them.

Trust me: it will make a world of difference to that young person’s life. Also to yours.

STEVE MOLKE NTIN SENIOR PU LSE FIELD OFFICER

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P U LS E P U LS E

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I have been a member of the Uniting Church since moving to Australia with my parents in 2000. I was five years old at the time and didn’t know a lick of English when we first arrived, but our congregation and wider church community at Parramatta Mission welcomed us with warm and open arms.

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hroughout the years, I have been given the space to grow in my faith and in my leadership in the Uniting Church. Participating in Sunday School and Youth, having the opportunities to step up and use some gifts and skills at church, both behind the scenes and up in front at the lectern. I transitioned into a Youth leader and also contributed to elders and leaders meetings, as well as church council meetings.

ACT

Once you listen and hear young peoples needs, then act, but act alongside them.

Like I mentioned previously, it is not actually helpful to think that once you see gifts and skills in a young person, you need to immediately give them an opportunity to step up into it, without any growing or mentoring.

It’s not the best method to chuck young people into the deep and think that they’ll swim. Part of the “act” is to put time into guiding young people in their journey. Mentoring goes a long way in this case, and WE NEED there is nothing wrong with TO LEARN TO having multiple mentors!

Not long after, I experienced some wider church gatherings that continued to help me grow. KCO as a young leader, YouLEAD, NCYC, and JUST LISTEN NYALC are some of the An action can look like many TO OUR YOUNG camps and conferences different things too. One P E O P L E that the church provided powerful act is to take a step that allowed me to back, discerning that maybe it’s branch out and meet other time for some fresh eyes, ideas young people from around the and gifts to be in a space that you Synod and Assembly. once occupied. That doesn’t mean you take a step back and disappear, but you I now am blessed to work in the PULSE Team, to help support and resource other take a step back and provide support as someone new steps in. young people within our Synod.

These are some really great things! But sometimes I ask myself… is it enough?

While the church has provided some great events and camps and conferences, I feel like there is still so much more work to be done to truly allow young people in our church to flourish.

LISTEN

It’s a basic skill we use in nearly any situation that we’re in, but we need to actually listen to our young people. Listen and hear and sit with the struggles that they face, experiences that they have, advice and wisdom that they share, pleads and questions and cries and stories.

We need to learn to just listen.

Wholeheartedly. Hearing them is seeing them, for who they are, for who God has made them to be, and for the path that they are called to be on.

Listening to young people doesn’t mean automatically requesting that any and/or every young person should be on church council, or should lead worship, or should be the tech person. Listen to what young people have to offer. What their God given gifts are and where they are called to use it, inside or outside of the four walls of a building that we call church.

HOPE

As conversation around supporting young people continue throughout the Synod and wider, especially as this years Synod discussed our Future Directions, I notice that some are still cautious and cynical about them.

I get it. Some of these discussions have been going on for years, even with the same voices at times. For some, it seems like there hasn’t even been much change.

But. But even with these critical (bordering cynical) views, we still need to have hope.

Hope for change. Hope for something better.

Hope that with the end of some things, comes new life.

We need to Listen. Act. Hope.

We need to do it together.

Through God. For God. With God. Let us continue to work together to ensure that just as young people are enough, even more than enough, to God, that there is more than enough for them in the church.

OFA FOIAK AU FIELD OFFICER (CENTR AL/WEST) AND YOUTH/ HIGH SCHOOL MINISTRY LE AD AS A PART OF THE PU LSE TE AM

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L E C T I O N A RY R E F L E CT I O NS

DECEMBER

Advent is Full of Sur prises

SUNDAY 5 DECEMBER LUKE 3:1-6

The Lukan passage for this second Sunday of Advent is full of surprises.

It is surprising that bypassing seven high profile individuals like Emperor Tiberius, Governor Pontius Pilate, rulers Herod, Philip and Lysanias, high priests Annas and Caiaphas, God reaches out to a locust and honey eating, camel hair skirt wearing prophet to be the divine spokesperson. It is also surprising that it doesn’t take place in the corridor of power in Rome or in the sanctuary of the Temple of Jerusalem but in the wilderness.

God is full of surprises as the word of God comes to unlikely persons in unlikely places. God’s word may not confirm what we already know or expect but may shock us out of our spiritual slumber to see God and God’s kingdom in a new way. This advent, may we be surprised as to where and through whom we meet God in the child of Mary.

SUNDAY 12 DECEMBER LUKE 3:7-18

John eats honey but his words are not sweet, at least not in this instance as he calls the people approaching him for baptism “brood of vipers”. He not only calls names, what he exhorts in verses 8-10 is anything but good news. But sometimes good news come in bitter capsules.

John uses harsh words lest the crowd miss his message of following God and preparing the way of the Lord.

Surprisingly, people respond positively.

They ask three times in hymnic refrain fashion, “What should we do?” which become our question – what should we do in this moment of history?

Preparing the way of the Lord, John says, requires repentance of our hearts that will lead us outward into action. His three answers to the crowd are down to earth practical responses: selfless sharing, anti-economic bullying, and

GOD IS FULL OF SURPRISES AS THE WORD OF GOD COMES TO UNLIKELY PERSONS IN UNLIKELY PLACES being content with what one has. The rite of repentance and baptism is fused with social justice and service to others.

How should we prepare? should be our question as well on this third Sunday of Advent.

SUNDAY 19 DECEMBER LUKE 1:39-45 (46-55)

This is an amazing encounter between two women – Elizabeth and Mary.

Elizabeth childless for many years knows the frustrations, pain, and stigma of being barren in a culture where a woman’s worth is measured almost entirely by her ability to bear children.

She is now pregnant. Mary, the other woman who is almost too young to have a baby and unmarried, is also pregnant.

There is fear, anxiety and stigma.

However, their encounter is extraordinary as the two would be mothers embrace each other in tears and joy. The child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps as if confirming that this a sign of God’s providence. “Blessed are you”, Mary says, who knows that God is at work. She breaks into song, a song with an unconventional lyric, as it proclaims God’s work of transforming and reordering of everything – economically, socially and politically. As Elizabeth and Mary allow their bodies to be transformed according to God’s promise,

may we allow God to transform our humanity. May we too, like Mary, sing a song of transformation of our world as we prepare to celebrate Christmas.

SUNDAY 26 DECEMBER LUKE 2:41-52

It is a “lost and found” story but of a different kind. Jesus is lost as a twelveyear-old boy after his family came to Jerusalem to attend the Passover festival. After three days of frantic searching his parents find him in the temple discussing the finer points of theology with the teachers of the Temple.

After three days! Luke’s hint here is of resurrection. Jesus, dead and buried, is raised on the third day, and there is a new temple, Christ’s resurrected body.

But the Easter is long way off. In the meantime, Jesus returns to Nazareth and spends the next two decades away from the centres of religion and politics, in the company of ordinary people. Here Jesus continues to grow “in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.” This is an invitation to every child of God, regardless of their age, to grow “in wisdom and in divine and human favour” to discern what God expects of them for God’s ministry in the world.

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L E CT I O N A RY R E F L E CT I O NS

JANUARY

Meeting Jesus in our neighbours SUNDAY 2 JANUARY JOHN 1(1-9),10-18

A brand New Year has just begun. But the dreadful memories of the past year cling to us when we felt as if God was not with us. Those memories cloud our vision for the new year. In today’s reading John reminds us, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, but the world didn't know he was there.”

If it were not for God, we would not be here. Yet often we fail to see God. To help us overcome this problem of invisibility, John writes, "(So) The Word became flesh and dwelt among us… and we saw his glory …" The invisible God came down among us in the form of a human baby, who grew into a young traveling preacher, who loved the loveless, forgave the sinful, lifted the lowly, healed the hurt, and spoke of a new Kingdom which he started building bit-by-bit, and personby-person. This kingdom, when it is complete, people will see God face-toface, as peace will reign, justice will flow like a river, and the tears will be wiped away from every eye. As the New Year begins, may we meet the invisible God by reaching out to meet the visible Jesus in our neighbours and among the poor and the needy.

SUNDAY 9 JANUARY LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22

The two cousins meet. But it is not a typical Middle Eastern family gathering over felafel and kebabs in the backyard.

It takes place in the wilderness by the river of Jordan. This venue is significant and full of symbolism. This is the same wilderness in which Moses led the people of Israel for forty years after their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

This is the same Jordan in which they were immersed before they entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. To go out to the wilderness and to be baptized in the Jordan, is to recover the roots. It is to rededicate to the freedom journey with God! Today’s encounter between John and Jesus, and the baptism that ensues heralds a new beginning, an entry into the Kingdom of God under the leadership of the One of whom God says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I

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am well pleased.” This baptism is the inauguration of Jesus’ public ministry.

Today as we remember Jesus’ baptism may we remember that in our baptism we too have been plunged into a new way of being, living, and acting in the world.

SUNDAY 16 JANUARY JOHN 2.1-11

For John, Jesus’ miracles are “signs” that reveal Jesus’ glory as God’s Son through whom salvation enters the world. In other words, John says that putting on human skin God came and dwelt among us in Jesus, so we could see the glory of God. Jesus does just that in the first “sign” of his public ministry. Instead of doing any headline grabbing “sign” he goes to a village wedding and turns water into wine in the presence of some lowly servants.

Lack of wine could cause huge embarrassment and shame on the host. It could deprive the bride and the groom and the invitees the joy of their life. Jesus saves the host. He saves the wedding party. In this story by seeking help from the servants in filling the jars Jesus reveals that doing God’s will require divine-human co-operation. The abundance of wine, and not just any wine but the very best, reveals the new and abundant life Jesus brings to our life and that of the world.

SUNDAY 23 JANUARY LUKE 4:14-21

Jesus has just been baptised by John and then tempted by Satan to embark on a mission that Satan wants him to go on. But Jesus thwarts Satan’s plan and embarks on the mission to which God has called him. Then filled with power of the Spirit Jesus goes the synagogue before he begins his Galilean ministry and declares his mission statement with the words from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

From the very beginning Jesus makes his mandate clear that he has been anointed and sent out to bring the Good News to those who are rejected and, on the

margins, and longing to be included into God’s family. After stating his mission when all eyes are fixed on him, he rolls up the scroll, sits, and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He makes it clear that he has not just come to state his mission, but to embody his mission right there in their midst. He has come to live God’s love among them in a way that breaks down the barriers that keep people outside the love, grace and mercy of God.

SUNDAY 30 JANUARY LUKE 4:21-30

The hometown crowd loved his sermon last week. They clapped and cheered.

But this week? They jeer him and heckle him, even want to hurl him off the cliff.

Why is this abrupt reversal of people’s reaction? Verses 23 through 28 give us some clues. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself.’

And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” There's more involved in this conversation, of course, but just these two comments reveal the source of tension. It’s the age-old ‘us and them syndrome’. If you're going to heal people, heal your own people, Jesus!

If you're going to use God's power, use it here in Nazareth, not over there in Capernaum!

Then with the illustrations of Elijah who went on God's behalf to relieve the suffering of a Sidonese widow during the great drought, and of Elisha who healed Naaman the Syrian leper, Jesus blows off the cover nationally, religiously and racially. He points out how God through history has defied this human sentiment to favour us over them. And the crowd was filled with rage.

This story challenges us to redefine our mission, rewrite our priorities and refocus our attention to those who are looked down and looked at with fear and suspicion and disbelief, as Jesus continues to nudge and persuade us that God’s love is inclusive and embracing and universal.

L E CT I O N A RY R E F L E CT I O NS

FEBRUARY

Moving beyond our comfort zones SUNDAY 6 FEBRUARY LUKE 5:1-11

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Jesus says these intriguing words to a group of fishermen who had toiled all night with no success.

This was the last thing the seasoned fishermen wanted to hear from a carpenter-turned-preacher. However, they listen, and the result is astounding.

in recent weeks in “Mary’s Song” and Jesus’ “Mission Statement”. In all three we see God in Jesus re-describing, renaming, re-imagining the world that is God’s Kingdom.

Jesus’ words are both blessing and woe.

The woes sound harsh. But this is not a vendetta against the rich per se, but for those who live just for themselves without any reference and commitment

IT IS A CALL TO THE CHURCH TO TAKE RISK AND MOVE BEYOND THEIR COMFORT ZONES TO REACH OUT TO THOSE AT THE MARGINS OF SOCIETY

Tradition calls this story the story of the magnificent catch of fish. But it is a call to the Church to take risk and move beyond their comfort zones to reach out to those at the margins of society, those who are under deep water in their lives and often feel like they are drowning.

When the church demonstrates such concern for people most at risk, the result reflects the disciples’ experience when their nets began to break.

SUNDAY 13 FEBRUARY LUKE 6:17-26

Rather than speaking from a mountain top (cf. Matthew 5) Luke’s Jesus comes to the same level as the crowd to speak to their hearts. This passage is a continuity of what we have heard

challenging commands in scripture and perhaps in all history.

When Jesus says love your enemies it doesn’t mean putting up with their hostility but relating with them in a new way. It means taking the power out of their hands and putting it in a positive way. It means refraining from hurting them in the same way they have hurt us.

When Jesus says, “turn the other cheek”, or “give your cloak as well”, or “go also the second mile” he means that instead of doing the tit for tat in the face of violence, be wise and creative. Expose the evil, oppressive and dehumanizing system non-violently with your held high.

Individuals like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King (Jr) and Nelson Mandela practiced these commandments of Jesus and experienced positive result.

Shall we?

SUNDAY 27 FEBRUARY LUKE 9:28-36

On the mountain Jesus is transfigured.

His clothes dazzle. Two great heroes of the past – Moses and Elijah are in conversation with him. This is ethereal.

Peter, the impulsive blurts out, “Lord it is good to be here,” and suggests making three dwellings to memorialize this stunning event. Then a cloud overshadows them, and a voice declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” And suddenly it is all over.

to help the poor, and perpetuating systems that oppress and exclude the marginalised and the disadvantaged. On the other hand, the words of blessings are not to spiritualise the pains of the poor with pie in the sky preaching, but words of hope, new possibilities and promises for the new world of equity that Jesus embodied.

SUNDAY 20 FEBRUARY LUKE 6:27-38

This is what Rudolph Otto called the “mysterium tremendum et fascinosum”.

The voice reconfirms Jesus’ identity which we heard at his baptism and affirms his mission. “Listen to him.” We are not called to just bask in the glory but to listen to him and follow him down the mountain to serve the least of his brothers and sisters in the world which is charged with God’s radiant light.

REV. DR MANAS GHOSH ST JOHN’S UNITING CHURCH WAHROONGA

“Love your enemies! Turn the other cheek!” Are you serious, Jesus? In this world of pseudo cold war and pre-emptive strike these words from Jesus sound crazy. But this is the heart of Jesus’ message, which are most

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E N T E RTA I N M E

Summer Reading Guide

GIRT NATION

BY DAVID HUNT

History can be taken too seriously, but not by David Hunt. He has an ear for the absurd, and his history of Australia is irreverent and, be warned, often bawdy. But then that is an undoubted underbelly of the story of our nation. His book is ‘unauthorised’ because, he writes, it’s good to challenge pseudo-official blinkered and sanitised distortions of history.

Girt Nation is the third in the series, covering the late nineteenth century, when the states, despite being unable to agree on football, were heading for the climax of Federation, when Australia would become a proud, independent nation (while still clinging tightly to Britain’s apron strings).

It was a time when religious tensions were exacerbated by creating two education streams (Protestant and Catholic), when the people were united by their desire to beat England at cricket (even if white Australians frowned upon Indigenous players being needed to do it), and when Mary McKillop’s sisters, in the context of a post-gold rush depression, did so well in their charity work that they were reprimanded by their bishop.

rage of spiritualism (he took advice from the spirits of Prince Albert and John Bunyan, the latter encouraging Deakin to pen an updated and ultimately dreadful version of Pilgrim’s Progress). (Not everyone was convinced; one prominent minister derided spiritualism while promoting the more sensible ‘science’ of phrenology.)

Deakin introduced a bill to, literally, not put a cart before a horse and fretted about irrigation and immigration. As a secret, anonymous antipodean correspondent for a London newspaper he (bizarrely) criticized his own policies.

AUSTRALIANS WERE VERY KEEN ON POETRY AS LONG AS THE POETRY HAD HORSES IN IT

The embryonic nation was nurtured by the likes of Henry Parkes who, when a wife died, would just replace her with his latest, younger mistress, and his polar opposite, Alfred Deakin, teetotaller and vegetarian (at least until they impeded his political ambitions), proponent of muscular Christianity, and enthusiastic cyclist. He indulged in the contemporary

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Australians (white and male), while they weren’t trying to keep the Chinese out, were trying to keep women from the vote. They ultimately weren’t successful at either. They were more successful at pushing Indigenous Australians to the margins (which were at the country’s centre), something it is hard to find anything to laugh about.

Australians (white and male) were apparently voracious readers in the late 1800s, something that might surprise those of you not reading this review.

Australians were very keen on poetry,

including from the accident-prone Banjo Patterson and the depressing Henry Lawson, as long as the poetry had horses in it, says Hunt. Later attentions turned to celebrating the bushman (less so his wife, and even less so the original inhabitants). The Man from Snowy River successfully featured both. Sheep were also popular subjects, and Hunt notes that Australia’s national anthem was very nearly a song about a ‘sheep-stealing hobo.’

NICK MAT TISKE

Summer Reading Guide

THE ACCIDENTAL FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE HUNDRED YEAR OLD MAN

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED

BY JONAS JONASSON

BY KHALED HOSSEINI Over the last few months, a lot has been said about Afghanistan: Taliban taking over, Afghans trying to escape, while others face the tragedy of staying home. But what do most of us really know about Afghanistan, its culture, history and people?

And the Mountains Echoed is the third novel by AfghanAmerican author Khaled Hosseini, published in 2013 following The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), all internationally acclaimed novels framed on the Afghan culture and traditions.

Continuing the familial theme established in his previous novels, And the Mountains Echoed centres on the rapport between siblings. As always, the author navigates through moral complexities and frames siblings relationships from different angles and struggles, but this time the story crosses Afghan borders and take readers to reflect on how our choices resonate through generations.

This fascinating story starts with a fable that a father tells his two children about a poor farmer who struggles to provide for his family and suddenly is forced to give up one of his five children to an evil giant.

After giving Allan Karlson (the titular centenarian) his happy ever after in his first book, author Jonas Jonasson found that the world’s events called him back into action. While the writer never intended to write a sequel to his popular novel, The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, real life events made him imagine new scenarios to the extent that he felt the character “speaking” to him.

The second book features much of the same style that made The Hundred Year Old Man an unforgettable title. Where the first novel places Allan in his context across history as something of a Forest Gump figure, the follow up sees his well-earned rest interrupted by current events, such as the election of (now former) US President Donald Trump.

THE READER SUBMERGES IN EACH OF THE CHARACTERS STORIES, FEELINGS AND JOURNEYS

Eventually, the farmer, deepened in his grief, tracks down the giant and finds his son happy and with no memory of his birth family, and so he decides to leave him where he is. As a gesture of kindness, the giant gives the farmer a potion that makes him forget everything about his son.

As it turns out, the fable is only a reflection of the countless crossroads that Hosseini sows throughout the novel. The main story, from which all the other stories emerge and intertwine, is about ten-year-old Abdullah staying in their father's small village in Afghanistan, while three-year-old Pari is adopted by a wealthy couple and eventually taken by her half-French mother to live in Paris.

As the story continues, the reader submerges in each of the characters stories, feelings, and journeys, making us wonder if parents can protect their children from a life of suffering, if it is worth splitting a family to protect a child from poverty, or if things would have turned out differently if other choices were made. It's a reminder that much of the invisible bonds that connect us also make us individuals.

What follows is a similar madcap story involving strange characters, coincidences, and history being made before characters’ eyes. Before too long, Allan and his friend Julius Johnsson have left their idyllic surroundings in Bali for an adventure involving a hot air balloon, neo Nazis, North Korea, and eventually world leaders such as Trump and (also now former) German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

What makes this a great summer read is the way that the chapters fly by, with each one being a rewarding experience.

Jonasson is a former Swedish journalist whose humour translates well, and who crams his work with historical details and observations that pique readers’ curiosity.

If there is a complaint to be had, it’s that Jonasson’s follow-up effort does not land with the same weight as the first book, and the shift from historical jokes to contemporary politics is a little jarring at first.

Despite this, The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred Year Old Man manages to retain much of the charm and irreverence of the first, and makes for a worthwhile follow up. Needless to say, Insights recommends reading the first title beforehand if you haven’t already.

JONATHAN FOYE

ANGE L A CADE NA

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E N T E RTA I N M E

A DIE HARD

Christmas

There has been an annual debate in our household about whether Die Hard is in fact a Christmas film. It has all the right elements. It is set at Christmas time and has a Christmas soundtrack for starters.

This in turn sparks the debate about what in fact constitutes a Christmas film – and rest assured around this time of year we have a keen eye.

If you do get into a discussion over Christmas about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie here are a few talking points: • Die Hard is a heartfelt movie about coming home for the holidays… just, with explosions.

• Bruce Willis’ John McClane is the kind of family man we love … especially at Christmas.

• Die Hard values family over greed and materialism—a solid Christmas message!

To settle the debate about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas film, there is now proof however with A Die Hard Christmas – The Illustrated Holiday Classic*.

A Die Hard Christmas is based on A Night Before Christmas, it tells the somewhat adult tale of John McClane and his mission to reunite with his estranged family. When his wife’s office holiday party turns into a deadly hostage situation, he has to save her life before he can get home in time for Christmas!

*There is now a Die Hard Christmas Book Gift Set – which has a plush figure of John McClane’s glorious jump from Nakatomi Plaza as it explodes behind him – the perfect Christmas gift!

While perhaps not entirely a classic, with prose like “the explosives were wired to the rooftop with care, in hopes that the hostages soon would be there” how could you resist…

Die Hard Director John McTiernan has also confirmed online as recently as last year that Die Hard is fact a Christmas movie.

The book and the film are family favourites.

ADRIAN DR AY TON

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Church in Tonga) and research fellow with Trinity Methodist Theological For more information visit College (Aotearoa) and the Public and Contextual Ph: 02 9683 3664 | pci@parramattamission.org.au | pastoralcounselling.org TheologyPsychological Research Centre, and Counselling Services 02 8838 8900 studenta@nswact.uca.org.au Theology for Life Charles Sturt University.

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