Meet the DUCA network: Rev Graham Anson (Deacon)

Rev. Graham Anson has been Executive Minister at Wayside, Bondi Beach since 2015. 

After a few years as a trainee accountant Graham moved into community-based ministry in 1985, starting as a youth worker in Redfern. This included running a drop-in centre and youth groups for kids who would otherwise have been on the street. It was during this time that he developed a passion for creating spaces and moments of connection based on acceptance and inclusion, compassion and love. After another similar role in the inner-city he had two lengthy placements in regional oversight of youth work in the Uniting Church. 

He was ordained in 2008 while in placement at Campbelltown, where he was a community-based minister. Add in a short stint in a state-wide role promoting and supporting new initiatives, and Graham brings a wealth of experience in innovation; growing and developing communities – where everyone’s experiences are respected and their contribution is valued. 

Along the way Graham has completed degrees in Theology and Sociology.

(Source: Wayside Chapel website)

Meet the DUCA network: Jon Owen, Deacon candidate

Jon Owen is a Deacon candidate. He began as Pastor and CEO of Wayside Chapel in July 2018, taking over from Rev Graham Long after he announced his retirement from the role of 14 years. Jon was chosen from 50 potential applicants after a robust and independent selection process conducted by Wayside’s Board. Jon was already a big part of Wayside, working as Assistant Pastor and Head of People and Culture since November 2016 and all of our community was delighted with this decision.

Jon has dedicated his life to closing the gap on inequality, both living and working amongst some of the most disadvantaged communities in Sydney and Melbourne. Jon is a qualified social and worker and prior to Wayside, he built his way up through the organisation Urban Neighbourhoods of Hope, an international not-for-profit organisation specialising in community development and care coordination for families living in poverty. In this role, he shared his family home with those seeking asylum, refugees, people in recovery and ex-prisoners.

Jon lives and breathes Wayside’s mission of creating community of no ‘us and them’ and looks forward to carrying forward Rev Graham Long’s legacy into the future. He is joined by an accomplished team of 140 staff and some 600 volunteers each week at Wayside Chapel.

(Source: Wayside Chapel website)

Formation for Ministry - Ministry of Deacon in the UCA

August 2020

Deacon candidates and supervisors, and Formation Panels, may find Formation for Ministry - Ministry of Deacon in the UCA, a helpful resource.

Since the renewal of the diaconate, there have been issues with formation of Deacon candidates, and especially the lack of specificity for diaconal ministry. The document 'Standards for Theological  Education and Formation Phase 2', there is tremendous flexibility and it is important for Deacon candidates and their supervisors recognise they are 'co-drivers' with the Formation Panel and faculty in deciding what content and courses will be part of the formation for diaconal ministry. 

 

Hands on ministry

Rev Karen Mitchell-Lambert lends a hand to preparing for the Wesley UC Craft Show, held on Friday 10th May 2013 to raise money for school fees for students in Vanuatu, and part of the leadership team for Kids Camp Out 2013.

Rev Karen Mitchell-Lambert at the sewing machine

Wesley UC kids and leaders (including Rev Karen Mitchell-Lambert) attending Kids Camp Out 2013

Rev Aimee Kent, Community Minister, Goulburn

Rev Aimee Kent

Rev Aimee Kent is working with the Goulburn New Faith Community to foster new creative forms of Church.
Aimee trained initially in Social Work whilst she worked as a Family Youth and Children’s Worker with Wagga Uniting Church, and later in University Ministry at Charles Sturt University Wagga Campus.
Aimee trained in Theology at the United Theological College, North Paramatta and was ordained as a Uniting Church Deacon in 2012. Aimee has worked with the World Council of Churches as a volunteer in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) program.

Faith on Earth: An Ecoministry

(this is from 2010 but a good insight into Jason John's work as Ecominister, Mid North Coast, NSW)
“This is exactly what I needed to hear,” remarked one participant during the Creation Spirituality session at Faith. On Earth, held in Bellingen in September. Faith. On Earth was a weekend gathering organised as part of the Uniting Church's Mid North Coast Presbytery Ecoministry. Participants were challenged not to leave creativity to the professionals but to realise that creativity is intrinsic to all living things.

A food workshop followed with local food from the area, including produce from the Northbank Community Garden, which participants picked and ate around a campfire.
The Rev. Dr Jason John, part-time minister of the Bellingen Uniting Church and part-time ecominister in the Mid North Coast Presbytery, said, "Every single thing we eat, we realised, links us to dozens or hundreds of other people: growers, harvesters, transporters, distributors and so on. How does the food we choose to eat, and the way we eat it, reflect our faith?"
After joining the regular Bellingen Ecofaith Community on Sunday, participants explored the new creation story emerging from the study of cosmology and evolution, and what that meant for some of the traditional propositions of their faith.
Dr John said, "The image of God cannot be limited to our species alone: our vocation is neither dominator nor servant, but reverer -- or lover -- of life. We are not the centre of God’s story and all creatures are -- literally -- our neighbour."
With Miriam Pepper from Uniting Earthweb, participants rejoiced in the number of community gardens and other sustainable food projects springing up in churches around the state.
"Everyone came away encouraged in our conviction that our faith should reflect that we live on this earth and that our relationship with creation is interwoven with our relationship with Earth’s Creator."

For more information about the Faith. On Earth weekend, see http://ecofaith.org/mnc/2010weekend/
For more information about Ecofaith, see http://ecofaith.org/mnc/index.html

Western Sydney - a view from Mt Druitt

Western Sydney has been a focus for election campaigning this year. It is an area of Sydney that struggles with issues of housing, unemployment, violence, and social-economic issues.
Uniting Church deacon and community minister John Dacey said despite many isolated and vulnerable locals struggling with poor housing and unemployment, there was a strong sense of community in Mount Druitt.
''There is a good feeling here. It's not like the middle-class suburbs where people just hide in their McMansions and don't talk to each other,'' he said.
He cited successful programs such as the Midnight Basketball tournament bringing 50 to 60 young people together every Friday night for team sport and life skill workshops.
''Recent events are just a coincidence. There is no simple catalyst. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Overall, I'd say Mount Druitt is improving. I've seen the improvement over the past 10 years.''*
Rev John Dacey highlights the way strategic programs can positively benefit the local community. The Mt Druit Community Ministry provides a place of welcome and hospitality, information and referral, and leisure and learning activities such as playgroup, afer-school activates and helping students struggling with conventional schooling. Five congregations – four of them Pacific communities – use the centre for worship. Community Minister, Rev. John Dacey is involved with monthly English-speaking services with two of the congregations, seeking to reach out to the wider community as well as maintain their cultural traditions. An Indigenous Children and Youth Worker runs weekly children’s programs, acts as a role model and mentor for both Indigenous and other Australian kids, and leads Bible study and worship.
(* Read the full article from the Sydney Morning Herald (August 2012)  here)

Meg Evans retiring

In April, Meg Evans retired from her ministry as a Frontier Services Padre in Tasmania.

Frontier Services family (Left-Right) Judy Knowling (formerly Pilbara Patrol), West Coast Patrol Minister Gay Loftus, Rosemary Young, Colleen Grieve (formerly West Coast Patrol) and Meg Evans.

Hundreds gathered in the Midlands of Tasmania on Sunday to farewell Meg, who has finished up after 10 years. Her final service at the Oatlands Uniting Church was a wonderful celebration of her ministry, with many warm wishes extended for her retirement. Meg was the first minister appointed to the Midlands Patrol when it was established in 2003. Extending across the Midlands and Central Highlands of Tasmania, the Patrol covers the small towns of Oatlands, Ross, Bothwell and Campbell Town and the isolated properties in between. Looking back on her time in the Midlands, Meg reflected on her work as a “ministry of presence”.
“As more and more services leave these rural areas, the presence of the church is really significant,” she said. “It’s important just to be there. It has been such a privilege to be a part of people’s lives, to have people trust you, and to share in the hard times and the good times.”
As the Midlands Patrol Minister, Meg has led 114 funerals, 33 weddings and 35 baptisms. She has walked alongside generations of families, through their highs and lows. In her final week, she conducted a baptism for a family she had come to know well. Meg buried the grandfather, married the children and now welcomed the grandchildren, touching four generations in one family! 
In May, Frontier News - May 2013 featured her in an article entitled 'Caring for the Midlands'. 

Congratulations, Rev Frances Bartholomeusz!

Rev Frances Bartholomeusz was ordained as a Deacon in the UCA on 12th January, 2013. Congratulations! She will take up a placement as a community outreach worker at Murray Bridge UCA.

Rev Frances Bartholomeusz

Rev Frances Bartholomeusz and SA Deacons

With white knuckles and gritted teeth

Reading this short account of James Godfrey highlighs the breadth of ministry agents serving in diaconal ministry in the Uniting Church, and of the way that diaconal ministry often calls for 'white knuckles and gritted teeth' to hold in tension the often competing challenges of diaconal ministry and the institutional church, and also highlights the particular strengths of character and resolve required to remain attentive to the call of diaconal ministry.

'James Godfrey has four children under six years old. Let’s just sit with that for a moment. When I first met him he had a fairly impressive Mohawk, and once described to me the rumble of his motorbike as ‘like music’. Lead into ordained ministry through experiences working with people on the margins of society, he talks about the Uniting Church as being a place of welcome “that has accepted me and all my idiosyncrasies, and provided channels through which I can serve the Gospel”. He remembers the revelation of the formational process. “It revealed to me”, he wrote, “my own appetite for autonomy and authority … my impatience with the frailties of the church. With white knuckles and gritted teeth I have let myself go”.

(from an article by Bethany Broadstock, http://ctm.uca.edu.au/theologicalcollege/with-white-knuckles-and-gritted-teeth/

Elaine Ledgerwood: The Hope of Forgiveness

Elaine Ledgerwood has written an article titled, The Hope of Forgiveness, in Vol 19, No.3, 2012 in Australian eJournal of Theology. Check out the abstract here. Free subscription.

DAP Regional Gathering

The DIAKONIA Asia Pacific (DAP) regional gathering was held from October 28th to November 2nd, 2012. Rev Sandy Boyce (Deac) was a delegate from DUCA, accompanied by Geoff Boyce. It was a great time of sharing and learning, with lots of singing and celebration.

Deacon celebration calls church members to mutual vulnerability

The WA Synod celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first ordinations of Deacons in the UCA as part of their Synod meeting in September. Here's the story from the WA website:

Rev Bev Fabb preached at the celebration

Rev Denise Savage

Synod Sunday began with worship celebrating the 21st anniversary of the renewal of diaconate ministry within the Uniting Church. The focus of the morning was on the ministry of service given expression by those ordained to the ministry of deacon.
Rev Marion Millin gave some historical background, telling of how the Uniting Church, in 1991, agreed to recognise two expressions of ordained ministry, the ministry of the Word, and ministry of deacon. WA’s Rev Betty Matthews was the first person to be ordained as a deacon in the Uniting Church.
Rev Bev Fabb preached, focussing on the story of the last supper as told in John 13:
… So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, “Master, you wash my feet?”
Jesus answered, “You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but it will be clear enough to you later.”
Peter persisted, “You’re not going to wash my feet—ever!”
Jesus said, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.”
“Master!” said Peter. “Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!”
(The Message translation)

Rev Bev Fabb washes the feet of Rev Marion Millin

 Bev pointed out that, while Christians have followed the tradition of the last supper by celebrating communion, and recognising it as a sacrament, Jesus’ command to wash one another’s feet is not followed often.
“The act of foot washing is an experience of mutual vulnerability,” said Bev. When you kneel at someone’s feet, you risk being kicked in the head. At the same time, the person whose feet are being washed has to expose their defects and sensitivities.
“Deacons are called to wash the feet of those who suffer in our world, in gentleness, compassion and love,” said Bev.
“What God wants is for us to wash one another’s feet.”
During the celebration of communion and over the morning tea, Bev and other deacons were available to wash others’ feet or to have their own feet washed.
Photos on the website. 

Insights (NSW/ACT) August 2012 - featuring Deacons

The August edition of Insights (UCA publication in NSW/ACT has a great coverage of Deacons and diaconal ministry - a great read. If you live in NSW/ACT you'll have access to copies. People in other Synods might like to contact Insights for a copy. The editorial team is to be congratulated for such a great contribution to the 20th anniversary of Deacons in the UCA.

Here's a link to Clive Pearson's article on the God is where?! Conference, featured in the August edition of Insights and Stephen Webb's editorial. 

Exploring diaconal ministry - a post by Steve Taylor

Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology (UCLT) in SA, wrote on his blog:

A few weeks a young couple came to see me, armed with questions about ministry in the Uniting Church. With their permission, this is some of their story.

She was born in rural Australia and moved to Adelaide to study. In 2008, as part of her degree, she did a placement in Port Augusta. She felt a stirring, a sense that she might return one day. She returned to Adelaide to continue her study. She met and married a trained youth worker.

After university study, they found employment in community ministry here in Adelaide. Together they sensed God’s call to the marginalised and poor. In order to explore this call they moved to work with Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH) in Sydney. They loved the values of UNOH, of Incarnational work in partnership with the lost and the least. But they still remained restless, sensing their call was not urban, but to regional South Australia.

They moved to Port Augusta, he to community youth work, she to volunteering at the aged care home in Davenport, plus paid a few days a week as part of the Aboriginal education team in the school. They found the most run down suburb and moved in. They find themselves linking with the Uniting Church, one week with Congress, the other week with Port Augusta Uniting Church.

In the Uniting Church they heard about the ministry of Deacon. Hence their visit to see me. They want to be in Port Augusta for the next 15 years, to embrace a ministry of Incarnational community development. How can their sense of call be realised in the ministries of the Uniting Church?

The Uniting Church’s understanding of ministry is that we are all called to ministry. The Basis of Union says “The Uniting Church affirms …. one Spirit has endowed the members of his church with a diversity of gifts, and that there is no gift without its corresponding service: all ministries have a part in the ministry of Christ.”

The Uniting College is about developing effective leaders of healthy, missional churches who are passionate, Christ-centred, highly skilled, mission oriented practitioners. That is you and that is me and that is our friends in Port Augusta seeking to discern their gifts and calling with the Uniting Church.

Source: http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/archive/uniting-college-mission-future/

Where is God - DIAKONIA Conference

A fantastic article by Rev Dr Clive Pearson in the NSW publication Insights reflects on the conference: Check it out here.  Here's a taster......
The title of this conference — “God is Where?!” — was unusual.
It is much more normal to think of who is God and what kind of God do we believe in. That shift to “where” is a little peculiar. It is suggesting a different kind of agenda.
The who and what questions are much more tied to the internal life of the church and how mission is sometimes (not without problems) tied to the church. It is, after all, the mission of God rather than the mission of this all too human institution in which we participate.
The who and what questions invite us to pay more attention to the inner life of discipleship and membership; the where question is of a different order altogether.
That point has been very well made by the English Methodist theologian, Clive Marsh.
His Christ in Practice is a study of what he calls an “everyday Christology”; it is designed to seek out “traces”, “resonances” — hints — of the Jesus story in the secular, multi-faith society we live in and which are beyond the walls of the church.
The distinctively Australian nature of the context was informed by a reading of Gary Bouma’s Australian Soul and a handful of other writers, including some who have spoken of their life in Australia as being “Australienated”.
This business of “where” is in keeping with the emerging discipline of a public theology/ministry. This synod is the only synod in the country which through its theological college has committed itself to this task, which is now freely described as a major “global flow”.
What this designation means is that a public theology is now regarded as a significant new development around the globe in helping Christians understand their faith and what is being asked of them for Christ’s sake.
The aim of the conference was to explore the nature and purpose of a public theology.
At one level this way of thinking is a thoughtful protest against the common tendency to confine faith to the world of private belief (me and my Jesus, so said Dorothee Sölle) or to the church’s struggle to survive.
These things have their place; they are important but they are only part of the picture.
The intention of a public theology is to work for the common good, the public good, and the construction of a civil society.
David Ford from Cambridge reckons that such a theology is concerned with the flourishing of all. That has become a frequent refrain for a faith and ministry in our post-this and -that world.
Those who are committed to this form of theology and ministry are shaped by a host of biblical considerations.
The Bible studies each day were designed to draw out the theme of the week and put a practical human face on this enterprise. There are a number of organising texts, like by the question posed by Jesus — who do people say that I am? — and the call to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The nagging question here is who is our neighbour?
The public theologian is likely to make use of the biblical themes of wisdom a great deal. The emphasis is an act of discernment, a capacity to read the signs of the times and express a Christian faith committed to mercy, compassion, justice and the care of creation.
It was recognised that part of the public role of the Christian faith is to secure a voice in the marketplace of ideas within society. That is not necessarily easy when there is so much suspicion with regards the Christian faith and in this setting the contemporary follower of Christ cannot rely upon a privileged space.
There have been too many negative headlines; there has been too much trauma associated with the effect of the church on the lives of so many people.
This discipline is one which works with “strangers”; it is interdisciplinary and it relies upon the extension of thin trust.
Such trust occurs where you do not know well or all the other but you expect them to treat you well as you would them. The making of a civil society — of any sort — depends upon such trust, writes Martin Marty in his fine study of Creating Cultures of Trust.
Those visits through the course of the week were designed to illustrate how a public theology identifies issues of the day which require prophetic attention. It so happened that they frequently coincided with the daily work and passion of those involved in a diaconal ministry.
What those present seemed to find helpful was being given a theological frame of reference in which to situate their work and praxis.They were being given words to name what they do and how it fits into the bigger picture of the Christian hope for the world.They were being invited to be bilingual; meaning being well-grounded and able to talk within the life of the church and beyond in the public domain where God is also to be found.

Clive Pearson is Principal of United Theological College, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, and Head of School, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University.

Deacons at 13th Assembly of UCA in Adelaide

The 13th Assembly of the UCA, held for a week in July in Adelaide, included ten Deacons - five from SA and five from the other Synods. This is more than on previous occasions, so we celebrate about the involvement of Deacons including Denise Champion and Dean Whittaker with Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Susan Doughty as a Deacon candidate, and Sandy Boyce and Michelle Cook serving as two of the President's chaplains. The UCA Assembly meeting formally acknowledged the 20th anniversary of the renewal of the diaconate, with the first ordinations in 1992 (starting with Betty Matthews in WA).

Deacons at 13th UCA Assembly meeting, July 2012

Reconciliation People - a statement to the nation by young adult leaders in the UCA

Rev Aimee Kent was one of the participants in the UCA National Young Adult Leaders Conference (NYALC) in February 2012, and features in this video in which various participants read the statement in a variety of settings. Well worth a look! Here's the link.

Emma Matthews - school chaplaincy in changing times

Rev Emma Matthews with a student

Rev Emma Matthews seems well and truly at home in her surroundings at Penrhos College. Girls proudly come up to her in the halls to show their achievements. More students are scattered around her office making Easter baskets. It is through these informal connections as chaplain she is able to build meaningful relationships with the students.

Fittingly placed on the wall, a plaque reads, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

You could say that Emma, a recently ordained Deacon, has come full circle in her journey through faith. Penrhos College, an all-girls’ school that boasts about 1,170 students, including around 100 boarders, and 200 staff, is one of seven Uniting Church schools in WA. Like many of her students, Emma grew up in a non-church family and attended a Uniting Church school. It was at around the age of six that Emma’s faith started to emerge.

Once she left school, she moved into a house full of Christian students where her faith flourished and grew further. Working as a school music teacher to pay the bills, Emma’s passion for social justice formed part of her journey to the diaconate. Her passion can be traced back to a teenage experience at a school speech night; standing on the steps of the Sydney Town Hall, one of the school mums was approached by a homeless man asking what the event was. The lady turned her back, and left a lasting impression on Emma.

“That really had a profound impact on me,” she said. “It melted my heart.”

Emma spent a lot of her time since then volunteering for various causes including social work among AIDS victims, meals on wheels and refugee advocacy. “So basically without really realising it, I was doing diaconate work,” she said. “I started a period of discernment about six years ago and discerned quite rapidly that the diaconate was where God was leading me.”

Similarly, after finishing her theological training and beginning a new time of discerning God’s plan for her, “It became more and more apparent that Penrhos was the place for me.”

Having been in her role for three school terms now, Emma has settled into the busy schedule. The school’s multicultural and multi-faith community brings with it joys and diversity. While some may think of that as being a struggle, Emma is a natural in her role at relating to students.

“The five world’s biggest religions all have things in them that talk about valuing other people, talk about being neighbourly, talk about caring for the environment. So there are ways that you can mould a message that is actually palatable for everybody,” she said.

The college’s Ignite program, which Emma teaches, offers an opportunity to explore such similarities in more depth. Each term the class studies a different religion so by the end of the year they will have learnt about Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. But it’s not just chapel and education that Emma offers. She’s also a friend and a listening ear to students and staff alike.

“My role is pastoral, liturgical and teaching,” she said. “Being a pastoral presence in the playground — being there in that moment — can have a life changing impact.”

“As far as I’m concerned, the difference that church schools make is significant. The chaplain’s door is always open. Girls have an opportunity to ask big questions. And they do.”

As Emma continues to walk her journey, she encourages others who may be hearing God’s call to ministry to take the plunge, despite it shaking your whole life around.

“It changes everything,” she said. “If it’s doing its job, it’s deconstructing you — your faith, preconceived ideas, stretching all your boundaries — and putting you back together again. “Don’t be scared. Have faith. God won’t leave you floundering and will make your path straight. You might not be able to see it in your second year of study, but it will happen.”

Edited from an article by Heather Dowling

World DIAKONIA Assembly

The World DIAKONIA Executive are meeting in the last week of June, 2012, and will be discussing the program for the World DIAKONIA Assembly, July 1-8, 2013. A great opportunity to meet Deacons and Deaconesses from around the world, and to engage in learning focussed on diaconal ministry.