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.