Love biblically

TIM LAM

Marcella Purnama remembers a piece of advice she received at her sister’s wedding eight years ago.

“My uncle said, ‘don’t get married too early. Go and enjoy single life more’,” Marcella said.

“Obviously the advice didn’t stick because, three months later, I started a relationship.”

It was during a group dinner at a ...

Letters from the Holy Land

Uniting Church minister Ann Scull and her husband Joe have just returned to Australia after spending five weeks living in Bethlehem. They went there to help as volunteers before and during the Bethlehem Bible College’s bi-annual Christ at the Checkpoint conference.

The couple have visited the Holy Land before for the conference and on other ...

Warm welcome for Assembly members

DAVID SOUTHWELL

Even if not wild, this month’s Assembly meeting will certainly be woolly.

VicTas moderator Sharon Hollis will take along suitcases full of hundreds of specially knitted scarves, beanies and mittens to hand out to Assembly members needing to rug up for the Melbourne winter.

Ms Hollis made the request for people ...

Plenty of fun in store for youth group

BARRY GITTINS

Later this year, one lucky Ikea store will be inundated with up to 30 youth. They will scatter around the vast Nordic labyrinth in groups of three or four to fulfil an epic quest – a photo scavenger hunt.

Alanee Hearnshaw is the youth and young adults’ pastor at the Glen Waverley Uniting Church. ...

Letters to the editor – July 2018

Crime recognition

HEATHER and Bill Mathew are 100 percent correct about Israel’s crimes against humanity.  They must be absolutely condemned.  In the eloquent words of former Australian of the Year, General David Morrison: “The standard we walk by is the standard we accept.”

Ian Cunliffe
Moonee Ponds, VIC

Too soon to decide

I ASK ...

Puritan redemption

Review by Nick Mattiske

Book | What Are We Doing Here?  | Marilynne Robinson

American novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson is particularly interested in rehabilitating the Puritan founders of the US in this work.

Although they have a reputation for dour strictness, they were, she argues, relatively tolerant for their time and their legacy ...

Meeting expectations

SHARON HOLLIS

Several years ago, I overheard my young daughter’s Barbie dolls having the following conversation:

Barbie 1: ”What are you doing today?”

Barbie 2: “I’m going to a boring meeting.”

It was a salutary moment for me as I realised I had used that exact phrase – “I’m going to a boring meeting”– ...

Theological perspective

Review by Bob Faser

Book | A Genuinely Theological Church: ministry, theology and the Uniting Church | Geoff Thompson

At the very least, Dr Thompson has given us a book with a provocative title.

In some UCA circles, whenever the T-word (theology) is mentioned, people look rather tense, as if they assume an all-in brawl ...

Monastic fantastic

A group of Uniting Church members and theological students recently had the opportunity to experience the rigours and rewards of monastic life as part of a pilot program being run by Pilgrim Theological College and the Banyule Network of churches in Melbourne’s north-east.

The Banyule Network is home to a ‘learning hub’ where students study ...

Stirring stuff for Woodbridge anniversary

The Channel Uniting Church Rwandan Coffee Club has a special reason to enjoy a brew on Sunday 8 July.

The church community will celebrate 120 years of continuous worship in the Woodbridge Uniting Church building, located in the town of Woodbridge 38 kilometres south of Hobart.

“All are welcome to share in this celebration, especially those ...