By Andrew Humphries
Courage is easy to define, easy to spot and easy to appreciate and even laud, but sometimes it’s not easy to find. To have.
The dictionary defines the word courage as “the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery”, and images of firefighters and soldiers and so on readily spring to mind.
By Frank Porter
No bucks? No worries! If it’s not the motto of one of Hobart’s most popular community meals services, Nobucks, it probably should be.
Since 2007, Nobucks – which is a play on the name Starbucks – has served free lunches each weekday to anyone who turns up, which is mostly people in need.
By Donald Moss
In Wivenhoe Cemetery, outside Burnie on Tasmania’s north-west coast, lies the grave of a remarkable, yet little-known, woman: Jessie Spinks Rooke.
The cemetery was the site of a simple, but moving ceremony recently to celebrate the restoration of her grave to its original condition, thereby honouring Jessie’s enormous contribution to Tasmanian women.
As next year’s Synod Meeting draws closer, Uniting Church members are being invited to have their say.
Younger members and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply to take part next year.
Those keen to get involved should contact their Presbytery or congregation Minister, who can then nominate them.
By Andrew Humphries
Each October, retired Uniting Church Minister Rod Horsfield pauses to reflect on one of this country’s most shameful and tragic maritime incidents and wonders what might have been.
On October 19, 2001 an Indonesian fishing vessel carrying more than 400 asylum seekers sank in Australian maritime waters, with 353 men, women and children drowning.
...
As we come close to the end of the year, we might be filled with anticipation and a sense of hope about Christmas this year. Borders are reopening. Restrictions on work, travel and gatherings are easing. There is a sense of promise that long-separated loved ones might be reunited.
By Sally Douglas
It is very easy to turn God into our own image. To make ideas of God – what God looks like, what God wants and who God loves – conform to the shape of our own beliefs. This happens across Christian churches, and other faith traditions. It is increasingly clear this also happens in circles who claim ...
By Andrew Humphries
As Victorians emerged from the sixth, and hopefully last, COVID-19 lockdown in late October, they were confronted with challenges around how the state could safely reopen and what role vaccination would play in that.
The Synod of Victoria and Tasmania is grappling with those same issues as congregations return to physical worship amid some confusion, ...
By Andrew Humphries
At 2.30pm last Sunday, the bell at St Peter’s Eastern Hill Anglican Church tolled 39 times to remember the women lost to domestic violence so far this year.
Moderator Denise Liersch joined St Peter’s Vicar Rev Dr Hugh Kempster, Victorian Council of Churches executive officer Rev Ian Smith and Sr Nicole Rotaru from Catholic Social Services Victoria ...
By Donald Moss
Murder-mystery author Bob Faser wants to reassure readers of his debut novel that there is no such person as the Bishop of Launceston.
That’s probably just as well, because it’s the fictitious Bishop’s death that opens the Hobart-based retired Uniting Church Minister’s murder-mystery, Fresh Expressions of Murder.
By Cath Taylor
Even before she was conceived, Mery Kolimon had a calling. Her parents, Timorese nationals from one of Indonesia’s most beautiful archipelagos, dedicated their first child to God’s work even before Mery’s mother fell pregnant.
It was a promise with a profound impact.
Rev Dr Mery Kolimon is the first female Moderator of the Evangelical Church of Timor, ...
By Melanie J Saward
With such eagerness, we all waved goodbye to 2020 and invited the “fresh start” that 2021 promised, but as time passes there’s still an unspoken sense of uncertainty, courtesy of COVID-19.
Of course, we have fared much better than many abroad, but I am sure, like me, you have wondered how exactly we are ever ...