Author: Rose Kentwell
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2019, 28th July
Greetings, One of the big discussion topics at Synod was the response of the Uniting Church to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act which was passed on 29 November 2017. This act allows (from 19 June 2019) Victorians at the end of life who are suffering, and who meet strict eligibility criteria, to request access to…
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2019, 21st July
Greetings, Early next week Tony’s mum celebrates her birthday so she is coming to dinner Sunday night. When people come over for a special celebration meal there is a sense of heightened activity as rooms are cleaned, the table is set and food is prepared. Elizabeth is excited to prepare this meal as a gift…
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2019, 14th July
Greetings, As part of the Synod meeting we participated in Bible Studies each day. These were led by Dr Liz Boase who asked us to consider the following two questions as a church community: – Who are we?, and, Where are we going? Some possible directions were considered … Backwards, Inwards, Upwards and Outwards. Backwards:…
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2019, 7th July
“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19 Greetings, From Friday 5 to Tuesday 9 July the Synod meeting will take place. As the VicTas website says, Synod is a time…
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2019, 30th June
Greetings, My parents have recently decided to downsize from their home and move into a smaller unit in a retirement village. In some ways this couldn’t have come soon enough, but now we are faced with the monumental task of going through more than 50 years of stuff deciding what needs to be kept and…
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2019, 23rd June
Greetings, “The Answer to the Great Question … Of Life, the Universe and Everything … Is … Forty-two,’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.” Deep Thought is the name given to a supernatural- computer in the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams. The computer is programmed to calculate…
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2018, 7th October
SETTING A FUTURE COURSE FOR KOONUNG HEIGHTS Dear friends, With David Carter’s retirement, our congregation is once again asked by Presbytery and Synod to consider our future ministry needs. A key component of that is a mission study. Our mission study will take place after church on Sunday, 14 October, for about two hours. You are asked to…
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Wrestling with Grace by Robert Corin Morris
The sub-title of this worthwhile book is “A spirituality for the rough edges of daily life.” It is very down to earth and particularly addresses the issues that get in the way of leading a Christ-like life. To quote from the blurb “the book is a how-to manual about loving yourself, others, the world around…
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Cardinal by Louise Milligan
NEW BOOK IN RESOURCE CENTRE A couple of months ago ABC journalist, Louise Milligan published “Cardinal” an investigation into the sad-and-sorry story of child abuse by some Catholic clergy. Particularly it focuses on the figure of Cardinal George Pell, once a priest in Ballarat, then Archbishop of Melbourne and later Sydney. I have placed the book in…
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The Fourth Gospel, tales of a Jewish mystic by John Shelby Spong
Dear friends in Christ, The Gospel of John was once described as a waterhole that elephants can swim in, and paddling pool for little children. During Lent the gospel readings are drawn from John’s Gospel, mostly encounters of Jesus with people – religious, outsiders, maimed, stinking of death – and vivid, striking metaphors about the Spirit of God. In the…