Posts by Manningham UC
What is Café Church like?
We enjoy going to café church together, and enjoy our worship there, although we have very different personalities and so appreciate different aspects of church in a real café. Church in a café means for us real coffee, but much more. Although it can be a bit noisy at times, the management at the Living Room always reserve a large table for us up the back, and the staff know us and are most welcoming. Along the way as Café…
Spotlight on Manus Island and Nauru
Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist and asylum seeker on Manus Island, recently won the top prize in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for his book “No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison”. In an interview after accepting the award, he described being sent to Manus Island as being ‘exiled’. This word conjures up images of banishment and being cast out; being stuck somewhere with no-where to go. He continues to live on Manus Island along with other refugees…
March Combined Service
On March 17, 2019 a Manningham Uniting Church had a combined service (all worshipping service worshipped together). Andi Jones from Lentara was the guest speaker providing an insight into the work of Lentara Andi Jones was very enthusiastic about telling us about the work that Lentara is involved with and we were very impressed. In Lentara’s Asylum Seeker Project, staff members case manage about 60 people who are seeking asylum, in 5 or 6 different accommodations scattered across Melbourne. Clients…
Updated – building plans
The building and landscape of the new church and community facility has been taking shape with some alterations to the plans uploaded previously. Please find now the updated plans for the Manningham Uniting Church building project.
World Day of Prayer Services
Two excellent, thought provoking services, prepared by the World Day of Prayer committee of Slovenia, were held in city of Manningham. At the morning service, held at 10am at St David’s Anglican Church Doncaster East, the speaker was the Rev Harry Kerr, Convenor of Pax Christi Victoria and a retired Anglican priest. He is married to the Rev Pam Kerr, a previous Moderator of the Uniting Church. Harry addressed the theme ‘Come, Everything is Ready’ and the scripture passage, Luke…
Church in a real café? On Saturday?
Along with Joan and Gloria, (members of the original team who started Cafe Church) I say we are pretty involved with our Café Church and pretty proud of what we have achieved. The manager and staff at the Living Room welcome us and we cater to those who enjoy this type of worship. It works for them and it works for us. The team decided it would be great if we could start having communion before each session. We felt…
Mindfulness – what is that???
I was driving home listening to a podcast when the presenter said 2019 was the year she was committing to being more mindful in her life. I hear this word a lot in church circles and I’m never entirely sure what it means so I’ve decided to drag you on this journey of pondering with me. The dictionary definition is given as: 1. ‘conscious or aware of something’ 2. ‘focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, especially as part of…
Claire gives candid interview
In the latest edition of Just Act*, the magazine published by the Justice and International Mission unit of the Uniting Church, Claire Dawe provides a rundown of who she is and what she stands for. She reveals that she was attracted to become a minister of Manningham Uniting Church (MUC) because of the interest it has in being more than a meeting place for its local worshippers. She said the Chelsea Uniting Church (now called Uniting by the Bay) which…
Ash Wednesday Service
Ash Wednesday begins the Christian season of Lent. Ashes are a physical reminder or a symbol of our mortality, an image about dying to one life and being raised to another. This is the first day of 40 days of waiting until Easter Sunday when we believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The colours in our worship spaces turn from green to purple, a colour of waiting and royalty – the other time we see purple is Advent when…
Frankincense and Myrrh
About 15 men gathered to hear David Beavis and Don Gaff speak about the trade in frankincense and the history of agriculture in the arid lands of southern Arabia, the horn of Africa and the Negev. Frankincense and myrrh were harvested as resins from trees and used widely. Up to 3000 tons a year may have been traded. They were used as perfume and in burial rites, or embalming. They were so expensive that middlemen handling them were often strip-searched at…