Warragul Uniting Church, 210 Sutton Street
Warragul, Victoria, Australia

FOOD FOR THOUGHT ARCHIVE

From Chris Cohen
Rev Chris Cohen is the minister at Warragul Uniting Church - Inducted at Warragul, 15 March 2005.

From Hamish
Rev Hamish Christie-Johnston provided 'Supply Ministry' for Warragul Uniting Church while Rev Chris Cohen was on leave, Winter 2008.

I have been asked if I would introduce myself.

I am the son of a Church of Scotland manse, born in 1936 in Glasgow and spending most of my first fourteen years in the Shetland Islands.  In 1950 my parents brought their eight children to Tasmania where my father was called to the Presbyterian parish of Kirklands/Campbell Town.

I spent four years at Scotch College Launceston, two years as a medical student in Brisbane (where I discovered it was not my calling), three years Arts in Hobart (during which I was accepted as a candidate for the ministry) and three years theology in Ormond College before beginning ministry in Corryong at the end of 1962.

In January 1963 Hilary and I were married.  She had grown up in a Methodist parsonage and in later years at MLC Launceston where her father was Principal.  We met in my final year at Scotch College.

From Corryong we went with our infant son to Hobart where I had a complex task as part time Clerk (Secretary) for the Presbyterian Presbytery and Assembly of Tasmania, part time Secretary of the Tasmanian Council of Churches and Tasmanian Inter Church Aid (responsible for the Christmas Bowl etc.) and part time minister of a joint Congregational-Presbyterian Parish.  It was a crazy few years!

Now with two sons we moved to East Kew in 1970, as minister to a very large congregation with a healthy Sunday School and youth group.

In 1976 the State Assembly of the Presbyterian Church appointed me as full time ‘Stated Clerk’ (Executive Secretary) for the period until union.  I was already widely known for my ecumenical commitment and conviction, having represented the Church at the Christian Conference of Asia and spent time with my family travelling and studying in Scotland and Europe.

With the formation of the Uniting Church I was appointed Associate General Secretary of the Synod of Victoria and also continued my ecumenical involvement as national secretary for the Uniting Church’s Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, a position which Hilary was later to hold for over ten years.  Prior to her work in that role Hilary had worked as a secondary teacher, a mother, a school librarian and finally as a consultant in multicultural education

When the World Council of Churches decided to hold a world conference on Mission and Evangelism in Melbourne in 1980 I was seconded to work on behalf of the Australian Council of Churches as Australian organiser of that Conference.  That experience greatly enlarged the horizons for both Hilary and me.

It also led to my next appointment as Synod Field worker in Mission and Evangelism, with responsibilities for helping congregations throughout the State to understand and develop their role in spreading the Gospel beyond their own members.  During my final year in that position I was also Moderator of the Synod of Victoria (before it was recognised as a full time job).

I expected to return to parish ministry but was called to the position of Presbytery Minister for Western Port Presbytery, living in Frankston.

After seven years in that position I was unexpectedly requested to accept the job of General Secretary of the Victorian Council of Churches, a role I fulfilled until complications after surgery for Prostate Cancer obliged me to retire just before turning 65 at the start of 2001.

Both Hilary and I have been very fortunate to have a number of opportunities to attend international ecumenical gatherings and have been greatly enriched in our experience of music and worship.

Hilary has developed a strong interest in the women disciples of Jesus and is currently working on a book which will include illustrations from the Churches of Western Europe as well as from the Orthodox families.

Both our sons are married and we have two healthy grandsons.

Hamish 

  The Joy of Praying  

A few Sunday’s ago the reading was on Jacob’s experience when he saw messengers of God ascending and descending a ladder to heaven.  It led me to reflect with the congregation about the idea of ‘thin’ places where the sense of the presence of God is very great – the veil that separates us is thin.  I went on to reflect on the ways in which Celtic Christians of 150 years ago had been constant in their sense of the presence of God.  Some of you said you would like copies of the prayers I used.

They had prayers for every imaginable circumstance.  This is the prayer which I referred to as the one the people said each morning when they went outside to begin the day.

I included the following quotation from a book I have at home, published by Esther de Waal on prayers and blessings from the Outer Hebrides entitled THE CELTIC VISION.  In it she draws on the six volumes of what is known as Carmina Gadelica, a collection gathered by Alexander Carmichael in extensive travel throughout Western Scotland a hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago.

A woman called Catherine Maclennan told him (and I can almost hear the lilt in her voice):

“My mother would be asking us to sing our morning song to God down in the back-house, as Mary's lark was singing it up in the clouds and as Christ's mavis was singing it yonder in the tree, giving glory to the God of the creatures for the repose of the night, for the light of the day, and for the joy of life.  She would tell us that every creature on the earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to the great God of the creatures and the worlds, of the virtues and the blessings, and would we be dumb!”

As she gave him the prayer 'Bless to me, O God' Catherine Maclennan added, 'My mother taught us what we should ask for in the prayer, as she heard it from her own mother, and as she again heard it from the one who was before her.'  All that Alexander Carmichael collected had in fact been handed down from generation to generation.

I used the following prayer at the time of the offering

One I didn’t use but which you might like.

The practice of such prayers can stimulate the sense of a thin place!

  Are We Fruitful Vines?  

A few Sundays ago (22 June 2008) we celebrated our Anniversary.  We took as one of our readings the passage in John where Jesus describes himself as the vine and his followers as the branches, and reminds them/us that we are to bear fruit.  Amongst other things I invited the congregation to reflect on the way some of the grape vines are cultivated on the Greek Island of Santorini.  On a windswept hillside with white gravelly soil the vines have been woven into basket shapes and I was led to understand that this meant that the grapes would be able to ripen inside the baskets protected from the wind.

Around the world, viticulturalists have learned which are the best grape varieties and what are the best ways to prune their vines to suit the climate and circumstances of their vineyards and the fruit they hope to produce.

So it must be with us.  Our culture, “climate” if you like, is constantly changing, with all kinds of “plants” growing, some producing good “fruit” and some just weeds and some are even poisonous!

We must listen to the Spirit of God and be willing to be shaped – pruned – to the best form to produce God’s preferred fruit where we find ourselves.

In today’s kind of world we are faced with a particular challenge as we try to discover the nature of the church which is appropriate for God’s future.  There is a series of little pamphlets which was published by the World Council of Churches.  I don’t know whether to apologise or not, but the point I want to make, I found in the pamphlet entitled “The Scottish Highlands”.  In a chapter which reflects on the ways in which the communication of the Gospel has varied over the years, there is a section which reads:

“Ways had to be found of reaching the people where they lived, because the institutional churches had difficulty in making a uniform impact across the districts under their care.

Missionary endeavour thus reflects a continuous tension between the institutionalising of the faith and the fundamental command of Christ to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person.  Flexibility, rather than rigidity, was essential, but such flexibility could be provided only by employing the ‘go-structures’ of mission rather than the ‘come-structures’ of the institutionalised church”.

So we ask God to help us find the go-structures for Warragul and you here.

Of course we are not the only church in Warragul and part of our journey as Christians will be through the way we live with each other at the local level in our worship and our witness and our service.

What should you build on the foundation you have here?

What kind of vine will be most fruitful?  What are your go-structures?

Pray that the Spirit of Pentecost will fill you with a go-attitude!

Thank God for the journey of the last two years (since this church moved into it's new building), the last thirty one years (since the inception of the Uniting Church), the last 125 years of the Church in Warragul, the last two millennia.

Thank God for the assurance of the Spirit into God’s future.

By the way, I’m hoping to meet most of you in the groups being organised by the Elders in the next few weeks!

From Peter Beale
Rev Peter Beale completed a five year ministry with the Warragul congregation in December 2005.  He is now a minister at the Uniting Church in East Malvern (Victoria).

From Des Parker
Rev Dr Des Parker was ordained and inducted as a Minister of the Word at Koo We Rup Uniting Church, June 2008.  Des was earlier a member of Warragul Uniting Church.

From Hannes Schaefer
Rev Hannes Schaefer.  We have been blessed by the ministry of Hannes at Warragul Uniting Church, 'in between' full time ministry placements.

From Rosalind Terry
Rev Rosalind Terry completed a seven and a half year ministry with the Warragul congregation in November 2003.  She is now a minister at the Uniting Church in Hobart.

At the Services of Worship at Warragul Uniting Church
June - July 2003

At the Services of Worship at Warragul Uniting Church
14 September - 26 October 2003

A series presented by John Bodycomb

 May - June 2003 at St David's Uniting Church, Canterbury  

A series presented by John Bodycomb

 June 29 - August 3, 2003 at St David's Uniting Church, Canterbury  

 Yeshua - as you will discover - is another name for Jesus.

A series presented by John Bodycomb

  August - September 2003 at St David's Uniting Church, Canterbury  

Presented by John Bodycomb

  5 - 26 October 2003 at St David's Uniting Church, Canterbury

Presented by John Bodycomb

 8 February 2004 at St Aidan's Uniting Church North Balwyn

A Series presented by John Bodycomb

 First Semester 1992, at Trinity College Chapel, Melbourne