Then February got swallowed up with all the preparation for the beginning of the University year.  We’ve just had 2 weeks of orientation – one for the international students and then one for everyone.  That has kept me busy with presentations, being part of workshops and opening the official Opening Ceremony.

First week of classes has meant our first Breakfast Club for the year – with around 130 students being fed this morning.  So Breakfast club has moved to a Thursday and Wednesday is Chat with the Chaplain over lunch time in the George Cafe.

At High St UC youth group has begun, as has Revival and Open.  We’ve also started a youth lenten study on the Thursday night at 7.30pm at the church.

So, lots has been done, still lots to do.  I’ll try and keep this a little more uptodate, so come and see me regularly.

bye for now

jay

The Y Event is a youth event that is open to all young people (and those who are young at heart) who would like to come along.  It will run from Friday 30th October to Sunday 1st November 2009 at High Street Uniting Church (16-18 High Street Frankston).

The Y Event will begin on Friday 30th October at 7.30pm with an evening rally featuring our speaker John Bell from Iona and with Raize (a local band who recently plate at NCYC09 in Melbourne) supplying the music.

Saturday (31st October) afternoon from 3.30pm will see the young people out on the streets of Frankston undertaking a different kind of “trick or treating” for Halloween as we join in with the “Live and Give” event.  We will be asking for, and collecting goods for Hotham Mission and other such organisations.  This is a mini submersion time, similar to that run at NCYC in January this year – a chance to see Christianity in action in our community.

There will be a Youth Dinner after our foray into the streets of Frankston.  This will be held in the hall at the church and will focus on the Green Church Project that Rev Andrew Johnson is exploring so well in Sydney.

Sunday night (1st November) 7.30pm will be the final rally with both John Bell and Raize again.

During the weekend John will be speaking on “Believing in a bigger church” and “Celebrating a bigger Jesus”. Raize will be sharing with us their music, all original pieces.

The weekend is a free event for young people, but it would be great if you could let us know if you are planning to come to the Youth Dinner on the Saturday night.  For more information and you chance to be involved please contact Jay Robinson on hsuc.youth@gmail.com.

Early in July a large number of Uni students, chaplains, and other interested people gather for the School of Discipleship. We meet in Canberra and share 3 or 4 days of study, reflection, social gatherings and usually a public liturgy somewhere in the city.

This year the School of Discipleship (or SOD as it is more commonly known) will run from July 10th to July 13th 2009.  There are some great guest speakers organised as well as lots of other stuff.  I highly recommend going – I’ll be there!

Here’s the link to find out more……http://schoolofdiscipleship.org.au

For the last 5 or so weeks Wednesday mornings have begun a little earlier than usual for me. I arrive at the Uni around 7.30am, open up our building and start getting ready to serve pancakes to a group of around 100 students and staff.

We are developing a ‘regular’ clientele and it’s great to greet people in the morning with – “Would you like to join us for a pancake breakfast? – It’s free!” There are a group of students who come each week to help out with the set up, cooking, preparing and then cleaning up of our Breakfast Club. We have tea, coffee and cordial on offer, a variety of toppings including whipped cream (this is the favourite), and we supply newspapers to read and groups who sit and chat. There are even a couple of ‘study groups’ who meet before they head off to their lectures for the day.

Every now and again we get a group of exchange students in, the most recent being a group from Japan who were very keen to learn how to use a BBQ as well as the recipe for our light–as-a-feather pancakes.

Here are a couple of photos from our first weeks.

On the last Friday of April a group of 10 young people (plus some parents) headed up to Oakleigh to test our skills at Go-Cart racing. The competition was fast and furious with Tian being the fastest around the track, and his dad William following closely not wanting to be beaten. Now that we know where Sidetracked is located (and hopefully wont get lost getting there next time) we could be travelling there again as it was a great fun night – but not long enough on the track.

This was the first full meeting of this new group – still to be named. The plan is to meet on the 2^nd and 4^th Friday of the month, 7.30pm (or there abouts) at the church. Some of our activities will be based at the church; others will be out and about as the interest is shown. Our next activity will be on Friday 8^th May 2009; 7.30pm at the church for a walk to Dark Zone and this time a laser challenge. This will be a great opportunity to development some team skills as we work in groups to see who has the best night vision.

Here are a couple photos of our group getting ready to burn the rubber at Sidetracked.

With students and staff at the University until close of business on Maundy Thursday, I thought it would be great to create a space for reflection around the events of Holy Week.

My first challenge was in finding a space – which just happened to the open room next to the Health Wellbeing and Development reception area on the bottom floor of Building A. I had to clean the space of furniture, signs and posters, and get permission to use the room, but all this done we were ready to set up.

Bruce, Steph, Jenni Forbes and I rolled up on the Palm Sunday afternoon to put my ideas and thoughts into place. We had no idea who would see what we were creating, but that didn’t matter. It was a space to stop, think and experience the events of Holy Week, to find ourselves caught up along with the disciples. It was an opportunity to connect in a deeper way with the journey to the Cross.

During the week both Christian clubs on campus spent time here. Staff members from Health Wellbeing and Development also spent time here, one even commenting that it made her feel like going back to church again. Emails were sent out to both staff and students to tell them about the space, not too sure how many read the emails, but it was a great space, and a great opportunity to bring the true meaning of Easter to the campus.

Here are some pictures and explanations for each area of the space.

As you entered the space there was music playing softly in the background, candles were lit (but unfortunately I could not dim the lights) and the invitation to move around the room in an anti-clockwise direction. To feel free to stop, read, experience and reflect on the scene that is before you.

As you turned to your right from the doorway was a scene from the turning of the tables in the temple. This was accompanied by the text of John’s gospel that described the event.

Next you passed through a couple of palm branches to head into Holy Week.

After this came the invitation to dip you finger into some sweet smelling oil and make the sign of the cross on your hand as we remembered Mary anointing Christ’s feet. Along with this was the invitation to write a prayer in the water bowl that was there.

From here you moved to the symbols of Christ’s washing of his disciples feet. The bowl, the towel and a jug were there as well as the telling of what happened on that night.

Further on came the ‘table’ where Christ sat with his disciples to share the Passover together. Here was bread, wine, grapes and other food to share. There were also cushions and the invitation to sit and eat, to remember and name, and write their names on the tablecloth; those who you would like to have joined you at the meal.

Next we moved to the silence and darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane. Questions and thoughts focused on the silence and the darkness of the night. How could the world sleep when so much was going to change – forever?

Surrounded by the purple cloth that the soldiers gave Jesus as they tormented him came the Cross. The telling of the death and burying of Jesus lead our thoughts as we gazed at the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails and a hammer.

In the centre of the room, and the last point before heading out into the world again, was a pile of white cloth. The resurrection and the challenge of taking Christ out into the world with us were symbolized by the offering of an Easter egg.

During NCYC I was ordained as a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia.  It was an amazing experience, at times a little surreal, but when it came to the actual ordination and the laying on of hands there was the invitation for all those at the service to reach out their hands towards me.  With something over 1300 people doing this, it was the most powerful experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit that I have ever felt.  Whenever I think of it, or talk about it, I still get goose bumps!

A great mate, mentor and advisor preached that night, and outdid himself, as usual.  Rev Al Macrae was my faculty advisor during the last 2 years of my time at Theological College and is currently the Executive Director of the Centre for Theology and Ministry and is President-elect of the Uniting Church.  It was very special to have him preach.  It was also great to be surrounded by family, friends, congregational members and NCYC in total.  My ordination was the first to be done at an NCYC, and I had a number of conversations with people, both young and slightly older, about the call of God on their lives.

A night that I will never forget!

Here are a couple of photos of the event.

Ordination prayer

Laying on of hands

One of the speakers at NCYC was Shane Claiborne. Shane is one of the founders of The SImple Way and a pretty cool radical disciple. He was great to be around and shared some amazing things.

Here is an article he wrote for sojo – have a read!

It seems that much of our conversation as a Church is in a perpetual cycle of reaction. We are tempted to exaggerate the neglected truth, and end up making incomplete disciples, either social justice disciples without Jesus or Jesus disciples without social justice. Then there are those special moments where Jesus and Justice kiss. I recently had a moment of that kind of romance, in Australia.

I just got back from a trip to Australia where I was saw folks fall in love with Jesus, the real Jesus, for the first time… and with the innocence of a kid at the altar in a big tent revival, fell on their knees with tears going down there cheeks for they found had found their Lover. It was a revival.

First off, I’ll have to say that the Uniting Church and National Christian Youth Conference have raised the bar on what you can do with a few thousand Christians gathered in a city together. They sent hundreds of folks out in small affinity groups all over the city of Melbourne to infiltrate the city with grace and holy mischief. Here are a few of the things the groups did:

• Perform street theater where a hundred or so folks stood in place, every seven seconds a drum would resound, and one of them would fall to the ground to represent the death rate from poverty around the world
• set up a shanty-town, cardboard slum on the steps of Parliament to bring attention to the folks being displaced around the world
• went out with sidewalk chalk to decorate the city with messages of hope
• cleaned up random yards and vacant lots of people they did not know
• played cricket in an alley with some homeless folks
• held a peace witness outside the BAE, the large weapons manufacturer in Australia
• went to an old folks home and played board games with the elderly
• and on and on…

Can you imagine if our North American Christian conferences had a witness on the streets like that? In the middle of it all, I had one person come up to me and say – “if this is what Christianity is, then sign me up.” In this notoriously non-Christian country, I was proud to be part of a witness that showed folks a Christianity worth believing in, good news they could see and touch and feel.

I got to preach, in the middle of Fed Square in Melbourne. I preached Jesus. Sweet, wild, dangerous Jesus. Then, at the end of the week of revival, as the grand finale, we did communion, hand in hand with the aboriginal Christians, the indigenous people of this land we call Australia. Our communion elements were “damper and billy tea”, the bread and drink of the indigenous people, which I served with a beautiful, wise, old aboriginal pastor. Many of the folks stumbled up to the Lord’s table for the first time (and needed a little coaching… it was precious). One young woman took the bread and, holding it tenderly, whispered to me, with tears running down her face: “I believe. For the first time in my life, I believe.”

I will never forget that moment. It reminded me why I do all this speaking stuff.

I prayed that night with tears streaming down my face, that just as our bodies digest the damper and tea, that we would be the ones being digested, that we would become the Body of Christ. As the old saying goes, “You are what you eat.” May it be so. Body of Christ, fill us. Blood of Christ, inebriate us — that we might no longer live, but that you would live in us.

From 7pm we will gather at the church, share some supper and then together follow the journey of Mary and Joseph as they head towards Bethlehem and the birth of the Christ child.  

The young people of HSUC have written and created this service, so come along and share with them.

Then on Christmas Eve at 11.30pm we will continue the journey and arrive at our destination – the little town of Bethlehem.  As we gather in the stable the scene will help us remember that Jesus was born into this world, with all its joys and tragedies, and not the scene that is painted on our Christmas cards.  We will reflect, with Mary, on the events of that first Christmas and the relevance of Christ’s presence in the world today.

Then on Christmas morning with join with people all around the world in celebrating the birth of the Son of God.  Our Christmas morning service is at 9am.

Come and share Christmas with us at HSUC and get involved in the journey and the reality of Christ’s birth.

A strong woman or woman of strength

A strong woman works out everyday to keep her body in shape.

But a woman of strength sits in focus and in prayer to keep her soul in shape.

A strong woman isn’t afraid of anything.

But a woman of strength shows courage in the midst of her fear.

A strong woman won’t let anyone get the best of her, 

but a woman of strength give the best of herself to everyone.

A strong woman makes mistakes and avoids the same in the future.

A woman of strength realises life’s mistakes can also be God’s blessings and capitalises on the experiences.

A strong woman walks sure footedly.

But a woman of strength knows that her God will catch her when she falls.

A strong woman wears the look of confidence on her face.

But a woman of strength wears grace.

A strong woman has faith that she is strong enough for the journey.

But a woman of strength has faith that it is in the journey that she will become strong…..

Pretty impressive eh?