Trinity Sunday – 26 May 2013
Thank you to everyone who shared in the Pentecost Family Service last week. There really seemed to be a wonderful Spirit of unity and love emanating throughout the morning. It was wonderful to Baptise Elizabeth Turner and to have her children and grandchildren present and willing to participate in the experience. Those who were confirmed and became members and members-in-association have made a public commitment to God and to this congregation about their allegiance to Christ and their participation in God’s community here at Ashmore Uniting Church. Their testimony encourages us and strengthens our commitment to service as we seek to be “reaching out, changing lives”.
Today, we begin a new season in the church calendar; just as we have begun a new season of “winter” in our climate. It’s the ‘Season after Pentecost’ and it begins each year on Trinity Sunday. This is meant to be the ‘season of growth’ and over the next six months I’m looking forward to seeing our congregation developing the growth of our “Four Pillars” that were identified in our Vision and Values review last year. Our four pillars are 1) Worship; 2) Children & Families, 3) People in Need and 4) Stewardship of resources. In the coming months we will work together to find strategic ways of growing these areas of ministry. My personal prayer for each member of the congregation is that you will be growing in your daily relationship with Jesus through prayer, worship and action. As Jill Gray leads us in worship, may you find yourself making that deeper commitment to God today?
I am away for a few days at the Queensland Synod Meeting of the Uniting Church at Alexandra Headland on The Sunshine Coast (24th May to 28th May). The Synod meeting, or the Synod in Session, is a gathering of around 400 members of the Uniting Church in Queensland and happens every 18 months.
The Synod in Session has responsibility for the general oversight, direction and administration of the Church’s worship, witness and service in the region allocated to it with such powers and authorities as may from time to time be determined by the Assembly. (Basis of Union Paragraph 15)
But it is not all hard work. In our Synod meeting we celebrate the grace of God in Jesus Christ and we worship God together. It is a time when we can share with one another our experience of the work of God and share hopes and disappointments. We hear of the ways in which God is inspiring, guiding, shaping and empowering other parts of the church, and we commit ourselves to continue together on the way, enriched through our renewed fellowship in Christ and the commitments we are challenged and inspired to make through our own informal decisions and our formal resolutions.
I will be returning on Monday to conduct the Memorial Service for Emily Williams (Linda Walpole’s mum) at 10am here in this Church. Emily was 99yrs of age and we will be celebrating her long life along with Linda and her family.
I’d like to thank Jill and Marty Gray for taking the responsibility for leading today’s service and for presiding at the Thanksgiving for the gift from God that Marlee Savage is to her family. Marlee’s parents Jacqui and Grant want to Thank God for their daughter and we are privileged to share in that expression of faith and love. Their other daughter, Tamaya was baptized in Peru in 2010. We also welcome Grant’s brother and sister who have travelled interstate to be here today.
Look for the expressions of the Trinity:- God the Father, Jesus the Son and The Holy Spirit …in surprising places…this week.
Rev. Brad Foote