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A woman has her handbag stolen in a crowded city store. She calls out for help, but no-body wants to get involved.
A young man collapses on the street one night as a result of an epileptic seizure, but no-one shows much in-terest – they think he's drunk.
A young mother struggles with three very high-spirited children in the su-permarket, but everyone looks the other way.
There are lots of people around us that need help and plenty of needs that de-mand attention. But I don't always feel like doing something about them.
Sometimes my own needs seem great-er. Or I think that I'm already fully com-mitted in terms of helping others.
Sometimes when I know it takes a lot of time and effort just to help one individu-al, I think it'd be better for me to be in-volved in helping many people, and so I ignore the one person needing a lot of help.
There are also occasions when I really do have to limit my helping others, es-pecially if someone really doesn’t seem to deserve it.
I also find it very uncomfortable to get involved with some people. They just don't come up to what I would regard as being a reasonable standard of behav-
iour. Their attitudes, the state of their homes, and even their hygiene, really isn't acceptable to me at times.
And then some other people are just too demanding. You give them so much help, and all they want is more. They're ungrateful, and they take you for grant-ed.
If I look hard I can sometimes find some good reasons for not loving and caring for others. But generally it's just a lot of excuses. I see people in need and I just pass them by.
Our human nature tells us to look after ourselves first, and then – if there’s some time left over, if we have any spare resources, if it’s not going to be too much effort – then we make at-tempts to do something about the needs of others.
But Jesus desire is for this, his world, to be a community of concerned and sup-portive people – so that wherever there are needs, there are people to meet those needs.
Jesus calls us to be totally committed to placing ourselves at his disposal. The only way we can act as loving children of the invisible God is to commit our-selves to the needs of our visible neigh-bours. The only way we can love and serve God, is by loving and serving the people around us.
A lawyer came to Jesus one day, think-ing that he knew everything about the
continued next page
In Christ - the love we and others need
“
”
Jesus’ desire -
a community
of concerned
and supportive
people
“ ”
I don’t always feel
like loving
2 | NSW Contact
Father’s will and about what was right and wrong. And he might have had all the necessary tech-nical information and data about God's Word all properly processed in his mind.
He would have no doubt studied the Old Testament, learnt its laws, taught others about it, understood its key ideas – but he didn’t show kindness and pity to people. That was his serious problem. He had-n't put the Word into practice in his life.
Being a child of God means loving your neighbour. And loving your neighbour demands action. It re-quires commitment. It challenges us to a demonstration of our faith.
That commitment doesn't come easily. In fact it can be very de-manding on us – it can cost us a great deal in terms of time, energy and even money. And we have to admit we often fail to meet that commitment. We fall short of Je-sus’ expectations every day.
But that doesn't stop him from his ongoing commitment toward us. In fact there are no limits to his love. There's nothing that we can do that will stop him from loving and caring for us.
God’s love in Christ knows no lim-its. He sees a need within us, and
he does something about it. When we fail him, he picks us up over and over again, forgives us and gives us a new start. When we mess things up, or have things messed up in our lives, he comes – and he continues to come to us.
He's our Good Samaritan. He's sees the mess we make of our lives; he sees the pain and the heartache that we bring on ourselves and that we cause others; he sees how we get ourselves into trouble through negli-gence, forgetfulness and sheer laziness. And he comes to pick us up, and set us on our feet again.
He doesn't wait for us to put our lives together before he comes. He doesn't wait for us to feel that we've got everything under control. He doesn't wait for us to even call out for help before he comes to us, ex-tends his hand of love and compassion to us, and gives us what we need so that we can face the future with confidence.
He comes and joins us to himself so that his strength becomes our strength, his desire becomes our desire, and his concern becomes our concern. He comes and fills us with his Spirit, his motivation, his strength and power. And so he enables us to give of ourselves even when we feel our own inner resources are limited or ineffective.
DISTRICT NEWS for your prayer and care
Calls
Pastor Andrew Schulz (Redlands, Qld) has declined the call to Walla Walla.
Pastor Will Frost (Wilsonton, Qld) has declined the call to Lavington.
Pastor Lester Priebbenow has declined the call to Wagga Wagga.
Pastor Adam Eime (Henty) has accepted a call to Peace Lutheran College, Cairns, Qld.
Andrew Neumann, graduate from Australian Lutheran College, has been assigned to the Lavington Parish.
Pastor Martti Paananen will be concluding his ministry in Sydney and returning to Finland early in 2016.
Sydney Finnish Congregation has called Pastor Aapo Kaivosoja. He has accepted the call.
Farewell/Retirement
Pastor Fred Veerhuis conducted his final service at Campbelltown on 1 November. Pastor Fred has served in the NSW District since 1983. We thank our Lord for his ministry and pray blessing on him and Rose as they rest, as they travel, and as they look for oppor-tunities to continue to serve in the Kingdom of God.
Continued from previous page
So in him, we can love. We can love the people in need of help – whatever their need may be. In him, then, we can go the extra mile; we can give even when it costs us a great deal; we can take risks; we can love the seemingly unlovely, ungrateful, and those that make us feel uncomfortable.
We may not be able to change the world – but there are certainly indi-viduals that we come across every day, whom we can serve, individu-als whose needs we can meet. And that in fact does bring change. For wherever we are, there Christ is present, and his power is at work. And where his power is at work, people's needs are met.
In him we have a love that asks no questions; a love that listens to no objections; a love that spares no pains; a love that has no limits.
In his love, our Lord has picked us up – and continually picks us up, stands us on our feet, and sets us on our way. That love in our lives enables us to do the same for those about us.
Pastor Mark Lieschke
“ ”
Jesus - our
Good Samaritan
On Sunday 1st November 2015 Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Campbelltown sadly farewelled Pastor Fred Veerhuis into his retirement.
Pastor Fred was installed at Good Shepherd on 26th June 2011 and brought with him an engaging spirit, larrikinism and his lovely wife Rosemarie.
Many who had been on the fence with their faith life were instantly drawn to his unique way
Campbelltown
December 2015 | 3
“We have been created to be embedded in a threefold embrace!”
These comforting and life-giving words were at the centre of the teaching of Rev Dr Noel Due (QLD District Resourcing Pastor) at the third annual Gathering of the NSW District at Warrambui over the weekend of 23-25 October.
Pastor Noel made it very clear that this is what we were made for: to find ourselves in the very centre of the warmth of the love of the Fa-ther, the love of His Son Jesus, and the love of the Spirit, and to under-stand the fullness of what that means. There are many things we could share of our time in the Word, but this was at the heart of it. And it was compelling!
We were touched by the truths that:
We were born in the image of the first Adam, but now we have the image of the second Adam – Jesus (1 Cor 15:49)
Our Heavenly Father sees us exactly as He sees Jesus (Romans 8:29)
Our destiny is to be like Him (1 John 3:2)
Our bodies will be transformed and we will participate in the glory of Jesus the Christ and in-
herit all His riches (Phil 3:21 & Romans 8:17).
One of the highlights was working through Ephesians 1:3-17, and via a grammar lesson, discovering that there is only one subject doing the actions – “…the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, there are many verbs revealing His many ac-tions, but the only object of all His actions, is always “us ”.
The reason for the Gatherings is to call the people of the District to their traditional “gathering place” at Warrambui to: worship the Lord our God; share our joys, struggles, bat-tles, fears and concerns; to hear the Word and seek the Father’s leading for us, so that we might be-come people of the kingdom, walk-ing in His ways. The truth is that our District is struggling, and in places dying, and the key to our gathering together is that “we are looking for life!” And there is only One who can give us life and that is the One who created the heavens and the earth. Whenever we seek life in other places or other people rather than through Christ we are left empty, hollow and unsatisfied.
This year 82 participants gathered from 14 congregations and of the four Australian Lutheran College students training to be pastors from NSW (who were invited to the Gathering), Mathew von Stanke
and his wife Elise were able to at-tend from Adelaide. Young leaders from Turning Point Ministries pro-vided an excellent children’s pro-gram to allow parents time to be fully engaged in the weekend, and the children presented the results of their “gathering” to the adults on Sunday to thunderous applause.
This 3rd Gathering was marked by a sense of unity and joy and it soon became clear that the Spirit is at work among our people individually and as congregations. There were joyful times of worship led by Zac Storm and Elise von Stanke. There was much sharing of what was happening in people’s lives and re-garding change in some congrega-tions. New gifts in the Spirit were evident, but underneath was a sense that the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit was so close and so deep that we wanted more. The Gathering ended with a Holy Communion Service on Sunday.
by Dr Fred Gollasch I was blessed greatly by the Gathering. We devoted
ourselves to prayer, the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, and fellowship...a very simple approach that allowed us to dwell in the three-fold embrace of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. The Lord gave us a hunger for his Word and a quiet and responsive hearing; as a preacher and teacher you can't find greater joy in ministry!
- Noel Due
of lulling you into a false sense of safety and then pouncing with a question that cut to the core of the problem.
We will miss Pastor Fred and Rose dearly but wish them well in their travels and future. I will al-ways think of Fred Veerhuis as a guy who can step on your toes without messing up your shine!
Dolly Bosch Admin Team Leader
Good Shepherd Campbelltown
The Gathering: Held in a threefold embrace
”
farewells Pastor Fred Veerhuis
Rosemarie and Pastor Fred Veerhuis
“
”
4 | NSW Contact
Professional Standards
The Professional Standards Unit (PSU) was established by the Lu-theran Church of Australia (LCA) to assist all those who engage with our Church to care for one another. Caring for one another requires a great deal from us. It requires ad-herence to LCA and District policies and procedures, attendance at training workshops and putting that training into practice – not an easy task. We take special care of the vulnerable people in our ministries, especially the children. In the past we may have tried to ‘fix things up’ after an incident occurred, however our focus is on the prevention of harm. The PSU has been developing poli-cies and procedures, numerous have now been passed by the LCA General Church Council (GCC) for implementation. Conducting training workshops for congregations is a key element of the PSU. Management of complaints in a fair and transparent manner in order to ensure compliance with the biblical principles of reconciliation and the principles of natural justice is also the role of the PSU. I remind congregations/parishes that training workshops are an im-portant part of your congregation’s life. You can book a workshop by direct contact with me either by phoning 0457 770 100 (Please note new phone number) or via email [email protected] Alternatively, you can contact Kaye at the District office on 02 9736 2366. You may recall in the last issue of Contact I mentioned that the LCA-PSU team would be attending the NCCA Safe as Churches confer-ence in Sydney in September. We met under the theme of ‘Building Resilience’. The definition of resili-ence for use throughout the confer-ence was: ‘Resilience is the capacity for survival following soul-shattering trauma’.
This was an excellent gathering of colleagues from many denomina-tions around Australia and the key-note speaker, Elizabeth Hall from the UK was inspiring and challeng-ing. There were also facilitated dis-cussions on topics such as: Building Resilience in Safe
Church in our Indigenous churches
Building Resilience for field workers – managing trauma and self-care
Building Resilience in congrega-tions – Parish recovery and Managing boundary violations between adults in Congrega-tions
Building resilience in Church communities – being proactive in addressing domestic violence issues
On day two of the conference we were addressed by Hon. Justice Peter McClellan, Chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Re-sponses to Child Sexual Abuse. He opened his address by reflect-ing on a meeting in a private ses-sion, with the mother of a teenage boy who had attended a private Christian school. The events that the mother related had occurred only a few years earlier. The moth-er suspected that the actions of a teacher running a particular pro-gram amounted to grooming be-haviour. When her son had told her about the program, she told her husband and son that she intended to speak with the Headmaster. Nei-ther of them wanted her to do that as they were concerned about pos-sible adverse reactions that may occur. To say nothing would have been the easy way, however she was so concerned for her son and other children in the program that she spoke up. The initial response from the school was not good, but she persevered. Only through her perseverance did the school come to realise that there was a serious problem and action was taken.
One of the reasons for telling this story was to underline the need within the community to increase the knowledge of parents and oth-ers with responsibility for children, the type of behaviour which may constitute grooming and which can lead to very serious problems for children. Only if parents/caregivers under-stand what may be happening to their children can they play an ef-fective part in their protection. The Royal Commission hear from people in both private sessions and public hearings. On 19th August, the 4000th private session was con-ducted and there have been 32 public hearings to date. There were at that time 1500 peo-ple waiting ‘in a queue’ for private hearings and requests for private hearings come at a rate of 40 per week. There have been 11,988 allega-tions that were within in terms of reference of the Royal Commis-sion. Of that 11,988 – 7049 allegations related to faith based institutions. Are Lutherans amongst them? Yes, 32 related to Lutheran institutions. Justice McClellan had referred 727 matters to the Police for investiga-tion with a view to the possible prosecution of an offender. No matter what our individual thoughts may be to these matters, I commend you to pray for all who work on the Royal Commission. These people are hearing traumatic stories, day after day. Many congregations/parishes will be reflecting on the past year and looking ahead and planning minis-try activities for the New Year. I ask you to refer to the processes that are required to be adhered to for the conduct of safe ministry.
Carolyn Kiss Professional Standards Officer
LCA NSW 0457 770 100
December 2015 | 5
District Administrator
The original 2015 District Budget was set at a small loss of $3241. In general that budget is pretty much on track. The biggest change to the district finances is from the pro-ceeds of the sale of Central Trinity Church. Whilst this sale added $6.37M in cash to the district ac-counts, the donation of $2.224M of this money to Warrambui to reduce their loan to $2M shows up as an expense in the district accounts. The effect of this is that the net loss for 2015 looks abnormally large due to this gift. The remaining $4M from the sale of Trinity is currently held in an LLL savings account.
Thus, in evaluating the budget, it is appropriate for us to look past the effect of this gift to Warrambui. Looking at the budget from the in-come side, congregational contribu-tions are expected to be down by about $14,000 due to a few congre-gations experiencing difficulties. We have received an extra $30,000 income in grants, but we are likely to be $30,000 short in funding for Asian Ministry. On the expenses side we have had some savings
across Salaries and Expenses and Other Expenses. The net result be-ing that if we look past the Trinity money donated to Warrambui, then we are looking at a surplus of $8000.
Concord House
Concord House remains in an area that has limited zoning. In mid-September Canada Bay Council accepted an offer from the NSW State Government to make the Rhodes East peninsula where Con-cord House is situated a priority planning precinct. This will in effect speed up the planning and rezon-ing for this area.
Since our District Synod in March we have regularly had developers walking in and offering to buy Con-cord House. The DCC appointed a Concord House Working Party to investigate the best way forward, and after many meetings with de-velopers, it was decided to list Con-cord House for sale by ‘expressions of interest’ with Colliers Internation-al. Concord House will therefore be on the market from November 4
to December 3, 2015. At the end of this period we will assess any of-fers made, and if appropriate, we will look to accept one of those of-fers. The advice from our agent is that they expect Concord House to fetch offers in the range of $15 - $20M.
At the end of the expressions of interest period we will not be bound to accept any offer, and we will only do so if an appropriate offer is on the table. We anticipate the offers to range from a straight out sale price, through to an optioned agreement that may have a de-layed settlement of up to 3 years. At the same time the DCC has ap-pointed a team to start the process of considering what factors need to be considered in looking at the lo-cation of a new District Office. Re-gardless of the sale result, it is most likely that we will remain in the current Concord House location for up to 3 years.
Russell Veerhuis NSW District Administrator
2015 NSW District Budget
2015 Budget
2015 Expected
Income
Congregation Contributions $232,950 $219,000
Other District Income $154,721 $152,810
Other Income $21,500 $13,000
Concord House Income $731,071 $731,071
Total Income $1,140,242 $1,115,881
Expenses
LCA Budget $51,500 $51,500
Mission Development $22,000 $2,246,810
Office Expenses $33,552 $39,000
Staff Salaries and Expenses $383,427 $358,627
Other Expenses $25,500 $12,000
Concord House Expenses $627,504 $624,700
Total Expenses $1,143,483 $3,332,637
Net Profit/(Loss) -$3241 -$2,216,756
Concord House in Blaxland Road, Rhodes
Aerial shot of Rhodes, with Concord House (indicated by the arrow) in the foreground.
6 | NSW Contact
December 2015 | 7
8 | NSW Contact
December 2015 | 9
10 | NSW Contact
LCA NSW District Synod, 23-25 August 2013
December 2015 | 11
+ Back2Base 2015: Hey, Zach here.
From Monday 28 September to Friday 2 October, TPM held Back2Base camp for grades 7-12.
Wendy Woods and I had the privilege of directing this year’s camp. We came up with the
theme, “Listen”, focusing on how to listen to the voice of Holy Spirit and build your relation-
ship with Him. We had an amazing group of leaders volunteer their week to invest in our 43
campers. The camp program included wide games, worship, study times, quiet times, a
campfire, skit night and even a sporadic dance party.
One of the biggest highlights for a lot of campers and leaders, including myself, was an ac-
tivity we called “Listen”. On the Thursday afternoon we watched a NOOMA called ‘Noise’. It
explained how much noise there is in the world today, audible and visual, and raised the
question, ‘how am I meant to hear the still, small voice of God if I am surrounding
myself with so much noise’? After the video we explained some techniques the campers could use to clear their minds, and then took them all out to find some space where they
could sit in silence, with no distraction, and listen for Holy Spirit’s voice for ONE HOUR! Most
kids have probably never sat like this for half this time in their lives, so just that alone was a
new experience for some. However, after we finished and gathered back together we started
to share what we had heard. It took a bit to get the ball rolling, but by the end of the sharing
time, about 85-90% of campers had heard something – like a Bible verse, an image, a
phrase, a word – and had shared it with the group. I had campers coming up to me after-
wards asking questions or telling me what they had heard.
The youth of this church have a hunger to know our Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit more inti-
mately. Camps are an excellent place where youth have an opportunity to encounter and
grow in their faith and relationship with the living God. Please keep them in your prayers
and help encourage them to continue coming to camps, so they can rise up and become
leaders in their lives and in their churches.
12 | NSW Contact
December 2015 | 13
My name is Brant Alan Waterson and I came to Adelaide at the be-ginning of last year with my wife Elizabeth and our son Calhon, so that I could begin my study to be-come a pastor. I was born on the 28th of October 1980 at Gosford Hospital, Central Coast in NSW and was a member of the Gosford congregation, where Bob Hamann was the pastor, and my godfather. Bob was very inspiring for me with such overwhelming love and enthu-siasm in the church. With his big booming voice Bob baptised me into God’s family on the 21 January 1981 where I immediately found my home. I then went on through school, where at the end of year 12 I felt the call from God to become a pastor. At that time I felt that I needed more life experience to fur-ther my knowledge and under-standing of all sorts of life and peo-ple.
With this in mind, I went to universi-ty in Armidale and studied to be a primary school teacher, focusing on my ability to work with children. During my studies I did a variety of odd jobs, from garbage and general labour work to office and temp work, to help pay my way through. In 2003 I graduated with a primary teaching degree and began work-ing mainly casually in schools around Sydney. It was then that Elizabeth and I started dating, after meeting through a mutual friend years earlier during one of her study breaks. Elizabeth also gradu-
ated in 2000 with a de-gree in stage and screen acting.
After studying a Masters of Educational Studies (Mathematics Major) I was placed in Deniliquin where I lived and taught at the local high school for two years. Here I learnt a great deal about the youth and their struggles in life, particularly from a rural point of view. I then moved back to Syd-ney to be with Elizabeth where we were married in 2007.
Elizabeth is both a trained profes-sional actress and classical singer. Having been blessed with a beauti-ful voice at a young age, she has been able to sing and act in a varie-ty of capacities and venues around Australia and overseas throughout her career.
Not having grown up in a church it was a slow but steady integration for her into faith, and with much pa-tience and understanding from Brant and the work of the Holy Spir-it, Elizabeth has found her way. Elizabeth has suffered many trials of sicknesses and surgeries throughout her life, and can look back and see how God has always been with her, giving her strength and providing her with everything she needed.
After teaching secondary school in Sydney and the surrounding areas
casually for the next few years, I accepted a job to work at the local Marist High school in Forbes. In our first year in Forbes, our son Calhon was born, and is a wonderful addi-tion to our small family. It was whilst working here and being once again under the pastoral care of Bob that I heard the call to ministry again.
This time, after much discussion, prayer and meditation, Elizabeth and I decided that we would put the call to a test and head to the semi-nary so that I could attend studies.
So far it has been a wonderful ex-perience for my family and I. Whilst we do struggle at times being so far from our old support structures, families and friends, we are forging new friendships and bonding into new families. We have been blessed in a large variety of ways since being here, and we look for-ward to the future and working with-in the ministry.
Brant Waterson
ALC Student: Brant Waterson
Elizabeth, Calhon and Brant Waterson
Fred Veerhuis’ book ‘**it Happens, Grace
Surprises’ is now available
as an audio book on CD in mp3 format.
Cost $5 (includes postage)
email [email protected]
to place your order. Australians are known the world over
for their use of earthy language.
‘**it happens!’ is an instantly recognised and
understood term in our ears. Much of our humour
stems from this theme. But that sort of language is
not supposed to be found on the lips of churchgo-
ers, especially not clergy. This book was written in the hope
that it might be read by ordinary Australians
who have wrestled with their beliefs for any
number of reasons. I’ve taken the liberty of
using the title ‘**it Happens, Grace Surprises’
to describe the way the Almighty brings his
goodness into our lives. Life unloads all sorts
of sad, weird and funny things upon us. And
often enough the man upstairs does some-
thing with that raw material in such a way that
we know we have been touched by him. I’d like
to think that the Aussie battlers among us can
read a book of stories like this, enjoy it,
and learn something at the same time.
Fred Veerhuis, 2007
*
”
“
14 | NSW Contact
In the next week or two you will receive your copy of
Faith Family for Term 4.
I hope you and the families you are in ministry with will
find it helpful. It explores beginnings and endings and
how parents help their children with these changes.
Page 1 raises the theme of endings and beginnings
and making the most of the time God gives us.
Page 2 provides some information about the season of
Advent and a De-clutter December calendar to help
families focus on the more important aspects of the
season.
Page 3: ‘Mary’s story’ was inspired by the news we
have been seeing and hearing about people leaving
their war-devistated homes and seeking refuge,
peace and a new beginning in other places. It looks at
the familiar story of Jesus’ birth from the perspective of
Mary, noting changes in her life that the birth brought
about and the family’s refugee status when they fled
to Egypt.
‘Mary’s Child’ looks at Jesus as the bringer of new life
and new beginnings.
Page 4 articles provide some practical tips for parents
experiencing endings and beginnings with their chil-
dren.
This is the final issue of Faith Family.
There’s an irony to the theme that was chosen long
ago for this issue. We, who have been involved in this
project, need to heed the advice provided by this
term’s writers.
Past copies of Faith Family will be available on our
web site: www.sa.uca.org.au/uyp/
You are welcome to recycle any of the material, but
please credit anything you use to Faith Family.
If you would like to receive our monthly email newslet-
ter for people in ministry with children, ‘What’s Up’ —
and to learn about our new initiatives for supporting
parents — please email the UCA SA Synod office:
Continuing blessings,
Mary Jo Zwar, Resource Writer, Faith Family
Supporting Syrian Refugees As political leaders grapple with ‘solutions’ to the ‘refugee crisis’, the ALWS family simply reaches out and cares. In October more than $340,000 was donated to help refugees from Syria, South Sudan and other countries hurt by conflict. Thank you. Meet two of the people benefitting from your care: Meet Khawla Khawla’s husband, and two sons aged 8 and 13, were killed in the conflict in Syria. She fled her home in Deraa when rockets, shootings and arrests increased, and is now living as a refugee in a flat with 11 other people in Irbid in Jordan. It is there she is receiving support from the ALWS family, through our partner Lutheran World Federation Jordan, to start a new life. Khawla took part in tailoring training, where she learnt the different types of sewing. She’s now using these new skills to do sewing for neighbours and shops, earning the money she needs
to survive as a refugee far from home. Photo: LWF Jordan / ACT Alliance Khawla has already saved enough money to buy her own sewing ma-chine. You can see her using it in the photo above to sew a traditional dress called an abaya. What Khawla is especially proud of is that she’s earning enough to send money to her two married daughters who have remained in Syria. Khawla now plans to start her own sewing pro-ject to help other refugees like her. 70 refugees have received tailoring training from the LWF team our ALWS family supports. Meet Mohammad Mohammad used to work as a guard for the LWF team deliver-ing care through ALWS to almost 80,000 people seek-ing shelter at Za’atari. When the LWF team offered training to be a barber, Mohammad took up the opportunity, along with his brother Abid Al Mueen. They have now opened their own barber shop inside the camp, to earn money to support their family.
100 refugees like Mohammad and Abid have received training to become barbers. You can donate now to help protect
Syrian Refugees at
www.alws.org.au
Select your Gifts of Grace now through ALWS www.alws.org.au
1300 763 407
Australian Lutheran World Service www.alws.org.au
December 2015 | 15
Location Pastor & family Congregation/s
10
Central West NSW
Paul Hage – Sharon, Eloise
St John’s Forbes St Peter’s Orange St Paul’s Parkes
17 Gilgandra/ Dubbo
Steven Hibbard – Catherine, Josh
St Mark’s Dubbo St John’s Gilgandra
24 Gunnedah/ Tamworth
vacant Trinity Gunnedah St Paul’s Tamworth
31 Bankstown/ Liverpool
Tim Zanker – Denise Living Waters Liverpool Concordia Yagoona
7 Sydney Finnish
Martti Paananen - Riittaa Nieme
Sydney Finnish
14 Springwood Robert Hamann - Marie Our Saviour Springwood
21 Campbelltown vacant Good Shepherd Campbelltown
28 Chinese vacant Chinese Lutheran Epping
6 Coffs Harbour Bruce Hohnberg Peace Coffs Harbour
13
Epping
Mark Schultz - Jo, Jack, Anna, Alex, Georgia Mark Simpfendorfer -Kaye, Calvin, Joshua, Dylan
LifeWay Epping
20 Estonian Meelis Rosma - Jie St John’s Estonian Sydney St Peter’s Estonian Canberra
27 Sutherland Mat Eckermann - Elizabeth, Ewan, Braden
Good Shepherd Sutherland
3 German Thomas Dietl & Andera Pistor, Felix, Hannah
Gnadenfrei Chester Hill Martin Luther Sydney
10 Central Coast vacant St Matthew’s Woy Woy
Ja
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ary
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A
pril
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers,
intercession and thanksgiving
be made for everyone — for kings
and all those in authority, that we may live
peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
This is good and pleases God our Saviour,
who wants all people to be saved and to come
to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator
between God and people, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all
- the testimony given in its proper time.
1 Timothy 2:1-6
Pastors, lay-workers and lay people are invited to
LCA NSW District Mission and Ministry Conference
1-3 February 2016, at Warrambui
When new people come into our churches it is important that everyone in the congregation works together to guide them in their new life with Jesus. But how do we know if what one per-son is teaching them, matches in with what another person is saying to them? Or do they just get confused. Mike Breen, while working in mission communities in Inner London and then Sheffield, started developing what have become known today as Life Shapes. Visual shapes which help people remember, reflect and live out the teachings of Christ.
The shapes are basically a series of questions to help live the balanced Christian life. They teach the Kingdom value, but then also help the person to reflect on the value, and then to evalu-ate the world around them using that value. This conference, as well as teaching about the life shapes, will be based on the triangle life shape: Up-In-Out. For more information contact Pastor Robert Bartholomaeus or google ‘Life Shapes’. Registration will soon be available at www.lcansw.org.au/mandm/
Learning to be Crossways Disciples
16 | NSW Contact
Contact Newsletter
Published 4 times each year by the NSW District of the Lutheran Church of Australia LCA NSW District Office Concord House 15-17 Blaxland Road, Rhodes PO Box 3056 RHODES NSW 2138 Phone (02) 9736 2366 Fax (02) 9736 1155 Email: [email protected]
www.lcansw.org.au
Responding to Sexual Abuse Complaints
A confidential service for responding to complaints of sexual abuse/harassment by church employees has been set up and trained advisers
are available to help. Write to: The Supervisor, PO Box 519
Marden SA 5070; use the freecall number 1800 644 628; or email
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE
For use by pastors, teachers, parishes and lay members who use the software for the church.
Software can no longer be ordered through the NSW District Office, but is now available at competitive prices directly from Data#3.
Contact Jag Maan phone 02 9081 9675 email [email protected]
Further details at www.lcansw.org.au/resources/software
28 June – 3 July 2016 in Melbourne
www.luther500.com.au
