"My Brain's Full but I'm Loving it!"- The Galong Field Days October 10-13

In the Riverina Presbytery, like many other rural areas, there are only a handful of fully ordained ministers. Most churches are run by lay people, all pitching in to encourage and teach each other and inspiring each other, to do something worthwhile in their communities.

Lay & Ordained leaders at the Riverina Kaltara April Retreat (Can you spot the Rev's?)

The Rural Ministry Unit (RMU) and Uniting Mission and Education (UME) and the Rural Chaplain, all act to support lay and ordained people in their ministry. The RMU acts as a forum for ideas and has an advocacy role on rural issues. The UME seeks to educate and share new ideas and resources. The Rural Chaplain works in and with communities and on the various committees.

Beautiful,Calm,Refreshing Galong

The Galong Field Days drew together all these parties, as well as lay people from other presbyteries, for 3 ½ days packed with information and activities. Get-togethers such as these seed ideas into the various centres and promote new ways of looking at things and fresh approaches.

The Rural Chaplain got an opportunity to share ideas on community development in a discussion group, asked people to speak about “good news” things happening in their churches and communities and advertised this blog! It was also a useful time to “touch base" with other RMU and UME colleagues and share new ideas or continue working on old ones.

Everything was interesting and useful but some things we, at Hillston, will really remember and think about doing are-

1)The ideas of Messy Church and Café Church (brought to us by Judyth and Lindsay) as possible styles of church which could appeal to people who wouldn’t normally think of going to church and provide opportunities to share a nice place to be and talk about God.

Cafe Church topics often relate directly to daily life

2) Every year in Hillston in October to December 400 backpackers from around the world arrive to pick cherries. The understandings and inspiration from Katalina’s Multicultural Workshop have given us new insights and made us think about how to approach and welcome the Chinese and Koreans who often attend our church and how to include their language in our services. An ecumenical BBQ for backpackers  for the 23^rd November  in a local park is now planned –All are welcome for a free meal. God’s generosity in action. Café church is another possibility for this time of year.

3) As an ex-Ancient –History teacher I loved the Biblical Cultural Experience run by John and Elizabeth as they walked us through a traditional Jewish meal, offering foods from different eras of Jewish experience and history, explaining the customs and entertaining us with music, humour, song and dance.

Christmas Memories,written on baubles,were put on the tree

4) And speaking of this time of year –

Darren Wright shared with us many Christmas ideas and resources-The Christmas memory tree, the chalk board for recording “What I love and what I hate about Christmas," “Draw an Angel” and the make- it -yourself Advent calendar and nativity scene. We also reviewed useful Christmas videos from youtube and the art work of Si Smith. Well worth a look and considering using.

Note - Darren is a great source of ideas and resources. You can contact him by email at djwright@netspace.net.au and http://riverina.unitingchurch.org.au/?page_id=550
and the UME team can be contacted by phone  02 8267 4295 and email  umeinfo@nsw.uca.org.au