Ministry in Adelaide

For those of you who are interested in my ministry path, here is an update about my ministry activities in the Adelaide Christian New Church. Last year I wanted to serve here for two months, and ended up staying only one month due to being called back to work in the USA. This year I wanted to stay for five months, but ended up again with a one month ministry trip. This time it was housing issues. This ministry trip, as you can see from previous posts, has involved visits to three NCIA (New Church in Australia) congregations, as well as family in other places. The result is only one week in Adelaide, but it has been a good one!

I’m staying in the church itself, which the congregation has adapted into a bit of a flat for a short stay. It has worked well from my perspective. It certainly made it easy for getting to church events, of which there were three this week. First was Bible study. Sam shared some research he had done about the (arch)angel Michael, as a result of a question that had come up the previous week. Then I shared the creation story in Gen 1 with commentary about correspondences in nature, as I had done in Hurstville.

Looks we had some enlightenment during our Bible study!

Sam, June, me and Heather was the photographer.

Two days later I gave a talk titled “About Angels.” Unbeknownst to me, I had picked the worst possible weekend to schedule an outreach talk in Adelaide. It was Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, the world’s second largest annual arts festival. Despite mailbox leaflets, newspaper notice and a Facebook event, we had the smallest attendance they’ve had for an outreach talk – and Swedenborgian/New Church events are small everywhere except in African countries! So it became a relaxed conversation about angels with a PowerPoint presentation to guide us. The visitor was my chiropractor friend Shirley, whom I had personally invited when I saw her earlier in the week for a treatment. She has since told me she felt uplifted after spending the afternoon with us.

Church service in Adelaide

The Holy Supper silver on the altar is the same set my Grandpa used to offer the sacrament in the Adelaide Church the day before he passed on.

 Due to technical issues/incompetence, I can’t get these photos lined up the way I want. They’re a mix of Angel talk and Sunday service. On Sunday, I basically lead the worship service and I was delighted how co-creational the service was. Almost half of the congregation participated, by opening the Word, welcoming and leading spoken scripture, reading, song leading, offertory. Because I’m still a lay person, I was asked to give an “interesting talk” rather than a sermon. The policy in the Adelaide congregation is that lay leaders read sermons written by Swedenborgian/New Church ministers.  So my talk was perhaps an acknowledgement that I’m almost an ordained minister. We weren’t able to schedule my final oral exam while I’m here so that will happen via Skype when I’m in USA. My ordination application is still under consideration with divided opinions on the details of women’s ordained ministries. My presence and leading in church activities in three congregations this trip will hopefully have an impact on the perception of what it is that women ministers bring to the ordained ministry in Australia and New Zealand.

“Shared lunch” after church on Sunday

Afternoon tea afterward the Angel talk, with Michael, Shirley, Heather and June

Angel talk all set up and ready to go.