the grapevine - the anglican parish of mt...

In the Interim… 1

From the Locum

Vicar

2-3

Easter Fair 4-5

Preparing for

Easter

6-7

Quarterly News of the Anglican Parish of Mount Eliza

MARCH 2016

The Grapevine

R everend Roger

Featherston

commenced as

Locum Vicar in the

parish on 27 January.

Prior to his retirement

from full-time ministry,

Roger was the Vicar of a

number of Melbourne

parishes, the most recent

of which was St Silas’

and St Anselm’s Albert

Park. In the 1980’s he

was the Secretary of

Australian Board of

Missions and from 2003

to 2005 was the Rector

of St James, Florence,

Italy.

Reverend Mike

Simpson, our Associate

Priest, retires on Sunday

29 May 2016.

I t is obvious that our

parish is in a period

of transition and this

gives rise to anxiety for

many about what the

future holds. Certainly in

the interim period while

Roger is Locum Vicar

there will not be the

usual two full-time

clergy leading the parish.

A greater burden will

rest on the shoulders of

the Wardens and Parish

Council members, and

in fact all parishioners,

to ensure, under God’s

guidance, the on-going

life and witness of the

Anglican Parish of

Mount Eliza.

IN THE INTERIM...

LOCUM VICAR Rev. Roger Featherston

ASSOCIATE PRIEST Rev. Mike Simpson

HONORARY

ASSISTANT CURATE

Rev.Paul Carr

CHILDREN, YOUTH

& FAMILIES

MINISTER Mrs Sam White

Easter Services 7

It’s Still Life

Opening

8

Lamppost Gallery 9

Anna Prifti

Sacred Image

10

Reverend Paul

Carr

11-

13

Kids & God in the

Gallery

13-

14

Dates for the

Diary

15

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

A small group working on future

directions for the parish and

notice will be given to parish-wide

consultations to begin soon.

Please pray for this group and the

process of discerning the direction

for the parish in 2016 and beyond.

Incumbency Committee:

Please also pray for John Welsh,

Richard Brooks, Bek Pryor, and

Lyn Whelan as they represent the

parish in its search for a new

Vicar. The following prayers may

be used:

Heavenly Father, pour down your Spirit upon this parish. Grant us a new vision of your glory, a new experience of your power, a new faithfulness to your word, a new consecration to your service, that through our renewed witness your holy name may be glorified and your kingdom advanced, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Bountiful God, give to this parish a

faithful pastor who will faithfully

speak your word and minister your

sacraments; an encourager who will

equip your people for ministry and

enable us to fulfil our calling. Give to

those who will choose, wisdom,

discernment and patience, and to us

give warm and generous hearts, for

Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

PAGE 2 THE GRAPEVINE

FROM THE

LOCUM VICAR

As we pray for our Incumbency Committee and as we await a new Vicar, change is also an inevitability and is unavoidable. CHANGE. It can divide people. It's uncomfortable and it's divisive. It cuts across the groupings of family, class and background. Change can hurt terribly. It also divides us within ourselves with a pain and conflict which is continuing and never absent from any of us. The familiar has an enormous power over us and it holds us in its grip. Only fools pretend that change doesn't matter. There is a warmth and a security in the old and familiar; in the tried and true. The power of nostalgia is that it makes no demands on us. We remain in our nice cosy comfort zone. Places have almost an ‘adore’ about them which we savour and love.

MARCH 2016

For some it is impossible to let go of the past and reach out to change and to take risks. You know how important that word is to me. RISK. Our whole theology revolves around that word ‘risk’. It is not natural to go out and meet change. It is not natural to take risks. The natural thing to do would be to stay at home with the familiar, slippers on in the comfort of the tried and the true - wrapped in friendship and love or BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW THAN THE DEVIL YOU DON'T. That is natural. But faith and religion demand more than the natural. Religious history starts with the - ABRAHAM FACTOR: The willingness to take risks and go into the unknown. This is the basis of all new life - the faith to set out, leaving the known and the familiar. This is the basis of all our theology because it is what God does.

God chose to leave behind everything, to get rid of all Godness, divinity and to become human. A great risk - the greatest. But it was a great adventure and this Christian movement is a great adventure in which we accompany our risen Lord on a pilgrimage through time - our own time, and the time yet to come. Please pray that each of us may move through this agony of change together and be given the strength of new life. Please continue in your prayers that a Pastor will be found for this parish who will lead us into meaningful worship of the God who risked all in the life of Jesus whose Spirit guides us if we are open to his prompting. Roger

FROM THE LOCUM VICAR

THE GRAPEVINE

EASTER FAIR 2016—THANK YOU!

MARCH 2016

EASTER FAIR 2016—THANK YOU!

Our liturgy is at the heart of who we are. While teaching and preaching in the church inform our minds, liturgy informs our souls. One of the first things we say about the Episcopal church, beyond being welcoming and inclusive, beyond being a “thinking” church, is that we are a church that values beautiful worship. We humans are creatures of imagination. When the imagination is engaged and enlivened we enter the liminal space of transformation and are moved to consider our deepest identity. We learn, we are ‘informed’ through our liturgy from week to week, consciously and unconsciously. We gain muscle memory, as it were, through the outward and visible sign, the ‘sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving’ expressed as beautifully as we know how… that gratitude and community and the love and nurture of neighbour lie at the heart of our humanity… at the heart of God. The pinnacle of our liturgical life begins in Holy Week. We begin on Palm Sunday with Jesus’ so-called triumphal entrance into Jerusalem…. bearing with his disciples the apocalyptic expectations of a movement for liberation and dignity in the face of the corrupt powers that be.

W e remember his arrest and his mock trial; his torture

and execution… all for the cause of a world restored, a world set right, a world loved into a just and mutual community…. the Cause. The walk of Holy Week leads us to the cross so that we have no choice but to look the scandal of evil in the world in the face. There is no Easter without Good Friday. The rhythm of our mortal journey is forever a dance between good and evil, death and life; the old passing away, yielding the new. Our liturgy teaches us this rhythm whether we know it or not. Beauty, art, artifice are that way. So, I invite you to participate in Holy Week. There will be Last Supper Eucharist at the Chapel of the Resurrection on Thursday Night at 7pm and a Service on Good Friday at 9.30am in the Main Church culminating in the Great Celebration of Easter at 9.30am in the Main Church...but Easter only has resonance having come through the passion of the world’s darkness. Our liturgical life enables us to remind our souls, our collective psyche, in ways beyond our conscious knowing, that death is not the end, that life and hope are worthy of our solidarity. It is not enough to simply tell each other of the truth.

PAGE 6 THE GRAPEVINE

PREPARING FOR EASTER

MARCH 2016

Palm Sunday 20 March

Normal Services

Holy Thursday 24 March 7pm

The Last Supper Night

The Peninsula School Chapel

Good Friday 25 March 9.30am

Main Church

Passion of Our Lord in Music & Word 7pm

Main Church

Easter Day 27 March 9.30am

Combined Easter Service of Holy Communion

Main Church

Choral Evensong 5pm

Historic Church

EASTER SERVICES 2016

M ay we gather as God’s people to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour

as we continue in our prayers for peace for the world.

We are duty bound to act it out in the artifice of ritual. The human imagination was of the imagination of God… that the human imagination was the indwelling Spirit of God. Nurture your imagination this Holy Week in the artifice of liturgy… Let us bear this great story, our story, God’s story, outwardly and visibly… bear it as a witness to the truth…. the truth of who we are… the truth of who God is… and let the truth set us free.

THE GRAPEVINE

IT’S STILL LIFE OPENING

MARCH 2016

LAMPPOST EXHIBITION

T he first exhibition for 2016 was NATHAN KING's It’s

Still Life exhibition from 5—28 February. At the Opening Night, as well as a first look at Nathan King’s exhibition, there was a special live performance by international jazz singer-songwriter, Meryl Leppard.

The current exhibition is ANNA PRIFTI Sacred Image The medieval art of icon writing continues today as an important form of religious art and spiritual practice.

Anna Prifti is one artist whose practice spans the gap between icon writing and contemporary art. Accomplished in the Byzantine tradition of icon writing, Anna’s career in Europe and Australia has included many large-scale commissions and led her in 2005, to establish the Byzantine Iconography School in Camberwell. But Anna’s artistic explorations into the sacred don’t stop there. She is also a skilled contemporary artist whose paintings and sculptures play with some of the same materials, symbols and techniques of traditional Byzantine icons. Anna Prifti’s work in both styles is dynamic, not only expanding our knowledge of the Byzantine tradition but awakening our spiritual senses as well. The exhibition runs until 27 March. For more details about the artist, go to www.annaprifti.com.

THE GRAPEVINE

Anna Prifti Sacred Image 5-27 March 2016 Lamppost Gallery Anglican Parish of Mount Eliza 105 Koetong Parade Mout Eliza

For more event information, follow Lamppost Gallery on Facebook or find the Lamppost page on the Parish website mteliza.melbourneanglican.org.au

Artist Talk and Icon Lecture:

Sunday 20th March You are warmly invited to join

us at the Exhibition

Celebration on Sunday 20th

March from 2 – 4pm. This special event will include a talk by artist Anna Prifti and lecture by Head of Icon School of St Peter - Melbourne, Brian Bubbers. Refreshments will also be served. All welcome.

New Gallery Hours To match visitor patterns and make better use of our volunteer team, Lamppost Gallery hours have changed as of 5 March 2016. During exhibition seasons, Lamppost will be open at the following times:

Wednesday – Friday 11am –

3pm

Saturday – Sunday 1 – 4pm

(closed Monday & Tuesday)

MARCH 2016

There were many stages in my sense of calling. Some of these go back to my school years where I was raised in a small Oxfordshire village attending a Church of England school. From University, I had a strong sense that I wanted to do some kind of serving and Christian work but I wasn't sure what form that might take other than my career forming into Health and Social Care services, and then Psychiatry for the past 20 years. During those early years, I felt a growing sense of call, which was further encouraged by people around me, including the Vicars in the Anglican Church we attended as a family for twelve years prior to emigrating to Australia in 2012.

REVEREND PAUL CARR

My journey to ordination: Name: Revd Paul Carr Parish: The Anglican Parish of Mount Eliza, Victoria Position: Curate When, and how, did you feel called to ordained ministry? It is with a sense of deep privilege that I write about my experience of becoming ordained into the ministry, but particularly as I am local to the Parish and this is our home church and I am able to serve here in Mount Eliza as Curate. It gives me great pleasure to offer my gratitude to everyone in the Parish who has known me for the past three years and supported my journey toward ordination, which was celebrated at St.Paul’s Catherdral in Melbourne on Saturday 6th February 2016 – wonderful weather, so well supported by many of you, and a memorable occasion for my family, especially Elsa, my wife, who has stood by me in prayer and much patience through these years – Thank You Elsa!

THE GRAPEVINE

How would you describe your experience of the process? I started to think about ordination seriously in 2005 when were still living in England. I was preparing for full-time studies at St.John’s Theological College, Nottingham, having been through various stages of the discernment process. It was a big commitment but one for which I was passionate. We emigrated to Australia for several reasons, including the health of one of our children and we have never looked back. We have been so welcomed by everyone here, and Mount Eliza has become a very special place for us. From the moment we arrived, the vicar continued the process for me here in the Diocese of Melbourne and a final decision by the selection committee was made whilst I continued formal studies at Trinity Theological College. I continued working in my secular career with Monash Health, where I still work, which means that I work part-time in both fields for now, whilst completing studies, and enjoying being Dad to our three children, and husband to Elsa, and all the joys that brings. The systematic nature of the process gave me a lot of confidence in my sense of calling.

It was a joint discernment process with many people including Director of Ordinands, Examining Chaplains, Vocations Advisers, and Theological staff along the way who supported and guided me, and still do –, all I can say is that God had led me this far and I felt well prepared. What's the best thing about your position? I love the parish of Mount Eliza and its people. I love the vibe, the history, the potential and the heart of the people here. I love to listen to the life stories of people and how they engage with God. I also like the fact that we have so many ‘non-Christian’ friends, and I think they see us as fairly normal. Without risk of sounding clichéd, it is a privilege to be among so many people talking about the gospel in various contexts. Sometimes I've just sat quietly in the church and other times I’m out running or cycling with friends – whatever the situation, I've listened to people ask serious life questions and seen God breaking through in people’s lives as we've prayed together, which has been very special.

REVEREND PAUL CARR (CONT’D)

DECEMBER 2015

REVEREND PAUL CARR (CONT’D)

What's the most challenging aspect of your position? The most challenging aspect of starting out as a curate has been to juggle many competing demands of work, study, family, and ministry - without daily prayer, some things don’t fall into the right places. The adjustment that my family is making to enter into the life of a new church is also a big one. We still live in the parish, which is wonderful and we feel at home here. It is the same experience for my wife and children and so we are blessed by what God has provided us and hope to look to remain serving and living in the area from here. Thank you, most sincerely for all your prayers, love, and support – please keep us in your prayers. Blessings Paul

KIDS & GOD IN

THE GALLERY

THE GRAPEVINE

KIDS & GOD IN THE GALLERY

Labyrinth and response to Nathan King’s exhibition ‘It’s

Still Life’

Please check the weekly pew bulletin and updates on the web site for more details closer to when events are to happen. DATE EVENT LOCATION TIME 5 –27 March Anna Prifti Sacred Image Lamppost Gallery Wed-Fri 11-3

Art Exhibition Sat-Sun 1-4 16 March Parish Council Hall 7.30pm

24 March Holy Thursday The Peninsula School Chapel 7.00pm 25 March Good Friday Main Church 9.30am Passion of Our Lord Main Church 7.00pm 27 March Easter Day Main Church 9.30am Evensong Historic Church 5.00pm 20 April Parish Council Hall ` 7.30pm 18 May Parish Council Hall 7.30pm

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

MARCH 2016 PAGE 15

REGISTRAR NOTES

WEDDINGS: Jemima Hamzelow and David Laskey

FUNERALS: Michelle Copeland Valma Anne Doyle

Alan Donald Le Fevre

John Ronald (Ronnie) Carroll

Pauline McConnachie

John Larson

Please continue to pray for these people and their families.

105 Koetong Parade

Mount Eliza VIC 3930

Phone: 9775 3301

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: mteliza.melbourneanglican.org.au

We are a community of Christians who are knowing Christ and making Christ known, in our church, in our families, in our communities and in the world. We worship in the wide variety of styles offered by the Anglican tradition, from choral Eucharist to Sunday school, from traditional service to contemporary praise, for seniors and children, for youth and adults. There is something for everyone ~ whoever you are, wherever you come from, you are welcome to join us as we meet God here.

The Anglican Parish of Mount Eliza

knowing Christ and making Christ known

Sunday

7.45 am Holy Communion (from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer)

St James the Less historic church 9 am Holy Communion with Children’s Programs every week in term time.

St James the Less main church 10 am Holy Communion

Chapel of the Resurrection, The Peninsula School. 10.30 am Choral Eucharist

St James the Less main church 6.00pm Choral Evensong ~ 4th Sunday

St James the Less historic church

Wednesday

10.30am Holy Communion

St James the Less historic church

SERVICES AT MT ELIZA

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