Crosslight - Edition April 2020

Tab e ta k
Something impressive is brewing at
Eaglehawk Uniting Church on Tuesday
afternoons.
The congregation, which is located
north-west of Bendigo, has been
providing a community space where,
each week, about 40-60 people come
to get fresh food and groceries but also,
increasingly, to enjoy tea, coffee, cake
and a chat.
Eaglehawk minister Rev Cynthia Page
says many people in the area, especially
those on fixed incomes, are doing it
tough, so the free food and groceries has
been welcome.
“The pension doesn’t stretch that far,”
she says. “It is genuinely a help to get the
fresh food and other goods.”
However, Cynthia says offering the
food is just the starting point. The main
aim is to reach out to those feeling lonely
and isolated.
“Our goal is relationships. We are
welcoming people we wouldn’t have
otherwise met and we listen to them,”
she says.
“We want to show Jesus to everyone
we meet by who and how we are and
what we do.”
Cynthia says the offering of hospitality
emerged last year from a long period of
discerning where God was at work in the
community and where the church could
join in.
“This new initiative is a gift to us
as well as to the community. It has
rejuvenated the congregation,” she says.
It has also enabled Cynthia to
develop relationships with non-church
members of the community that has
led to meeting with them through the
week for more deep and meaningful
conversations.
Cynthia says the program’s volunteers
are a mixture of church and non-church
people and they gather for prayer before
opening for the afternoon.
“The non-church people now actually
remind me if I don’t initiate prayer
quickly enough,” she says.
The Eaglehawk Community Space is
one of three projects chosen to receive
the proceeds of this year’s Lenten
Offering, which provides grants to
innovative mission projects run by the
UCA. There are three categories: metro,
rural and covenanting.
Eaglehawk UC plans to use the grant
money to create a more café-style
environment by upgrading from its
current trestle tables to small café tables
and buying new chairs, tablecloths,
crockery, cutlery, candles and soup
warmers.
The metro category grant recipient will
be a program in Melbourne’s outer east
that provides social support for people
with mental health issues.
The Gathering Place offers breakfast,
activities and lunch three days a week
at Bayswater UC and is run by the Elm
Street Mission, which is a partnership
between the congregation and Yarra
Yarra Presbytery Mental Health
Ministries.
YYPMHM chair John Tansey says the
project, that began last November, is
a missional “start-up” that seeks to
counter the increasingly individualised
and medicalised treatment of mental
health issues.
“Loneliness is an issue, isolation is an
issue, and particularly so for people who
live with mental illness,” he says.
“We wanted to create a space where
people felt a sense of belonging, where
people felt safe, where people are valued
and there is a sense of dignity.”
On Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays, the program runs from 9am-
1pm and offers breakfast, lunch as well
as activities such as art therapy and
mindfulness.
The Lenten Grant will be used to
upgrade the church’s basic kitchenette
into a kitchen where meals can be
cooked, rather than just reheated.
“Food is crucial to this working, it
not only brings people but it creates a
hospitable base for people to talk and
chat,” John says.
This year’s covenanting recipient is the
For Love of Earth project run by St John’s
UC on Phillip Island.
This project provides intercultural and
intergenerational arts activities to inspire
ecological awareness.
Moderator Denise Liersch says the
projects selected this year reflect the
theme of renewal.
“Please consider supporting the
Lenten Appeal and, in so doing, you will
be participating in the Kingdom’s work of
renewal, justice and hope,” she says.
In line with Synod’s strategy of
sustainability, Lenten Appeal kits are
not being mailed to congregations
this year. All resources to promote and
contribute to the offering can be found
on the Synod website at www.victas.
uca.org.au/lenten-offering-2020.
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