⭐️ Final Haven for 2024 ⭐️ 4.30pm Sunday 8th December 2024. ⭐️

 Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that this coming Sunday afternoon will be our last gathering for the year.

It wouldn’t be a long or ‘heavy’ afternoon — We’ll celebrate together around some carols, some fun and some food!

See you soon!🎅🏼

Martin

Carol Services December 2024

          

If If you're interested in Community Carol Services around Mernda this year, here's just a few of the great options:

Diamond Creek Community Carols
FROM 5:30PM SUNDAY 15 DECEMBER, COVENTRY OVAL, DIAMOND CREEK

We love our carols in Diamond Creek! Every year, hundreds of locals gather at the Diamond Creek Community Carols to celebrate Christmas and all that it means. Featuring the Carols Band singing your favourite carols, and some new ones!

Come along and sing some special Diamond Creek Christmas Carols! We’re also excited to be offering an animal farm this year from 5:30pm along with other activities for families and children.

For more Information 

Whittlesea Carols by Candlelight
6:00PM - 9:00PM FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER 2024 
CIVIC CENTRE LAWNS, 25 FERRES BOULEVARD, SOUTH MORANG

Get ready as we light up the night with festive music to celebrate the holiday season with the whole community.  The night will kick off at 6pm, with over 40 market stalls selling local goodies to fill up those Christmas stockings.

Team Dream will be starting the show to get the kids up and dancing, followed by a meet and greet.  Santa will also be making a guest appearance between performances from the talented Diamond Valley Brass Band and Community Carols Choir.

Bring a picnic, great company and your best Mariah Carey or Michael Bublé singing voices for a night of Christmas cheer.  Get ready as we light up the night to celebrate the season with festive music and fun for the whole community.

For more information

Mernda Uniting Church
7:00PM SATURDAY 7TH DECEMBER 2024 
97 SCHOTTERS ROAD MERNDA 

The True North Gospel Choir will perform at Mernda Uniting Church on Saturday night Dec 7th at 7pm Come for Gospel music and carols! Donation upon entry. RSVP via email to sierravoices.email@com.

For more information 

Doreen Community Carols
47:00PM SUNDAY 15TH OF DECEMBER 2024 
COLLINGROVE PARK, 165W HAZEL GLEN DRIVE, DOREEN

4:00pm Christmas festival. Featuring music from Mark Turner, Dom La Fertita and the Gami Gami Devils. Kids Activities include Face Painting, Pony Rides, Jumping Castle and Craft. Food available for purchase including Curly Spuds, Ice-Cream, BBQ Sausages & Pizza. 6:00pm Our Carols Service begins. Celebrating Christmas together with favourite carols and a Christmas message. Followed by a visit from the CFA and a close friend of theirs.

For more information

Christmas Joy!

It was Skyhooks, who fifty years ago sang:

Horror movie right there on my TV

Horror movie and it's blown a fuse

Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news

Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news

Shockin' me right outa my brain

I reckon the 24/7 news cycle in 2024 is even more shockin'. So many, never-ending challenges facing our old world, and anxiety levels are at an all time high for so many people!

And yet, the Christmas story is a story of great joy in the midst of chaos, disruption, despair and upheaval. Born in a cow-shed during a time of political and religious turmoil, the birth of Jesus is met with songs of joy by those who were thirsting for peace, the Shalom of God. 

The angels powerfully proclaim: "Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those who he favours." (Luke 2:14)

The disruptive message of Christmas comes to give hope and courage; and Mary responds with a defiant affirmation of joy: "My soul magnifies the Lord and my Sprit rejoices in God my saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant!" (Luke 1:46-47)

Go and read again the story of Christmas, and allow the words to settle deep into your heart, challenging, strengthening and renewing you, drawing you closer to our foundational story -- that into this messy and uncertain world -- God entered in the form of a vulnerable child and lived amongst us. John puts it: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood." (John 1:14 MSG)

May you have great joy and a deep sense of peace as you ponder the Christmas story!

Come and join us for our last Haven gathering of the year. We're going to have a Christmas meal together! 4.30pm Sunday 8th December 2024. 

If you are able to join us can you send me an SMS? 

The Kairos Circle

Our lives are made up of many moments – some big, some small, some good, some bad. These events can become opportunities for significant growth and development in our walk with Christ. The question is whether we will recognize these events as opportunities for growth or just let them pass by. When these events happen, we have an opportunity to listen for the leading of God, and then to respond in the way we believe the Spirit is leading.

The Circle is a tool to help remind and guide us in the process The key thing is to look for a “Kairos moment”: a significant event (positive or negative, never neutral, that leaves an impact on you, signalling an opportunity to grow spiritually and emotionally) and then (prayerfully) enter into the circle of learning.

In other words in a Kairos moment, we are being called up to take a step for the Kingdom: What is God saying to me? (repent, change mind, change thinking) -- What am I going to do about it? (faith, acting in faith, stepping out in faith).

Click on the picture to watch a short summary ...

Come and find out more, this next Sunday.
Haven — 4.30pm Sunday 24th November at the Mernda Uniting Church 

97 Schotters Rd, Mernda VIC.

Haven — 4.30pm Sunday 24th Nov 2024

Ever find yourself out in the bush and you get to a place where the path divides into two or three trails all heading in different directions? But the road-signs have gone missing and none of the trails look like the right one! What do you do? 

You know you have to choose an option or head back – but how do you decide?

Our lives are made up of many such moments – forks in the road – Sometimes the options look risky or uncomfortable or just like hard work – So what do we do? These times can become the BEST opportunities to grow!

These times are Kairos' moments — Significant times when we have to pause and listen for the Holy Spirit and then respond to the God's leading. How do we process such moments and respond in a way that sees us flourish?

NEXT week at Haven, we’re going to discover six powerful keys to effectively moving forward and flourishing -- Don’t miss it!

Haven — 4.30pm Sunday 24th November at the Mernda Uniting Church 97 Schotters Rd, Mernda VIC

We’re also gathering around the Communion table to draw strength for the coming week. 

Join us and stay for a chat over tea. We're having the BEST pulled-pork sliders ever! 🤤

Feel free to pass this on to any friends who might be interested.

Recessional | Remembrance Day

It’s the 11th of the 11th, and around the world at 11am, people will pause and recall the Great War with it’s appalling loss of life and the grotesque futility that pitted the great European empires against each other only to set the stage for an even greater war to come.

"Lest we Forget" is the phrase commonly used at remembrance services and inscribed in stone at memorials. Before the term was used in reference to soldiers and war, it was first used in an 1897 poem written by Rudyard Kipling called “Recessional" to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

"Recessional" contains five stanzas of six lines each. As a recessional is a hymn or piece of music that is sung or played at the end of a religious service.

Initially, Kipling had not intended to write a poem for the Jubilee. It was written and published only towards the close of the Jubilee celebrations, and represents a comment on them — an afterword.

The poem went against the celebratory mood of the time, providing instead a sombre reminder of the transient nature of Imperial power. Though the poem expresses pride in the British Empire, there is a melancholic perception that the seemingly unassailable Empire must eventually go the way of all previous empires. Just as Queen Victoria's earthly empire was at its zenith, Kipling foresaw its inevitable demise. 

The title and its allusion to an end rather than a beginning add solemnity and gravitas to Kipling's message. The poem argues that complacent arrogance and boasting were inappropriate and vain in light of the permanence of God.

The phrase "Lest we Forget" forms the refrain of "Recessional". It is taken from Deuteronomy 6:12 — "Then beware lest you forget the Lord which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt.” The reference to the "ancient sacrifice" as a "humble and a contrite heart" is taken from Ps 51.

This Remembrance Day as we remember the dead and the hubris of empires long gone, let us remember that our grand, and decadent and affluent empire of late modernity — eternal and invincible though it seems — stands on a precipice. 

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

***   ***   ***

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Rudyard Kipling 1897

Anchor Of My Soul

 

The tempest with its raging waves and fierce winds is a great metaphor for the anxious and uncertain times we can face in life.  I love this song and the strong affirmation that in the midst of all the difficult and anxious times, we can cry: "Alleluia, Jesus, Lord of all!"

Anchor for My Soul

Josh Garrels

[Verse 1]
I have seen enough to know
That Your love's the only anchor for my soul
So please, don't You ever let me go
If You do I will be lost forever, Lord
Swept away by the waves of the storm

[Chorus]
O Lord of the wind and the waves
If You're with us we will not be afraid
No storm can ever separate us from Jesus, You're mighty to save
All of those who will call on Your name

[Post-Chorus]
Alleluia, Jesus, Lord of all
Alleluia, Jesus, lead us on
And on and on, on and on

[Verse 2]
When I thought that all was lost
I cried to the Lord, "Rescue me!"
And like a ghost You appeared
Walking on the turbulent sea
And You said, "Oh my child, follow Me"

[Chorus]
O Lord of the wind and the waves
If You're with us we will not be afraid
No storm can ever separate us from Jesus, You're mighty to save
All of those who will call on Your name

[Post-Chorus]
Alleluia, Jesus, Lord of all
Alleluia, Jesus, lead us on
Alleluia, Jesus, Lord of all
Alleluia, Jesus, lead us on
And on and on, on and on
And on and on, on and on

Haven next on 4:30pm Sunday 10th November 2024

Great to meet up again yesterday!

The first time we met we thought about the practice of the ‘examen’ - pausing and spending a little time each day reflecting on the day that’s passed and preparing for the day to come. See here for a recap.

Yesterday we thought about the practice of reading the Bible. We suggested a particular way I called “Dwelling in the Word” and suggested two short Bible Passages to practice with. You can see a summary here.

We’re on again 4:30pm Sunday 10th November.  Feel free to invite friends. It would be good to get a heads-up about possible extra numbers to help with set-up and catering! 😉 

When we started yesterday I read out this verse. May it be true for each of you this week: “But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night, I sing His songs, praying to God who gives me life.”  Psalm 42: 8

Seven things you should know about the Bible

Last time we met at Haven in Mernda, we thought about how God speaks to us and leads us. Often we miss the leading of the Holy Spirit because we are not attending.

We notice the spectacular break-throughs or the exhilarating experiences, but the everyday activities and the mundane routines slip past without attention. As for the difficult things, the frustrations, and the painful things of life, well they are rarely reflected on too deeply.

One of the practices we talked about is the ancient practice of the Examen. It’s the discipline of pausing and sitting quietly for a while each day and reflecting on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern the Spirit’s direction for us. Read here for more information. 

This week --  (Sunday 27th of October) -- we're taking a dive into the scriptures. How can we be 'nourished' by reflecting on the scriptures? Click here to learn where and when we are meeting up! Come join in!

Below is a thought provoking article about the Bible. 

It was written by Dr Mike Bird, who is the Deputy Principal at Ridley College and published in Eternity Magazine, #71, July 2016.