(available on Sunday morning)
Photo: Tim Renouf
We have a wonderful service of Holy Eucharist on YouTube for Sunday. We pray for the safe reopening of the church, though that may still be some week's away. There is beautiful music by Dr Calvin Bowman and a solo piece by our Choral Lay Clerk, Chloe James. Watch the service here.
Next week we feature a special service with a greeting and sermon by our bishop, +Paul Barker, who would have been with us physically for a confirmation and reception service. This had to be cancelled due to the COVID restrictions, but +Paul will be coming to St Andrew's during the week to record his weekly sermon which is available for all parishes to include in their services.
Vale
We will farewell Alf Hancock, former Mayor of Ballarat, this week at a private service> Alf died last Wednesday. Our collective condolences have been expressed to Judith and her family.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
We also have interesting music tomorrow for our Mattins: Morning prayer service - at 9am for half an hour. Please join us on Zoom here.
The latest edition of TMA is now available on-line here.
The most disturbing article begins on page one entitled " Unity threat from GAFCON plan' and discusses the proposal for a break-away Diocese being formed for the conservative evangelical congregations who are obsessively opposed to the Anglican church's inclusion of gays and lesbians. In reality this is a power struggle by the conservative right-wing of the church over against those currently forming the majority and who have a more liberal interpretation of scripture.
There will be a motion at this year's Synod meeting (on-line for the first time) calling for unity amongst diversity, so I hope our parish Synod members will support that motion.
There is also a tribute to the late Professor Rev. Gary Bouma, a former assistant priest at St Andrew's Brighton.
