or A truly diverse but united celebration of God
Over the past few weeks, we all have been very excited as the initial communication with the Zimbabwean Methodist church in Melbourne has started progressing. David and the Church Council have met with their seniors a few times to discuss the opportunity of using the church for their worships and being associated with St Kilda Uniting Church. This Sunday, we had our first worship together and it was a moment we all will remember for a long time.
It is always wonderful to see new people coming to the church. This time, it was not a few of them now and then but we had the church full after a while for the Sunday worship. We also had some guests participating in the worship, namely Rev Swee Ann Koh, Director Intercultural Ministry, Synod of VicTas and Rev Apwee Ting, National Director CrossCultural Ministry, UCA Assembly. Everyone was very excited and how David pointed out, perhaps a bit nervous and anxious, too. People were thinking: Would they like us? Would they like the way we celebrate God?
The celebration turned out to be beautiful and we hope it felt right to everyone. A combination of Uniting Church songs and Zimbabwean songs both in Shona and English created a space where one could feel God’s presence through and in his children. We had a shared communion within the service, and, after the service, people stayed for lunch. We had so much to talk about and so many names to remember! Luckily, it has not been the only chance to embrace the new opportunity and the relationships can and will be further formed and strengthened over the upcoming weeks and months.
We hope that you felt the same if you were at the church. Please, let us know if it were like that or otherwise by writing a comment, sending a message or telling anyone associated with the Church. We hope that this exciting journey will go on and everyone will feel at home at the St Kilda Uniting Church. There are some pictures attached; if you have any more or a video, please let us know, we’d love to add them to this post.