Speed of Life

The move to Doveton has been great and the Frankston Junction PC did a great job of running the last Big Gathering. The shift to the new (old) hall is fine, however we are still negotiating with them on dates and rooms (they told me on Friday we could have the computer room for our third group and then told Michelle we couldn't).

It looks like we need to run a third group for the kids: one for babies that are not in the Gathering (Judy Taylor), preschool and lower primary (Julie Rogers), and lower primary to secondary (Maria Hammond). For duty of care purposes we need to have one other adult, other than a spouse, in with each worker. The only way we can possibly make this happen is roster all parents on a rotational basis. Michelle McLean will be organising this roster.

If you are rostered on and cant make it, please don't call me or Michelle. Rather, find someone else in the church to replace you. We do not have paid administrative staff and it will become time consuming to be chasing up rosters and having to call people. I dislike having a roster now so lets not make it any more complicated and centrally controlled than it has to be.

If you are rostered on, please call the leader of the age group and offer to help, come early, stay behind and if it is hard work, stop for a second and think about how long you have been coming to the junction, multiplied by how many gathering you come to, and ask your self who normally does this? Have I thanked them? Helped? Thought about how your children behave or not? Do they have food and what happens when I forget to bring something etc.. This is all part of being a community with kids.

Been thinking lots about all of the new people around, which is great and exciting. We are growing mostly with good people who understand mission and community and are ready to be part of our kind of community. However you can't take for granted the things that have shaped who we are today, the events, the thinking, teaching and learning we have done as a community to land on who we are and what we value today. Not all of it was good, some of it painful some things I am embarrassed about (like the time we locked everyone out and showed up late to make the point that we all need to bring coffee). Some things were really powerful, like Dave's Baptism, or sitting in Ruby's with Sean, or doing the city walk with Urban seed.

We are the junction - a gathering of people on journey, a place where God and people intersect - hoping at that junction we will experience friendship, God, and meet the needs of the marginalized and poor. I have made some life long friends, lost some, and continue to ask myself how I can be more like Jesus to Maria, my kids, my neighbour and to you. While we can't go backwards in time or re-enact some event from 2001, we will try and see the things we deeply value and hope these 20-30 new friends will get a taste of who we are and what we value over the next few months. I suspect they will love these things as we do, though for some I am sure it might confirm that this is not the community for them. I do know this - their story is worth listening too, and if you listen to their story, you will see intersections of grace and grief, moments of highs and lows -you will see Jesus and you will learn to love a little more, have someone new to tea, go for coffee, take a second at a gathering and ask not what they do, but what is their story and listen for Jesus at the junction.

Our next community project is Saturday the 29th of September at 10am. It will be church for the weekend. We will be moving Maria Rizzo out out of her current house to one down the road that is newer and actually has heating! 10am meet at 95 Bullen Rd, Tynong, off Snell then Wheler into Bullen). We need trailers and utes and cleaning things and food for shelves and fix-it people, it will be a whole PC thing. If you can't help move stuff you could bring lunch, sandwiches/ cakes stuff for the workers. Great opportunity to be the Jesus to one another.