News

At the last gathering, Jeff shared his dream for his ministry at the school. Here’s my notes.

Four years ago he felt the call to the local community. So in turn, he offered his services as a youth worker to the local secondary school in Noble Park. It was for three days, no pay and was accepted by the school - despite concerns about religion, which were worked through to the satisfaction of both sides.

Yesterday morning I took Maddy down to the Anzac Day service. In a sense we took the easy route and went to Berwick whose service was at 11am, rather than Narre Warren’s dawn service, although I plan to go to one there in future.

I can’t say I enjoyed it, although in a way I did, because of the things it made me think about.

Community: I am lousy at estimating crowd numbers, but I would guess that there was at least a thousand people there yesterday and that was apart from all those who participated in the march itself. And it was all about community.

What is the Junction about?

The Junction began as a group of people wanting to be Christians without the overactive church activities. Wanted to be Aussies in chuch loving God, but also Christian outside of church.

The Junction’s core values are Mission, Community, Disciplines and Mentoring with Love overarching it all.

In some ways, we are still working out who we are. We don’t have to do something, we can be something.

Just a quick reminder, that due to the Labour Day holiday being at the end of the first weekend, our March Gathering has been scheduled later. It will be the following weekend - Sunday 14th March.

We’re back for 2010 with our first Big Gathering to be held this Sunday at our meeting place of choice - Doveton Neighbourhood Learning Centre.

Starting time is 10.30am as usual, more details will follow by email.

This year some of our Gatherings will not be held on the first Sunday as usual, due to clashing with school holidays or long weekends.

Some sad and challenging news about Carter our 7 year old.

For those who haven’t heard, Carter our 7 year old, has been diagnosed yesterday with “ALL” Leukaemia, he’s in the University of Chicago Hospital-children’s ward. He is receiving world class care, Community-our church has been outstanding in loving and helping us,

Carter is being very brave & in good spirits despite having had a blood transfusion and several serious procedures.

They’ve been gone over a month, but its still easy to not realise they aren’t around somewhere. After all, the Junction only gets together as a big group once a month and we always have a break in January, with many people taking holidays.

But the Hammonds have arrived and settled into their new home in Chicago and are settling in well from what I can tell.

How can I tell?

The Junction and friends braved the typical, unpredictable Melbourne weather to gather together at Crystal Brook Park at Cardinia Reservoir, to spend some last times with the Hammonds, before the leave on 9th December.

Disregarding both sun and rain, we took the opportunity to do what the Junction does so well - eat and share life.

We will bid a last farewell to the Hammonds at our gathering next Sunday, so be sure to join us there.

Dave Ferguson is the pastor from Chicago that the Hammonds will be working with. He visited Australia recently and we heard him speak at the Casey Combined Churches service, where the Hammonds were commissioned for their US endeavour. Here’s what I took away from his message.

Studies have shown that Christians are no more likely to help the homeless, than non-Christians.

At the Casey Combined Church Service last weekend, where the Hammonds were commissioned, a pastor from the Casey Pastor’s Network outlined some of the local missions work being done by local churches. So here’s some inspiration for us as we look to what we want the Junction to be doing.

Background first. The Casey Pastors Network has been running for 15 years and has 46 local churches connected to it. It also comprises the Casey Youth Network and the Casey Leaders Network.

Meals are a big mission field.