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Peter Green came
to Marrickville in 1984. One of the first questions to trouble
him was, "How shall I relate to the pastors and people of
other churches in the area?" He was not the only one asking
the same thing.
His approach had two strands. In his own church, he encouraged
members to pray for all the churches in Marrickville. At that
time, the idea of Baptists praying for Catholics or Orthodox
was often thought a little eccentric. "If they are Christians
-- regardless of denomination -- we need to pray for them as
our brothers and sisters;" he told the people, "And
if they are not, then we pray for them to find genuine faith
in Christ. It's not the name they use or the worship practices
they follow, but whether they trust Christ." |
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In the local
Ministers Fellowship, he noticed that many pastors were wary
of each other, so, in his first Presidential year in the late
1980s, he encouraged the members to share their faith journeys
with each other. This helped them feel they could talk about
personal and faith-related issues.
The following year, a Catholic sister -- Sister Judith -- also
saw the need to develop this further, and urged the group to
study the book, Communion in Australian Churches.
This exercise further broke down barriers, and gave everyone
a lot to laugh about in the process, particularly when pastors
from the same denomination often didn't entirely agree with each
other! Old ideas about alliances and church discipline and dogmatism
disappeared very quickly.
A few years ago, Silver Street Mission conducted a stall within
the Marrickville Festival, emphasising "Hope"
and using recycled materials from Reverse Garbage to show that
"God has no discards". People from several local
congregations helped.
This combined
effort was one influence in the formation of the Christian Unity
Action Group under the leadership of Elaine Downing from St Brigid's
Church. Elaine has also maintained a close relationship with
Silver Street Mission, beginning even before she began thinking
about the CUAG.
Recently the
Mission has also made contact with other local churches with
an aim of encouraging all the Church people in Marrickville to
an active and personal faith, and to engagement in sharing the
gospel in various appropriate ways within the local community.
In the 2001 Marrickville
Festival, the CUAG's stand represented all the local churches,
and distributed over 40 copies of the Jesus Video, several
Bibles, and a large number of Bible portions and Gospel tracts
as well as other Christian materials.
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Participating
congregations:
Convenor: |
St Brigid's Catholic
Church, Marrickville
Silver Street Mission (Baptist)
Dulwich Hill Uniting Church
St Luke's Anglican Church, Enmore
and
others.
Elaine Downing,
St Brigid's Catholic Church
To find out more, contact CUAG at email address to left << |
