September 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to September and spring-time.

This newsletter is also available on the Coburg Uniting website and Facebook page.

Coburg Uniting Church Melbourne: Tree with visible roots and sun shining through branches and leaves on the Our Philosophy page

 

Minister’s Message

Blessed are the cracked! Through them we see the light.”

 

This reminds me of the beautiful people around Coburg. Let’s join with them to learn and to serve and to enrich the collective soul of this community.

I join with Richard Rohr when he affirms that “practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or centre of most groups, institutions, and cultures.”

“Those who exalt themselves will be humbled,” Jesus said. What a blessing!

Join us at Coburg Uniting for soulful living from the underside of history.

Coburg-Uniting-Church-Melbourne-Minister-Ron-Rosinsky

 

 

Rev. Ron Rosinsky

 

 

 

 

From August’s Sunday morning topics and services

 

 

‘Develop an internal yardstick for fulfillment and live soulfully’

 

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” – Luke 12:15

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  – Luke 12:34

 

  • ‘What is rich? What is treasure? Rich exists only in comparison to something or someone else. In other words, as soon as “rich” becomes available to the likes of us, it will no longer be rich.

“Rich” has to be a whole lot more than what other people have. Or so we think.

We can never be rich in those terms because it isn’t real.

It takes time and sorrow and experience to teach us the worth of the things that truly matter. The deepest joys of life are here. Right here.

  • What blocks you from soulful living, from developing an inner yardstick for your fulfillment? You do. And so does our culture.
  • “Men [people] do not desire to be rich, only to be richer than other men [people]” – John Stuart Mill
  •  Ask:
    • Is this expenditure of my life energy, precious time, and effort in alignment with my values and life purpose, with my passion and bliss?
    • Did I receive richness, that is, fulfilment, value, and satisfaction, in proportion to my life energy spent in doing this activity, or buying that object?
    • Do I find fulfilment and richness within myself, or according to external yardsticks of fulfillment?
  • ‘Rich in goods, poor in Spirit’. We are separated from God, often from family and true love, and we live apart from the collective soul. We are estranged. We therefore desire reunion with the whole. This is the poverty of spirit that compels us to seek abundance.
  • But an unlimited striving for abundance leads to self destruction and greater alienation from your True Self, your Spirit. The unlimited desire to draw the whole of reality into yourself can never be satisfied. Such strivings also blur the distinction between your essential, True self, and your false self.

 

“I don’t know exactly what prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

– Mary Oliver, ‘The Summer Day’

 

September worship topic

The heroic journey: living authentically and creating healthy relationships

The Hero's Journey Examples — Stages of the Monomyth Cycle | StoryboardThat

  • First Sunday 4 September: Celebration of Communion, featuring music by Keith Hoffmann
  • Second Sunday 11 September: Ruth Sandy and the Coburg Singers
  • Third Sunday 18 September: Featuring music by Josh Cake
  • Fourth Sunday 25 September: Featuring music by Keith Hoffmann and the Coburg band

 

Special Services

  • Sunday 11 September: New Members’ Service. Join us as welcome Craig, Kate, and Simon into our church family.
  • Sunday 25 September: International Peace Sunday

Special Events

  • International Day of Peace on Sunday 25 September

 

 

Spiritual Growth Programs

September Topic for  Soul Group: “A bright sadness, the tragic sense of life”, Chapter 4 from Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr

  • Men’s Group: Saturday 3 September. Dine out – meet at church 6pm, venue TBC.
  • Soul Group: Sunday 4 September, 11:45am-1pm
  • Meditation, prayer, and spiritual practices exploration group: Sunday 18 September, 11.45am-12.30pm

 

Belonging Programs

  • Social Board Games Night: Thursday 8 September and Thursday 22 September (2nd and 4th Thursdays), 7:30-10pm in the front room at church
  • The Fourth Sunday shared lunch will not be held this month due to the International Day of Peace event.
  • Coffee Chat and Play: Playgroup every Friday 10:30am-12pm during school term
  • Coburg Common: located behind Coburg Uniting Church. Come and garden, or buy a plant, or have a chat

 

 

Coburg Uniting Church
Fighting against sexism and homophobia. Fighting for the planet.
We live and worship on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Leave a Comment