Urban Seed News
Urban Seed News
Seeking Expressions of Interest...
April 16, 2008
Are you:
-a married couple?
-a middle-aged single or married couple?
-a mature single or married couple?
-Are you passionate about journeying alongside the poor and seeking justice?
-Are you seeking to deepen your discipleship journey?
-Are you ready for a change and a challenge?
-Are you seeking to be part of a community committed to justice, hospitality, exploring Jesus' way and creativity?
Urban Seed is seeking the wisdom of middle-aged or mature people who can journey with us in community, offering life experience and maturity to enrich and dicersify our community life. We are seeking expressions of interest from people like this to become involved in our Christian mission work in the Melbourne CBD and beyond. This may be as part of our residential community, or in some other capacity. We would love to hear from you! Please contact Virginia on 9650-8034 or v.moebusnelson@gmail.com .
Laneway Cricket Grand Final
March 26, 2008
FRIDAY 28th MARCH, BAPTIST PLACE, MELBOURNE
5.30 -6.30pm LANEWAY CRICKET: MELBOURNE ALLSTAR MATCH
6.30 DRINKS, EATS and PHOTOS of the Carnival and some PRESENTATIONS including representatives of CRICKET VICTORIA.
CREDO CAFÉ, Baptist Place off Little Collins Street.
Call Marcus 0421076804 or Urban Seed 96504023 for more info.
Greetings Cricket Lovers, we hope you have had a happy and blessed Easter. Footy season is upon us and unfortunately the Victorian Bushrangers may need most of it to chase down the total NSW set for them in the PURA CUP Final!
The weather remains 'cricket like' however and Round 3 of Melbourne's inaugural Laneway Cricket Carnival saw teams brave the autumn hot spell in Latrobe Lane.
Kaz, Sharls and Sonja shone for the Middletons/Living Room Dumpsters in their resplendent red outfits and laughed their way to a record high score of 78 runs. The Goldman Sachs JBWere / Salvos Alleycats built slowly toward the total but at the height of the late charge were stopped in their tracks by Pommy, filling in for the Dumpsters, who obtained the first Laneway HAT-TRICK with 3 consecutive clean bowleds, including that of the amazing Mevan, in full flight, twice! Alleycats 39.
The second game was once again a thriller. For the third time in as many weeks a team well behind in the chase pulled off an unlikely and miraculous victory. Nathan, Tom, Stu, Matt, Scott and Chris for the PricewaterhousCoopers/Urban Seed Binjuice set the pace by pushing the record laneway team score out to a new frontier of 95. They then bowled well at the Mallesons Milkcraters who struggled to 32 off 8 overs. Enter Woodsy from Urban Seed's Credo Cricket and Michael from Malleys needing an unlikely 64 off their 16 balls. The short boundary to the Chinatown end of Latrobe Lane had meant that the reverse sweep had been tried a few times throughout the evening night but with little success. Throwing caution to the wind Woodsy and Mike adopted a risky last over strategy of reverse sweeping everything which confused the fielding side and the runs piled up. Michael from Malley's scooped the final delivery high into Chinatown and the game stopped. The umpire checked with the blokes on the BBQ as to whether or not it was a four or six. Delay, confusion, controversy, tension…'oh the drama of laneway'….. finally the ball was called six and the Milkcraters had got home by the barest of margins in a fairy tale.
Once again the pedestrian traffic is a unique part of the Laneway Cricket experience and our "game off" moments this round included someone working at Parliament House who left a card, keen to promote the concept; a businessman who said "this is the most innovative thing I've seen in a long time"; and a drunk Irishman who held a game up for five minutes because he just wanted to bowl one delivery!
This Friday we invite you to say farewell to Cricket Season at the home of Urban Seed's Credo Cafe in Baptist Place off Little Collins Street between Swanston and Russell. Baptist Place is like the Lords of Laneway, the place where Credo Cricket began as a response to the heroin crisis back in 2000. It is still the location of Urban Seed's residential community and our regular open lunch program. Feel free to invite friends and others who have shown some interest, it will be a great celebration!
Gordon Preece on Sport and Spirituality
March 25, 2008
'When I Run I Feel God's Pleasure'
With Footy season on us again, here is an article taken from the Evangelical Alliance Journal. The full version including Credo Cricket will appear in the Interface Journal in May www.atfpress.com
In the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, the film's hero Eric Liddell is literally running late for a mission meeting in a stark old Presbyterian church on a dark Edinburgh Sunday. Liddell apologises to his dour sister Jenny only to be delivered a real serve about his being perpetually distracted from the mission. Liddell then seeks to ease Jenny's worries concerning his vocation to the mission field, but after he runs in the Olympics. It is impossible to capture the passion and the Scottish accent on the page, but he says: 'God made me fast, Jenny, and when I run, I feel God's pleasure'. Whether Liddell actually made the statement in the film to Jenny (or her to him), it has the whiff of truth in terms of his overall philosophy.
Ian Charleson, who played Liddell in the film, described Liddell's inimitable running style of 'all arms and legs and head thrown wildly back .in the sheer exultation of the race' as due to the fact that '"He ran with faith. He didn't even look where he was going". Liddell's alleged statement is not only a magnificent moment in film, but in theology. It provides a stimulus for a long-overdue Protestant Play Ethic.
Defining Play and its Place in Life
Defining play, like other fundamental forms of human existence like love and work is difficult, but not impossible. Eminent child psychologist Jean Piaget notes succinctly that play is always done 'for the pleasure of the activity'. It is clear that Liddell plays when he runs, for all his strenuous effort and competitive spirit.
Johan Huizinga grasps some of the key features of play. For him play is:
A free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary ' life as being 'not serious', but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. 'It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings'.
To define play we need to also define work. This is not to say one is primary and the other secondary, merely that they are paired, are symbiotic, and 'play' off each other. Pope John Paul II defined work too widely as equivalent to all human activity i.e. including play. It is 'everything that man accomplishes, whatever its nature or attendant circumstances' including procuring sustenance, developing arts and sciences, enhancing 'moral and cultural standards'.
Miroslav Volf's simpler and stricter definition of work is 'an instrumental activity serving the satisfaction of [creaturely] needs', outside our own need for the activity itself. Leisure is excluded as activity done mainly for itself - perhaps as a secondary goal to meeting needs, despite subjective overlap with work along a spectrum, e.g. in "a useful hobby"'.
In clarifying the outstanding characteristics and overlap between work and play an analogy with eating is perhaps helpful. Eating has necessary or need aspects for survival, social aspects and aesthetic or enjoyment aspects. 'Work, like eating, while primarily a necessity for survival and social flourishing, can and should secondarily be enjoyed in itself'. Leisure (including play), like eating, has all three aspects - we need leisure or refreshing, restful activity or inactivity, we have social leisure as relational beings and we can enjoy rest and recreation. Play as a sub-category of leisure or rest is primarily concerned with active enjoyment, but is social and can reflect certain needs, especially when it is paid. This would be significant if we had space to look at professional play or sport - as analogous to a useful hobby.
The notion of calling or vocation, as distinct from but including work (paid or unpaid) as one form of vocation may include things done, like the best work (though including need) and play, for their intrinsic value. The Protestant Reformers saw vocation as a playful delight - which, despite puritanical distortions and stereotypes, could include vacation, leisure or play. The whole of human existence is a means 'to glorify God' as in the Westminster Shorter Catechism's first question, but this by no means diminishes our enjoyment of God or our leisure, as Liddell knew. His abstaining from running the 1924 Olympic 100 metres on Sunday expressed his glorifying God and recognition of the Sabbath's and God's grounding of all enjoyment. So, when he ran, and won the 400 metres in world record time, he presuma bly 'felt God's pleasure', though the winning was not necessary. God delights in humans enjoying and fulfilling their created nature and gifts. The means echo the end and there is mutual divine and human pleasure.
Karl Barth relativizes work as 'significant play' in relation to the real work of reconciliation accomplished by Christ. In the light of God's coming kingdom, culture and work are serious, but not too serious. Barth's love of Mozart typifies this playfulness and lack of ultimate seriousness. Lest we take sport too seriously, Barth stresses the eschatological limit in the Sabbath and resurrection over against a cultural Protestant ethic that can make sport into a moralistic work. The 'true work of culture' including sport is not 'an unending process that reaches into the infinite' of God's Kingdom. Work, culture and sport have a provisional, playful sense, lest we view them too solemnly as a collegial cooperation with God.
In The Joy of Sports, Catholic thinker Michael Novak says forthrightly:
'Play, not work, is the end of life. To participate in the rites of play is to dwell in the Kingdom of Means . In a Protestant culture, as in Marxist cultures, work is serious, important, adult. Its essential insignificance is overlooked. play is reality. Work is diversion and escape'.
Novak is not nuanced. As a Catholic he enjoys putting down the Protestant Work Ethic. But his point that play is an end, with a purpose in itself, is well-taken.
Novak states categorically that sports are not just part of life, they are the heart of life. '[T]he heart of human reality is courage, honesty, freedom, community, excellence: the heart is sports'. Yet, it is not the only end, Novak notes.
'Sports are not, of course, all of life' - but they are its ethical essence. The virtues generated from sports should 'inform one's family life, civic life, political life, work life. What the person of wisdom needs to derive from every sphere of life is its inherent beauty, attraction, power, force'.. Sports civilize. 'Sports are the highest products of civilization and the most accessible, lived, experiential sources of the civilizing spirit . Cease play, cease civilization'.
Novak's defence of sport as an end in itself and his affirmation of the sporting virtues is well-taken. However, his inter-religious critique, broad civilizational generalizations, and absolutisation of American sports (in the way the baseball 'World Series' can be used to describe a purely US competition), risks going to the opposite extreme, his minor caveat aside. Sports may not be all of life, but they clearly make a totalising, imperial claim in his view. This endangers the nature of other spheres of life as ends in themselves.
Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's distinction between internal and external goods of social practices can clarify the relationship of means to ends, across a wide range of activities, including forms of play. The internal good of play includes enjoying its end or 'internal goods' for their own sake. Enjoying and serving God and neighbour in the process of play is part of the social aspect that defines the practice of good play.
This may not exclude 'pay for play' since meeting creaturely needs is part of the external goods needed to maintain the internal good or 'heart' of this practice. However, it is a constant temptation to mistake means for ends, external goods like rewards - money, fame, success - as internal constitutive goods of the practice.
MacIntyre illustrates this regarding a child offered candy for winning at chess, which encourages cheating, or as I have seen, with children offered money for scoring goals they score at soccer/football. Similarly the insurance salesman playing golf with a prospective client to get a commission, though it is even less related to the actual play itself. This is a utilitarian misuse of the game. It is only really a game after business is suspended and the contract signed. As Huizinga noted earlier, play can have no ulterior or material interest (compare worship). Yet it does often have important secondary or indirect consequences such as reinforcing relationships with ourselves, others, the earth; emancipating and expressing our spirits; reconnecting to the wholeness of life; experiencing long-lasting joy . Sports have health benefits but they are best seen as a by-product. Otherwise why not just run on a treadmill in front of a TV?
The grace or aesthetic excellence of shared bodily exercise can help eradicate a passive sense of entertainment that distracts us from coming to terms with the 'junk' of our alienated, mortal bodies and the baptismal practice that enables us to come to terms with them. The practice of giving our bodies in baptism over to a dying and rising with Christ for God's and our pleasure, provides a link between spirituality and sport, from the more basic forms like walking to the more sophisticated forms like professional athletics.
Christine Ledger notes:
Physical activities, from the simple to the athletic, from a brisk walk to a marathon, remind us of both the abilities and the limitations of the body. Physical activities, practiced alone or with others, require discipline and repeated effort in a technological society where ease of transport and passive entertainment are encouraged. However, they engage us with our bodies and with the world in a way cars and television do not.
Ledger then cites Albert Borgmann elaborating on the example of running this way:
Running is simply to move through time and space, step-by-step. But there is a splendor in that simplicity. In a car we move of course much faster, farther and more comfortably. But we are not moving on our own power and in our own right. We cash in prior labor for present motion. Being beneficiaries of science and engineering and having worked to pay for a car, gasoline, and roads, we now release what has been stored and use it for transportation. What I am doing now, driving, requires no effort, and little or no skill or discipline. I am a divided person; my achievement lies in the past, my enjoyment in the present. But in the runner, effort and joy are one; the split between means and ends, labor and leisure is healed. the runner is mindful of the body because the body is intimate with the world . The mind becomes relatively disembodied when the body is severed from the depth of the world when is split into commodious surfaces and inaccessible machineries. Thus the unity of ends and means, of mind and body, and of body and the world is one and the same. It makes itself felt in the vividness with which the runner experiences reality.
While Liddell is more succinct and simple, he would have wholeheartedly agreed. Our challenge today is not to produce more Olympians, but more ordinary runners and walkers who can 'feel God's pleasure' for themselves and not merely by the proxy of passive entertainment of technology.
Position Vacant: Youth & Schools Educator
March 18, 2008
Urban Seed Youth and Schools Team
Urban Seed is an ecumenical Christian not-for-profit organisation that combines street work in the heart of Melbourne with education programs and a strong independent voice on urban, business, social and political issues including homelessness, drug addiction, problem gambling and poverty.
Urban Seed currently visits and is visited by secondary schools throughout Victoria and presents on urban issues such as homelessness, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, poverty, and our work with people affected by these issues.
Urban Seed’s attraction is its hands on experience with these issues and street culture that allows us to share anecdotes and stories that bring urban issues alive for students and help break down stereotypes.
In 2007 Urban Seed spoke to more than 15,000 secondary school students through running interactive walks around the city and presenting creative at school seminars aimed at complementing curriculum needs.
Position description for Youth and Schools Team Member
Time fraction: 2 days a week (Tuesday and either Thursday or Friday)
Jobs:
Education activity facilitation
• Lead at least 4 sessions a week on issues such as homelessness, addiction, stereotypes, vocation, branding and identity, and community work skills.
Curriculum Development
• Participate in training to develop walks and seminar content and delivery.
Administration
• Assist in other youth and schools activities or administration as needed.
Credo Lunch
• Attend at least one Credo lunch per week.
• Participate in some other Credo activities such as Credo Retreat and Credo Christmas.
Participate in the organisational life of Urban Seed
• Attend Tuesday weekly Youth and Schools Team meeting.
• Participate in other Urban Seed activities including Tuesday morning admin meeting, monthly Discernment Days (negotiable), Annual Urban Seed staff retreat and AGM.
Qualities we’re looking for:
At a time of change for the youth and schools team we are looking for a person who:
• Is an excellent listener and communicator.
• Can display personal experience and/or specialist knowledge of the issues we cover.
• Will be a team player with the current youth and schools mob.
• Will participate in the broader life and community of Urban Seed.
• Has an interest in and passion for education and young people.
• Is reliable, responsible and organised.
• Is self-reflective, and able to take feedback.
Interested people should contact Tim Jeffries or Samara Pitt at the Den on 9663 0699, or via email at tim.jeffries@urbanseed.org or samara.pitt@urbanseed.org
Book Launch
March 15, 2008
Brent Lyons Lee has written Emerging Downunder with Ray Simpson. Former Urban Seed Director Tim Costello will launch the book at Credo Cafe on April 3 at 6:30. (Details Download file)
Emerging Downunder: Creating Celtic New Monastic Villages of God taps into the current hunger for spirituality, the death pains of obsolete church forms, and the rising tide of hope felt by many Christians. It suggests ways the fragmented church may reconnect both with its roots and the contemporary environment, providing practical examples of church that bring praying, eating, learning and hospitality together in one place.
This book was first published as Church of the Isles by Ray Simpson for a British audience. In collaboration with Brent Lyons Lee, it has tapped in to worldwide conversations about ‘emerging church’ and ‘new monasticism’ and applied it to a ‘downunder’ context.
The good news of God revealed in Christ Jesus is timeless but the nature of Christians gathering to worship has changed through the centuries. In Emerging Downunder Ray Simpson and Brent Lyons Lee are documenting new forms of church in this 21st century. May this book challenge you into a deeper relationship with Jesus through new ways of being the church of God.
Dr Philip Freier
Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne
This is a read for the restless; those who are hungry for something deeper, who cringe with what passes for Christian identity and worship these days and despair when they read church pew bulletins. In fact many who now feel church-less may well find hope here. Or those who walk a lonely path of spiritual isolation where soul mates are rare.
Rev Tim Costello
CEO World Vision Australia
Copies can be purchased through Brent Lyons Lee
brent.lyonslee@urbanseed.org or ph 0413 311 170
Live at Urban Seed for a Week!
The Residential Community @ Central House would like to invite you to spend a week with us. As a guest you will be living in the building and taking part in the life of the community as well as participating in reflections on spirituality, mission and community.
Saturday 29th March - Friday 4th April, 2008
Costs are negotiated as part of an economic sharing exercise.
18 years & over.
For more information or to express your interest, contact:
Naomi: naomi.williams@hotmail.com
Ph: (business hours) 03 9650 4023
Laneway Cricket Begins!
LANEWAY CRICKET GETS OFF TO A FLYER!
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 29, 2008
It was “all happening” on Friday night and not just down at ‘The G’ (as the Aussies struggled against the Sri Lankan’s) but also back up the hill, in the lanes of Melbourne. Whilst having paint poured on the wicket once notoriously hijacked a Test Match, it couldn’t stop Melbourne’s inaugural Laneway Cricket Carnival. Indeed it was all part of the scenery in Rutledge Place off Melbourne’s Hosier Lane, famous for its street art. Whilst not quite your ‘idyllic‘ Lords or Adelaide Oval backdrop the spirit of the ‘Village Green’ was recaptured in the after work, back street bustle. Even before a ball had been bowled, cricket had once again brought corporates, homeless people, restaurateurs and patrons together to deal with illegally parked cars and even take photos for an enthusiastic, if not a little bewildered bride and groom!
In the first official Laneway game the Binjuice team, (or are they called ‘franchises’ these days?) was compiled of ‘Credo Cricketers’ from Urban Seed; Yankee Paul from PricewaterhouseCoopers; and some interior designers on smoko from a nearby shop renovation. They took on the Alleycats led by the dashing Mevan Jayawardena and co. from Goldman Sachs JBWere and reps from the Sally Army’s 614 Life Centre. It took a while to work out the hybrid mix of backyard and indoor cricket rules, including how many you could legally run when the ball was stuck under a dumpster. In a thriller it came down to the last ball with the Alleycats needing a wicket to win. Interior Designer Ted hit the ball high into the air and all hearts were in mouths as it sailed above the outstretched fielders hand for a towering 12 runs to see the Binjuice home!
Binjuice 33 ( Ian 14, Duncan 2/0) defeated Alleycats 19 (Mevan 17, Ray 3/-3)
In the second game the Dumpsters (Middletons/Living Room) played the Milkcraters (officially Mallesons Stephen Jacques/Urban Seed …with ring ins.) Having observed the previous game the Milkcraters began to master the idiosyncrasies of laneway and its fair to say had the best of the match with Salvo Scott firing a fabulous 39 off only 7 deliveries. This was all until the death when a fantastic partnership from Lauren, (looking resplendent in Middletons red shirt and matching headband), joined with Dan from Living Room to see the Dumpsters triumph by the barest of margins with a towering, baseball like swat into the car park next door off the final ball.
Dumpsters 49 (Nick 24, Dan 22, Gemma 3/-3) ) defeated the Milkcraters 48 (Scott 39, Mike 3/11, Raymond 2/-2, Nick 2/3)
The crowd left satisfied by a great BBQ and two thrilling results for our first ever hit out. Thanks very much to Nicola and Dan from Living Room Primary Health Service which is located in Hosier/Rutledge Lane. It was great for participants to hear about the unique service that Living Room provide. Thanks also for the presence and support of Rohan O’Neil and Cricket Victoria.
This Friday the Carnival moves to Westwood Place off Bourke Street at the back of the Salvation Army Life Centre for some more ‘Credo Cricket’ you can believe in!
Laneway Cricket,Melbourne. “There’s more room in the air!” See you there!
Much Grace
Marcus, Andy, Dave and the Urban Seed, Credo Cricket mob.
Photos can be seen at www.myspace.com/credocricket
Easter Installation
March 14, 2008
Via Crucis @ Docklands: Easter 2008
click here
Finally a win on the Pokies!
Victoria will become the first Australian state to ban automatic teller machines from the floor of pokies venues, Premier John Brumby has announced. Read more here
Urban Seed at Forge Festival
March 04, 2008
Festival details here
List of electives at the Urban Seed hub:
All workshop participants are to meet at Credo Café. Credo is at the end of Baptist Place off Little Collins Street between Russell and Swanston Streets for a 1:30 start.
Dave Fagg
Elective: Regional Mission: following Jesus outside the city gate. Explore the distinctive nature of church and mission in regional areas.
Workshop: Outdoor Education and the gospel: Explore the possibilities of using experiences in creation to foster Christ-like personal and community development.
Dave Fagg is a secondary school teacher, writer and community worker. With his wife Kylie, Dave has spent the last 13 years trying to follow Jesus amongst the poor in Melbourne, Bendigo and overseas. Dave is passionate about a life of costly mission among the marginalised, the transformation of neighbourhoods through Christ-like compassion and shaping a theology & spirituality that sustains this life. He co-ordinates the Praxis course, and is a member of Seeds, a network of covenanted communities living in poor neighbourhoods in Footscray, Geelong and Bendigo.
Mark Holt
Elective: Global perspectives: Neighbourhood & dialogue; empowering communities to find their own distinctive ways of following Jesus
Workshop: Interfaith dialogue: A visit to East Melbourne mosque followed by a reflective debrief.
Mark is the State director of Global Interaction Victoria. His background is in dairy farming, hay carting, carpentry, missionary work & pastoring, He likes Surfing, reading good books, seeing good movies, good coffee. His favourite movie is The Matrix. He’s been married to Val for 31 years and has three children.
Jonathan Cornford
Elective: Intro to the Economy of God: What is God's vision for how we practice economics? Why is it one of the defining discipleship issues for us today? Explore biblical perspectives on 'the Economy of God' and implications for us today.
Workshop: Household Covenanting: The Household Covenant is one way of trying to grapple practically with the enormous challenges of trying to re-orient our lives to the Economy of God. It is a tool which can be personally tailored to anyone wanting to take steps in this direction.
Jonathan Cornford lives in Footscray and is a member of the Common Rule. He works part time as an Advocacy Coordinator with Oxfam Australia, and in his spare time talks a lot about faith, economics, politics n'stuff.
Simon Moyle
Elective: Corey, the Chaser, and Jesus: radical faithfulness in a world of domination
Mohandas Gandhi often said that Jesus was the most active person of nonviolence in history - and the only people who don't know that Jesus was nonviolent are Christians. We'll explore what nonviolence is - and isn't - and how we might deepen our faithfulness to Jesus' radical call to disarm our hearts, love our enemies, and be blessed peacemakers.
Workshop: Subverting the Empire: Practical Tools For Costly Discipleship
If nonviolence isn't passive, how do we begin to actively tackle injustice through direct action? This workshop will give you some practical tools to engage in social change at personal, interpersonal and global levels.
Simon is a Baptist minister working with a small faith community in the inner north of Melbourne. He is a nonviolence activist and educator, who is passionate about creating cultures of peace, and was arrested last year for playing frisbee with Australian and US troops during military exercises.
Brent Lyons Lee & Ray Simpson
Elective: New Monasticism, Creating Villages of God: The emerging church seeks flexible frameworks which enable all people to move and grow and flow with God’s Spirit within the natural patterns around them. Ray and Brent will reflect on their recently released book, Emerging Downunder, which suggests ways the fragmented church may reconnect both with its roots and the contemporary environment, providing practical examples of church that bring praying, eating, learning and hospitality together in one place.
Workshop: Discernment Walk: We will take a walk around the ‘Paris End’ of Melbourne and learn the ways that Urban Seed was able to discern its surroundings and apply some ancient monastic insights to change its neighbourhood.
Ray Simpson is a celibate Anglican Priest and has been a minister in churches in Britain’s industrial Midlands, multi-racial London, and rural East Anglia. Since moving to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in 1996 he has been a consultant to pastors and priests who are at the work face of the emerging church, and has networked with congregations which seek to renew the inherited church and develop fresh expressions. He is the Guardian of The Community of Aidan and Hilda and is the author of a number of best-selling books on Celtic spirituality, including his most recent A Pilgrim Way: New Celtic Monasticism for Everyday People.
Brent Lyons Lee has worked for several years with Urban Seed in Melbourne’s CBD dealing with issues of poverty and wealth in an urban context. He is the ‘Minister’ of a community of people working from the Norlane Baptist Church, an hour from Melbourne in a low socio-economic suburb. He is married to Belinda and has studied both Theology and Social Science.
Gordon Preece
Elective: Mind the Gap Between Faith & Work
1. Outlining the biblical vision for everyday Christians engaged in connecting the Kingdom and their workaday world.
2. Identifying the theological and contemporary circumstantial reasons for the gap between faith & work, church and the scattered people of God, Sunday & Monday.
Workshop – Bridging the Gap between Faith & Work
3.This builds on the elective encouraging participants to develop alternative theological and strategic perspectives for enabling churches and Christians to re-engage the work-worlds of their scattered people as the front-line of mission.
Rev'd Dr Gordon Preece is Executive Director Urban Seed, Commissioning Editor, Zadok Perspectives, former director of Ridley College Centre of Applied Christian Ethics and Macquarie Christian Studies Institute. He comes from a small business family and has been involved with unemployed and mentally ill people, job and business creation projects. He teaches for Macquarie University School of Applied Finance and is Ethical Investment Consultant to Christian Super. He’s interested in work as a form of occupational therapy and sport (esp. soccer/football) as a form of spirituality.
Marcus Curnow
Elective: "It's Just Not Cricket: Spirituality of Sport and Mission"
In the midst of the 'monkey business' of a Kentucky Fried Cricket world, Urban Seed has committed itself to 'Credo Cricket'; public expressions of sport you can believe in. (www.myspace.com/credocricket) Sport plays a huge role in shaping community, cultural and even religious expression in the Australian psyche. This seminar will explore the contemporary theology of sport, with Christianity and practical expressions of grassroots approaches and strategies for 'grassroots' engagement.
Workshop: Credo Cricket- Melbourne Laneway Cricket: Forge Festival explores Melbourne's laneways for a different kind of 'hit.' Join with the 'Bin Juice Bradman's' and the 'Milk Crate Merv's' for a game of Laneway Cricket. Hear about Urban Seed's recent laneway cricket carnival held in conjunction with Cricket Australia as a means of bringing church, business and welfare services together.
Marcus has been involved with Urban Seed, a Christian community based ministry of hospitality and advocacy in the heart of Melbourne since 1996. Marcus has worked as a youth worker in a variety of cultural contexts and now convenes a regional expression of Urban Seed (Seeds Footscray), where he resides with Rachael and their three kids. He has degrees in Nursing and Theology. He believes that Jesus chose twelve in order to play cricket; that Bible study shouldn’t suck; that good liturgy requires risk; that Cornwall (the home of his forebears) is not England and that when in doubt, “Its the Economy of God stupid”! It has oft been said that he could use a bit more sleep.
Kate Allen
Elective: Raisin scones or risky subversion? The word hospitality evokes images of tea parties, bland conversations and a general atmosphere of coziness. Yet one of the key Greek words for hospitality means kindness to the stranger. Kate and some other Urban Seeders will share their experiences of hospitality, and how they have come to connect it with justice, discipleship and mission.
Workshop: Creating Safety: Join the team in a discussion about the ins and outs of open community meals, including practical ideas about safety creation.
Kate was a resident in Central House during 2005, and has since continued her involvement with Urban Seed co-ordinating philanthropic relationships and special projects. She also conducts educational programs for school, corporate and community groups as part of the Youth and Schools Team. She has a Master of Social Science (International Development) from RMIT and a passion for exploring connections between the work for justice on the global and local levels. She’s involved in a faltering but dedicated Christian community called Loam in Melbourne’s northern suburbs and believes that vegetable gardens and shared meals can bridge all manner of gaps.
(SUNDAY ONLY)
Sally Quin
Elective: Growing a green mission
Treading lightly on the earth and incorporating sustainable practices in mission. Explore ways of caring for both people and the earth together!
Workshop: Visit ‘eeko’ – an op-shop reinvented with a green twist!! at 318 Victoria St, Brunswick - just off Sydney Rd
Green Collect and Baptcare have just launched a new enterprise that brings together environmental action, sustainable purchasing and community building all in one place. EEKO is an Environmentally & Ethically Kind Op-shop that works with the local community to engage actively in social and environmental action. You will be able to see how this model works, find out how it was developed and consider how it might look in your community! There will also be a chance buy recycled and fair-trade products that tell a good story.
Sally has been involved in exploring new models of mission through many community development, social justice, business and grassroots projects. Together Darren and Sally have established Green Collect, a not-for-profit environmental enterprise that creates new opportunities for employment, training and belonging, while promoting care for the earth. Sal and Daz have lived in Footscray for the last 10 years and are actively involved in their local community with their kids, Elijah, Lily and Pearl. In sharing their lives and work with a diverse community of people and dreaming up new ideas everyday, they enjoy a fast moving and full life!
(SUNDAY ONLY)
Jon Chamberlain & Samara Pitt
Elective: Jon Chamberlain and the Collins Street Baptist Church: How to engage your church in indigenous reconciliation.
Workshop: Samara Pitt ‘Another View’ walk revisited: We’ll go on a walk around the city that tells some stories of Aboriginal presence and custodianship in Melbourne, and our encounters with an alternative perspective on a familiar place. What does this view raise for us as whitefella/non-Indigneous people? Where do we go beyond just saying ‘sorry’?
Jon is a Pastor at the Collins Street Baptits Church and lives in Footscray with his wife Lucy and their beautiful son Ben. Jon continues his Master of Divinity studies at the Melbourne College of Divinity. Having worked in business consulting (9 years with PriceWaterhouseCoopers) and human development (6 years with World Vision Australia and International), Jon joined Collins Street in August 2005 because he has come to appreciate that there really is only one game in town: the deep and broad gathering up of the whole creation by the Spirit of God into the future new creation of all things (and because he felt a light tap on the shoulder).
Samara Pitt has worked for the Urban Seed Youth and Schools team since 2003, running walks and seminars on issues of homelessness and marginalisation in Melbourne. She lives in the "Indigenous Hospitality House" in North Carlton, a volunteer community which hosts indigenous guests from country Victoria and interstate. She is interested in finding ways to explore belonging and identity as an immigrant Australian in Indigenous land.
(SUNDAY ONLY)
Michael Northcott in Melbourne talking about global warming
February 21, 2008
A Moral Climate:
the ethics of global warming
Climate change is a global problem requiring a global solution. But what are the ethical and moral implications for us in finding solutions? How does what we do in Australia affect the world’s poor? What would Australia’s fair share of the earth’s resources look like? What should we be doing to acknowledge our historical responsibility?
You are invited to come and hear
Professor Michael S Northcott
Thursday 13th March
7.30pm
St Michael’s Anglican Church,
Corner McIlwraith and MacPherson Streets, North Carlton
Melway ref 29 J:12
Entry by donation
About Michael Northcott
Michael is the Professor of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh and author of several books including
A Moral Climate: the ethics of global warming.
He has also written extensively on bioethics, the ethics of food, aquaculture, and genetic modification, on fair trade, globalisation, place, the sociology of religion, theological ethics, and urbanism.
This event is being organised by the Justice and
International Mission Unit, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia, TEAR Australia, Urban Seed and St Michael’s Anglican Church.
Welcome to Tim Jeffries
Urban Seed is excited to have our newest member of staff on board. Tim has joined the Youth and Schools Team after having 4 different jobs in 2 years. He's been working for churches, labouring for a landscape construction business and running a work for the dole project. Tim is married to Jay and lives in Preston where he is part of a community called Loam. He spends as much time as he can there working in his veggie garden, playing soccer with the local kids and sharing life with his neighbours. He is most of the way through a theology degree but can't imagine not studying at least something part time so will probably just start something else when he finishes. Tim is soon to be a dad and isn't sure what's going to happen next.
