From the Vicar — December/January 2010

Well, 2009 has seen some momentous changes in the life of the Anglican Church in Heathmont, Ringwood East, Park Orchards and Ringwood areas. The new parish of Mullum Mullum has been formed out of the successful merger of Djerrnong and Ringwood/Park Orchards parishes. We can look forward to an exciting time in the future as we see this new parish grow into a strong and vibrant presence in this area.

In the coming year we will begin the planning process for the development of the Ringwood site. We need to determine exactly what we want to do on the site. This includes providing adequate worship spaces to meet the diverse worship styles of our community. It includes providing sufficient multi-purpose rooms that can be used to develop ministry to all ages. We also need to increase our office and storage space that will help us to expand our ministry opportunities. There is also the long-term goal of developing a fresh expression of church that will be seeking to reach people who would not normally come to a church building. As you can see this whole process will be far-reaching and I would encourage you to pray for the planning group that they may be led by the Holy Spirit in all their discussions. We are not simply interested in building new church premises so that we can have a modern comfortable church. Our primary goal is to reach out into the community so that we can tell others about the amazing love of Jesus. We need to ensure that our buildings help us to achieve this goal.

The new parish is also expanding the ministry team in 2010 to include a part-time Youth Worker. This will mean that we will have specialist ministers caring for all ages in our community. We will be seeking to develop our ministry to families and children through the introduction of the Mainly Music program and I know that Wendy would welcome more volunteers to help. Meredith will be attempting to develop our aged care ministry by establishing more teams of people to help with the nursing home services and to increase our home visiting groups.

There are going to be many challenges in the coming year and I would urge you to pray for all those who are leading the various groups. Please also pray and ask if God wants YOU to step out into a new area of ministry. Remember there are many different roles to fulfil if we want to see the Kingdom of God grow.

Finally I would like to wish you all a safe and holy Christmas. Do not let the commercialism of Christmas spoil the wonder of celebrating the wonderful gift that God has given us by sending his Son. Jesus came into this world to reveal the glory of God. He came into this world to walk with us through the perils of life. He came into this world to die upon the cross to pay the price for our sins. He came into this world to offer us the gift of eternal life.

So we have much to celebrate. Let us join with the shepherds and the angels as they gave glory to God and spread the good news that the Glory of God has come upon us.

Michael