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Mission Update – Regional Indigenous Ministries

In September, Mission of the Month giving is directed to Regional Indigenous Ministries, based at Campbelltown and Nowra. There are some fine indigenous Christians involved, but entrenched disadvantage means such ministries struggle to be self-sustaining. We owe a special debt of encouragement to those ministering to the first custodians of Australia, given the poor treatment many Aboriginal people received at the hands of later arrivals. Here’s a bit of info about the indigenous ministries in our region.

Macarthur Indigenous Church’s pastor is Michael Duckett. If you are interested in staying in touch with what they do, you could ask to join their Supporters Facebook Group.

Shoalhaven Aboriginal Community Church (ShACC) has links with All Saints, Nowra. A big prayer point here is that Brendan Garlett is about to move with his family and start his ministry there. Praise for a smooth settling in, and continuation of this great ministry. We’ve also adopted this ministry as an Annual Thanksgiving Day project.

Parish Council Update: March

• We opened the meeting with bible reading and prayer
• We received a ministry report from our Senior Assistant Minister, Liam Shannon
  • 9:45am – about 120 people per week have been coming for most of the year. It’s great to see people are happy to come back and some new people have joined. God has been at work!
  • Plug-In – about 60 people this year have attended, many of whom have stayed. It’s encouraging how many people God has brought to us.
  • Liam is doing some training and enjoying meeting with a professional supervisor to prepare well for next year
• We noted the pledge request, with Parish Councillors encouraged to talk to people and answer questions as needed. We noted the staffing priorities – Youth Minister (some employable applicants already), increasing Eden’s hours and an Ordained Assistant. We noted that its great to continue training people (MTS or student ministers) but this may not happen next year.
• We noted the financial reports and the downward trend in offertory over the last few months.
• We received a report from the Treasurer (Al Munroe) on his ‘mini-Audit’ of Corrimal parish’s financials. Pleasingly there was nothing of concern.
• We discussed the relative merits of purchasing a rectory versus proceeding with a knock-down and rebuild at Georgina Ave.  Where the cost is likely to be similar, the time benefits and avoiding unknowns of building meant Council agreed that the purchase of a property was a sound strategy and an offer should be made on an option currently on the market.
• We noted that AHR completed final works on the Bell Tower and hopefully it is waterproof.

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