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Report for Church Council, 11 December 2023 from Glyn Howells for Intercultural Task Group.

Intercultural Christmas Celebration 10 December 2023

Worship:

• Well envisaged and organised by Neil Peters.
• Gave a voice to members of congregation via Tamil, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin and Indonesian. Good balance of English/ screen/ other languages.

Concert:

• well received by audience most of whom stayed for dinner.
• over in about 50 minutes which was about right.
• Worship had more Chinese languages (Mandarin and Cantonese) and concert had more diverse Indonesian items, so they complemented each other.
• It also worked out to be a truly intergenerational evening.

Dinner:

• Over 110 attended dinner (about 100 in hall and 10 in fellowship area); many lively conversations around the big round tables.
• Both main course and dessert went down well. We catered for 100 and there was food left over.
• Invited guests who made it: Robin Yang, Presbytery, Mr Giovanni the Indonesian Consul, about 5 members from the Monash Interfaith Gathering (Bahai, Buddhist, Muslim) and Steven Chew from Zee Cheng Khor Moral Uplifting Society and VP of Casey Multifaith Network. Thanks to Di Paterson for her support as always. Was good to see some members from the 5pm service attend this year along with members of church council who always attend.

Rev Apwee Ting and the Indonesian Consul-General were unable to make it but sent greetings and best wishes.

Personal Reflection:

• Date: Clashed with many other church events which is probably inevitable.
• Personally, I’m always disappointed that we can’t fill the church for the worship and concert especially with members who attend 8, 9:15 and 11. The idea that we have an Indonesian congregation is still prevalent, rather than the Indonesian Fellowship being seen as one part of the congregation. What can we do to bridge the gap?
• Should the Indonesian worship services have a rest and join the 10am service whenever services are combined? Those who join on-line on zoom can be given the link from the gwuc website to the live-stream/ recordings.
• Do we need 4 services on 10th December?
  1. Could the Intercultural Christmas service and concert become part of the ‘mainstream’ Christmas program of the church which would put less pressure on everyone by concentrating our resources? Could the concert add 15 minutes by including Free Spirit and/or other performers making it our whole church Christmas concert? This would need to be planned well in advance. Or would there be too many people to cater for in terms of the meal?

  2. At present the Intercultural service/ concert/ dinner appear to me to be an ‘add on’ to our main services which follows the ‘multicultural’ (tokenism) rather than the ‘intercultural’ (genuine mutuality) ideal of church. Most of those who took part in the worship (Gilbert, Yolandy, Bonnie, Hannah, Jolene, Sachin, Anna, Rebecca, John) already attend 9:15 on a weekly basis so it makes sense to give them a voice at 9:15. Similarly, if we are to build on-going relationships with Riedel, we need to widen the basis of the connections. With the young professional Indonesians from GMIM (Christian Evangelical Church in Minahasa) joining our worship when they can and helping set up and participating in our programs like the Indonesian Independence Day & Faith Sharing Celebration held in September and yesterday’s Multicultural Christmas Celebration, we need to find more ways to connect them to our congregation members, especially our young people. We don’t need to await a visit from GMIM – their members are already here!

  3. Thanks to the Task Group – Lucky, Vida, Sachin and Jan -- for all the work they put in as well as Neil and Chris, the tech team (Warren, John and Matthew) and everyone who participated in worship, the concert , the dinner (setting up, ordering, collecting, preparing, serving food), and the clean-up: namely, Robin Yang, Yolandy, Gilbert, Geri Kalonta, Lina Liu, Miss Dena Radiansari, Miss Yullita Owen, Hannah and Jolene, Pdt Lini, Githa, Josh, Evan, Nia, Angga, Jerry, Jonathan, Merlin, Saut, Chelsea, Kezia, Anna and Rebecca Remson, Tetty, Siok, Ribka, Retno, Tjintjin and Tony. As well as the wonderful contributions of congregation members, we relied heavily on the local Indonesian community and the young Indonesian professionals without whom we couldn’t have done it effectively.#

Our relationship with Riedel (GMIM)

• Neil has sent a Christmas video message (with Matthew’s help) which was well received and has already been shared with the congregation (with a translation by Rev Dan Sompe).
• Lucky read the reply Christmas letter from Rev Dan, in yesterday’s worship (attached)
• Lucky introduced each of the GMIM young professionals (on Working Holiday Visas) who attended and helped with yesterday’s program. A few have just arrived; others have been here for up to a year.
• We have been invited to visit Riedel again next year. I’m disinclined to go again myself in 2024 (having visited in September 2019 with Neil, Lina, Susan Chan, Vida, Lucky, Willie and Yoke and in October 2022 with Lucky) believing we should strive to broaden the base of our connection.

Uniting World and Presbytery

The more I’ve learnt about the work of Uniting World this year, the more impressed I’ve been, especially via the Soul Search interview with Dr Sureka Goringe the National Director of UnitingWorld, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/soul-search/future-of-religion-in-a-changing-climate/102784296 and how that ties in with their modus operandi https://unitingworld.org.au/who-we-are/

Would we be interested in supporting the Uniting World Sunday (see website)? Or inviting Apwee or Sureka to speak, if they’re not too busy! Or both. Secondly, I’ve found it invaluable and enriching to meet with and work with Presbytery Ministers over the past few years. We have a wonderful team. How might we extend this next year by inviting them to preach, join us on special occasions, act as resource people? Just raising a few questions looking to the future.

# Footnote: I’ve written this with some detail to help put Church Council in general and Chris and later Ian Ferguson in the picture as I see it.

GlynHowells
Convenor Intercultural Task Group
11 December 2023

Final program.