Lent PHOTO #18 "Welcome"

   The Wayside Chapel is one of a number of places we sent groups of young people from our UCA Synod Youth Unit Summer/Winter Camps in the middle day to 'ground' our theme, input, group work and discipleship in unique experiences of life beyond their own stories. Other places included Redfern, Glebe and into the City to observe people & places but also to talk with a 'Big Issue' seller and hear their story. As we went along it involved serving, cleaning up and getting involved... not just listening!! It became a great way to make the values of God very real and broke down significant barriers to people sharing themselves...
   The Wayside was an outstanding part of this and I have thought often about how to connect there in an ongoing way... Graham Long invited me to make a contribution to Sunday Worship there just in the final months of the Youth Unit and I still think about taking that up from Newcastle from time to time!! I also wish we had a group coherent enough to invite similar experiences in fleshing out a lot of stuff that gets talked about along the way...
   In relation to Lent I remain impressed and inspired by Waysides work, ministry and sense of community... Lots of people from the famous to the committed community builders around that area give time and gifts because they see all the good stuff that happens there...
   Having also met, interviewed and been inspired by Matt Noffs, I am aware of the painful history of Ted's pioneering efforts and the way those efforts continue to motivate his grandsons as they seek a fairtrade, inclusive an just world and foster things like the amazing: Gideon Shoes; and the 'Street University.'
   Welcome is a huge part of creating and building community and welcome is what all the people from the fringes were whose stories we are reading week by week this Lent.