Our local Canterbury Council of Churches is part of the Victorian Council of Churches which runs an Emergencies Ministry.  

With 800 authorised workers, representing 10 faith groups, speaking 57 languages, it supplies excellent support and services to families and local government municipalities for emergencies such as storm events, house fires, homicides and floods.   There were 63 incident activations between January 2021 and April 2022.    This ministry is now well understood and received by first responders and their commanders.

An exciting pilot program funded by the Victorian government, is making available 50 chaplains through the Emergency Ministry, for pastoral care to ambulance officers.

The Emergency Ministry motto is:  Compassion, Care, Community, Dignity and Hope.

​21 March 2022
 
The Victorian Council of Churches is delighted to announce the appointment of Reverend Sandra (Sandy) Boyce as Executive Officer. Sandy, an ordained Minister in the Uniting Church in Australia, will commence the role on Tuesday 19 April.

Sandy is currently President of DIAKONIA World Federation, an international and ecumenical community for diaconal ministry agents who are part of member associations. She has held the position since 2013.
 
Sandy has a long background working in the church, particularly with youth and young adults. In 2021, she concluded a long ministry placement at Pilgrim Uniting Church in Adelaide, where she supported and encouraged diaconal ministry in that congregation, and in the wider church. For six years, Sandy worked in a national role coordinating the volunteer’s program for those preparing for short term volunteer placements with overseas partner churches in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, with visits to volunteer placements and meeting with church leaders.
 
Sandy loves to cook and welcome people into her home, which has included many overseas students, 'couchsurfers' and other visitors including hosting a regular gathering of young people from various faith traditions and cultural backgrounds so they could learn more about each other while sharing a meal together.
 
In reflecting on her new role as Executive Officer, Sandy recalls the statement by Konrad Raiser (2003), former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, who said that “ecumenism - the fellowship of Christian churches as a sign of hope for the world - is not a building project whose state we can describe in a neutral and objective way, but a living process with which we must engage if we want to understand and appreciate it.”
 
She is looking forward to being part of the vital work of the churches finding their unity in Christ with an openness and appreciation of each other, and discerning with intentionality what God is up to in the world and joining in as part of the praxis of living ecumenism.
 
Sandy reflects:
"In a fractured, conflicted world with all its challenges and divisions, the churches have an important leadership role to play in valuing what we share in common and building towards visible unity, as well as speaking into the public space through the lens of justice, compassionate care, peacebuilding initiatives, and reconciliation".
 
The President of the Victorian Council of Churches Dr Graeme L Blackman AO said:
“I warmly welcome Rev Sandy Boyce as the new Executive Officer of the Victorian Council of Churches.  Sandy brings a wide range of experience and expertise across many areas of church life including parish ministry, youth ministry and ecumenical engagement, especially within the churches in South Australia.  The Council and Standing Committee of the Victorian Council of Churches look forward to welcoming Sandy to Melbourne and to working with her as we advance the mission and strategic plan of the VCC.”

“Theological dialogue and discussion bring people closer together and sets up the framework for joint action,..Joint action brings people closer together, and sets up the relationship that enables theological dialogue and discussion."

During a visit to the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva on 16 February, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby spoke on an “ecumenism of action” as he also congratulated the WCC on its 70th anniversary.

“Bi- and multi-lateral theological dialogue over the course of the twentieth century bore much fruit but at times it could be appear to be akin to diplomatic renegotiation of borders: the barriers to communion still exist but not where we thought they did,” said Welby. “The underlying problem with these discussions, however, is that they are what I would call negotiation of the frontiers.”

The negotiation of the ways in which frontiers are set down, and in which they are crossed, is one of the most difficult aspects of international relations at times of tension, he continued.

“Frontiers imply difference,” he explained. “They say that on one side of the frontier there is the ‘other’.”
Ecumenism that looks as though it is about the negotiation of frontiers is an ecumenism that is based on theological foundations of sand, he said. “Indeed, one might argue that it is not based on foundations at all,” he said. “Negotiated frontiers start with barriers.”

One of the great gifts of the ecumenical movement is that it has allowed Christians from different denominations, who might once have kept separate from one another, to get to know one another, Welby reflected.

“There were times before, say, the 1960s, when people of one denomination might never have entered the church building of another,” he said. “In England today, and I am sure it is similar in other parts of the world, many congregations are made up of people who started their Christian life in other denominations.”

The result of this is that traditions, ideas and worship styles from one church are brought into the other, he noted. “The wind of the spirit which has brought such movements into reality, is blowing ever more powerfully,” he said. “In many places it is becoming a hurricane.”

An ecumenism of action says that faced with evil, we come together in love and show that we are one.

“There is a great danger that the ecumenism of action turns into the ecumenism of being useful,” he cautioned. “We can easily fall into the trap of believing that if we cannot agree, then we can at least do something together that is nice and useful.”

But this is massively to understate and to misrepresent the nature of the ecumenism of action, he said. “The world is crying out in need,” he said. “We can become too pragmatic about this, forgetting its theological foundations.”

The ecumenism of action is also based in this reality that need does not wait for theological agreement, but for the compassion of Christ, he added. “When non-believers meet missionaries who do not agree among themselves, even though they all appeal to Christ, will they be in a position to receive the true message?” he asked. “It is not the case that an ecumenism of action leaves theology outside the room.”
​
“Theological dialogue and discussion bring people closer together and sets up the framework for joint action,” he said. “Joint action brings people closer together, and sets up the relationship that enables theological dialogue and discussion.
 
from ​Visiting WCC, Archbishop of Canterbury speaks on “ecumenism of action” | World Council of Churches (oikoumene.org)

Following on from an initiative of the President of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Canterbury Council of Churches prays for the congregation at St Dominic’s Camberwell and the Australian Roman Catholic Church as it prepares for its Plenary Council in 2021:

Let us pray:
Creator God, in your great love you have given us the gift of your Spirt. As the Roman Catholic Church in Australia enters this time of discernment, we pray that your Spirit would guide and encourage those involved in the Plenary Council. May we all stand together as we seek to be your people on the way of Jesus.
Amen.

See image below for the agenda of this Plenary Council.