Greystanes UCA: Trusting God to open the door to mission

About a year ago, my Church Council at Greystanes Uniting Church and I gathered together to discern God’s call to mission. This is never an easy process, but it was particularly difficult for my people; a few of them had worked diligently as a team prior to the 2020 -2021 Covid lockdowns developing a mission strategy, however after the lockdowns and no minister in placement until August 2022, the work of this team was shelved and almost forgotten.

Perhaps a little shell shocked and still in post covid recovery, there was little appetite to reinvest in the Mission Strategy Report.

We decided that for the time being we would simply trust God to open the door to mission. If we were willing to take that step out of the boat, like Peter we too could do anything in Christ. When people say these things, we sort of believe it, yet we were all quite surprised when a missional opportunity came knocking straight after that fateful Church Council meeting.

We received a phone call from Grantham Heights Uniting Church asking us to consider becoming a partner, like them, with Hands and Feet. Hands and Feet assist people in many ways; we were being invited to become a weekly fresh food collection venue.

A small truck would bring us pallets of food from the big supermarkets, saving it from landfill and putting it into the hands of those who can do with a little extra to make ends meet.

A team from my church went to investigate the process and then reported back to Church Council. We all agreed to give it a go but who would lead the Hands and Feet team and get things going? Greystanes Uniting Church has a fairly typical aging congregation, with quite a few ‘active retirees’ and many octogenarians and above.

Again we were all a little surprised when one of our most senior couples put their hands up to lead the team of volunteers, (supposing we had some). At a congregational meeting to launch this new missional activity people were asked if they would like to be involved and once again we were surprised and extremely delighted that just about every hand went up. God is constantly full of surprises it seems, or was it simply that we took that first step and allowed God to do what God does?

I could write pages about how wonderful this missional outreach has become. I join the team every Wednesday and I have seen relationships blossom between the volunteers. Some are regular church attendees who may never have spoken to one another before apart form the occasional ‘hello’ of a Sunday morning have developed friendships.

Many of us are building relationships with our clients, with the beautiful people who come in each week to collect food. Some of us are also on hand to offer a listening ear to our clients, pastoring to them beyond and across the divide of language, faith and background. (We are situated in a very multicultural area of Western Sydney).

The Spirit of Pentecost is alive and well on a Wednesday morning in my little Church tucked away in a nice little leafy suburb attended by ordinary saints, most with grey hair and the lines of wisdom on their faces. I praise God for their willingness to ‘just do it’.

Rev. Gail Hinton

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