Leura is located in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales,
100 kilometres west of Sydney.
Leura Uniting Church is located on the corner of Grose and Megalong Streets, Leura.
Our Congregation
Our congregation is chaired by Ms Kathy Garland. More details can be found by following the Our Community link.
We embrace diversity, and welcome all who seek to know more of God.
Leura Uniting Church, in addition to this website of information and activity pages, has a Facebook page. The web address is https://www.facebook.com/LeuraUnitingChurch , or, just search for Leura Uniting Church on Facebook.
What’s happening….
Spring Fair
Sat 7 October, 8.30am see Notice at bottom of this page
. September, ‘17
Thur 21 Martin Luther Concert 7.30pm
Sat 23 Street Stall 7.30am
Sat 23 Zone picnic, Megalong Valley
Sun 24 Congregational Mtg
Sun 24 Messy Church 4pm
. October, ‘17
Sat 7 Leura Garden Fair 8.30am see Notice at bottom of this page
Mon 9 Church Council 7pm
Sun 29 Congregational Mtg.
Note: Schedules of some Leura Activities for 2017 are at the bottom of the page.
Service Times and other Activities
Our regular service is on Sundays at 9.30 am. The first Sunday of every month is a Contemporary Service, the third is a Communion Service. We also have a children’s group, a youth group, a Taize service, a reflective service and various community support activities. Details of services may be found by following the Services and Activities link.
Following are links to dedicated pages for some of the Services and Activities
Messy Church a project on a new way to worship (see flyer at bottom of this page)
Youth and Children Activities A description of activities for young people (see flyer at bottom of this page)
Day Retreats An opportunity for renewal and refreshment of faith.
Open Hearth a sharing place to assist all members of the Mountains community.
Pilgrimages we seek God, and spiritual refreshment, walking in the bush.
Quiet Reflection a guided meditation and reflection on the readings for the week.
Reflection and Expression Retreats are about creative movement, dance, improvisation and music. They are inspired by being ‘enlivened by the Spirit’.
Taizé Service renewal through common prayer, singing, silence and personal meditation.
Reflections on this week’s Bible readings
from the Bulletin …
Pentecost 15 Matthew 18:21-35 17 September, ‘17
‘No Man is an Island’
MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions – John Donne
“The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; … And when she buries …, that action concerns me: all … is of one author and is one volume… No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
(forgive John Donne’s masculine language – it’s a different age.) When I read Romans 14:1-12 I am reminded of this extract. – “We do not live to ourselves”.
We are all part of the other. In Romans, Paul extends this to our belonging to God whatever we find important in our theology. However, this is not a “let’s be nice to each other” passage. It does not say, “You can believe anything you want as long as you are sincere.”
It may sound like that on the surface, but if you read it a few times, you’ll see that it is a call for each of us to “live to the Lord” with everything we are and all that we’ve got. Concentrate on that, rather than on getting upset because others do it differently or use different language.
But there’s more to this than simple avoidance of conflict. “How do we relate to people who express their faith differently? That’s a complicated issue, but I’m convinced that before anything else, it involves listening and listening hard.
Paul Cameron
Quiet reflection, … Forgiveness, always
If we believe in the cross of Jesus, I think that also comes down to believing that that choice is between two different worlds: either God’s world of forgiving love, or this human world of our making, a world of violence, and debts of violence, and death. Tragically, most of us still choose the latter.
However, the Good News, the glimmer of hope, comes from the fact that Jesus was also raised from the dead, both as an assurance that we are forgiven, and as a promise that someday forgiveness will win out.
Paul Nuechterlein, girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper19a_1996_ser.htm
Other Uniting Church Congregations
To view other Congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia follow the link,
http://nsw.uca.org.au/congregations/
Pilgrimages to Mount Solitary
(for more details follow the Pilgrimage link)
Pilgrimages to Mt Solitary for 2017 are:
September 9
October 14
November 11.
Taizé Service, 5 – 6 pm, for further details follow the Taizé link
NB. Taizé Service is on the third Sunday in the month.
Messy Church,
for further details follow the Messy Church link
Began on the 23rd October 2016, and continues on the 4th Sunday of every month
Day Retreats,
for further details follow the Day Retreat link
Day Retreat Schedule for 2017
22 April
15 July
16 Sep
18 Nov
Priority One Youth Group
see times and activities below
Martin Luther – the Man and his Music
Thursday 21 September, 2017
7.30 – 9.00 pm
St. Finbar’s Church, Glenbrook
Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517. This year, 500 years later, we commemorate the event.
Come along and sing hymns composed by Martin Luther and other Reformation hymn writers.
Performance by Blue Mountains Chorale and Robert Ampt on organ.
Listen to the talk by Pastor Gabor Szabo, pastor at St. Peter’s Memorial Lutheran Church in Canberra.
Suggested Donation $20 (Concession $10)
