Sharing God's love through Beauty, Truth and Goodness with the people of Canberra’s Inner North

Tag: music

Christmas Events

Join the Holy Cross community and friends for our Christmas events! All welcome.

Darkness Into Light, Sun 28 Nov, 7pm

Join us for a beautiful service of music, readings and prayers to mark Advent Sunday. No need to book.

Or you can attend via Zoom at the usual Parish link.

bicycles and cycling options displayed at switched on cycles stall

Creative festival connecting community, faith and sustainability

In a spirit of community building and healing, the faith communities of Holy Cross Anglican and St Margaret’s Uniting in Hackett in Canberra’s inner north recently hosted a festival focussed on sustainability.

Stall with seed packets and stallholder demonstrating seed sourcing
A stallholder from Canberra Seed Savers shares the fruits of their work

The ‘Sustaining Our Future’ Festival on the weekend of September 19-20 brought together local groups and speakers to offer information on climate change and inspiration on how to reduce one’s individual or household waste and carbon footprint. 

“During these pandemic times, it’s even more important we find ways to get together safely and discuss common concerns, be inspired and make a difference,” said Reverend Chris Lockley of St Margaret’s.

People were able to test ride electric bikes and learn about composting. There was also a concert in the church featuring  singer-songwriter Lucy Sugerman and local youth bands, a visual arts exhibition, and an ecumenical ‘Celebration of Creation’ worship service.  

Dickson College students facilitate the ACT Candidates' Forum
Dickson College students facilitate the ACT Candidates’ Forum

The program included an ACT election candidates forum moderated by Dickson College students. 

“It was a great opportunity for our young people, who have a lot invested in a low-carbon future, to quiz local candidates about their sustainability policies ahead of the October poll,” said Reverend Tim Watson of Holy Cross.

This event, the first of its kind in Hackett, demonstrated the potential of the venue for more community events in the future where people can gather for spiritual and personal resourcing, community development, and to encourage each other in working for the Common Good.” 

The Festival was organised as part of Holy Cross/St Margaret’s joint Carbon Action Project, launched earlier this year. Both churches have committed to make their operations carbon neutral within two years, and to help church members and the local community take climate change seriously through local action and engagement.

The once-fixed pews in the ecumenical Hackett church were recently removed to allow for more dynamic and mixed uses of the interior worship space. 

Audiences enjoying the live music concert at the end of a great day

“The event was joyful and inclusive, and it put our mandate to evangelise as followers of Jesus into practice in so many different ways. It was a real celebration of beauty (art, music, God’s creation), truth (political debate, scientific and practical learning) and goodness (community, social and environmental action)”, said Reverend Watson.

“It also resonated with Bishop Mark’s encouraging comment about enabling people to return to church after lockdown: ‘re-integrating people to community through community, and helping us think about how we could implement similar steps with people who’ve never been part of our gathered worship’,” Rev. Watson added. 

The two ministers also thanked volunteers who worked hard to make it happen. 

“So many people made the event work. There were many hours served planning it and then during – to ensure it was safe and kept the festival moving along,” said Rev. Lockley.

Large glass and recycled metal snail pedalled on the church lawns
Pedal Powered Snail by Kinetic Sculptures

Looking Glass Percussion-Christmas Concert

An evening of fine music with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and friends to usher in the Christmas Season.

7pm Saturday 14 December, Holy Cross Anglican Church

Fete!

Come along to Holy Cross Fete for a great day of music, food, stalls, activities, fun and friendship! Saturday 16 November 9am-2pm.

Concert with Good Faith Choir and Kaleidoscope

Join Good Faith Choir and Queanbeyan’s Kaleidoscope for a concert of sacred and secular music.

2pm Sun 10 Nov at Holy Cross & St Margaret’s. (Reprised 2pm Sun 24 Nov at Queanbeyan Uniting Church).

Rev Tim Watson plays guitar with people singing

The Language of Worship

Group of people singing from a song sheet

Today I’m beginning an occasional series: “The Language of Worship”. At Holy Cross, we come from diverse backgrounds – and often have strong views about words and music! So the hymns and songs we use in worship reflect not just our diversity, but the diversity of the Kingdom of Heaven with its “treasures old and new” (Matthew 13.52). By finding out more about who actually wrote the songs we sing, and why, we learn more about the wonderful variety of the body of Christ – and more about the God we worship. “I will sing with the Spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.” (1 Cor 14.15)

All my hope on God is founded” was written by the great German Calvinist hymnwriter Joachim Leander in 1680, and translated into English in 1899 by Robert Bridges, an Anglican choirmaster and future Poet Laureate. Today we’re using the modernised version from the Australian hymn book Together in Song. The tune Michael was written (over breakfast!) by Herbert Howells in 1930, and named for his son who died tragically young.

People singing in worship

I heard the voice of Jesus say” is a 19th century hymn by Scottish Free Church minister Horatius Bonar, set to an old English folk song, Dives and Lazarus, which Ralph Vaughan Williams heard in a pub in the village of Kingsfold in Sussex, and published as a hymn tune in the 1906 English Hymnal.

Give thanks” is the only published song by Henry Smith, written for a church in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1978 as a response to having become blind: “let the weak say I am strong, let the poor say I am rich …”.

Karen Lafferty was a nightclub entertainer who wrote “Seek ye first” in 1971 after attending a church bible study on Matthew 6.33, and now runs Musicians for Mission, an international ministry of Youth With A Mission based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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