News        Contact details    Links  

A Worshipping Community
dancing among apparent opposites:

Contemplative, Justice-Oriented
Evangelical, Liberal
Ancient, Contemporary

A Faith Community of the Uniting Church Presbytery of Moreton Rivers, Brisbane, Australia

Updated 18 Dec 2006

---

Questions, questions . . .

• What’s the latest?

• What’s in our name?

• What is the Mustard Bush Faith Community?

• How do we worship?

• Are any sermons available?
  Archive

• Where can I find the current liturgy?

• What is a ‘faith community’ in the Uniting Church?

• What about ‘Proposal 84’?

Blessed is the Holy Trinity of Love,
Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
One God and Mother of us all;
and blessed is the reign of God,
now and ever and to the ages of ages.
Amen.

Icon of the Trinity
Andrei Rublev c.1410

---

What’s the Latest?

• Mustard Bush has settled well into our new home at Merthyr Uniting Church at New Farm; we commenced worshipping there on 17 October 2006. The congregation has given us a warm welcome, and we are grateful to them and to the minister there. The church is located at 52 Merthyr Road New Farm. Find where the Church is. The time is 6.30 pm on Tuesdays, setting up a little earlier. We have a cuppa while we are getting things set up.

• We are building up a collection of piccies of the Community here. (Don’t forget the pics of worship at Trinity Theological College Chapel!)

  See a short reflection on the Icon of the Baptism of Christ.

• Back to Questions

  ---

  
  

What’s in our name?

Jesus said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

St Mark 4: 30-32

Why did we choose this name and not some other? We wanted a name that meant something, that connected us to the biblical story, but which had a good Aussie sense of not taking ourselves too seriously. And ‘Mustard Bush Faith Community’ is a great name for that.

It’s great because the mustard bush that Jesus knew isn’t really all that impressive; as its name suggests, it’s not a tree, it’s a shrub! Not only that, the mustard bush was a weed, and in a garden it was an unclean plant. In fact, those who first heard Jesus would have been shocked by this parable; when Jesus says someone sows mustard seed in a field, it is sheer nonsense. It’s like someone deliberately planting prickly pear in their lawn. You just don’t do it!

What about the birds? They were unwanted! These birds are not perched in a great tree, a biblical cedar of Lebanon, but they hang around in the branches of a bush in the middle of a farmer’s field, ready to eat the seeds once the farmer’s back is turned. These birds are definitely suspect!

Why did Jesus speak this way? Simply this: the Parable of the Mustard Seed is a joke! This encourages us to wait for the reign of God with humour, as well as hope.

Back to Questions

We are a small group of people in Brisbane, Australia who meet for worship, and who support and pray for one another. We have been drawn together by shared concerns about worship, community and justice. We are mainly Uniting Church members, some lay, some ordained; but Mustard Bushies have meandered down a number of the streams of the Christian Church (sometimes without a paddle!).

We are exploring a pattern of worship which is ancient, but which employs contemporary language. It all began in mid-2001, when some of us realised that we shared a vision of worshipping together in a way that received more of the legacy of the full Christian heritage than we had received before. We were able to borrow shamelessly from Pastor Nathan Nettleton and the South Yarra Community Baptist Church in Melbourne, who have trod this way before us. So, we have embraced symbol, silence, simplicity and the senses; we use candles, Icons, water and incense.

We also share openly with each other, and usually the breaking open of the Scriptures initiates a general discussion which breaks them further open. We have been sharing weekly Eucharist since September 2001; we use a common loaf and a common cup.

In early 2004, Mustard Bush migrated and settled into our “new” home at Kennedy Terrace Uniting Church at Paddington.  We were welcomed by the then new minister, Rev Yvonne McRostie. The congregation at Paddington warmly welcomed us and we are grateful to them for their fine hospitality for almost two years.  

Mustard Bush has settled well into our new home at Merthyr Uniting Church at New Farm; we commenced worshipping there on 17 October 2006. The congregation has given us a warm welcome, and we are grateful to them and to the minister there. The church is located at 52 Merthyr Road New Farm. Find where the Church is. The time is 6.30 pm on Tuesdays, setting up a little earlier. We have a cuppa while we are getting things set up.

Some of our offering goes to the Merthyr Uniting Church Congregation, as our contribution to it and to the Mission and Service Fund of the Queensland Synod of the Uniting Church; a quarter goes to the South Yarra Baptist Community Church, and a further quarter is allocated for the running of the Community itself.

We gather from 6.30 pm or shortly after on Tuesday nights. We prepare the worship space, placing the seating around the Table, and placing the Icons around that circle. We light the candles before the Icons.

We then regather in the foyer of the church building; the liturgy begins as we walk in. The ‘embodier’ (who carries the thurible, the container of incense) and the presider follow. We use incense to honour the holy things (including the Icons, the Cross, the Scriptures, the Bread and Wine) and the holy people (the living Icons!). (Since the fourth century, Christian worshippers have been shown honour by being perfumed with incense.) We sing responsive short songs, we listen to the Scriptures, keep silence, meditate upon or wrestle with their message; we share, and pray; we receive Holy Communion. Our current Liturgy, for Ordinary Time, may be found here in .pdf format. The first page shows a Contemporary Icon of Christ the Saviour.

We find that worshipping the triune God continues both to enrich us and to generate strong bonds of friendship and communion. It is an integral part of our daily mission. We welcome you to join us; view some piccies here.

Mustard Bush liturgy and spirituality owe a great debt to the Orthodox Church. This rich tradition has much to teach us, and is little known by many people of our Protestant Churches. If you would like to browse some books on Orthodoxy, look here:

Featured Book (price in US dollars):