Call to Prayer

An invitation to all who call Brougham Place Uniting Church their spiritual home.

We invite you to join us in a Season of Prayer.

This is a moment to step back and see clearly. To recalibrate and reframe. To hold the long view alongside the present moment.

“For over 165 years Brougham Place has been a “Light on the Hill.”  We are a community of hope and caring that has passed faith from generation to generation, standing for justice, truth, equality, compassion, grace and love. 
We are a welcoming and inclusive community of people dedicated to following in the Way of Christ. We seek to embody and share the love of Christ in all that we say and do.”

May we continue to hold to that vision and be beacons of light and hope in a fast-changing world. 

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A prayer for this week

This Sunday at our Town Hall meeting we will spend time discerning our Mission Plan and which Option will be the one that will help us live out that vision. Beofre then, we will have some sessions to hear about the mission plan and options. We will aslo have a 24 hour prayer vigil, commcing Saturday at 9am. The decison-making will be at our Congregation meeting on the 27th of September.

Mark tells us that after a long day of healing, with the whole town gathered at the door, Jesus got up before dawn, while it was still dark, and went to a solitary place to pray. The disciples came looking for him, certain he was needed elsewhere. He went anyway.

We have big decisions ahead of us, bigger than any one meeting or one Town Hall can carry on its own. We need more than good process. We need the Spirit’s leading, and that is not something we can think or argue our way into.

It has to be prayed into. So before the sessions, during the vigil (or any other time), before the Town Hall, we are asking something simple of our congregation and anyone who wishes to pray for us: take some quiet, and pray. Not instead of the work ahead, but underneath it.

God of the solitary place,
before we plan, help us pray.  
Before we decide, help us listen.  
We hold before you the Options for our future,
and we ask for the Spirit’s leading,
not just our own best thinking.  
Meet us in the quiet,
as you met Jesus before dawn,
and give this congregation the wisdom these decisions deserve.  
Amen.

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Following the decisions we made at our AGM (see below), we find ourselves in a liminal (in-between) time as we discern together the future that God is leading us to.

Our aim through a consultation with Carolyn Kitto (Spirited Consulting) is to ‘continue as a vibrant, supportive and inclusive faith community. Through this Consultation we’re collectively deciding what we want to do and how we will do it, …’ We are seeking God’s calling and direction for the future, discovering the gifts God has already given us for mission and the hurts and hopes God is already addressing in our community.

May we look to our God for clear discernment and may we hold:

• our Church Council, Reference Group and Consultant (Carolyn Kitto) in prayer as they do the work we have asked them to doo
• key ‘Town Hall’ meeting dates in prayer: July 19 and August 30. Congregation meeting: September 27.
• our Presbytery (Wimala) in prayer as they support us and journey alongside us.
• all of our ministry areas and leaders in prayer as we continue serving our God through this congregation in worship, witness and service.
• each other in prayer as we each respond differently to being in a liminal (in-between) and uncertain and unsettling time.

Isaiah 43:18-19

Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.	Don’t revel only in the past, or spend all your time recounting the victories of days gone by. Watch closely: I am preparing something new; it’s happening now, even as I speak, and you’re about to see it. I am preparing a way through the desert; Waters will flow where there had been none.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Ed	The Voice

Congregation AGM Decision made February 2026:

Brougham Place UC seek assistance from Wimala Presbytery to assist the congregation in working though a decision-making process regarding our future and the following actions to occur:

• a sub-committee of Church Council be established
• the sub-committee works alongside the Presbytery
• identify suitable consultant(s) and, if practicable, engage them to work to work with the subcommittee, alongside presbytery to develop short-, medium- and long-term approaches to ensuring the ongoing life and work of the BPUC community.