Benalla, Thoona & Balmattum

April 5, 2009 (click on pics for larger view)

Coming as it did, the day after the 150th Celebrations in Melbourne, and starting at 9:30am, a 2.5 hour drive from home to Benalla on the Sunday morning didn't look very appealing, so when we left the evening reception from Parliament House on Saturday night we drove to Broadford, arriving quite late, and we stayed overnight in the same motel we'd used a month earlier. And it was a wonderful bonus to get an extra hours sleep, courtesy of the end of daylight saving!

The Benalla Regional Parish, as it is known, has 3 congregations, in Benalla, Thoona and Balmattum. You might even be familiar with the Balmattum church building as it sits right beside the Hume Freeway between Euro and Violet Town - on the east side.

Alison, Duncan and I worshipped with the Benalla and Balmattum congregations at 9:30am and 5pm respectively, and had a beautiful picnic lunch with the Thoona congregation in between, sitting outside enjoying the last remnants of the summer sun. They are three very different congregations and as a parish they have had their challenges in recent years, not least of all recently, resulting in them lying vacant once again.

I preached on the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the traditional passage for Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. What struck me about the events as they are recorded in Matthew's gospel is that Jesus went beyond the superficial excitement of a parade and went to the very heart of the Jewish community, to the temple, to challenge their fundamental beliefs and practices. Many people in our churches just want the superficial bits that they enjoy, whether it is older folk wanting traditional hymns and the familiar cadence of the King James Bible, or younger folk wanting rock music and multi-media displays; but they want to avoid the real challenge of Jesus to be transformed from the inside, to allow the Holy Spirit to turn over the tables of whatever long-held beliefs and practices are offensive to God and to be renewed in the likeness of Christ.

Kyung Ee, the Interim Moderator, led the worship services, which was a very sacrificial thing to do, given that he had to absent himself from his own pulpits in order to do it. I'm very grateful to his faithful service not only in his own parishes but throughout the Presbytery, and to the elders in his parishes who covered for him.

It was encouraging to see the large number of children at Balmattum Church which indicates a bright future ahead, but as with all our rural congregations, each of these churches will need substantial support from the wider church, in prayer, in finance, in personnel for things like preaching supply, and also in strategic planning to help them discover the way forward with God.