Church visits - St James x2

It was great to be part of the morning services at St James' Pakenham on the Sunday before last. (It would have been great to have been able to stick around for their evening service too as there were a number of people being confirmed and received - basically, standing up to say they want to follow Jesus and have chosen this church to do that.) I was really encouraged by the bravery and boldness of the congregations I visited. People there told me that some years ago, they had been meeting in a nice old stone church building, however, when they faced the (excellent) problem of being too full, they agreed to say goodbye to their spiritual home and move to a new, bigger facility. This sort of thing can be quite a big deal for lots of people. While the new building is really great, it no doubt has a strikingly different aesthetic to the last one.

To be honest, in my conversations it sounded like it had been a bit of a hard slog getting resettled. But still, the overall mood was positive and future facing. There was real enthusiasm around the new minister and his wife who are a great couple that I think could do a lot to positively shape the church. So again, good on this church for taking a step into something new and looking forward to what God might do next.

It turns out that there's actually a good number of well-led Anglican churches out in that part of Melbourne now - Berwick, Pearcedale-Langwarren, Officer, others... ? If the congregations in those have the same boldness as the Pakenham mob, this could be a really exciting part of the Diocese to watch in the years ahead.

Yesterday I went to another St James' - Melbourne's old cathedral. This has a somewhat different story: their building was slated for demolition years and years ago (early 1900s??) but ended up being preserved and, after having been relocated to a new site brick-by-brick, these days has a newly growing congregation. Here, unlike Pakenham, the old aesthetic has been retained for a group of people who like a more traditional style of church. But like Pakenham, the recent growth has again been, under God's providence, largely due to the young minister who's been really well-matched to the congregation. I'm reminded again of the importance of putting square pegs in square holes.

Now, where's another St James' I can check out?

Coat of arms hung in the sanctuary at St James' Old Cathedral.

It's the diocesan arms impaled with arms that seem to have some

connection to the English monarchy. Anyone?