Olive Way Volunteer profile Each week at Olive Way, we are joined by a wonderful group of volunteers who come from many different places. Some belong to other churches, while others do not come from a Christian background but share our commitment to hospitality, compassion, and community. Because many of them are not part [...]
So you might remember in the last edition of the Olive Branch I reflected on the key values that underpin our pastoral care ministry at Brunswick Uniting and looked at how applicable they are to our ministry at Olive Way. These three values, hospitality, compassion, and community, have deep resonance for us at Olive [...]
One of the parts of doing Olive Way that I have really enjoyed over the years is working with other groups, churches, agencies, and partners who can compliment what we do. I love developing these relationships and learning from them, even as they learn from us. We have enjoyed a great relationship with the [...]
We have a guy who comes into Olive Way on a relatively frequent basis. He’s a friendly and gregarious chap, who has a great sense of humour and always make me laugh. The only thing is that he has a bit of a drinking problem. He likes to try and hide it by disguising [...]
We have a good problem to sort through at Olive Way. As many of you will be aware, we are open Tuesdays (10-1), Wednesdays, (10-1), and Thursday mornings (9-11:30). Tuesday and Wednesdays are well attended but Thursday mornings have not been. This odd configuration of hours is reflective of the post-COVID environment we found [...]
So how do we manage a 45° day? Well, this week we found out. There was a bit of dread and a touch of anxiety last week when we saw the record temperatures forecast for this Tuesday. It was also Ruth’s first day back from leave, so conversations began early even while she was [...]
One of the recommendations that emerged from our review recently was to reconnect the church with a vision for Olive Way. We’ve always had a vision for Olive Way, one that I have worked on over time, but it is important that the congregation at BUC also grasps and owns this vision. Since Olive [...]
About every three years Olive Way conducts a review of our activities to determine if it’s something we want to keep funding and to evaluate the kinds of activities and focus over that period. Our most recent one was done by Lew Hess in 2021, and the one before that was done by Tim [...]
This Wednesday at Olive Way was wild. It’s rare that it happens, but it did this week. Certainly the day started out normally; our usual guests, the odd stranger, and the usual fare of fruit, veggies and toasties. It’s usually a pleasant day and I can get around to most of the guests and [...]
Over the weekend the Asylum Seeker Welcome Centre hosted a big party in the church hall to celebrate Refugee Week. They invited many of their previous clients (or ‘consumers’ as they call them) and had big party with dinner, music, speeches and so on. They asked me to come, and so I did (though [...]