Gold Coast Church recommendations?

Stuart Elflett · #1 26th November 2003, 11:18 PM

I'm going to be on the Gold Coast (Banora Point, actually) on Friday and over the weekend... I'm wondering if anyone has any good recommendations of a Church for Sunday - Uniting if possible, especially down the south end of the coast...

Peace be with you...
Stuart

mamaneenie · #2 27th November 2003, 07:37 AM

oooh, I so much would love to go to the Gold coast. Lucky you. Are you taking your wife and kids, or is it for business? (photography)

Perhaps you could look at the Uniting church website. I'm sure they would have something that shows the location of churches. I looked up something similar when it looked like we would be moving to Swan Hill. I just got onto Google and did a search on churches in Swan Hill.

Stuart Elflett · #3 29th November 2003, 01:06 AM

It's a bit of both, Mamaneenie - My brother from the UK is over, and is at mums, as is my other brother - so it's a chance for her to have all three of us under one roof for the first time in 20 years... and I've done a couple of shoots while I'm here... I'm going to the Uniting Church local to here, although with some trepidation as I was questioned as to why I was going, and who my mother was, etc... wasn't a friendly reception at all...

My wife has stayed in SA with the kids... it's just a quick 5 day visit...

Peace be with you...
Stuart

mamaneenie · #4 29th November 2003, 04:35 AM

That sounds as though they were quite rude to you when you went to church. We have been to a Uniting church in Canberra a few times. But it is mostly older people, which is cool sometimes, but there are no kids and certainly no kids activities, so we go to an Apostolic church (which is pentecostal type stuff) and it suits us much better.

It's nice to have your family all together.

Stuart Elflett · #5 1st December 2003, 11:45 PM

Hi Mamaneenie...

Well, it was a combined Anglican/Uniting Church - it's congregation was pretty much all retiree's, and as could then be expected it was quite an old style service... they were nice enough once I got inside, but as I walked up I was met with a bristling woman who wanted to know "What brought me to their church?" - to which, I looked down at my shoes, and cheekily replied "My feet, mostly." (having just walked 20 minutes or so to get there)

The follow up question was, "No, why are you here?", to which I threw back "Well, The spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life...", at which point a couple of somewhat friendlier folks had come over to bail her out - I have a sneaking suspicion she was the woman who answered the phone, as everyone else was quite welcoming!!

I'd love to be able to take some of the locals back to Adelaide and show them what a church service CAN be like, but such is life... :-)

Peace be with you...
Stuart

mamaneenie · #6 1st December 2003, 11:50 PM

Wow, I don't think I could be that cheeky! Not to someone I had just met. Do you normally go to a Uniting church?

Stuart Elflett · #7 2nd December 2003, 12:18 AM

My brother used to say I had more front than Sainsbury's... (which is/was a big supermarket chain in the UK) - but I've dealt with 'people' for a good 14, maybe 15 years, in promotional work (nightclubs, restaurants), I've been an OPC in Surfers (Outside Personal Contact - someone from a real estate firm who gets abused on the street by nine people to find a lead with the 10th), phone sales, security work, and as the assistant manager of a chinese delivery company... I can pretty much see how much I can get away with in any given situation... Plus, I'd had three days time to prepare for what sounded like an interesting situation... :-)

She had got just a little out of her depth with me though, and I was about to tell her 'WHY' I'd chosen to come to their church when she was bailed out...

Peace be with you...
Stuart

mamaneenie · #8 2nd December 2003, 12:47 AM

You know, I would think that people would be excited to have new people coming to the church. I know even when I was at the Uniting church which was fairly small. My husband and I were the only couple under 40 there. Daniel was the only child in the service most of the time. I had a few dirty looks from other people on the odd occasion that he was noisy in the service. (I have learned he will behave himself during the music, I just make a sandwhich for his lunch and he eats it in the sermon, when that is done, he sits and reads a book) Mostly they were excited that we decided to come along and bring our little boy with us. He is greatly loved by the people there. We felt God wanted us to go back to our regular church (which we had left because I had an argument with someone there, all is forgiven now though so we are back at our regular church)