Rangeville Property Deal
September 13, 2005 – 9:21 pm | by Duncan
We spent some time tonight looking at the Uniting Church’s response to Rangeville Community Church, who two years ago were Rangeville Uniting Church. In 2003 Rangeville sold the building and site in High St, Toowoomba in preparation for development on a site purchased by the Uniting Church’s Parish Development Fund. Almost weeks later, the Assembly made its historic decision to allow Presbyteries to decide for themselves whether or not to ordain homosexual ministers. Nearly every one of the members of Rangeville agreed to leave the Uniting Church, despite the Queensland Synod’s decision to take a conservative stance on the issue.
To cut a long story short, some of the funds and all of the equipment used by Rangeville was gifted to them by the Uniting Church. The undeveloped land was eventually sold to them at market value. Bruce Binnie tonight gave us an overview of the events and principles that were applied in this process.
Obviously we’re thinking about future contingencies that may arise if large percentages of members leave any of our congregations. Our next Assembly meets in Brisbane in 2006. It is likely that there will be some congregations who on the whole feel very uncomfortable about staying in the denomination if Resolution 84 is not rescinded. At table groups we discussed the principles that might be affirmed and used again if necessary. There’s a tension between firmness and generosity that we have to work out on a case by case basis.
Tags: Uniting Church
