A Vision for St Luke's

Revd Hannah Gregory

Let me take you back to March 2025; it was a Saturday afternoon and I had a call to say part of the church had fallen off! This began a huge process of investigation.

We already could see a massive crack in the front wall of the church from floor to ceiling, but

when the apex on the gable end fell off it gave us the motivation to begin a larger scale renovation of the building. St Luke’s was built in 1863 and cracks were appearing in the plaster because we had salt ingress into the bricks all the way round the building, with mortar crumbling out of the walls. It was in a sorry state. During 2025 we graded the grounds, cleared guttering, installed a water drainage scoop, undertook salt-flushing and installed steel bar reinforcement into the front wall to stabilise it. We engaged

contractors to see what was needed for the total renovation. The total cost looked to be around $125,000! And then Mobile Mission Maintenance came to our rescue.

This world-wide charity helps churches and community organisations repair their buildings. The work is done by Christian tradies who have finished with paid work but still want to give of their time and talents in service to the Lord. A team of twelve people came to St Luke’s in November (you can see some of them on the front cover) and we housed and fed them for a week while they filled the cracks, replaced the mortar and repainted the inside. Their hard work and generosity saved us half of the building costs!

St Luke’s is now a cool calm blue in the inside. It is warm and welcoming and means that the church is fit for mission in the future. We look forward to seeing what God will do with us next! Information about MMM can be found at www.mmm.org.au. We are so thankful to God for their ministry.