The local churches that meet in The Grove suburbs of Arana Hills Ferny Hills Keperra Grovely Upper Kedron and Ferny Grove are:
[ul]
[li]St William’s Catholic Church[/li]
[li]All Saints Anglican Church[/li]
[li]St Matthew’s Anglican Church [/li]
[li]The Hills Christian Family[/li]
[li]The Grove Community Church[/li]
[li]Dhiyaan[/li]
[li]The Hills Uniting Church[/li]
[li]Hope City Church[/li]
[li]Arana Hills Church of Christ[/li]
[li]Keperra Baptist Church[/li]
[li]Grovely Gospel Chapel – Grovely Christian Community Church[/li]
[li]Church on the Park – Northside Community Church[/li]
[li]Life Links Church[/li]
[li]Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses[/li]
[/ul]
These churches all provide rich opportunities for our community to come together in harmony and learn to live well together.
However we are short on one of the things that churches contribute to local community life harmony and culture: church buildings.
About half of our local churches do not have their own building and they meet in The Hills Community Centre school halls and recreation centres.
Those churches that do have their own buildings are:
[ul]
[li]St William’s Catholic Church in Grovely on Dawson Parade[/li]
[li]All Saints Anglican Church in Arana Hills[/li]
[li]St Matthew’s Anglican Church between Grovely & Mitchelton[/li]
[li]The Hills Uniting Church in Ferny Hills[/li]
[li]Arana Hills Church of Christ in Arana Hills[/li]
[li]Keperra Baptist Church in Keperra on Samford Rd[/li]
[li]Grovely Gospel Chapel – Grovely Christian Community Church in Grovely[/li]
[li]Church on the Park – Northside Community Church in Keperra Grovely[/li]
[li]Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Arana Hills[/li]
[/ul]
These church facilities represent a tremendous capital investment in our area. It is very difficult in new suburbs for large enough blocks of land to be set aside for new church buildings. Large amounts of parking facilities are needed. The buildings must meet regulations. It costs millions of dollars for new church buildings to get off the ground.
So the ones we have a very precious. Ferny Grove does not have a single church building nor does Upper Kedron. The newer parts of Ferny Hills is in the same boat.
Arana Hills recently lost The Hills Christian Family to Mitchelton. They now have offices in Blackwood St and they meet at the Mitchelton State School. Some home groups continue to meet in The Grove.
Our local church buildings are a place where local people come together formally and informally. A yoga teacher can hire a church hall on a regular basis for a class. Members of the church can book a room quite informally with minimum rigmarole.
They are a hive of activity both day and night throughout the week and weekends. There are gettogethers of young mothers with their infants senior citizens The Hills Players rehearsing for their next production choirs senior citizen activities fitness classes bereavement support groups study groups dances. There are markets at St Williams and Arana Hills Church of Christ and free trade coffee at The Hills Uniting Church.
These facilities are provided to the community with relatively little funding support from ‘the government’ where so many look for funds. The biggest local grants by far regularly go to the sporting clubs and grants of $120000 are not uncommon for sports clubs. How many locals belong to a club that gets a $120l000 grant? How wide a cross-section of the community is it serving?
The activities in the community that do not readily fall under the sporting banner are not well served by community meeting rooms that are easily and informally available to the ordinary people in the community.
We’ve had some wonderful large local halls built with the Building the Education Revolution federal funds but these are Queensland Education facilities (except for St Andrews St Williams and Pine Community School) and the public liability insurance requirements to use them are very steep effectively meaning they are not easily accessible to the community.
We need more facilities like local churches. Put it on your wish list. If you come across a local politician or counsellor who wants to know what would be good to have locally say more church facilities more community meeting facilities easily accessible without a whole lot of red tape. Especially in Upper Kedron and Ferny Grove but all over The Grove. I tried to book a room for a U3A writing group to meet locally and almost every place was all booked up.