Month: December 2014

Categories
Education & Training

Changing and growing on a life-long journey

Although he’s just started in a newly created role, Craig Mitchell is no stranger to the Uniting Church, having worked in the organisation in various ways for over 30 years.

As the new national director for Formation, Education and Discipleship (FED) at the Uniting Church in Australia, National Assembly, Craig’s job is to resource synods, presbyteries and congregations in their journey as lifelong communities of discipleship. Engaging people in a lifelong journey of faith has been something the Uniting Church has struggled with over recent decades – it’s part of the reason the church is declining.

Craig is hoping to turn that around into the future, building a Uniting Church with members who are active and thoughtful in their faith, from the cradle to the grave.

And it’s no easy task.

Craig said that a culture change is needed in the way the Uniting Church approaches faith formation.

“It’s not just about Sunday school or just about raising the next generation of church members,” he said. “Let’s have a more dynamic view of people growing in faith to be on about what Gods’ on about in the world.”

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News & Announcements

Love makes a way holds national day of action

Christian leaders across Australia are right now holding nationwide sit-ins inside the electoral offices of 7 Government politicians in 6 cities. In Perth, a sit-in prayer vigil is currently underway at the office of Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop. Included in the sit-in is two leaders from the Uniting Church in WA, Richard Telfer, First Third specialist, and Rev Bev Fabb chair of the Commission for Education for Discipleship and Leadership (CEDAL).

Today’s peaceful action of more than 50 church-goers is in response to reports that the Government is planning to send 25 babies — who were born on Australian soil to families seeking safety — to the Nauru detention centre. These Christian leaders come from the full breadth of the Australian church (including Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican and others).

The Christian leaders are committed to remaining in the MPs’ offices until the Government publicly promises that no children will be detained offshore, and that all asylum-seeker children will be released into the Australian community with their families. Sit-ins are occurring in the Sydney office of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, as well as 6 other Government representatives in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane.

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Categories
Stories & Feature Articles

Kids are not the future of the church

What? Children and young people are our future, right? Well, if you simply mean that they’ll be on the Earth after we’re all dead, then yeah, the kids around now will be adults in the future.

But no, children are not the future of the church.

Why? Because children and young people are our present. They are here right now giving life and witness to the church.

Richard Telfer, First Third specialist for the Uniting Church in WA, recently returned from an Intergenerational Faith Formation Symposium led by John Roberto in Connecticut, USA. He believes this phrase is holding us back from being a truly intergenerational church.

A multi-generational church is one which has members from different age groups who mostly stick to themselves, not really interacting with others outside their own age group. A crossgenerational church is one where the dominant age group invites other age groups to participate in their activities.

An intergenerational church probably doesn’t know it’s intergenerational. It has members from different age groups who naturally learn from each other and grow together.

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News & Announcements

A day of great moral failure

The Uniting Church in Australia has expressed its dismay at changes passed to the Migration and Maritime Powers Acts which will cause greater suffering for those vulnerable people seeking refuge in Australia.

“Today is a day of great moral failure for Australia,” said Uniting Church President, Rev Prof Andrew Dutney, in response to legislation that passed the Senate in the early hours of Friday morning.

“The Federal Government has now made it legal to punish the strangers that Jesus called Christians to welcome, simply for seeking our protection.”

These measures will only cause more suffering for refugees who have already suffered so much,” said Andrew.

The Uniting Church has long-standing concerns about the policies of successive governments which aim to punish and deter rather than protect people in need.

The legislation passed by the Senate grants unprecedented powers to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, placing the Minister’s decisions out of reach of the courts and giving him permission to act contrary to international law.

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News & Announcements

GKI on the move

One of the outcomes of our recent Annual Meeting of the Presbytery and Synod of the Uniting Church in WA was the commitment to continue our partnership with the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI).

The partnership began over two decades ago and has led to the growth of the GKI Perth Uniting Church congregation in Mosman Park and a special Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that points to various ways we can co-operate and learn from each other.

IMG_0043Rosemary Hudson-Miller, acting general Secretary of the Uniting Church in WA, and I, moderator of the Uniting Church in WA, were very privileged to be able to visit Indonesia in September to  attend the GKI West Java Synod and sign the MOU. This was a tremendous privilege and richly rewarding for us. We were able to witness a church that is growing and dynamic in many areas of its life.

We stayed in the climatically cool Zuri Resort and Convention Center, owned by GKI, about three hours out of Jakarta, near Bogor in the mountains. It was very special being part of their synod  meetings. About 270 members attended from eight presbyteries across West Java.

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Categories
News & Announcements

A letter from Australian religious leaders to the ABC

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev Professor Andrew Dutney has joined with 28 other Australian religious leaders and their supporters to protest against the ABC’s cuts to religion programs.

As the ABC’s Board meets today to consider the proposed cuts to staff and programs, leaders such as the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne the Most Revd Dr Philip Freier and the Grand Mufti of Australia Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed have sought an urgent meeting to discuss how the proposed cuts will affect the place of religion on the national broadcaster.

In a letter to ABC Managing Director Mark Scott and Chairman Jim Spigelman, the leaders say they believe, “the faith and values we hold will always occupy a central part in the formation of our Australian national identity.”

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