Month: August 2018

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News & Announcements

Uniting Church publishes additional marriage liturgy

Close-up of "Just Married" sign attached on convertible car's trunk. Horizontal shot.

The Uniting Church in Australia has today published an additional marriage liturgy that will allow same-gender couples to get married in Uniting Churches from Friday 21 September 2018.

The liturgy was approved by the Uniting Church’s Assembly Standing Committee which met in Sydney from 24 to 26 August.

The publication of the Uniting Church in Australia Additional Marriage Liturgy (2018) follows the decision by members of the Fifteenth Assembly Meeting in July to hold two equal and distinct statements of belief on marriage to honour the diversity of Christian belief among Uniting Church members.

Dr Deidre Palmer, President of the Uniting Church in Australia, has issued a Pastoral Letter to church members, to reassure people about the additional liturgy.

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News & Announcements

Celebrating 103 years

Osborne Park Uniting Church will be celebrating 103 years of worship in the area on Sunday 9 September.

Established in 1915, the original church has seen several additions and extensions over the years and experienced the variations in congregation size as many churches have.

At the centenary services in 2015, a total of about 220 attended, showing the many people who have attended over the years.

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Social Impact

Bobby’s first birthday present: the gift of giving

Dianella mother, Alwynn Hynes, wanted to give her son, Bobby, something special for his first birthday, something he could reflect on in later life as an event that helped shape the person he would become. That birthday present was the ‘gift of giving’.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Side by side in the everyday

L’Arche Australia is an ecumenical movement building community for people living with and without intellectual disabilities. Rather than a service provider, L’Arche encourages people to share life together – all the joys, sadness and mundane tasks we experience throughout our day-to-day lives.

‘Friends of L’Arche Perth’ has been meeting since 2003, and has built a strong network around regular gatherings and worship. The group are now at a stage where they are looking into how they could invite people into permanent accommodation together – one of the characteristics of the global L’Arche movement.

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Social Impact

Messages from the aether: August 2018

Domestic and family violence, climate change and voluntary assisted dying (VAD) were some of the pertinent issues discussed at Uniting Church in Australia’s 15th Triennial Assembly meeting in July. Elsa Samuel reviewed these sites that advocate and inform on these issues.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Youthful members reflect

The Uniting Church WA recently supported five youthful members to attend the 15th Triennial Assembly Meeting of the Uniting Church in Australia. Youthful members, aged under 30, take part in a program where they are encouraged to share with and support each other over the week. Three youthful members from the Uniting Church WA share their experiences from the meeting with Revive.

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Stories & Feature Articles

5 ways the Assembly meeting is more than business

While members of the 15th Triennial Assembly Meeting made important business decisions for the life of the church over the next three years and beyond, they also shared plenty of moments learning, being inspired and journeying together as the people of God. Here are just five of those ways.

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Social Impact

A Christian response to racism

President of the Uniting Church in Australia Dr Deidre Palmer has called on Australians to respond with love, hospitality and inclusion to a surge in anti-immigration rhetoric in Australian public life.

“Jesus’ great commandment to his followers was to love God and love your neighbour. As Christians we believe all people are created in the image of God and deserving of respect and dignity. Racism is incompatible with the Christian faith,” said Deidre.

In recent weeks, inflammatory opinion pieces have suggested a ‘foreign invasion’, a neo-Nazi has been allowed to air his views on a news channel; there has been more fearmongering about so-called ‘African gangs’, and a Senator has used his maiden speech to honour the White Australia Policy and call for future migration to “reflect the historic European-Christian composition of Australian society.”

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News & Announcements

Trayning Uniting Church celebrates 50

Trayning Uniting Church is celebrating 50 years of worship in their building; however their history begins well before that, in 1911. Their current building was erected in 1968.

A celebration was held at the church, with Valda Knott, Community Minister, delivering a short history of the congregation.

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News & Announcements

135 years of being church

Guildford Wesley Chapel will celebrate its 135th anniversary on Sunday 19 August, 9.30am.

Methodist church services began in Guildford in 1837 when the Hardy brothers travelled to Guildford. The services were held in private homes, the open air or in the Court House after it was constructed. Guildford Church became part of the Perth Methodist Circuit when it was inaugurated in 1840.

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