Uniting Generations and Multicultural Ministry of the Uniting Church WA are holding a joint event designed to nurture young people in their spirituality.
Young people aged between 15 and 35 are invited to attend Going Deeper, a one-day retreat. The retreat will bring together young Uniting Church WA members from different cultural backgrounds to explore their faith and encourage each other on the journey.
Please note: As a Yolŋu person, all posthumous depictions of Rev Garrawurra are governed by customary law.
The obituary and the image that accompanies it are not to be shared on social media at the request of Rev Garrawurra’s Djungaya. Nor is the first name he was formerly known by to be used.
Local residential and community aged care provider Juniper, a Uniting Church WA agency, has successfully secured a $350 000 Commonwealth grant to help deliver much needed additional accommodation and services in Wyndham.
“Regional Western Australia, particularly the Kimberley, is an area of great need for quality aged care services and we’re very grateful to receive grant funding that will go a long way to establish staff housing for the Juniper Marlgu service,” Chris Hall, CEO of Juniper, said.
Peter Thomson, who passed away on 18 January 2019, was a significant contributor to the life of the Uniting Church WA over a long period.
Peter’s contribution has been many, varied and consistent. Parish Secretary, Church Councillor, Trustee member, Secretary Presbytery, Synod Standing Committee, Chairperson Synod Property Board and member of Synod Resources Board to name a few.
When you’re going to Bali, it’s rather cool to be able to say you are going “on work!” Especially when talking to other West Australians going there for the usual reasons.
Rev Marie Wilson and I were able to say this as we fronted up to the Jetstar flight out of Perth on a recent Saturday night. We had a job to do! Our task was to introduce some of the senior clergy of the Balinese Protestant Church (Gereja Kiristen Protestan di Bali – GKPB) to the discipline of professional supervision.
We soon discovered they knew a lot about ‘supervision’, but that what they knew was more about top-down management than professional supervision, and anyone who has experienced that kind of top-down management tends to steer clear of supervision. It’s a common misunderstanding, even among our enlightened Uniting Church ministers.
Dr Scott Hollier, Digital Access Specialist and member at Kalamunda Uniting Church, shares his five top tips for making church more accessible for people with vision impairments.
As a young Christian in the 90s, there was great community support in helping me understand my early Christian journey. As a person with a degenerative eye condition, there wasn’t much opportunity back then for the materials to be designed in a way that worked with my failing eyesight.
While the support of my church has remained steadfast all these years, something that has changed in a positive way is technology and the
wealth of opportunity to make worship accessible to congregation members with disability or seniors that may have difficulties seeing or hearing
the service.
In a similar way to installing a wheelchair ramp at a church entrance, reviewing and improving your digital processes can significantly strengthen the
message of support and inclusivity as we continue to become more reliant on digital content.
As such, I’ve put together my top five tips on how you can improve your content to support the one in five Australians with some form of disability – many of which are likely to be coming along to your service.
Stuart McMillan, Assembly Consultant for Covenanting, shares his thoughts on remembering a Day of Mourning, annually on the Sunday before Australia Day.
This January, Uniting Church congregations across the country are being asked to hold worship services that reflect on the effect of invasion and colonisation on Australia’s First Peoples. The observance of a ‘Day of Mourning’ was endorsed by the 15th Assembly at the request of members of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC).
Rather than seeking a change to the date for Australia Day as some propose, the UAICC asked the church, in the spirit of the Covenant between us, to declare the Sunday before Australia Day as a Day of Mourning. Assembly members enthusiastically agreed.
Morningstar Press, 2018.
Rev John Queripel is a retired Uniting Church minister in NSW with a varied career in congregations and chaplaincies. He is known for his social justice concerns and his scholarly approach to understanding Christianity today.
His latest book is informed by scholarly understanding of the differences between factual writing about what happened and the power of metaphor and myth to convey deep meaning. For many modern readers it will be a new experience to read the chapters that describe conditions in Judea when the
gospels were written and which show the very different agendas of the only two New Testament writers who provide more than passing reference to the birth of Jesus.
The chapters guide the reader through the strange world of first century story and myth to an appreciation of the meaning of the stories about Jesus’ birth for us today. We may also reflect, sadly, on the way many churches celebrate Christmas giving prominence to magical stories of a baby, but little focus on the transformative life and teachings of the man who gave rise to such stories.
For more about other publications by John Queripel at www.facebook.com/JohnHenryQueripel/
David Merritt
Pan Macmillan Australia, 2018
No Friend but the Mountains is a piece of literary genius, calling all Australians to account for the atrocities done in our name. The very way it was written, smuggled out of the Manus Island detention centre through text and Whatsapp messages, then painstakingly translated from Farsi to English, is astounding.
Written by Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani who has been incarcerated in Manus Island detention since 2013 and translated by Omid Tofighian, it is a first-hand witness account of – and an act of resistance to – our nation’s policies of detention and deterrence.
Behrouz Boochani tells his own story – and that of his friends – with empathy, respect and vivid descriptions bringing them to life through the pages. He mentions by name only those who have died on Manus Island, referring to others by nicknames and monikers. For those of us familiar with the men who have sadly lost their lives; The Smiling Youth (Hamid Khazaei) and The Gentle Giant (Reza Barati), his storytelling brings back the grief and anger we experienced when these avoidable tragedies occurred.
Each story is heartbreaking, personal and political.
With an official population of just 104 people, at first glance Yealering seems like any other small Wheatbelt town. A grand old pub, some silos, a small general store, and a row of houses lining the few streets that make up the town; you could be forgiven for thinking that’s everything this quiet and peaceful town has to offer. But those of us that take the time to linger and look beyond the main street will discover much more.
The town was gazetted in 1912 on the shores of the spectacular Lake Yealering. Originally a fresh water lake, it was an important source of water for traditional custodians of the area, the Ballardong Noongar people.