In May this year, Dr Deidre Palmer, who at the time was the President of the Uniting Church in Australia, invited young adults of the Uniting Church WA to join her for a conversation. This would be one of eight entries into her project, ‘Around the Table’, which aimed to collate and represent the direct experiences of young people across the Uniting Church in Australia.
Living in a time of video calls and social distancing, it’s easy to feel unsure about what the future holds. Earlier this year many speculated about life on the other side of COVID-19.
Nine months on, that future remains uncertain. But for some members of our community, this precariousness has lasted much longer. For many refugees, a chance at a new life in Australia can mean living in uncertainty for eight or more years without knowing if they’ll be allowed to make their home here, or forced to return to the violence they sought safety from.
The Uniting Church WA, through the Social Justice Commission, has released a Covenanting resource for its congregations.
A Guide to Congregations in Walking Together as First and Second Peoples encourages and supports councils of the church to re-commit to the Covenant with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC), to engage and deepen covenantal relationships, and to inspire the church to take action for creating change.
The Uniting Church WA Thrive Mission Committee introduces Rev Rob Douglas as the new Presbytery Minister (Mission).
Rob is a Baptist Minister, with experience in regional WA, as well as with Baptistcare.
Anti Poverty Week will be held from Sunday 17 to Saturday 23 October.
Uniting Aid is a caring agency of the Uniting Church, supporting those receiving Centrelink payments in the City of Stirling. It started its life 40 years ago out of Dianella Uniting Church, offering donated food from the church vestry. Uniting Aid now operates out of church premises in Nollamara and helps families, single people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, those with disabilities, the culturally and linguistically diverse, those experiencing homelessness, and the elderly. The agency supports people with food every three months and with utility bills once every twelve months.
Uniting WA is thrilled to have opened the doors to its transformed Tranby Engagement Hub (Tranby), Perth’s first co-designed and purpose-built crisis intervention space for people experiencing homelessness.
Minister for Community Services, Simone McGurk, officially launched the newly renovated Tranby, made possible by a $1.7m grant from Lotterywest, at an event in June.
The Uniting Church WA calls on the Western Australian Government to work closely with the LGBTQA+ community and survivors of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts (SOGICE), including people of faith, to introduce legislation to protect people from harmful ‘conversion therapies’.
This practice, which encourages efforts to directly and indirectly attempt to change or supress a person’s sexuality or gender identity, has caused serious, ongoing, and tragic harm to those affected.
The Uniting Church WA calls on the Western Australian Government to commit to ending preventable deaths in custody, noting the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in WA’s justice system, particularly among young people.
The church also calls on the government to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; embed culturally appropriate mental health support in police lockups, prisons and places of detention; broaden cultural awareness training for police, juvenile justice and prison officers; and work with Aboriginal Elders, community leaders and organisations to co-design an Aboriginal Justice Agreement.
When Rev Sharon Hollis was named President-elect of the Uniting Church in Australia, the world was a different place.
It was pre-COVID-19. Before mandatory check-ins, the ubiquitous hand sanitiser, the mask-wearing emoji and we all got used to WFH.
On 17 July, Sharon was installed as President of the Uniting Church in Australia, the third women to hold the position and the first ordained woman in the role. However, she will do so in a global context no one might have predicted.
This July and August, my teenage son and I – along with millions of other people online – spent a lot of time watching the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. My son himself competes in summer athletics, so we were pretty eager to see who would take out the 100m sprint in the first games since Usain Bolt’s retirement.