Category: News & Announcements

Happy birthday from KCO

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 23, 2017

This year, Kids’ Camp Out (KCO) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia with a massive birthday party.

Kids from congregations all over the Uniting Church WA joined in with party food, games and dancing on the Saturday night of the camp, 18 March. The night included well-loved party games such as pin the tail on the donkey, limbo, giant jenga and pass the parcel. A disco dance rounded off the night before campers headed back to their congregation groups for a story and supper.

Members of the wider Uniting Church WA were also invited to join in the celebrations with the adults playing their own party game; trying to land bouncy balls into cups.

Tags Youth

News & Announcements

Pancake Day supporting community

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 20, 2017

Pancake Day at Dongara Uniting Church has become a celebrated event around the town. Having started their event back some years ago when it was a Uniting Church WA sponsored event, the congregation have continued running Pancake Day as a local fundraising activity for community services provided through their church.

Setting up a dining area at the church, with a yellow tent they bring out each year, the event is quite popular. Guests can dine in, or pancakes are also delivered to local businesses.

Wendy Small, from Dongara Uniting Church, said that the event is well supported by the town.

Tags Church and Community, Easter

News & Announcements

Bible Society bicentenary

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 20, 2017

This year, the Bible Society Australia turns 200. A number of celebratory events have and will be taking place over the year, including the widely talked about and controversial partnership with Coopers Brewery.

The company had created a commemorative Coopers Premium Light Beer to celebrate the bicentenary. After the Bible Society Australia produced a video as part of their ‘Keeping it Light’ campaign, which featured two Liberal MPs having a ‘light’ discussion about marriage equality over a Coopers beer, Coopers found themselves in the midst of a boycott. Coopers have since stated that they have cancelled the commemorative cans.

Tags Theology and Spiritual Reflections

News & Announcements

Cool Burn Camp back in May

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 18, 2017

Cool Burn is an intercultural family camp for people living in Western Australia (WA) and is organised by the Uniting Church WA’s Multicultural Ministry. For two days and one night, people from culturally diverse backgrounds get together to share their faith and inspire each other.

Rev Dr Emanuel Audisho, the Uniting Church WA’s Multicultural ministry co-ordinator welcomes all to join the camp.

Tags Multi-Cultural

News & Announcements

Moderator’s column: Jungle journey

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 14, 2017

It is often said that God is a God of surprises.

Every once in a while I find myself in a situation that I could never have expected or predicted. A month or so ago, I found myself in a dugout canoe, with an outboard motor travelling along the Irrawaddy river, in a rural and remote part of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. I had to pinch myself; how did I end up here?

The simple answer is that my jungle journey has its origins with the Karen congregation that meets at Uniting Church in the City (UCIC), Ross Memorial West Perth, and the movement of the Spirit.

The pastor of the Karen congregation is Rev S’Win Shwe, who trained in the Uniting Church’s theological college in Sydney (UTC). Last year, he invited me to have dinner with the president of the Pwo Karen Baptist church of Burma, Rev Mahn Benson, who was visiting Perth.

Fast forward four months and out the blue comes an invitation to speak at the 100th year anniversary service of the Pwo Karen Baptist church in Myanmar and at the opening of their renovated church in Yangon.

Tags International, Our People and Agencies, Theology and Spiritual Reflections

News & Announcements

Support for communities affected by Cyclone Debbie

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 3, 2017

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Stuart McMillan, has asked church members to lend their support to Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) appeals for communities suffering in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.

“Our Church will be there to support people in need and help Queensland and northern NSW recover,” said Stuart.

“Please continue to pray for the safety and the welfare of all affected communities, as they come to terms with their losses.”

“I ask all UCA members to please try to support our appeals, which go to support ministry in these communities.”

Cyclone Debbie made landfall on the Whitsunday Coast as a Category 4 storm with winds of more than 260 kilometres an hour on Monday 28 March causing extensive damage.

Five days later water, shelter and communications are still limited into towns of Ayr, Bowen and Proserpine.

Torrential rains from the weakening cyclone have also seen rivers in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales reach record peaks, causing major flooding in Beaudesert, Lismore and the Tweed Valley.

Tens of thousands of residents had to be evacuated.

Tags A Helping Hand, Disaster Relief, Remote and rural communities

News & Announcements

The presence of Christ in the Middle East

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 2, 2017

A delegation of Uniting Church leaders travelled to Lebanon in January with the aim of building relationships with churches in the region.

The delegation included Stuart McMillan, president of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rob Floyd, national director of UnitingWorld, and three Uniting Church ministers from the Middle East, including Rev Dr Emanuel Audisho, multicultural ministry co-ordinator for the Uniting Church WA.

The group met with the leaders of the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and the National Evangelical Church of Beirut. They also visited a range of historical sites, including one of the ancient jars from the biblical story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2) and one of the earliest memorial sites of the Armenian Genocide in Antelias.

While in Lebanon, the group also spent some time at Fondation le Grain de Ble, a program for local refugee children which provides camps, clubs, sport, literature, games and entertainment for refugee children in Lebanon, with an aim to share God’s love.

Tags Intercultural, interfaith, International, Multi-Cultural, Multicultural

News & Announcements

Building on solid foundations

Post author By revivewa
Post date February 22, 2017

Rev Ivan Clark was inducted as a minister of the Word at Noranda Uniting Church on Sunday 19 February.

Prior to induction at Noranda, Ivan has been serving as a minister of the Word at Melville Uniting Church, and has been the chair of the Strategy Mission and Planning Committee. He had also been involved with Youth Council when it was operating.

Rev Margaret Tyrer preached at the service, opening with an anecdote about her grandparents and parents building houses, and describing the hard work they put into it. Tying into the reading of 1 Corinthians 3:10-23, Margaret said that the Apostle Paul used vocabulary around building, and he identified with the application to provide for the family.

“But Paul was not writing about anything physical,” she said. “He was using words about physical things to refer to something spiritual. He was using metaphor.

Tags Church and Community