Tag: Uniting Church

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Editorial: 15th Triennial Assembly

With the 15th Triennial Assembly Meeting of the Uniting Church recently held in Melbourne, this edition is jam-packed with news from the event. I didn’t attend myself, but as I watched along from home here in Perth I could see there was plenty of passion for the church in that meeting room.

Big news coming from the meeting which has gained a lot of attention is that Uniting Church ministers will be able to marry couples of the same gender if they wish to. Whatever your opinion on the issue, I think we can all agree that the Uniting Church has made history in Australia.

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Social Impact

15th Triennial Assembly Meeting

The 15th Triennial Assembly Meeting opened on Sunday 8 July in Melbourne, and Dr Deidre Palmer was installed as President of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Members of the meeting have already discussed some proposals on marriage;  heard from the National Task Group, which is the body appointed by the Uniting Church to respond to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; discussed sovereignty for Australia’s First Peoples; and have adopted a statement that commits the Uniting Church to repudiate all teaching and theologies that justify domestic violence.

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Making decisions amid God’s abundant grace

Uniting Church members from around Australia will come together in prayerful community at Box Hill Town Hall in July for the 15th Triennial Assembly meeting.

On Sunday 8 July, members of the 15th Assembly will install Dr Deidre Palmer as President, the second woman in the history of the Uniting Church to hold this leadership position. Deirdre has chosen ‘Abundant Grace Liberating Hope’ as the theme for the Assembly and the triennium. Read more about Deidre in our profile story here.

Deidre will be installed as President in a service at St Michaels Collins Street Uniting Church on the first night of the Assembly meeting. From Monday 9 July, the Assembly’s 265 members drawn  from across the councils of the church will decide the church’s national priorities for the next three years. The first tranche of reports and proposals were sent to members at the end of April. They cover a dauntingly diverse set of issues.

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News & Announcements

UnitingWomen: Weave wisdom and wonder

Uniting Church women from across Australia will attend the third UnitingWomen conference in Brisbane in September. Registration is open and planning for UnitingWomen 2018, a biennial conference hosted by the Uniting Church in Australia, is well underway. The conference will be held from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 September at Somerville House, located in the South Bank  precinct of Brisbane.

Queensland Synod General Secretary, Rev Heather den Houting says that while the location for UnitingWomen changes, the essence of the conference remains.

“UnitingWomen is about Christian women coming together in God’s name, finding acceptance, encouragement and inspiration,” said Heather.

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Social Impact

Moderator’s Column: Christ the controversialist

Some people love a good controversy. They write letters to the newspaper, attend rallies, join movements and engage in vigorous debates.

I am not such a person. I have, however, attended a number protest marches. My first was at the age of nineteen when I joined a couple of hundred other Christians, carrying crosses near a nuclear shipyard that planned to name a new nuclear submarine ‘Corpus Christi’, Latin for ‘the body of Christ’. We could not reconcile giving such a sacred name to a weapon of mass destruction.

More recently, I spoke at a rally on behalf of the suffering Rohingya people, and at Palm Sunday peace rallies I have felt compelled to join many other people giving support and solidarity to  poorly treated refugees.  I have reluctantly at times engaged in controversial issues, sometimes forgetting that Christ, who I claim to serve, was controversial. It seems that on some of the issues of the day, Jesus entered the controversy.

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Uniting Church opts in on Redress

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Stuart McMillan, announced yesterday that the Uniting Church will opt in to the Federal Government’s National Redress Scheme for people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse.

“We acknowledge the impact of child sexual abuse in the lives of those who have been abused in our institutions or those of our predecessor churches. To each survivor and all of their families, I am truly sorry,” said Stuart.

“It is our sincere hope that this National Redress Scheme will allow survivors of institutional child sexual abuse to access support to help them in their lives,” he said.

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Period of Discernment: time between you and God

A Period of Discernment (POD) with the Uniting Church WA is an opportunity to take some time to think seriously about God’s call on your life.

Sione Leaaetoa recently undertook a POD, finishing up the year-long process last year. He began the process after studying a Bachelor of Ministry at the Perth Bible College. Sione had known for a  long time that he wanted to work for the church, and since he, his wife Ana and their three children attend Scarborough Uniting Church, they decided to explore Sione’s call to ministry through the Uniting Church WA’s POD process.

Ana is now also undertaking a POD herself.

Sione feels that his POD cemented his calling to ordained ministry, meaning he is now going into the candidating process with a stronger knowledge about life in ministry.

“We knew that we wanted to be involved in the church, but to actually have that formal time of thinking and praying about it is actually good because you’re not just making the decision out of your own ego,” Sione said. “Through the POD, my calling to ministry was cemented because I feel like this is the right place for me to go. This is the right decision.”

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Discerning the faith journey

Sixteen members of the Presbytery of WA and one member of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (Congress WA) gathered for a retreat on Saturday 24 February, to give serious and prayerful consideration to the ways that they discern the will of God.

The group included six people who are engaged in a Period of Discernment (POD); one Candidate for a Minister of Word; five Faculty members of Perth Theological Hall; and the convenors and  some members of the Candidates for the Ministries Committee (CMC) and the Commission for Education for Discipleship and Leadership (CEDAL).

The group gathered at Kalamunda Uniting Church for the retreat, facilitated by Rev Gordon Scantlebury. The theme for the day was Discernment. The group used the tools developed by Ignatius of Loyola, to consider how we open ourselves to God’s Spirit, how we seek the leading of God, and how we discern and decide in our faith journey. The retreat ended with participants each sharing the burdens that they felt personally, and their best hopes for their own futures.

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Mission Fellowship celebrates

Uniting Church Mission Fellowship (UCMF) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia with three speakers: one who was at the inaugural service, one who was born into the Uniting Church, and one who came in from another denomination.

Rev Geoff Blyth gave us some understanding of the planning, the discussion, the argument and the scrutiny leading up to Union. It wasn’t all easy. The day of Union must have been so exciting with representatives from the Congregational, the Methodist and the Presbyterian churches meeting in different locations for official signings, then all processing to congregate together at the  Sydney Town Hall.

Our second speaker wasn’t even born forty years ago. Alexandra Bingham, Co-ordinator of Partnerships with UnitingWorld SA and WA, gave us an insight into some of the projects in other parts of the world. They are working together to help disadvantaged communities become more independent. What an inspiration!

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New directions for Uniting Church WA

Building on work done in 2014 and 2015, as well as this year by Rev David de Kock, General Secretary of the Uniting Church WA, members of the Uniting Church Synod of WA will have an  opportunity to engage with the new Synod Strategic Plan at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Synod of Western Australia this September.

In June, a Strategic Advisory Group, including members from Uniting Church WA schools, agencies and congregations, gathered to offer feedback on the plan before it is presented to the Synod meeting for final evaluation.

The Strategic Plan recommends that the church accomodate localised Centres for Mission, which will establish one place as a resourcing centre for several nearby congregations. These Centres for Mission will act like a Uniting Church hub, creating more support and resources for new activities. The plan also incorporates a three-year roll-on budget, which will provide more forward planning than our current one-year budget.

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