Opinion

Over the course of 2019, I want to take the opportunity to unpack a simple mission framework in this column. Conveniently the framework has four parts so that fits nicely into the format for the year. The four parts of this framework are represented by four words: Know, Notice, Discern and Act. If that’s all you need to know … ...

I hope all our readers had a blessed Christmas season. It is heart-warming to note how Wesley Mission Queensland and UnitingCare Queensland, in partnership with the Uniting Church in Queensland, made it their business to make Christmas a better experience for families in need. The 2018 Target UnitingCare Christmas Appeal raised $95 000, supporting more than 7000 families in need ...

In a new quarterly column Simon Gomersall dusts off the history books to consider how our past shapes the present and the future. Postcards from the past will highlight historical moments in the life of the church to help illuminate our own situation which seems fitting given the Christian revelation implores us to remember well. In 325 AD, the Roman ...

UnitingWorld’s Cath Taylor reports on how the spirit of Christ is alive and well in the life-changing work Queensland congregations are doing to help the people of Timor Leste. Billy Graham famously suggested there is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived. It’s a big claim. I guess he’s talking about ...

I remember when I used to watch Q&A on ABC, there was an episode from the Sydney Writers’ Festival. One of the guests was Peter Hitchens, brother of the famous atheist Christopher Hitchens. Peter is a commentator and journalist from the United Kingdom. When asked at the end of the show for signs of hope around them, the other guests ...

Second Chance Bangkok is an op shop with a difference. Run by a family from Australia and located on the edge of the infamous Klong Toei slum (Thailand’s largest, population 120 000), the op shop has arranged to receive surplus clothing from the many ex-pat workers who are employed in Bangkok on short-term contracts. Instead of shipping their wardrobe home, they ...

I was delighted to participate in the recent Queensland Synod Inspired Disciples event, taking the opportunity to explore a range of topics and perspectives on discipleship. In each session I also found myself thinking about mission. I was wondering “What does it mean to be a missional disciple?” and “How do discipleship practices inform my sense of mission?” The Queensland ...

The journey of the Magi has, in my latter years, become my favourite part of the Christmas narrative. It might be because of T.S. Elliot’s 1927 poem “Journey of the Magi” which we studied in school. Elliot evoked great drama and wonder out of a fairly sparse biblical source, at least in terms of who these people might be, where ...

As Christmas approaches, UnitingWorld’s Cath Taylor considers the wonderful progress we’ve made as a global community and what you can do at Christmas to make an extraordinary impact in the lives of the disadvantaged. Andy Williams is crooning about Christmas being “the most wonderful time of the year” as my trolley nicks a display of chocolate Santas and sends them ...

Rev David Ellis, who works in team ministry with his wife and pilot Janette in the Cloncurry-based McKay Patrol Remote Area Bush Chaplaincy, reflects on the power of the Christmas story. A family loses a primary school-aged child in an on-farm accident just weeks before Christmas. Visiting in the New Year, the younger sibling greets us and invites us in ...