Features

IT’S a number of f rsts for Adelaide’s Amel Manyon. She is the first South Sudanese woman to be ordained into the Uniting Church in Australia. Ms Manyon will also become minister of the newest Uniting Church community in South Australia, the Uniting Church Northern Suburbs Dinka Speaking Faith Community, located at St. Stephen’s Uniting Church, Elizabeth North. She was ordained ...

THE Uniting Church’s Statement to the Nation in 1977 is a remarkable declaration. Read an extract below. If we look at it in today’s context, it is still current and the public commitment to Church made 35 years ago still needs to be upheld and strived for. The Easter is love theme is an attempt to capture the diversity of ...

THE majority of the chocolate used in the eggs on sale this Easter has been produced by children who have been trafficked or forced into slave like working conditions in cocoa plantations across West Africa. According to World Vision Australia, 70% of the cocoa beans used to make the world’s chocolate comes from West Africa. Large chocolate companies such as ...

AN attempt to reignite neighbourhood connections and assist those in need has turned out to be a bigger blessing than the Combined Churches of Townsville realised. Neighbour 2 Neighbour (N2N), their National Day of Thanksgiving activity held on 18 June last year has now gone on to become more of a way of life than a one-day event and won ...

WORLD-RENOWNED theologian, Bishop NT Wright, and Micah Challenge International Director, Rev Dr Joel Edwards, have joined Australia’s Rev Dr John Dickson and Rev Tim Costello to inspire Christians in Australia to tackle global poverty. A new interactive five-week Bible study created by World Vision Australia, The Faith Effect , suggests that the church is best positioned to break the cycle ...

EASTER is around the corner and with Easter eggs already in the shops the Stop the Traffik coalition is working hard to help people realise the true cost of these delectable treats. The reality of chocolate is far from romantic. Around 70 per cent of the world's production of cocoa comes from West Africa — Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and ...

THE role of teacher is a significant one in everyone's lives. In the formal education system alone, everyone has memories of the impression, good or otherwise, a teacher has made on them. As children, we are often unaware of the dedicated professional community that nurtures our progress through education. Now, as an adult and a parent, I stand in awe ...

PARTS of Queensland have once again been hit by rising flood waters and it's taking its toll on many regional communities. Roma, in the western Darling Downs area in South West Queensland, was one of the severely effected towns in the Maranoa region. Minister at Maranoa Uniting Church, Rev Linda Hamill, said this year's flooding has been much worse then ...

PEOPLE learn in many different ways. Our experiences of learning are influenced by the way we interact with our world. Whether we are in a classroom, workplace, at home or at church, we are interacting with information and making decisions that expand our understanding of the world. It’s interesting to think that the way we view the world shapes our ...

A couple of years ago a friend of mine told me she was giving up chocolate for Lent. I looked at her with utter incomprehension. The whole concept of Lent seemed archaic (and the concept of giving up chocolate positively barbaric). It is an attitude that is perhaps reflected by the person who recently reacted with bemusement to a blog ...