Features

You may remember the movie The Man Who Sued God. It tells the story of Steve Myers (Billy Connolly), whose fishing boat was struck by lightning and destroyed. The insurance company refuses to pay, citing a clause in the small print excluding “acts of God”. Of course “acts of God” are not defined in insurance policies, and Mr Myers argues ...

THE UNITING Church’s foundational document, the Basis of Union, states many different purposes of the church. Some of these include: “preaching Christ the risen crucified One” (para 3); “to be a fellowship of reconciliation” (para 3); “be led to deeper commitment to the faith and service” (para 12); “order its life in response to God’s call to enter more fully ...

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL will host a one-day conference in Brisbane on 19 February to help educate people as to how human rights instruments can be applied to governance, law and enforcement and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Queensland. Co-chairs of the event, to be held at the State Library, are Les Malezer, the 2008 Human Rights ...

LAST OCTOBER Rev Sue Pickering led a small group to Chennai, South India, to put their faith in action. Ms Pickering’s local community in Wilston also got behind the trip with local businesses donating money to projects supported by the Church of South India. “The aim of the visit was to be challenged by the idea that we believe God ...

WHILE MANY young people were planning New Year’s Eve celebrations, more than 900 people from Australia and overseas came together for the biennial National Christian Youth Convention 2011 (ncyc11) on the Gold Coast. Approximately 350 delegates were from Queensland and around 100 delegates were part of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress group. From 29 December to 4 January, ...

There may be 5000 miles between India and Australia but there are similar stories of survival and faith over the past six months. In July 2010 the flood in the states of Haryana and Punjab, in North India, affected more than a million people. Most of the farmers lived in weakly built houses. They were asked to evacuate but couldn’t ...

The Uniting Church in Queensland comes from a great tradition of giving to help the poor. The prophet Agabus didn’t have the Bureau of Meteorology to help forecast a famine in Palestine when he warned the early church leaders in Antioch. The area around Jerusalem was hit hard in 46 AD and the church responded generously to an appeal by Paul, ...

THE ENORMOUS clean up is well under way in Central and South-East Queensland and the Downs Presbytery after the region experienced the worst flooding in 30 years. Thousands of volunteers have turned out to scrape mud off flood affected properties. Volunteers also fed those cleaning. Long road to recoveryDespite tragedy communities have banded together on the long road to recovery. ...

THE FLOODS, and now cyclone, which have affected so many people in Queensland have touched the hearts and minds of Australians in an outpouring of grief and concern. The media has brought saturation coverage of every aspect of the event; yet in the months and years that follow, the process of recovery will continue unseen. What is that process, and how ...

Thousands of local organisations that are part of the not for profit community sector have thrown themselves into helping people recover from flooding throughout Queensland. “Local community organisations have been active at a time when many would have normally scaled down for the summer break,” says QCOSS Director Jill Lang. “Workers and volunteers involved with neighbourhood centres and other local ...