Features

OFTEN WHEN we think of people living in poverty we don’t think of the family or pensioner next door. United Nations statistics that half the world lives on less than $2 a day and that 30 000 children die every day due to poverty are terrifying and can overwhelm us, particularly those of us who have safe housing and three ...

CREATING A work-life balance is difficult, perhaps even more so when your employer is God. According to the study: Burnout in Church Leaders (Kaldor and Bullpitt 2001), based on National Church Life Survey research, nearly 23% of church leaders experienced some burnout symptoms and 55% were borderline to burnout. The report said that burnout affected leaders in paid and voluntary ...

THE HEADLINES scream of a 17-year life expectancy gap – a devastating figure by any measure. Report after report records statistical evidence of chronic issues in Indigenous health. According to a 2008 joint report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, ...

WHEN I lived in Townsville an Aboriginal man told me about the days of cutting sugar-cane by hand. The work was hard, hot and dirty. When he first started he was keen to get as much done as quickly as possible. He laid into the cane with energy and enthusiasm and was exhausted after a couple of hours. An old ...

WHEN WE talk about health we often only think of illness or disease. But there are many aspects to wellness as discussed on the Queensland Synod’s new Thriving in your Life and Ministry website (an accompaniment to the Healthy Church website). Compiled by Ann Warren, Queensland Synod Human Relations Adviser, and Rev Dr Robert Bos, Director of Pilgrim Learning Community, ...

“IF WE DON’T act now, by the time you realise that you should do something, it will be too late to save yourself and your country.” That is the message from Rev Tafue Lusama, Secretary for Peace and Justice at the Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu (Christian Church of Tuvalu) and Chairperson of the Climate Action Network Tuvalu. Mr Lusama, who wrote ...

The Uniting Church in Australia has taken its vehement opposition to the Northern Territory Emergency Response to the United Nations. The Uniting Church has written to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, currently visiting Australia, to draw his attention to the concerns being expressed by Indigenous members of the ...

The Uniting Church in Australia has today expressed its bitter disappointment over the failure of the Parliament to pass legislation that will support the prompt introduction of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The National Director of UnitingJustice Australia, Rev Elenie Poulos, questioned the commitment of the Opposition to seriously reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. “The Opposition ...

THE UNITING Church has always stood for social justice. It’s in our denominational DNA. In the 1880s and 1890s our former denominations rallied – quite literally – against alcohol and prostitution. From fighting for Indigenous land rights in the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties, and upholding Tony Fitzgerald during his investigation into police corruption, to the fight today to keep ...

I WAS IN Boggo Rd pre-Fitzgerald as a 17 and 18-year-old and then again just after Fitzgerald. I watched Fitzgerald unfold, I got out of prison and my life changed. We started Sisters Inside. I studied social work and more recently became a lawyer. Throughout all of this time I’ve watched and wondered just what happened about our dreams and ...