Local Church News

As the Uniting Church celebrates 40 years, we recall the legacy of love and respect between the Fijian church and the Australian missionaries who served there. Dianne Jensen reports. Viti Packer’s room at Parkview—Wesley Mission Queensland’s Wheller Gardens aged-care community in Brisbane—is a cheerful space full of family photos from across the generations. For 93-year-old Viti and her sisters (Bethe) ...

As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Uniting Church, we also celebrate the many culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities with whom we have united on the way. Ben Tupou was at Sunnybank Uniting Church in Brisbane to witness the welcoming of a Cook Island community into this vibrant cross-cultural church. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and ...

Following early recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Queensland Synod developed and implemented its Interim Redress Scheme. During the first six months of this scheme, the survivors have been reporting positive outcomes, Journey reports. Designed to be a genuine alternative for survivors not seeking common law damages, the Queensland Synod’s Interim Redress Scheme ...

Rev Trevor Foote reminisces about the origins of the Uniting Church in the Ipswich area and how Glebe Road Uniting Church was born on the old grounds of the St John’s Presbyterian Church. Church union in 1977 saw the initial formation in Ipswich of one of the largest and most diverse Uniting Church parishes in Queensland, and possibly Australia. Seven ...

There’s more to creating a new congregation than adding a new time slot to the church sign and putting out the tea and biscuits. Dianne Jensen talks to Duncan Barlow, pastor at Toowong Uniting Church, Brisbane about what it takes to build a healthy Christian community. After seven years with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Indonesia, Duncan Barlow and ...

After 40 years of running day camps, it’s clear that the folk at Redlands Uniting churches just love going bush. Journey ventured down the dirt roads of a campsite south of Brisbane to find out why everyone keeps coming back. It’s easy to see the attraction of the Karingal Scout Campsite at Mt Cotton, the site of the Redlands day ...

Sometimes little acts of hospitality go a long way to strengthening the community. Ashley Thompson talks to Granite Belt Uniting Church minister Rev Kaye Ronalds and Stanthorpe Uniting Church member Jean Pyle about their efforts to reach out to young families. Since Easter last year, the Stanthorpe congregation has been providing weekly hospitality to the parents and siblings of young ...

Hope was on the horizon when winter rains brought smiles back to the faces of western Queenslanders. Ashley Thompson checks in with Longreach Uniting Church minister Rev Jenny Coombes. Although 80 per cent of Queensland remains drought declared, the Longreach community has had their spirits lifted by the wettest winter on record. “Since the rain has come, morale has lifted ...

It may be a perennial party favourite but ping pong is at the heart of a nation-wide campaign to help end the exploitation and trafficking of young people throughout South East Asia. Ben Rogers reports on the Ping Pong-A-Thon and one Uniting Church teenager picking up the paddle to make a difference. In 2011, a group of Aussies endured a ...

A small congregation in one of Queensland’s iconic tourist destinations is demonstrating the power of the Gospel to draw people together. Dianne Jensen talks to members of the Magnetic Island Uniting Church. Christians from all denominations and none have found a church home at the Uniting Church on Magnetic Island, a tiny piece of paradise just off Townsville. There hasn’t ...