JourneyOnline
THE WEST End Uniting Church Brisbane congregation, together with members from the Brisbane Congress Congregation at Zillmere, participated in a Service of Welcome and Healing on 30 May.
A Welcome to Country was performed by Uncle Joe Kirk, a descendent of the traditional owners of the land.
Significant ceremonial and liturgical acts formed part of a moving and uplifting service including a smoking ceremony, a symbolic hand washing, a blessing of the property and celebration of the Eucharist. Pastor Rodney Minnecon and musicians from the Zillmere Uniting Church led the service which was a time to acknowledge serious past wrongs and the church’s complicity in many of those wrongs.
It was also an opportunity to move forward together with hope.
At the conclusion of the service members of the congregation were asked to participate in a statement of commitment to an ongoing partnership including sealing it with a handprint.
As the congregation gathered afterwards many people from both congregations and the wider West End community reflected on the significance of the service. It held together honesty about the pain of the past with hopefulness for the future.
Brisbane’s inner city suburb of West End has been a significant gathering place for Indigenous people for many years. The West End congregation sees this as a new beginning in an ongoing partnership with the First Peoples.
In light of the proposed preamble this is a local expression of the ongoing Covenant relationship between the Uniting Church and Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
Andrew Johnson is Community Justice Minister at West End Uniting Church
Photo : Aunty Jean Phillips places her handprint on the ‘commitment banner’ at West End. Photo courtesy of Andrew Johnson
