National News

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 ...

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Queensland and New South Wales as they face the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Debbie. Nature has a way of reminding us that we are not at the centre of things and that the environments we physically construct can’t necessarily withstand with nature. Yet today, tomorrow and the next day, the wider Australian ...

Uniting Church leaders appearing before the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse have pledged to survivors to make the church the safest place it can be for children. Journey reports. President Stuart McMillan assured the Royal Commission hearing in Sydney on 10 March that the Uniting Church would continue to apply the lessons learned from the Commission’s work. “As church ...

This year’s Yurora National Christian Youth Convention saw hundreds of young people travel to Stanwell Tops, NSW for a week of worship, workshops and more. Ben Tupou reports. A triennial event held by the Uniting Church, the youth convention hosted delegates aged 16 to 25 from around Australia and at least six different countries worldwide. Yurora 2017’s purpose was to ...

For over 67 years, the Christmas Bowl has been a way for compassionate Christians to express the love of Christ to those in great need around the globe, with this year’s appeal focused on drought-stricken Zimbabwean farmers. Jess Xavier reports. Giving is such an important part of Christian living and last year generous Uniting Church members in Queensland raised over ...

It will take a leap of faith for our churches to grow. That’s the message from the inaugural Uniting Leaders conference held at the end of August at Newlife Uniting Church, Robina. Dianne Jensen reports. Lay and ordained leaders across the generations were encouraged to step up and out into new models of leadership at the three-day Uniting Leaders conference ...

Over one hundred young adults from across Australia attended the 2016 National Young Adult  Leaders’ Conference (NYALC) where the church’s multicultural identity was on full display. Journey reports. While there’s often talk of ageing within the Uniting Church, NYALC demonstrated that a new generation of culturally-diverse young people is coming through to enrich the identity (and grow the congregations) of ...

Fijian-Australians and Uniting Church congregations across Queensland have opened their hearts to communities in cyclone-devastated Fiji. Journey reports. Fijian-Australians could only watch and wait over the weekend of 20 February as news filtered through about the impact of Fiji’s worst cyclone. Particularly hard-hit by Cyclone Winston were the north and north western coast of Viti Levu, the south coast of ...

Ten years after the Close the Gap campaign began, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians still die younger and are less educated than non-Indigenous Australians. Mardi Lumsden reports. The eighth annual Close the Gap report (released 9 February) shows only two out of seven health, education and employment targets are on track. While halving child mortality by 2018 and better ...

More than 1000 retired Uniting Church ministers have had their retirement incomes slashed by Federal Government superannuation changes that came into effect on 1 January. Matt Pulford reports. Changes to the tax treatment of defined benefit super schemes mean more than 80 per cent of retired members in the Uniting Church Beneficiary Fund are losing thousands of dollars a year, ...