MY HOPE is that the Uniting Church will creatively build on the strengths and gifts it brings to the whole Church and to our community.
We have a unique but complex relationship with the First Peoples of this land through the Congress.
This relationship needs careful attention, honesty, patience and forgiveness if the Church is to model to the wider community what reconciliation might look like in this nation.
I hope we can deepen this partnership and I dream of an Australia which honours its First Peoples symbolically and substantially.
I hope we can learn new ways to share the richness of our cultural diversity in the UCA so that our multicultural character informs our theology, spirituality, worship and witness.
I hope we continue to call people into relationship with the living God and continue our commitment to justice-seeking, peace-making and community service as integral to the same gospel.
I hope that our activism is undergirded by prayer.
I hope we can maintain our passion for deep and respectful conversation with the scriptures and our theological heritage (without idolising the past) whilst exploring new ways and words (without idolising innovation) to bear authentic witness to the Gospel in this time and this place.
I hope and pray for the renewal of our congregations so that in our gatherings for worship, prayer, community engagement and the presence of God is palpable.
I hope that in the great issues of our day — care for God’s creation, peace built on justice, fair distribution of the earth’s resources — the prophetic voice of the Christian Church can be heard.
If, as one theologian wrote, “the mission of the Church is to create analogies to the kingdom of God”, I pray that the Uniting Church in its many expressions can continue to pray and live “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven”.
Photo : Rev Alistair Macrae. Photo by Paddy Macrae and courtesy of Crosslight