Opinion

Oh God, the more we pray, the more our voice blends with yours. We pray because our body wants your presence. We dream because you dreamed first. We create because you created it first. We love because you loved us first. We dream because we want to see the kingdom among us. We believe because you conquered death by resurrecting. ...

A few people have been saying to me, “Well, you’ve only got a few months to go, I guess you’re winding down”. Anything but. This is a big year of preparation and change in the life of our church. The voice of the church through Project Plenty is an encouragement to all of us in the councils of the church ...

With headlines dominated by devastating bushfires and the threat of a global pandemic there’s a real sense of brokenness in this world, but as UnitingWorld’s Cath Taylor points out, Christ has always worked through the cracks. “Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack, a crack in everything: that’s how the light gets in.” ...

Despite what you may have heard, the current status of Christianity around the world is not all doom and gloom: there are still regions experiencing rapid Christian growth and their stories provide useful lessons in how we may be missionally fruitful and socially transformational. Simon Gomersall writes. Brave is the person who attempts to predict the future. Or foolish. I ...

If Star Wars is a significant spiritual and cultural text for our modern world, what does that say about our dependency on pubescent fantasy to make sense of things (including Christianity)? Ben Rogers argues that the popular science-fiction series is perfectly acceptable for young people but is hardly the stuff of serious contemplation for anyone beyond teenage-dom. Unless you’ve been ...

Queensland Synod General Secretary Rev Heather den Houting provides an update on the Project Plenty visioning exercise. “If you think the institutional church will look like this in five years’ time, then you haven’t been paying attention.” This is one of my mantras in 2020, and a sentiment that is being reflected in the What we heard report emerging from ...

In 1402 Jan Hus was appointed preacher to the University Chapel of Bethlehem (in Prague, a city in Bohemia) which had been founded 10 years previously as a centre for preaching in the native language (as opposed to the previous ecclesial practice of conducting services only in Latin). Week by week, Hus thundered away in the pulpit against the corruption of the clergy, ...

Queensland Synod General Secretary Rev Heather den Houting reflects on the devastating consequences of climate change for those in the Asia-Pacific and her experience at the 2019 UnitingWorld conference in Bali where climate justice was a key topic. I wonder why we don’t listen to our Asia-Pacific partners more closely when it comes to issues around climate change? We know ...

Leaving a legacy Some of us might shy away from thinking about leaving a legacy as it makes us think about death. But legacy is really about life and living. Thinking about our legacy helps us decide the kind of life we want to live and the kind of world we want to live in. A dictionary would define a ...

UnitingWorld’s Cath Taylor reflects on expectations and transformations over the Christmas period and how the journey towards positive change is life-long, relational and hard won. There’s an assumption about “poor people” that gets splashed around this time of year, when many of us are celebrating and feeling a tad guilty about it. It shows up in the face of the ...