WHEN I was about 19 years old, at the end of the year I dyed my hair bright purple. I wasn’t a rebellious teenager but I never wanted to be just like everyone else my age, I wanted to do something a bit different, and this was it. But I was terrified of what people at church would say on ...

ANNE AND Geoff (not their real names) have a familiar story to tell. Highly involved in their church communities, between them they have run youth groups, taught Sunday School, been on the Church Council and even ran a bible study at their home. Then, an internal congregational issue not only drove them away from that congregation, but church in general. ...

“WE HAVE to attract young people into the church because young people are the church of the future.” I remember hearing people speak like this when I was in my late teens in our church. When I heard that, I wanted to cry out, “But I want to be part of the church today!” We still say similar things about ...

WHEN I first arrived in the Burdekin, North Queensland, I went on a listening tour to discover what people’s hopes and dreams were for the church. A quite consistent message emerged; they wanted a church where their children, both 40 and 4, could belong. I suspect that this is a heartburst felt across the whole of the Uniting Church – ...

THE AUSTRALIAN population is in itself ageing but according to National Church Life Survey (NCLS) data, the church still has more people aged over 50 years and fewer under 40 years than the general population. According to NCLS data, the Uniting Church has the fewest members (8 per cent) aged between 15 and 29 of all Australian mainstream Christian denominations. ...

THE CORE way I live out my faith is by trying to love others in every situation, following Christ’s example, and thus trying to live out the Kingdom. I have a particular passion for social justice issues and a vision for a just and compassionate world in which all people have the opportunity to achieve their God-given potential. My faith ...

WHEN I was a youth worker I had a youth group of fifty young people. Many of them were males with no church affiliation, who used to spend time wandering the town in groups. One night, after we had wandered around town and nearly got in a fight, I sat them down in my lounge room and read them some ...

ON PENTECOST Sunday, 12 June, Coorparoo Uniting Church celebrated 125 years of serving the community. Coincidentally when the former Methodist Church was opened on 13 June 1886, it was also Pentecost Sunday. The timing of the congregation’s birthday celebrations could not have been more perfect. To mark the anniversary, Coorparoo Uniting Church hosted a special combined service on Sunday 12 ...

"Norway has today experienced an unprecedented and horrible level of violence against innocent people," said Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran pastor and general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Dr Tveit, who is currently in Norway, had just left Oslo when he learned of the bombing of a government building and the shooting at a ...

BLUE CARE Indigenous Co-ordinator in Far North Queensland, Donna Corrie, has been appointed as an Ambassador with the Australian Government’s Indigenous Education Ambassadors program. Ms Corrie, a Torres Strait Islander based in Cairns, said she was overwhelmed when she received the letter from the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Hon Peter Garrett MP, confirming her appointment. ...