Tag Archives: SUMMER2019

General Secretary of the Queensland Synod Rev Heather den Houting reflects on the recently released Mission Impact Report and the challenges and opportunities facing the Synod office and the wider church. Our church is a broad and complex organisation seeking to live out its call in a time of change. The Mission Impact Report, released in October, highlights the work ...

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 ...

Over the course of 2019 we have been unpacking a simple mission framework in this column. The framework is represented by four words: Know, Notice, Discern, Act. In this edition we consider the final component: Act. At the end of the day, mission involves action. Whether it’s proclamation, serving, hospitality, talking, listening, advocating, encouraging, celebrating, lamenting, building, giving, teaching, sharing ...

Did you get to see any of the ABC’s Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds? Wasn’t it great to see the life that the children brought to the residents, and equally the life that was shared by the residents with the children! You will be interested to know that Blue Care has been doing this for a while. The ...

Rev Heather den Houting reflects on the listening phase of the Project Plenty discernment process. Over the past six months, more than 600 people from across the life of the church have attended consultation and engagement sessions throughout Queensland. We have heard that people care deeply about the Uniting Church and want to see it prosper into the future. That ...

As part of the Queensland Synod’s ongoing commitment towards genuine reconciliation and its recently launched Covenant Action Plan (CAP), various Second Peoples from Queensland’s southeast visited Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) for a walk on country. Queensland Synod CAP Project Officer Erin Mawhinney reports. On the Queen’s birthday holiday in early October, 17 people from the Uniting Church, the Uniting Aboriginal ...

Felipe Beltran reflects on our wonderful Uniting Church bush chaplains who minister to those living in remote Australia. I caught up with Frontier Services bush chaplain Pastor Cain Hartigan and his wife Jacki at the Birdsville Races earlier this year. We talked about the needs of people in the Cunnamulla-Burke and Wills Remote Area, where rural communities are losing key ...

What does it mean to be One Church? Four Queensland Uniting Church members share inspirational stories of how multicultural church enriches our faith, our worship and our fellowship. Language that speaks to the heart My name is Carla Cristine Diniz and I am from Brazil, a country where people worship deeply. I grew up in church and I was always ...