Uniting Church Mission Educators in Melbourne

I’m in Melbourne this week, mostly for a gathering of Uniting Church mission educators. We’re at Holy Cross Centre in Templestowe, engaging with Tom Bandy, a consultant over from North America. Today’s discussion got us talking about how we help focus the energy of the Uniting Church in Australia as a movement. We centred on the spiritual depth that is a core part of any church’s preparation for mission. In Queensland we’ve neglected that in our resourcing of congregations by Synod staff.

At the heart of our unity and calling is the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus, in his life, death and resurrection demonstrated God’s love in action as much as in being. I’m reminded of an insight from the doctrine and truth course last week. If we change ‘one, holy, catholic, apostolic church’ from adjectives to verbs, we get a ‘uniting, sanctifying, boundary-crossing, sending-in-mission church’.

We unpacked some of the work done in the first year of the Uniting Church’s life – in the form of a description of our call into being as a distinct movement in Australia…

Our call as the Uniting Church in Australia is:

To preach Christ the risen crucified one and confess him as Lord;

To bear witness to the unity of faith and life in Christ, Rising above cultural, economic, national and racial boundaries;

To engage in fearless prophetic ministry in relation to social evils which deny God’s active will for justice and peace;

To act with God alongside the oppressed, the hurt, the poor;

To accept responsibility for the wise use and conservation of the finite resources of this earth for the benefit of all;

To recognise, treasure and use the gifts of the Spirit given to all God’s people for ministering;

And to live a creative, adventurous life of faith, characterised by openness and flexibility, hope and joy.