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Wish your loved ones the hope, peace, joy and love of Christmas.

Sending our Christmas cards to your friends, family and loved ones is a great way to fight poverty, build hope and inspire others about the work of our overseas partners.

$15 for a pack of eight cards, with two of each design, and eight recycled paper envelopes. Each card design reflects a traditional Advent theme.

Order while stocks last!

Click here to order online

or call 1800 998 122 (9am-5pm, Mon-Fri AEST)

✅ Christmas greetings to your loved ones

✅ Send joy to the world

Fight poverty!

Christmas card sales represent a donation to UnitingWorld and are tax deductible in Australia.

New Everything in Common Catalogue 2024

 

Every Christmas, we release a catalogue of gifts that represent many of our projects with overseas partners. It’s called Everything in Common.

In it you can find great poverty-fighting gifts like goats, pigs, clean water, education and livelihood opportunities, as well as gifts that support gender equality and care for creation.

Shop online today!

 

On a crisp May weekend, Mardi Lumsden, UnitingWorld Donor Relations Manager, had the pleasure of venturing to Tasmania to visit UnitingWorld supporters and churches.

In Launceston, Mardi spent time with Presbytery Chairperson Rohan Pryor, hearing about the joys and challenges of the Uniting Church in the region. She also met with the staff of Scotch Oakburn College, a UCA school, as they shared their unique style of teaching and learning at AgFest.

On Sunday, Mardi enjoyed joining Penguin Uniting Church on Tasmania’s north coast to celebrate UnitingWorld Sunday, where everyone was welcomed with a lei*. Mardi presented Penguin Uniting Church with a certificate celebrating the fact that this small regional church raised over $5,500 through their Everything in Common stall last Christmas, the most raised in Australia!

Members of the community didn’t just buy gift cards. They also sold knitting and craft creations and donated the proceeds. The congregation were delighted at their achievement!

“We were most surprised to receive the news about Penguin being the best Everything in Common stall in the country,” said Penguin Uniting Church’s Jeanne Koetsier.

“To us it was a wonderful way to give twice: gift cards to family and friends especially at Christmas, then for the money raised to be given to countries where it will make a difference. In giving to UnitingWorld, we can be assured that we are ‘connecting Australian people to God’s work in the wider world’.”

Locally, the Penguin congregation has also made an intentional connection with seasonal workers in Tasmania. This year, that included around 40 young people, mostly women, from Timor-Leste who joined the church for the special UnitingWorld Sunday service and sang in multiple languages as well as giving a blessing to the congregation.

“UnitingWorld Sunday was joyous,” said Jeanne.

“We were inspired by our global church neighbours as we heard about their work … and were delighted to celebrate our global neighbours together with our friends from Timor-Leste.”

Mardi’s final stop was at Hobart North Uniting Church, where she enjoyed hearing an update on the region from Presbytery Minister, Rev Denise Savage. She also met with a group of wonderful UnitingWorld supporters coordinated by past UnitingWorld Board Chair, Rev Andrew Glenn, to discuss the vision and mission of UnitingWorld and hear of their own connections to this important work.

Find out more about UnitingWorld Sunday.

 

*Traditional Pacific garland worn around the neck.

 

A few weeks before her induction as the 17th President of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA), we spoke to Reverend Charissa Suli about UnitingWorld, her journey into leadership and hopes for her time as President.

There was a time when Rev. Charissa Suli didn’t think church leadership could be for people like her. 

“My home congregation was one of the first Tongan or migrant congregations that was established in the Uniting Church in Australia,” she says.

“I grew up in a tradition where it’s predominantly been older Pacific men who are the leaders and the ministers and that was my normal, which was fine, but it meant I didn’t think so much about paths like ordained ministry for myself.”

That was until, as a young adult, Charissa was invited to use her gifts of singing and worship leading to serve at a cross-cultural gathering.

“The gathering was filled with so many culturally diverse people, younger and older generations, and I saw Pasifika women, Korean women, Armenian ministers, it really surprised me.”

“For the very first time, I saw a Pasifika woman (Rev Dr Seforosa Carroll) leading a Bible study… and I said to myself: ‘I can do that.’”

Rev. Suli preaching at Bankstown Uniting Church as part of the Pacific-Australia Emerging Leaders Summit in 2023.

Encouraging others

Looking back today, Charissa acknowledges many mentors and vital opportunities that enabled her to step up into ordained ministry and church leadership.

“There’s faithfully leaning into the gifts God has given me, but it has also been about people giving opportunities, people seeing me for who I am, passing me the microphone and saying, hey, it’s your turn to speak.”

Her journey has made her a passionate advocate for helping provide opportunities and platforms for others to take up leadership, particularly women.

“Because I always believe that there’s enough room for all of us at the Lord’s Table, and if we run out of the chairs, then get the fala (mat) out, get the camp chair out. Because when I think about God’s inclusive and agape love, it’s so wide and so deep and it’s not going to run out. I truly believe that God will utilise each of us, in ways that we will never understand.”

Seeing the work of UnitingWorld come to life

“I’ve loved the opportunities I’ve had to see the work of UnitingWorld come to life,” says Charissa.

“The most recent experience I’ve had connecting with our overseas partners was being at a Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga (FWCT) conference last year, after the tsunami.”

“I was sitting at the front table, during one of the lunch times, and the FWCT President quietly says to me, “we’re just about to do a presentation of thanks to UnitingWorld… the National Director’s not here, but you’re here… I need you to represent the Uniting Church and present to the conference.”

Charissa knew churches in Australia had given generously to support Tonga after the crisis but didn’t know what exactly that translated into.

“So I get up and I’m rushing to the microphone, trying to think of what we gave, what it meant for people and the rebuilding effort,” she recalls.

“Then before my eyes, this truck is driven into the middle of the square pulling an enormous boat that was donated through UnitingWorld, and with it was life jackets, shovels, gardening and kitchen equipment… anything you can think of that’s going to help a community grow and rebuild again.”

It was just a glimpse of a huge range of equipment that was acquired to help resource and reconnect outer islands to sources of livelihoods that had been wiped out.

“I stood there with tears in my eyes because I got to see in real time the incredible work that happens behind the scenes,” said Charissa.

“And it wasn’t just me, I could see the leaders who were from the smaller islands who had really been doing it tough and they had tears coming down off their cheeks as they saw this equipment and knowing how much it’s needed and will be put to good use.”

“That was really beautiful and profound moment,” she says.

“It was really special to see the fruits of all the fundraising done by local Uniting Churches and how it comes to life when our partners can get what they need to support communities around them.”

“I felt so proud of the work that the Uniting Church and UnitingWorld does alongside the global church.

Hopes for the future

Charissa says she hopes to share and champion the story of UnitingWorld and UCA partners in her time as President, and particularly to lean into our mission of ‘connecting communities for life’:

“…when we have strong relationships, we can incorporate other voices, other generations, from people all over to be part of the talanoa (dialogue) that complements the work that’s already been done in terms of our international aid.”

“It’s looking at who is the next generation in our partner churches, where we can begin to introduce the younger generations who are here in the diaspora so that they continue the important work – because they’ll be standing on the shoulders of these amazing leaders who are here now in leadership, but who are we passing the baton to? I think that’s so important as we look to the future of our church.”

Despite being the first Tongan President of the UCA, Charissa is quick to point out that it wasn’t a factor in her discernment or thoughts about what she hopes to achieve in the role. “If God is calling me here, it’s a new opportunity to channel God’s love,” she says.

“If there’s something I think the President should do, it’s to remind the church who we’re called to be, to inspire the church to lean into their spirituality, to lean into their community and think about what are some of the ways we can strengthen our relationships with God and with each other.”

“And we need to remember the good news that we have to tell our world. We shouldn’t be silent. We have such good news to tell!”

Amen.

The second annual Pacific Australian Emerging Leaders’ Summit (PAELS) took place in December.

More than 70 young Christian leaders from across the Pacific and Australia came together for connection-building, leadership development and dialogue over a week-long program, coordinated by Micah Australia*.

As part of the program, delegates were hosted for worship services at Blacktown Regional Uniting Church and Campbelltown Uniting Church.

At Blacktown Uniting, President Elect of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev Charissa Suli, gave a sermon that encouraged the young delegates to boldly share their stories and their authentic selves.

“Your advocacy and voices are critical in shaping a future where the dignity of all human life and God’s creation is recognised and celebrated,” she told them.

Delegates went on to two days of advocacy training and a day of meetings with more than 50 members of Parliament in Canberra, where they discussed key development priorities for young people and their communities.

Raúl Sugunananthan, Policy and Advocacy Officer for the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly was one of those leaders. He spoke to us at Parliament House about the importance of community organising and political advocacy to make change. Watch what he shared below.

*UnitingWorld is a member of Micah Australia, a movement of Australian Christians to advocate on the most urgent global justice issues facing our world today – extreme poverty, rising conflict and climate change.

UnitingWorld is proudly part of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA), founded 46 years ago today.

Our anniversary is always a chance to remember the justice commitments we made to this nation and our world as a community following Christ.

Last year I shared some quotes from the Statement to the Nation that was first read at the Inaugural Assembly in 1977, a bold declaration of courage and vision. Since then, I’ve discovered that the UCA Queensland Synod made a video of it, and its brilliant! Check it out below.

I hope it inspires and challenges you as much as it did me.

My prayer is that we people of God will remember our commitments as we walk the journey together, and that God will guide our hands and feet to wherever we can best serve our hurting world.

Yours in hope,

Sureka 

Dr Sureka Goringe
National Director
UnitingWorld

“Loving God and loving our neighbour are woven together as we open our lives to the transforming power of the Risen Christ.”

Uniting Church in Australia President Dr Deidre Palmer has shared a sermon for Celebration Sunday, an event to conclude UnitingWorld’s Seven Days of Solidarity.

You can watch it here:

Download the video.

Download the full transcript.

Find out more about Seven Days of Solidarity

Grow your networks and experience.

Serve church and community with your unique skills.

UnitingWorld is the agency of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) driving international church partnerships to address poverty, injustice and violence. It is funded by faithful supporters in the UCA and accredited to distribute aid funds from the Australian Government.

Our skills-based Board has oversight over governance and strategy and has membership drawn from a range of professional fields within and outside the UCA.

We’re looking for up to four passionate members of the UCA to join the team. 

Basic skills in governance and strategy are vital, but we are also looking for a rich diversity in life experience.

We are keen to attract people who reflect the social and cultural diversity of the communities we partner in Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

Experience in international/community development, fundraising, finance and law are particularly valuable.

Click here for a full description of the opportunity.

Contact Dr Andrew Glenn, Chairperson of the UnitingWorld Board to express your interest.

andrewroderickglenn@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Grow your networks and experience.

Serve church and community with your unique skills.

UnitingWorld is the agency of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) driving international church partnerships to address poverty, injustice and violence. It is funded by faithful supporters in the UCA and accredited to distribute aid funds from the Australian Government.

Our skills-based Board has oversight over governance and strategy, and has membership drawn from a range of professional fields within and outside the UCA.

We’re looking for passionate members of the UCA to join the team with experience and skills in legal, governance, the development sector, strategy and/or marketing.

Contact Dr Andrew Glenn, Chairperson of the UnitingWorld Board to express your interest.

andrewroderickglenn@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Download this notice as a PDF

 

 

“This is who we are. A pilgrim people. United by the love that calls us to each other and the world…”

Our new video was shown to the 15th Triennial Assembly meeting of the Uniting Church in Australia last week and we’re excited to share it with you!

Because you’re part of it.

None of this work could happen without your support, prayers and shared vision of a world free of poverty and injustice. Thank you.

The video is a great way to find out what we do, how we do it, and the impact we’re making.

Please watch, download and share in your church community and social networks!

Share video on Facebook

Click here to watch or download on our Vimeo channel.

UnitingWorld will be holding a series of public seminars to connect our partners with supporters in Australia.

Across three events, representatives from eight of our international partner churches will discuss the unique challenges they face being the Church and addressing poverty and injustice in their contexts.

The events are free, open to members of the public. However, places are limited so please register to book your place here.

These events form part of UnitingWorld’s presence at the 15th Triennial Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia to be held in Melbourne, and Assembly delegates are enthusiastically encouraged to attend.

 

Event details for sessions

HOPE IN A TIME OF ADVERSITY (Mon 9 July, 1-2PM)

Our partners from Zimbabwe, Lebanon and Maluku discuss how they respond to these uncertain times in world affairs. In this seminar, Prof Andrew Glenn explores with them the challenges the church faces in these political hotspots and the Christian hope that sustains them.

BEING A MINORITY CHURCH (Wed 11 July, 1-2PM)

Living in the midst of Hinduism and Islam in Bali and Buddhism, Daoism and Islam in China, our partners from Bali and China discuss with Associate Director, Jane Kennedy, how the church is working to play a vital role building Christ’s kingdom.

THEOLOGY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (Fri 13 July 1-2PM)

How does the church respond to the prevalence and severity of domestic violence? On average one woman is killed every week by a partner in Australia and the spread of the #MeToo movement internationally since 2017 attests to widespread sexual harassment and assault. Our partners in Vanuatu, Fiji and India discuss with Associate Director, Bronwyn Fraser, how they are working to address belief systems which perpetuate domestic violence.

 

Venue / Location

The Matsudo Room

Box Hill Town Hall

1022 Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill VIC

Parking on street, behind library or multilevel carparks nearby

 

Cost

Entry is free – BYO lunch.

Tea and coffee provided.

 

Register for a session

Registration is essential as seating is limited and the venue is secure.

Register online: https://www.trybooking.com/WEKP

Or call: 02 8267 4267  |  0412 875 656

 

More information/enquiries: assemblysupport@unitingworld.org.au