The Uniting Church is a multicultural church
In 1985 the Uniting Church in Australia declared itself to be a ‘multicultural church’. The Uniting Church seeks to live as a community that includes and celebrates the rich diversity of God’s created peoples living out the Gospel call transcending cultural and other barriers.
Our Diverse Church
The Uniting Church rejoices in diversity of races, cultures and languages as God’s gracious gift to the human family.
On any Sunday, around 200 congregations within the Uniting Church gather to worship using a language or languages other than English. Around 45 languages, 15 of which are languages of our First Peoples, are used each week across our congregations.
We continue on our journey to fully realise what it means to be a multicultural church, living faith and life cross-culturally.
We do this by:
- building relationships that are based on mutual respect, collaboration and recognition of the gifts and calling of peoples of diverse cultural and language backgrounds
- assisting the Church to fully utilise the gifts and calling of members from culturally diverse backgrounds
- continuing to develop respectful and reconciling relationships with First peoples across the life of the church
- developing culturally sensitive and appropriate policies that respond to the needs of UCA members
- fostering models of cross-cultural ministry and mission, outreach and evangelism that reflect the hospitality of God
There is a growing number of ministers and lay leaders across the Uniting Church who have come from overseas or born here in Australia from migrant parents. Many of our Church properties are shared with congregations from across the diversity of ethnicities we find within Australia.
National Conferences
Uniting Church National Conferences provide opportunities for people of the same culture to meet together for worship, fellowship and development.
National Conferences:
- Facilitate congregational networking and cooperative discussion so they can address issues and celebrate good news within the life of congregations and its people.
- Provide opportunities to learn and reflect on how to engage and develop ministry and mission within the life of their congregations and the broader Uniting Church.
- Develop the next generation and nurture the young people in leadership and growth.
- Enable the voices of different communities to be heard and make a distinctive contribution to the life of the Uniting Church.
Currently there are 12 National Conferences within the UCA.
- Tongan
- Fijian
- Samoan
- Niuean
- Indonesian
- Filipino
- Vietnamese
- Korean
- Chinese
- Tamil
- Middle East
- South Sudanese
Language Resources
The Uniting Church is continually developing and collating resources for our diverse communities in a wide range of languages.
Search our Resources page to find materials in your language.