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17th ASSEMBLY
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Embracing a new future together

Amid promise and pain, the Assembly’s General Secretary is calling on Uniting Church members to embrace deep, systemic change and live out our faith together

 
 

October 1, 2025

by Andrew Johnson, Assembly General Secretary

A little over a year ago I stood on the floor of the Assembly in Session to accept the appointment as the Assembly General Secretary. Now, almost 12 months on from commencing in that role, I step back to look at what I have learned about our Church and where we are going.

As I travel around the Uniting Church there are parts of our Church where there are diverse, multicultural and multiage communities where faith is flourishing. We have innovation and imagination in so many pockets of our Church where new communities are thriving. We have so many people across our congregations, agencies, schools and councils that are proclaiming Jesus’ liberating justice.

However, we also have communities where faith is a staid, pale imitation of the glory of Christendom. We know there are communities that are withering. We also know that there are communities not experiencing Jesus’ liberating justice as the inequities of our wider world manifest themselves in the Church.

I see Presbyteries and Synods grappling with these realities in their daily lives. Struggling and wrestling with new ways of expressing their responsibilities and yearning to encourage new ways of expressing God’s call on our life.

However, I also see a system under strain. Councils struggling with the finances and personnel to fulfil their responsibilities. Managing their way around our complex regulatory environment, exacerbated by our own internal misalignment of systems and processes. Battling with entrenched power and inertia born of years of failed attempts at change.

 

“Change will only happen if there is a movement wide ambition for and insistence upon change.”

 

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Change, real, significant, systemic change is more urgent than ever. However, it won’t be successful if we simply wait for the outcomes of a small group of people gathered in a meeting. Act2 Commissions will not delivery the panacea to every challenge. Change will only happen if there is a movement wide ambition for and insistence upon change. Existing power dynamics will need to be challenged and new ways of working and relating will need to emerge.

So, what of the role of the Assembly. We are committed to the following areas which are part of our responsibilities as part of the Uniting Church:

  • Cultivating our theological culture
  • Promoting mission from the margins
  • Ordering our life for God’s mission
  • Accompanying the global church with purpose
  • Renewing our Covenant commitment
  • Speaking prophetically in the world

Through this we want to be a Church with a flourishing faith, thriving communities and proclaiming Christ’s liberating justice.

Now is a time to commit to gathering around the table to wrestle with the big theological issues facing us.

Now is a time to listen to those on the margins of the Church and society as they lead us in Christ’s way.

Now is the time to be reordering our life so we can work together more closely, share our common life and wealth and be oriented more towards mission.

Now is a time to learn from the global church, those parts that are thriving in different contexts to our own and those facing common challenges.

Now is a time to truly live out our Covenant commitments, to take seriously the deep relationship we have expressed and to equip and resource Congress for its ministry.

Now is a time to speak boldly in a world facing shifting tectonic plates, where justice, mercy and love are in short supply.

This will require being radical in our faith and life together. Change will be essential. Old divisions will not serve us well in the future. To accept Christ’s renewal, we will need to die to self and rise with Christ.

Andrew Johnson
Assembly General Secretary
Uniting Church in Australia

Andrew johnson 011025
 
 

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