Introducing the 17th President of the Uniting Church 

By Rebecca Beisler

For Rev Charissa Suli it was an Emmaus moment. On the short road between Collaroy and Dee Why on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Charissa felt a deep and unshakeable call from God to dedicate her life to serving Christ within the Uniting Church.  

It was 29 October 2007. Charissa was 25, a young mum of three daughters. A few years before Charissa and her husband Langi made a pivotal decision to return “home” to the faith community where Charissa was baptised - the Uniting Church’s Cecil Gribble Tongan Congregation in Dee Why, named after a beloved missionary to Tonga. They soon became involved in youth group, Sunday School and lay preaching. As a young leader with an exceptional gift for singing, Charissa was invited by Rev Salesi Faupula (now Moderator-elect of the Vic/Tas Synod) to attend a NSW/ACT Synod Cross Cultural event at Collaroy and lead worship. Charissa clearly remembers not wanting to go, suspecting the occasion would be predominantly for people much older and unlike her.

However, she went along with Langi and two other young adults. And it changed her life.

In a surprising and enlightening way, Charissa found herself at a truly multicultural event.

“I was taken aback that a lot of the people leading at the front were actually migrant women,” Charissa recalls. Korean Minister Rev Aeryun Lee presented a session in the morning. It was the first time Charissa had seen an Asian female minister. In the afternoon, Fijian-Rotuman minister Rev Dr Seforosa Carroll led a Bible study.

“I remember sitting there listening to Sef. She was inspiring and I was like, ‘Wow! She's a Pacific Islander, and she's a Rev! She looks so young!’ And I remember from that moment, I thought, I could do that.”

On that day Charissa also met Rev Dr Tony Floyd, then Assembly Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Ministry National Director. It was the beginning of a friendship and mentorship that would open the door for Charissa to the wider national church and begin her thinking about her identity as a Second-Generation Tongan woman.   

So, on the way home, a short 5km drive from Collaroy to Dee Why, Charissa tells Langi to pull over on the side of the road.

“I say to him, there is this thing I need to tell you. I am crying my eyes out, and he says to me, I know what you're going to say. And I say to him, ‘look, I just need to tell you’, and we both turn to each other. I say, ‘I want to become a minister’, and Langi says to me, ‘you should become a minister’. It literally was the Emmaus Walk where our hearts were on fire.”

In this defining moment Charissa’s journey of ministry and service began, culminating this year in an historic moment in the life of the Uniting Church. In July, Rev Charissa Suli will be installed as the 17th President of the Uniting Church. She will be the first person of colour, of Pacifica heritage, and of Tongan descent, to lead the church nationally and the youngest to serve in the role.

At a time of great challenge, Charissa will offer spiritual leadership to the national Church. In doing so, she will draw upon her deep faith in Jesus and her Pacifica heritage, both of which have played a central and grounding role through seemingly impossible challenges on her path to leadership.

In the 1970s, Charissa’s grandparents left Tonga for New Zealand with their 12 children, sacrificing all they had for the sake of future generations. They arrived at a time of strident racism when Pacific migrants were targeted in what became known as the “dawn raids”, sporadic on-the-spot checks for visa papers, often in the early hours of the morning. Through all this, the family worked hard to establish themselves, and went on to help establish the Tongan-speaking church in New Zealand in a suburb called Otahuhu, working closely with the Pākehā (European) Methodist Church of New Zealand.

Charissa was born in Australia and schooled in New Zealand, until she and her mother returned to Australia to be closer to her elder brother, who was having his first child. However, at 16-years-old, Charissa’s indomitable spirit was forged in the crucible of early motherhood. She married Langi and gave birth to their baby girl, Susitina. 

“It changed the whole narrative of my life. I had no choice but to drop out of high school,” Charissa recalls. “I was a child having a child. I grew up very quickly.”

Carrying the shame of a teenage pregnancy, Charissa describes the years that followed as a time of “wilderness”.

“There was so much heavy baggage. Life was so hard. We felt so poor. The thing that held tight, I truly believe, for myself and Langi and our family, was our faith in God.”

With the foundational support of her mother, her husband and her deep faith, Charissa forged a path ahead. She became successful in finance and marketing. Charissa and Langi had two more daughters, Kina and Latu, and more recently, a son, Azariah Inoke.

Fast forward to 2007 and having just experienced a powerful call to ministry, Charissa made the decision to quit her job, forgo her six-figure salary and begin a Period of Discernment. Again, Charissa pushed back against cultural expectations and boundaries, with many questioning her sense of call.

“The voices I’d received at that time, were ‘you’re a woman, it shouldn’t be you, it should be your husband’. ‘You’re too young.’ ‘You faced teenage pregnancy’.  All that shame came up again.”

As well as weaving the mat so there is space for all, Charissa says the theme also calls the church to “unweave” the stands that hinder us.

“The theme calls for self-reflection and action to address the broken strands, in our society and in the Church. This involves identifying areas of inequality and injustice, lamenting past wrongs and working actively towards healing and transformation.”

For Charissa, one of the greatest challenges the Church must face is its own structural and cultural racism.

“I believe a lot of the structural racism is unconscious in the Church, and because we’re not aware of it, it actually hinders how we be in relationship.  We need to dismantle structural racism, ensuring that the commitments we’ve made are not just symbolic but deeply embedded in our governance and practices.”

This starts with how we can be in better relationship with the First Peoples of this country and with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, says Charissa.

“I truly believe until First Nations feel and find their voice in the Uniting Church, only then can we Second Peoples find our voice too. That needs to be our first priority.”

Further, Charissa names the importance of crossing cultural divides. As a proud Tongan, Charissa has long been an advocate for the culturally diverse voices of the church to be elevated and celebrated. A more intercultural church is an enriched church.

“When people say the Church is dying, it is often focused on a particular group of the Church which is predominantly the white Anglo communities.  When I look at the CALD communities, they are growing their number, impact and mission. You can see intergenerational age groups. That is not dying.”

“I believe migrants and Indigenous communities have the opportunity to influence how we offer hospitality and be in relationship with each other in the Uniting Church. This journey requires a commitment to ongoing reformation and renewal and the space for grace.”

“It’s not to say the Western way is wrong, and the Pacific way is right. We've got to be open to having that talanoa (dialogue) and building stronger relationships and being open for a new thread to be woven into the tapestry of the Uniting Church that will look different and sound different.  As we do this healing, transformation and reconciliation is inevitable as we extend the tapestry of the fala to reflect an inclusive church where no single thread holds dominance. Each individual thread that contributes to the fala is significant and represents the love of Christ”.

“It's about also giving the opportunity and recognising the leadership that migrant and Indigenous communities have to offer to the church. It's not about pushing out those who have been here for generations and generations. It's about how do we do this together. We need each other but we must take the time to learn from each other. It will be a joyful and painful journey but our diversity will be a resource for how we be the Church together.”

Another part of Charissa’s vision is for greater focus on discipleship.

“More and more young people are curious, and they have questions and want to be in dialogue about their spirituality and faith journey. We need to invest in the next generation, our children, our youth and young adults.  We want to be known as the intergenerational church, but we are not investing in that.”

Charissa says she hopes to work with emerging leaders to offer leadership at a national level.

“It is my hope, that as President, people will be inspired by the voices that we don’t normally get to hear, and people will be inspired or encouraged knowing they can speak into the life of the Church, and they do have a voice.”

“It’s saying to the Church, our young people are here. This is what it looks like when you give them the opportunity to lead.”

Looking back now on the Emmaus experience on the road from Collaroy to Dee Why, Charissa is still in awe at the journey God has taken her to this day.

“I still can't believe it. But I do believe we are in awe and we're always surprised at what God is doing. I truly believe that my calling into this next stage of my ministry, it's more than me. It's actually about what God is doing in the life of our Church. Because that's how radical the love of Christ is. God calls the ordinary, you know, the everyday, the young mum, who was happy just to finish theological college. And then God takes you to another height and ministry. I honestly bring it back to what God is doing. And we need to pay attention to what God is doing. But I do recognise it comes with responsibility.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around it, it’s unbelievable but I’m humbled as I stand on the shoulders of giants who have come before me.”

Charissa will be installed at the triennial meeting of the Uniting Church on 11 July when she receives the symbols of ministry from outgoing President Rev Sharon Hollis at St Stephens Uniting Church in Macquarie Street, Sydney. RSVP to attend the service or watch the livestream on the Assembly website.

Don't miss the coverage of the President-elect's barrier-breaking leadership on SBS News. Watch their TV news story and listen on SBS News Podcasts