Less than a month to go!
Make your response to the Act2 Project

People across the Uniting Church have less than a month to make a response to the Act2 Project in the current major phase of engagement. The Collective Discernment phase, which launched in June with the release of a major Act2 report, will close on 30 November after an intensive period of discernment across the country.

By responding to the Directions and Options put forward in the report, you can help directly shape the recommendations to go before the 17^th Assembly in July next year, and in turn, the future of the Uniting Church.

Every part of the Uniting Church has been invited to respond to the report. We are listening through the councils of the church and have specifically invited Church Councils to give time to this discernment. Individual members of the Church can also respond.

If you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed by the process to respond, send the Act2 team an email and we can help.

The sheer amount of information and resources available may be overwhelming and make it difficult to know where to start. Here are three things that people in local communities can do right now to equip themselves with the key information they need to consider the future directions and submit their response in these final weeks.

1. Read the key takeaways from the Act2 Report

These eight takeaways from the major Act2 Report help to summarise the challenges and opportunities people across the Uniting Church shared during the Act2 team’s first round of engagement between November 2022 and May 2023 (more detail in Section 2 of the Report). These insights about our life are important to grapple with if we are to discern whether the options and directions proposed will help us meet our challenges and take hold of opportunities.

2. Watch a short video on the Directions

We are asking local congregations and communities to particularly respond to the four Directions which are about the future of local communities and found in Section 5 of the report. This short video will give you a full overview of the four Directions in four minutes and would be the perfect thing to show your congregation or church council prior to a discussion.

There is also another short video which gives an overview of just the Options, and a longer (10 min) video for a full overview of the current phase of the Project and the four Options and four Directions.

3. Come to our final Going Deeper session

If you’re feeling stuck or want to equip yourself to lead this conversation, come to our final Going Deeper session and get some tips directly from members of the Act2 team. Thursday 16 November, 7:30pm AEDT. Register for the Zoom link here.

Make your response

We are asking local communities to focus on the Directions in their discernment. There is a guide for Church Councils to help people have this conversation, and a form to fill out. You might invite your church council, team of leaders or even whole community into this discussion. The most relevant material in the Act2 Report is in Section 5, focusing on the Directions. To equip people for the conversation, you could share this section of the report with people and the short video on the Directions.

If you're having difficulty navigating the response form, send your thoughts to the Project by email.

Find all the information and documents you need below.