President at Church of Scotland General Assembly

Uniting Church President Rev Sharon Hollis is in Edinburgh this week at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The annual gathering brings together 500 church leaders to hear reports, share fellowship and set the agenda for the national Church.

Rev Hollis was invited to bring a greeting to the General Assembly on behalf of overseas delegates and visitors. The text is below.

Also present at the General Assembly is Uniting Church minister Rev Tara Curlewis, who is currently serving in Rome as minister of St Andrew's Church and as the Reformed Ecumenical Officer for the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

You can keep up with news and see the photo galleries on the Church of Scotland website.

Greeting to the General Assembly

Rev Sharon Hollis, on behalf of overseas guests

Moderator and commissioners, delegates and guests of the General Assembly.

We sang earlier today that all are welcome, and so we thank you for welcoming us as guests and friends to this General Assembly.

On behalf of each of the partners present here I greet you in the name of Christ and on behalf of each of our churches. We have come from many places from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. We come as siblings in Christ, to learn from you and to help you learn from us, to build understanding and friendship together across the global community of Christ.

We remind you and each other that the household of God is multi-lingual, multi-accented and multi-coloured and that diversity reflects the triune God.

Commissioners, please come and say hello to us, tell us a little of your story and ask us a little of our story.

Coming from Australia I could not speak for all of the overseas partners or their challenges, and so I want to say a few words from my own context and hope that there is something that speaks to you too.

We like you face difficult decisions. We need new ways to share the gospel. We have property that is no longer fit for purpose. We need to reform our governance. My own church, the Uniting Church in Australia, has been engaged on a journey begun 4 years ago, and intensively for 18 months, listening across the UCA, reflecting back, listening some more and now have a report and recommendations that will be considered at our Assembly in July.

It is a privilege of being part of the global church that we can learn from each other as you face similar challenges.

I want to tell you a wee bit of family history.

When my ancestors left Dumfries four generations ago they did not know the full story of the lands they were going to.

They did not know that they were going to make a home on lands stolen from people who had lived continuously in harmony with each other and creation for at least 65,000 years and since creation. They did not know that were part of a system that robbed so many First Nations in Australia of their land, language, names and culture. 

I admire your work on truth telling in relation to slavery and your involvement in slavery reparation conversations. It was a gift to hear of this work from the retiring Moderator.

There is more truth telling to be done about the legacy of European colonisation beyond conversations about slavery. It continues to diminish all of us in our witness to the gospel and capacity to live fully as God’s children.

It has infected our theology, our liturgy and our mission.

It is work we must do together, the work of decolonising the church. It is good work, hard work, holy work. It is necessary so that we might more faithfully live the gospel. 

Thank you for welcoming us and the work of God we share in.

Image L: Rev Tara Curlewis and Rev Sharon Hollis (both front left) with other overseas delegates to the Assembly and Moderator Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson (centre front).

Image R: Rev Tara Curlewis and Rev Sharon Hollis.