Our declaration of a Day of Mourning allows us to stand together in remembering the truth of our history and honouring the culture of Australia’s First Peoples, their families and the next generations. This worship service will be an annual fixture on our liturgical calendar that reminds us of the dispossession and violence against First Peoples and laments that as a Church and as Second Peoples we were and remain complicit. We encourage you to join with other Uniting Church members in lamenting, saying sorry and asking for forgiveness, for the past and current impacts of colonisation and dispossession of Australia’s First Peoples. UPDATE (18 Jan):Uniting Church President Dr Deidre Palmer has recorded a Survival Day video message with young Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Congress leader Sean Weetra on Ngarrindjeri country in South Australia to accompany the Day of Mourning Resource.
Day of Mourning Worship Resource
The Day of Mourning Worship Resource invites all Uniting Church in Australia congregations to hold worship services that reflect on the effect of invasion and colonisation on Australia’s First Peoples and our identity as a nation. In the spirit of our Covenant relationship with the UAICC, we have declared the Sunday before Australia Day January 26 as a Day of Mourning.The observance of a Day of Mourning was endorsed by the Fifteenth Assembly at the request of our sisters and brothers in the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC).