Dreaming dreams and seeing visions

Next Sunday 28 May begins Uniting in Prayer, 26 days of prayer across the national Uniting Church. Born out of the national Act2 Project, Uniting in Prayer is about bringing our Church before God at this moment in our life and seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit for our future.

A new message from President Rev Sharon Hollis is now available to use in launching Uniting in Prayer on Pentecost Sunday.

"Today on Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the gift of the breath of Christ on every believer, the outpouring of the Spirit on a new community called to a new character of life," says Rev Hollis in the video.

"Today marks the beginning of 26 days of prayer across the life of the Uniting Church. Just as the Spirit guided the very earliest church to form its life around Christ and be guided by Spirit of Christ, so we trust that we are being guided by Christ in our conversations about the future."

"As we gather for these days of prayer, may the Spirit pour out upon us, and may we dream dreams and see visions of the future that God has for the Uniting Church."

Over the last five months the Act2 Project has been in an intense period of deep listening to the experiences, joys, frustrations and hopes of people right across the Uniting Church. This has helped us understand our context, many of our challenges and what might be needed to support our future mission and ministry.

Uniting in Prayer begins the second phase of the Project - Collective Discernment - in which we will grapple with what was heard across that time and invite the whole Church to engage with some possible options and directions.

It is deliberate that Uniting in Prayer stands at the beginning of this work. Instead of the movement between phases being marked first by a report (coming in June), an intentional time of prayer prepares us for the imagination and deep discernment this next phase will demand. Before anything, we are the interconnected body of Christ placing ourselves again in the hands of God who holds the future.

For 26 days we’ll be sharing prayers drawn from across our Church and our rich faith tradition, gathering for worship and prayer locally and inviting Uniting Church communities to pray for each other.

We will hold before God the deep and wide range of things being felt across our Church at this complex moment of our life. In all of this, we come together to give thanks for God's faithfulness in our past and present, affirm our hope in Christ and seek new paths under the leading of the Spirit.

You can participate by:

• Hosting a worship or prayer gathering in your church
• Praying for other Uniting Church communities through the national prayer chain
• Praying together at home
• Praying with us daily
• Praying online with others from across the national UCA

See more information about all these opportunities here.

We invite you to mark the launch of Uniting in Prayer next weekend in whatever way works best for your community, and to speak with others about how you might take part through the 26 days.

Resources for Uniting in Prayer are now available and include a suite of worship and prayer resources, theological reflections and an intergenerational resource to use at home.

Make sure you’re signed up to Uniting in Prayer to get all the updates, and a daily prayer through the 26 days.

To download the video, go directly to the Vimeo link and click the 'Download' link beneath the video. Choose your download size and the download should begin automatically.