Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I write to you in preparation for the upcoming Presbytery and Synod meeting to be held at Adelaide West Uniting Church from 23-25 November.

Planning is underway for this significant event in the life of the Uniting Church. Reports are being prepared, and these will soon be available via email to members and via the Uniting Church SA website. I encourage members of the Uniting Church in South Australia to pray for this meeting and for congregations to ensure they have members attending.

Our meetings are always times of joy as the Church gathers. At our upcoming meeting, we will be ordaining Katalina Tahaafe-Williams as a Minister of the Word during our celebration of ministry service.

We will also be addressing sensitive issues surrounding the topics of marriage, and sovereignty and treaty for First Peoples at this meeting. These topics will be addressed at the 2018 Assembly meeting, where each Synod’s reflections will be shared.

Conversations about marriage have already begun in our communities of faith, and I have called for those conversations to be respectful. I am thankful for the way that our community has generally responded to this call.

By the time we meet, the results of the recent Marriage Law Postal Survey will be known. As both President Stuart McMillan and I have previously emphasised, regardless of any legislation change, we will continue the process of discernment in relation to marriage and same-sex relationships in a way that reflects the Uniting Church’s commitment to uphold Christian values and principles.

As we move into the Presbytery and Synod meeting space, we will be using working groups to address the questions posed by the Assembly Standing Committee. We will be using the respectful listening strategy from the Space for Grace framework, and engaging in both small group discussion and plenary sharing. (To view the questions and find out more about Space for Grace please see the New Times article here.) The General Secretary will be forwarding our responses to the Assembly Standing Committee in preparation for the 15th Triennial Assembly meeting next year.

Meanwhile, as we continue to engage in community, I request that congregations continue to be respectful of the current position of the Uniting Church on marriage. This should be reflected in sermons, social media and signage associated with each church.

Our covenant relationship with First Peoples makes the discussion on treaty and sovereignty another high priority for this meeting. The meeting papers include a discussion paper by Rev Dr Chris Budden (online here) that will be used in the working groups at the meeting. The Uluru Statement from the Heart (online here), which was prepared by the First Nations National Constitutional Convention in May 2017, has also been provided in the papers as a resource for this discussion.

I ask those members who are attending to prayerfully read through the meeting papers. If you are a member of a church, I ask you to uphold those who gather in prayer. Please pray that we are able to seek to hear the word of God in council, as our Basis of Union encourages us to do.

To God be the Glory,

Rev Sue Ellis
Moderator
Uniting Church SA