News from Uniting Church SA
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Tuesday 19 August 2025
Introducing keynote speaker Rev Glen Spencer
Introducing Rev Glen Spencer, who leads the Mission Team of Uniting Mission and Education resourcing in NSW/ACT.
Glen works in church planting, deciding where and how the NSW/ACT Synod establishes new communities. He has also served as the Manager at HopeStreet Woolloomooloo – leading a team committed to contributing to a healthy, integrated and empowered local community in the inner city.
Glen will be delivering the keynote address ‘Sacred Disruption – Joining the Spirit in renewal of the Church’ on Friday to open our Renew event.
Renew 2025 – Resources now available
With Renew 2025 only 8 weeks away, we've created a range of resources to help you spread the word in your congregations. These include:
- A PowerPoint slide – for you to display during your services
- A poster – for you to print or email to friends and members of your congregation
- A logo – for anywhere else you can think of!
You can download these resources right now from the link below. And look out for more resources coming soon.
Don't forget to register for the event as soon as possible to assist us with planning.
Renew Grant
We're excited to announce that, with the support of UC Invest, the Synod is launching a new one-off grant for innovative projects flowing from the Renew event. This grant is available exclusively to attendees at Renew!
UnitingWorld – Gaza Crisis Appeal
You can help support the people of Gaza impacted by violence, through UnitingWorld's Gaza Crisis Appeal. Your gift will support ACT Alliance and their local church partners to provide urgent emergency relief and to work to restore basic services for people affected by the violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Please give today to bring hope and relief where it is needed most.
Safe Church alert
Churches may receive an email from a company ANCC who is offering to provide Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Record Checks. Please note this is not applicable or necessary for congregations as all our screenings are conducted through the Synod Screening Unit and Department of Human Services.
Reminders for screening that are due for renewal come from the UCSA Screening Admin (ssu@sa.uca.org.au). DHS is actively sending reminders to all who have WWCC due for renewals, but please wait until you get a reminder from this office to recommence the renewal.
Our next Screening Assistance Day will next be offered on Tuesday 23 September. The team is available to help with screening applications either by appointment over the phone or in person at the Synod office. Bookings can be made by either emailing ssu@sa.uca.org.au or calling the Synod office 8236 4200 for that day or at a time convenient for all.
2025–26 Celebrate Together Round 2
Funding Available – Celebrate Together Grants
Grant funding is now open through the 2025–26 Celebrate Together Round 2. These grants support multicultural organisations to host festivals and events that share cultures, customs and traditions with the wider South Australian community.
- Funding available: Up to $5,000
- Project period: 6 months, commencing 1 January 2026
- Applications close: 11 pm, Sunday 14 September 2025
Please note, this grant is highly competitive and attracts many applications.
The application form, guidelines, and online grant tutorials are available at
Celebrate Together Grants | Department of the Premier and Cabinet
Online morning tea with Anna Wilson Next Monday August 25
Anna Wilson, our Graduate Disability and Advocacy Officer, will be hosting an online morning tea to share a bit about herself and her hopes for the role. If you are someone living with disability, know someone living with disability, want to help make your churches and facilities more accessible to everyone, or just want to find out more about Anna’s role, come along!
Anna says, “I am passionate about making sure that people with disability are involved and included in churches, and that churches are accessible for people with disability. I want to work with people with disability, and with congregation leaders, to find the best ways for everyone to be included and be able to participate in and contribute to congregational life”.
The online morning tea will be held on Monday August 25th at 11:30 am. Make yourself a cuppa, then join the Zoom meeting.
Meeting ID: 851 8043 2901
Passcode: 558413
Red Dove Cafe – it's not too late!
There are only a couple of weeks till the Red Dove Cafe is fully operational! We would like to invite you to sign up now and come and join the fun and fabulous opportunity to work with others and serve the community.
All welcome email volunteers.rdc@gmail.com to sign up and we will contact you about available shifts.
A new way of enjoying the Show
Come and experience a whole new way of enjoying the Royal Adelaide Show – combining volunteering at the Red Dove Café with a deeper experience of reflecting missionally on your observations during the day. This exciting initiative, offered for the first time this year, will be led by Rev Scott Litchfield from Mission Resourcing.
The whole-day event will begin with coffee or breakfast, followed by orientation and a time spent walking around the Show in ‘observation mode’. After doing a shift at the Red Dove Café, you’ll have another period of focused observation in one of the ‘worlds’ at the show, then regather as a group to share your reflections.
The program is entirely FREE, and is being offered on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th of September. Spaces are limited, so book early on the link below
UPDATE: The September 2 session is now booked out!
Thanks from the UCA Stamp Group
We are thankful to all the church fellowships, businesses and individuals who continue to support the UCA Stamp Group by saving and donating stamps. Numerous stamp collections that are no longer needed have been donated and more are always gratefully received.
The UCA Stamp Group offers Australian and overseas stamps for purchase at the Synod Office, 212 Pirie Street, Adelaide, on Monday mornings from 9:30 am to 12 noon. Collection from the metro area can be arranged if required.
For more information, please contact:
Maxine Haines – Convenor
Email: jimmax.haines@bigpond.com.
Mobile: 0427 972 417
Events
Awaken Adelaide Learning Plenary – This Thursday evening
The next Awaken Adelaide Learning Plenary for Missional Leadership is coming up on August 21.
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski, Mission Catalyst from NSW & ACT Synod, will be speaking on the subject of Embodying God’s mission in a multicultural neighbourhood.
When: Thursday, 21 August, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Yarthu-Apinthi / Uniting College for Leadership and Theology,
312 Sir Donald Bradman Dr, Brooklyn Park SA.
RSVP: Please RSVP to mr@sa.uca.org.au for catering purposes.
Highbury Street Fund – Call for applications
The Highbury Street Fund supports leadership development across a variety of church expressions for CALD congregations and faith communities.
Applications are now open for projects that meet the Fund’s criteria. Further information and the application form are now available!
Applications close: 31 August 2025.
Applications will be considered at the Uniting College Grants Committee meeting in early September.
Truth telling and listening
Glenise Coulthard, an Adnyamathanha woman, shares the story of her people, while Mike Brown reflects on his pastoralist forebears' deadly encounter with First Peoples in the Flinders Ranges.
This is a free event co-hosted by Pilgrim Uniting Church and Unley Allies with First Nations Peoples.
Date: Sunday 24 August 2025
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Location: Unley Uniting Church, 187 Unley Road, Unley.
Upcoming events
August
September
News from the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia this week includes:
Reflection of the week
A Gift for Experiencing Reality
When it comes to honoring our emotions, we have to say both a strong “yes” and a strong “no”. We must begin with “yes” because so many of us were trained, by family and religion, to not feel our feelings. They thought they were doing us a favor, because they didn’t want emotions to rule our life. Unfortunately, that gave a moral connotation to even having feelings, not just the negative ones like anger, resentment, or fear, but the positive ones too, like pleasure, happiness, and even desire. The overt or subliminal messaging “That’s wrong. That’s bad” stunted our capacity to appreciate, and to suffer or to allow the full meaning of reality. Emotions are, first of all, a gift from God so that we can touch reality by a way other than our brain.
Father Richard Rohr
A prayer for the week
An affirmation of faith
from the Iona Abbey Worship Book
We believe that God is present in the darkness before dawn,
in the waiting and uncertainty where fear and courage join hands,
conflict and caring link arms
and the sun rises over barbed wire.
We believe in a with-us God
who sits down in our midst to share our humanity.
We affirm a faith that takes us beyond the safe place
into action, into vulnerability,
and into the streets.
We commit ourselves to work for change, and put ourselves on the line,
to bear responsibility, take risks,
live powerfully and face humiliation;
to stand with those on the edge,
to choose life and be used by the Spirit
for God’s new community of hope.
Resources to help people worship and pray together as a gathered community or at home. These resources are generously prepared by Rev Cheryl Wilson.
Positions and placements
Activity Facilitator – Beyond Limits Outdoor Education – Open now
Administration Officer, Resources – Closes by 1 September
First Third of Life Ministry Leader – Keiraview Uniting Church, Wollongong, NSW – Closes by 8 September
Centre Manager, Adare – Victor Harbor – Closes by 30 September
UC eNews is the weekly email newsletter of the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of South Australia. If you’d like to include content in UC eNews or on the Synod of South Australia website, please submit it by COB Mondays.
