Belong

Everyone is welcome at Uniting Life. All are encouraged to belong. We seek to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Our vision, beliefs, values and practices are focused on forming followers of Jesus. To belong is a commitment to and participation in the relational fabric of Uniting Life alongside other people who follow the way of Jesus.

Our
Values

What we value most, as followers of Jesus, is being empowered by the Holy Spirit to share in the ongoing ministry of Christ, which transforms lives through:

  • Bringing peace and wholeness to people’s relationship with God

  • Uniting individuals within a community of people who authentically worship God, declare Jesus as Lord, and faithfully build each other up as followers of Christ

  • Wholeheartedly serving others in our everyday lives through words and actions that bear witness to the love and hope of God

  • Faithfully working to build up the wider church, especially through empowering leaders, planting faith communities and regenerating congregations

Our
Practices

  • Worship immerses us in God’s story. We sing it, tell it, hear it, live it daily and weekly so that we can be shaped by it and celebrate it.

  • We pray continually because it draws us into relationship with God in all sorts of ways. We praise, we confess, we lament, we pray on behalf of others and we give thanks. Prayer is a thoroughly normal way for people to reach out to God.

  • We are constantly formed and shaped by the ways of Jesus learnt through the Bible, the history of God’s people over the centuries, through our experiences and that of others in the present.

  • Peace is wholeness, it is sharing in the reconciling work of God to put the world right, renewing it from the brokenness caused by injustice.

  • Everyone has value and dignity. We seek to give of ourselves so that other people encounter love, know their worth and have renewed hope.

  • We are sent to share in the work of Jesus to make disciples and to grow believers to maturity in the way of Jesus

What We Believe

The confessional substance of what we believe is found in the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church, especially paragraph 3. We believe in the following:

Trinity

We believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is relationally intertwined in perfect love.  It is why we declare that God is love (1 John 4:8)

Creator

We believe that God is the creator of life in heaven and on earth.

Faith

We believe faith is awakened through Christ inaugurating the reign of God on the cross and confirming it with his resurrection.  Everyone, everywhere can have relationship with God because of this (2 Cor. 5:17-18). 

Hope

We believe Christ is the hope of the world, for he alone will complete the work of his resurrection by renewing the whole of creation when he returns.

Love

We believe that the extravagance of God’s love is for all people, always, and is perfectly seen in the life, death, resurrection and ongoing ministry of Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

Humanity

We believe that people are created in the image of a relational God, formed to live in loving relationship with God, with others in our everyday life, and those in the local and wider church.

Bible

We believe the books of the Old and New Testaments are the prophetic and apostolic testimony framing the narrative of God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ.

Sacraments

Baptism and Holy Communion proclaim the gospel.  People respond through the water of baptism which draws them into Christ’s church and ongoing ministry.  The abiding presence, power and purpose of Christ is celebrated at Holy Communion.

Ministry

The intent of ministry is to bring people into relationship with God through sharing in the ongoing work of Jesus, through words and actions. We believe that the Holy Spirit empowers all followers of Jesus with diverse gifts and corresponding opportunities to serve in ways that bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ.  

The Uniting Church

Uniting Life is a congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA).  The union of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches, inaugurated in 1977, formed the UCA and was grounded in the Basis of Union.  The Basis of Union provided the substance for church union and continues to inspire the Uniting Church as a missional movement in Australia.