I'll chip in a bit I agree with what others seem to be pointing to so far. My contribution is pointing to the rest of the name of our church. That is, comments so far have focussed on 'Uniting', I would like to say that one aspect I like to see as distinctive is the 'in Australia' bit of our name. I believe our church tries to take seriously our roots in this land as much as our roots in foreign lands. Just like the 'uniting' bit we still have much more work to do in this area but it is part of our perspective. Of course this could be stretched further by borrowing some words from a recent 'Ruminations' edition and saying it is about being more incarnational than attractional. Again, this reminds me of theological classes, we are in the realm of the 'not yet' to some extent and like Clare expressed with the string on unity we are already in Christ and in Australia and therefore incarnate yet there is still a great challenge of living that out in practice but we have declared that that is our intention.
I hope that makes sense. Andrew Watts -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of robert dummermuth Sent: Thursday, 17 June 2004 7:13 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: suggest topic I know we have discused "core belierfs/values/creeds" for christianity, but I have a question about these for the UCA. What makes a church/congregation or group a Uniting Church one? What is it that is distinctive and unique about the UCA, why am I a member of this organisation and not another? I have been involved with several other denominations but when the UCA began I joined it on the grounds of the Basis of Union, What I liked was not only its faith statements (which it shares with many others) but also its organizational structure (with our emphasis on the laity and congregation, and the interrelated links with others) that is I think unique to the UCA. I was asked recently what is different about the UCA. That and another issue of a presbytery denying the validity of an elected congragational chairperson has me thinking. The simple answer would be if a group is in interelation with other councils of the UCA, or perhaps if it displays the logo outside its buildings. I have been in many situations where rules are bent (even broken) some for very good pastoral and missional reasons and others where the 'benefits' are not all that clear. So I ask the question:- Is there some core and unique belief, value, structure, creed, that is indispensible to being a Uniting Church or a UCA member? I would be interested in other's thoughts. Peace, Rob -- Robert & Barbara Dummermuth Uniting Church in Australia Esperance / West Nullarbor Patrol 18 Hicks Street, Esperance, 6450 tel 08 9071 1184 fax 08 9071 5814 mobile 0428 532 304 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
