The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) is a united church in Australia. The church was founded on 22 June 1977 when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the UCA's Basis of Union. According to the church, it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census, 870,183 Australians identified with the church, but that figure fell to 673,260 in the 2021 census. In the 2011 census, that figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, behind the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations, and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures. The UCA is one of Australia's largest non-government providers of community and health services. Its service network consists of over 400 agencies, institutions, and parish missions, with its areas of service including aged care, hospitals, children, youth and family, disability, employment, emergency relief, drug and alcohol abuse, youth homelessness and suicide. Affiliated agencies include UnitingWorld.
Organisation
The UCA is a national, unincorporated association of councils, each of which has responsibility for functions in the church. The councils are congregations (local), presbyteries (regional), synods (state) and an assembly (national).
Assembly
The UCA assembly meets every three years.
President
The current president is Reverend Charissa Suli since she was installed as president in the meeting of the 17th Assembly on 11 July 2024. She replaced Reverend Sharon Hollis, who had succeeded Dr Deidre Palmer at the start of the 16th Assembly in July 2021. Palmer was the second woman in the role, following Jill Tabart (1994-1997). Palmer was the moderator of the Presbytery and Synod of South Australia from November 2013 to November 2016. Hollis was moderator of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania at the time of her election in 2018 as the president-elect and became president at the beginning of the sixteenth assembly, which was to be held in Queensland in 2021. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was moved to a shorter, online form.
Synods
Synods are UCA councils which roughly correspond to state boundaries. Each synod meets about once per year, with a standing committee to represent it between sessions. Synod responsibilities include the promotion and encouragement of the church's mission, theological and ministerial education, and overseeing property matters. There are six synods:
Synod of New South Wales and the ACT (formerly the NSW Synod)
Synod of Queensland
Synod of South Australia
Synod of Western Australia
Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
The Northern Synod, which includes the Northern Territory, north-west Western Australia and northern South Australia.
Congregations
There are about 2,000 UCA congregations, with 243,000 members and adherents. Congregations range in size from a dozen to hundreds of members.
Agencies
UnitingCare Australia, operates shelters and emergency housing; family-relationships support; disability services, and food kitchens.
Youth
The National Christian Youth Convention is a national UCA activity during school and university holidays, every two or three years in a different city. NCYC 2007, "Agents of Change", was held in Perth. The 2009 "Converge" was held in Melbourne. NCYC 2011 was held from 29 December 2010 to 4 January 2011 at the Southport School on Queensland's Gold Coast. Yuróra NCYC 2014 was held in North Parramatta, Sydney from 7 to 10 January 2014. Yuróra NCYC 2017, "Uniting Culture", was also held in Sydney in January 2017.
International aid
UnitingWorld is the church's international-aid agency. It receives funding from the government of Australia to implement development and poverty-alleviation programs in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. UnitingWorld works in partnership with 18 overseas denominations to support over 180,000 people annually through sustainable community development projects.
Culture
The UCA advocates for social justice. It has taken stances on issues such as native title for indigenous people; the environment; apartheid; refugee status, and safe injection facilities for drug users. The church is similar to other united and uniting churches, which maintain a cultural identity in their own country and practise ecumenical fellowship with other Christian denominations worldwide. Between 1991 and 2013, UCA attendance declined by 41 per cent. In 2013, about 97,200 people attended weekly worship services throughout Australia.
Theology
Sexuality
The church permits local presbyteries to ordain gay and lesbian ministers.
The fairly broad consensus has been that a person's sexual orientation should not be a bar to attendance, membership or participation in the church. More controversial has been the issue of sexual activity by gay and lesbian people and the sexual behaviour of ordination candidates. In 2003, the church voted to allow local presbyteries to decide whether to ordain gay and lesbian people as ministers.
In March 2021, the UCA became the first mainstream Australian church to induct a transgender minister, when Jo Inkpin was installed at Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney.
Marriage
Ministers were permitted to bless same-sex couples entering civil unions in 2015. A 2018 resolution allows local churches to decide about blessings of same-sex marriage.
Theologians
Alan Walker
James Haire
Bill Loader
Wesley Wildman
Benjamin Myers
Assemblies
Official websites
National Assembly website
UnitingWorld website
UnitingCare Australia
Relations with Other Faiths website
Multicultural and Cross Cultural website
UnitingJustice website
Journey magazine website
Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA
Other websites
Uniting Church in Australia Oral History 1992–1994, State Library of Queensland