A course offered by Uniting Mission and Education explores what the Uniting Church stands for.
Dr Matt Anslow is Educator for Lay Ministry in the Vital Leadership Team. He is running two upcoming sessions of Living Our Values on 24 and 25 November.
“Living Our Values is a kind of introduction or orientation to the Uniting Church,” Dr Anslow said.
“If you’ve ever wanted to know a bit about what the UCA is, where we came from, what we believe, and how we’re organised, Living Our Values is a great place to start.”
While the course is designed for people who work for the church, Dr Anslow said that it had a wider audience.
“Living Our Values is designed for anyone and everyone,” he said.
“The folks who most often do the course are those who have recently come into the Uniting Church, or those who are taking up a new leadership position and want to better understand their responsibilities.”
“People training to be Lay Preachers also do the course as part of their training. And often we get people signing up who have been in the Uniting Church their whole life and just want to better understand their church.”
When asked by Insights what might surprise attendees, Dr Anslow indicated two thins.
“First, the Uniting Church is incredibly diverse,” he said.
“We seek to unite, after all. Whatever someone might assume about the Uniting Church, there are always folks in our ranks who contradict that assumption! Second, we are organised so that power is shared.”
“This means that everyone, in principle, can have a say in how things happen. It means decisions can take time—you can’t just ask the President or the Moderator to change things because that’s not how things work in the UCA. But it also means we hear diverse voices on all important matters.”
Living Our Values runs at the Centre for Ministry on 24 and 25 November from 1pm to 5pm. There is also an online option via Zoom. For more information, visit the UME website.
