We acknowledge the Gadigal Peoples of the Eora Nation, the first inhabitants of this place from a time beyond remembering.
We acknowledge that through this land, God nurtured and sustained the First Peoples of this country, the Aboriginal and Islander peoples.
We honour them for their custodianship of the land on which we gather today.
We acknowledge that the First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land, revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony.
We acknowledge that the same love and grace that was finally and fully revealed in Jesus Christ sustained the First Peoples and gave them particular insights into God’s ways; and so we rejoice in the reconciling purposes of God found in the good news about Jesus Christ.
Acknowledgement of Country in the UCA
An Acknowledgement of First Peoples is a way of paying respect to First Peoples whenever we gather together and an important expression of the covenant which the Uniting Church has with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC).
The Uniting Church Assembly has developed a new resource, which offers an explanation for why the whole of the Uniting Church is encouraged to include a Welcome by or an Acknowledgement of First Peoples at the commencement of worship, meetings of boards, councils, committees, schools and agencies and other occasions when the Church gathers.
It includes helpful information on where to start and a number of examples that could be used in different contexts.
We encourage the whole Uniting Church to listen deeply for what it means to walk together, First and Second Peoples, to lament the past and to seek to be a healing community, characterised by the love of Christ.
Download the resource HERE.