This week three points of focus connect.

Together we have National Reconciliation Week, the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity and Pentecost Sunday. This does not always happen – due to the changing date of Pentecost and the fixed date of Reconciliation Week.  How poignant it is when they do.

It was in 1993 that the week between 27 May and 3 June was set aside as a Week of Prayer for Reconciliation. Within these dates we remember the 1967 Referendum, the 1992 Mabo Decision, and the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.  Three important anniversaries in 7 days.

The link with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and the celebration Pentecost has always made sense for me.  This link is unique to Australia. In contrast the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity in the Northern Hemisphere is in January following Epiphany.  

It is clear to us all that there is a long way still for genuine reconciliation to be experienced with Australia’s First Peoples.

Similarly, the church continues to navigate a complex pathway towards being united – that the world might believe and we are not yet the full expression of the Pentecost church.

These three occasions invite a new hopefulness. This is captured in the words of the Presidents of the World Council of Churches as they reflect on Pentecost: ‘The Holy Spirit moves the church towards a new vision’. This movement of the Spirit is also not limited to the church – it is also about the whole creation. 

‘A new vision’ – peoples reconciled with justice and compassion, Christ’s church united in its diversity, and the whole of creation transformed through the energy of God’s Spirit in us.

In our prayers and our living let’s ‘Be Brave and Make Change’ and do so every day.

Rev. John Gilmore

NCCA President 

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light - for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

Ephesians 5:8-9