Journey alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by holding an Aboriginal Sunday service in your church or faith community on Sunday 19th January 2025.
Annually, Aboriginal Sunday is celebrated the Sunday before January 26, as an opportunity for individual congregations and faith communities to reclaim William Cooper’s Aboriginal Sunday, a call to the Australian Church to stand in solidarity and pray for justice and the flourishing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Aboriginal Sunday is an important opportunity for your church community to go deeper in listening, learning, and being led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders.
In 2025, Common Grace will again be providing you with Aboriginal Sunday Church Resources developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders, with a focus on the theme of ‘Defiant Hope’.
In the journey of walking together for healing and justice in these lands, there are times when hope is something we have to courageously dare to believe and cling to. A year on from the Voice referendum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous allies are still feeling so much grief and sadness, and hope for change feels hard to find with continued injustices including a lack of closing the gap, children as young as 10 being locked up, lack of treaty and truth telling, high rates of deaths in custody, and children in out of home care. It is in moments of darkness, sadness and heaviness, when hope is not easy to imagine, that we activate hope and our faith in our Creator God’s promises that are true and faithful. This defiant hope is one of confidence and courage, bringing people together to build each other up, believing that our God of justice will carry us through these moments. We are all invited to participate in God’s story of healing, reconciliation and flourishing. This Aboriginal Sunday we will take inspiration from Aboriginal Christian Leaders of the past, and commit to walking together in this hope, turning our voices of sorrow into songs of praise.
Sign up to receive your free Aboriginal Sunday Church Resources developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders.
Once signed up, the Aboriginal Sunday Church Resource Toolkit will be emailed to you by mid-December 2024. These resources will include Bible readings, prayers, sermon materials, video messages from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian leaders, worship resources, benediction resources, advocacy resources, and a creative activity to help your congregation engage their faith through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice.
Your Aboriginal Sunday service will inspire and equip your congregation to learn, engage, pray, and take action as a community together.
Aboriginal Sunday is your church’s next step in walking in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters to pursue God’s justice and love for the flourishing of First Nations peoples.
In 2025, January 26th lands on a Sunday. In the Aboriginal Sunday resource pack, we will also provide guidance as to how your congregation may like to mark this day of mourning, invasion and survival in your church service.
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What is Aboriginal Sunday?
On January 26 1938, Aboriginal leaders including William Cooper, met for a Day of Mourning, seeking equality and full citizenship (though it would take another 30 years).
The Australian Churches were then asked to set aside the Sunday before January 26 as Aboriginal Sunday (previously called Aborigines' Day), a day for Christians to act in solidarity with Aboriginal peoples and the injustices being experienced.
The first Aboriginal Sunday is thought to have occurred in 1941, although it was referenced in a letter from William Cooper to John McEwen, Minister for the Interior written on 19 January 1938 and also referenced in the Herald (Melbourne) newspaper on 18 January 1939.
Today, the Common Grace movement encourages individual congregations to reclaim William Cooper’s Aboriginal Sunday and each year provides free Church Resources developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders to equip churches and faith communities to act in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the Sunday directly before January 26.
If you would like to get your church or faith community engaged and equipped to mark Aboriginal Sunday in 2025, please sign up on this page so we can send you links to resources.
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As we are led by our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders into this season, would you donate to support the work of Common Grace as we pursue justice for the flourishing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities?
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If you’re an ally, keep walking with us, build capacity and give hope to others. If you’re a member of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, stand strong and proud like the ancestors, who, through resilience and defiant hope, fought for your rights and have paved the way for justice and the flourishing for our future generations.
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About our 2025 Aboriginal Sunday graphic
Our Aboriginal Sunday graphic for 2025 features the Southern Cross in the night’s sky. The Southern Cross constellation has been a faithful guide whenever someone is navigating at night on land or sea, when people need to know which way to follow, or have been lost.
“In a spiritual sense, the wounds of Christ are reflected in the sky above Australia and is a reminder for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that Jesus knows our pain, and yet through His pain has given us hope and possibility for the future. We look to Jesus to give us guidance on the way we should go forward.” Safina Stewart, Common Grace Relationship and Storytelling Coordinator
In the darkness of the night, may we look up to the heavens where our wounded Saviour has left His markings as a reminder of His great love and faithfulness. May we find our next steps in confidence and hope with Him. May we hear His voice calling us up and out of despair and into the living hope of His kingdom and good way.
Safina Stewart’s artwork of the outline of Australia, depicts songlines across these lands. Songlines are remarkable connections and cultural routes that have lasted for thousands of years, between Aboriginal communities across the vast and diverse continent of Australia.They are ancient pathways following the tracks of the ancestors, sung and danced in language to help custodians follow lore, and strengthen relationship between country, culture and cosmology. Many songlines and cultural practices have since been disrupted through acts of genocide and dispossession. This year, Safina’s artwork for Aboriginal Sunday reflects the reclaiming of pride, song and culture, celebrating the hopeful pathways and connections between communities. The heart and songlines represent a way that is opening up to finding home and hope for healing, and flourishing connections as we journey together.