Reconciliation as Truth and Action

Let's keep walking together into NAIDOC Week 2019

Brooke Prentis is a Wakka Wakka woman and an Aboriginal Christian Leader. Brooke is a speaker, writer, community pastor, and advocate, and is the Aboriginal Spokesperson for Common Grace and Coordinator of the Grasstree Gathering.

Here we are on Mabo Day and the end of National Reconciliation Week. Thank you for the courage you have shown in walking with us in story, prayer, and action each day, as together we have become more grounded in truth. Thank you for helping to carry the load of truth telling and not letting it just be carried on the shoulders of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. As we have formed community through journeying together this week, I hope you see your role, as a follower of Jesus, in Reconciliation, and that Reconciliation becomes embedded in your heart, life, and faith practices each and every day. If you haven’t had time to do all the actions, please don’t forget about them, and do them as time permits, for it is only through truth and action that Reconciliation has meaning. Please share your journey and our resources with your friends, family and church.

We now turn our attention to NAIDOC Week, 7 - 14 July 2019. We continue the attention on Truth and the decades long calls for a Truth Telling Commission. We also turn our hearts to the need for a Voice in or to Parliament. We dream of the day that we mature as a nation and are no longer the only Commonwealth nation without a Treaty and Treaties with the sovereign First Nations peoples. This is Voice. Treaty. Truth. This is us working together for a shared future.

Last year after our powerful NAIDOC Week 2018 series, “Because of her, we can!” I expressed that it was great to see NAIDOC take on more prominence within society but I lamented that NAIDOC Week was not embedded in church calendars. Please put NAIDOC Week on your church calendar so that together we can celebrate the world’s oldest, continuing, living cultures, and embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders as essential to the Australian church and its leadership. Common Grace will be providing you with church resources to use on the second Sunday 14 July.

Sign up here for NAIDOC Week 2019 church resources

During National Reconciliation Week I visited St Luke’s Grammar School in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. I was able to share with the school my concept of Reconciliation as Friendship. It was here I met Common Grace supporter Claudia. Through this new friendship, it is a privilege to share Claudia’s prayer, as we hear from the next generation, and look to the future, the near future in NAIDOC Week 2019 and a future Australia that sees Reconciliation achieved in our lifetime, with justice and healing, for all peoples in these lands now called Australia.

Prayer

by Claudia Hayman

Claudia Hayman is the School Captain of St Luke's Grammar School on Sydney's Northern Beaches and is a member of St Matthew’s Anglican Church in Manly. She is passionate about seeing the love and justice of Jesus manifest in local communities, particularly in relation to disadvantaged youth.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you, that in your great mercy and faithful love, you have reconciled us to yourself through Jesus. Thank you that through His finished work on the cross, we have the sure hope of heaven. As we come to know you more, let us see and embrace your heart for justice, peace and unity. May we, your people, reflect your love through your Holy Spirit. Help us to honour your word and pursue the ministry of reconciliation; reconciliation of all peoples in unified communities and reconciliation to you.

Father, give us the strength, courage and wisdom to fight the inequality and division that penetrates our nation. We especially pray for the youth of Australia. Lord, we pray that you would be the unshakable foundation of hope for Aboriginal youth and children. Grant them equality of opportunity and empower them to lead the change for the future. Please bless all young people in Australia with humble and compassionate hearts, that there would be no more barriers, no more division and no more prejudice. Cultivate relationships and sow seeds today for a crop of change tomorrow. In your power, we hope.

Father, thank you that your Spirit brings truth and healing. Break the chains that divide and disadvantage people in our communities. Let us all walk together in your freedom. Jesus, thank you that in you we are one.

In Christ’s mighty name,

Amen.

Truth in Action 

Get NAIDOC 2019 in your calendar! Here are some ways to engage:

Celebrate in your Church

Brooke Prentis, our Aboriginal Spokesperson, will be preaching at Canberra Baptist Church on Sunday 7 July - so get along if you are in Canberra. This sermon will be videoed and available for churches to use and play in your church services on Sunday 14 July. We will provide church resources including bible reading and prayer to go with the video sermon. Brooke will also be preaching at Newtown Mission in Sydney on Sunday 14 July.

Sign up your church to use the Common Grace NAIDOC Week Church Resources.

Attend a NAIDOC Week event

There are events happening right across the country that you can attend during NAIDOC week. Find an event near you on the NAIDOC website or Google NAIDOC Week 2019 and your local community (big or small) and get along to an event.

Sydney The Grasstree Gathering Concert

If you are in Sydney, Newtown Mission, will be hosting The Grasstree Gathering concert, showcasing some of the amazing musical talent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders on Friday 12 July (6:30pm for 7pm start). Advertising coming soon!

Voice. Treaty. Truth.

Listen to Brooke’s PEACEtalks engaging with the NAIDOC 2019 theme - Voice. Treaty. Truth. that was held at Paddington Anglican on 25 May. 

Learn about William Cooper, who is credited as having established NAIDOC Week.