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The Congregation is the embodiment in one place of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, worshipping, witnessing and serving as a fellowship of the Spirit in Christ… The congregation will recognise the need for a diversity of agencies for the better ordering of its life in such matters as education, administration and finance.
Basis of Union, paragraph 15
The Basis of Union – the foundational document of the Uniting Church in Australia – clearly prioritises the congregation as the ‘embodiment of the church’ yet also assumes the need for agencies to carry out the work and mission of the church beyond congregations.
When the Basis was being devised, congregations were strong and vibrant, the voice of the church carried authority in the community, senior staff in the church’s agencies – education, finance, hospitals and other caring establishments – were assumed to share and promote the faith convictions of the church.
Times have changed; and this collection of informed essays explores the consequences of changes in church and society, the growing dependence of agencies on government funding, issues of compliance, competencies, responsibilities. The key concern of For I was hungry is a division between congregations and agencies – both imposed and perceived – and asks sometimes uncomfortable questions about mission and witness, ownership and connections, oversight and responsibility, secularisation and the serious decline in local membership.
This is a significant book for the on-going life and structure of the Uniting Church.
