Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Commission for Mission presentation Perth, July 10, 1997 — War in Bougainville, environmental and indigenous rights in the Philippines, Korean cultural integration in Japan, and reconciling the wrongs of the past in South Africa. Overseas guests from Bougainville, Mindanao in the Philippines, Japan, and South Africa told of the issues facing their respective churches during the Commission for Mission presentation last night. From Bougainville, Rev Emily Saeron spoke of peace and the unity needed for her church, possible, she said, through the Bougainville Council of Churches. In Japan, the issue for the Korean Christian Church is bridging the cultural diversity among Koreans, even between members of the same family, the chairperson of the committee for Worldwide Mission Rev Kim Kun Sik said. Members of the B’laan people from Mindanao in the Philippines said the problem they are now facing is the intrusion of Western Mining on their "ancestral domain", land which the government will not recognise as theirs. A Muslim representative from Mindanao said ways in which the Christian and Muslim populations can peacefully coexist were being developed. In South Africa the greatest challenge facing the church is human brokenness. "The church is facing the challenge of bringing the healing of Christ to that brokenness," said Bishop Dwane from the South African Council of Churches. Between brief interview segments with overseas guests, poignant scenes from the life of Christ were reenacted, the stage dimmed, a simple set and actors in black. The final scene, the crucifixion, saw a procession from the back of the auditorium, the cross carried on the actor Christ’s shoulders toward the stage. "To know how to proclaim the gospel is very difficult indeed," Rev Kim Kun Sik had said earlier in the night. And earlier too, in dialogue with his disciples, the actor Christ had said, "Wherever there is love, there is the Kingdom of God".

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992