Theme: Covenant – our lived experience and renewal of the UCA/UAICC Covenant
Thursday 1 October 2026
Workshops 3pm – 5pm: in-person
Light Refreshments 5pm-6pm
Worship and Lecture 6.30pm: in-person and online
Click here to register in-person attendance
The Inaugural lecture will be presented by Rev Ken Sumner and Dr Rosemary Dewerse.
Rev Ken Sumner is a Kukabrak/Ngarrindjeri korni (man) from the Moorundi (River Murray), Mungkanbuli (Lakes), Kurangk (Coorong) & Yarluwar (Southern Ocean) in South Australia.
Dr Rosemary Dewerse is a practical theologian from Aotearoa New Zealand who is currently Academic Dean and Research Coordinator at the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology in Adelaide. She has taught in a range of areas from missional leadership and innovation to intercultural engagement, spiritual formation, contextual theology, hermeneutics and church history.
The inaugural Rev Dr Michelle Cook Lecture is a theology lecture in the Northern Synod in memory of Rev Dr Michelle Cook. Michelle was a minister of the church, a scholar and a teacher, but more importantly someone who was formed by an incarnational theology: theology that is lived, not just discussed or imagined: theology that is grounded in, emerges from, and is refined through conversation. This lecture series will keep that intentionality in the hearts and minds of those who attend.
The legacy of Rev Dr Michelle Cook’s ministry is to promote and enliven “ordinary theology” as being legitimately informed by non-academic sources. Michelle’s PhD thesis, “On being a covenanting and multicultural church: Ordinary theologians in the Uniting Church explore what it means to be church”, compares the significant work of the academy in exploring the reality of being a church living in a colonised and multicultural context, and the little consideration of how people in congregations have wrestled with similar issues. Michelle’s thesis explores how ‘ordinary’ theologians, people with little formal academic theological training, articulate what it means to be a multicultural church and a church for and with First Peoples in the Australian context. The research questions are: how do ordinary members of the Uniting Church articulate what it means to be a multicultural church and a church with and for First Peoples? And what relationship do these reflections have with the official statements of the church on these topics?
Michelle’s pedagogy was always to demonstrate ‘walking together’ in ‘real’ relationships. Both the Lecture and the Workshops will demonstrate First and Second Peoples presenting together and in doing so confront the power of dominant cultural and political narratives. They will give focus to First Peoples justice-based theology, theological education, discipleship, and women in ministry.
Workshop Leaders: to be confirmed