Rev Will Pickett says covenanting and social justice have shaped each of his placements.
By Marina Williams
In 1985, Rev Charles Harris founded the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress as a voice for justice and a space for Aboriginal and Islander Christians to live out faith in their own way.
Forty years on, Congress continues to shape the life of the Uniting Church, calling it into deeper covenant and relationship with First Peoples.
As Synod 2025 closed this year, Rev Will Pickett and Aunty Alison Overeem reflected on what the milestone means.
For Will, Minister at Weeroona Uniting Church in Bendigo, Congress has been a guiding presence from his earliest days in ministry, shaping a commitment to bridge-building between First and Second Peoples.
For Alison, who manages Leprena in Glenorchy, the Tasmanian Congress centre, its heart remains culture, family and creating safe spaces for healing and empowerment.
Both describe Congress as a story of persistence and relationship – a covenant journey that continues to ask the Church to listen, learn and change.
Their reflections are grounded in the long story of covenanting between Congress and the wider church.
The Covenant, entered into in 1994, recognised First Peoples as sovereign custodians of the land and committed the Uniting Church to walk in faith and justice with Congress.
Will traces his ministry back to a small Baptist-affiliated community in Katanning, Western Australia.
At One In Christ Family Church he learned to lead Bible studies, mentored by the late Rev Ron Williams.
“Brother Ron took me under his wing,” Will recalls.
“He had such a passion not only for Christ and the Gospel, but for the people.”
That foundation widened when Rev Nalin Perera and Rev Wes Hartley introduced him to Congress.
“I didn’t know who Congress was until then,” Will says.
“But as we talked, I felt what Congress was providing wasn’t just a faith journey – it was social justice, being a voice for Aboriginal people.
“That opened doors I hadn’t seen before.”
For Alison Overeem, the UAICC is inseparable from her identity as a Palawa woman.
Those conversations set him on the path to ministry.
Ordained in 2004, he says covenanting and social justice have shaped every placement.
“I see my ministry as building bridges between First Nations and Second Peoples,” Will says.
“It means walking shoulder to shoulder … fulfilling the Word of God to love one another.”
He remembers other ministers who embodied the Covenant, naming Rev Dr Les Brockway, Rev John Barendrecht, Professor Brian Hill, Rev Floss Atkinson and Rev Sister Miriam Thompson.
“They lived out the covenanting,” Will says.
For Alison, who has led Leprena for 13 years, Congress is inseparable from her identity as a Palawa woman.
She speaks of it as “woven threads of all that is seen and unseen – justice, truth telling and truth knowing”.
“Congress is not just part of the Uniting Church,” she says.
“It is its heart. And what is the body without the heart?”
At Leprena, Alison draws on decades of experience in child and family services to create what she calls “many voices, one campfire”.
The work is layered: empowering staff and families, grounding everything in the Palawa story.
“People need to feel safe to be who they are and where they are in their journey,” she explains.
“Family is broader than the nuclear household – it’s about who stands with you, who made a difference, and who remains.”
Both Alison and Will stress that walking together must go deeper than symbolic gestures.
Will recalls being “gobsmacked” when, two years ago, he asked a rural church council about covenanting and an elder said they had never heard of it.
“Many congregations still don’t know about Congress, covenanting or the preamble – showing how critical education is,” he says.
Alison offers a similar challenge.
Alison Overeem and Ayla Williams speak at Synod 2025.
The Church, she says, must move beyond token gestures.
“You can’t just love our culture – you need to love us as the people who live and carry it,” she says.
Both leaders link the story of Congress with the wider struggle for justice.
At Synod 2025, Will was struck by a presentation on Treaty.
“The speaker said God is a God of justice, using Scripture to show that,” he recalls.
“If God is for justice, then it should be relevant to us as God’s people.”
For him, Micah 6:8 captures that covenant calling: ‘Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God?’”
Alison frames it as cultural safety and equity.
“You can’t just say the church is in covenant – it has to be covenanting with real action,” she says.
“That means empowering us as employees of the church, resourcing us to do ministry in our own unique way, and trusting us to know what’s best for our mob.”
Despite frustrations, both leaders cite signs of hope.
Alison points to Leprena’s partnership with Kingston Uniting Church, which gifted land for a new building in recognition of sovereignty.
“That’s an equal relationship, and it shows what’s possible when covenant is lived out,” she says.
She also treasures the smaller moments.
“At Synod 2025, the most powerful moments weren’t on the floor but in the corridors – people stopping to say, ‘thank you for being here, thank you for your stories’.”
For Will, hope lies in the next generation.
“The dream is that younger leaders will take the baton and do ministry in the way they see fit, standing on the shoulders of those before them,” he says.
“Keeping the vision alive – that’s what Uncle Charles Harris began, and it’s what must continue.”
Yet both caution that the work of covenanting is far from complete.
Ayla Williams and Moderator Rev Salesi Faupula at Synod 2025.
Alison worries that Congress is sometimes treated as an “extra that has to be done” rather than the beating heart of the church.
She calls for parity in resources and leadership. “If institutional relationships aren’t equitable, then we are not in true covenant. It’s just words on paper,” she says.
Will echoes that concern, warning against fear and complacency.
“Don’t be too fearful of taking risks,” he urges.
“Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to share God’s love.
“Ministry is about building bridges and taking risks for the relationship.”
At its 40th year, Congress continues to call the Uniting Church to be its best self.
Both Alison and Will see the anniversary not as an endpoint but as an invitation.
“I’ve stayed because I believe in what we’re doing,” Alison says.
“Congress can be part of the transformation of the church.
“But we need allies and advocates – people prepared to walk with us, not just admire our culture from afar.”
For Will, the message is simple.
“Walking together has moved beyond tokenism,” he says.
“It’s about real relationship – shoulder to shoulder, side by side.
“That’s what covenant means, and that’s what gives me hope.”
Rev Will Pickett and Rev Salesi Faupula at Synod 2025.
Vision and legacy take shape
In 1982 at Crystal Creek, just north of Townsville, First Peoples came together, Christian leaders from across Australia with some Māori leaders.
Guided by the Spirit they discerned they would sing a ‘Black Congress’ into being – a First Peoples movement, within the UCA.
Then in 1983, these leaders and others gathered again at Galiwin’ku, on Elcho Island in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.
They came together and resolved to form the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
Rev Charles Harris was the leader, with Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM his deputy.
Charles spoke of holistic evangelism. By this he meant both arms of the cross.
One was (the vertical) pointing to God – they would preach the good news of Jesus Christ; the second (the horizontal) arm was outstretched to the community to embrace a hurting people in love, to seek justice and to care for their physical needs.
In 1985 the Assembly of the UCA formally recognised the formation of the UAICC.
At the Assembly meeting in 1994, the relationship between the UAICC and UCA was formalised in an act of Covenant under God.
In 1996, the Assembly Standing Committee acknowledged the intergenerational harm and trauma it was complicit in and apologised to people of the Stolen Generations who had been under this government policy under its care.
In 1997 the full Assembly affirmed the ASC acknowledgement and apology recognising other places where the Church had housed people under these policies.
The UCA committed to further actions of advocacy and restitution.
A new Preamble to the UCA Constitution was resolved at the Assembly in 2009 and recognised the sins of the past and the Church’s part in them.
Significantly, it also affirmed that God had been in this ancient land sustaining the First Peoples well before the colonisers arrived.
The theological underpinning for this journey can be found in the Basis of Union, paragraph 3:
“The Church as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit confesses Jesus as Lord over its own life; it also confesses that Jesus is Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity. God in Christ has given to all people in the Church the Holy Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation. The Church’s call is to serve that end.”
From the Uniting Church in Australia website
“(The UAICC calls us) to listen more deeply, walk more humbly, and live more faithfully toward God’s future of justice, peace, and renewal,” says Moderator Rev Salesi Faupula.
‘Resilience, vision, and faith’
On behalf of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, I give thanks for 40 years of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
This milestone is both a celebration and a moment for truth-telling.
The journey has not been easy. We live on land that was stolen and never ceded.
The legacies of colonialism, the long-delayed national apology, the ongoing struggle for the acknowledgment of sovereignty, the fight for genuine self-determination, the persistence of tokenism, and the grief of the Voice referendum are all part of our shared story.
For much of this time, the voice of Congress was a haunting voice — speaking truth with courage and clarity, yet too often ignored or dismissed.
Only in more recent years has that voice begun to gain the traction and respect it has always deserved.
Through it all, the UAICC has borne prophetic and courageous witness, holding both Church and nation to account, and reminding us that reconciliation is not symbolic but lived.
As a Uniting Church, we are bound in covenant with the Congress.
That covenant calls us beyond words into action — to honour sovereignty, to stand with First Peoples in their struggles, and to embody justice and hope in our common life.
We honour the ministries, communities, and leaders who have carried this journey over four decades.
We give thanks for the resilience, vision, and faith of the UAICC, whose witness continues to shape us as Pilgrims of the Spirit.
You call us to listen more deeply, walk more humbly, and live more faithfully toward God’s future of justice, peace, and renewal.
May God’s Spirit continue to bless and guide the Congress in the years ahead.
Malo
Rev Salesi Faupula
Moderator, Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
“Our covenant with Congress is not symbolic but central to how we embody the gospel in this land,” says President Rev Charissa Suli.
‘Strong, resilient and prophetic’
As President of the Uniting Church in Australia, I give thanks with my whole heart as we celebrate 40 years of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
As we mark this historic milestone across our nation, I extend my warmest greetings in Christ to the beloved Congress communities in Victoria and lutruwita.
Congress is a Spirit-woven thread in the life of our Church – strong, resilient, and prophetic – calling us to remember who we are and who we are yet to be.
In those gatherings at Crystal Creek and Galiwin’ku, leaders sang into being a movement of sovereignty, survival and gospel truth-telling.
In the decades since then, like the psalmist who gives thanks with a whole heart, you have borne witness through struggle and joy to God’s steadfast love.
Your faith continues to teach the whole Church how to trust God’s promises on this land.
In Oodnadatta earlier this year, I was gifted clap sticks by the local Congress community.
They remind me that long before colonisation, there was worship, ceremony, and communion with the creator on this Country.
That rhythm still calls us to listen deeply and walk humbly together.
Our covenant with Congress is not symbolic but central to how we embody the gospel in this land.
May we commit afresh to this covenant – resourcing fully, listening first, and walking together toward God’s kingdom of justice and love for the next 40 years and beyond.
Rev Charissa Suli
President, Uniting Church in Australia
