Our Partnerships

The Alice Springs Uniting Church partners with a large number of local organisations including the Desert Song Festival, Yipirinya School, corrections and others.
Being ecumenical is part of the Uniting Church’s DNA. We also partner with other churches and church organisations. We are part of a group called ITECA (Indigenous Theological Education in Central Australia) that offers place based theological education through workshops, bible studies and leadership and community development training to Indigenous Christians in Central Australia.

We also partner with Uniting Church agencies in Central Australia.

The Northern Region of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (NRCC)

In 1982 at Crystal Creek, First Peoples came together, Christian leaders from across Australia. Guided by the Spirit they discerned a vision for a National Congress – a First Peoples movement, within the Uniting Church. In 1985, the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia unanimously welcomed and agreed to officially support the formation of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC).

The UAICC consists of Aboriginal and Islander members of the Uniting Church. They determine their own goals and objectives and run their own programs amongst their people and communities. Their aim, in collaboration with other people is:

• to bring to an end the injustices which hold Aboriginal and Islander people at the fringes of Australian society and to help Aboriginal and Islander people achieve spiritual, economic, social and cultural independence.
• to unite in one fellowship all Aboriginal and Islander Christians who have accepted Jesus

Christ as Lord, accept the authority of the Scriptures and desire to follow and serve Christ as his disciples.

The NRCC is the Northern Region of the UAICC and is made up of Aboriginal Christians across Arnhem land, the Kimberly’s and the APY lands. The Alice Springs Uniting Church has a particular close relationship with the Anangu people of the APY lands. This relationship goes back more than 80 years. It is founded in the history of the church’s involvement with the Ernabella Mission at Pukatja in the Musgrave ranges of South Australia. This mission was established in 1937 by the Presbyterian leader and Aboriginal rights campaigner Dr. Charles Duguid. The aim was to provide a buffer between the Pitjantjara people and the white settlers exploiting them. Duguid believed this mission should be founded on the principle of freedom, saying, “there was to be no compulsion nor imposition of our way of life on the Aborigines, nor deliberate interference with tribal custom”.

Anangu and other First Nations people attend our services on Sunday morning. Components of our service are in both English and Pitjantjatjara.

The current support worker for the Anangu Area Ministry Council is based in the offices of the ASUC.

For more information about him see Our People.

Frontier Services

Frontier Services are an agency of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Australian people who live out bush experience the tyranny of distance and social isolation. These include indigenous communities, isolated properties, mining communities, and other remotely located communities. Frontier Services offers practical, emotional and spiritual support to these people and communities, often doing it tough, in a myriad of ways

The current frontier service bush chaplain for Central Australia is based in the offices of the ASUC.

For more information about him see Our People.

For more information about Frontier Service go to:

Frontier Service’s Home Page