Indigenous Resources
BCA has worked with our First Nations People since the start of our ministry in 1919. Today one of our key priorities is to work in partnership with First Nations People to support ministry to their own people and all Australians.
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To further our Indigenous Ministry, we appointed The Revd Neville Naden as our Indigenous Ministry Officer in 2019. We also have Indigenous Field Staff working in several states as well as Field Staff who work with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.
Bush Church Aid, with the help of our Indigenous Ministry Officer and Indigenous Advisors, put together a Reconciliation Action Plan as well as an Acknowledgement of Country.
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Reconciliation Action Plan
BCA Field Staff have come into contact with First Nations Peoples in various ways, through its medical work, its ministry in small towns throughout rural and remote Australia and visits to cattle stations.
Paul's letter to the Corinthian church tells us that we have been given the ministry and message of reconciliation to God. This means proclaiming the gospel and living it out. BCA is re-setting the place of First Nations Peoples in its life. We want to support ministry by Indigenous people not only to them. We want to see First Nations Peoples empowered to minister to their own people and to all Australians. It is part of the message and the task of reconciliation.
Paul reminds the church in Corinth of the change that God has made in the lives of all His people:
'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.
The old is gone, the new has come! All this is from God
who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us
the ministry of reconciliation’. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)
This Reconciliation Action Plan is a working document that will guide us as we work together to proclaim the message of reconciliation with God and live it out together.
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Acknowledgement of Country
BCA’s Reconciliation Action Plan contains statements that seek to present the way that BCA is trying to work and do ministry within the Aboriginal space. Part of this plan is an Acknowledgement of Country. The committee wanted to develop an acknowledgement that was theologically sound and sought to show respect to the First Nations People of Australia.
This acknowledgement is as follows:
We acknowledge the triune God, the Creator of heaven and earth and His ownership of all things. (Psalm 24:1) We recognise that He gave stewardship of these lands upon which we meet to the First Nations Peoples of this country (Acts 17:26). In His sovereignty, He has allowed other people groups to migrate to these shores. We acknowledge the cultures of our First Nations Peoples and are thankful for the community that we share together now. We pay our respects to (please insert name of the nation here) and their elders/leaders, both past and present, and those emerging.
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