United Night at Macarthur Adventist College
Adventist Women gather Covid-style Operating under tight Covid restrictions, the Conference’s Adventist Women got creative in order to facilitate their annual UNITED NIGHT, the event that each year launches its ministry. As such, more than 500 women across six Sydney venues—Auburn, Kellyville, Wollongong, and Wahroonga Churches, and Mountain View Adventist and Macarthur Adventist Colleges—with another 1400 individual viewers joining online, got together for a Friday night worship experience. Said Ministry director, Beryl Landers, “We’re grateful to all our venue hostesses and their teams for making UNITED NIGHT possible. Perhaps this will be our new-look UNITED NIGHT going forward. . . . Things can change, but God is faithful, therefore we can face 2021 with confidence." UNITED NIGHT keynote speaker was Hope Taylor (nee Chomczynski), who closed her engaging presentation with the powerful challenge: “Being more than conquerors is where our blindness ends and God’s vision for our lives begins, for what happens to us is not nearly as important as what happens in us.” The separated venues not only allowed for COVID-safe gatherings but also made the program accessible to many more participants. The six hostesses—all local church Women's Ministry leaders—and their teams took ownership of the event and were able to put their own unique touch to their program. This allowed for greater participation, and local talent added great value to the overall program. “There was such a buzz,” was the common report from the venues, as women at last celebrated being able to meet in person. As one young woman commented, “It was so refreshing to actually meet in person and enjoy the company of women after the drought of the gatherings.”
ADRA Australia will be the recipient of this year’s ongoing UNITED project, with women encouraged to do fundraiser events in their local churches leading up to ADRA’s annual Knocktober appeal. NEW WEBSITE ACTIVE The conference has a new website replacing one that has served for some years. The new website is a smart website, which not only “speaks” to the community and accepts feedback, it then “directs” that feedback to local churches, helping future-proof the conference’s ability to minister online. “We asked a lot of it (the website),” says Conference Communications Coordinator Joyce Taylor, who worked intensely with Sydney CANVAS Group, a digital presence development agency. “It had to represent the local conference, the Global Church and our branding; provide internal and external departmental information and resources; promote our local churches; showcase digital content; appeal to the variegated urban population in a way that is clean and fresh; ensure a smooth user experience; and be optimizable for both humans and Google functions. And do all of this within our budget.” “We hope this site continues to improve our services and support to the local churches and community.” For more on the site, visit <http://bit. ly/30bcIl1>.
