News,Programs and Events
Apart from our Saturday morning and Sunday evening services, other activities take place at Paddington UC on a regular basis. Find out more about them below.
NEWS- PASTOR RAY COP30
“Our old people taught us that caring for Country isn’t a project - it’s who we are.”
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I’ve recently been nominated as a Knowledge Holder for the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It’s an honour, but also a responsibility. My role is to carry the voices, wisdom, and ancient teachings of our Elders into global spaces - to remind the world that Indigenous knowledge systems and spiritual traditions are not relics of the past. They are guides for the future.
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When I travel to Brazil for COP30, I’m looking forward to walking alongside other Indigenous peoples from across the world - to listen, to learn, and to share our own stories from this ancient land we call Australia. Brazil is home to powerful First Nations movements who are protecting their forests, rivers, and the breath of the Earth itself. I hope we can sit together and talk about what balance and right relationship with Creation really mean.
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Climate work found me more than I found it. I’ve been doing this most of my life - through community leadership, ministry, reconciliation, and partnerships that lift Indigenous wisdom. I now serve as co-Chair of Australia’s Indigenous Peoples Organisation, but really, it all began with love - love for my people, for Country, and for Creation. When you love the Earth, you can’t stay silent while she’s suffering.
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At COP30, I hope to see less talk and more action - especially actions that protect Indigenous lands and waters. We need climate justice that holds big polluters accountable and uplifts the communities already facing the hardest impacts. And I want to see Indigenous leadership honoured - not as “alternative,” but as essential to healing our planet.Faith and culture give us the moral courage to act. In my Christian faith, I return to John 3:16 - “For God so loved the cosmos…” Not just humanity, but all of Creation. And in my Aboriginal culture, we understand that everything is connected - land, sky, water, people, and spirit. When one part of Creation is hurt, we all feel it. Paul says in Romans 8 that “creation groans as a woman in childbirth.”That’s what I hear in the winds and waters of this world right now - Creation crying out. And I believe our response must be collective. Healing the Earth isn’t something done alone. It happens when we walk together - in respect, humility, and hope.
PADDINGTON MARKETS
Paddington Markets is held around the church every Saturday from 10:00am to 4:00pm. It is Sydney's longest running weekly community markets. For over 40 years it has been and continues to be Australia's most frequent and well known church fête.
PADDINGTON CHILDREN'S CENTRE
The Paddington Children's Centre is located in the original church manse and operates within the broader Uniting framework as a provider of early childhood education. It employs highly qualified staff and provides a well-resourced and maintained environment. It is a safe and welcoming place where social justice, equity and inclusion are highly valued. For more information contact office@paddingtoncc.org
CONVERGENCE - October 24, 30, 31
Convergence is the title of Hamed Sadeghi’s new composition supported by Creative Australia and Create NSW which will be recorded later this year by ABC Classic for broadcast and digital commercial release. The concert series aims to convey a deconstructed yet detailed performance of the composition’s roots and components in three acts.
Standing individually, all three acts make up a clearer image of Sadeghi’s musical universe and enthusiasts are encouraged to experience all three acts to be embraced by the voyage Sadeghi leads.
THE CLOUD MAKER November 1
Through reimagined goddess folklore from their many shared heritages, The Cloud Maker weaves powerful music that echoes tales of creation, regeneration, and transformation, evoking a time when music and language, art and life, were intertwined.
The Cloud Maker’s music celebrates goddesses from each of the five female master musician’s cultures, in how they channel ancient tales of fierce battles, shaman dances, journeys to the after-life, and a moth goddess singing the most beautiful song of all time. Featuring Taonga PÅ«oro (Maori singing treasures), bass clarinet, harmonic flutes, cello, nyckelharpa (Nordic fiddle), prepared piano, drums and voices, The Cloud Maker harnesses the power of archetypal stories to transport listeners across time and space. Weaving sound and performance, the collaboration remembers ancient bloodlines and breathes new life into old stories.
FOGG LIGHT SHOW - November 8
MR FOGG’s LAST LIGHTSHOW CONCERT
And book launch - you are in the book !, and introducing
THE NEW GENERATION OF LIGHT ARTISTS
AWUWA and LIQUIDELIC from the Northern Rivers of NSW
Yao Mikami, Tim Parry, Karen Minami, Mico Sundari
with Rubin Bingham, Rusty Roorda, Adam Sutton, Trevor Brown, Leonie Cohen, Graham Davis King, Edwina Blush and Davey Moor, Francesca Emerson and Zoe Ortez
OPENED BY WARREN FAHEY & FRANCESCA EMERSON, The Chocolate Bunny
with short actuality films from the 60s and 70s Richard Neville, Adrian Rawlins and Martin Sharp
ARTS NATIONAL: THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE WORLD’S BIGGEST ART HEIST- November 6
On 18 March 1990, the ‘impossible’ happened – thirteen works of art, valued at a total of $500 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Museum officials, police and security experts were completely baffled as to how this had happened. These great masterpieces have never been recovered; a devastating loss to the museum and its public. This talk relates the story of the fascinating police investigation into the missing paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas and Manet; resulting in knowledge of how, why and by whom the robbery was committed but leaving the crime officially ‘unsolved
