The Wellspring Community focuses on First Nations Justice and Reconciliation. By listening to our First Nations members and friends we seek to move towards justice for First Nations People and reconciliation as we learn to live and work in partnership and harmony.

We believe that the way the First Nations of this land now called Australia were treated by the early colonial society, which involved the deliberate driving away of the original inhabitants and massacres of innocent people, is a huge scar on our Australian society. The way the “Stolen Generations” were treated in the 20th Century shows that deep seated prejudice has not been eliminated. Our calling is to affirm the right of the First Peoples to develop their own culture and find their own ways of relating to mainline Australian culture.

FOR NAIDOC WEEK 2025 – July 6-13

“The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy”.

Our Wednesday with Wellspring gathering on 2 July 2025 was both a celebration of National NAIDOC Week and an invitation to join in NAIDOC Week activities and events.

Leading our liturgy was Brooke Prentis, a member of Wellspring.  Brooke is an Aboriginal woman, a Wakka Wakka woman.  She is an Aboriginal Christian Leader, writer, speaker, educator, theologian and poet.  Brooke has appeared on national TV and radio and this week is the guest host of Soul Search on ABC RN which broadcasts at 6pm on Sunday July 6. 

Brooke is the former CEO of Common Grace and was the first Aboriginal person to be a CEO or National Director of a Christian organisation in Australia that was not Indigenous specific.  Brooke now has her own consulting business and works in schools embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in curriculum, and helping schools and organisations have a Reconciliation Action Plan.  Brooke also continues ministry working with churches on Reconciliation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice, mentoring other Aboriginal Christian Leaders and with school students connecting faith and justice.  Brooke shares a message of Reconciliation as friendship and dreams of building "An Australia built on truth, justice, love, and hope."

You are invited to follow the liturgy below and use these prayers and words for your personal reflections this week.

The full liturgy is available here.

**Please observe and respect the copyright information which is clearly set  out within the text of the liturgy below.  

“A Thanksgiving for Australia.”

By The Reverend Canon Aunty Lenore Parker’s prayer

God of Holy Dreaming,

Great Creator Spirit,

from the dawn of creation you have given your children the good things of Mother Earth.

You spoke and the gum tree grew.

In the vast desert and dense forest, and in cities at the water’s edge, Creation sings your praise.

Your presence endures as the rock at the heart of our Land.

When Jesus hung on the tree you heard the cries of all your people and became one with your wounded ones: the convicts, the hunted, the dispossessed.

The sunrise of your Son coloured the earth anew, and bathed it in glorious hope.

In Jesus we have been reconciled to you, to each other and to your whole creation.

Lead us on, Great Spirit. as we gather from the four corners of the earth;  enable us to walk together in trust from the hurt and shame of the past into the full day which has dawned in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

And so will your actions this National NAIDOC Week be:

1.      to reflect and share about the legacy and impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders have left a legacy in your life

2.      to keep visioning First Nations Justice and Reconciliation

3.      to find the strength to keep running with perseverance to love your Aboriginal neighbour as yourself

4.      And to celebrate – to celebrate National NAIDOC Week – to celebrate the world’s oldest, living, continuing cultures – so as to encourage the younger generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

My prayer is that you take those actions and in taking the actions you will find the places where spirituality and justice meet in these lands now called Australia.

And then perhaps together we will catch that special glimpse of the clouds that contains the rainbow – a reminder of God’s promises and love.  

BLESSING  

(If you would like a personal copy of the Aboriginal Blessing that Brooke used at Wednesday with Wellspring,  you may email her and she will send you a copy. Her email is brooke.prentis@gmail.com  )

This Blessing adapted from  The Iona Community, Iona Abbey Worship Book,  Wild Goose Publications,  Iona Community, Unit 16, Six Harmony Row, Glasgow G51 3BA, Scotland. Used with permission.

This we know, the earth does not belong to us,

we belong to the earth.

This we know, all things are connected,

like the blood that unites one family.

This we know, we did not weave the web of life,

we are merely a strand of it.

Let us give thanks for the gift of creation including the gift of each other

Let us give thanks that all things and all people

hold together in Christ.

And let us pray to the Spirit

to produce  the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control within us and between us.

Bless to us , O God,

the moon that is above us,

the earth that is beneath us,

the friends who are around us,

your image deep within us,

Amen.

FOR YOUR ONGOING REFLECTION:

Legacy – Which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders have left a legacy in your life and how have they impacted you?

Vision – What is your Vision for Reconciliation?

Strength – Taking inspiration from Hebrews 12:1-3, how and where can you find strength to keep running with perseverance to love your Aboriginal neighbour as yourself and working for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice?

Celebration – How are you celebrating NAIDOC Week this year?

The Yarning Circle

You can read about the Wellspring Iona Care for Creation Listening Pilgrimage that ran in 2023 on our Webpage HERE

the 2023 Referendum

At Uluru, an invitation was issued to the Australin people. With the upcoming referendum, the nation will decide whether to accept that invitation.

This vote will give all Australians the chance to come together and consider a change to our constitution that will honour and celebrate the rights, history, and ongoing relationship of Indigenous Australians with this land. It’s a rare chance to make a major positive impact now and for future generations.

The Australian people are now being asked to decide: Should we recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution, with a Voice?

The Voice to Parliament Handbook | Webinar with Thomas Mayo & Kerry O’Brien

The Voice to Parliament Handbook by Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo and acclaimed journalist Kerry O’Brien is a clear, concise and simple guide for the millions of Australians who have expressed support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, but who want to better understand what a Voice to Parliament actually means.

Booktopia has a special offer for Australia Institute supporters, order your copy today for just $14.95 (12% off RRP): https://theaus.in/voicehandbook The book explores the history of struggle for an effective Voice, what is a referendum, what is the Uluru Statement and other frequently asked questions. It's a short book, making it accessible to anyone who wants to better understand the referendum question or is looking for responses in their kitchen table conversations. Australia’s favourite cartoonist Cathy Wilcox has supplied cartoons for each chapter opener, and the design and infographics are created by Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman Jenna Lee.

Watch the webinar about the Voice to Parliament Handbook below.

Reflection

The Wellspring Community seeks to work with our Aboriginal members and friends, to learn from them and find ways to express our calling to justice and reconciliation. The Apology by the Government in 2008 was an important step but there needs to be much more to enable Aboriginal people to recover from centuries of exploitation and discrimination and be affirmed as vital members of Australian society.

We welcome Brooke Prentis, a Wakka Wakka woman from Queensland as Co-ordinator of Wellspring’s First Nation’s Justice and Reconciliation area of concern.

Another person who has made an important contribution to this process is Father Eugene Stockton, who is a Catholic priest and a Member of our Community. He has worked for many years as an archaeologist, exploring Aboriginal sites to develop our understanding of First Nations culture. He has also studied Aboriginal Art in Catholic churches and has brought out a book on “Aboriginal Church Paintings”.

He has also written several books exploring Indigenous Spirituality. One particular book is “The Aboriginal Gift - Spirituality for a Nation”. This includes the creative picture that all the different cultures (European, Asian and Pacific Islander) are like roots spreading out from the base of the tree of Australian society. However First Nations Culture is the tap root, the deep root going straight down into the earth. Their culture has been developed for more than 60,000 years so they are the First Peoples. We need to recognise their priority. The tap root for the Christian Gospel was God's revelation to the Jewish people. In the same way, Aboriginal culture is the taproot for Australian culture today. Indigenous paintings with their symbolic hidden meanings are like icons pointing the way to deeper truths.

We express some of these concerns by supporting other groups like

1. National and Torres Strait Island Ecumenical Council

2. Campfire of the Heart

3. Nungalinya College

4. The annual pilgrimage to Myall Creek Massacre Site

The Uluru Statement from the Heart

The Uluru Statement from Heart, One Year On: Can a First Nations Voice Yet be Heard?

Megan Davis, Cheryl Saunders, Mark McKenna et al

http://wbc.net.au/religion/the-uluru-statement-from-heart-one-year-on-can-a-first-nations-v/10094678

On 26 May 2017, an unprecedented gathering of Indigenous elders and academics, delegates and activists, held out an invitation to non-indigenous Australians to join with them in a process of truth-telling and political attentiveness.

The gathering called for a constitutionally enshrined "First Nations Voice" which would be able to speak into Parliament, and the establishment of a Makarrata Commission which would lay the foundation for a Treaty between federal and state governments and the First Nations.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart stands as the most important piece of political writing produced in Australia in at least two decades.

What makes the Uluru Statement almost miraculous in our time - a time when soulless pragmatism holds sway in our political culture, and representative politics so often proves profoundly unrepresentative - is the way that it brought together the will of the people and the deliberative wisdom of the elders. This pain-staking process not only gives the Uluru Statement the ring of democratic legitimacy, but it also affords the document a unique moral vernacular that is at once practical and passionate.

On one level, it is little wonder that some federal politicians have baulked at the Statement's recommendations. Perhaps they understand that the challenge of the Uluru Statement from the Heart goes to the heart of our political order. As the writers here each acknowledge, its invitation is a radical one. It is an invitation to rediscover some of the resources within the Western political tradition - resources that have grown stale through neglect, contempt or cynical misuse - and to allow our politics to be addressed by a voice that has long been assiduously silenced.

The Uluru Statement confronts non-indigenous Australians with the full force of the moral claim that the First Nations rightly have on our attention. It is a demand to be heard, but it is also - generously, even tenderly - an invitation to speak together, to hear one another afresh. It is as though, through some radical act of unmerited hospitality, we are being invited by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to join them at a table they have set, in order that we might learn together what it means to be political companions (in the original sense of the word, as those who break-bread together).

Today the question remains: can that invitation still be heard? And will we accept?

READINGS AND PRAYER

Matthew 5:21-26, 43-48 | 1 Corinthians 13

Prayer Activity

"Today when you encounter someone from another race or religion or 'some stranger in the midst', let some words, or a wave, some courtesy or kindness to them be a living prayer that will bless them and you."

"Pray Now. Daily devotions for the year 2004." p. 23.

Recommended Links for Australian Reconciliation
National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission

Photo credit - banner: Johan Mouchet Unsplash