Church History

Our church is now over 50 years of age.

For up to 60,000 years the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people lived in the Canberra region and the name 'Canberra' is believed to be derived from an indigenous word meaning 'meeting place'.  

The first European explorers arrived in the Canberra area in 1820 and the first settlers came in 1824.  Weston was named after a former homestead built in the area sometime around 1835. The Weston Creek grant was once held by Captain Edward Weston, the Superintendent of the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney.

The grant at the 'Yarrow-Lumla plains' was completed on 31 October 1831. The land was originally settled by James Martin, a former soldier in the NSW Corps who in August 1827 applied to the government for permission to rent 2,000 acres (810 ha) of land on which he had already built a dwelling and barn, was grazing cattle and sheep, and had sown 12 acres (4.9 ha) with wheat. Martin's claim, however, was not successful. During the 19th century the European settlement slowly grew but the indigenous people were devastated by European diseases.

Occupying a tiny speck in this huge span of time is our 50 years!

Who could have foreseen, fifty years ago, anything like what was to happen? 

Tears; laughter; outreach; spiritual growth of young and old; conflict; deep, deep joy. All in great measure. Thanks be to God! 

Fifty years cannot possibly be compressed into a few pages, but at least key points in the story can be highlighted.

Nine years before the Cooleman Court Shopping Centre was to open, with many new homes, much dust, newly established gardens, a cluster of suburbs on the western outskirts of Canberra came into being. At that time, 1970, the first community of what would become the Uniting Church in Weston Creek came into existence. Molonglo, of course, was not in existence.

Those early, hard days were immensely fulfilling.

Thus emerged a community of disciples of the Christ: a community that was to go through varied stages of growth mixed with times of stress and decline. A community ever changing in its membership with rich new relationships (children, elderly folk, new arrivals to Canberra) combined with the sadness of broken ones (death, disappointment, or relocation to another place of living).

This potted history of Weston Creek Uniting Church traces an evolution of a congregation of diverse backgrounds and traditions in which the power and joy of nurturing and being nurtured in the life of Christ has involved the willing participation of countless women, men and young people. 

While acknowledging the role of a succession of clergy in the congregation over the years, the real story is far richer than an examination of the particular roles of those clergy. These years have seen great changes in the structures of the congregation, both before and after the creation of the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977. Additionally, we are reminded in reading this story of the nature of the church as a body of people constantly facing the challenges of loving, and letting go.

In gratitude, we acknowledge the presence of the Uniting Church in Weston Creek, alongside numerous other denominations of Christian community of deep faith, which over the years have added to the common good of the wider community.