Reconciliation has to be More than Just a Word

14 Jul 2021

Photo: Greg Little at Surrender

 

Pastor Greg Little is a highly respected Noongar Elder and has faithfully served in Christian leadership for many years,including 13 years as the pastor of Bunbury Aboriginal Christian Fellowship. He joined Bek and Jeziel on Perth’s Christian Radio Station–98 five–during National Reconciliation Week, sharing about the importance of reconciliation and what it means to him and what hope he has for his people and for the broader Australian community. Below is an excerpt of Pastor Greg’s reflections:

“Reconciliation is about people coming together to be reconciled with one another. The idea of reconciliation has been around for quite some time and it will continue to be around for quite a while. I’ve always thought about reconciliation as an individual issue. If we want to be reconciled, we need to look at ourselves.

“I think over the years we have looked at our leaders to reconcile the country, but it doesn’t work that way. We need to come back and put it on a personal plate. Do we want to reconcile; do we want to be reconciled? If we don’t want to be reconciled and we expect somebody else to do it for us,well,then it won’t work. It begins with us.

“When you look back to the 2008 National Apology that was a great thing for our people, for a Prime Minister to stand up and say sorry on behalf of the previous governments for the hurt and the pain and that suffering that our people went through, and I think we really took hold of that. And then as a country we looked at where we are going to go from here, and we had the discussion about Constitutional Recognition of Australia’s First Peoples but there wasn’t broad government support for that. I think that the only way we are going to move forward is through a treaty, but I think that’s going to take some time and our people are going to be suffering for a while.

“But when you look around,we have got some good young people coming through. We look at the sporting system, taking a lot of our people in, and in the workforce, where many new doors have been opened. So, there’s been progress but, in regards to reconciliation, well I think a lot of people are just saying it’s still only a word today.”

If your church would like to book Pastor Greg to come and share at your church service in the coming months, please email Colin Battersby at colinb@gmp.org.au or call on 0404 145 065.