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Getting involved with UNOH

The Urban Neighbours Of Hope (UNOH) community has been seeking God for our future and we have this renewed sense of vision. We believe God has brought us together to raise up follows of Jesus who can help release neighbourhoods from urban poverty in Asian-Pacific cities. Particularly by 2015 we are asking if could God could use us to see:

  • 30 urban neighbourhoods in 10 Asian-Pacific cities transformed through Christ
  • 80 full-time UNOH workers living and serving Christ in these neighbourhoods.

Would you join us in this adventure of faith?
Would you consider getting involved by…

Becoming a UNOH worker

As UNOH is a community of Christian workers living and serving Christ among the poor, involvement begins with a discernment process.
We focus this process around two-day ‘Missio Dei’ discernment retreat that seeks to help you answer:

  • Where have I been?
  • Where am I going?
  • Who can I go with?

Answering these bed-rock questions helps you and the existing UNOH community discern whether to:

  • Apply to join as a UNOH worker
  • Apply to join UNOH’s volunteer fellowship in your city
  • Go forward with another option you may not have thought of!

Joining UNOH means taking on UNOH’s ethos, covenant, practices and policies. A graduated entry is therefore required. After an initial discernment period, a community formation process begins. This is a testing out by lived experience if your calling is compatible with UNOH’s calling as a community. After Mission Dei therefore, you apply to do the one-year full-time live-in Submerge orientation course.  The first five months is followed by a five month apprenticeship in an existing chapter.  Having completed this first formation year, you then commit to a two-year noviciate program before full UNOH membership.

Joining as a volunteer is another way to serve the poor for those who are not gifted/called to live in open homes and go through the order’s formation process. This is worked out in different ways with each UNOH chapter.

To join as a UNOH worker then includes participation in:

  1. Mission Exposure (recommended, but optional) – 10-day live-in experience in a UNOH chapter
  2. Missio Deo – a 2-day discernment retreat
  3. Sub-merge A – a 5-month community orientation course
  4. Interview to become an apprentice
  5. Sub-merge B -5 months as an apprentice in a current UNOH chapter
  6. Novitiate for 2 years
  7. UNOH Membership initially for 3 years. Members can start new UNOH chapters
  8. Sabbatical for 3 months
  9. UNOH Membership for 6 years
  10. Sabbatical for 3 months.

Why take community formation seriously? Why invest in building foundations for your life’s vocation?

We have found that Christians need space to have a ‘lived experience’ of UNOH and to decide whether it is compatible with their own calling. If we understand by being committed, then formation is about a graduated and measured commitment and responsibility level. We call this space ‘apprenticeship’ and ‘noviciate’ and this whole first three years ‘formation’.

There is also a sense that because UNOH changes shape a little with every new worker that joins, all UNOH workers are always in community formation, at least informally. We need to be diligent in bonding and connecting with the UNOH ethos and workers afresh each year, and helping to multiply ourselves.
Christ brought his disciples through an initiation process of ‘calling’, ‘chaos’ and experiences of the ‘Paschal mystery’ before they would have a lasting commission. Their formation was in the midst of Jesus’ ministry of proclaiming and living the Reign of God. More than ever in an individualistic world today, we need this same formation process to join a community so that this sense of belonging is life-giving.

Since cutting our first community covenant together in 1998, and taking formation seriously, only one UNOH member has left the UNOH community (and that person is still serving with a like-minded group). Given the nature of our lifestyle, personalities and context in mission, we feel that this is quite a miracle! Certainly the sense of belonging we so often have has been worth the hard yards in formation.
What we have especially found is that those who want to be formed on the basis of the Gospels and UNOH’s particular charism, need:

  • A free and deliberate choice to pursue UNOH’s way of life
  • A willingness to take primary responsibility for their own formation
  • A willingness to commit to the process of liberation by which, under skilled guides, the person frees himself/herself from constraints of
  • a personal order (sin, pride, ignorance of Christ as the centre of life, ignorance of academic/pastoral skills necessary to be part of Christ’ mission today)
  • a social or cultural order (undue cultural pressures, prejudices)’
  • A demonstration of the ‘common characteristics of effective UNOH workers’
  • A clear formation process based solidly in the Gospels as well as having UNOH’s stories and personnel to guide
  • A graduated entry into membership, to give space to discern whether people are really called, challenged and equipped by God to be a part of UNOH. We have found having an apprenticeship and then novitiate time to be important ’spaces’ for formation.

Joining a UNOH Training course

There are five UNOH training experiences you can join to help be equipped for a deeper and more meaningful life:

  • Open nights – meal, music and a prophetic speaker
  • Seminars – two days to help equip you with guest activist/speakers
  • Misseo Deo – two days of discernments
  • Mission exposure – 10 days of live-in, community mission
  • Sub-merge – One year of community-based, mission formation.

Inviting a UNOH worker to speak at your church or small group

UNOH Worker love to share their insights and experiences with others. Because we live by faith support we are also in need of those who will pray and stand with us in our calling. So if you can provide an opportunity for a worker to speak, please fill out this application page.

Supporting a UNOH worker

All UNOH workers rely on faith-support to meet their needs and fund their ministries. UNOH is not government-funded.
UNOH workers live on the Henderson Poverty-line
UNOH workers need support to be able to remain available in the communities that they are ministering in.
If you would like to donate, please go to support a UNOH worker. All donations of $2 or more are tax deductible within Australia.

Supporting UNOH project

Projects emerge from living and serving in our neighbourhoods facing urban poverty. Information on our projects may help you decide who/what to support:

  • UNOH Bangkok
  • UNOH Sydney
  • UNOH Melbourne

Keeping informed with UNOH news

The Finding Life newsletter is sent out three times a year to help UNOH supporters be inspired, involved and informed. If you would like to receive Finding Life, click here.
Each UNOH worker sends out their personal newsletter three times a year. If you would like to receive a newsletter, click here
UNOH also sends out regular alerts via e-mail about upcoming events and campaigns. If you would like to receive alerts, click here