St Andrew’s Berwick Uniting Church began in 1857 as an outreach from Cranbourne, and has served Berwick and the surrounding districts ever since. Today we are a multicultural congregation of all ages, with a good mix of activities and community groups.
Our ministers are Revd Sue Stott-Floyd, Revd Dr Tony Floyd, Revd Charles Sundaresan, and Revd Chang-Bae Byun. Our Church Council meets monthly.
We are a Safe Church and all of our ministers and volunteers follow the Synod’s child safety policies, including the Child Safety Policy and the Working With Children Check/Registration Policy.
How we are led
We are a congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia. Locally, the Church Council, made up of lay and ordained members of the congregation, looks after the day-to-day management of the church, while the Elders Council provides spiritual and pastoral leadership and helps shape our part in the mission of Christ.
We belong to the Presbytery of Port Phillip East, our regional council, and the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. Nationally, the Uniting Church is led by the Assembly. Any lay or ordained member can be elected to these councils. We strongly support equal representation of lay and ordained women and men on all councils, in ordination, and in all positions of leadership.
Our history
St Andrew’s is the oldest church in Berwick. The congregation was founded in 1857 among Scottish and English settlers by Revd Alexander Duff, an Irish Presbyterian minister based in Cranbourne. The first church building was small and made of wood, and was shared with the Berwick Anglican congregation until 1877. It was replaced by the heritage building we worship in today, which opened on 15 February 1885 as Berwick Presbyterian Church. It was an ambitious project, built to hold more people than lived in Berwick at the time. The church and the Berwick Hotel were among the town’s first significant public buildings.
The congregation was first called Berwick Presbyterian Church. “St Andrew’s” was added in the 1930s to honour its Scottish and Irish heritage. In 1977 it became part of the Uniting Church in Australia, when the Presbyterian, Methodist, and many Congregational churches joined together under the Basis of Union.
The Ministry Centre on Wilson Street opened in 1992, and the Fellowship Hall replaced the old hall in 2000. Our pipe organ came across from the old Dandenong Presbyterian Church in the early 2000s.
Our story is told in St. Andrew’s Uniting Church Berwick: A Celebrated History by Russell Patterson (2005), a 72-page book. Copies are available from the church.