Many Cultures, One Hope: Cultural Competence in the Uniting Church with guest Reverend Seforosa Carroll

June 1, 2026

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5 min read

In 1985, the Uniting Church in Australia declared itself a multicultural church and established the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Congress as two separate but interconnected initiatives. Forty years later, Reverend Dr. Seforosa Carroll argues that the church is still learning what that declaration actually demands—and that cultural competence is not a niche skill for ministers from non-white backgrounds, but the core business of everyone in the church.

What Cultural Competence Actually Means

For Carroll, cultural competence is not a checklist or a workshop you complete. It is "the ability and the agility to encounter and cross cultures and return in a sense of being aware of who you are in the encounter." This requires two things that are often missing from institutional diversity training: genuine empathy and self-awareness. Without those, she says, "it'll make it harder for you to actually encounter cultures and meet them where they're at."

She deliberately uses "culture" broadly—not just ethnicity, but any subgroup of people. This includes generational cultures, disability cultures, theological leanings, and political preferences. The point is not to flatten difference into a single axis of race, but to recognize that every person carries multiple cultural identities that shape how they show up in a congregation.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Welcome and Land Acknowledgment** - Host Matthew Tyne opens on Gadigal land and introduces the podcast's focus on cultural competence.
2 (01:35) **Defining Cultural Competence** - Seforosa gives her personal definition of cultural competence as agility, empathy, and humility.
3 (03:11) **The Uniting Church’s 40-Year Journey** - Seforosa explains the 1985 declaration of the Uniting Church as a multicultural church and the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Congress.
4 (06:34) **Why the Shift Happened** - Seforosa identifies the drivers behind the church's changing view of cultural competence.
5 (09:10) **Beyond Race: Intersectionality and Subcultures** - The discussion moves to how the church handles diversity beyond ethnicity.
6 (13:55) **Personal Journey: Growing Up in Rotuma** - Seforosa traces her path to gender equality work back to her childhood.
7 (17:59) **The Turning Point: Her Daughter’s Premature Birth** - A personal crisis reshaped Seforosa’s theology and drove her activism.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

In this episode of The Cultural Competence Collective, we speak with academic theologian and Uniting Church ordained minister Rev Dr Seforosa Caroll about the role cultural competence plays in inter-faith dialogue. Through her experience growing up in multi-cultural and multi-religious communities, Seforosa carries principles of cultural competence–empathy, openness and a willingness listen–into her advocacy and ministry. Join us as we explore how cultural competence plays a key role in bridging inter-faith communication, and dive into Seforosa’s work in gender equality, climate justice, and advocacy for Indigenous knowledge.

Show notes

This episode is hosted by Dr. Matthew Tyne, an Academic Facilitator at the National Centre Centre for Cultural Competence. He comes to cultural competence following 20 years of working in international community development, especially in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and sexual health promotion with diverse communities in Australia.

Produced by: Adubi Plange, Dr Amy McHugh, Sarah Mashman

Podcast Artwork: Zein Arif

Resources

You can access more of Rev Dr Seforosa Carroll’s work through her Research Output academic profile.

Below are some of Seforosa’s works related to this episode of the Cultural Competence Collective:

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