St Martin’s Foothills Uniting Church was the first new congregation formed within the Uniting Church in Australia, post union. It was formally commissioned as a new congregation by the then Moderator of Western Australia, Sir Ronald Wilson, on Sunday 16 April 1978, to provide outreach into the Perth eastern metropolitan suburbs in the foothills of the Darling Range escarpment.
The first formal worship centre for the Forrestfield congregation was on the corner of Dawson Avenue and Hale Road. Previously used as a sales office for a local land developer, with some additional rooms added, it became a functional worship centre.
The preparations for becoming a parish included the selling of the Dawson Avenue property, now outgrown, and the purchase of the current church building at 57 Hale Road Forrestfield, which was previously a Baptist church. Over a period of time the interior was refurbished and outbuildings added.
In 2005 we formed a joint clustered community with the nearby Kalamunda Uniting Church congregation, with a signing of a Memorandum of Agreement to become “co-operating congregations through which we share our strengths and resources and discern together what it means to be a vibrant missional church in the 21st century”. Our minister is thus shared with both congregations.
