Missed the Big Day In?

If you missed the Big Day In (the launch of Connect09), you can now watch Archbishop Peter Jensen’s sermon. It’s been posted to Vimeo by SydneyAnglicans.net.

A Wake up call to the People of God

“All through our gathering at the recently concluded Primates’ meeting I kept wondering whether we were the ones to whom John was writing. We have a glorious reputation – a worldwide communion of millions with a glorious history and beautiful heritage, fluid structures, grand cathedrals, “infallible” canons, historical ecclesiology and ‘flexible’ hermeneutics – but we are in danger of forgetting what we have received and heard and replacing it with the seemingly attractive gods and goddesses of our age. We are in danger of becoming the ‘living dead’ by giving the outward appearance of life but in reality we are no more than empty and ineffective vessels.…”

– Archbishop Peter Akinola reflects on last week’s Primates’ meeting.

See also An Open Letter from Archbishop Akinola to Archbishop Williams – at The American Anglican Council website –

“…In preparation for the meeting I asked The American Anglican Council to prepare the attached report on the continuing situation of The Episcopal Church to enable people in the wider Communion to have a fuller perspective of the circumstances in North America. I shared it with my colleagues in the Global South but did not release it more widely in the hope that we would receive assurances from the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada that they were willing to exercise genuine restraint towards those Anglicans in North America unwilling to embrace their several innovations.

Sadly that did not prove to be the case. Instead we were treated to presentations that sought to trivialize the situation and the consequences for those whose only offence is their determination to hold on doggedly and truthfully to the faith once delivered to the saints.…”

Bushfires: Melbourne Diocese responds

Anglican Media Melbourne has the latest on Melbourne Diocese’s response to the Bushfire tragedy – including Archbishop Freier’s launch of a Bush Fire Appeal.

See also “Churches hit hard but stay focussed on pastoral care” by Barney Zwartz in The Age.

Photo: The Rev Stephen Holmes (vicar of Whittlesea and Kinglake) and Abp Philip Freier, at the ruins of St Peter’s Kinglake.

Hospitals betray their history by banishing prayer

“The long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith seems to be getting louder: nurses cannot pray, the Creed cannot be recited at Christian services for fear of offending non-believers, Christian marriage counsellors are removed because they believe in Christian marriage and Christian adoption agencies cannot be publicly funded because they believe that children are best brought up in a family with a mother and father to look after them.

It seems certain that no other faith would be subjected to such strictures and, indeed, to the benign neglect to which the churches have become accustomed. A place for Christians in the public square must be reclaimed. …”

– Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali comments on the recent case in the UK where a nurse was suspended for offering to pray for a patient. In The Telegraph. (h/t Anglican Mainstream. Photo: Joy Gwaltney.)

Special Prayer Service for the Victorian Bushfire Disaster

fire St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney has announced a special Prayer Service for the Victorian Bushfire Disaster – to be held at 6:00pm on Wednesday 11th February 2009.

Bushfire appeal launched

Media Release from Sydney Diocese:

Dr Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of NSW has asked churches to be in urgent prayer and to offer practical help for bushfire victims in Victoria.

“The scale of the tragedy is horrifying. When part of our community suffers, all suffer with them. We need to be generous in care, gifts and prayer in order to express our oneness with those in grief.”

Dr Jensen has launched an appeal for Sydney Anglicans to donate through the Archbishop’s appeals unit. The appeal will support the ministry that will be needed in the bushfire-devastated areas in the months ahead.

Donations for the ‘Bushfire Crisis Appeal’ can be given on the toll-free number 1800 653 903 or www.archbishopsappeals.asn.au

Melbourne Archbishop to visit disaster areas

Archbishop Philip Freier will visit today, where possible, some of the areas affected in the weekend’s firestorm.

In an “ad clerum” (correspondence directed to the clergy of the Diocese) Dr Freier has written of his sense of disbelief “about the enormity of the devastation in Victoria”. Read more

Sydney Diocese launches Connect09

Connect09 launch This morning churches across Sydney Diocese launched Connect09 with a televised church gathering originating from Kellyville Anglican Church. More than 200 congregations watched the live links to the multicultural ministry at St. John’s Campsie and a kids’ song from Colin Buchanan at Engadine Anglican.

Letters of greeting from Billy Graham (whose 1959 Sydney Crusade had an immense impact on Sydney) and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd were read.

Archbishop Peter Jensen drew from Jonah chapter 4 to encourage and strongly challenge Sydney Anglicans not to be be like Jonah, but to see the joy of serving Christ by sharing his gospel with ‘the great city’.

Glenn Daniel and Samantha Boog (pictured) hosted the event from Kellyville.

Engadine Anglican Church part of Connect 09

Engadine Anglican Church will play a pivotal role in the Sydney-wide Big Day In which is the launch of Connect 09 tomorrow.

Connect 09 is a year-long campaign to encourage Anglicans to better connect with their community, their Christian roots and Jesus Christ. …

– Story and photo from The St. George and Sutherland Shire Leader.

Most Anglican churches in Sydney will be joining in tomorrow. If you don’t have your own church, please be encouraged to drop in for a visit to find out why so many churches are working together. Discover the wonderful news they have to share. The main link-up starts at 10:00am.

Use the Church Finder at connect09.com (click ‘get connected’ at the bottom of that page) to find your local Anglican church.

Church Society General Secretary on the Primates’ meeting

Another meeting of Anglican Primates has come and gone, nothing of substance has been done or decided. The problem the Communion faces is not with one or two individuals such as Gene Robinson who unfairly has become the focus of our problems, but rather with false teaching. Those who teach that sexual immorality is acceptable are leading people to destruction. …

There was a brief time when combined outrage might have translated into action but Rowan Williams headed this off and now it seems that the body of Primates as a whole will not do anything. …

– David Phillips, General Secretary of Church Society, comments on the just-concluded meeting in Alexandria.

‘Primates avert Schism’

There will be no formal schism in the Anglican Communion. 35 Anglican Archbishops gathered here in the Helnan hotel on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea weathered a week of intense dialogue with minds unchanged, positions hardened, but with far less acrimony than at previous primatial gatherings. …

– Report from David Virtue in Alexandria. (Photo: ENS.)

Archbishop plans ‘mediated talks’ with conservatives

“Fascinating communique from the Primates in Alexandria. I am told it was unanimous.

The Primates ask Dr Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury to begin a ‘professionally mediated conversation’ with the seven members of the Common Cause Partnership. …”

– Ruth Gledhill at Times Online.

Read the actual Communique here. (Photo: Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.)

‘Out of Egypt I called my son’

“The gathering of the GAFCON movement last June and its Jerusalem Declaration represented a decisive rejection of the spiritually compromised control of the Anglican Communion by the Lambeth based instruments of unity. Yet there seems to be little sign of the GAFCON Primates asserting their new found authority and some might even question why they are at Alexandria at all. Are they going back to an ecclesial Egypt?…”