The ACL commits to Prayer for the election of the next Archbishop of Sydney
The Election Synod to choose a new Archbishop of Sydney is set for August 5th – 9th 2013.
The ACL is planning Prayer Meetings in June to pray for the election.
The February meeting of the Council of the Anglican Church League passed this Resolution, which was proposed by ACL President The Rev. Gav Poole –
“The ACL confirms its longstanding practice of not promoting a preferred candidate for the Archbishop’s election.
It is noted that all members, councillors and executive are free to participate in the election on a personal basis.
And the ACL commits itself to organise prayer meetings around the diocese calling upon God for a new Archbishop who will uphold the Evangelical character of our diocese.”
Please stay tuned for details of the forthcoming Prayer meetings, and please commit to seeking the Lord in prayer on this matter.
Pierced for our transgressions
“The Bible speaks with a clear and united witness. Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. The Servant was pierced for our transgressions. He died, as Caiaphas prophesied, in the place of the people. He was set forth as a propitiation for our sins. He became a curse for us, bearing our sins in his body on the tree, drinking the cup of God’s wrath, giving his life as a ransom for many.”
— Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach in Pierced for Our Transgressions. Thanks to Of First Importance for the quote.
Related:
Five Books to Read Before Easter. (2008)
Interview: The Authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions. (2007)
Call for prayer after tragedy hits Youthworks team
“A member of the Youthworks Shoalhaven team has been killed in a motor bike accident on the way to work…”
– More at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Canterbury tale
Evangelicals Now, has an account of last month’s visit by Archbishop of Canterbury-Designate Justin Welby to a Vineyard church.
“Unusually perhaps for a senior Anglican, Justin Welby was very clear on the exact time and date he became a Christian and on the gospel he responded to.”
– Read the article here. (Photo: Diocese of Durham.)
My Brittle Bones
“I belong to a very ordinary Australian family, albeit with two obvious differences. First, compared with the stereotypical sports-loving, tough Aussie, some of us are quite weak and physically frail, thanks to a mutant gene. Second, my family has resisted the secularism that is a dominant feature of modern Australian life.…”
– a disturbing article relating to eugenics. Worth your time to read. (h/t SydneyAnglicans.net)
Saving Eutychus
“A book about preaching that keeps people awake” is the subtitle of a new book on preaching coming soon from Matthias Media. It’s by Phil Campbell (Moore graduate) and Gary Millar (Principal of the Queensland Theological College).
There’s a review here by someone who knows Phil rather well.
Memorial service for Chappo at St Helen’s March 1st
If you are within striking distance of St. Helen’s Bishopsgate…
“There’s a UK based memorial service for John Chapman (Chappo) coming up soon. It’s St Helen’s Bishopsgate on Friday 1 March at 3pm and is a good opportunity for those who have been grateful to God for this man of God to acknowledge that together.”
– so writes Adrian Reynolds at the Proclamation Trust.
New Archbishop for Tanzania
Bishop Jacobo Chimeledya, has been elected as Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania.
– Story from Anglican Ink.
The Marcions have landed!
“When one asks the most influential thinkers in the modern evangelical church are, one might find names such as Jim Packer, John Stott, and Don Carson.
I would like to suggest, however, that there is one whose influence is perhaps much greater than we are aware of, yet whose thinking all but pervades the modern evangelical church: Marcion. …”
– There’s plenty to think about in Carl Trueman’s article at Evangelicals Now.
The Long Haul
From Mark Thompson’s blog:
‘How long should we think about staying in any one parish?’ asked an eager theolog, only months away from his own ordination. ‘Well Calvin spent all his life in Geneva’, answered Peter, ‘why don’t you give that a go?’
Read it all here: Read more
Freedom is the issue
“Any expression of the view that marriage is between a man and a woman is held to stigmatize those who believe that marriage is gender neutral.
Such alternative views are claimed to be prejudiced, to stigmatise others, and to be the source of unhappiness and searches for “change”. Such stigmatization has to be banished from society by the state.
Therefore even holding such an opinion is wrong – or rather causes offence and hurt, and must be eliminated. Even if the state admits diversity and plurality, certain pluralities cannot exist. …”
– The American Anglican Council has published an important article from the UK by Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden. Read it all here.
(images via Anglican Mainstream and GAFCON.)
Howard G. Hendricks
Professor Howard G. Hendricks – author and Christian educator at Dallas Theological Seminary for more than 50 years – has died. There’s a tribute page at DTS.
More from Justin Taylor.
Expository Preaching: Charles Simeon and Ourselves
“Expository preaching is the preaching of the man who knows Holy Scripture to be the living word of the living God, and who desires only that it should be free to speak its own message to sinful men and women; who therefore preaches from a text, and in preaching labours, as the Puritans would say, to ‘open’ it, or, in Simeon’s phrase, to ‘bring out of the text what is there’…”
– More than fifty years ago, J I Packer wrote this article on Simeon and preaching – for Churchman. You can now read it here online (PDF file).
Ordination in Kenya for church plant in Sheffield
“In Sheffield, South Yorkshire, statistics show that only 3% of the population regularly attend church. Back in 2002 the leadership team at Christ Church Fulwood were invited by senior diocesan staff to investigate the possibility of church planting…
Pete Jackson, who has been one of the associate ministers at Christ Church Central, is the founding minister [of Christ Church Walkley].
Although recommended by the Reform Panel of Reference and trained at Oakhill Theological College, Pete had not been ordained since Christ Church Central was not part of Sheffield Diocese. Concern that his ministry and that of the new church should be appropriately recognised led us to consult the leadership of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), who subsequently wrote to the GAFCON Primates’ Council…”
– Read the full story at Anglican Mainstream.
Encouragement from Machen for Sunday
”There is just one reason why I may possibly expect you to listen to me. I may expect you to listen to me if I can bring to you a message from God. If I can do that, then the very insignificance of the speaker may in a certain sense be an added inducement to you to listen to him, since it may help you to forget the speaker and attend only to the message.
It is just that I am trying to do. I am asking you to turn away from me and my opinions; I am asking you to turn away from yourself and your opinions and your troubles; and I am asking you to turn instead that you may listen to a word from God.
Where can I find that word?…. Not in myself and not in you, but in an old Book that has been sealed by the seals of prejudice and unbelief but that will, if it is rediscovered again set the world aflame and that will show you, be you wise or unwise, rich or poor, the way by which you can come into communion with the living God.”
– from The Christian Faith in the Modern World, J Gresham Machen – with thanks to Paul Levy at Reformation21.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…