Make 2023 the year of truly knowing Jesus
“There is a time for everything, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes tells us. Whether it is a time for birth or for death; to plant or to uproot; to weep or to laugh; to mourn or to dance – understanding the time in which we live as we enter 2023 really matters.
Knowing our time will dictate how we should act, what we should do, what we should prioritise, and what we believe is most significant. So, what is the time in which we live?…”
– At The Australian Church Record, Ben George has both challenge and encouragement.
Dean of Sydney: ALP ‘can do better’ on Pokies
A media release from earlier this week:
“The Dean of Sydney, Sandy Grant, a long-time campaigner for poker machine reform in NSW, has responded to the NSW ALP’s launch of its gambling reform policy today.
He said:
Although I am pleased to see some helpful steps in the ALP’s proposals that will be helpful, the ALP can do better by committing to the principal of introducing a cashless gaming card, with mandatory pre-commitment, for poker machine use right across NSW.
With NSW losses on poker machines approaching $8 billion per annum – that’s over $20 million/day! – we urgently need ‘Airbags on Pokies’.…”
January sale at Matthias Media
Matthias media has a number of terrific books on sale – the sale “ends 11:59pm 31 January 2023, unless a product sells out first. Our standard generous quantity discounts don’t apply.”
John Chapman’s A Foot in Two Worlds is available for just $5.
“This book from John Chapman helps us understand both the joys and the hardships that we experience as part of the normal Christian life.”
Many would find it a great help and encouragement.
See what else is on offer here. (This is not an advertisement – we just thought you might like to know.)
‘Holy Scripture is the one that must give way’: Bishop Calls for Church of England to Change its Doctrine on Sexuality
In his The Briefing for 17 January 2023, Dr Albert Mohler addresses last week’s letter in support of same sex marriage from Bishop John Inge of Worcester.
– Hear Parts 2 and 3 of The Briefing. Image: Bishop Inge.
Same words. Different worlds. Reaching Roman Catholics.
On the Pastor’s Heart this week, Dominic Steele speaks with Leonardo De Chirico and Rachel Ciano on understanding our Roman Catholic friends and sharing the saving news of Jesus with them.
Leonardo De Chirico, Director of The Reformanda Initiative in Rome, is currently in Australia. Rachel Ciano serves at SMBC.
Last week to register for Launch 2023
This is the last week to register for Launch Camp
– 30 January – 2nd February 2023
– Katoomba, KCC and CMS sites
Launch camp has been an enormous help to so many students as they begin uni days with Christian friends and enfolded in uni Christian ministries.
The aim of Launch is to work out together what it means to live for Jesus in the transition to post-school life – years that are likely to be the most formative years of life.
Bathurst Diocesan Prayer Diary 2023
Please be encouraged to pray for the churches and people of the Diocese of Bathurst using their 2023 Prayer Diary.
Downloadable here as a PDF file.
One of the prayer requests for Day 15 –
“Please pray for the financial sustainability task force, that you would give them wisdom as they seek to lead our diocese to a better financial position. …”
A weary pilgrimage
“I remember going to a weekend conference some eighteen months after I was converted, and a girl there asked me if I was a Christian. I answered, ‘Yes’.
‘Tell me’ she said, ‘what I have to do to become a Christian’.
I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.
As I write this now, I remember well the mixed emotions that swamped me. First, joy—because more than anything else I wanted to see people converted. Second, shame—because I didn’t know what to say. Third, anger—(with myself) for allowing such a situation to arise. All these emotions muddled together produced the only possible answer: ‘I’ll take you to someone who can tell you’.
So I did that, and she was converted—but not by my words or witness.
That incident left an indelible imprint on my memory, and that day I vowed that such a situation would never happen again. In the future I would know exactly what to say.
So I set out to learn the gospel. Which I did. …”
– from John Chapman in his book Know and Tell the Gospel. Extract published by Matthias Media.
‘Save the Parish’ Chairman writes to Justin Welby concerning slavery reparations
“The Revd Marcus Walker writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the the announcement of £100m fund on slavery reparations. …
The announcement that the Church Commissioners are intent upon using £100 million of endowments of the Church of England for what has widely been reported as ‘reparations’ comes at a time of deep crisis for the Church. For the first time since the Dark Ages a majority of those living in England would not call themselves Christian. The number of people attending acts of worship in Anglican churches has fallen to a level never before seen, and we face a demographic cliff edge as our congregations grow older. …
– Read it all at Anglican Mainstream.
Sydney Church History — repost
We first posted this link in August 2020. As CMS Summer School at Katoomba concludes for 2023, here are even more reasons to give thanks to God:
“In 1965 John Stott, the Rector of All Souls Langham Place in London, visited Sydney to preach on 2 Corinthians at the CMS Summer School.
‘I heard only one of those Bible studies but I was so taken by the way he stuck to the text and stayed with it. He could show you the logic of the argument in the Scriptures, prior to that I had tended to get an idea from the passage and to leap all over the Bible supporting the idea from other parts, so that the people I taught knew the ‘idea’ but not the passage from which it came or how that passage fitted into some overall argument from the Scriptures. It is to John Stott I owe what ability I have to expound the Bible.’
Those were the words of the esteemed Sydney evangelist and preacher, the late John Chapman…”
– David Cook writes to remind us of our history, and how God works. At The Expository Preaching Trust.
(David Cook has served in parish ministry, as the Principal of SMBC, and as the Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.)
P&A 2023 annual conference: Lazy Complementarianism
Coming up at the Priscilla & Aquila Centre at Moore College.
‘Compassion…’
“Predictions about the global economic outlook for the new year are not encouraging. Nor is the news of the ongoing aggression by Russia in Ukraine. Given the rise of powerful despots and divisions within western democracies, is there anything that we can do?
Two and a half millennia ago the Jewish people were in exile. In 586 BC Babylonian forces had rampaged through Judah, conquering Jerusalem, razing its walls and its temple to the ground. Political obliteration seemed inevitable as the cream of the population was taken to Babylon.
Yet the extraordinary thing was this:…”
– At The Anglican Connection, John Mason continues to remind us that our needy world waits to hear the truth about God.
Northern Hope Anglican Church joins Diocese of the Southern Cross
As of 8th January 2023, Northern Hope Anglican Church in Cairns is the third church to join the Diocese of the Southern Cross. Northern Hope is meeting under the pastoral leadership of the Rev. Trevor Saggers.
Please uphold these churches, and Bishop Glenn Davies, bishop of the diocese, in your prayers.
Hear the sermon by Bishop Davies, as well as interviews on local radio.
Further from GAFCON:
Northern Hope Anglican Church Launched in Queensland
After 23 years of ministry at a parish church in Cairns, Australia, the Reverend Trevor Saggers decided enough was enough, when his bishop, among other things, was unable to support the Bible’s teaching on same-sex relationships.
When a motion was put to the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia in May 2022 affirming the Bible’s teaching on marriage and declaring the blessing of same-sex marriages to be contrary to the Bible’s teaching, the Bishop of North Queensland could not vote in favour of such a statement. Sadly, he was not alone among the House of Bishops, as a majority of 12 bishops voted against the motion, thus preventing the adoption of the statement addressing the faith of the Church, despite a majority of lay and clerical members of the General Synod voting in favour.
This action precipitated, in part, the formation of the Diocese of the Southern Cross, an extra provincial diocese within Australia, as a lifeboat for faithful Anglicans to join, when they felt they could no longer serve under the jurisdiction of a bishop who did not faithfully teach the doctrine of Christ and his apostles.
On Sunday, 8th January 2023, Bishop Glenn Davies commissioned the Reverend Trevor Saggers as the pastor of Northern Hope Anglican Church and welcomed 120 people who gathered in a rented hall with their pastor to form a new Anglican congregation in Cairns, the third Member Church of the Diocese of the Southern Cross. …”
C of E setting up £100m fund to ‘address past wrongs’ of slave trade links
“The Church of England has committed £100m to a fund it is setting up to compensate for its historical benefit from the international slave trade. …
The church is not using the term ‘reparations’ as the scheme will not compensate individuals but will support projects ‘focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery’. …”
– Report from The Guardian.
See also:
Church plans to spend £100m atoning for its historical slave trade links after branding it a ‘shameful and horrific sin’ – Daily Mail.
“Senior clerics have admitted that the £100million investment, to be made over the next decade, is a huge sum at a time when parishes and congregations are struggling but insisted the church had to ‘address past wrongs’.”
The Vatican Files
Dr. Leonardo De Chirico of The Reformanda Initiative in Rome is currently speaking at CMS Summer Conferences across Australia.
Many have found his insights extremely valuable in understanding the Roman Catholic Church so they might humbly and lovingly share the saving news of Jesus with their Roman Catholic friends.
From The Reformanda Initiative:
“The Reformanda Initiative exists to identify, unite, equip, and resource evangelical leaders to understand Roman Catholic theology and practice, to educate the evangelical Church and to communicate the Gospel.
Evangelicalism currently has an incoherent relationship with Roman Catholicism. Many evangelicals are uncertain about what Roman Catholics actually believe. Do they believe in the same Gospel, or something entirely different?
This question is important for leaders of evangelical churches and organizations and for hundreds of millions of evangelical believers around the world. …”
A key linked website is The Vatican Files where Dr De Chirico shares what is happening in the Roman Catholic Church. A recent article is entitled, “God has many ways to save.” Cardinal Cantalamessa and Roman Catholic Universalism:
“Like every Christmas season, the tradition of the ‘advent sermons,’ whereby the preacher of the Papal household addresses the Pope and the community working in the Vatican, was repeated this past December when Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, a capuchin, preached three sermons.
This preaching role is important because it is officially appointed by the reigning Pope and assigned to a priest whose task is to preach to the community working and living in the Vatican (Pope included) on special liturgical festivities. More generally, the Vatican preacher contributes to setting the standard of Roman Catholic homiletics even beyond the little community of the recipients and is looked upon as a ‘model’ for good Roman Catholic preaching.
For these reasons, it is always useful to have an eye on what he says and how he says it. …”
See also The Reformanda Initiative Podcast.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…