Bishop Darrell Parker’s Presidential Address to the Diocese of North West Australia
“The life saving and life transforming ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ continues steadily across the North West of Western Australia.
I’m deeply conscious that first and foremost, before we say anything concerning the details of that ministry, we must thank God for his mercies in what has been achieved. He surely is the one who makes this happen and empowers it by his Spirit, so it’s in sincere thanks, gratitude, and praise that I begin this Presidential Report to our Diocesan Synod.
If we together have achieved anything of eternal significance in this last year, our first instinct must be to humble ourselves before our Creator, Saviour, and King, and say ‘thank you’. I say this because ‘our’ works in gospel ministry are firstly ’The Lord’s’ works in gospel ministry. Our gospel acts of service belong to him well and truly before we undertake or even conceive of them. Paul reminds us of this truth in Ephesians 2:10,
…. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
This address is classified into three parts:
(1) Our Ministry Environment
(2) Diocesan Ministry Initiatives and Change
(3) Some Episcopal Observations …”
– Read it all here. A great reminder to pray for ministry in the North West.
Recovering our larger story helps know ourselves and our place in God’s world
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“Historical literacy is a critical tool for Christians, deepening faith and enhancing evangelism and discipleship.
Sarah Irving Stonebreaker says we’ve forgotten how to engage well with the past, we don’t know why the past might be relevant to us today, and we have missed out on being part of a larger story. …”
Dr Tony Payne to Lecture in Christian Thought at Moore College
“The College is thrilled to announce the appointment of Rev Dr Tony Payne as Lecturer in Christian Thought (Ethics) from November 2024.
Currently serving at Campus Bible Study (CBS) in the University of New South Wales as a ministry trainer, Tony has previously served the College in a part-time capacity (2014–2019) as Director of the Centre for Christian Living.
For more than three decades, mainly through his work with Matthias Media, Tony has been regularly sharing reflections on what it means to live the Christian life through books, articles, podcasts and lectures. …”
– Read the news at the Moore College website.
Archbishop to Decide as Perth Synod Weakens Faithfulness in Service
“The Synod of the Diocese of Perth met this last weekend amid ever-growing concern about the direction that the Diocese is heading under the leadership of Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy.
The matter which davidould.net has received most correspondence about is the proposed changes to Faithfulness in Service to effectively weaken moral requirements for church workers.
We’ll come to that in a moment but, perhaps to set the scene of what is happening in Perth, here is a fascinating set of answers to questions. All documentation for this article comes from photos provided by attendees at the synod since the Diocese of Perth no longer publishes any of their synod documentation online (including the Presidential Address). …”
– Do read the latest at davidould.net.
Photo: Diocese of Perth.
The Calculus of Christianity — breakfast seminar Oct 30
“For those who are in or can make it to Newcastle, I am speaking at a breakfast seminar on Wednesday Oct 30 (7:30-8:30 am) in the Newcastle CBD (Nuspace, the Uni city campus) x703. The topic is ‘The Calculus of Christianity’! Here is what it is about:
Both professionally and personally, we are constantly making calculations around risk. What would happen if we were to extend those calculations to the claims of Jesus Christ? Join us at our next Newcastle City Legal as Torts Lecturer Assoc. Prof. Neil Foster uses Wyong Shire Council v Shirt to do just that.
What would a “reasonable person” (for local purposes, the user of the Newcastle Light Rail!) make of the claims of Jesus, and how should they respond?
All welcome, but would be especially good to see local lawyers and anyone else interested in the law!”
– Assoc. Prof. Neil Foster writes at Law and Religion Australia.
Sounds intriguing. See this link to register.
A Day of Infamy for Israel and the Civilised World
In his The Briefing broadcast for Monday 7th October 2024, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Dr. Albert Mohler comments on what the year since the attacks on Israel has revealed.
– Listen here.
More World news you might not have seen
AP, the Presbyterian Church of Australia’s national online journal, regularly publishes brief items of world news you likely won’t see in the mainstream media.
From their latest summary (06 October 2024), for your information and your prayers:
“It’s now a year since the brutal Islamist atrocity that ignited the Middle East, the plight of our Christian brothers and sisters continues to worsen. In just the past few weeks the ongoing conflict has spilled over into Lebanon like never before. Christians (around a third of the population) are among the many Lebanese people who do not support the Hezbollah terrorist group. ‘We consider them the oppressors,’ said our project partner.
Some Christians have been forced to flee to the north, where IDPs Camps in some areas of the north are run by Hezbollah …
Please pray for Mojdeh Falahi, a Christian convert from Islam who was arrested on 9 September and at the time of writing was still being held in a detention centre run by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence …”
Bishop Jack Iker — ‘Lion of Fort Worth’
Bishop Jack Iker at GAFCON 2008 in Jerusalem.
“The Rev. Rt. Jack Iker, also known as the ‘lion of Fort Worth,’ died Oct. 5 at the age of 75. …
Iker became the third bishop to serve the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth on Jan. 1, 1995. …
On Nov. 13, 2008, after 13 years in the role, Iker left the Episcopal Church. He became the face of the split within the local diocese that made Fort Worth a focal point in the widening national schism among Episcopalians with opposing viewpoints on ordaining women and gay priests and blessing same-sex unions. …”
– from The Fort Worth Report.
In 2008, Bishop Iker clarified the issues during his address to the Fort Worth diocesan convention:
“‘Contending for the Faith’ is the theme of this year’s Diocesan Convention, and it aptly describes what lies at the heart of the controversy that surrounds us.
Others have argued that it is a matter of contending for property, or contending for the authority of The Episcopal Church over us, or contending for homosexual rights in the church. But these are simply some of the side issues confronting us.
The real issue is the faith. We are taking a stand for the historic faith and practice of the Bible, as we have received them, and against the continuing erosion of that faith by TEC. This Diocese stands for orthodox Christianity. TEC stands for a revisionist and compromised version of what the Church has always taught. …”
See also many previous posts on our website.
A Moderate Argument for Paper Bulletins
“For many, the idea of paper bulletins in church is archaic. …. Yet the mediums we choose can shape our worship in subtle ways.
Here are six reasons paper bulletins, while far from essential, are useful in corporate worship.
It’s been well-documented that reading something on a page rather than a screen encourages clarity of thought and greater comprehension. When we hold a book (or bulletin) in our hands, it engages more of the senses and helps us remember what we read or sing. …”
– At 9Marks, Mike McGregor suggests some advantages in taking a step back to printed church bulletins and orders of service.
Church Society’s St Antholin Lecture 2024 set for 7th November
“This year’s St Antholin Lecture on Puritan Divinity will be delivered live on the Church Society Facebook page by Dr Rachel Ciano, who is the Dean of Academic Development at Mary Andrews College and lecturer in Christianity in History at Sydney Missionary and Bible College in Australia.
Recently, she was a 2023 Anglican Deaconess Ministries Senior Fellow. She speaks locally and internationally on the intersection between history, theology, and everyday life. Her research and publications are wide-ranging and particularly focus on the sixteenth-century Reformation period.
The subject of this year’s lecture is ‘Evangelicals before Evangelicalism: The use of evangelical in the early English Reformation.’ This is a fascinating topic on how the much-disputed word evangelical first came to be used by enemies of the Reformation, and Dr Ciano will explore what it meant and implied during this formative period in our history. Can you guess who was the first English person to describe people as evangelical? …”
Who am I? The search for identity
At Moore College on Wednesday, 23 October 2024:
“Our culture is obsessed with identity: we’re often told, ‘You do you’ and encouraged to live according to our ‘true and authentic self’, expressing publicly how we feel about ourselves internally.
However, the very concept of personal identity is inherently slippery. It encompasses things like ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, belief, educational background, profession and personality, but it’s not fixed: it can change through time, circumstance and even self-invention.
How should Christians regard identity? …”
Why so many new Anglican denominations?
“There are multiple Anglican denominations all over the world and even here in Australia – that is nothing new. For instance, have you ever heard of the Free Church of England in Australia, or the Anglican Independent Communion Australia or The Traditional Anglican Church in Australia? …
In March this year, I was in Rwanda for a meeting of the GAFCON primates’ council. In the room were church leaders, some recognised by both GAFCON and by Canterbury, together with another group of leaders whose churches are only recognised by GAFCON. …”
– Bishop Malcolm Richards answers the question of “Why so many new Anglican denominations?” – at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Image: SydneyAnglicans.net.
Rev Dr Dan Cole appointed as next Principal of Trinity Theological College, Perth
“Trinity Theological College is pleased to announce the appointment of Rev Dr Dan Cole as the next Principal of the College. Dan, who currently serves at Trinity as Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Greek, will take over from Rev Dr Don West who has been Principal for 21 years. …”
– Good news from Perth. Read the full announcement here.
Books of the Reformation: a Sydney Rare Book Week event
“Printing played a pivotal role in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The development of the printing press enabled the mass production of written materials, which made it possible to disseminate ideas and religious texts rapidly and widely throughout Europe. The easy access to printed materials allowed people to share theological ideas, which sparked a transformative era in European history.
Take a closer look at early editions of key Reformation texts in Moore Theological College Library with Moore College’s Principal Rev Dr Mark Thompson and Head of Church History Rev Dr Mark Earngey.
Due to its interactive nature, this event will not be livestreamed.”
– from Moore College.
Anglican Aid’s 2023-24 Annual Report
The Archbishop of Sydney’s Anglican Aid recently published their 2023-24 Annual Report.
If you haven’t already seen it, download your copy here – food for your prayers and cause for thanksgiving.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…