“PRAY FOR AUSTRALIA” DAY

Phillip Jensen has written to encourage prayer –

Our country is desperately in need of our prayers so would you join us for a day to:

What better day than Australia Day, 26th January (the public holiday just before the year gets under way)?

What better way than in our parish churches – with connections to others meeting to pray?

Last January we started an evangelistic prayer day with a group of young adults. Read more

The Coming — a dramatic new Christmas video from Glen Scrivener and Speak Life.

This year’s Christmas video from Glen Scrivener and Speak Life has just been released. This ambitious production, an animation based on “The Coming” by R. S. Thomas, is sure to generate discussion.

Be sure to watch.

Plus

You could pray about ways of using this video for Christmas.

Sydney Diocese’s Unchanged Priority for over Eighty Years

“The world’s greatest need is evangelism. With all the earnestness and strength that are in me I urge upon you that fact. I urge it especially upon my brethren of the clergy. Study evangelism; preach evangelism; live evangelism.

Let us not, by neglecting it, betray the Lord that bought us; let us not, by neglecting it, betray the souls of men who look to us for light and leading; let us not, by neglecting it, betray our own souls on the day of judgment when God shall call us to give account of our stewardship.

‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ we cry. And our cry would be one of despair did all not remember that “our sufficiency is of God”. That sufficiency comes to us through the medium of prayer.”

– Archbishop H. W. K. Mowll, Presidential Address to the 3rd Ordinary Session of the Twenty-fourth Synod of the Diocese of Sydney (Monday 15 August, 1938) (Year Book of the Diocese of Sydney 1939, p. 247)

Picture: Archbishop Howard Mowll, painted by Alfred G. Reynolds, 1958. On display at Mowll Village, Castle Hill.

Review: The Mission Before Us

“You are an Anglican from Sydney? Get this book.

Read it carefully. Read it prayerfully. If it is aimed at you, do something about it.

And it is aimed at all of us. …”

– At The Australian Church Record, former Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Peter Jensen, commends “The Mission Before us”.

Learn how you can get your free copy.

One Year in Sydney: An Interview with David Robertson

You may recall David Roberston’s interview with The Australian Church Record in July 2018. At the time, asked about his impressions of Sydney Anglicans, he said,

“I came here expecting to learn a great deal about evangelism. I have learnt about church structures, praise, organisation and leadership training – all of which is essential. But in my limited experience I’m not convinced that evangelism is a strong point amongst Sydney Anglicans (or indeed some other Christians).”

That’s what’s behind the beginning of David’s answer in this new interview with the ACR:

“I think what has happened is a warning to those of us who have big mouths – or at least think out loud!

After I spoke to you, I returned home to my church in Scotland, safe in the knowledge that I would not have to put into practice what I suggested. But the Lord had other ideas! Peter Kaldor of City Bible Forum challenged me to come to Sydney and put into practice the ideas I was talking about.

Through a variety of push and pull factors it was made clear to myself and my wife, Annabel, that the Lord was calling us here. In one sense it was a hard decision – giving up home, country and a now well-established church to come to the unknown.

But the opportunity to set up a new evangelistic opportunity called Third Space, and to work with Steve McAlpine and CBF, was one that ultimately, we could not refuse. …”

Read it all.

Something Better

Richard Coekin at Dundonald Church in London wants to encourage Christians to share their story.

The aim: “To resource the local church to reach the city with news of something better.”

Check out the “Something Better” website here.

On Toppling Statues

“Surely one of the most striking images of this extraordinary year was the toppled statue of Edward Colston being rolled through the streets of Bristol, England by a furious mob, in June.

The statue had been erected in 1895 (174 years after Colston’s death) in recognition of his philanthropy. In his lifetime, Colston had endowed the city with schools, hospitals, homes for the poor as well as churches, including Bristol Cathedral.

But a significant proportion of Colston’s wealth came from the slave trade…”

– Terrific article by Kanishka Raffel. Suitable for sharing as a conversation starter.

(Image: St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney.)

From Sydney to the World

If you missed out on seeing From Sydney to the World on Saturday (15th August), you can now watch the full presentation here.

It’s an important online event focussing on the raising up of the next generation of labourers for the harvest. Most encouraging. And do consider sharing the link.

What if there’s a place with no crying, mourning or pain?

“Crying.
Mourning.
Pain.

Though we desperately try to avoid them, we also accept them as a part of what it means to be alive.

But what if life could be lived without them? What if a place existed where there was no crying, no mourning, no pain – would you want to go there?…”

– Steven Kryger at Communicating Jesus has a great question to share.

In times of crisis

“In times of crisis what holds your world together? Perhaps some diagnostic questions would help. What is your worldview? Do you even have one? If you do, what are the limits of its capacity to sustain you through crisis?

At least four things are crucial to every worldview: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. Miss one of these and you will have a worldview that cannot sustain you in a crisis. …”

– Bishop of Armidale, Rick Lewers, writes in his regular column on the diocesan website.

Have No Fear by John Lennox – review by Ed Loane

“This little book has been produced to help Christians have the confidence and tools to witness to those around them about Jesus Christ. Lennox, as a leading apologist, has written a simple and clear account of the why and how of personal evangelism. …”

– At Church Society’s blog, Dr Ed Loane provides a brief and encouraging review of Have No Fear by John Lennox.

Plus, Alex Keen reviews Sharing the Gospel with a Jehovah’s Witness by Tony Brown.

(Both books are available from Reformers Bookshop and The Wandering Bookseller.)

Evangelism: Why and How? — Rico Tice

In the midst of the pandemic, we can lose sight of what’s really important.

Here are some strong challenges and encouragements from Rico Tice.

Watch the video here.

See also:

A conversation with Rico Tice — Evangelism in Lockdown.

and

the video to which he refers, COVID-19 Spiritual Health Check.

How could you use it?

A Despairing Sigh, or a Sigh of Relief?

“If you are person who would like some stark honesty about life, Ecclesiastes is the book for you.

If you look around our world and are confronted by its confusing nature and you find yourself almost accidentally responding with a despairing sigh, then Ecclesiastes is the book for you. It is a disturbing read and deliberately so.

Its sigh is the sigh captured in the words, ‘meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless.’ This book is an analysis of life designed to help a person consider life, lived under the sun, without God.…”

– Here’s the latest helpful article from Bishop Rick Lewers in Armidale.

Lennox

“The name Lennox means ‘From the field of elm trees’. It is Gaelic in origin and both the name of a character in Macbeth and the name given to my newly born grandchild.

He will not simply be a character in a play, he will be a life lived across a moment of time, a time that the more pessimistic of grandparents may consider concerning.

Who would think that a child born into an educated and materialistic western society would arrive at a time of such civil unrest, where historical divides and the anarchist heart of humanity remains and the atheistic humanist’s dream lies dead?…”

– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers writes this article for his local paper.

The One Thing Needful

“Whenever the four horsemen have been riding – pestilence, sword, famine, and death – they should lead finite creatures like us to ponder the shortness of our earthly stay.

Threats of dislocation and death do not change the human condition; they merely run a highlighter through it.

As Dr Johnson famously commented: ‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ At least it ought to. …”

– Dr Peter Barnes, Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, draws us back to what is most important.

(Photo: Dr. Barnes at a Banner of Truth conference.)

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