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.
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? …”
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.
The lessons Bluey can teach greedy developers and politicians about resurrecting the true Australian dream
“Australian politics is not family friendly – and it’s time the major parties woke up to this. …”
– At Sky News Australia, Kel Richards shares some thoughts after watching a popular kids TV show.
Parenting in God’s family
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“What is Christian parenting? How do we do family Bible time well?
How can we prioritise church, even when it’s hard? Navigating social media with teens?
And how to parent teens who are doubting, drifting or deserting?
Parenting is joyous, magical, tiresome, boring, stressful and complicated.
Harriet Connor is editor of ‘Parenting in God’s family: Biblical wisdom for everyday issues.’. Kat Ashton Israel is a contributing author.”
Writing an Article
“Here is some advice from an editor who does not quite fit E.B. White’s double-sided definition: ‘An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.’
What follows is just some thoughts about escaping the desire to write terribly.
Your aim is to write an article for your monthly parish paper, or for AP, or for your local newspaper, or even for your own website. The length might be about 1000 words. How do you go about it? J. I. Packer called himself ‘an accidental author’. He was never taught how to do it. He was asked to do it, and he kept doing it. …”
A Cloud of Witnesses: Australian Anglicans in Tanzania
Coming up at Moore College:
“The Letter to the Hebrews encourages us with the account of the great cloud of witnesses in the Old Testament – people who lived by faith looking forward to Jesus.
The Moore College Archives encourage us with some of the witness of people of more modern times who have stepped out in faith looking to Jesus as they went to serve God in Tanzania. How do they encourage and challenge us today? What shaped their faith? What shaped their passions? What were their aims in mission? How do they ‘strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees’?
Speaker – Rev Dr Colin Reed, former CMS missionary.
Colin Reed grew up in Africa. He has served with CMS as a missionary in Tanzania (along with his wife Wendy), on staff of the NSW & ACT Branch, and as Principal of St Andrew’s Hall. Over many years, Colin has studied and written on the history of the Church in East Africa. …”
– Details and registration (free!) at the College website.
Preaching illustrations to win Muslims — with Samuel Green
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“How to preach to build confidence so members want to invite Islamic friends and workmates to church and better educate our Christians for conversations with Muslim friends.
What topics might we address? How to best engage with the authority and authorship of the Bible vs the Qur’an, plus Jesus and Muhammed, the Trinity, Incarnation, Sin and human nature, Judgement and Salvation.
Sam Green works for the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students and is the author of ‘Where to start with Islam.’”
What not to say at the beginning (or end) of a church gathering
“The fact is, many leaders do not attach great significance to the opening and closing elements of their services and, therefore, do not adequately prepare themselves for what they will say …
The result is words or phrases that may be empty, distracting, or just plain silly. …”
– Some wise (and encouraging) words from Tim Challies.
Leading up as a ministry team member — The Pastor’s Heart
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“How do you work in a team excellently with those above you in ministry?
How do you as a team member take responsibility for the success of your church?
What can ministry team members do well to help the whole team function better?
What mistakes do team members make? And what about confidentiality on team?
Michael Davies is associate pastor of Lighthouse Church in Gorokan, NSW.
Megan Stevens serves at Vine Church in Surry Hills in Sydney.
Peter Blanch is a ministry consultant with Reach Australia.”
One Reason Preaching Matters — David Jackman
“To many people, preaching seems strangely out of place in the modern world. Why would anyone choose to go to a church building, week by week, to hear a preacher (often the same person) deliver a monologue for twenty or thirty minutes (sometimes even longer) about an ancient book with characters who lived, at best, two thousand years ago? This doesn’t happen in any other context. Educational methods are increasingly interactive. Learning by discovery is the watchword. Preaching seems to be just another example of the church being out of touch, out of date, and out of steam.
Of course, it’s not difficult to find examples of preaching that are sadly boring or irrelevant. Nor is it hard to hear arguments put forward to claim that preaching has had its day: we live in a visual learning culture, listeners have sound-bite levels of concentration, study groups or one-to-one mentoring is more effective, moderns are opposed to domination of a congregation from an elevated pulpit, and so on. But the remedy for the disappointing level of much contemporary preaching is not less preaching, nor its removal from the church’s agenda, but better preaching. And that is because something happens through preaching that cannot occur in any other communication context. …”
– Crossway has published this helpful excerpt from a new book by David Jackman, former Director of The Proclamation Trust.
Image from an encouraging interview with Word Partners on expository preaching.
AI as God, Deepfakes, and The Resurrection — John Anderson speaks with John Lennox
From JohnAnderson.net.au:
John Anderson “… speaks with Oxford Professor John Lennox about the intriguing connections between science, religion, and modern cultural shifts.
Lennox reflects on how figures like Jordan Peterson have opened the door for renewed dialogue between Christianity and science. He argues that historical scientific pioneers were driven by their faith in a divine lawgiver, a perspective that has regained traction in modern intellectual discussions.
The conversation also touches on the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence and society’s growing struggle with truth in the age of deepfakes. \
Lennox emphasises the unique hope Christianity offers through the resurrection of Jesus, contrasting it with secular movements like transhumanism, which promises immortality but fails to address deeper human questions.”
– The video on YouTube has timestamps for ease of navigation.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…