Church meetings and COVID-19 in Australia

“For most believers in Australia, ‘law and religion’ issues have been interesting but not part of their regular experience. But in this unprecedented time of the coronavirus pandemic, the simple activity of attending regular church services or home groups has been, like much of the rest of life, turned upside down. We now find that our normal weekly gatherings are potentially illegal!

In this post I want to review some of the recently-made laws that impact church meetings in Australia.”

– Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia summarises the implications of the current health orders for churches.

Corona Crisis — a Five week series from the Bishop of Bathurst

Next Sunday, the Bishop of Bathurst, Mark Calder, begins a 5 week special sermon series addressing issues raised by the crisis.

This weekend, he turns to Psalm 13.

Do pray that this series might be a blessing to many across New South Wales, and further afield.

Protestants and Plagues

“The present pestilence of COVID-19 is often described as ‘unprecedented’ in the modern Western media, and understandably so.

However, the presence of pestilence was a familiar reality throughout early modern Europe. Our Reformation forebears so frequently encountered the plague that it would not be too much to say that the entire course of religious history, at times, hung by the thread of a mere matter of breaths.

Unsurprisingly, though contrary to the popular opinion in the modern blogosphere, our Reformers had a wide variety of responses to the plague. This lecture aims to explore the impact of the plague upon the Reformers, and explain the differences and similarities in their responses. This, of course, will be instructive to our own set of responses to COVID-19 today.”

Watch Dr Mark Earngey’s overview of some of the intellectual, theological, and practical responses to the plague throughout the early period of the Reformation.

Available now at the Moore College website.

What TV professionals want preachers to know about communicating through a camera

“We talk to TV professionals Evan Batten & Paul Richards about how preachers can best use video to effectively share the gospel.

We discuss the similarities and differences of presenting to a full room of people versus to a camera, how to relax and the difference post production can help make in capturing and keeping attention.”

– Watch it all at The Pastor’s Heart. Very helpful.

Nine Network to broadcast Easter Sunday service from St Andrew’s Cathedral on 9Gem

Archbishop Glenn Davies has today written to Rectors in the Diocese with the news that the Nine Network will broadcast the Easter Sunday service recorded at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney.

He writes,

“Throughout the pandemic we have always encouraged Sydney Anglicans to support their local church and to connect with their local livestream (a listing of churches live streaming is available on SydneyAnglicans.net). However, not all churches have the capacity to live stream, and not all parishioners have access to the internet.

Yet a TV service is a great opportunity to reach an audience who would not normally attend our services, as well as those who are unable to do so.

The hour-long service will air on 9Gem [channel 92 in Sydney] at 9am on Sunday. Filmed in the Cathedral, I will lead prayers for health workers in Australia and around the world, Dean Kanishka Raffel will preach and there will be Easter music from Rob Smith and a trimmed-down Cathedral choir, with social distancing.

Even though this service will not air on the main channel, the TV news broadcasts have been reporting our activities including my televised message designed for the news media. I am grateful to the Nine Network for this opportunity. I hope Sydney Anglicans will show their appreciation by supporting it and giving feedback to Channel Nine for its initiative.”

9Gem can also be watched on demand, though a free account is needed.

Image of Rob Smith singing “I heard the voice of Jesus say” courtesy Anglican Media Sydney.

Hot off the press: Resources for Easter

“Today is Maundy Thursday. The Easter weekend this year is going to look very different to what all of us were anticipating, isn’t it?

In my household, there will be plenty of lament as there will be noticeably fewer chocolate eggs as the usual visits with grandparents aren’t able to take place. (Maybe I should do a quick grandparent-style panic-buy of chocolate to supplement our stash so my teenagers can still eat Easter eggs from morning til night across the long weekend…wait. Maybe not…)

Nevertheless, the good news about Jesus’ death and resurrection and what that means for the world is unchanged – even in the face of so much sickness and death. Actually, especially in the face of sickness and death. God’s word to us in these times seems to speak more loudly into our minds, hearts and souls.

On that note, here are two Easter devotional resources for families that were created over the last week or so by students at Moore College, as part of their 2020 Mission Re-imagined …”

– Bronwyn Windsor, on behalf of the team at The Australian Church Record, has some great Easter resources for you.

The decade-old ministry book that envisioned the Pandemic

“Colin Marshall and Tony Payne aren’t prophets or sons of prophets (so they say).

But in their book The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift That Changes Everything (Matthias Media, 2009), they concluded with a mental experiment about a pandemic that sounds eerily close to what we’re currently experiencing …”

– Ivan Mesa writes at The Gospel Coalition.

The Pulse: April 2020

The April 2020 edition of The Pulse, the magazine of the Presbyterian Church of Australia in NSW, is now online.

Resources and encouragement from our Presbyterian friends.

Easter message from the Bishop of Bathurst

Bishop of Bathurst, Mark Calder, has released this message for Easter 2020:

Anglican Bishop of Bathurst says the Easter message is exactly what we need

This Easter – we’ve all had enough!

Enough of staying home, enough washing our hands, enough of keeping our distance…

Enough of the financial pressure because of loss of work.

Enough of not being able to get away for Easter like we’ve always done.

We grieve what we’ve lost in the space of a few short weeks.

We crave normality – wondering whether we’ll ever see it again.

And of course for some of us – COVID-19 has come all too close – we know someone who is sick… or someone who has tragically died.

The rapid spread of this virus across the globe, shows us how fragile life is and the sheer number of lives lost, confronts with our own mortality.

What hope is there for us?
The Easter message is exactly what we need to hear.
The Bible says that our greatest need is to be forgiven for pushing God out of our lives.

Easter brings the best news ever – that because Jesus died for our rebellion, and rose again in power, we can be forgiven and therefore be confident of living for ever in the new world he’s promised – a world without sickness and death.

And if our most profound need has already been met by God, we can trust him, to be there for us in all our other needs – including all that we’re going through now!

Easter 2020 is a good time reach out to God and find the help you need.

And Easter 2020 is a great opportunity to check out our church services from the comfort of your own home – at https://www.bathurstanglican.org.au . Happy Easter!

Do share widely.

We ask Mark Earngey about ‘Common Prayer for Homes’

We asked Dr. Mark Earngey at Moore College about Common Prayer for Homes: Resources for Family Worship, released in the last few days. It’s a wonderful resource. Much of it will be familiar to our readers, and some if it will be new.

Our questions to Mark are in bold text:

What is ‘Common Prayer for Homes’?

Common Prayer for Homes is a flexible set of liturgical resources put together to help churches during the period of this present coronavirus crisis.

It consists of two classic-style orders of service for Sunday household worship, one modern order of service for Sunday household worship with children, an order of service for daily devotions throughout the week, a collection of occasional prayers (especially oriented to new family rhythms at home), and the classic seasonal arrangement of prayers, known as collects.

Who was behind putting it together, and what sources did you use?

In the week that it was announced that churches could not physically gather indoors, I observed our churches rapidly and rightly scrambling for ideas and resources.  David Peterson and I spoke together and agreed that providing churches with some solid liturgical structures might be a great help at this time.  I consulted with various ministers (from different denominations and locations) regarding whether such a resource would assist them, and the overwhelming response was that it would indeed help.

So, with David Peterson and a small group of Moore Theological College (MTC) trained clergy in our Diocese, we set ourselves to the task.  Since MTC mission was impact by the coronavirus and thus reconfigured around producing resources, we spent the week writing, editing, and producing these liturgical resources. Bishop Michael Stead was a solid encouragement along the way, and assisted with the process of utilising BetterGatherings.com to distribute Common Prayer in Homes.  

In terms of sources used, the main liturgical resources were the Common Prayer (2012) and An Australian Prayer Book (1978).  Other resources included: Common Worship (2000), the Book of Common Prayer (1552), the Church of England Catechism (1553), and prayers rephrased or newly written by ourselves.

These sources come unashamedly from the tradition of Reformation Anglicanism, with their strong biblical and evangelical themes arising from the genius of Archbishop Cranmer’s liturgical team.

Many churches are producing livestreams or recordings of services during the pandemic. Isn’t that enough?

It has been such a delight to see the leadership of local churches banding together with ideas, suggestions, and advise on how to produce livestreams and recordings of services.  But is that enough?

Well, the ministers I have spoken to have a great pastoral intuition and know that this crisis calls for something more than the ‘Pastor as CEO’ type of model.  That is, it calls for ordinary pastoral ministry – phone calls, writing letters, setting up practical care teams, hosting Zoom Bible studies, enabling and releasing leaders to help the pastoral work, and being creative about how personal pastoral work can succeed at a time like this.

Further, it seems to me that now is not the time for passive and non-participatory corporate worship (cf., the Singing-Sermon-Spectator service).  Indeed, I think that our consideration of corporate worship ought not start with the question, “what can the pastor and up-front team deliver to the screen?” – but rather, start with the question, “what sort of discipleship and practices do we want to encourage and see happen in household worship?”.  This may mean asking worshippers to pray a prayer of preparation before the livestream begins, or pausing the pre-recorded service and spend some time in prayer, or it may mean asking someone in each household to pray the collect for the day, or leaving some time after the sermon for households to share words of encouragement, or having someone in the household praying for God’s blessing at the end of the service, etc.

One of the beautiful things about traditional Anglican liturgy is the participatory nature of corporate worship.  It’s a real gift, and we would be crazy not to utilise that at the present time. This is where Common Prayer in Homes comes in. It can be printed or opened up on an iPad or Tablet and then modified according to what your church is providing.  And anyone can use it – mature Christians and those young in the faith.  It contains Creeds, Confessions, Prayers, Collects, and so forth – and it contains instructions on how to use them in a service like this.

If people in our churches have not been exposed to much classical Anglican liturgy before, then they will be introduced to the new and exciting world of Scriptural richness and carefully crafted words of prayer and praise.  Rather than slim pickings on a Sunday, we can offer a great spiritual banquet suited to different households.

So, to your question: are live-streaming and pre-recorded services enough?

Well, here’s my answer: if, in the production of our services, we do not expect much participation beyond listening to a short Bible reading and a long sermon, singing some songs, and saying amen occasionally, then I think it’s not enough.  It’s not bad (we could do a lot worse!), but it’s a bit of a thin diet, and it misses the present opportunity to help grow households in the faith.  Perhaps the present challenges might even prod some of us to consider whether we quite have grasped the riches of our own Reformation heritage adequately.  The English Reformers, in particular, shunned the spectator service and prized the participation of parishioners. Why not try a few weeks with Common Prayer for Homes and expand your parishioners’ spiritual horizons with the biblical wisdom handed down to us in the Anglican tradition?

One household – reeling from screen-tiredness – used it in conjunction with their church service, and wrote to me last weekend, saying: “it was the special touch we needed this morning”.  For these brothers and sisters, it was a helpful offline complement to the excellent online provisions offered by the church.

What hopes might you have about this resource once churches are able to meet again?

It would be great if our churches enjoyed the biblical wisdom of Anglican liturgy, and grew spiritually as we corporately confessed our sins regularly, soaked up Scripture multiple times during our services, heard a solid Biblical sermon, sung the praises of God’s glory with scriptural and extra-scriptural songs, prayed prayers for all kinds of people, and appreciated the rhythms of the church calendar.  That is, it would be great to see our churches embrace a biblically richer, and more active and participational style of worship.  And it’s not that hard either.

For those churches which utilise online service planning software, these important elements of worship could be added to the online service templates (=‘liturgies’!).  For example, I have seen one church do a good job of this by including the Collects every week.  It was as easy as copying and pasting the seasonal collects into the weekly prayer role, and having that emailed out to the relevant person who leads intercessions on Sundays. Of course, connecting technology with tried-and-tested liturgy could open up a world a creative possibilities – and that would be great to see.

Above all however, it would be wonderful to see the men, women, and children in our churches strengthened in their convictions about Christ Jesus, and thus strengthened in their worship and witness! Soli Deo Gloria!

 

Many of our readers will be familiar with the wonderful Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the Past for the Present, the fruit of much painstaking work by Mark Earngey and Dr. Jonny Gibson.

If not, learn more here. Doubtless, that work has been of great benefit in producing Common Prayer for Homes.

See this pre-publication commendation of Reformation Worship from Archbishop Glenn Davies:

“In the modern church where so little attention is given to ‘entering his courts with praise,’ this collection of liturgies should inspire and correct much of the blandness of the assemblies of God’s people on earth so that they might truly reflect that festal gathering of angels at Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, to which we have already come.”

And another by Mark Dever.

Easter preaching online during COVID19 with Sam Chan & Mike Raiter

From Dominic Steele:

“The zeitgeist has changed profoundly in the last month. Our 2020 vision calendar has been ripped up. We can’t predict what will happen next week, or even tomorrow.

As we prepare online presentations for Good Friday and Easter Sunday in this tumultuous context, two of Australia’s leading Chistian communicators  Mike Raiter and Sam Chan join Dominic Steele to talk about how COVID-19 has changed our task.”

– Watch or listen at The Pastor’s Heart.

Seven Hints for Speaking to Camera

Karl Faase has seven commonsense – but often overlooked – tips on speaking to camera.

Helpful for church webcasts – and for videoconferences.

What’s wrong with Gospel-Centered Preaching Today?

“What’s wrong with Gospel-Centered Preaching Today?” – The latest 9Marks Journal has plenty of challenges for preachers.

Phillip Jensen on how COVID19 changes evangelism

“This week on The Pastor’s Heart we talk big COVID changes: individualism and community, autonomy and submission, free press & censorship, materialism, wealth and its assumptions and the seriousness of life.

Plus the massive advantages for ministry and evangelism in a society which has much more time on our hands and is much more aware of the reality of death.

Plus we ask Phillip how Christian leaders can honour Jesus, loving the flock and reach the lost in the Corona season.”

– A very helpful episode of The Pastor’s Heart.

Gentleness: A crucial virtue in stressful times, with Peter Orr @ Moore College

“As measures to contain Covid-19 are put into effect, many of us find ourselves in stressful situations. Some need to live in close quarters with others for long periods of time; for others, social contact is almost exclusively online. As a result, the Christian virtue of gentleness is more important than ever.

I have an in-depth discussion with my fellow Moore College lecturer Dr Peter Orr, who has been thinking long and hard about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, including in the area of gentleness. We chat about what gentleness is, why it matters, how God works this grace in our lives, and what it means to be gentle in these stressful times.”

– From Lionel Windsor at Forget the Channel.

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