When insurgents infiltrate God’s church — Jude 1-4
“When insurgents infiltrate God’s church –
God’s people always have been and always will be under threat from false teachers who infiltrate the church. Jude, the brother of James (and Jesus), warns us about this reality. He insists that if we wish to preserve God’s saving truth for the next generation, we must contend for it.”
At St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in London, William Taylor has recently begun a sermon series on the Letter of Jude – A Necessary Conflict.
The Letter of Jude is as relevant today as it ever was. Here’s the first sermon in the series.
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.
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.
‘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.
How a man reading the Bible revolutionised my Bible reading
“For most of the time I have been a Christian, talking about personal Bible reading has made me uneasy.
I usually regarded people who talked about their deep quiet times (often early in the morning) as spiritual skites. That was simply jealousy, because most of my attempts at quiet times could be likened to the Wright brothers’ experiments with flight. A lot of effort, airborne for a short time, then a crash.
Weirdly enough, it was a combination of the pandemic and technology that came to my rescue. …”
– Anglican Media Sydney’s Russell Powell shares some great encouragement for you.
‘Amazing Grace…’
“A close source pointed me to an article by Marylynn Rouse in Christian Heritage London, about the 250th anniversary of Amazing Grace. She comments, ‘It’s not often that a pop song in the charts can claim to have been around for 250 years. John Newton’s hymn Amazing Grace featured in hit parades all over the world in the 1960s and 70s, but was written for New Year’s Day 1773. …”
– John Mason writes at The Anglican Connection.
Bishop of Tasmania’s Training Event 2022
From the Diocese of Tasmania:
“On 17 and 24 September, over 500 Anglicans from across Tasmania gathered in Hobart and Launceston to attend the annual Bishop’s Training Event.
In its 6th year, it was our biggest year yet, and we enjoyed encouragements from Bishop Richard and Wei-Han Kuan (the State Director of CMS Victoria). We are making the videos of the keynotes available and you can watch them below.”
Don’t Check the Boxes
“Over the years, as far as I can tell, perhaps the single most significant ‘breakthrough’ for me in daily Bible intake was learning to ignore those little boxes next to each of the daily readings.
If you’re a box-checker, I cast no stones. I simply share my own weaknesses and flaws by testifying to the breakthrough. Silly as it may sound, when I stopped checking the boxes, something started to change in my attitude toward God’s word. …”
– Here’s some encouragement from David Mathis at Desiring God.
Top Centre 22.4
The latest issue (22.4) of Top Centre, the magazine of the Diocese of the Northern Territory, is now online.
Download it for your encouragement and to inform your prayers. (PDF file.)
The oldest parish in the Diocese helps the youngest
“Marsden Park is the newest parish in the Diocese of Sydney. So when its senior minister, the Rev Mark Collins, got a series of messages from the oldest parish in Sydney, he wondered what they might mean. …”
– SydneyAnglicans.net has an encouraging story of gospel partnership.
The only qualification you need to speak about Jesus
“This Christmas, various officially qualified people will have messages for the season. Bishops and archbishops will get some airtime on the news channels and social media feeds. Preachers in churches nationwide will give sermons, reflections, messages, and kids’ spots. I thank God that in our nation, these great opportunities still exist every Christmas for people to hear about God’s grace in Jesus.
But what about you? Do you have any qualifications to speak about God’s grace this Christmas? …”
– Encouragement from ACL Communication Secretary Lionel Windsor – at The Australian Church Record.
Hugh Latimer: Gospel Ploughman
For preaching of the gospel is one of God’s plough-works,
and the preacher is one of God’s ploughmen
“So proclaimed Hugh Latimer (c. 1485-1555) on a rainy eighteenth day of January during the winter of 1548. This sermon – the famous ‘Sermon on the Ploughers’ – was preached at Paul’s Cross in London, where renowned preachers drew huge crowds and prophetically proclaimed the word of God to the hearts of the hearers. Latimer had Romans 15:4 as his scriptural text, and having preached in the previous weeks on the subject of the seed which is sown in God’s field, he turned to the subject of the sower of the seed, the humble ploughman. …”
– The Australian Church Record has published a most informative and encouraging short biography of Hugh Latimer – written by Dr Mark Earngey.
Yarning the Bible in the bush
“There was no sandstone, either of cathedral or parish church, but ghost gums and a rainbow looking over the twilight ordination service for the Reverend Michael Duckett.
The unique service took place at the Indigenous Ministry centre at Wedderburn in South West Sydney, home of the Macarthur Indigenous Church. …”
– A really encouraging report from Russell Powell at SydneyAnglicans.net.
(See the report for a lovely photo of a heavenly reminder of God’s promises.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…