Nexus20 — How to Save a City

The Nexus20 conference is set for Monday 23rd March at a new location: Moore College – and at a new time: 2:00 – 8:00pm.

From the Nexus website:

“No matter where God has placed us – in the suburbs, in the inner city, in a regional or rural area – our task is to bring the message of salvation to the people we’ve been given to serve.

At this year’s Nexus conference, we’ll be thinking about what it means to be part of God’s extraordinary saving purpose in the particular place we’ve been given to reach, how important the local church is in that purpose, and how God uses decidedly ordinary people and methods to do extraordinary things.

Our focus this year will be on how to bring salvation to our particular city (of Sydney) and the challenges we face in our gospel fellowship (that is, among Sydney ministry workers, many of us Anglicans).

But as always, we’ll be having this discussion with one eye on the broader fellowship around Australia (and beyond) who tune in to Nexus via Livestream. Our hope is that by talking honestly and theologically about our own patch, we can encourage, challenge and stimulate everyone to do the same, wherever God has placed us.”

– Watch the promo video, and register, at the Nexus website.

Archbishop Sir Marcus Loane remembers the beginnings of the Sydney University Evangelical Union

Forty years ago, members of the Sydney University Evangelical Union were thanking God as they remembered the founding of the SUEU in 1930.

They marked the jubilee by proclaiming Christ in ‘The Jubilee Mission’.

As part of the preparations, on 30 April 1980, then Archbishop of Sydney, Sir Marcus Loane spoke at the SUEU’s End of Term Service.

In his 19 minute address, Sir Marcus recalls the beginnings of the Evangelical Union, fifty years earlier.

Listen on this page in our Resources section.

Most encouraging.

Pursuing Sanctification – God’s work or ours?

“John Owen says Christians need to ‘be killing sin, or it will be killing you.’

Yet from my experience most Christians aren’t employing everything they have at their disposal to kill sin or to pursue sanctification in any regard. The most I hear about this is the throwaway line, ‘I’m struggling with X sin’ but upon further questioning often those who say this aren’t struggling at all with a sin; they’ve often simply identified that they have a persistent sin, and yet do nothing about it.

Then when I reflect on my own fight with sin, I’m ashamed to realise I too often fall into the same trap of identifying sin without fighting it. I started to consider why this is the case for me. Why is it that I know about my sins, but I don’t fight them? And I have come to the conclusion that I (and I suspect many others) don’t fight sin because I don’t know what my role is in sanctification.

In order to figure it out I had to understand three things …”

– Daniel Bishop writes on what should be of vital interest to every Christian – at The Australian Church Record – Part 1 and Part 2.

Showing your church the beauty of 1 Timothy 2, with Simon Manchester

“Simon Manchester explains to Dominic Steele how he prepares to teach at a major conference and how to show your congregation the beauty of 1 Timothy 2. …

Simon is opening the Bible this week … at the Church Missionary Society Summer School in Katoomba in Sydney’s bushfire impacted Blue Mountains.”

– Watch or listen at The Pastor’s Heart.

2019: A Ground-Breaking Year for GAFCON

“A lot has happened during 2019, and we give praise and thanks to God for His faithfulness to this growing movement of Global Anglicans. Watch our round up of 2019 here and we hope that you will stand with us as we move forward into the new year …”

– Encouragement from Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, Archbishop Ben Kwashi.

‘Tis The Season to Be Jolly, So What If I’m Feeling Sad?

The song playing in Target will tell you “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, but you might feel like screeching back “For who?”

A light up display on Santa’s belly in Kmart will tell you how many sleeps are left, but to you it might feel strangely reminiscent of a ticking time bomb.

And if you’ve managed to suppress all that by the time you get home, you may be fortunate enough to have a three-year-old who regularly shouts “Hey Siri! How many days ‘til Christmas?” to refresh your memory/increase your blood pressure. …

– At The Australian Church Record, Jocelyn Loane considers what we mustn’t forget at Christmas.

Our Times are in God’s Hands

“As Christmas 2019 approaches, many of us have a sense that the world has almost tilted on its axis. There are droughts and bushfires in the natural sphere, and in the civil sphere we have seen the widespread acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex relationships. Furthermore, there is a perceptible coarsening and hardening of public and private life. …”

– Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, the Rev. Dr Peter Barnes, shares great encouragement this Christmas.

Rejoice that He is with us

“Emmanuel is, for me, one of the most precious words in the New Testament.

The Greek word is a transliteration of the Hebrew phrase, meaning “God with us”. Although only occurring once in Matthew 1:23, where it is a translation of the Hebrew phrase that appears in Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8, it is rich in meaning and has become regularly associated with both Advent and Christmas carols. Jesus is our Emmanuel (or Immanuel to reflect the original Hebrew).”

– Archbishop Glenn Davies shares this Christmas reflection. At SydneyAnglicans.net.

North West Network – Nov 2019

The latest North West Network is full of encouraging stories and fuel for prayer.

Download it as a 3.1MB PDF file.

The gospel and fatherhood (Ephesians 6:4)

Fathers: Do you sometimes wish your children were born with an instruction manual? Being a dad is a big responsibility. Paul here provides valuable direction.

– Read or listen at Forget the Channel, as Lionel Windsor helps unpack Ephesians 6:4.

The massive impact Moore College is having worldwide

“Moore College’s Preliminary Theological Certificate is used to train people for ministry across the world, and the Diocese’s new Bishop for International Relations, Malcolm Richards, gave Synod members a snapshot of some of the impact it is having across the globe. …”

– Here’s cause for great thanksgiving – and prayer – from SydneyAnglicans.net.

Sharing the Good News in a World of Fake News

“How do Christians move forward in sharing our faith in this environment of fake news, bad news and a general mistrust of claims of truth?”

That’s a question many of us are asking ourselves, and it was the question St. John’s Vancouver, a church in the Anglican Network in Canada, posed to the entire congregation.

“I think every Christian who lives in the West has the sense right now that we are sailing in uncharted waters culturally,” Rev. Canon David Short, the rector of St. John’s, said. “The idea that there might be some sort of truth out there, we [people in our culture] don’t like that idea. And I think the affect for us as Christians has been uncertainty…and some of us, I think, have been silenced.” …

– The Anglican Church in North America points to a helpful initiative at St. John’s Vancouver.

Sermon at the installation of Mark Calder as Bishop of Bathurst

Bishop Mark Calder was installed at Bathurst Cathedral today.

Hear the sermon he preached, from Luke 18:9-14. This is a pre-recorded version. Watch and share.

The gospel and marriage part 1: Wives (Ephesians 5:22–24)

“What Paul says in Ephesians about Christian wives and submission only makes sense in light of what he’s already said about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Lionel Windsor reaches Ephesians 5:22–24 in his journey through Ephesians.

Read or listen at Forget The Channel.