Giving thanks for Campus Bible Study — 50 years on

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“Today we review the 50 year impact of The University of New South Wales’ Campus Bible Study on Christian ministries across Australia and around the world – in raising up gospel workers, sending missionaries, planting churches and in Christian publishing.

Former Anglican Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen led the ministry for thirty years till 2005. Since then Paul Grimmond and Carl Matthei have been senior chaplains.

Alan Stewart started studying at the University of New South Wales just two years after Phillip Jensen arrived as Anglican Chaplain. Alan was saved by Jesus in 1979 and went on to assist in the ministry, before becoming CEO of Anglican Youthworks, Bishop of Wollongong, head of Church Planting for Sydney Anglicans and then national director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches.

Tony Payne and Tracey Gowing started as undergraduates a few years after Alan. Tony went on to run the influential Christian publishing house Matthias Media, while Tracey led the Christian ministry at Cumberland College Christian Group before returning to UNSW as a senior staff member at Campus Bible Study.”

– Watch or listen here.

100 Ministry stories — Peter Jensen interviews Lloyd Bennett

From Moore Theological College:

“Former Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, sits down with Lloyd Bennett – pastor, chaplain, and Moore College graduate.

Lloyd shares how he came to know Christ, his journey into ministry, and the ways God used his time at Moore to shape a lifetime of faithful service. From classrooms to chaplaincy, his story is one of God’s grace and guidance every step of the way.”

– This is a most encouraging interview. Watch or listen here.

Nexus 2025: Post-conference reflections on personal and team-based evangelism

“With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, said Jesus.

It’s so often like that, isn’t it?

What you bring to a thing is very often what you end up getting out of it. The questions and attitudes you have at the outset usually determine how you hear, what you hear, and what you come away with.

So in the following reflections on the Nexus Conference that was held a couple of weeks ago, I must ask the reader to bear with the questions I turned up with. They have been on my mind for some little while, and they no doubt determined why I found the conference to be a vastly encouraging and stimulating day. …”

– At The Australian Church Record, Kirsten McKinlay shares her reflections on Nexus 2025.

Thanks to the Nexus team, you can hear the talks yourself!

Talks from the Bathurst Diocese 2025 Conference

Videos of the talks from the Diocese of Bathurst 2025 Conference – held last weekend – are now available for your encouragement and edification.

And food for your prayers too.

Bible Society sells Koorong to Excelsia University College

“Koorong’s Next Chapter: Excelsia University College to Lead Australia’s Largest Christian Retailer

The Board of Bible Society Australia (BSA) has announced BSA has entered into a contract of sale for Koorong, Australia’s largest Christian retailer, to Excelsia University College (EUC). This transition will take effect from the close of trading on Monday, 31 March 2025.

Koorong has been owned by the Bible Society Australia Group for nine years since the Bootes family sold the business to BSA Group in 2015. During this period, Koorong has remained a trusted and vital resource for the Christian community in Australia. As the country’s largest distributor of Bibles, its mission has always been deeply aligned with that of BSA. …”

– Announcement from Excelsia University College. (Until 2015, Excelsia College was known as The Wesley Institute.)

Update from John Sandeman:

“Excelsia University College was formerly the Wesley Institute which was founded as an offshoot of Wesley Mission with creative ministry and theology as its core. It has added business, counselling and education but has dropped theology. It has announced a move to a new campus at Pennant Hills in northern Sydney.”

Illawarra’s Wave of Hope

“Christians in the Illawarra have prayed high and low for the coming Hope for the Illawarra events, from Mount Keira to Wollongong Harbour.

‘It’s a combination of 18 months of endeavour,’ says Bishop Peter Hayward, chairman of the committee that has organised three major opportunities to share Jesus on March 28 and 29. …”

– Food for prayer – from Russell Powell at SydneyAnglicans.net.

Prayer update from Cobar — March 2025

If you are praying for parishes in the Diocese of Bathurst, you’ll want to see the latest brief video update from James Daymond in the BCA-supported parish of Cobar.

Earlier:

New Resident Minister for Cobar after 20+ years – November 2022.

Can we remain silent? — a ‘Must Read’ post

From SydneyAnglicans.net, writing about a proposed bill coming before NSW Parliament,

“As the NSW Parliament considers widening access to abortion and forcing doctors to facilitate it – regardless of their conscience – two medical professionals urge Christians to speak out.”

‘I’ve been a doctor for 15 years and I love my work – I just love it. In general practice I’m in the privileged position of doing something I love, helping people and caring for them through all stages of life. …

if the Bill being considered by the NSW Parliament passes unamended … Christian GPs will be faced with the alternative of compromising either their faith and beliefs or their medical qualifications, and that’s a fairly nasty position to put people in.’

– Do read the whole thing.

And this would be very good for congregations to know about / pray about this weekend. Image: SydneyAnglicans.net. Bold added.

Doctors’ conscience protection under threat

An important alert from SydneyAnglicans.net:

The New South Wales Parliament is considering a bill to force medical practitioners to facilitate abortions, against their conscience.

At present, doctors can object and not take part in referring patients for abortion. But the Greens party has put forward a bill that would scrap that protection for doctors and force them to refer women for abortion in violation of their conscience.

The bill is designed to expand access to abortions, especially in rural and regional areas.

Christians are being urged to voice their concerns about the bill to MPs, with the Archbishop of Sydney and the Social Issues Committee of the Diocese (SIC), expressing strong objections to Premier Chris Minns and the Opposition leader, Mark Speakman.

The letter from the SIC, signed by its chairman Dean Sandy Grant, said many will find the measures ‘morally compromising’.

“Should these amendments be passed into law, many Christian health practitioners, services, organisations and hospitals may feel forced either to break the law, or to act against their Christian convictions, or else to leave their job to avoid both of those two alternatives,” the letter says.

“No government should put any of its citizens in a position where they are required to make such a decision. Furthermore, the proposed expansion of the categories of people eligible to perform abortions up to twenty two weeks to include nurses and midwives will increase the number of individuals likely to be faced with such an unjust moral dilemma.”

The bill is in the NSW Upper House with the option for MLCs to make amendments there, and if passed it will go to the Lower House, so there is opportunity for Christians to contact MPs of both houses to express their oppiosition.

Please share and check sydneyanglicans.net regularly for updates.

– Source. (Emphasis added.)

Image: Anglican Media Sydney.

Melbourne election synod: Board members step down

“On 12 March the Board of Nominators sent a communication to synod members. The update, from the Chair of the Board Dr Jenny George, addressed five matters. …

What was very clear in the three-page update was that this task of selecting potential candidates to bring to the election synod was onerous and time consuming. Dr George wrote that a number of board members had stepped down ‘for a variety of personal reasons’. The board initially consisted of 18 members. As of 12 March, there are 14 members, who are listed in the update. …”

– Report from Penny Mulvey at The Melbourne Anglican.

Anglican Aid report — 3,000 dead in Goma

“Tim Swan CEO of Anglican Aid issues an urgent update.

We have just heard from Bishop Martin Gordon in Goma. He said that at least 3,000 people have been killed in his city. Many thousands have been injured, and hospitals are overwhelmed. UNICEF estimates 330,000 additional children are missing out on school as a result of the recent fighting, as 2,500 schools are closed. There is widespread sexual violence, theft, and looting.

Local clergy told Bishop Martin of the fear they felt as they hid in their homes, listening to gunfire as the city was taken over. …”

– John Sandeman at The Other Cheek shares this troubling news via Canon Tim Swan. And there’s a link to Anglican Aid’s appeal page.

Pray for Central Western NSW – BCA March 2025 Prayer Video

The Bush Church Aid Society’s Greg Harris shares prayer points for the Central West of NSW.

See the BCA website.

A Canary in the Anglican Coalmine

“At a recent meeting in Germany, religious freedom experts from around the world warned of a climate of ‘increasing intolerance’ towards people of faith in Western nations. Anja Hoffmann, Executive Director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, who was one of the organisers of the event, said:

It is very worrying that the peaceful expression of personal religious beliefs on matters relating to marriage and family has become the potential end of a political career or employment, or even the beginning of a court case … This is a serious threat to religious freedom and leads to widespread self-censorship among traditional believers in the West.

Australia is not immune from this slide into intolerance. …”

– Mark Durie, Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne School of Theology, has republished this important essay on his website.

Written for Quadrant, and first published in the March 2025 issue, it’s a wakeup call for Christians and churches across the country. Essential reading.

Hope for Sydney

“The Buddhist faith in which I was raised as a child teaches rebirth. The Christian faith into which, by God’s grace, I was rescued, teaches that you must be born again. So, it could sound like these two faiths have something in common. But in fact, this is not so.

The ‘rebirth’ taught by the Buddhist faith says that, after death, you are born into another lifetime. It’s called rebirth because the life into which you are reborn depends on the life you have lived – what you sow in one life you reap in your next life. …”

– Archbishop Kanishka Raffel shares the hope everyone needs.
At SydneyAnglicans.net.