‘The Marriage Madness in Methodism’

Posted on June 28, 2021 
Filed under Culture wars, Opinion, Other denominations Comments Off on ‘The Marriage Madness in Methodism’

“The annual Conference of the Methodist Church of Great Britain is meeting in Birmingham this week and next, other things it will debate a report entitled ‘God in Love Unites Us’.

The report will be endorsed, unless something spectacular (or miraculous?) happens, as it has already been approved by 29 of the 30 Methodist synods.The report recommends that the Methodist Church approve of cohabitation and extend its understanding of marriage to ‘two people’ rather than ‘a man and a woman’. …

Rather than regard Scripture as authoritative, the report tells us that it relies for ‘authoritative commentary’ on sexuality from the World Health Organisation (WHO) which it naively describes as ‘independent’. And among other things, the report commends ‘queer theology’; tell us that sex is assigned at birth, based on ‘perceptions’ of biology; and that sexual desire is a part of the wider desire for just and loving relationships. …”

– David Robertson writes about the Methodist Conference in the UK.

Related:

Albert Mohler speaks with Carl Trueman on ‘The Triumph of the Modern Self’

A conversation with Dr. Carl Trueman on the modern self and the sexual revolution.

Encouragement from the Archbishop

Posted on June 27, 2021 
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Archbishop Kanishka Raffel has recorded this message of encouragement for churches.

via SydneyAnglicans.net

Now, it’s a total lockdown

Posted on June 26, 2021 
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“With just hours before Sunday church services, Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and the Central Coast have been thrown into a lockdown.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Central Coast will enter a two-week lockdown as of 6:00pm on the 26th June. …”

– The latest from SydneyAnglicans.net, including links to find churches with online services.

Common Prayer for Homes might be a great help for you

Posted on June 26, 2021 
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With many unable to meet for church at the moment, you might find Common Prayer for Homes, released last year, to be a great help.

Last year we spoke with Dr Mark Earngey at Moore College about the rationale behind this resource.

‘Hopeless or Hopeful…?’

Posted on June 25, 2021 
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“Over the last seventeen months millions have watched helplessly as loved ones have died from Covid-19.

For many there has been no comfort or hope.

In recent times our culture has made a habit of setting aside the wisdom of the past, and especially the wisdom of the Bible. But, as we touched on last week, when we are facing catastrophe and are confronted with the realities of the human experience, the words of the Bible come through with immense power and wisdom, truth and compassion. For here there is comfort for the broken-hearted and hope for the bereaved. …”

– John Mason at the Anglican Connection in North America continues to post help editions of Word on Wednesday. In the latest, his topic is ‘Hopeless or Hopeful…?’.

Listen or read here.

Engaging with the Media — A worthwhile endeavour

Posted on June 25, 2021 
Filed under Encouragement, Evangelism Comments Off on Engaging with the Media — A worthwhile endeavour

Recently I decided to enter the fray of letter writing.

It was in response to a piece written by Nikki Gemmell, published in The Weekend Australian, “Why the Anglican church must evolve or die”. (Sorry – link is via subscription)

The thrust of her article was aimed at the Anglican Archbishop of the Sydney Diocese of the time, Glenn Davies (and Anglicans like him), who believe what the Bible and the Lord Jesus teaches about marriage – that it is between a man and a woman. However, according to Gemmell, the church needs to become like the world if it wants to survive and thrive; specifically, it needs to get on board with the pansexual zeitgeist of the modern western age.

Gemmell writes:

“the majority of Australians do support same-sex marriage. It feels like the archbishop is damaging his church and Jesus’s teachings of tolerance, gentleness and inclusivity.”

“The church has been on the wrong side of public opinion recently on abortion as well as same-sex marriage. It’s slowly killing itself by refusing to open its heart to others.”

So in response to her article, I wrote the following:

Ms Gemmell in her article “Archbishop You have Lost me”, writes, “the Bible as we know is open to interpretation – pick and choose at your will”.

To read the Bible in this way is to make the reader the author. There is a significant difference between interpreting the Bible and understanding the Bible.

Understanding the Bible requires a person to listen to what God has said and submit to His authority. When we seek to understand, understanding submits our reason, tradition and contemporary circumstances to God’s Word. When we seek to interpret, interpreting submits God’s word to our reason, traditions and contemporary circumstances. Archbishop Davies is simply issuing a clarion call to fellow Anglican Bishops to do the former instead of the latter, which is what they promised at their ordination.  

It does not matter if the church is on the wrong side of public opinion. If there had been opinion polls in Jesus’ day, the results would have been disastrous. People wanted him dead the moment he was born, he was accused of being a blasphemer, demonic, promoting sin, a law-breaker. Jesus said things that made people hate him, made people want to kill him, made followers leave him, and compelled close friends to deny and betray him, and he was crucified on a Roman Cross.

The Lord Jesus also said that to his followers

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)

The message of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will never be cool or popular to our world, the Lord Jesus was none of those things.  If the church did what Ms Gemmell suggested, and mirrored the world, the church would be indistinguishable from the world and in essence have nothing to offer.

Although only what is underlined above made it to print, it made it to print.

Thus to have the Christian world view published in a culture that increasingly cares nothing for such a world-view I hope serves as encouragement to more of God’s people that engaging with the secular media is still a worthwhile endeavour.

– Joshua Bovis is the Vicar of St John The Evangelist in Tamworth.

GAFCON Sunday 2021 coming up

Posted on June 24, 2021 
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GAFCON has posted a number of resources for GAFCON Sunday, 27 June 2021.

Bishop of North Kigezi Diocese, Uganda, ‘succumbs to Covid-19’

Posted on June 24, 2021 
Filed under Anglican Communion Comments Off on Bishop of North Kigezi Diocese, Uganda, ‘succumbs to Covid-19’

“The North Kigezi diocese Bishop Rt Rev Benon Magezi has died a week after he tested positive for Covid-19 before he was admitted at Mbarara regional referral hospital. …”

– News report from NTV, Uganda.

See also this statement from the Church of Uganda.

“Bishop Benon Magezi grew up in a Christian home and attended church regularly with his family. During a Mission Sunday at his local church in 1981, he received Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour and was born again. The following year he left teaching and began full-time ministry as a parish youth worker. …”

Restrictions back, congregational singing out

Posted on June 23, 2021 
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“Churches are back to the four square metre rule and singing by congregations is now longer allowed, according to new restrictions in force from June 23 for one week. …”

– The latest from SydneyAnglicans.net.

Are you more Likely to be Abused as an Anglican?

Posted on June 23, 2021 
Filed under Australian dioceses, Resources Comments Off on Are you more Likely to be Abused as an Anglican?

“The report suggests that ‘Absolutist discourses related to marriage as a lifelong commitment, the submission of the wife to the husband, unconditional forgiveness and suffering for Christ….are harmful for those who experience abuse’.

I would suggest that it is the misunderstanding and misuse of these teachings which causes harm.  Those who misuse these teachings are blaspheming. As are those who reject them.

The key biblical teaching on this is that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25-27). It’s a level of service, sacrifice and love way beyond anything our secularists could even dream of. And a million miles away from the ‘bible says I can beat you with impunity’ caricature so beloved by those who want to attack our faithful Anglican sisters and brothers. …”

– Published last week on The Australian Presbyterian’s blog, David Robertson takes a look at the report and some of the subsequent commentary and argues that the Word of God is the cure…not the problem.

See also: Responding to Domestic Violence in the Church – with Sandy Grant and Kara Hartley – The Pastor’s Heart.

Rico Tice on Luke 19:1-10

Posted on June 22, 2021 
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Rico Tice at All Soul’s Langham Place preached on Jesus and Zacchaeus from Luke 19:1-10 on the first day of the Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2021 in London.

Watch here. A great encouragement in so many ways, and well worth sharing.

(Link updated to reflect the edited video uploaded.)

The Great Rescue

Posted on June 22, 2021 
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“26th May was the anniversary of perhaps one of the greatest rescues of all time.

World War had broken out in September 1939. Into 1940, the Nazi German army was surging across Western Europe with lightning speed and force.

As the month of May progressed over 300,000 troops from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) along with Belgian, Canadian, and French soldiers, were trapped and encircled at the beach of Dunkirk in France.

A terrible disaster seemed inevitable. …”

– At SydneyAnglicans.net, John Lavender has some godly encouragement for you. (Also published in the June 2021 issue of Southern Cross.)

EMA 2021 — Tuesday 22nd to Thursday 24th June

Posted on June 21, 2021 
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The Proclamation Trust’s Evangelical Ministry Assembly is being held online from the UK this week. The theme is Word Work.

“Building on the success of last year’s online EMA we are going to run it again online this year.

The event will be free to all and each day will run 09:30-12:30 BST. [6:30pm – 9:30pm AEST Tuesday to Thursday.]

Each morning will start with a conference sermon from Luke 19, preached by Rico Tice, Phil Allcock and William Philip.

Next one of the Cornhill staff will take us through an exegesis session showing us the working they do on a passage in the study.

The mornings will finish with the Cornhill staff member preaching an expository from the passage they have been working on.

It is going to be a terrific event and we would love to have you with us. The conference will be streamed live here.”

See the timetable here.

Watch the livestream here.

And download the Workbook here.

Practical principles for kids’ ministry

Posted on June 20, 2021 
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“A danger in children’s ministry is that it becomes disconnected: children are disconnected from ministry to adults on Sundays and Sundays are disconnected from any wider ministry during the week.

Here are a few key ways to help a children’s ministry grow to be an integrated family ministry. …”

– At The Australian Church Record, Pete Tong shares some encouraging principles.

See also his earlier posts –

I’m not passionate about kids’ ministry – but it still matters – 03 June 2021.

Theological principles for kids’ ministry – 08 June 2021.

ACL Annual General Meeting 2021 — Report

Posted on June 19, 2021 
Filed under News, Sydney Diocese Comments Off on ACL Annual General Meeting 2021 — Report

The 2021 Annual General Meeting of the Anglican Church League took place on Thursday 10th June at Moore Theological College, Newtown.

ACL President the Reverend Andrew Bruce (pictured) spoke on Acts 1:1-14. He encouraged the meeting with the reminder that Jesus is the ascended Lord, that his gospel will go to the ends of the Earth, and that this will happen through the testimony of his disciples, in the power of the Holy Spirit. He pointed out that the apostolic mission began with earnest, dedicated and united prayer.

Reverend Bruce exhorted all present to wait on the Lord and engage in devoted prayer as we continue this significant task of gospel proclamation. Humanly speaking, the “odds” of being able to proclaim Jesus to the ends of the earth seem impossible. Yet this impossibility is the normal situation for God’s people. In the end, the risen and ascended Lord will see his gospel go out. Thus, we can only engage in this mission through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Andrew then moved on to provide some thoughts on some of the aspects of Sydney Diocesan life. He emphasised the need to be reinvigorated in our lives and our churches with gospel confidence. As a Diocese, we are in constant danger of focusing on the “urgent” matters that our world sees as priorities, rather than the truly important things of gospel ministry: prayer, godliness, evangelism, and recruiting and training.

Reverend Bruce exhorted us to ensure that the “urgent” does not take up all of our resources so that we neglect the important. We do not have unlimited resources – indeed we are quite stretched – and so we need to be wise, courageous and sacrificial in saying “no” to things that seem urgent but are not central to what we do.

He also exhorted us to reinvigorate our evangelism. All ministry today is cross-cultural, because of the vast difference between our aggressive secular culture and our gospel culture. So evangelism must be relational and person-to-person. This means we need to engage deeply with the laity, since one-to-one mission is primarily lay-led. This requires gospel courage and endurance.

We must also reinvigorate our recruiting and training. We need to ensure there are strong numbers of Anglican candidates in training at Moore College, that they sign up in good time for us to evaluate them, that we recruit Rectors, and that we retain those we have trained.

The ACL can play a key role in advocating for Diocesan structures to make courageous and bold decisions to seek always to value the important over the “urgent”.

The President closed his address with a reading from Romans 12:1-2 and prayer for our Diocese.

The meeting received the Treasurer’s Report, approved positions for Elections Secretary, Recruitment Secretary, Membership Secretary and Communication Secretary, and elected office holders. Office holders for 2021-2022 are listed here.

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