World Environment Day – ‘Connect with nature’

Posted on June 6, 2017 
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“The message today for International Environment Day is ‘connect with nature’ and this is what Jesus constantly advised his followers to do. …

Take off your shoes to listen to the voice of God in nature, hear the cry of the earth…”

– Published by the Anglican Communion News Service. Mystical environmentalism has replaced the gospel and evangelism in far too many Anglican churches.

Bishop Richard Condie to Tasmanian Anglicans: We need to change!

Posted on June 6, 2017 
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“We have to face up to the reality of our church. The glory days are well behind us. We know we are faced with declining attendance in many places. We recognise that the old ways of doing things just won’t cut it any more. In many churches I visit there is at least one, if not two, generations of people missing – our kids and their kids. We have failed to make disciples, and we are often more committed to keeping things the same, than we are finding new ways of being God’s people on mission.

In many places we have developed a ‘folk religion’ which, while serving us and our needs, has lost its missional focus. In the recent National Church Life Survey people in our pews told us the things they most value. The top three were: ‘sharing holy communion’; ‘sermons’; and ‘traditional worship’. These are all essentially inward looking. While they are not bad in themselves, sadly at the bottom of the list of things we value were: ‘openness to cultural diversity’; ‘meeting new people’; and ‘reaching those who don’t attend church’; the items with an outward looking focus. We need to be equally passionate about both.

We need to change! If we continue as we are, we will become marginal at best. We will see more church closures, and more decline, until there will be very little left. I don’t think for one moment that the Church will cease to be. God is too committed to it for that. But if we are going to be obedient stewards of God’s gift to us, and to love His church, even half as much as he does, then we need to feel the weight of these issues, and do something about it.

We need to be more Christian and more Anglican. That is, we need to shed the cloak of our ‘folk religion’ that serves our needs, and re-engage with the Lord our God, and His Son the Jesus Christ, and be so transformed spiritually by Him that we can’t hold the message back. We need to be more Anglican, by which I mean, committed to mission in the world, the mission of proclaiming the gospel in the language and culture of the people. After all, the birth of the Church of England in the 16th Century was a radical engagement with presenting the gospel in a language and style that people could understand.

My job as your Bishop is to lead you. I promised at my ordination (among other things) to ‘lead those in [my] care to obey our Saviour’s command to make disciples of all nations’, and I intend to do this. I intend to do this, through casting a Vision today to set the agenda for the next five years of the Diocese of Tasmania. Before I do, I want to tell you how we got here. …”

– In his 2017 Synod Presidential Address, Bishop of Tasmania, Richard Condie, shares a vision for the churches of Tasmania. Read it all in this PDF file from the Diocese of Tasmania.

The Crisis of ’77

Posted on June 5, 2017 
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This month marks the 40th anniversary of ‘church union’ – the formation of the Uniting Church in Australia, by the amalgamation of the Methodist and Congregational Churches, as well as around two-thirds of the Presbyterians.

It also marks the 40th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of Australia ‘continuing’ – with a number of ministers and parishes choosing not to join the UCA – many convinced that ‘Uniting’ would take them down a liberal path, and ultimately away from ‘the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3) .

In a 2004 speech in Melbourne, the Rev. Bob Thomas shared his personal reflections on the events of 1977.

(Bob Thomas was for many years the Editor of Australian Presbyterian Life, served as Moderator-General, and is currently Editor of New Life Christian newspaper. He is also the Minister of St. Kilda Presbyterian Church.)

Why did members walk out of the 1974 General Assembly of Australia, to a hall across the street, after it had voted to ‘go Uniting’? What was their experience? Who did they discover to be their friends? You may, or may not, be surprised.

At a time when believers in England, Scotland and elsewhere are thinking about what future they have in their increasingly liberal denominations, the Presbyterian experience is worth learning about.

Download The Crisis of ’77 as a 2.3MB PDF file, courtesy of The Rev. Bob Thomas.

Crest courtesy of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

Related:

Burning Or Bushed? – The Presbyterian Church of Australia 40 Years On, about union and its aftermath, edited by Paul Cooper and David Burke, will be launched at the NSW Presbyterian General Assembly in July. (Click the link above to pre-order a copy.)

GAFCON Missionary Bishop for Scotland

Posted on June 3, 2017 
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Via Anglican Mainstream:

“On 8 June 2017, the Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) is scheduled to vote to finalise a change to their canons that would attempt to redefine marriage.  If this action is taken by the SEC it will further marginalise faithful Anglicans in Scotland who seek to uphold Jesus’ teaching on marriage.

This change comes in the context of a global reformation that is happening in the Anglican Communion.  While Anglican provinces such as The Episcopal Church (USA), Anglican Church of Canada, and Scottish Episcopal Church are rejecting the authority of the Bible, faithful Anglicans are uniting through Gafcon to proclaim and defend the unchanging truth in a changing world.

Recognising the pastoral need that arose following the initial SEC vote (in June 2016), in April of this year the Gafcon Primates authorised the consecration of a Missionary Bishop to care for those who seek to remain faithful to the scriptures and Jesus’ teaching on marriage.

On 8 June 2017 Gafcon will hold a press conference in Edinburgh, Scotland at 5pm. 

At this press conference the Missionary Bishop will be announced and introduced. He will be joined by a Gafcon Primate and representatives of those whose fellowship with the SEC will be broken by the Synod decision.”

Related: Remnant in Scotland find hope through Gafcon.

The Robinson-Knox view of Church — Interview with Chase Kuhn

Posted on June 3, 2017 
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“If you’ve grown up in Sydney Anglican churches chances are your understanding of what church is and what it’s for has been significantly shaped (perhaps unknowingly!) by two people – Donald W. B. Robinson and D. Broughton Knox.

However, no one has undertaken a systematic and extended articulation and appraisal of this approach to church …. until now – we chat to Moore College lecturer Chase Kuhn about his new book The Ecclesiology of Donald Robinson and D. Broughton Knox.”

– Read it all at The Australian Church Record.

Forty-forty vision

Posted on June 2, 2017 
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“Thursday 22nd June marks forty years of a refocussed and refreshed church.

The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) is almost unrecognisable from what it was in the 1960s. I suggest each congregation might pause during the week of 22 June … to pray for the PCA and thank the Lord for all the fruit of our renewal. We belong to a blessed church.

Four decades represents a significant milestone. We learn from the Scriptures that God required Moses to spend forty years in the wilderness country of Midian before engaging in his life’s mission. Moses needed to learn to be a faithful provider for his own family and to care for his father-in-law’s sheep prior to the trust of looking after God’s flock. It was a probationary period for Moses. Are we emerging from forty years probation?

If so, what has the Lord released us to do?…”

– John P Wilson, Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, gives thanks  – and asks some probing questions – as the Presbyterian Church of Australia marks forty years of ‘continuing’.

(The Uniting Church was formed on 22nd June 1977 by the amalgamation of the Methodist, Congregational and most Presbyterian churches in Australia. The continuing Presbyterian Church of Australia has largely returned to its Evangelical and Reformed roots.)

How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times

Posted on June 1, 2017 
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From GAFCON:

“This article looks back 10 years and examines two churches in the USA which faced ruin because they took a courageous stand for biblical truth. We consider the severe trials they faced, how they responded, how God acted and where they stand today.

The first story concerns the Anglican Church of The Good Shepherd, Binghamton, New York.…”

– Two stories of encouragement from the USA.

From our archives: Earlier posts mentioning The Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton. (Not all of the older links are still active.)

Presidential charge to the Synod of the Diocese of the Northern Territory

Posted on May 31, 2017 
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“Last synod, I mentioned six planks that I felt needed to guide what I, and we together, focussed on in the diocese, and I have written more about them in the issues of Top Centre since last synod. Now that I have been the bishop for nearly two and half years, I have had more time to think about and refine the areas that I believe need attention and resourcing.…”

– The Diocese of the Northern Territory has published Bishop Greg Anderson’s 2017 Synod Charge.

Read it, and be encouraged to pray for our brothers and sisters, and the progress of the gospel, in the Top End.

What can Rome learn from the Anglican Church?

Posted on May 31, 2017 
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Would it be “processes of synodal life”?

From a Vatican Radio report:

“‘Walking together on the way’ is the title of a new document to be published by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, whose members met this month in Erfurt, Germany.

Despite some ‘difficult conversations’ and ‘hard questions’ over the past year, the Anglican and Catholic theologians who make up ARCIC III managed, at the May 14th to 20th meeting, to conclude the first part of their mandate, finding agreement on ways in which the two Churches are structured at local, regional and universal levels. …”

Freedom17 Conference – Religious Freedom in a Secular Age?

Posted on May 31, 2017 
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More relevant than ever. The 2017 Freedom for Faith conference in Canberra on June 14. Details here.

“Freedom 17 is a unique conference for church leaders, lawyers, policy makers and politicians to meet in Canberra and talk about the pressing public issue of religious freedom.”

And for a secular voice on some of what is at stake in western society, Andrew Bolt’s editorial from The Bolt Report on SkyNews Australia – “stopping the activist bullies is now more important than same-sex marriage”.

Kirsty Birkett on Reformation Epistemology

Posted on May 31, 2017 
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“At this year’s St Antholin Lecture, Kirsty [Birkett] gave us a fascinating and insightful lecture about the impact of sin on the mind.

How is that fallen minds can know anything accurately, let alone a holy God? The Reformation brought not only reform of doctrine and Church but also how we think.”

– A Reformation resource from Church Society.

The Christ Church Cathedral saga

Posted on May 29, 2017 
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“Lost track of what is going on in the Christ Church Cathedral saga? These 19 questions will get you up-to-date. …”

– Over in New Zealand, six years after the earthquake, the future of Christchurch Anglican Cathedral is still undecided.

This article helps to explain why it is taking so long for the situation to be resolved.

Photo: cardboardcathedral.org.nz.

Margaret Court vs Sensible Evangelicals

Posted on May 27, 2017 
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“Margaret Court’s mistaken assumption, from what I can see, is that she talks to the world as if it should know better. It doesn’t and can’t, not because it doesn’t know better, but because it doesn’t know the one who is better – the Lord Jesus. …”

– In a long and thoughtful article, Stephen McAlpine in Perth considers the huge shift which has occurred in our culture, and how Christians can respond.

(h/t Tim Challies. Photo: Victory Life Centre.)

The Secularisation of the Church of Scotland

Posted on May 27, 2017 
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“Much to no-one’s surprise, the Church of Scotland General Assembly has just voted to accept the Theological Forum’s report which changes the Churches definition of marriage to include same sex marriages and to apologise to gay people for their previous understanding.

I know there are various caveats and nuances but that is the reality of what has just happened – and although some will say ‘its not over’ – in the eyes of the Kirk, it’s a done deal.

One of the devil’s greatest tricks is that he loves to sow confusion and doubt, and thereby cause division. Yesterday was a great example of that. …”

– At The Wee Flea, David Robertson in Dundee looks what the Church of Scotland General Assembly’s decisions really mean.

Praying for the Muslim world

Posted on May 27, 2017 
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Ramadan is a great time to pray for the eternal good, through the Lord Jesus Christ, of Muslim men and women the world over. The “30 Days of Prayer” prayer guide is a real help and encouragement to pray.

You can order the Prayer Guide booklet from 30 Days Australia, or purchase a PDF download (in many different languages) from the international site.

Users of the Prayermate app can also subscribe to the 30 Days feed.

“30 Days is a remarkable effort to focus millions of Christians on prayer for the spiritual needs of Muslims.” – Patrick Johnstone, founder of Operation World.

”We want this guide to help followers of Christ see some of the diversity in the Muslim world and learn about the needs of Muslim families across the globe, so that you can pray with a heart of understanding that leads to greater awareness of God’s love for Muslims.” – from the introduction to this year’s Prayer Guide.

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