Southern Cross magazine June — July 2024
Posted on June 12, 2024
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The latest issue of Southern Cross magazine from the Diocese of Sydney is now out.
Copies will be available in churches – and also here online.
Report from Global Assembly of Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, Egypt
Posted on June 11, 2024
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From the American Anglican Council’s Canon Phil Ashey:
“Dear friends in Christ,
I am writing from the St. Mark’s Coptic Monastery in Khataba, Egypt, where almost 200 delegates from 11 Anglican Provinces, 3 ‘Provinces-in-formation’ duly constituted by Gafcon and recognized as such by the GSFA, and numerous mission agencies from over 40 countries are gathering for the first Global Assembly of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA). This Global Assembly marks an historic ‘reset’ of the Anglican Communion with regards to:
1. What Anglicans believe (a common confession of faith based on Biblical faith, Apostolic tradition and the Anglican formularies);
2. A true and genuine Communion of Anglican Churches based upon covenantal structures that provide clear and fair criteria for membership– with mutual accountability and discipline within the boundaries of Reformational Anglicanism; and
3. A passionate commitment to Christ’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:16-20) – undeterred by false teaching – through mission partnerships that will enable Anglicans to proclaim Christ faithfully to all nations…”
– e-mail, via Anglican Mainstream.
Fact-Checking a popular story of Christian origins
Posted on June 11, 2024
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“The latest book by bestselling author and controversial Australian feminist Clementine Ford is I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage (Allen & Unwin, 2023).
She wants this book to not only dissuade people from getting married but also ‘to end marriages’, because of the harm they bring to women.
This article isn’t about her main thesis, but the striking way she begins her case against marriage. The very first step Ford takes is to outline the history of Christianity and so discount the moral authority of the church. …”
– Robert Martin at Northcote Baptist Church in Melbourne does a spot of fact-checking for The Gospel Coalition Australia. This could be helpful if you have friends who are reading the book.
Related:
Who will champion marriage? – Marriage Foundation via Anglican Mainstream. The linked story includes some interesting charts.
GSFA takes on the challenge of resetting the Anglican Communion
Posted on June 10, 2024
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Anglican Futures has published the second of three posts on the aims of this week’s Global South Fellowship of Anglicans Assembly in Egypt:
“The GSFA are resetting the Anglican Communion by creating a means of global accountability and discipline.” (Emphasis added)
– Read the second post – though you might want to begin with the first in the series, “The GSFA – a potted history”.
Image: GSFA leaders at Lambeth in 2022.
John Stott’s Dream Church
Posted on June 9, 2024
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“In 1974, on the 150th anniversary of the dedication of All Souls Church in London, John Stott shared his dream for the church, focusing on five elements of faithfulness that would be for the glory of God and the good of the world. Riffing on Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech directed to the injustices of American society, Stott painted an inspiring picture of the church at its best.
In a time of upheaval, when the church’s weaknesses and sins have been exposed, it’s good to remind ourselves what the church has been and can still be when we’re marked by faith, hope, and love. Here is Stott’s fivefold dream for the church, as later published in The Living Church. …”
– Trevin Wax writes at The Gospel Coalition.
Singing as Spiritual Formation
Posted on June 9, 2024
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“Churches in Australia go to incredible lengths to sing together. Typically, churches do not have the resources to do music as they’d like. What’s more, views differ on the place of music in church life. Yet Sunday after Sunday, the church sings.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of visiting churches throughout Australia to help in music ministry training. Almost all have been struggling to motivate their congregations to sing heartily, and to develop bands that lead the congregation well. Some church music teams are thriving – praise God! Yet mostly, churches are just getting by. I know of churches where faithful music teams are few in number and exhausted. I know of churches with no musicians – they sing along to YouTube videos in their services instead. I have served on staff as Music Pastor at three evangelical churches (2 in Sydney, 1 in Melbourne), each holding slightly different views on the place of singing and seeking to lovingly engage with congregational expectations of singing’s purpose and song choices. Perhaps these are familiar scenarios. Music ministry is complex.
And yet I’ve not encountered a single church that has excluded singing from its gatherings. Singing on Sundays – some way, somehow – seems to be a non-negotiable. …”
– Greg Cooper published this article back in March at EFAC Australia.
Image: gregcoopermusic.com
June 6, 1944, One of the Most Morally Significant Days in Western History
Posted on June 7, 2024
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In his The Briefing broadcast for Friday 07 June 2024, Dr Albert Mohler reflects on D-Day.
Latest George Whitefield College newsletter
Posted on June 7, 2024
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Screenshot
The latest newsletter (May 2024) from George Whitefield College in Cape Town has been uploaded to their website.
Good to see what’s happening, and as fuel for your prayers. (Click PRINT FULL NEWSLETTER for the PDF version.)
Anglican Global South leaders meet in Egypt to reset and renew the Anglican Communion
Posted on June 7, 2024
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“The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) is a recognised grouping within the Anglican Communion which includes some 75% of Anglicans worldwide and traces its origins to the first ‘South to South’ Encounter in Kenya in 1994. Since then, regular ‘Encounter’ gatherings have brought the voice of Global South to the wider Anglican Communion and next week, 11th-15th June, a group of 200 leaders is being gathered by the GSFA in Egypt as its ‘1st Assembly’ under a new Covenantal structure.
The Assembly will meet in the context of the rapid growth of Anglican Churches of the Majority World, in contrast to the Western Churches which, on the whole, have been unable to resist a cultural drift away from orthodox Christianity. …”
– Report on the upcoming GSFA Assembly in Egypt.
via Anglican.ink. Image: GSFA.
The gospel in jars of clay
Posted on June 7, 2024
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“Some years ago I was asked what the mission strategy was for the youth ministry at our church. What did we do for evangelism? How were we reaching the lost and proclaiming the good news to non-Christians?
I took the question in good faith, even though I detected a hint of haughty accusation underlying the question, i.e. ‘If you’re not running courses, holding attractive evangelistic events and presenting Two Ways To Live each week, then are you actually doing any evangelism?’ seemed to be the subtext. …”
– Mike Dicker, Principal of Youthworks College, writes in the current Southern Cross magazine – and at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Remembering D-Day
Posted on June 6, 2024
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Today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day on 6th June 1944.
Five years ago, Joe Carter wrote this potted summary for The Gospel Coalition.
Students of history know that D-Day represented a massive effort to win freedom from Nazi tyranny, and there was great personal sacrifice. In a world where so many take for granted the freedoms we enjoy, it is good – and sobering – to remember.
Yet Christians know that our liberation from sin and death came at an even higher price. Incalculably so.
As we remember and give thanks for those who laid down their lives to defend our freedom and civilisation, let’s never take for granted what the Lord Jesus has done for us.
Related:
Hear the NBC radio broadcast announcing the D-Day invasion.
A D-Day story: Part One – The crossing – Tom McCarthy at The Conservative Woman.
Freedoms of West make our culture worth defending – John Anderson
Image: 1977 photo of a stone marker in Saint-Malo, France – part of La Voie de la Liberté – the Road to Liberty – opened in 1947. It commemorates the route of the Allied forces as they fought to liberate Europe.
Honouring faithful service over 15 years
Posted on June 6, 2024
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From Moore College:
“It is with full hearts that we share Moore College Faculty member and Director of the Priscilla and Aquila Centre, Jane Tooher, will be leaving the College at the end of this year.
Jane, who is much loved, has been on College Faculty since August 2009 and she will be dearly missed by everyone at the College. Jane is the founding Director of the Priscilla and Aquila Centre, the key architect and lecturer in the women’s ministry stream of the Advanced Diploma and a thought leader both within the College and further afield in the area of complementarian models of Christian ministry. …”
Making Sense of Suffering, Part 1 — Don Carson
Posted on June 6, 2024
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From The Gospel Coalition, a Carson Center Podcast:
“Don Carson outlines six theological pillars for a biblical understanding of suffering.
Looking into the philosophical problem of suffering, he references David Hume’s skepticism about God’s goodness in light of pervasive hardship, and he challenges his audience to consider how to reconcile the existence of a loving, omnipotent God with the reality of suffering.
A faith that remains steadfast despite life’s trials requires a deep trust in God’s sovereignty and goodness, which can sustain believers through the deepest valleys of suffering. …”
– Listen or read the transcript here.
What is relational evangelism?
Posted on June 5, 2024
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“I was an ESL [English as a Second Language] teacher in Western Sydney before going to Moore College with the plan to be a missionary.
I had been involved in summer missions and church evangelism for years, though I’m not a naturally gifted evangelist! I now spend my time helping equip everyday Christians to be courageously speaking about Jesus.”
– At SydneyAnglicans.net, Dave Jensen asks Sarah Seabrook about relational evangelism.
How should we teach artificial intelligence morality?
Posted on June 5, 2024
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From The Pastor’s Heart:
“A new massive ethical question has risen up with the advent of artificial intelligence.
How will people decide what kind of morality to give to their artificial intelligence creations?
There will need to be a morality. But what should it be?
The market is already making different choices.
Elon Musk has said he wants the AI behind X (formerly Twitter) to be morally flexible. He wants his AI to appeal to all people: left and right, authoritarian and democratic, kind and brutal …
Stephen Driscoll is the author of ‘Made in our Image – God, artificial intelligence and you’.”
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…