Essentials
Essentials 2016
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
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Essentials - Autumn 2016
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Essentials Autumn 2016
A New Bishop of Tasmania
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- Written by: Peter Greenwood
After 13 years at St Jude’s Carlton, as well as Ridley College and leadership in the Diocese of Melbourne, Rev Richard Condie will succeed John Harrower as Bishop of Tasmania. Peter Greenwood shares his perspective on this significant appointment.
Peter Greenwood pastors Inner West Church in Kensington, Vic, which is a plant from St Jude’s Carlton
Over many decades the Diocese of Melbourne has produced many gifted Christian leaders. These men and women have moved through our churches planting gospel seeds, watering them diligently and enjoying the fruit of their labours.
However, there is a cost to having such a wealth of competent leadership. It tends to draw the attention of other parts of the Australian and global church! And not only that, they sometimes our leaders follow the call to help build God’s kingdom in places other than our fair city. And so we rejoice, albeit without a little sadness, to send out one of our own–Rev. Richard Condie.
Bible Study – Matthew 10:32-36
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- Written by: Mark Calder
Mark Calder is Rector of the Anglican Church in Noosa, QLD
I invite you to read one of the very challenging statements of Jesus in Matthew 10:32-36. On first reading, this is so upsetting. It’s very provocative. The inference is that Jesus has come to divide the human family — the closest and most loving of relationships. But isn’t Jesus called the Prince of Peace? Surely he did come to bring peace! Didn’t the angels proclaim at his birth in Luke 2 – ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to those on whom his favour rests’?
Of course, we understand from elsewhere in our Bibles, that Jesus came so that through his perfect life and sacrificial death we might have peace with God. We also take on board what else we know of God’s will for us and for families. He is responsible for what we could argue is the greatest of all divine inventions, and he commands us to honour our mother and father and to love and care for our children. So then, how do we understand Jesus’ teaching here? Let’s explore:
Church Planting: A Critical Issue for an Anglican Future
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- Written by: Andrew Katay
Is church planting normal for Anglicans? Is it worth the trouble? And how can we make a decent fist of it for the sake of churchplanters, their teams and the cause of the gospel? Andrew Katay gives answers.
Andrew Katay is CEO of City to City Australia and Rector of Christ Church Inner West Anglican Community in Sydney. He presented this paper at the 2015 Anglican Futures Conference in Melbourne.
When you hear the words ‘church planting’, I wonder if your gut response varies somewhere between skinny jeans and chai lattes on the one hand, or penicillin and a cure for cancer on the other. Is church planting just a phase that we’re going through, like the other phases that come and go periodically in church life? Or is it the answer to everything, the solution to all problems and the only gateway to a glorious future?
Actually it's neither. It’s not a mere trend or fad, for the obvious reason that ‘one-another life’, and therefore church, is central to the purposes of God for his people. And every church that exists had a beginning, which if you like agricultural metaphors, you could call church planting. At the same time, church planting comes in many forms, from independent churches to congregation plants and everything in between, green fields as well as brown fields, and has many specific risks as well as advantages, and is only a part of what God is doing in and through his people.
I want to unpack the challenge of church planting in an Anglican context under three headings - its normality, its net results and how to nurture it.
Read more: Church Planting: A Critical Issue for an Anglican Future
Canterbury Tale
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- Written by: Stephen Hale
Stephen Hale comments on the meeting of Primates of the Anglican Communion recently concluded in Canterbury.
Stephen Hale is the Chair of EFAC Australia
The Primates of the Anglican Communion met in Canterbury (UK) in mid January, to discuss the future of the Anglican Communion in light of the crisis that has beset us in recent years. The GAFCON and Global South Primates (including Archbishop Foley Beach, the Primate of the Anglican Church in North America) and our Primate, Archbishop Philip Freier, were present at the meeting.
Editorial Autumn 16
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- Written by: Dale Appleby
The One and the Many
There is always a struggle to see what we share with those strangers who are our neighbours. How can we find truth and love in these conflicts with our multiplicities?
Dale Appleby
Some in the social sciences have observed the decline of the old seventeenth century liberal theory that individual reason and individual need could explain all aspects of the social order. Instead of a universal human nature shared by all people, 'culture theory' said that there were multiple ways of being human, all of which could only be understood in their context. Religion replaced by rationalism. Rationalism replaced by multiple and equally valid ways of being human.