What is your vision for the global 21st-century church?

That we would be hungry for the presence of God in our midst and that we would be more united. When the Word says that when we’re united, there’s a blessing. There is a dying to self that happens when you want unity. A lot of people feel that that is too hard, so I would pray that we become better at that. I would pray that there is another great awakening and revival, and that we get passionate about people getting saved. It’s only Jesus that can do that.

As his representatives, I hope we have a great revelation of who we are in Christ. You don’t need a platform, and you don’t need a microphone. You just need to go and preach Jesus wherever you find yourself.

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The Anglican Archbishops of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia have condemned an Easter Sunday suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan which killed at least 70 people.

“The targeting of the innocent, in this case Christians celebrating Easter, is the hallmark of terrorism and such cowardice should be condemned,” the Archbishops said.

They said people of peace from all faiths should stand in solidarity to condemn the bombing.

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The Anglican diocese of Bathurst is being forced to sell church property following a NSW Supreme Court order to settle an outstanding debt of up to $25 million to Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The diocese, which covers one-third of the area of NSW, is likely next month to approve the first sale of properties at a synod, or governing council, after losing a lengthy battle in which it argued it did not have the authority to sell property it held under trust structures.

“We will be selling church trust property in order to satisfy what we owe,” Ian Palmer, the bishop in charge of the Bathurst diocese, said.

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Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson says having the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse come to Newcastle will be important for the community.

The Royal Commission will hold a two-week public hearing into Newcastle’s Anglican diocese starting on June 20.

The ABC has previously reported that several alleged paedophile rings are being investigated by police and the Royal Commission.

Bishop Thompson said Newcastle needed to hear the stories of victims and come to terms with the abuse.

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The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is culturally and theologically diverse, and it includes multiple national legal jurisdictions. Consequently, the Way Forward Working Group has considered the differing legal situation in New Zealand, and the respective nation states of the Pacific region that fall within the boundaries of the Diocese of Polynesia. The mechanism the Working Group offers for our consideration works with this reality and these differences to suggest a way that provides a clear protection of conscience.

In terms of process, this report, like many others for the General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui, will be sent to all members of the General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui for their consideration. In sharing this report with you, we remain hopeful that the wider community of the Church will be given the opportunity to share their concerns and reflections with their communities. This report will be tabled for discussion at the next General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui in Napier in May.

In offering the report and a possible way forward on these matters, the Working Group has sought to build on many years of discussion and study across this Church. In particular, they build on the work of the Commission on Doctrine and Theological Questions, which reported to General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui in 2014. That report presented two clearly-argued positions, both with their own biblical and theological integrity. One argued that the blessing of committed, monogamous, life-long same-sex relationships was outside of the doctrinal possibilities the Church can consider, the other that such relationships can and should be able to receive the blessing of the Church.

The Way Forward Working Group has assumed that these two integrities cannot be reconciled….

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The long-awaited report of the Way Forward Working Group[1] has been released.

Today’s publication comes almost 18 months since the 13-member group[2] began its work ”“ and it proposes two new liturgies to be considered by May’s General Synod.

These liturgies have been designed to allow for the blessing of couples who have been married in a civil ceremony ”“ according either to New Zealand law, or to the law in the Pacific Island nations which form part of this church. These liturgies also create a pathway for the people in such relationships to become ordained.

Civil marriages between a man and a woman have long been recognised in law in both New Zealand and in those Pacific Island nations. In New Zealand’s case, of course, an amendment to marriage law came into effect in August 2013 ”“ which allows same-sex couples to legally marry.

Read it all from Anglican Taonga.

A 125-year old male tradition will be turned on its head when girls are given their own choir at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.

In what’s been described as a win for gender equity, girls will eventually perform Sunday and Evensong services that until now have been the exclusive domain of boys and men.

Anglican Dean of Melbourne Dr Andreas Loewe said the city icon wanted to give girls the same opportunity that boys have enjoyed since 1888.

“If women can become archbishops in the Anglican Church of Australia then they should also be able to sing at St Paul’s Cathedral,” he said.

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The new Anglican Dean of Sydney has made history. Kanishka Raffel, who was officially installed as Dean of Sydney last Thursday, is the first person from a non-European background to hold the role in the church’s history in Australia.
“No, it probably doesn’t cross my mind … I just feel like me,” the Dean said.
But his appointment heralds a bid by St Andrew’s Cathedral to cater for the changing demographic of its congregation, with a rise in parishioners from Asian and sub-continent backgrounds.

It also presents a opportunity for the church to access and attract new followers, Dean Raffel said, pointing to census statistics that 56 per cent of the City of Sydney’s population have both parents born overseas compared to the state average of 36 per cent.

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Melbourne’s Anglican churches say they cannot offer sanctuary to asylum seekers facing immediate deportation to Nauru because they are not equipped to provide accommodation.

It puts the Melbourne Anglican diocese at great odds with its counterparts around the rest of the country, who are willing to face police raids and possible charges to shield asylum seekers.

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Senior Anglican clergy shared a secret understanding of each other’s attraction to young boys, a royal commission has been told.

The inquiry into the Church of England Boys’ Society being held in Hobart heard evidence on Thursday from the convicted child sexual offender Louis Daniels, 68, a former archdeacon who was one of Tasmania’s top-four church leaders in the early 1990s.

Daniels has since been jailed for pleading guilty to abusing 12 boys.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The crowd on Rod Laver Arena were stunned into near-silence by Djokovic’s performance in the first two sets of his 45th meeting with Federer. In his finest performance of the tournament so far, the Serb was worlds away from his fourth-round battle with Gilles Simon, in which he made 100 unforced errors. For the first two sets against Federer, Djokovic committed just six unforced errors and gave the Swiss no break point opportunities.
Once the Serb had the first set, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Federer, who had only once before in 22 wins against Djokovic come from a set down.
“I know how important the first set is against Novak, especially at this time right now when he’s World No. 1. When he gets on a roll, it’s tough to stop. He’s always played very well throughout his career with the lead. Even more so now when his confidence is up…[said Roger Federer]

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The Anglican Church is resisting a full commitment to reinstating Christ Church Cathedral because of concerns over safety and cost.

Bishop Victoria Matthews partially endorsed a plan to reinstate the quake-damaged church, but did not rule out building a new, contemporary cathedral in its place.

A report by Government-appointed mediator Miriam Dean QC found the cathedral could be either reconstructed to be “indistinguishable” from its pre-quake self or replaced.

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The court found that the Bank had a contract with the Diocese, as represented by the Bishop in Council and that there was a real guarantee made to honour the loan. Further, the court found that the BiC has an obligation to promote the necessary ordinances to levy the funds required (i.e. general diocesan assets including, if necessary, church buildings and properties should be sold to make good the debt).

This obviously puts the diocese in a dire position. It is widely acknowledged that it will be unable to meet these debts and continue to function in any general sense as it currently does. So where to from here?

It’s less than 24 hours since the judgement was passed down but I’ve been able to canvas a range of responses from senior and informed figures in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Amongst many there is a genuine sorrow for the diocese which is now facing a major crisis, and also for Bishop Ian Palmer who is not in perfect health. But options are limited. This will now be a test of the national church’s understanding of its own mutuality. To what extent should other dioceses get involved to help out? What role should the Primate or the General Synod take? When the crisis first developed a financial advisory group went to meet with then Bishop Hurford. They were, it’s fair to say, sent packing. More recently at a General Synod Standing Committee meeting one member urged the Standing Committee to “either send a condolence card or stand shoulder to shoulder”. But which will it be?

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One of two organisations at the centre of a royal commission into horrific sexual abuse across two decades in two Brisbane schools has pledged to proactively seek out confirmed victims and refund their school fees.

The other is yet to indicate whether it will follow suit.

The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane is responsible for St Paul’s School, which employed a paedophile music teacher for four years in the 1980s and a sexually abusive student counsellor a few years later.

Last month the diocese adopted a policy to refund the tuition and boarding fees of what’s believed to be dozens of students from the Bald Hills school and any other confirmed cases of abuse under the diocese’s control.

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Queensland’s proposal to reinstate civil partnerships for straight and same-sex couples has received support from Anglicans and Baptists, while other Christians continue to oppose the move.

Of the 30 submissions to the parliamentary committee, most were in support of the return to civil partnerships which were established in the dying days of the Bligh government, but changed into registered relationships in one of the first acts of the Newman government.

The Palaszczuk government legislation would alter the name and once again allow state-sanctioned ceremonies for same-sex and straight couples.

Read it all from the Brisbane Times.

A former bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton has been stripped of any standing within the church over his handling of allegations of abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home.

Keith Slater was Bishop of Grafton for 10 years until his resignation in May of 2013.

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The Anglican Church said it is doing enough to ensure the survival of the kura it runs, contrary to criticisms made by the Minister of Maori Development, Te Ururoa Flavell.
Mr Flavell said that the churches running Māori boarding schools were not fulfilling their obligations by upgrading them and making a bigger financial contribution.
He was responding to the Minister of Education’s interim decision to close Turakina Māori Girls’ College.

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“If we don’t do this – what will our silence say?” argued Tara Sing, who spoke as seconder of the reaffirmation motion.

Mrs Sing echoed a call from Archbishop Glenn Davies, in his Presidential Address to the Synod, when he said “It is time that all Christians, especially Anglicans, should enter the discussion and graciously and sensitively explain the reasons why our good Creator has made marriage the way he has.”

Canon Sandy Grant, of Wollongong, moved the resolution, which “affirms once again that marriage, as a gift from God who made us male and female, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life” and urged the Federal Parliament to uphold that definition.

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“We live in a world of social change. This is not a new observation, yet it brings fresh challenges for gospel proclamation in our society, which appears to be moving further and further away from the guidelines for living which are enshrined in God’s Word. As Christians, we are at odds with the world. For good reason, John the Evangelist recorded Jesus’ warning to his disciples: 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 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)”

“In the same chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus told his disciples that he had spoken these words so that his joy might be in them””in us””and that our joy may be full (John 15:11). This is an incredible promise and one that perhaps we do not appreciate, let alone assimilate, in our daily lives.
How is your joy? Is it real or feigned in the face of opposition to the gospel from your friends or family, workmates of fellow travellers?” the Archbishop said.

“The antagonism of the world to the Word of God is perhaps seen nowhere more acutely than in the virulent challenge to the definition of marriage which pervades conversations in the media, the workplace and even in our places of leisure.” Dr Davies said. “It is time that all Christians, especially Anglicans, should enter the discussion and graciously and sensitively explain the reasons why our good Creator has made marriage the way he has. We need to be courageous in our discussions both in private and in public, yet we also need to be sensitive and loving in our defence of biblical truth.”

Read it all and note the link to the full text of the Archbishop’s address.

The first challenge is leadership. A whole-of-community approach requires leadership that embraces the community. Is there an identifiable leader, whether an individual or a coalition, who is broadly accepted as such and capable of bringing together a range of stakeholders? Do they have a clear vision of the change to which they are leading the community?

The second challenge to overcome is inertia. A whole-of-community approach may require changes in how we work together, how we communicate, how we allocate finite resources – and change is rarely easy. Bureaucratic processes, political turf wars, over stretched personnel, and the time worn “that’s not how we’ve done things in the past” can all contribute to a fairly difficult barrier of inertia. Asking the right questions and having a strong leader can ease some of these strains, but at the core of the implementation, things will have to change in order to address the challenges facing our communities.
The third challenge to successful implementation is turning competitors into partners. Government ministries compete for influence and slices of a finite budget pie. Community organisations compete for funding and recognition in the community and by opinion leaders. Service providers may compete for clients and contracts. Once potential allies are identified, having a clear strategy in place on how to build partnerships is key to a sustainable, effective whole-of-community policy initiative”Š – ”Šfacilitated by good leadership and a rich understanding of the community brought out through asking the right questions.

Countering violent extremism in Australia is challenging. In order to succeed, we have to overcome existing community tensions and divisions. The Countering Community Division policy framework is presented as a way to gather community insights and resources, facilitate in-depth analysis and understanding of the current situation, and coordinate efforts across stakeholders so that we can begin to reunite the divided and strengthen our communities to counteract further radicalisation.

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Another day, another bishop trying to tell us that the church has had it wrong for 2,000 years.

The latest is the Anglican bishop of Wangaratta, the Most Rev. John Parkes, who has gotten himself into the newspapers and on the radio to tell us that not only is same-sex marriage inevitable in Australia, but that it might actually be compatible with Christian doctrine.

He is, of course, not the first to make the argument in one form or another, and none of his arguments are new so they serve as good example of this tendency of the theologically liberal wing of the church – and, not least, the Anglican Church of Australia – to keep pushing contrived arguments that are less likely to make the grade than that famous strained gnat of which Jesus spoke.

Read it all from ABC religion and Ethics in Australia.

The synod of the Anglican Church’s Sydney diocese will next month consider a report from a senior bishop which argues that wedding service providers should have the “religious freedom” to refuse to cater for gay couples.

While some believe that such laws would set a dangerous precedent, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson argues the rights of both groups can be protected.

The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth heads up the Religious Freedom Reference Group within the church’s conservative Sydney diocese.

He is personally opposed to gay marriage and wants any new laws to offer an opt-out for those opposed to [same-sex marriage].

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The gulf is widening among the world’s 80 million Anglicans and now the Archbishop of Canterbury has called a summit of church leaders to work out a new way of running the divided church.

Archbishop Justin Welby has asked Anglican primates from each major region to meet in London in January 2016.

He will discuss religiously motivated violence and the protection of children. But it’s the issue of sexuality and same-sex relationships that’s most divisive.

Is Archbishop Welby trying to achieve the impossible””satisfying the demands of liberal and conservative Anglicans for a church that’s totally inclusive or Biblically conservative? The Rev Dr Stephen Burns, associate dean of Trinity College Theological School in Melbourne and an expert in the worldwide Anglican communion, discusses the dilemma.

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A little boy, drowned at sea and washed up on a Turkish beach has shaken and galvanised a response from the nations of the Western world to the plight of Syria’s refugees. That it has taken so long for the sort of action that is being considered now is shameful. Nevertheless, the fact that our public discourse has turned so emphatically towards the need to make a real and lasting impact in the lives of those displaced by the Syrian conflict is very welcome and I applaud the government’s decision to expand the refugee program.

At times like this, we must all act within our spheres of influence to raise awareness, build understanding, and work to ensure that our own good intentions have real and practical expression.

Australian Christians feel a particular heartache at the fact that those we consider as family, our brothers and sisters in Christ, have been singled out for persecution in Syria and Northern Iraq. Nevertheless, we would be very reluctant to see an expanded refugee program that uses religion as a discriminating factor. This is antithetical to the love of God for all people and the unmerited and non-discriminatory grace and mercy that is at the heart of the Christian gospel.

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Wangaratta’s bishop has become the country’s first senior Anglican cleric publicly to recognise that the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia has become inevitable.

Bishop John Parkes ”“ a former barrister ”“ has told the Chronicle that he believes the country has “grown up” and that the federal government will be bound within a relatively short time to change the Marriage Act to enable people of the same gender to marry.

He admits that the challenge of such a move for religious faiths will be complex ”“ but does not believe that gay marriage will become “a betrayal of the Gospel or the end of the world”.

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The Rector of East Roseville, the Rev Michael Kellahan, has been appointed the executive director of Freedom for Faith ”“ a legal think-tank that promotes and protects religious freedom in Australia.

Mr Kellahan will continue his work in the parish, combined with a part-time role at Freedom for Faith. “These are critical times for the future of religious freedom in Australia,” Mr Kellahan told Southern Cross. “Debates are happening and decisions are being taken now which could influence the cultural landscape for decades to come.”

Bishop Robert Forsyth and Professor Patrick Parkinson are among the leaders of the organisation, which also has advisers from Baptist, Presbyterian, Seventh-day Adventist and Pentecostal traditions, and from the legal profession. An office in North Sydney has been established as a base but the organisation will operate nationally as well as running a website, freedomforfaith.org.au.

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When Jason Day fell flat on his back at the US Open in June, his head swimming with debilitating vertigo, the first person to help him to his feet was the most important man in his life.
Colin Swatton is much more than just a caddie to the Australian star who broke his major duck with victory at the US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits on Sunday.
Swatton’s support helped his ailing boss complete the US Open at Chambers Bay. Within two months Day fulfilled his golfing potential in brilliant style with a record-breaking major championship score of 20 under par.
To have risen from such a stricken position to the top of the golfing world, reflects the journey Day has taken in life with Swatton as mentor, coach and caddie.

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Dr Philip Freier, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and Primate of Australia, has officially launched the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

The RAP, developed in conjunction with Reconciliation Australia, is being implemented so that the diocese, along with its parishes and sector ministries, is able to coordinate key programs and initiatives aimed at changing the culture of the diocese to better embrace reconciliation. This will include advocacy and promotion of the key issues surrounding reconciliation, as well as providing practical advice and liturgical resources for parish and other ministry events.

“The full aspiration that Reconciliation Australia has encouraged is that we don’t overreach, over-promise and under-deliver, but have at every stage of this journey things that can be authentic and real and help strengthen our mutual resolve and understanding,” said Dr Freier. “I’m really thrilled my expectation coming to this night has been met by the reality.”

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Senior Anglican leaders have responded to a move by the Presbyterian Church in NSW to consider ministers handing back their marriage licences if marriage is redefined to include same-sex couples.

Kevin Murray, the moderator of the NSW Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, wrote to churches about debate at the annual assembly in Sydney last week.

“The Assembly considered what the church should do if marriage is redefined in Australia. It decided to ask the General Assembly of Australia to withdraw the whole church from the Marriage Act, so that our ministers could no longer solemnise marriages under the Marriage Act.” Mr Murray said. “The report which recommended this decision argued that if the Federal Government were to redefine marriage to include same-sex marriage then it would corrupt a good gift of God into a wrong. That would mean that ministers would then be acting for the government in a system which did not reflect the biblical view of marriage. In this case the positive reason for our co-operation with the Marriage Act would have been removed, and we would be better to avoid association with evil by no longer acting as celebrants.”

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