EFAC

The parish of Alice Springs is looking for an energetic and resourceful Associate Minister who will help grow the Anglican Church in Alice Springs (population approximately 27 000 people) and in central Australia (an area spanning some 600 000 sq kms).

If you feel drawn to an exciting and challenging ministry involving faith building Bible teaching, Christ honouring worship and Spirit led outreach in a diverse cultural context, please contact the Rector: Canon Bob George on 08 8952 1056 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

With EFAC Victoria calling together a conference on Gospel, Mission and Church in March 2010, I thought it might be helpful if I put pen to paper on my experiences of a life-time of Christian mission and ministry in an Australia that is very different from what it was like when I began.

From the beginning I have always been part of the evangelical side of the church. The great strength of evangelical ministry is its emphasis on evangelism. Evangelicals have a Gospel to proclaim. They are people who know that God has a message which is solidly based on what God has already done for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They know that God uses this message in the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives. They know that there are millions who live their lives 'having no hope and without God in the world' (Ephesians 2:12). God desires that these people repent of their sin, and turn to him in faith, and enjoy his salvation. Evangelicals are not afraid to share this Gospel message and see people changed by God. And because this gospel is proclaimed in all sorts of ways, people are being converted and changed, and churches are growing, sometimes slowly and sometimes dramatically. So the Gospel is at the heart of evangelical ministry and is its great strength.

But what is to happen next? Let me reflect on this through my personal experiences. I grew up in the northern beachside Sydney suburb of Manly. My parents were not church goers at all. Both had lost their mothers when they were young. My mother came out of that strange religious amalgam of theosophy; my father out of a strict Presbyterianism, which he had rejected as harsh but without rejecting a belief in God. He had been a commercial traveller for my grandfather's stationery business in New Zealand but for most of his life he was, incredible as it may sound, an SP bookmaker running a betting business on horse racing out of our home.  He got into this when coming to Australia in the depression and not being able to find work. My mother followed him here. They married in Christ Church, St Kilda and then moved to Sydney where my mother found work as a hairdresser. My father then began his SP bookmaking business. This provided a modest but comfortable income for our family although only in 1960 were we able to move out of a rented flat into my parents' own home.