The past few months have been especially important for  the future of the Anglican Church in Australia. On  Saturday 19th July Bishop Dr Mark Short was elected as  the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia. Mark  has been Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn since 2019.  Prior to that he was the National Director of BCA. Mark  is an EFAC Australia Vice President. The last evangelical  Primate was Sir Marcus Loane (Sydney). Prior to 1982 the  most senior Metropolitan became the Primate. After that  they have been elected. Do pray for Mark and Monica as  he assumes this weighty extra responsibility in November  and as he leads the Anglican Church in Australia and  represents the Anglican Church of Australia  internationally. Pray also for the Diocese of Canberra and  Goulburn as they seek to support Mark as he takes up  this new role.

The other exciting news in the past few months has been  the election of Bishop Ric Thorpe as the Archbishop of  Melbourne. Bishop Ric is the Bishop of Islington in the  Diocese of London and has a national role in church  planting and revitalisation in the Church of England.  Bishop Ric is a regular visitor to Australia and will be a  real gift to the Australian church when he starts in late  November. Peter Adam has written a great reflection  piece on this significance of his election.

This edition of Essentials is a bumper edition in  every sense of the word. I had an above average  number of responses to invitations to contribute to  the Winter edition, so we decided to put out an  expanded Winter/Spring edition! You’ll also notice  that we have included two copies in each sleeve.

The focus of this edition is Church Planting. Inside  is a very stimulating interview with Andrew Katay  one of the key Anglican leaders in this area. We  probably all know about Trinity Adelaide and City on  a Hill but most of us don’t know about the  remarkable way both have evolved and expanded in  the past decade or so. We have some lovely stories  from two church planters from Melbourne as well as  a range of other great articles.

BISHOP STEPHEN HALE

EDITOR