Essentials
Reflections on Contemporary Anglican Worship
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- Written by: Peter Smith
Peter Smith challenges some aspects of contemporary worship and commends Cranmer’s way of encouraging the faithful.
The Anglican Church of Australia has undergone a profound liturgical revolution since the turbulent days of the 1960s.1 Whole dioceses and local churches right across Australia have been working towards more meaningful forms of corporate worship. For most, the innovations are driven by a desire to make the experience of church more engaging.2
Sadly, much of what passes for vitalAnglican worship today would be described by our Reformed Anglican forebears as Arian or Pelagian. Rather than helping people to feel good, the effect of many of the new service forms undermines Christian assurance. What is more disturbing is that churches once proud of their Anglican heritage have swept away the Reformed Anglican liturgical heritage. A style of worship that reflects the doctrines of the medieval church period is flourishing today, including dioceses that pride themselves as orthodox.3
Rethinking Reaching Australia
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- Written by: Glenn Hohnberg
Glenn Hohnberg challenges our practice and thinking about evangelism in this
first part of last year’s Mathew Hale Library lecture. Part 2 follows in our next issue.
Are we reaching Australia with the gospel? According to 2012 McCrindle research, 1 in 4 Australians attended church in 1966. In 2013 fewer than 1 in 14 attended church. The population of Australia has doubled since 1966 and yet there are a million fewer people going to church now than then. Even if a significant amount of church attendance in the 1960s was dead nominalism and a culture of church-going rather than true belief, what the numbers show is that we are certainly not reaching Australia with the great news about Jesus.1
This begs the question as to why. The gospel is the same and God’s power is the same and yet we seem to be going backwards in reaching Australia. This article proposes that there have been profound changes in Australian culture in the last thirty years driven by changes in our working lives which our evangelistic strategies fail to reflect. But this is not the only difficulty. Coupled with this is a failure in our church culture to devote ourselves to the evangelising of Australian adults. And so we are failing to reach Australia.
We will begin by looking at culture changes driven by working changes in the last thirty years and then our church culture. In the next issue we will look at some ways forward for reaching Australia.
Five Challenges for Local Churches
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- Written by: Stephen Hale
Stephen Hale explains some challenges and opportunities facing the church he leads.
As the Lead Minister of a larger Anglican church, we’re seeking to work through a number of major challenges. Chances are if we’re facing these challenges others might be as well.
These are five big challenges/opportunities we’re wrestling with:
1. Regional/Local
We’re a classic gathered church where people come to us from all over the place. We have a great reputation and offer a full range of ministries for families, youth and young adults. We don’t have to work hard to get people, they just come to us. While we rejoice in this unique opportunity, we’re seeking to work out what it means to be a local church. We recently visit-ed our neighbours in Kew and they told us:
• we’ve heard you’re a great church
• we don’t know what you do
• you should advertise more
• no one is creating community around here
Chewing the Cud of Scripture
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- Written by: Jill Firth
For a number of years now, a group of Melbourne evangelical Anglicans has been hosting quiet days and overnight retreats with the purpose of introducing and sharing prayer practices that are anchored in God’s word. The discipline of creating time and space dedicated to prayer has been welcomed by all who have come.
One of the methods that many have found very helpful is that known as lectio divina, a way of reading short Bible passages slowly and prayerfully. What follows is an introduction to this. May it bring life to your prayer relationship with God.
‘Let us ruminate and as it were chew the cud, that we may have the sweet juice, spiritual effect, marrow, honey, kernel, taste, comfort and consolation of them.’
These words about meditating on Scripture from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer remind us that many of us have lost the art of the slow reading of Scripture which was well-known to our forebears.
Cranmer described the Scriptures as ‘the fat pastures of the soul’, a place to graze and nourish ourselves. He invites us to ‘as it were chew the cud’ or, if we prefer a carnivorous image, to feed on ‘heavenly meat’. ‘Night and day’ he invites us to ‘muse and have meditation and contemplation in them’.
The sacred reading or lectio divina approach was developed in the early Christian monastic communities as a way of praying Scripture. In its five steps we are invited to read the Scripture text, reflect upon it, then respond to God in prayer. We can remain quietly soaking in the love of God before returning to our everyday life to act upon what we have read. Lectio divina is not a replacement for other forms of Bible study, but is another way of digesting and applying God’s word.
Some guidelines for slow reading of Scripture
Preparation
Choose a quiet place and begin with prayer or a time of silence. Take a minute or two to put aside distractions so that you can focus on the Lord. Some use a notebook for reflections and prayers.
1. Read (lectio)
Read through the day’s text slowly, attentively and prayerfully. Note anything that particularly stands out to you or draws your attention. You may find it helpful to read the text aloud, or to read it through several times. The slow reading of Scripture is best suited to short passages (up to ten verses).
2. Reflect (meditatio)
Take a few minutes to think over the text. This is the ‘chewing’ stage of your reading and reflection. Mull over it in your mind and heart. What questions does this text raise for you?
3. Respond (oratio)
Talk with the Lord about what you have read, and about your reflections and responses to the text. Ask for a deepening relationship with him, for insight, for courage and strength to follow and serve him.
4. Remain (contemplatio)
Spend a minute or two in the presence of God, soaking in his love for you. You might recall a phrase or idea from your reading. You could play a track from a CD or sit in silence. An upright posture may help you to sit comfortably, or you may prefer to lie on the floor.
5. Return to daily life and gospelling (ruminatio and evangelizatio)
How will this text and your reflection and prayer impact your daily life? Returning through the day to a short phrase or image may help you to carry your insight or experience out into your everyday world.
Jill Firth, Libby Hore-Lacy and Tanya Costello are part of the EFAC planning group that has been offering quiet days and retreats in Melbourne since 2008. Quotes are taken from Thomas Cranmer, ‘A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture’ (1547) and ‘Preface to the Bible’ (1540).
Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism
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- Written by: Peter Corney
Peter Corney builds on some of the insights in Peter Sutton’s book (reviewed last issue by Joy Sandefur), critiques the cultural relativism of our society, and suggests ways in which Christianity challenges it.
A couple of years ago I read the most profoundly disturbing book that I have read for a long time: ThePolitics of Suffering:Indigenous Australia and the end of the Liberal Consensus, written by Peter Sutton, one of Australia’s leading anthropologists and an expert on Aboriginal culture. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try and understand why the results of our public policy on indigenous affairs have become such a tragic mess.
Peter Sutton speaks from the inside and he cares passionately about Aboriginal people, but he is deeply critical of the failure of many of our policies since the 1970s. One of the reasons he states has been the unwillingness to name and tackle a number of very negative practices and values embedded in Aboriginal culture that have been exacerbated by colonial conquest. One of the reasons for this is the influence of a romantic view of indigenous cultures that took hold in the early 1970s and the pressure of political correctness that protected it from any critique and has allowed it to go unchallenged until recently. This view is an example of ‘cultural relativism’.1
This raised a bigger issue for me and that is the wider influence of ‘cultural relativism’ today on Western culture generally.
Read more: Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism
Essentials online
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
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Essentials 2014
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
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