BCP Talk

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. On Reformation day - 28th October - I gave a short, popular-level talk at St James' Old Cathedral on the enduring value of the BCP and some of the issues that Anglicans are facing as we continue to use it.

A full transcript of the talk is on line here.

Risen Anglicans

One of my interests is the degree to which the Anglican Church presents a biblical balance of the doctrines of atonement and eschatology, or, of Jesus' cross and his resurrection. Generally speaking, it seems that evangelical Anglican churches are far more focussed on atonement and consequently, it's not unusual for them to marginalise eschatology.

(The main exception to this is when they're offering an apologetic for the resurrection; most evangelical Anglicans are absolutely insistent about the fact that Jesus really rose from the dead. But this vigour in arguing for the fact of Jesus' resurrection is rarely matched by a depth of explanation about what Jesus' resurrection means. So, on Good Friday, you might well go into an evangelical Anglican church and hear all about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins - fantastic - but then when you go back on Easter Day, you might not hear so much about why he rose, apart from that being a necessary vindication of his cross.)

Anyhoo, on the weekend, I was at an evangelical Anglican church for a wedding (which was great!) and instead of having a cross in their chancel, they had this this.

I have no idea about who put those words there or when or what the flavour of the church was at the time, but this focus on Jesus' resurrection and ascension is great! Being evangelical, I presume the church gets a good dose of atonement theology in the preaching. I would love to know how much the words on the wall represent the members' self-understanding as the risen people of God. That is, after all, one of the most profound things that they are as Christian believers.

(Seasonally relevant liturgical note: Anglicans often use advent to focus on the parousia as well as the incarnation as the first coming points to the second.)

Our 'Inclusive' Church

Lots of people these days talk about the Anglican Church being 'inclusive'. The term sounds very nice, but it's actually unhelpfully imprecise. Clearly Anglicans - like any group - are not fundamentally inclusive of anything and everything; that would be a nonsense. No mainline denomination or organisation will want to proclaim that it is proudly inclusive of people who are indifferent about sexual abuse, who are racist, who are exploitative, etc, etc. There are always boundaries and even when some would want to loosen up some official positions, implicit lines remain - or new ones are drawn.

So, if someone says that the Anglican Church is an 'inclusive' church, what they probably mean is that it doesn't draw boundaries in places where some other churches do, or even in places where it has done in the past. I think a simple, clarifying question to ask someone who makes such a statement is, 'Inclusive of what?'

An interesting test-case comes around the question of ordaining women to the priesthood, or consecrating women to the episcopate. This is a huge issue in the Anglican Church at the moment. There are conservative members who feel that the traditional and historic position of the church captures the plain teaching of the Bible and therefore, they are uncomfortable seeing women enter into every level of church leadership. And then there are those who feel that the Church's reluctance to ordain and consecrate women is really just part of its outdated cultural baggage and that the key passages in the Bible can be quite reasonably interpreted in such ways as to remove all impediments to women serving in any position in the church. In fact, some go further and say that in today's culture, the gospel demands equal opportunity for women in the church's orders of ministry. My point right now is not to argue for one position or the other, but rather to ask what it means for a church to be inclusive when there are different views on this issue.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Designate, Bp Justin Welby, holds a progressive view on the issue itself and thinks that women should be able to serve in any capacity in the church. However, he is also of the view that members who think differently to him shouldn't be marginalised. He has spoken of his great respect for those people who hold a more conservative position and he has acknowledged and encouraged their faithful and fruitful ministries. In short, Welby's idea of Anglican inclusiveness is that all ought to be equally included irrespective of their convictions at this particular controversial point. His view is not "we are an inclusive church, therefore if you don't apply that inclusivity to the question of women in ministry, you're not welcome".

This is similar to the official view current in Melbourne and in the rest of Australia. Most Australian dioceses have approved the consecration of female bishops, but the bishops have also agreed to a protocol for alternative oversight for those who can't in good conscience accept the episcopal ministry of a woman. Now, many people complain about the workability of this protocol and wonder if policies coming from it could ever be practically implemented, but the very fact that such a protocol exists makes an important statement to both conservatives and the church as a whole. It says that even if your views are not mainstream, the church does not want to eject you but would rather find ways to accommodate you and your ministry.

Of course, the real test for this 'inclusive' approach comes when we try to decide for which doctrines we will allow differences of opinion and for which ones we won't. If we fully include members with different views around the ordination and consecration of women, what about things like homosexual practice, infant baptism, vestments, the infallibility of Scripture, eschatology, soul sleep, the uniqueness of Christ, justification by faith alone, liturgical practice, the nature of the sacraments... Some might look at a quick list like that and have a strong and immediate view on some of the doctrines. Perhaps justification by faith is absolutely not-negotiable and soul sleep is a matter of indifference. But what are the criteria? Who applies them? And who decides what the criteria are and who applies them?

We can be an inclusive church and there is something good and even necessary about that. But if we're going to stand for anything at all - and if we're going to stand together for anything at all - there's also a whole other level of complexity that we cannot avoid.

Ten Reasons to be Anglican

Over a decade ago, when I was debating whether or not to sign myself up for the Anglican Church, I was presented with some pretty crummy reasons in favour. Among the least inspiring was the suggestion that the Anglican Church was just the 'best boat to fish from'. That is, while there's not really a whole lot that comes to mind in favour of it, it's probably better than the alternatives. Another equally bland attraction was that the Anglican Church had good job security. Whereas baptist congregations can sack their ministers at the drop of a hat, you're safer in the Anglican system, so the argument went. Well, I joined up anyway...

In recent times, I've been encouraged to think about some non-Anglican jobs and this has given me fresh pause to think about why I really want to stay an Anglican. Is there anything more positive that makes me - and might make others - want to be a flag-flying, card-carrying, unashamed Anglican follower of Jesus?

Of course, I know that at one level, this is a marginal issue. On the last day, Jesus isn't going to line up everyone by denomination. Far less is he going to embrace any denominational construct for its own sake. (Although I suspect that there may be denominational sins for which members of denominations will be held to account.) At another level though, it's a practical reality for lots of people who are thinking about church life. And it's certainly an essential question for anyone who wants to consider, and be considered for, church leadership.

So then, here are ten things that I think Anglican Church has got going for it and that make me really want to invest in it. Maybe others will think of more.

1. Solid theological foundation. Starting with the basics, the authoritative, foundational documents of the church are deep, clear and helpfully nuanced. The position on key points of doctrine are not only well defined, but also even artfully embodied into the well-balanced liturgies. The focus is squarely on Jesus Christ and his gospel as revealed through the historic Scriptures.

2. Breadth in secondary matters. The flip side of the first point is that Anglicans are permissive on non-core matters. There are many different traditions and styles within the Anglican Church and that's completely fine. With the essentials pinned down, there's plenty of freedom for different expressions of the faith and even for different views on some doctrinal questions. (For those who think that the liturgies are too inflexible, my own experience is that wooden services are more often the result of services leaders who don't embrace all the freedoms that the liturgies give them and then put proper time and effort into planning their services well.)

3. High value on scholarship. Anglicans are thinkers (sometimes to a fault) and have never been satisfied with Sunday-school theology (except in our Sunday schools!) Anglicans have always been deeply engaged with matters of philosophy, history, ethics, science and any other area of human exploration and there's no sign that this is going to end in a hurry.

4. Well-recognised church. While this isn't everything and mustn't be overly relied upon, it does mean something important to lots of people. Some who encounter church either for the first time or at a significant junction in their life, feel a lot more comfortable hearing "We're Anglicans" than "We made up our own church".

5. Longstanding community connections. Following on from the last point, there are still many parts of the world where Anglican parish churches have significant relational networks that spread through their suburbs and even into other organisations. Add to this the existing reach and impact of the extra-parochial agencies that serve so many in our communities (eg. Anglicare, Brotherhood of St Lawrence, etc) and it's clear that there are lots of ways that Anglicans already have considerable and important social connections.

6. Worldwide fellowship. The connections aren't just local either. The Communion is worldwide (around 80 million people globally) which not only means that there's a good fellowship of Anglicans in lots of places you can visit, but also that Anglican Churches are highly multicultural. In Melbourne, Chinese and Sudanese make up two of the largest sub-groupings within the Anglican Church.

7. Participatory decision-making structures. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is the worldwide figurehead, his role isn't like the pope's in the Roman Catholic Church. Anglicans are 'episcopally led and synodically governed' which means that the local bishops are charged with setting direction and with hiring and firing clergy to achieve it (see this post on the role of bishops), but the lay people have their voices heard and their questions answered and can hold various offices in their parish and diocese.

8. Focussing on opportunities. Most Anglican dioceses around the world are in agreement that there is great need to keep pioneering new ways of doing church and of ministering to more and more people. The Church of England's Mission-Shaped Church report lays out a very positive agenda for the church and most of the Communion have grasped this sort of thinking and are eager to find ways to make new things happen.

9. Lots of resources. Primarily people and buildings. Now, buildings aren't everything and it's very dangerous to think that just having the keys to some real estate is going to build the Kingdom. But, having a meeting place on the main street of pretty much every town (at least here in Australia) and then also living space for a minster to go with it is a fantastically useful thing.

10. Administrative support. A centralised system for managing banking, payrolls, insurance, superannuation, professional standards and so on is priceless and saves each parish church from having to comply in all of these areas on its own.


As I've been writing, more things have been springing to mind, but I'll leave it there for now.

Anglicanism is far from perfect and it certainly has its fair share of problems, both large and small. But it seems to me that while anyone can easily point out negative things, it would be a great shame to either use those things to characterise the Anglican Church or to sink all of our energies into dealing with them. It's very good to keep remembering some of the reasons that the Anglican Church is a particularly great and faith-filled part of Jesus' church with a huge amount of potential. I'm staying.

Royal Commission

Yesterday, Prime Minister Gillard announced a Royal Commission into both child abuse and also the covering up of that abuse. A primary focus of the Commission will be the Catholic Church, but it will have the power to investigate more broadly so that all church and not-for-profit organisations can be included.

Since the announcement was made, what's really encouraged and impressed me is the uniform welcome that the Commission has been getting from church workers. Pretty much everyone thinks this is a good thing. Followers of Jesus are rightly disgusted by child abuse and if it's happened (or is happening) in his church, it's doubly disgraceful. If it's been covered up (or is being covered up) by his church, that's completely reprehensible.

The church should be safe and transparent. If the Commission brings justice to those who have suffered where the church has failed and helps to set a better culture for the future, it will be an excellent thing.

An on-line poll from today's article in The Age shows overwhelmingly

that the majority of readers also feel positive about the Royal Commission.

What Difference Will He Make?

In his first press statement after being confirmed as the Archbishop of Canterbury designate, one of the things Justin Welby recognised was that the members of local Anglican parishes are the real front line in the church's ministry. In a denomination that's distinguished by its hierarchical nature, it's really encouraging to hear leaders speak this way as it not only directs local churches to their on-the-ground mission, but it also helps to dispel any ideas that there's going to be an institutional salvation that will come down from above.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how liberal, catholic, evangelical or charismatic the AbC is, most parishes will continue going about their business in very much the same ways as they have been up until now. That is, outside his own diocese of Canterbury, the AbC does not make a great deal of difference to what most Anglicans do week to week. I don't say this to disparage the AbC in any way at all, just to recognise the reality - as Welby has - that the front-edge of the life and work of the church happens in local neighbourhoods.

Perhaps the place where the AbC's influence will be most widely felt is within high-level conversations about international Anglican relationships. As everyone knows, there are some huge issues affecting the worldwide Anglican Communion right now and Welby is likely to be an important voice in the years ahead as these are worked through. However, even in this we must remember that over the last decade, it's become crystal clear that some national churches and local bishops will not take their direction from the AbC, nor any of the other 'Instruments of Communion'. Therefore, it would be naive to think that any AbC could have the capacity to resew the torn fabric of the Communion and I think it would be pretty unfair to place that expectation on them. Again, the AbC may be able to have significant input, but ultimately, he only has the power of influence and cannot demand that the world's Anglicans do whatever he tells them, be it good or bad. He's not a pope!

So, as we welcome / assess / question / investigate / speculate about / pray for Welby, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that time and energy given over to those things are all that's necessary to build the Kingdom. We certainly ought to pray that he serves as a great and faithful leader and that he has a really positive influence in the Communion. But we must remember that the lion's share of the work in the Anglican Church will not be done by him.

New Archbishop of Canterbury

According to the Telegraph, Justin Welby has it. Check this link:

Bishop of Durham to be Archbishop of Canterbury

Execution

A couple of weeks ago, City on a Hill celebrated its birthday. This Authorised Anglican Congregation is really noteworthy for lots of reasons: the growth in attendance from nothing to something heading towards 1,000 in just five years with many of those people being new believers in Jesus, the embracing of a new model of Anglican church without property, the fast-footed approach to new gospel opportunities, the young leadership team that's overseen the ministry... there are endless points of interest. From all accounts the birthday celebration was excellent too: the band launched a CD that went to number one on the 'Inspirational' list in the iTunes store, a bunch of people were baptised into the faith, a second CoaH church was announced and some pretty exciting and ambitious plans were laid out for the next three years. Lots of stuff! However, just now, it's particularly this idea of churches making big plans that I'm interested in.

In recent years, more and more churches and Christian organisations have adopted some key ideas from the business world and have put tons of energy into producing mission statements, visions, strategic plans and so on. I think all of this can be really important in focussing and kick-starting those churches that might otherwise have been relatively passive in their ministry. If God's plan is to use his church to take the message of Jesus to the world and to make disciples of every nation, then the church had better get well organised because there's a whole lot of work to be done!

However there are, of course, risks if churches just blindly embrace this business-think. The most obvious is that they could start acting like companies that ultimately only care about their bottom lines and not about less tangible things like faith and faithfulness, hope and humility, life and love which are all central for followers of Jesus. But the other risk I see is one that's common to the business world too and it's that thinking that just having a vision, plan or strategy is the main thing or is even a satisfactory end in itself.

Recently, I was talking to a good friend who's just started working for an international para-church organisation and he told me that the key lesson he's been learning there is execution. That is, he is not just expected to develop grand visions and plans, but to actually make them happen; to get results. This is in recognition that anyone can have an amazing vision or plan - to triple the membership, to start fifty new churches, to raise a billion dollars, to fly a shiny rocket to Jupiter - but unless the execution is good, they can just be showy aspirations that ultimately aren't worth the paper they're written on. (Or worse. They could actually be a grand waste of paper and also of time, money and energy.) "What we were going to do" never added up to Kingdom growth.

This sort of thinking freaks me out a bit. My first response is to jump in defensively and say things like "at least we shot for something", "sometimes success is out of our control", "God is not impressed with results" and so on, and there's something very right in all these statements. Certainly, I know lots of faithful labourers who have worked really hard in very tough situations for extended periods of time without seeing much fruit and so I simply cannot stomach an unqualified "just go and get the results". But with that said, I do also want to sit with the idea of 'execution' for a bit and think about what it is that makes the difference between just being a dreamer and being a doer, between being a planner and an achiever.

At this stage, I've got a bunch of thoughts that have to do with prayer, leadership, context, patience, focus and communication to name just a few things. But as yet, I don't have any neat, proverbial answers. However, as I'm chewing it over and I see churches like City on a Hill repeatedly converting their big ideas into reality, I want to pay some attention. Sure, they have shortcomings like any church does, but God is clearly doing something through them. I reckon for us Anglicans who aren't always making great headway these days, it's really worth us watching them and seeing what we can learn.

Church visits - St James x2

It was great to be part of the morning services at St James' Pakenham on the Sunday before last. (It would have been great to have been able to stick around for their evening service too as there were a number of people being confirmed and received - basically, standing up to say they want to follow Jesus and have chosen this church to do that.) I was really encouraged by the bravery and boldness of the congregations I visited. People there told me that some years ago, they had been meeting in a nice old stone church building, however, when they faced the (excellent) problem of being too full, they agreed to say goodbye to their spiritual home and move to a new, bigger facility. This sort of thing can be quite a big deal for lots of people. While the new building is really great, it no doubt has a strikingly different aesthetic to the last one.

To be honest, in my conversations it sounded like it had been a bit of a hard slog getting resettled. But still, the overall mood was positive and future facing. There was real enthusiasm around the new minister and his wife who are a great couple that I think could do a lot to positively shape the church. So again, good on this church for taking a step into something new and looking forward to what God might do next.

It turns out that there's actually a good number of well-led Anglican churches out in that part of Melbourne now - Berwick, Pearcedale-Langwarren, Officer, others... ? If the congregations in those have the same boldness as the Pakenham mob, this could be a really exciting part of the Diocese to watch in the years ahead.

Yesterday I went to another St James' - Melbourne's old cathedral. This has a somewhat different story: their building was slated for demolition years and years ago (early 1900s??) but ended up being preserved and, after having been relocated to a new site brick-by-brick, these days has a newly growing congregation. Here, unlike Pakenham, the old aesthetic has been retained for a group of people who like a more traditional style of church. But like Pakenham, the recent growth has again been, under God's providence, largely due to the young minister who's been really well-matched to the congregation. I'm reminded again of the importance of putting square pegs in square holes.

Now, where's another St James' I can check out?

Coat of arms hung in the sanctuary at St James' Old Cathedral.

It's the diocesan arms impaled with arms that seem to have some

connection to the English monarchy. Anyone?

The Voices of the People

For the first time in seven years, I'm not a member of the Melbourne Synod and so won't be attending the meetings that start tonight.

However, it turns out that I do have something else to do. I'm going to be introducing and briefly interviewing Billy Bragg during his in-store appearance at Readings Bookstore in St Kilda. As a pretty hard-core BB fan for more than twenty years, this is a great honour for me.

So, if you're not a member of Melbourne Synod and are looking for something to do at 2pm this Saturday (Oct 20th), come on down. It's free, but you must book.

I can't guarantee that it will be better than an afternoon at Synod...

But just maybe...

Old Skool Discipleship

How often do we think about the Church Catechism? It's a brief outline of the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer that's been in every Book of Common Prayer since 1549 (largely unchanged although the bit on the sacraments was added in 1604).

So what?

Well, the catechism contains what Anglicans believe are the essentials of the faith (cf. the 39 Articles which have a different function altogether). To reinforce this, lots of Anglican churches actually have the Creed, Commandments and Lord's Prayer up on 'commandment boards' at the front of the building to make starkly plain what it is that we believe about God, how we want to live in light of those beliefs and the way we can call on God to help us in that. This triplet was so important to the Church of England that, according to Prof. Ian Green who's written the book on catechisms, there were something like 500,000 copies of the catechism printed between the 1540s and 1640s, making it by far the most printed text of the time. Everyone was expected to know the catechism off by heart as a summary of their faith.

So now, here's the question. How many Anglicans nowadays can rattle off the Apostles' Creed, Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer without looking them up? I'm not suggesting that this is the test of a 'true' Christian and I'm well aware that we're living in a different time, with different ways of learning, etc, etc. However, if we can't recite these things and demonstrate some basic understanding of their right meaning, I do wonder whether we've been learning other equally valuable things instead or if we've just abandoned the idea of a clearly structured, educative discipleship. I guess it probably depends a lot on which particular Anglican church you go to.

I suspect that some people might read this and think "I don't know those things, but I learn the Bible each week". Well, that would be a great thing. But before we just move on from there, it's good to remember that the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer actually come from the Bible anyway and that the 16th century church also had the ideal of reading the entire Old Testament once a year, the New Testament three times and all the Psalms each month, so they weren't using the catechism as some light-weight alternative to Bible reading.

Just as I'd been thinking about this, a friend sent me this link to an iPad ap for a modern day catechism. I was wondering how we could revive old skool catechesis. Someone beat me to it!

Paying for It

In the past, my wife and I have served together as part of a team in church leadership which we felt worked pretty well at lots of levels. Because of that, we're looking to do the same in the future. However, as we've spoken about this with others, one of the issues that's been raised is the fact that most churches can't afford to put on two new staff members at the same time. Now, from our perspective, we've never been that fussed about this as we can happily get by on one income. But we have taken some pause to think more generally about the positives and negatives of working in a church for more hours than the paycheques cover. Here's a bit of a summary.

It's bad to work more hours than you're paid for because

• As Paul reminds us, "The [church] labourer deserves to be paid" (1 Tim 5:17-18, cf. Matt 10:10). This teaching recognises that working in a church is a 'real' job (and one that can require more training, can demand more hours, can have greater responsibility and can draw on a broader set of skills than many other jobs) and as such, it ought to be properly remunerated.

• Paying workers properly protects (somewhat) against their being taken for granted by those in the church.

• If a churchworker is paid for less hours than they actually work and then they move on to another ministry, the church may not be set up to pay replacement staff for enough hours to cover all that the former staffer was doing. That could mean some ministries struggle, falter or even end.

But some reasons that it's good to work more than you're paid are

• Church work should never, never be done for money. Church workers should primarily serve out of love for Jesus, his people and his mission, not remuneration. Traditionally, ministers were paid a 'stipend' rather than a salary. That is, they received an allowance sufficient for them to live on while they gave up their potential earning time to serve in the church. So the focus wasn't on dollars per hour, but on providing the basic needs for those set aside to do vocational church work. (This is a key idea in the Old Testament system of tithes too - eleven tribes gave ten percent to support the one tribe who served them in the Temple and who therefore couldn't work in the fields to raise crops and livestock for themselves.)

• It helps sustain a healthy culture of volunteerism which is critical if a church is to be fully functional in its mission and service. In churches I've worked at in the past, unpaid volunteers have been hugely important to the life and health of the community. If church members develop the attitude that they shouldn't offer themselves in free service because there are 'paid people' to do the work, then the church is in a bad state.

• Any money saved can be diverted to other good uses - helping the poor, special mission projects, supporting other churches - the possibilities are endless.

• A minister who gets paid less than they might has a great opportunity to champion simpler living to the church which ought to be marked by sacrificial generosity and selflessness.

• At least in Australia, the full remuneration package for Anglican ministers is very generous. I know of several ministers with a bunch of kids who have gotten by on a single Melbourne Diocese salary. I don't know of any who are struggling to put food on the table.

So perhaps the best situation is one where a congregation feels really committed to ensuring that those who serve (in whatever capacity) are adequately provided for, but at the same time, those who serve are equally as keen to lead the way in giving their time sacrificially and not always requiring all the payments they could claim.

Practically, this could mean that the local church pays its workers the full amount, but then those workers choose to return anything above what they need to live on back to the church coffers - or perhaps to another worthy cause. Or, the church could pay an old-fashioned stipend (like some missionary organisations still do today) and then they could set the remainder aside for other purposes. They could even create a fund to cover any gap that may arise when the 'underpaid' minister moves on.

There's nothing final in all this - just a few thoughts I've been kicking around. But however things are done, one thing I'm convinced of is that it mustn't be unusual for people in church to freely serve for free.

Church Visit - St Mary's South Camberwell

I'm pinch-hitting for a couple of weeks at St Mary's in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and have to say that I'm massively impressed with what's happening there. There's a level at which I think some people could find it underwhelming simply because the current congregation isn't all that big - it's not packed to the gills with twenty-somethings or young families or professionals. But to see no more than this would be to miss the church's quality and potential.

By 'quality' I don't just mean that the services are well-led, that the powerpoint slides are free from spelling errors and that the musos play tightly (although all those things are true and I actually think they do make a significant difference - they mean that the congregation isn't distracted at times when they're trying to focus on their prayers, singing, etc.) Even more important is the fact that the people of the church are really friendly and welcoming and that they're up-front about their faith without being confrontational. I reckon these are some of the important qualities of a local church that's looking to engage with the world around it. During morning tea last Sunday, it was great to not just have conversations about the footy or what people were doing with their weekends, but to also chat about the power of the Psalms, the hope of the resurrection, the work of the Spirit and the health of the church. Good stuff.

In addition to this, another reason that I feel this church has great potential is because it now has a new minister, Dave, who's young, clear-minded, very capable and wanting to invest in the church for the long-run. If what I've experienced so far is in some measure reflective of the work he's already put in, then I'm really excited about what he might do over the next ten or twenty years. This coming Sunday he's baptising someone into the faith - God-willing, a sign of greater things to come.

As mentioned in a previous post, I think that rebooting / revitalising local churches is a key way for the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne to see renewal over the next generation. Finding young leaders who are truly able, placing them in small parishes with some resources and then backing them through the struggles and challenges has got to be central to any macro-strategy. Dave has taken up the challenge and the diocese has been bold enough to give him a run. Plus, there are other examples around the place too. Early days, but I think this approach is paying off. Praise God.

Stark Realities Leading to Strategies

In my Anglican ordinand group at Ridley Melbourne this week we talked about what strategies would be necessary to see our diocese grow. We got into it by thinking about the current state of our local churches and their recent growth history. Here are the questions we asked and our answers. (While we were mostly talking about Melbourne, I would be surprised if the answers were markedly different for any diocese.)

1.

How many Melbourne Anglican churches have experienced significant growth in our lifetime?

We could list off around 15. There are probably also a bunch we don't know about so this should be counted as a minimum. Still, even if it were double, that's only 30 local churches out of around 220 in the diocese.

2.

How many Melbourne Anglican churches have experienced significant growth in the past five years?

Here we struggled more and could only count a couple with confidence. Maybe there could be five? Again, out of about 220.

3.

How many Melbourne Anglican churches have experienced significant growth under two consecutive leaders?

For this we thought zero - although again, this might be due to our ignorance. If there are any, it's unlikely to be many.

After this, we moved on to consider what we could learn from these observations that would help our thinking about building the diocese in the future. A few of our thoughts were -

1.

It's important to think about a local church's future potential far more than its existing reputation (although there may be an interplay here).

2.

Under God, growth is at least partially, if not largely, a function of leadership.

3.

Material resources (ie. church buildings, vicarages, income streams, etc.) are not enough.

Of course we discussed the role of circumstance and setting - different types of churches flourish in different places at different times depending on all sorts of social phenomena - and it's absolutely critical to acknowledge the faithful, hard work that's been going on with sowing and watering around the diocese for years, even where lots of fruit hasn't (yet) resulted. But just as it would be wrong to exclude circumstance from our equations, so too would it be wrong to make it the sole factor in our considerations of why different local churches do or don't grow.

In terms of a future plan, our best conclusion was that, as far as anyone could predict (and of course no one can), the most likely strategy to achieve diocesan growth is sending new leaders to non-flagship churches that have potential and then for those leaders to commit to the hard work of building them up over many years. Perhaps the most plausible positive vision for the future won't focus on those few churches in the 500+ club growing larger, but on seeing more smaller churches growing to that size.

So, God's strength to the young leaders who have taken on leadership of smaller parishes in the past few years!

___

One factor that I'd love to be able to measure in local churches is prayerfulness. It was put to me a while ago that revivals are always preceded by prayer - proper, persistent, humble, long-suffering prayer. While I suspect few, if any, local Anglican churches could be accused of being completely prayerless, it could be very interesting to explore the different patterns of prayer in different churches. I reckon we'd learn a lot from that too.

Archbishop of Canterbury Stepping Down

The BBC is reporting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will step down from his position in December. He is only 61 and isn't retiring but moving on to an academic post at Cambridge. So, one question is, Why now?

But perhaps the bigger one is, Who next?

Given the current issues within the Anglican Communion, the appointment of the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury will be very significant. The Communion's fabric has already begun to tear - will the next appointment slow that down or speed it up? And what does the Anglican world want anyway?

Lots of thoughts to think and things to watch over the months ahead...

Future Leaders - Appreciation and Issues

This semester I'm helping out at Ridley Melbourne by meeting weekly with a group of Anglican ordinands. To kick our group off, I asked them three questions. Here they are with the group's responses -

1. Why are you putting yourself forward for Anglican service?

• The 39 Articles make a good confession.
• The episcopal and parochial structure of the Anglican Church provides a good mix of support and autonomy.
• It's a good ministry platform - there's investment in leaders and church-planting opportunities.
• Its unique mission opportunity - the parish system covers the world.
• A personal history in the Anglican Church.
• It accommodates different personal styles of ministry.
• It has solid foundations.
• It accommodates some breadth.
• There is theological balance and tolerance.
• Great cross-cultural potential.
• Commitment to global fellowship and service.
• Strong stream of scholarship and solid theologians.
• Equivalence of ordination.
• Liturgy - its order and comprehensiveness.
• Training and succession planning.
• Its beauty - in theology and structure.
• Concern for social justice.

2. What questions do you have for / about the Anglican Church?

• How do I participate in synod?
• What are the not-negotiables?
• How are bishops made?
• How are councils / committees / etc constituted?
• How does church planting / repotting work?
• What direction is the Anglican Church heading?
• What's the story with GAFCON, TEC, ACNA, etc?
• What is canon law?
• How does the Province of Australia work?
• What do Anglicans believe about 'reserved sacrament'?
• Will a woman get the same opportunities as a man to serve? What arrangements are in place for maternity leave, etc?

3. What concerns do you have about the Anglican Church?

• The confrontational nature of synod.
• Disagreement over the basics.
• Lack of discipline.
• Some limits on the possibilities for working in different cultural contexts.
• Bureaucracy.
• The need to submit to bishops.
• Dry traditionalism.
• Ineffectiveness of remote, top-down leadership.
• Capacity to manage resources.
• It's a boys' club.

I was encouraged by the great list of positive reasons for wanting to serve as an Anglican and by the honesty around the questions and issues raised.

The plan is to see how much of 2. and 3. we can nut through in our time together.

Sad but Inevitable...

So it's now been confirmed that Christchurch Cathedral will be demolished. I know it's only a building and I know that nothing like this was built for eternity and I don't believe in 'sacred space' in a superstitious way - but it really was a great landmark for the city and it's sad that its time is up. I've also spent a lot of time in Christchurch so feel some personal nostalgia.

Here's a couple of pics from 2005 when the British Lions were touring in New Zealand.

This has also got to be disheartening for the people of the city. Someone told me that Christchurch has lost one third of its residents since the quake last year and that the CBD is still in lock down and under military guard. That's gotta hurt the community vibe.

For those who pray for cities, remember this one.

A Well-Reformed Church

The thoroughness of the official reforms to the Church of England under Edward is impressive. Christopher Haigh - a revisionist historian who's not himself a fan of Protestantism and therefore has nothing much to gain by pointing all this out - says:

The Homilies taught justification by faith; the Injunctions forbade images; the Chantries Act denied the efficacy of prayers for the dead; the 1549 Prayer Book put the mass into ambiguous English; the 1550 Ordinal turned a sacramental priesthood into a preaching ministry, and for emphasis the altars were taken down; in 1552 the Church was given a Protestant liturgy, and in 1553 a Protestant theology – as Edward lay dying, the old vestments and service equipment were being confiscated from parish churches.

Sure, there's more to the story; Elizabeth's program was somewhat different to Edward's and lots has happened since the Tudors. But let's be clear, we still have essentially the same Prayer Book, the same Ordinal and the same Articles - we're very much the product of the Edwardian reforms.

Praise God for his Reformed Anglican Church!

Who Does What - Corrections

AJ offered a helpful corrective in a comment on my post on Parish Councils / Vestries. Therefore I've gone back and corrected it and also fixed my post on some of the other formal roles in local Anglican churches.

Hopefully these are more correct and more useful now.

The Whole Counsel of God

I've been preparing some material about preaching systematically through the Scriptures for an upcoming seminar. This has been my practice in congregational ministry but it's been really good for me to step back and break down the factors that need to be considered and the challenges and implications of working this way.

It strikes me that while lots of evangelical Anglican churches are committed to biblical preaching, they're not always as practically committed to preaching their way through whole books of the Bible, nor to preaching a good balance of all the parts of the Bible. (How many churches can I think of that have preached through all of Ezekiel lately... ? To be honest, how many churches can I think of that have preached through all of John's Gospel lately!) But if we're meant to feed the flock with every word then we've got to tackle this.

Of course, traditionally, Anglicans have followed a lectionary - and many still do. And while it can be very easy to criticise set lectionaries (because they usually skip lots of texts), I do wonder if they actually do a better overall job of systematically bringing the whole Bible to congregations than we often do if we don't use them.

I would be very keen to see a lectionary that gave the whole Scripture divided into sensible blocks and mapped out in some sensible sort of way to account for the seasons of the year and so on. Anybody know of such a thing?

Killing the Resurrection?

I've been reading from 'The Structure of Resurrection Belief' by Peter Carnley, former Archbishop of Perth and Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia. In it he upholds the possibility that the biblical accounts of the risen Jesus were actually 'heavenly visions' and he refuses to affirm the classic view of Jesus' bodily resurrection. It appears to me that Carnley believes in some sort of resurrection, but while he helpfully pushes past simplistic 'back to how he was before he died' thinking and points to the transformation that Paul speaks of in 1 Cor 15, he seems reluctant to own the fact of there being a real physical dimension to Jesus' resurrection (though I have to admit to not having read the entire book at this stage so perhaps he does somewhere).

Carnley's work has been discredited - not least by N.T. Wright who takes him to task in the opening of the magisterial 'Resurrection of the Son of God' - and its easy to point at places where has a low view of the authority of Scripture (and of the Bible writers themselves, eg. Luke inventing more material resurrection appearances so as to put himself a step above Paul). But on top of all this, its so sad that while he seems well-intentioned in much of what he writes, when it comes to discussing the beliefs of 'conservatives' in the church, he becomes more prickly such that its not just his views, but also his tone that is disappointing. (His more recent Reflections in Glass: Trends and Tensions in the Contemporary Anglican Church, is just plain tedious in its now standard liberal caricaturing of 'Sydney Anglicans'.)

Not only does he fail to promote orthodox, historical Christian teaching (what is 'progressive orthodoxy' anyway?), but by making his ambiguous views public, Carnley also makes it more difficult for members of local Anglican churches to give a plain account of their hope to any inquiring family members, friends, neighbours and colleagues. Believers are already perceived as fools in the eyes of the world for the straightforward proclamation of Christ crucified and risen. That perception is only compounded when their own church leaders won't promote the message with them!

But Carnley has retired now and I don't think the current Archbishop of Perth nor the current Primate have views akin to his.

Who Does What 5 - Some Others...

A few more at the local church level...

Church wardens - have the legal responsibility for the local church's finances, property and staff. This means it's their role to ensure that the church's bills are paid on time, church buildings are properly maintained, staff remuneration packages comply with employment laws and so on and so on. The great thing about all this is that it serves the whole church by taking so much off the vicar's plate. When people train for ordained ministry through studying at a theological school and serving as curates, their focus tends to be on theology and pastoral studies, not on organisational management. And this is as it should be - pastoring and teaching should be the vicar's priority in the parish. Good wardens, therefore, should complement the vicar's skill set by bringing practical management competencies to the service of the local church.

Nominators - are lay people who are set aside to search out a new vicar / rector when one is required. They often do this in collaboration with an external person assigned by the bishop. Of course, most of the time they do nothing at all, but they must always be in place because no one can ever say for sure how long a vicar will remain at the helm.

Synod representatives - are those members of the local church who have voting rights at the diocesan synod (~parliament). Licensed clergy are usually (although not always) members of synod and then there are a number of elected or appointed lay members too. (There are various extra-parochial people who get onto synod too, but that's a whole other story.)

Umm... I don't really have a great deal of commentary to give on these positions at this stage and there are heaps more that I've left out too - archdeacons, deans, canons, precentors, lay readers, chaplains... But if anyone's especially interested in these (!) they can all be googled. Time for me to wrap this set up and move on I think...

Who Does What 4 - Parish Councils / Vestries

So, this one has been some time coming because it's harder to be clear about the role of a parish council or vestry than it is to be clear about clerical roles. I'm also not sure how much commonality there is between dioceses on the roles they assign to vestries so my reflections here are primarily based on the situation in Melbourne. (And I'm still not sure that I've got majorly insightful things to say... )

The Anglican Church has a strong history of lay leadership. In addition to the three orders of clergy, the Church includes lay leadership at a number of levels. Here in Melbourne, for example, the diocesan synod (~parliament) has more lay than clerical members. And each parish church has a council, or vestry, of lay people who are involved in its oversight.

While some local churches view their vestry as the board of governance, this isn't really right. Unlike boards in the corporate world, the vestry has no power to hire or fire the vicar / rector, who is the CEO equivalent, and the vicar actually has the power to appoint some members of the vestry. Also, the vestry has no real authority to direct the vicar / rector in terms of the ministry activities of the church.

The stated purpose of a vestry is to "consult together on matters of general concern and importance to the parish". Therefore, they are best understood as an advisory group for the vicar.

Such a group can be invaluable if they have all been screened on the basis of their Christian maturity and commitment to the parish church before taking up their roles. They can provide the vicar with lots of valuable insights from a range of perspectives. At the most basic level, just drawing on the exposure, experience and wisdom of a group of trusted congregation members will give the vicar a fuller picture of their church than if they just relied on their own.

But just as with other positions in the church, problems are likely to arise if a vestry assumes roles that they shouldn't. If, for example, they treat the vicar like their employee or want to have the final say in ministry decisions, then they've misunderstood their job. This isn't to say they have no recourse if they really believe their vicar is making a mistake - they can always approach their bishop if necessary. But like all roles in church, the clearer a vestry is about what they're meant to do, the more likely they are to be able to offer the most fruitful service.

All Philled Up

In church this week we prayed for our archbishop, Philip, our local bishop, Philip, and our minister, Phil. We really should have prayed for the Primate too.

If only the Archbishop of Canterbury wasn't a Rowan...

Weird Gift?

What's this in St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne?

Well, as the stonework says, it's a piece of the reredos of St Paul's Cathedral London (look it up!)

But my real question is, Why? I guess it's a nice gesture, but it seems to me a strange thing to give - unless there's some tradition behind gifting reredos parts. Anybody... ?

Anyhoo, next time I get to St Paul's in London, I'm going to look for the missing bit.

Functional vs Ontological

Picking up on a question in an earlier post, here are a couple of thoughts on what exactly Anglican ordination is.

Basically, the views fall between two extremes. At the one end is the idea that ordination is purely functional such that getting ordained is a bit like getting, say, your pilot's licence. You need one to fly but it's no more than a mark of recognition that you've proven yourself able to fly, that you choose to be an active pilot and that the authorities are happy to accept you. There's no way in the world that just issuing a licence gives you your flying skills and there's no reason to hold a licence once your active flying career is over.

At the other extreme is the idea that when you're ordained, God affects an ontological change in the very nature of who you are. You become a different kind of person at the point of ordination. This is why when you stop working as a deacon, priest or bishop, you're still recognised as one in title and why some retired ministers still wear their clerical garb. They see themselves as part of a distinct and enduring group of believers even once they no longer have any official roles in the church.

I sit much closer to the first view than the second, however, I think the extreme position does go too far. The reality is that even if there's not an immediate supernatural transformation, there's certainly at least a social transformation that takes place when a person is ordained. There are appropriate whole-of-life expectations for ministers such that they cannot ever switch off from their role in the same way that a pilot can when they're not flying. And even once they've retired from a position, a failure to live up to their ordination vows can have significant impact on those that the clergy have previously ministered to in a way that a pilot's post-flight behaviour doesn't affect their previous passengers.

Like many arguments by extreme, while positions can be clarified by looking at the end-points, the reality can also be distorted by the terms of the analysis. Recognising this, it's also good to clarify the various ways that people use their language on this topic too, because while there are some significantly different views, there are also some that we might assume are more to one extreme than they really are. For comparison, consider the fact that ex-presidents of the US are still referred to as 'President'. This honourary use of the title in no way reflects anyone's beliefs about the reality - the US only has one president at a time - and given that so much is clear, the use of the title doesn't risk transmitting a dangerously distorted understanding of the Constitution. I suspect that some who attribute clerical titles to people who are no longer working for the church have a similar perspective on it.

It is worth noting that even when a retired minister does still carry their title, that doesn't automatically mean they can continue to perform specific ministerial duties. All clergy need a licence from their bishop or archbishop to be active in clerical ministry. So, while they still might be able to wear the collar, they cannot do things like perform weddings, preside at holy communion or ordain lay people (in the case of retired bishops) apart from a current licence. Any ontological change that occurred at ordination still needs permission to be functionally active.

Anglicans and Arabs on TV

I had the privilege of meeting the Most Rev Dr Mouneer Hanna Anis yesterday. He's the Anglican President Bishop of Jerusalem & the Middle East and Bishop in Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa.


Tomorrow morning (Jan 19th) at 8.10am (AEDT) he's going to give a live TV interview on the Arab Spring on ABC One and ABC 24 here in Australia.


Will be interesting to hear his perspective on it all.

Private Confirmation

Well, not really private, just small.

My wife was confirmed as an Anglican today by our bishop in bit of an odd service at St Paul's Cathedral.

It was odd only in the sense that she was converted and baptised as an adult and so has already made an open and public declaration of faith - confirmation is meant to give people who were baptised as infants the chance to do that.

So why did she bother? It's a necessary prerequisite for her entering the 'Year of Discernment' which is the year-long program that the Melbourne Diocese runs for people who are considering becoming candidates for ordination. Dovetailing neatly with yesterday's post, my wife is exploring the possibility of becoming a distinctive deacon as part of our plan to continue working alongside each other in Anglican ministry.

It was actually a pretty good little service. Like lots of the liturgy, the words are really great and the bits the candidate has to say are things that any follower of Jesus would want to say. We also read through Mark 1:40-45 and talked about it together. And it was really great to share the service with the guy in the picture who was being officially 'received' into the Anglican Communion so that he can take up a formal leadership post at his church and with our minister who made the trek into the Cathedral to be there with us.

Now my daughter - who was baptised as an infant - is asking about when she can get confirmed too!

Who Does What 3 - Deacons

Unlike bishops and priests, there are no specific tasks for deacons, although they are often thought of as having ministries that focus on serving the poor and marginalised or those at the fringe of the church. In the Anglican world, deacons can't do the 'ABC' of absolution, blessing and communion and therefore can't be appointed as parish vicars / rectors. While this could be seen as a limitation, it's better thought of as a freedom to stay focussed on other front-line ministries.

The go-to New Testament passages on deacons show us that they were first formally appointed to take on the work of food distribution so that the apostles could focus their energies on word ministries and prayer (Acts 6:1-6). And even though their task was very practical, it was imperative that those chosen had Spirit-shaped character (Acts 6:3, cf. 1 Timothy 3:8-13). But of course, as the story unfolds in Acts, we find that at least two of the deacons become powerful testifiers to the gospel of Jesus (Acts 7-8, 21:8), so there ends up being some significant overlap of their work and the apostles'. This is comparable to the overlap between the work of Anglican deacons and priests.

As I keep thinking about the diaconate, my question is, Why don't Anglicans ordain more people who work in churches as deacons? Here in Melbourne, we have many non-ordained church workers who are licensed by the Archbishop as 'Authorised Lay Ministers'. Why not make them deacons?

Reasons might include that some Anglicans believe that a person needs to be 'called' to ordained ministry and that when they are ordained, they are 'ontologically' changed. Therefore, ordination is more than just functional and more than just a practical recognition of the work someone does in a church. I'm not sure that I find this a particularly convincing argument. On the one hand, there's not much solid biblical evidence for it and on the other, it would seem strange to have lower expectations of an Authorised Lay Minister than a deacon if they were doing the same job.

Recruitment and training have become practical distinctions. That is, while the vicar of a local church can employ anyone they see fit, a deacon needs to have been through a diocese's program of formation. Perhaps this means that a deacon's suitability to their role is more broadly recognised than a lay minister's.

In the Diocese of Melbourne, there are very few distinctive deacons (as opposed to 'transitional' deacons who are moving towards becoming priests). By comparison, Sydney Diocese, with its more functional view of ministry, has been proactively reviving its diaconate over the past few years and so has a few more. Interestingly, these dioceses also have different stances on the ordination of women to the priesthood and this may affect their relative numbers of deacons. Melbourne accepts female priests and Sydney doesn't so in Sydney, all ordained women are deacons.

This leads to another good point to make when thinking about deacons which is that all clergy are deacons. That is to say that when a deacon is ordained priest, they don't stop being a deacon. I think this is great because it reminds the clergy that no matter how high up the organisational chart they might climb, they must always remain servants of others. Right in line with Jesus' teaching in Mark 10:35-45.

Who Does What 2 - Priests

Lots of Christians don't really like using the term 'priest' for church leaders anymore. This is because of the Old Testament connotations where the priesthood can appear largely ritualistic, the fact that the New Testament talks about the 'priesthood of all believers' (cf. 1 Peter 2:9 - although I am aware that the common interpretation of the phrase 'royal priesthood' is far from universally accepted) and just because of the current connotations of the word 'priest' - we tend to think of an old man who is either exceedingly soft and cuddly or else quite rigid and grumpy. The Anglican Diocese of Sydney has even begun using the non-translation 'presbyter' instead of 'priest' which is fine at one level, although if the aim was to avoid confusion, I'm not sure it's achieved all that much.

In the Anglican Church, ordained 'priests' are those people given authority to preach and administer the sacraments and whose general duties include leading and pastorally caring for a local church. I say 'general' duties, because there are actually lots of other ways that priests can be deployed. For example, they can be assistants to the head priest in a parish (the vicar or rector), chaplains in a wide range of contexts or workers in parachurch organisations. But even when a priest isn't a vicar / rector, it's still expected that they have all the qualifications and have met all the requirements for that 'standard' priestly role. This goes back in part to the idea of equivalence of ordination throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion.

One thing that I find really disappointing is that many priests give only a small amount of energy to their bread-and-butter work of preaching, presiding and pastoring. It would be easy to just highlight the five minute sermonettes that are offered in some liberal parishes or the infrequency of (and sometimes near-irreverent attitude towards) communion in some evangelical parishes, but the problem goes beyond these. So many parish priests these days find themselves so tied up in governance, management and administration tasks that time for sermon preparation and pastoral meetings seems to just get squeezed out. In many cases, this is genuinely grieved as priests long to get free of their ever-growing list of additional duties and to get on with the work they entered the priesthood to do. But there are others who I fear have forgotten their first charge and embraced an altogether different model of priestly leadership that isn't centred on pulpit and parishioners.

So what to do? The first thing is just to recognise the different roles that different members of the church are meant to fulfil and then to ensure that each person is focussing on the right thing. John Stott addressed exactly this issue in his chapter 'Ministry: The Twelve and the Seven' in one of his final books, 'The Living Church' (which is very worthwhile reading).

After this, priests then just need to employ the disciplines necessary for them to prioritise the priorities. A great example for me is a priest I know who simply set a firm time-limit on how much administration he would do during the week. Once the time was up, it was up and if some things didn't get done, they didn't get done. He had made a decision that he wasn't going to let management tasks impinge on the time that he committed to preparing sermons. He was an Anglican priest practically committed to doing the work of a priest.

Who Does What 1 - Bishops

Spinning off from the earlier posts on competence, I thought it would be worth putting up a couple of posts considering how the Anglican Church understands the roles of different people within it. No doubt, this will be far from exhaustive and there will be lots of alternative perspectives out there, but let's see how we go...

So, bishops.

The Anglican Church believes the Bible teaches that there are three layers of church leadership: bishops, priests and deacons (= episkopoi, presbyteroi, diakonoi in the original Greek of the New Testament). This is disputed by some who think that that episkopoi and presbyteroi are two words for people in the same roles.

Bishops then sit at the top of the hierarchy of ordained people and have oversight of the parish churches and clergy of a given region called a diocese, which itself has a central diocesan church - the cathedral. Large dioceses can have several bishops although the archbishop is the one who holds final authority while the others are his assistant (or, depending on the particular diocese, coadjutor or suffragan) bishops.

Bishops' functions are mostly ceremonial and administrative. Although some take on the 'pastor of pastors' role, many clergy now have mentors who are not part of the formal structure of the church. And because bishops don't have direct congregational oversight or hold a regular pulpit, I've heard it suggested (by someone who I think holds more to the idea of a two-fold order of leadership) that Anglican bishops should really be re-designated as deacons.

Getting beyond structures and definitions however, the most important parts of a bishop's role are the making, hiring and firing of clergy and the upholding of doctrinal standards. In the Anglican Church, a lay person cannot be made a deacon, nor a deacon a priest, apart from a bishop's ordination. Three bishops are required to consecrate a priest as a bishop. No clergyperson can have an active Anglican ministry in a diocese without being granted a licence by its bishop or archbishop. So, while the average punter may not ever receive much teaching or pastoral care from their diocesan bishop (they could actually probably go along happily for quite a long time without ever seeing them or even knowing their name!), nonetheless, their bishop has an enormously large impact on the local church through the clergy that they licence to serve there.

Biblically, we might say that Titus is an example of someone with this bishop's role of appointing leaders for a region and guarding doctrine. He was instructed by Paul to "appoint leaders in every town" (Titus 1:5) and to choose people who would, among other things, "be able to both preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it" (Titus 1:9). Unlike most Anglican bishops though, we see as we read through Paul's letter that Titus also seems to have had an active pastoral ministry of his own.

American Encouragement

It was an unexpected pleasure to have one of the world's foremost authorities on Anglicanism turn up at our church today (although actually not so unexpected given that his son and daughter-in-law are members of the congregation) and a fantastic opportunity for me to be able to chat for a while.

But apart from the chance to test a few ideas and pick up a bunch of great research leads, I was really encouraged by the news that in the USA - where he lectures theology - there's a significant number of young leaders heading into the Anglican Church. Apparently, one of the big reasons for this is that many of them are seeing some of the problems of those churches that don't have a formal liturgy. And interestingly, one serious shortcoming is felt to be that those churches don't really allow for much congregational participation in the Sunday services - singing and putting money in the collection plate is often about it. On the other hand, the liturgical churches are recognised as encouraging members to be involved at several points; saying creeds, confessing sins, leading prayers, etc. And so for those people who want to lead churches with more of this kind of congregational involvement and who aren't Catholic, the Anglian Church turns out looking pretty good.

I really wouldn't have guessed any of this, but there you have it. God is working in significant ways in new generations in the Anglican Church - even in North America.

Brilliant Wedding!

Today we really enjoyed celebrating the wedding of a couple from our old church, and for a few different reasons.

Firstly, it was really Jesus-honouring. Not only is the modern Anglican wedding service great in itself (it was Second Order APBA), but with the extra Bible readings that the couple asked for and what was said in the speeches, the goodness of God and their joy in him was made powerfully clear.

Then there was the minor but nice historical fact that it was the first wedding held in the new chapel at Ridley Melbourne.

Next was the truly brilliant wedding gift. The couple had asked that instead of giving them presents, everyone chip in to a Village Package through TEAR. At the reception we heard about the particular village in Bengal, India that had been supported by today's guests. It's amazing the huge good that a relatively small group of financially secure Westerners can do when they pool together. (In the same vein, the bomboniere were packets of FairTrade coffee and chocolate from Tribes and Nations.)

Then there was the food at the reception. A five star buffet.

And finally, the music at the reception was awesome. Just a drummer and bass guitarist, but they produced a really full, very hip sound. Check out the Two Quriks Facebook page for free downloads!

Church Visit - St Mary's Cathedral KL

We celebrated Christmas Day in another Anglican church building that, again, could have been almost anywhere in the world. There wasn't much that made this church stand out as being particularly Malaysian Anglican - and when we met the minister who had done his theological training in Australia and the preacher who was visiting from Australia we really felt like we were part of a pretty close-knit Anglican world.

While this raised some important questions of inculturation for me, they were made far less pressing by the fact that the church was completely full. Not only were all the pews in this building filled at back-to-back morning services but we were part of a more contemporary service in the church hall that was completely packed too - and there was also a Bahasa Malaysia service running somewhere else in the building at the same time. Moreover, it seems this wasn't just because of Christmas or Cathedral tourism but was in large part regular membership - check out all the services they regularly run on their website.

And we all heard the great message of Jesus' birth. It's still pulling crowds around the world! And the Anglican format clearly has traction in some significantly different settings.