Theological College Visit - STM

It was great to be able to drop in at the Malaysia Theological Seminary in Seremban and to be shown around by my friend, former teacher and past supervisor Paul Barker who now serves on the faculty. STM trains leaders for several denominations - including the Anglicans - in Malaysia and other parts of Asia too.

I really enjoyed seeing the grounds and facilities (and was pleased to see that MacCulloch's landmark biography of Cranmer was in a prominent place in library). It was also great to chat about culture and ministry in South-East Asia over lunch with Paul and Tan Jin Huat, the Academic Dean.

I was greatly encouraged through this visit. A large student body and a gifted, committed faculty are both good reasons to give thanks and to be optimistic about ongoing, faithful gospel ministry in the region.

Church Visit - St George's Penang

Although there is massive variability in the Anglican Church around the world, it's great that you can still turn up at an Anglican service in another country and feel quite at home. Interestingly, we visited the 'contemporary' (read 'non-Prayer Book') service so it wasn't the liturgy that gave us the familiar feel. It was more the distinctive tone, or mood, of evangelical Anglicanism that was apparent: the way people led, spoke and prayed, the close attention to the Bible (including lots of note-taking by some congregants), the relaxed-though-dignified vibe and so on. Not so great for church-tourists who are keen on collecting broad and different experiences, but great for travellers who just want to join with others for corporate worship that makes sense to them.

(The very Roman architecture is strange for an Anglican church building and the spire is a bit jarring for my eye. The whitewash was stark too - fortunately, it wasn't a tomb!)

Church Visit - St John's Toorak - Oops!

What's wrong with this picture?

You need a close up to tell.

The Bible references for the two middle panels are the wrong way around. John 19:16 for Jesus' baptism and Mark 1:10 for his crucifixion.

It would probably be quite a bit of work to cut and paste them now...

Via Media not Latitudinarianism (fancy words, critical distinction)

The Anglican Church is famously the 'via media', or 'middle way', church. This idea has been taken by some with enthusiasm, and by others with disappointment, to mean that Anglicanism is fundamentally flexible and does not hold any immovable doctrine. But that would be to confuse the via media with latitudinarianism. The two are quite different. Anglicans adhere to the former, but not the latter.

Negatively, the Anglican via media means the Church is neither Roman Catholic, nor separatist Puritan. Positively, it means the Anglican Church combines an Episcopal structure with Protestant theology. Practically, therefore, the via media doesn't mean that the church is anything at all like broadly permissive latitudinarianism.

The via media is usually read to have been normalised for the Church of England under Elizabeth I. This was a time when theological uniformity, not diversity, was the goal of the national church (granted that this was driven by political necessity as much as theological conviction). Doctrinal boundaries were clearly set and while there was room for some debate on secondary matters, divergent positions on core articles of faith were not accepted. Authority structures were clear and dissent or rebellion was actively opposed. Far from being flexible, the historical Anglican via media held quite a rigid line between alternative views.

It's easy to cast this in harsh-sounding terms as I've done here, but there's also something greatly wise and mature about a non-rubbery middle way. Perhaps considering the concept from the perspective of Aristotle's philosophy is helpful. Aristotle championed a via media for virtues, seeing the error of defining polarising binary systems. For example, instead of taking the ideas of cowardice and bravery as opposites, in Aristotle's thinking, cowardice and foolhardiness are set as opposite extremes and bravery is reframed as the virtuous middle way between the two. Notice that in this system, the via media doesn't embrace the extremes, but charts a strong, clear course between them.

Although the concepts don't completely overlap, there is a parallel with the Anglican via media as originally conceived. The doctrinal errors of Rome were rejected as were the overreactions of potentially anarchic separatists. It was a wise and brave middle way, not at all the establishment of a broad and non-commital church.

It's a great heritage for modern Anglicans to give thanks for and to embrace.

Competence, Part 2

In his comment on yesterday's post, ADR hit right on the big 'but' that must be appended to my thoughts on competence in church leadership. Basically, we want to call for competence, but we mustn't be clumsy in directly equating church growth to the abilities of the leader. There are a number of reasons for this.

First is that there are lots of competent ministers working faithfully in contexts where the ground is tough. That is, the reason for the lack of numerical growth is far more due to their contexts than any lack of competence. The fact is that not every place has groups of people equally open to receiving the gospel. Why? Often we can discern historical, cultural and sociological reasons for this. Often we have to admit to having no idea why God hasn't readied people's hearts at a particular time.

Second is that there are different seasons in ministry. As Paul says in 1 Cor 3, some will have the task of planting and some will have the task of watering and it may then be that it's others again who have the joy of harvesting. The history of missions tells us that the harvest may come generations after the planting and watering.

Third is that numbers don't tell the whole story. If it were so simple, this wouldn't even be a conversation. We would just say that growing churches have competent leaders and churches that aren't growing don't. End of story. But while building the Kingdom numerically is a key part of the role of a church leader, it's not the whole role. At different times in the life of a local church, the balance must tip towards 'tending the flock' rather than 'making disciples' and while I think it's a mistake to polarise these, there will be times when leadership needs to be directed more to pastoral care and housekeeping than to outreach.

Having said all of this though, I don't want to qualify my original thoughts so much that they can just be dismissed. Given the big 'but', I still want to say leadership competence is something that must be evaluated. We can't always assume that a lack of numerical growth is due to the situation, not the leader. That may be the case, but it may not be. If we are to be good stewards of the church, the gifts and the resources that have been entrusted to us, we must ask the question.

The challenge in all this is how to make the determination. Short of running a controlled scientific experiment with two equally resourced churches on opposite street corners, how can you possibly tell if a local church is struggling because of an incompetent minister or because it's in a tough environment? I don't have a simple answer. But that doesn't mean it isn't an important question.

A few more thoughts still to come...

Competence, Part 1

When the Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies were first mandated for use in English parish churches, they served several functions. Perhaps they're most famously known for aiding in the establishment of uniformity in corporate worship and therefore in public belief. But in addition, they also helped to overcome the problem of widespread clerical incompetence.

Although largely financially motivated, the dissolution of the monasteries through the 1530s and the abolition of chantries in the 1540s effectively changed the job descriptions of a large number of English clergy. Those whose roles had mostly been the saying of private masses now found themselves unemployed and re-designated as preachers and congregational leaders. But then even if they were able to secure a new post in a parish church, many would arrive without any of the skills required for their position. Therefore one great benefit of the BCP and the Homilies was that they allowed a minister in this situation to effectively 'paint by numbers'. If they could read, they could lead. With two books they could feed their flocks a steady diet of Protestant doctrine, administer the sacraments and conduct corporate worship and it would all be as sound as their congregations would have gotten from any other local church in the country.

What's the modern equivalent? Is there any way to bridge the competence gaps for today's church leaders?

First of all, we need to note that church leaders today need a much broader set of competences than their early-modern English predecessors. While running good services and preaching good sermons is absolutely critical, more is needed at a time when there are far more options for church and spirituality and when our culture has high expectations of quality. So our generation of church leaders also need to be competent at things that are potentially as diverse as management and governance, advertising, leading teams, training, recruiting lay leaders, property development and much more too. Clearly, for all this, there is no quick, one-size-fits-all solution. There is no pair of books that a diocese can distribute that will allow incompetent ministers to pull it all off. So what to do? I think two things are critical.

First is theological formation. The years that are spent in ministry traineeships, Bible college courses and curacies provide the major opportunities for key competencies to be developed. Fortunately, lots of ministry training programs, theological schools and diocesan administrations are already well aware of this. In fact, I think it would probably be quite hard these days to find an organisation involved in ministry formation that hadn't already thought a lot about how to ensure a wide spread of key competencies are being taught.

But the second thing is to actually set some real standards for those competencies because the fact is that not everyone who undergoes training will have the capacity to develop them all. We mustn't make the all-too-common mistake of thinking that just because someone has done a course on something, they're now gifted in that area. This is like the mistake of thinking that just because someone had a certain job for a number of years that they were necessarily good at it. If that were the case, you could think that any minister who ran a church for 20 years was competent even if they oversaw a decline in attendance, were repeatedly unable to meet budget or never baptised anyone into the faith. Time spent shouldn't trump results achieved.

This might sound tough, but anyone who's worked in church ministry knows how much more there is to it than just preaching sermons and leading Sunday services. And the reality is that not everyone who shows interest, does a theology degree or even feels called to the ministry will actually be gifted with all the competencies necessary for the task. There must be proper evaluation.

I'm very conscious that this line of thinking could go very sour if pushed too hard. We don't want the church to become coldly performance based. We don't want a wholesale import of marketplace ideas into our recruitment processes. We certainly don't want to overlook questions of character and integrity while focussing on skill sets. But nonetheless, we do have a mission and we do want to see tangible results. Ensuring that we don't put people into jobs beyond their competencies is one important factor.

There's more to say on this. I might add to it in a future post...

Basic Integrity

One of the things that's often celebrated about the Anglican Church is that it's broad enough to accommodate a range of views on various matters. The typical, inoffensive, example of this has to do with different local 'traditions' in corporate worship. Some Anglicans are very formal and run quite 'churchy' services with particular robes, symbols, actions and classical music, whereas others are very casual and have services that are more informal with no particular dress code, more modern music, etc. etc. While there are some important missiological questions to ask around this, it's all fine as far as it goes.

However, there are some who use this idea of an accommodating church to suggest that Anglicanism is equally relaxed about its doctrine; while some people in the church believe x, it's completely acceptable that others believe y. To some extent, this is the case. For example, on the more contentious issue of whether or not the Church should consecrate female bishops, the Anglican Church of Australia has given the green light but also provided an Alternative Episcopal Oversight Protocol for those ministers whose consciences won't let them sit under a female bishop. Different views are accommodated on what's considered to be a second-tier issue.

One of the arguments used to support the idea that its ok for Anglicans to differ on other matters of doctrine is that we are not a confessional church. Unlike, say, the Presbyterians with their Westminster Confession, we don't have a document that systematically outlines our beliefs. But the problem with this argument is that we do. We have several, in fact.

Many of the orders of service in the Books of Common Prayer contain the Creeds of the church - the systematic articulation of what we believe. When ministers are ordained (in Australia at least), the Ordinal has them publicly declare their acceptance of the authority of the Old and New Testaments. Then, when a member of the clergy is licensed to a ministry they publicly say that they

assent to the doctrine of The Anglican Church of Australia as expressed in the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons and the Articles of Religion, as acknowledged in section 4 of the Constitution, and I believe that doctrine to be agreeable to the word of God.

and

declare my assent to the Fundamental Declarations of The Anglican Church of Australia as set out in sections 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution.

Now, my issue at this point isn't to argue that these doctrines and declarations are right or wrong, good or bad, but simply to ask this: How could someone who doesn't truly believe all this stuff become a minister in the Anglican Church without massively compromising their integrity? How can it be that we've had leaders in the Church who don't believe in Christ's resurrection? Or in the uniqueness of Christ for salvation? Or in the existence of hell? While we might want to look at the institution's failure to weed them out before they got ordained, my question is, why didn't they opt out themselves? Where was their integrity in signing up?

It will always be the case that people will have different views on matters about which the Church has never formally stated its position. And there will always be room for strong debate on the complex issues of the day. And it will always be that different people have different interpretations of the meaning of officially drafted doctrines. And it will always happen that people's views, and even an institution's position, will change over time. But even when you add up up all these, they still don't equal a church that has no fixed doctrinal position. And they certainly don't mean it's no big deal for a leader to swear to something that they don't actually believe.

Beyond the question of personal integrity, think also of the impact on the church at large. Why should anyone trust a church minister if it turned out that their public vows weren't sincere? How could the church expect anyone else to take their oaths seriously if ministers don't - is a wedding vow just something you're meant to say on the day too? What will people think that the church really stands for? This is a critical issue for the church. The reality must line up with the rhetoric.

Having said all this, I should add the footnote that I am, of course, just discussing a small minority of leaders in this post. But even a few can have a significant impact on the whole organisation and so it's worth flagging the vital need for integrity among the clergy on matters of belief.

Victorian Tudor Rose

I visited the Victorian State Rose Garden the other day. The central display is arranged in a giant Tudor Rose. How 'bout that?

Baptismal Home

Clearly, the best thing about this picture is that it provides a great opportunity to make fun of my late 90s stylin'. However, once we're over that...

This is me and my grandmother revisiting the church where I was baptised, St Andrew's Sonning in the Diocese of Oxford. It's a flint church that was rebuilt in the mid nineteenth century after having probably been first established in - wait for it - the early 7th Century!

I don't know anything much about the church today, although judging by the statue above the archway, it probably held onto much of its Roman Catholic heritage during the Reformation and judging by its website, it looks like its still a way further up the candlestick than I'm used to. But there it is.

The church building is also directly opposite an original Tudor inn, The Bull. This place has a good reputation for food and I remember a great meal there with my grandmother that day.

Turns out that the pub is actually owned by the church. I presume it's leased out but if the church ran it themselves it could be a truly fantastic place for ministry. Perhaps if I go back again one day and become vicar...

This is all something a bit light. Next week, I want to think some more about Anglican integrity...

Simeon on Church Organisation

I'm reading through Moule's biography of Charles Simeon at the moment and am finding it incredibly encouraging because of what it says of both Simeon's ministry and also his character.

Following on from yesterday's post regarding the need for Anglican Church ministers to keep their Word ministry central, I think Simeon's refections on church organisation are very helpful. Moule quotes the following from a letter Simeon wrote to the Bishop of Winchester in 1829

I have seen, my Lord, of very recent date a little pamphlet, where a Minister is set forth in Herbert's way as the father, the physcian, &c., &c., of his parish; but my judgment did not go along with it. In a very small parish these duties may be combined; but it appears to me that, comparatively, this is serving tables. ... The giving himself to the Word of God and prayer seems to me to be [the pastor's] peculiar duty; and the paternal part (of administering relief, &c.) should, I think, be delegated to others under his superintendence, as Moses delegated many of his duties to the seventy employed by him.

Then this statement of how he had put his beliefs into practice

This is what I have done myself for nearly fifty years; I have thirty (male and female) in their different districts, and I preach an annual Sermon in aid of their efforts. By these, I hope, great good has been done; whilst by their supplying my lack of service, I have been left at liberty to follow that line of duty which was more appropriate to my own powers, and which I could not have prosecuted if I had not thus contrived to save my time.

Here we see that Simeon had emplaced a system of church leadership that retained the authority of the senior minister, that embodied the distinction between 'presbyters' and 'deacons', that valued the real leadership of volunteers and lay people, that took individual gifting seriously, that increased ministry effectiveness and that prioritised the Word and prayer.

At one level, I find this to be really impressive stuff but at the same time, I kinda think it's not rocket science. All Simeon really did was to embrace explicit biblical ideas about church leadership and organisation. I guess the real encouragement for me then is that he shows that it's entirely possible for this to work and flourish within the Anglican system.

Power of the Pulpit

During the Protestant Reformation in England, the first official, nation-wide strike at the old Roman Catholic doctrines came through the pulpits. Although we often think of the Book of Common Prayer as bringing the reformed faith to the people, by the time of its first edition in 1549, the first book of Homilies had already been authorised for two years. Cranmer understood the power of the pulpit. He knew that it was here that he needed to win the hearts of the population if reform was ever going to take root. Just changing the structures and rules of the national church would only ever affect superficial spiritual change at a grassroots level.


Over the past generation in Melbourne, we've seen the fruit of similar thinking. Most of the local churches that God has grown substantially in this time have had a very strong emphasis on preaching. It's not at all uncommon to go to one of these churches and hear a detailed 40 minute sermon that carefully exposits a passage of the Scripture and applies it to the lives of the congregation and the world around it. It seems that many parishioners - and even visitors - want this and that it has a very significant effect in the life and mission of the local church. Good liturgy will always have its place and it's well worth investing energy in continual institutional renewal, but if the people are not being fed a substantial and healthy diet from the pulpit, it's unlikely that anything else that the church is working on will have a major impact. Putting Scripture first is not just an ideal to speak dogmatically about, it's a practice that has a positive and measurable impact.

A while ago I was part of a conversation with a minister from London. He said that his day started before anyone else in the house was awake with a solid period of personal Bible reading and prayer. Then he broke for breakfast and getting the kids off to school. Then, he spent from 9am to 12noon every day in focussed sermon preparation, working hard to understand the Scriptures and prepare solid talks for his congregations. It was only after lunch that he turned to the other business of running of the church. I was humbled and impressed by his incredible commitment to the ministry of the Word. I am unsurprised that the church this guy leads is one of the largest Anglican Churches in England. This focus of Anglican ministers from the birth of the Church of England until today is a real encouragement and a real challenge to me.

Anglicans and Gay Marriage

Gay marriage is very much on the public agenda here in Australia. For example, it's the opening item on the Fringe Program of the National Labor Conference that's beginning later this week. The issue is of course closely tied to the views of the churches. But aside from losing the battle to have the State uphold God's views on marriage for the national good, what would it actually mean for local Anglican Church ministers if the Marriage Act was changed to accept gay and lesbian marriage?

A few musings -

If a gay couple came and asked Anglican minister to marry them and that minister had issues of conscience, they could simply say no. Just because someone has a licence to conduct weddings, doesn't mean they have to conduct any particular wedding. There's probably already a good range of different scenarios where a minister may not feel comfortable performing a wedding service so this could fall into that category.

But even if the minister did want to perform the ceremony, they wouldn't actually be allowed to at this stage. For wedding services, Anglican ministers must use 'Anglican Rites' - it's on this understanding that they're licensed by the government. And at the moment, all the authorised Anglican Rites are very clear that the service is for the marriage of a man and a woman.

There may be some Anglian ministers who are also licensed as civil celebrants and so they could potentially perform a gay wedding in that capacity, although if they did so, I would want to ask if they'd carefully considered their integrity to ensure that they weren't just finding ways to circumvent the system that they'd sworn themselves into.

There are various groups within the Anglican Church that are advocating various changes in doctrine (or at least loosenings of doctrine) to allow for the church to bless gay unions / marriages. If the national law changed, it's quite likely that they would push for the official marriage liturgies of the Church to be revised to remove gender-specific language and theology. Their argument may run along the lines of 'relevance to mainstream Australia' or 'more enlightened theology' or similar. The counter-argument would be that this is a classic case of the church following the world rather than the plain teaching of the Scriptures. If this change ever did happen, conservative ministers could still continue serving and, again, just choosing not to marry gay couples. Of course, the reality is that the Anglican Church of Australia would probably formally divide in two at this point leaving us with a similar situation to the one in North America where there is now both the Anglican Church in North America and The Episcopal Church. That has already caused huge reverberations around the Anglican world.

Another issue that's live in Australia has to do with gay ministers, of whom there are already some who are bound - along with the rest - to 'faithfulness in marriage, chastity in singleness'. This is clearly a tough gig for gay and lesbian clergy in the same way it would be tough for the gay and lesbian community at large and also for unmarried people generally. But if the Marriage Act was changed, gay ministers could conceivably get married in a civil ceremony even if the Anglican Rites weren't amended. Again, it would be something of an act of defiance; going directly against the position of the church they work for and have made oaths in, but it may yet be a legal loophole. What would the church do with that?

There are lots more thoughts to be thunk but the bottom line is this: It's a really big issue for the church and in many ways is even tougher than it is for the government. It throws up huge issues of theology, personal integrity, biblical fidelity, historical continuity, membership, missiology and organisational unity. How will the church deal with it if it is all brought to a head here in Australia? We at least know that it will be with great struggle.

Beautiful Cathedral Prayers

One more from Christchurch Anglican Cathedral that was officially deconsecrated earlier this month. (I have a personal affection for Christchurch having stayed there for a while durning my honours year).

This parallel version of the Lord's Prayer in Maori and English was carved into the wall with what I think is a traditional 'mangotipi' pattern along the side (though won't be surprised if I'm wrong on that one).

I don't know if this survived the quake or if it will be salvaged during the demolition so I'm glad to at least have a photo.

I love that the Lord's Prayer can be translated and prayed in native languages. I love that the Maori takes precedence over the English here. This is a small but important sign that the Anglican Church is not just the global Church of England, but part of Christ's church that - for all its failures - has been giving the good news to different peoples from around the world so they can own it as their own.

Money and Numbers

I think lots of outsiders who look at the Anglican Church assume that's it's rich - seriously rich! And when viewed from the perspective of property assets, that's hard to deny. Not only do we have things like big cathedrals bang in the middle of big cities, but we also have hundreds of local church buildings in prime locations too. For the scene here in Melbourne, check out this visualisation by my friend Bryan (you can zoom in and out for different levels of detail). In addition, there's also any number of op-shops, offices and Anglican agency buildings owned by the Anglican Church.

But these property holdings don't give any indication of the cash position or, more importantly, the potential 'richness' - material or spiritual - that a local Anglican church can share with its surrounding communities. Some are actually quite poor.

A while ago, an Anglican minister told me that only 25% of parishes in Melbourne survive on 'live' giving. That is, only one in four can pay its bills using the income it receives in the form of congregational giving. The rest survive by doing things like renting out their car parks or charging people for weddings or getting subsidised by the diocese. I really don't know if this 25% figure is correct, but if it is, it's staggering! It's not only an indication that many local churches may be struggling to keep their heads above water, but it also suggests they may not have many resources with which to bless others.

The problem with once-strong now-declining institutions is that you can get away with not directly addressing these sorts of issues for a long time. For example, you can survive by just deciding to sell off one of your many properties where there's no longer a viable congregation and then using the proceeds of the sale to prop up the organisation for a while. And when you have lots of property assets and real estate prices are so high, you could continue doing this sort of thing for a century or more! But while this can bail you out of financial tight spots, it does nothing to address the ongoing, deeper issues. Instead, it can actually just reinforce the idea of there being a substantial buffer to protect us if we're not actively recovering and rebuilding local churches.

Fortunately, here in Melbourne, this is not the path we're taking. While property assets may be liquidated from time to time, the leaders of the Diocese do not want us to live (or die) this way. Instead, they want to see more parishes grow to the point that they are self-supporting (or, thinking of Venn's three-self idea, to greater maturity). To this end, the Archbishop appointed a 'Vision Coordinator' this year, whose role is to get alongside and resource a number of parishes that want to see renewal.

This is a great and positive move to address the real issue. However, under God, it will all ultimately come down to our leadership capacity. Do we have ministers who are able to lead large churches and - more difficult - help grow smaller churches? Do we have up and coming ministers who could be trained, coached and apprenticed such that they could oversee significant, healthy church growth? Historically, we've had a few of these guys, but in a time when the Australian population just isn't committed to the local churches like it used to be, we really need to identify, win, train and release a whole lot more.

One of the selection criteria for parishes who want the Vision Coordinator work with them is that they need to establish a focussed, weekly prayer meeting. I'm so glad this is in there because it's critical to call and depend upon God as we proactively strive to accomplish his purposes. It will be great for lots of others of us to join in these prayers. How great if we could see those numbers turn around, with 75% of parishes (or more!) sustained by live giving and their congregations growing as they give themselves to their neighbourhoods and networks.

Anglican Sola Scriptura

The preface of my Bible says a weird thing. Talking about the history of translation, it says

the Revised Standard Version gained the distinction of being officially authorized for use by all major Christian churches: Protestant, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox.

This seems to imply that the Anglican Church is somehow distinct from the three major strands of Christianity. While it's somewhat flattering to be raised to this level, I'm not sure it's really correct. Certainly, with regards to the Bible, the Anglican Church is about as Protestant as you get. Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles says

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man [sic], that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

But it's not just in the Articles. The first homily is 'A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture'. It opens this way

Unto a to Christian man [sic], there can be nothing either more necessary or profitable, than the knowledge of Holy Scripture; forasmuch as in it is contained God's true word, setting forth his glory, and also man's [sic] duty. And there is no truth nor doctrine, necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation, but that is, or may be, drawn out of that fountain and well of truth. Therefore as many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God, must apply their minds to know Holy Scripture; without the which, they can neither sufficiently know God and his will, neither their office and duty.

There are other places in the Anglican documents where exactly the same sentiments can be found too.

Therefore, despite what may be heard from time to time in parts of the Anglican world, Anglicans do and should hold firm to the primacy of Scripture in all matters of doctrine and ethics. This doesn't mean that reason, experience and tradition can't hold valid secondary positions, but just that none can ever trump the Bible. It also doesn't mean that there can't be legitimate debate over the truest interpretation of the Scriptures or of a portion of them. But as soon as a question is decided on the basis of just what we think, how we feel or what we've previously done or thought instead of what Scripture says, we're not only failing to be orthodox Christians, but we're also failing to be true Anglicans.

The really great news is that despite the sometime dated forms, there are actually heaps of Anglican churches and agencies that are fantastically and thoughtfully Bible-based in what they teach and do. Sticking well with the thoughtful, positive tradition of our branch of the Protestant family.

The Good Count

Anglican churches keep a number of different registers where they track things like Sunday attendances, 'acts of communion', baptisms, weddings, etc. Over the years, this has grown into an important collection of historical social data and is even valuable for individuals who are interested in tracing their family trees as lots of information about ancestors can be sourced from the church records. In addition, the Anglican Church (at least here in Melbourne) uses this data to work out things like how much 'assessment' (essentially an internal tax) needs to be paid to the central administration by different local churches.

Some local churches also use their stats to actively track their growth - or decline - over time. Unsurprisingly, there are frequent objections to this practice from members who think that church leaders should not be focussed on numerical growth, but on 'spiritual' growth. Quality, not quantity, they say.

But while counting numbers can be done in such a way that it depersonalises the church, when it's done with the right attitude, I'm all for it. This is because every number is a person and frankly, the more people being served by local churches the better and the more a local church seeks to increase the number of people it serves the better. Often, I think the gut reaction against counting can go too far such that opponents to it can actually have a reverse pride in being part of a deliberately small church or a church that's above tracking numbers. But in my view, every local church should be striving to grow numerically because that's the tangible fruit of seeing people brought into the Kingdom and it's something to mark and celebrate.

Of course, we see exactly this in the New Testament - egs -

So those who welcomed [Peter's] message were baptised, and that day about three thousand persons were added. Acts 2:41.

But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand. Acts 4:4.

Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. Acts 9:31.

None of this is to say that spiritual growth is not what churches should be striving for, but just that numerical growth is genuinely good too. (The reality is that the two are probably quite closely related.)

I've recently been wondering more about what's best to count. Raw attendances are a good starting point. Adult attendances indicate voluntary members. Number of visitors tells you how many non-members are coming along. Number of adult baptisms measures new converts. People who take communion measures the number of believers. People serving in different capacities measures commitment to the church. And then there's what you can or can't track by considering the different metrics around financial giving.

Ultimately (and this is probably the scientist in me coming out), I think local churches should capture as much of this sort of data as possible. The real issue for me isn't about whether or not to do this, it's about how to use the information - it needs to be soberly assessed, well interpreted, appropriately weighed and openly shared. Then, it can be one encouraging tool for the local church to think about where it's  come from, where it's at and where it's going.

Front-End Realities

Anglican churches have complicated systems of governance and oversight. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just what happens when an institution has existed for several hundred years - I'm not sure that it's possible to be old, big and yet still simple [insert joke here]. However, one of the issues that can arise in complex organisations is that those who become wrapped up the complexity of the back-end can lose sight of the front-end; the regular punter's experience of the local church. When a visitor walks of the street and into an Anglican church, chances are that they neither know nor care much about the machinery of Anglicanism. The local church needs to be really keyed into what matters to them as much as what matters to the institutionally-savvy.

I think lots of church leaders get this, but it is still interesting to stop and ask what actually matters in people's experiences of church on Sunday. I've heard somewhere that what makes the biggest initial impact is the 'welcome-toilets-kids' triplet. That is, while some churches may think that it's the quality of their liturgy or faithfulness of their preaching that draws the crowds, the experiential reality is that visitors assess the church on the basis of who says g'day, the cleanliness of the toilets and whether there's a safe kids' program that their children seem to enjoy. None of this is to say that we should therefore ignore liturgy and preaching, but just that it may be naive to think that other factors aren't also important for people who are checking churches out.

But then what about long-termers? What is it that shapes people's long-term perspective and long-term commitment to a particular local church? What controlable factors contribute to the on-the-ground reality of some members being passionately committed and others being only half-hearted? I'm happy for this to be disputed but I think there are five things: preaching, music, infrastructure, community and leadership.

- Good preaching is something that does make a real difference to lots of people - especially Gen X and younger. There is a real hunger for solid, applied, doctrinal Bible teaching out there and when there's so much good stuff available on line, a local church really needs to attend to this to keep committed believers engaged.

- Music is emotionally very powerful and crummy music really turns people off. If people want to sing, they need music that they can sing to. When building up music teams, lots of churches hold 'participation' as a key value - ie. whoever wants to express their musical gifts should be able to. But while there's something good in this, these days more Anglican churches are appointing semi-professional music directors in acknowledgement of the reality that many congregation members really appreciate being able to sing to well-played music.

- Without moving into the idea of 'sacred space', it's also true that the infrastructure of a local church leaves a significant imprint on the mind of the members. Location, facilities, style, etc all make a difference to how much it really feels like 'home'. Inattention to all this will have a negative effect.

- Community is absolutely critical. There are churches that don't aim for much in the way of community, but for many, many people, church is their third place and the relationships formed there - or the relationships that drew them there in the first place - are highly significant. A local church will find it hard to have long-standing commitment if community life is thin.

- And leadership always makes a difference. A real respect for and connection with the faces up the front is essential. Good back-end management is important, but in local churches, the direct experience of leadership through the preaching and personal pastoring will have a far greater impression on the  members.

My contention is that the more that these five are locked down and healthy, the more the members will love their local church. Conversely, the fewer of these things that are in good shape, the looser the bond between the institution and its people.

So how do Anglicans go? Variably of course. Using an extremely coarse grid, we could say that evangelical Anglicans major on preaching, charismatic Anglicans on music, traditional Anglicans on music and infrastructure and liberal Anglicans on community. But this blunt characterisation probably offends all these groups as the reality is that every breed of Anglican focusses on all of these things at least to some extent - and sometimes it's really just the style rather than the quality that differs between different local churches.

Perhaps more useful than thinking about who is best at what would be for each local Anglican church to keep thinking about which of these five areas they could strengthen in. How could the preaching and music be improved? Is the infrastructure suitable and being well used and well kept? What could be done to foster community interactions? In what ways can the leaders connect more with the congregations? As they continually build up strength in these front-end experiential practicalities (all of which have theological importance too), I believe local churches will see their members become more keenly committed.

The Beauty of Thinking Geographically

While thinking geographically about church can be unhelpfully constraining in some ways, there are also ways that it's so great.

Like many modern Western cities, Melbourne could be understood as a cluster of urban villages. It still has 'dormitory suburbs', inhabited by a significant population of fairly long-distance commuters. But there are also lots of pockets of the greater city where people live, work and play and which they really own as their personal little patch. This is a way of breaking down a place of four million people to an area where there can still be a sense of local community and neighbourhood. This is something I deeply love about our suburb. We cross paths with the same circles of people at the school gate, the supermarket, the pub, the park, the garden nursery - and it's certainly a mistake to try to escape people you know by heading out to our local cafe!

Given all this, we see that there's still something very fitting about the local church being the local church even in big cities.

Faith communities - all communities really - are strengthened in proportion to the amount of time that their members spend together. While there may be many circumstances where it's only possible for members to come together once a week for the formal Sunday service (or two weeks in three as the average tends to be for Anglican churches), there's no question that community bonds will be tighter if there's more regular contact than this. This is harder for members of commuter churches, but something that the local church can offer.

For the local church to be deeply embedded in the local community, it really needs to know the local culture. And not just the broad culture (though its always good to understand this well), but the micro-culture of the parish. Using Melbourne as the example again, it would be very clumsy to think that you could presume cultural lessons learnt in say, Hawthorn, were directly applicable to say, Brunswick, or vice versa. Essendon has a very different flavour to Fitzroy. Docklands is really not like Northcote. St Kilda is not like Kew. Williamstown is not like Glen Iris.

Those with a hand in appointing local church leaders should also be acutely aware of the nature of their immediate context. As well as looking at the character and competence of an applicant, they should be asking whether or not there's a good cultural fit. It may not be ideal to appoint a deeply upper-middle class person to lead a church in a real blue collar suburb. (If they're more likely to enjoy a Pinot Gris while listening to Classic FM than they are to grab a VB while watching the footy, they might not be the best fit for the area!) Of course, there is Paul's example of a leader seeking to be all things to all people in 1 Cor 9:19-23 and this is certainly something for all church leaders to strive for. But we also need some sober reflection about our different capacities to make different cultural leaps.

First and foremost, the key to being a good fit for a particular area is to really come to love it. All the people of the local church should love its setting. Too often Christians - including evangelical Anglicans - become experts at critiquing the world around them, and there will always be a need for that because every place needs to be ongoingly reformed. But they must also seek to passionately embrace what's good about the local culture. Celebrate it and show what parts of it reflect gospel values and what parts of it will be further fulfilled in Jesus. Even if the affection is slow in coming, the attitude of love must be fostered. Especially because places are made up of people and different places tend to have different types of people. And if a local church doesn't actively love the type of people around it, it's really not being all that it's called to be. If it does however, it can be a truly beautiful and effective community to be part of.

'Of but not In'. The Problem of Thinking Geographically.

Christians are often told that they need to be 'in the world, but not of the world' - people who mix well with the communities and societies around them, but stand out from them in their convictions and actions. In a way, global Anglicans could be understood as doing something opposite: being the Church of England but not in England.

Of course, apart from its history and the enduring place of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the symbolic 'first among equals', the Anglican Church isn't really the Church of England any longer. It's a fellowship of autonomous provinces and dioceses whose core demographic is now better represented by a young Nigerian woman than a middle-aged English gentleman.

The history of the Anglican Church is strange when considered geographically. After being just a branch of the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries, the first big shift in the English church during the Reformation wasn't to Protestantism, but to independence. In 1534 the church in England broke with Rome and really became the English Catholic Church. The Roman Church was quick to point out (and slow to ever deny) that in separating, the English Church had rendered itself illegitimate because it had severed the bond of catholicism; the universality of 'the' church existing as one, worldwide institution. (Of course this thinking also plays into the divisions between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.) But the English had become convinced that God's way of instituting the church wasn't through a single, global body, but in parallel with each sovereign state. The God-appointed head of the state was also the rightful head over the church within their realm.

So, the Church of England never started out as what we would call a denomination - one of several co-exsiting fellowships of local churches distinguished by a distinct set of beliefs or mode of governance - it just started out as the church in England. Basically, if you were English, this was the church you belonged to and if you weren't English, you didn't. It was a geopolitical conception of the church. (And so strong was this official commitment to a nationalistic church identity that much of English church history for the following generations can be helpfully understood through the lens of the State's attempts to deal with dissenters and nonconformists.)

But jump forward a couple of hundred years and a funny thing happens. The English head off and colonise the new worlds and take their church with them leading to the oddity of having the 'Church of England' as the de-facto national church of places like Australia. The geopolitical model of church starts to get a bit confused! Perhaps they should have changed the church's name at that time to the Empire Church. However, in time, as the countries become independent, so too more local, autonomous bishops are appointed and name changes are adopted ('Anglican' or 'Episcopal' in the USA) such that the English national church becomes a denomination that exists alongside others in the former colonies. The self-understanding of the Church of England caught up with the reality of its changed contexts.

So what?

Well, despite developing this far, the Anglican Church still has a very geographical way of thinking about itself. Each diocese is divided into parishes, or geographic areas, on the understanding that the parish church will accept responsibility for ministering to the people who live within the parish boundaries. This is reflected in the fact that most Anglican Church names contain the name of their suburb; eg. St John's West Brunswick.

But how helpful is this today as we live in an ever more fluid, mobile and urbanised society? People are not suburb-bound; the membership of some local Anglican Churches is demographically mismatched with the local residents; a few local Anglican Churches are outgrowing their buildings and need to look for additional premises outside their own parish boundaries. The Anglican Church needs to keep thinking about the continuing merits of the geographically-based parish model just as the worldwide Church of England has needed to reunderstand itself as no longer bound to England.

The good news is that lots of this thinking has already begun and is already translating into new congregations on the ground. The best example in Melbourne is City on a Hill, recently established under the Authorised Anglican Congregation Act as a non-parochial church. It meets in two different locations and is already reaching lots (hundreds!) of people that the parish churches aren't. More like this are needed.

Having said all this, it will be good to come back and look at the other side of the coin and the great blessings and opportunities that come with being part of a geographically bounded church too.

Learn Leading from Planting for Rebooting

'Church planting' really is flavour of the month at the moment. A whole generation of aspiring church leaders seems to want nothing other than the opportunity to start their own church and build it from the ground up. This is great news. To see younger believers actually longing for the chance to sink their lives into church leadership is really, really exciting. God willing, lots of them will be able to do great works for his glory.

I do find it interesting that as I read lots of the church planting literature, a lot of it isn't just about church planting. That is, it's not all focussed on the process of starting up a new congregation or local church; a great deal of it is about how to run, lead and grow a church once it's up and going and I think this is a really important contribution. It actually seems to me that one thing that's so attractive about the church planting movement is that it's helping young leaders to see that local church doesn't need to be done the way it has been done in the past and it's helping them to think about far more contemporary, practical and exciting forms for church gatherings.

For Anglicans, this is all very timely. For all the great strengths of the Prayer Book services, their downside is that they can lead some ministers to believe that no fresh imagining of church gatherings or church communities is really necessary. The thinking can be that people will just turn up on Sunday (because they always have and always will due to the fact that Anglican churches are an important part of every local community) and that they will be satisfied with a well-led Prayer Book service. Couple this with the more modern evangelical idea that we just need to 'preach Scripture and they will come' and you can end up with a relative lack of fresh thought about how to run and build engaging local church communities. Hence the huge appetite for the practical leadership lessons in the new church planting literature for those who aren't rusted-on Anglican traditionalists.

But these lessons - and the great risk-taking and permission-giving spirit that invariably goes along with them - are good not just for church planters and for leaders of Anglican churches, but also for those who want to grab hold of what I believe is the biggest gospel opportunity in Western Anglicanism: rebooting, or revitalising, flat local churches.

The decline in the traditional churches in the West actually creates this opportunity. As attendances dwindle and congregations age, all of a sudden there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of church buildings in prime locations crying out for new leaders to come in and lead them to a new season of life. This incredible infrastructure - fully owned by the Church - is a huge blessing that can really be put to amazing use. But it's tough work. I would argue that it's harder than church planting in many ways.

In a true church plant, the leader builds everything from the ground up. It's a blank slate that they're free to create on. And the people who commit to joining them in the new work either get to be part of the creative processes or else they come along because they're sold on the new vision and plans. But with a reboot, the slate isn't blank. It's covered with the stories of past generations and it's often deeply cherished by the present congregation - even if that's only half a dozen faithful octogenarians! The rebooter has the hard and delicate job of turning the parish around and making a fresh start while at the same time honouring and lovingly pastoring the saints whom they've inherited with their position. It won't do to ignore or marginalise these church members. Neither is it ok to force them to accept radical change at a rate that they can't realistically manage. Tending the flock (1 Pt 5) while making disciples (Mt 28) has always been the tension in church leadership, it's just so much more acute when rebooting.

I think it's so great that passionate and capable young leaders are looking at serving within the Anglican Church. It's great that they're bringing insights and inspiration from the new church planting literature. The Anglican Church hierarchy needs to make sure it knows how to make space for this next generation of leaders to flourish. And I also think everyone would benefit enormously if the considerable wisdom, insights and practical smarts of the new church planting movement were developed further for a the great challenge of starting a rebooting movement within the Anglican world. I only know of one book that explores all this, The Because Approach: Innovating Church for All by Andrew Baughen. Would love to find more.

New Cromwell Society

Each year the synod (~parliament) of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne meets to hear the Archbishop's charge and to discuss and debate issues. Unsurprisingly, within the synod there are different parties (although not explicitly identified as such) that represent different perspectives on different issues. I know some people may hear this and be surprised - as though a church body should be above partisan politics - but the reality is that all human institutions tend to work this way and there's really no fundamental problem with that; it's just a way of coordinating similar voices. (The bigger question is how the parties choose to conduct themselves, but that's for another day... )

On the evangelical* end of the spectrum, the main organising body is the New Cranmer Society, but while this group has a good reputation and great mailing list, I don't think it has yet fully flexed all of its muscles. The main activities of the NCS are to coordinate voting tickets for the various elections that are held at synod (and it does an excellent job in this) and to host an annual synod breakfast where evangelicals come together for fellowship and to hear from an encouraging speaker.

While it's worth asking whether NCS could do even more good stuff, there's another related question regarding how much institutional change can really come from above anyway and how much it needs to be driven from the ground. Clearly, this isn't just a question for the Anglican Church, but it is a question that members of the Anglican Church should think about.

I've heard some people suggest that much of the time spend in synod, on diocesan committees, etc, etc, is largely wasted time because the only thing that really makes a difference in the long run is the local church being healthy and switched on and the only way to see this happen - under God - is to put our best efforts into local church ministry. In a way, it can be argued that this was actually Archbishop Cranmer's view too. He worked hard to produce accessible and theologically sound homilies and liturgies for England's parish churches so that the rank and file of the nation's churchgoers would be soundly converted to the Protestant faith. How successful his program was will always be debatable, but this was a key part of his strategy nonetheless. And here in Melbourne, it's certainly the case that the local Anglican churches that have been blessed with a generations of faithful, strong gospel ministry are the ones that are now largest and, as a function of their size, able to have quite an influence on the Diocese overall.

This view certainly resonates with me and my passions. I'd much rather pour energy into local church communities than into things like committees. But it would be naive to think that putting coordinated effort into the broader institutional machinery wasn't also important to the long-term prospects of the church. And the Anglican Church's pre-history in the English Reformation is one that saw as much important change come from the top down as from the bottom up.

If Cranmer may be characterised as the 'theological reformer' of the Church of England, Thomas Cromwell was his political counterpart. And it would be fair to say that Cranmer's work, which really blossomed under Edward VI, may never have had anywhere near as much impact if Cromwell hadn't first worked the political landscape so effectively under Henry VIII. Cromwell's role in things like the Reformation Parliament, the distribution of English Bibles and the dissolution of the monasteries - however you assess them morally - were clearly critical to the Church of England becoming what it eventually became.

So perhaps it would indeed be worth Melbourne's New Cranmer Society choosing to get even more involved in the political scene. And if it does, perhaps it should mark the decision by renaming itself the New Cromwell Society! Of course, Cromwell didn't end well and it's hard to always read his motives so the connotations may not be so positive. But then again, when you look into it, this isn't really so different for Cranmer.


PS. For a great read on Cromwell, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is an historical novel that won the 2009 Booker Prize. Well worth the time even if English Church history isn't your hobby.


* The word 'evangelical' doesn't carry the same meaning in the Anglican church as it does in American politics.

Selfish Church Growth

In the mid-nineteenth century, Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society (now Church Mission Society) famously developed the 'three selfs' principle in the field of Christian missions. Being of the mind that missionaries should only be temporary workers in their foreign contexts with the role of establishing indigenous churches, Venn provided this framework that gave missionaries both strategic goals as well as an indication of when their job was done.

Venn determined that when a local church was self-supporting, self-governing and self-extending (or self-propagating), then it had effectively come to organisational maturity and didn't need foreign missionaries any longer. Self-supporting meant that the church didn't rely on external finances. Self-governing meant that the church didn't need to rely on or refer to external leadership. Self-extending meant that the church was itself now a base for sending out believers to new Kingdom-building ministries.

In the Church of England's 2004 report 'Mission-Shaped Church', Venn's three selfs are applied locally to help think about how the church is grown in size and maturity at home and not just abroad (pp120ff). This is really helpful stuff as it drives the Anglican world to ask questions such as, How can we establish a bunch of new, independent, local Anglican churches without being overly constrained by the idea of the 'parish'? (NB. I am not personally opposed to the idea of the 'parish' at all, so long as it is seen as an area that a local church is entrusted with reaching and serving and not as a geopolitical patch that needs to be guarded. One parish could have many local congregations and should really welcome this possibility!)

For fun, you can consider Henry Venn's 'three selfs' using a Venn diagram - invented by Venn's mathematician son, John. But how would you label each of the regions? Here's my first pass thinking...

What this shows is not only that a mature church needs to be self-governing, -supporting and -extending, but also what you might have if you only hit two out of three.

A church that was self-govering and -extending could be considered to be a mission of other churches. This is not at all a bad thing since all churches should be very willing to support other parts of the body of Christ in their financial needs and local churches should not be too proud to receive this sort of generous support either.

The other two scenarios aren't quite so positive.

A church that was self-extending and self-supporting could be considered to be oppressed if for some reason it wasn't free to be self-governing. Less negatively, you might imagine this situation could exist where there simply wasn't the leadership capacity in the congregations. However, if Jesus gives the church the human-resource gifts it needs (Eph 4:11-13), then this shouldn't really be the case.

And a church that is self-governing and -supporting but not self-extending would just seem to be impotent in terms of Kingdom growth.

So how does the Anglican Church go with this? How are our young church enterprises going? Have we adopted this part of Mission-Shaped Church thinking? Do we push for the three selfs when seeding new churches? Or do we give too many handouts, not prioritise mission enough or not cut the apron strings when we can? I reckon it would be an informative project that used this grid as a tool to review our new works and perhaps to also help us think about how we'll work well to bring young churches to organisational maturity in the future.

Theologically Incomparable?

When an Anglican 'priest' is licensed to work in a parish church by the Archbishop, one of the formalities they go through is a 'Declaration and Assent to Doctrine and Formularies'. Basically, this means that they make some public vows and then sign off on paperwork saying they've done so - a bit like what happens at a wedding ceremony.

One of the things that they swear is that

In public prayer and administration of the sacraments I will use the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, A Prayer Book for Australia or another lawfully authorised form and none other.

which just means that in public church services, they will stick to the authorised Anglican liturgies.

Lots of evangelical Anglicans wrestle with this because the Anglican services are relatively rigid. There is a fixed shape to the services, set prayers that must be used and various words that the leaders need to say that are quite formal. For many younger members of Anglican churches, this can all seem somewhat repetitive, predictable, distant and stuffy - especially when so much of the rest of life isn't this formal or scripted and when we live in a time when there's a really high value on 'experiences' including, for believing people, experiences of church services.

While I'm all for thoughtful revisions that help to make church gatherings more accessible to more people, there really is a great deal that's worth holding onto in the Anglican liturgy. And central is the theology.

Whatever shortcomings the format might have for a modern congregation, the formally agreed Anglican liturgies (at least in Australia) are incredibly rich with good, deep, well-balanced, biblical theology. Now, I believe that I have truly worshipped God and been blessed through many church services that haven't used Anglican liturgy. However, I can't really think when I've been exposed to a service that's more theologically sound and well-rounded. The Anglican services have biblical praise, biblical calls to repentance, prayers of repentance, biblical assurance of forgiveness, enacted expressions of fellowship, reading and teaching of the Scriptures, prayers - including the Lord's Prayer - and often a declaration of the Christian faith in one of the Creeds. While at one level rehearsing these things each week might be repetitive, at another, if you come to know these elements of the Anglican services really well, you'll have a pretty robust and well-shaped gospel theology.

A fun thing happened during a meeting I was having with some service leaders in their 20s and 30s in my old church. After months of complaining that we were too tightly bound by the Prayer Book, we received authorisation from the Archbishop to use a much simpler and less prescriptive form of service. But the week this was approved, the service leader who had expressed most frustration at the restrictions of the liturgy announced that they had really now come to appreciate it a lot and would actually probably continue incorporating some of its formal elements in the services they led. We had a good laugh.

Anglican ministers may seek authorisation for alternative service forms or may work hard to explain the benefits of the liturgy to their congregations. But their real challenge is to actually lead Prayer Book services really well - in ways that aren't just repetitive, predictable, distant and stuffy - so that the people  who attend their corporate worship services come to personally experience something of the value of the theological richness that those services contain. It's a tough gig, but I reckon it's worth striving for.

Australian Anglican Unity

At the recent Melbourne Anglican Synod, I put forward this motion.

That this Synod:

a) celebrates that while each Australian Anglican Diocese has a unique culture and ministry style, we together enjoy unity in our beliefs as clearly expressed in the Fundamental Declarations and Ruling Principles of the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia.

b) gives thanks for the proclamation of the historic and orthodox Christian faith in Australian Anglican Dioceses which, under God, has led to growth in both their leadership and membership.

Here's the basic text of my speech. I didn't quite get through it all and there were some variations on the day too.

Mr President, members of synod:

I’m pleased to stand now under the crest of the Anglican Church of Australia as I bring this motion to you as a happy and committed Anglican. I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of nineteen through the faithful ministry of the Anglican Church. Since that time, I have been grown and discipled through the faithful ministry of the Anglican Church. Through my masters and doctoral studies I’ve been growing a deeper and deeper appreciation for the history and doctrine of the Anglican Church. While all denominations have their quirks and faults, I believe that the Anglican Church is theologically sound, well constituted, properly ordered and I’m excited to see the very important role it continues to play for men, women, children, local communities and even Australian societies at large.

Not only am I a happy Anglican, but as I stand under the crest of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, I’m also a happy Melbourne Anglican. This is despite the fact that it was actually in Sydney that the Lord used the Anglican Church to bring me to faith and where I first belonged to the fellowship of God’s people. And I certainly learned and experienced a great deal in my Sydney Anglican Church that established my faith and for which I will always be thankful. I made my first Christian friends there too - many of whom I remain close with today.

However, despite the all the great blessings that I received from that diocese ‘up north’, I’m so thankful that the Lord directed me to Melbourne some thirteen years ago and into the Melbourne Anglican Church and into studying theology here at Ridley Melbourne. I’m thankful for this because - apart from the fact that Melbourne is a truly great city - I have profited enormously from my time being a Melbourne Anglican. The different theological insights that I have been exposed to in Melbourne; the nuances, subtleties and balance that I never thought through in my time in Sydney have been great gifts to me and truly deepened my faith. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that in Melbourne I have been able to receive helpful and necessary correctives to my former theological beliefs and ministry leanings. I feel blessed and very privileged to be part of the Melbourne Anglican Church.

But having said that, I still continue to look back on my Sydney time with great affection and thanks. Becoming a through-and-through Melbourne Anglican, doesn’t for one moment mean that I’ve turned against other Australian Anglican Dioceses.

Because of this, I find myself hugely disappointed, discouraged and distressed that in recent times, some people from our own diocese seem to have made something of a sport of attacking the faithful ministry of the Diocese of Sydney. You may have read the articles published in The Melbourne Anglican. You might have heard combative lectures or read them on the internet. You may have seen the extraordinarily divisive books attacking our interstate brothers and sisters. These are a stain on the Melbourne Anglican Church and on us as Melbourne Anglicans.

We are a diocese that has always been clear about upholding the biblical teaching regarding unity in primary matters and freedom in things secondary. We have long celebrated Anglican diversity within the fold of a common faith. We love the fact that while we’re all followers of Jesus Christ, we don’t all need to be exactly the same as each other in order be in good fellowship with each other.

Members of the Diocese of Sydney have not faced these shameful attacks for failing in any primary matters of faith. Even though I admit to being in disagreement with them on some secondary points, it is clear that we have unity in Christ because together we are unambiguous about centrality of his lordship, his atoning death for sinful human beings, the need for all to repent and of the importance of the new life and hope his people share through his resurrection and the Holy Spirit.

The vast majority of us here in the Diocese of Melbourne are positive people of love, peace, joy and unity. This unfortunate spate of vitriol against our fellow Anglicans is not at all representative of who we as a church are. We are people who want to put our hearts and energy into caring for the people of our parishes and for those who are served by our agencies. We want to focus our efforts on growing positive communities of love and truth. We want to bless those beyond our own boundaries. The last thing we want to be known for is cutting down our Anglican neighbours who sit under the same constitution, believe the same doctrine and share the same commitment to the same gospel of the same Lord Jesus Christ.

Once, again, my heart doesn’t belong in Sydney anymore, it’s here in Melbourne. But the Melbourne Anglican Church that I’m part of is one that gives great thanks for our orthodox and faithful brothers and sisters in Sydney – as well as for our faithful and orthodox brothers and sisters in Brisbane, and in Adelaide, and Perth, the Northern Territory, Canberra-Gouburn, in Australia’s regional and rural dioceses and even our good friends down in extra-provincial Tasmania.

Members of Melbourne Synod, I am sorry that we need this motion, but if you share my heart, I’m sure you’ll find it easy to vote with me for this motion that sends a simple and positive message about our national Anglican fellowship and our commitment to orthodox Anglicans like us in other Australian dioceses. I commend the motion standing in my name.

The motion was debated briefly but then the synod decided not to vote on it. The principle that the motion looked to affirm was that of unity between all orthodox Anglicans around Australia. The reason for focussing my speech on Melbourne's unity with Sydney in particular was because it is against that diocese that a very small minority of Melbourne Anglicans have offended.

Sinister Symbols in Cathedrals?

All church buildings are all symbolic - even those that people have tried to make as bare as possible still make a statement. I imagine that there are whole sub-disciplines of architecture that look into this stuff and there's no way I'm going to put myself forward as any sort of expert. But I have found a couple of very stark and unexpected symbols in cathedrals that would get an immediate reaction from many people.

Although it's now scheduled for 'deconsecration' and at least partial-demolition, in the days when you could go into Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand, it was a bit shocking to find dozens of swastikas set into the tile-work lining the walls. But realising the impact that this symbol has on people post-WWII, there was also a very prominent and helpful sign explaining the pre-Nazi Christian history of the swastika, which was, of course, a variant of the cross.

In St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne, there's a similarly confronting display. The chancel is lined with a number of large, inverted pentagrams. Although now very commonly associated with the occult, this symbol also has a history of Christian usage (eg. commemorating the five wounds of Christ). However, in St Paul's there is no prominent sign explaining this.

I recently asked a friend of mine who works at the Cathedral about the pentagrams and he told me there was a flyer explaining them somewhere but he wasn't able to find one for me at the time. Years ago, I asked another member of the Cathedral staff and they only told me that the pentagrams were quite an attraction for gothic youth...

While I understand that these kinds of symbols have taken on new meanings since they were put in place, I do wonder if they really are too confusing for today's casual visitor. I wonder if there should be a conversation about removing them. Something of the building's originality would be lost, but it's always changing anyway and it would seem worth it in order to avoid any misunderstandings.


Symbols are meant to point us back to something we understand (as opposed to 'signs' which tell us something new). They're meant to be memory-joggers. But when the intended meaning of the symbol isn't known and newer, very different, meanings are overlaid onto the symbol, their presence can be confusing at best and disturbing or even damaging at worst.

Maybe we should replace the St Paul's pentagrams with Latin crosses? While many people still need to learn exactly what the cross represents, it's at least universally recognised as the symbol of the Christian faith - something that the pentagram certainly isn't. Just a thought.


PS. Although it's not a cathedral, St Peter's Eastern Hill, a liberal church in Melbourne's inner city, also has a very confronting symbol. Its logo is an inverted cross! For those who know, this is meant to commemorate St Peter who was supposed to have been crucified upside down. But again, for those who don't know... !