Heading Bush 11 Jul 10
- Details
- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Heading Bush
We welcome on Sunday the Revd Michael Stuart WA Regional Officer for the Bush Church Aid Society. Although BCA has been ministering in Australia since 1919, it emerged from the Colonial and Continental Church Society (CCCS) which began life in the Swan River Colony in Western Australia in 1836. So it has a very long history of ministry to the people of the bush.
BCA says that it “shares the gospel, builds up the church, and cares for people in regional and remote parts of Australia. Locals in these places are removed from cities, live in sparsely populated towns (sometimes as small as a few hundred people), and often don’t benefit from strong support networks of family and friends. Churches in these areas can struggle, ongoing fellowship can be hard to maintain, and encouragement can become a rarity.”
A Missionary Church [4 July 10]
- Details
- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
A Missionary Church
We welcome today the Revd Steve Pivetta, who is soon to conclude his ministry as the General Secretary of CMS in WA. He will be replaced from September by the Revd Ray Arthur, presently rector of Maddington. CMS is a large organisation with branches and full time staff in each state.
CMS describes itself as an evangelical, voluntary, lay, church society committed to proclaiming life through Christ. Its website explains it like this:
In love? 27 June 10
- Details
- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
In love?
“Rejoice in the wife of your youth” is one of the great phrases of the Bible. It occurs a few times, sometimes in contexts of warning, sometimes in contexts of encouragement. The wife (or husband) of one’s youth looks back to the beginning of one’s marriage. How far back depends on one’s youth – a year, a decade, a half century ...
The beginnings of love are often confused, but usually full of excitement and energy – full of hormones perhaps. Weddings are marvellous times, when we hope that the couple will “live happily ever after”. Some couples are surprised that the happiness of their romance and wedding doesn’t seem to last forever. “Romantic love” doesn’t usually last without being changed.
It changes from “being in love” to loving. As CS Lewis said,
Which Way to God? 20 June 10
- Details
- Written by: Dale Appleby
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Which Way to God?
A recent edition of the Colbert Report featured professor Stephen Prothero from Boston University. According to a report on BeliefNet his new book (God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter) sets out to oppose the idea that all religions are just different paths to the same goal.
According to the report, ‘the author explained that, contrary to atheists (who see all religion as the same and bad) and multiculturalists (who see all religions as the same and good), he sees them as "going up different mountains with different techniques and different tools."’
Christians have long heard the claim that Christianity is not unique, just one of a variety of ways to God. The most annoying objection to my mind is that all religions basically say the same thing. No doubt there are significant common ethical elements, but when it comes to ideas about God the differences are fundamental.
Another new start? 13 June 10
- Details
- Written by: Dale Appleby
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Another new start?
June seems a strange time to be starting a new year, but it is one of our new beginnings. In this case the start of a new Church Council’s work. The new financial year began on May 1. It feels a bit like New Year in Indonesia where they celebrate three official New Years (with holidays): the Gregorian calendar New Year, Chinese New Year and Islam’s New Year. Although the latter two are lunar years they seem not always to coincide.
Maybe that is like modern life. New beginnings are happening all the time. If you believe the hype about the latest electronic gadgets, wonderful new beginnings are happening more and more often.
Some think that the motto of the Anglican Church is “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be”. But that belongs to a past age. Nothing stays the same. Churches that want to maintain their life as it was are losing it. Churches don’t remain constant any more. They atrophy and die, or else they change and grow.
Who can keep the Ten Commandments? 6 June10
- Details
- Written by: Dale Appleby
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Who can keep the Ten Commandments?
Why do Christians make so much of the Ten Commandments? Or they used to. Many ancient cultures had laws similar to the last five or six. And until recent years few societies would have imagined condoning behaviour that went against these rules.
So do Christians own the trademark on them? Or Jews perhaps? Is there something unique about the Ten Commandments (even though there are two slightly different versions of them)? One of the things that makes them unique is the first four. These commandments centre obedience not in social theory but in the person of Yahweh the God of Israel.
It is a common trend in modern Christian religious discourse to focus “sins” on the horizontal, social plane, as though the essence of sin had to do with social disruption and discrimination.
What makes us peculiar? 30 May10
- Details
- Written by: Dale Appleby
- Category: Weekly Reflections
What makes us peculiar?
What makes Christ the King different to other churches? It is not completely different of course, in fact it is pretty similar to many others. But it does have its own peculiar character. Churches do have their own kind of personality I think. It is formed by the people in the church, especially influential ones, but everyone contributes to the kind of church it is.
What do we contribute? Personality, enthusiasm, energy, help? In our Ephesians Bible School this week we came across this: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” That gets closer to the mark. Each of us contributes the graces or gifts Christ has portioned out. Christ is the one who lies behind the kind of church we are. He gives the gifts that each of us bring to the whole.
But for what purpose? What is the use of these graces?
Page 106 of 112