This is the latest blurb that is published on the front of our weekly bulletin

Are you prepared?

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CREDIT: Karen Cox via Flickr

The end of January is often a time of preparation.

People all over Australia are getting ready to send their kids back to school, or to go back to work themselves.

They are organising Australia Day parties and outdoor activities for the end of Summer, before life gets busy again.

Tim and I are very much a part of this as Tim prepares to go back to school to teach in a few short weeks and I plan and prepare for the youth ministry here in Jamberoo, as well as pursuing some other part-time work alongside my ongoing visa applications!

But the Good Lord in his Good Book tells his people to be preparing for something different, and not just in light of Summer coming to an end.

Scripture tells Christians to be ready because the Son of God is coming back.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:42-44)

So what does being ready look like?

It’s about knowing that Jesus, the Son of God, is coming, and living a life to honour him full of faith in him and his saving grace.

It’s about making every decision in life as though Jesus might come back today.

So as you prepare for all sorts of things in the coming days and weeks, ask yourself if you are prepared for Christ’s return.

RAYNE ORANGE

Does your conscience need healing?

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CREDIT Seth m via Flickr.

Whether we admit it or not, we all are influenced in one way or another by our conscience.

It’s our built-in sensor that seeks to prevent us from acting or speaking in a way that goes against our values and principles.

Our conscience is something we all are born with, even though is an imperfect tool in our imperfect bodies.

This week at the week-long CMS Summer School conference, the speaker Gary Miller highlighted four problems that can affect our consciences.

Firstly, we can have a seared conscience (1 Timothy 4:2). It doesn’t work very well anymore because it’s stopped being able to feel properly, having been damaged by neglect, like hard skin on the soul of our feet that stops the pain of stepping on sharp rocks or hot bitumen.

Secondly, we can have a defiled conscience (Titus 1:15). It doesn’t work very well anymore because it no longer notices sinful and unholy things, having been desensitised by viewing and performing all sorts of sins. It’s like when a person watches so many horror movies that they stop being shocked by the violence.

Thirdly, we can have a weak conscience (1 Corinthians 8:7). It doesn’t work very well because it may over-react to things, being misinformed by false teaching. It’s like when someone takes offence at something that the Bible teaches to be mostly harmless.

And finally, we can have an evil conscience (Hebrews 10:22). It doesn’t work well because it has been reprogrammed to do the opposite for which it was intended. Instead of alerting us about evil, it now encourages us to pursue sinful acts.

In response, Gary encouraged us from God’s word to re-awaken and heal our conscience.

In answer to our prayers, God’s Spirit can restore our seared, defiled, weak and evil consciences, and give us the gift of being able to recognise and avoid sin when we’re tempted.

Will you pray with me that God will heal and re-awaken our consciences?

JODIE McNEILL

A lasting hope

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CREDIT: Marco Verch, via Flickr.

Resolutions are shared time and time again in early January. 

People want to be healthier and resolve to eat better and exercise more regularly. People see their need for other people and want to spend more time with those they love. People want to drink less and spend less. To slow down and appreciate. People want to be better. 

Though the calendar ticks over, it is safe to say that not much changes. People go back to work after Christmas, settle into old routines and look forward to the season of celebration once again at the end of the year. 

But why does this one night in the year where everyone stays up late and take in countdowns and fireworks inspire so much? 

Because when you “take away the exploding fireworks, celebrations, roaring countdowns and resolutions what you are left with is human hope… the hope of better days, of new beginnings, and perhaps, if you are especially lucky, a kiss.” (Beautiful Taplin) 

Hope is inspired at New Year’s. But in this time of renewal and the magnitude of human hope that comes with it, ask yourself, your family, your friends and neighbours where that hope is placed. 

As magical as the Christmas and New Year season can be, if hope is not placed in the saviour Jesus Christ, it is empty. 

This season is a great time to point people towards Jesus and offer them a true and lasting hope not just for the first few weeks of 2019, but forevermore. 

“We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.” Psalm 33:20

–  RAYNE ORANGE

Faith, Hope and Love

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As the New Year approaches what is it that we as Christians should be holding on to? 

There are three characteristics that are highlighted in the New Testament as they occur together time and time again. What would you put in your top three?

The Apostle Paul says “and now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13.

Faith looks back to the past looking to what Jesus has done. Love has eyes on the present, our response everyday for what Jesus has done. Hope looks forward.

While love may be the greatest, I wonder if it is hope that we are most in need of being reminded of. It is easy to worn down by the world, discouraged in our faith. We may be worried about uncertainty in our lives. 

Hope is the answer. But not the way our world uses it. Hope is often used today to mean something along the lines of wishful thinking, the kind of characteristic you would find among optimistic people.

But hope is a characteristic for all Christians. Our hope is not in some vague picture of the future, but in the solid truth of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of that day when he will return and raise us upto the new creation – our glorious inheritance. 

So Paul prays: “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance“  Eph 1:18.

Why is it our hope grows dim?

Perhaps we are captivated simply by the present. Our love is misdirected to the things of this world instead of being captivated by the one to come. 

Perhaps we have stopped looking to the past, where what Jesus has done assures our future. 

Our world wants us to doubt and worry, but hope is the antidote. Don’t let it grow dim, for in Jesus the resurrection has already begun, and so your hope is secure.

–  SIMON CHAPLIN

A Christ-filled Christmas

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Summer is a wonderful thing. Golden days and warm evenings. 

But our summers also reckon with those two great forces of nature – fire and water. 

Both are able to turn against us in a moment – and we need saving. 

Sometimes, as we have seen tragically in fires in California and in Australia, we can miss the signs and don’t see the need of a saviour till it’s too late.

How welcome are the faces of the surf lifesavers or the bushfire fighters who spend their summers risking their own lives to save us when we are in trouble. 

At Christmas, we celebrate the arrival of a saviour for all time. Luke, the historian, records this in the Bible – ‘Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.’  

When God, who created us – says we need a saviour and sends one – we should listen.

Make this Christmas a time to reach out to Jesus – the saviour we all need.

May you all have not just a stocking filled Christmas, but a Christ-filled Christmas.

–  DR GLENN N DAVIES 
   ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY

Christmas Nativity

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Angels, stables, donkeys, Mary and Joseph, the star, the shepherds, the wisemen, and of course the baby in a manger.  

People are familiar with this Christmas card scene, but we long for people to look deeper and see not just a baby in a manger but the Immanuel – God with us.  

There is much to surprise people when do – the absence from the accounts of a donkey for a start. The wisemen, who never made it to the birth, but arrived sometime before Jesus was 2. And there’s no mention of how many wisemen there were, whose actual name were the magi, and who may not have been men or wise at all! 

The stable may have been a cave, or the lower story of a guest room – however the manger was there and presumably the animals were too, perhaps even a donkey. But while people in their familiarity may miss these details, it is true that at least they have a picture of Jesus’ birth that night and a chance to find that deeper meaning.

What is more concerning is a generation for which each of these elements is gone altogether.

Jesus is replaced by Santa, the angels by elves, the animals by reindeer, the wisemen and the gifts by a Kmart catalogue. It’s not just that these things have become more important, but that there is no knowledge at all of the nativity events, and no real interest to discover them. 

There are kids today who simply don’t know about the shepherds who watched their flocks, or the star that appeared in the sky, or about the humble birth of our Lord and Saviour. 

Without the nativity we lose more than just Christmas, we lose God with us.

The nativity is not just fun and cute – it’s true and it’s crucial for us and our society that this account is remembered as the heart of Christmas. 

–  SIMON CHAPLIN

SRE Christmas Assembly

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The Christmas assembly was an incredible time for all. It was beautiful to see over fifty kids along with parents and scripture teachers gather to celebr

The Scripture Christmas Assembly for 2018 was an incredible time for all. It was beautiful to see over fifty children along with parents and scripture teachers gather to celebrate King Jesus being born. 

As the assembly began, we sang together with a wonderful welcome from Jodie. It was a great taste of the involvement he will have in scripture and the school in the years to come. 

Together, we sang fun songs that gave glory to our great God and it was made all the more special with the creativity of the kids and teachers who prepared dramas, crafts, and truths about the Son of God. 

I teach Years 4, 5, and 6, some of whom got up and showed how Jesus was a true king, because he is a ruler, judge, and has a caring perspective. I then had the chance to address the assembly and was able to share how it was so sad when people were separated from God through Adam & Eve’s sin. But how God, our all-loving ruler and judge had a plan to save us through Christ and that is why Christmas is such a happy time. Because Christmas is when we celebrate that God kept his promise and the Son of God came to earth to save his people. 

The Christmas assembly was memorable, and a great finish for the year, leading us to a great place to start next year. Please continue to pray that all people will know the true meaning of Christmas.

m Jodie. It was a great taste of the involvement he will have in scripture and the school in the years to come. 

Together, we sang fun songs that gave glory to our great God and it was made all the more special with the creativity of the kids and teachers who prepared dramas, crafts, and truths about the Son of God. 

I teach years four, five, and six, some of whom got up and showed how Jesus was a king because they have being a ruler, judge, and a caring perspective in common. I then got up to address the assembly. I talked to the kids about how it was so sad when people were separated from God through Adam & Eve’s sin, but how God, our all-loving ruler and judge had a plan to save us through Christ and how that is why Christmas is such a happy time. Because at Christmas is when we celebrate that God kept his promise and the Son of God came to earth to save his people. 

The Christmas assembly was memorable, and a great finish for the year, leading us to a great place to start next year.

RAYNE ORANGE

Sorrow at Christmas time?

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Why is it that Christmas seems to bring with it not just joy, but sorrow as well?

On one hand all the joys of the past year are combined and relived on this one great day. And yet, at the same time, your troubled remembrances and sorrows are collected together and brought to mind.

Sorrows are felt in a few ways, always in comparison to the joy we feel.

We feel the absence of a family all the more on this day as we think how much greater the joy would it have been if they were here. In the midst of a joyful gathering, suddenly a broken relationship intrudes on our thoughts.

Of all the days, Christmas is when we want families to be right, and yet they seldom are. The tensions that arise seem out of place on this day and so are even more painful – we are sad that we could even be sad on this day.

The gap between our sorrow and joy is at its greatest, and so we feel them all the more.

What would the day look like if we’d just if we had room only for joy? What place does sorrow have on Christmas?

Without sorrow we would not be reminded of the need to forgive – for it is the hurts of others that are its most common cause. Learning to forgive brings with it a unique joy all of its own, a joy that is right at home at Christmas.

For it is impossible to forgive without first discovering the forgiveness of Christ. And this is the reason Jesus came, this is what Christmas is about – that God would enter our work and bear our sorrows upon himself. 

Even on that very first Christmas, the joy of the Angels was intermingled with sorrow. There was sorrow in the words Simeon prophesied to Mary “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” Luke 2:35.

I am hoping for the most joyous Christmas – one that reminds me of the birth of our Saviour. But I also know that in the quiet moments when a pang is felt, I am taken closer to the truth of Christmas too.

SIMON CHAPLIN

The start of a new era

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I can still remember where I was standing when I answered the phone call from Bishop Peter Hayward inviting me to lead a partnership between Oak Flats and Jamberoo Anglican Churches.

To this day I still believe that this was a great opportunity for two churches to share resources for the sake of the gospel, and the fruit of this has been seen in the growth we’ve enjoyed over the four years we’ve been together.

Yet, like all growth, it has come with some challenges,most notably the need for both churches to cope with sharing their senior minister. However, this has also enabled both churches to enjoy the benefits of a larger, combined ministry, with resources that each parish would not have had on its own.

Through this, God has equipped our parishioners for personal mission, and in both churches, people have converted to Christ through the hearing of the gospel: praise the Lord!

Both churches face challenges in the future: Oak Flats now must find a new senior minister, and we now must find additional finances to support our increased staffing costs.

Yet, it seems that it is now the right time for both parishes to have their own, dedicated senior minister, to help each parish navigate, under God, the future opportunities for evangelism and discipleship in our local areas.

And so we must pray that God will continue to equip us all for works of service, so that the body of Christ might be built up, “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” so that we might “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 4:13, 5:2).

Grace and peace, Jodie.

Apology for survivors of abuse

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On Monday 22 October in the House of Representatives, our Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison MP, delivered an emotional, heart-felt apology on behalf of the Parliament and the Australian people, to the survivors of child sexual abuse, including those in Anglican churches.

That our Church was complicit in any way in these events, by ignoring them, disbelieving the testimony of survivors, or allowing sex offenders to continue their horrendous conduct in what should have been the safety of a church environment, is itself a matter of deep shame.

Let me reiterate my apology to the survivors of child sexual abuse, for our failure to protect them as children, and also to the families of those who have died prematurely due to their abuse.

While we have adopted rigorous processes to ensure the safety of children in the present, I recognise that this will not overcome the trauma that accompanies the sins of the past.

Today is an opportunity for congregations across the diocese to acknowledge the failures of the past and listen with acceptance to those who have been harmed.

My fervent prayer is that this will in some measure provide healing for these wounds, raise our consciousness of the seriousness of child sexual abuse, and enable us as a Church community to play our part in protecting and giving voice to the most vulnerable among us.

I offer this apology confident of the comfort, transforming power and tender love of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ARCHBISHOP GLENN DAVIES