News, Synod Speeches, Reflections and Articles
The this Church Times podcast the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani speaks of the weariness in the church and in society at large and her discomfort with the relentless call to numerical growth. Well worth 30 minutes of your time. (See an excerpt below:)
There was my daughter Makayla dancing in the darkness – just spinning around, saying, ‘Look at me, Daddy’. I said, ‘Makayla, you need to go to bed, its 3 am. You need to go to bed.’ But she said, ‘No, look at me, Daddy. Look at me.’ And she was spinning, barrettes going back and forth, pigtails going back and forth. I was getting huffy and puffy wanting her to go to bed, then God spoke to me. ‘Look at your daughter! She’s dancing in the dark. The darkness is all around her but it is not in her!’ Makayla reminded me that weeping may endure for a night, but if you dance long enough joy will come in the morning. It is the job of preachers….to [send] this word to us in the hardest of times: do not let the darkness find its way in you. (Brous 2024:130)
This 13th annual Brisbane lecture marks the United Nations International Day of Peace. The horror
An apology is just one step on a much longer journey of healing – it does not end the process we have started. The work, we must do, to build some trust and credibility is to live into the apology in our churches, schools and other agencies: this will mean changes to behaviours, language and policies among other things. I know that we have much work to do.
On RUOk? Day Archbishop Jeremy Greaves has written to Brisbane clergy with encouragement to move
Over the course of its history the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn has been at the forefront of the extension of women’s ministry to the three orders of ordained ministry.. However, not all is as it should be or might have been expected. This report examines why levels of leadership among women in parish ministry have gone backwards despite this long-term commitment to their access and involvement in ministry as deacons, priests and bishops.
Anne Van Gend, priest, author and ministry educator, joins the podcast to explore how we
Empathy is painful. As we watch what is happening in Palestine and don t turn away, we deeply mourn, and the mourning goes on and on. In the midst of this mourning we realise that we are not alone in our mourning. This mourning reaches across cultures, and languages and ethnicities. It goes deep, into the fabric of life itself. It is deep calling to deep. And there is a flame that burns, which both destroys and creates. And out of this mourning comes a renewed commitment to justice.
“Am I actually allowed to ask that?” is a question I asked often in the first couple of years of the podcast. In every instance, often to my great surprise, “yes” was the answer. The roof did not cave. The sky did not fall. Whatever we mean when we use the word God, it seems that it is a mystery large enough, loving enough, and safe enough to handle a question or two. With that freedom fuelling us, the journey has been an extraordinary one.
Having drag performers centre stage at the Olympics, on one of the biggest stages in world theatre, is not a politically neutral act. Being able to have that act understood as referring to Jesus and the twelve apostles is not a politically neutral act. Doing this in France, with the ascendancy of the Far Right and its alliance with conservative Christianity, is not a politically neutral act. It is about taking sides. The side of broadening the boundaries of inclusion.
How do we find a way back to one another, across shrill voices and opposing
“One of the significant motions that was passed at our recent synod was one endorsing
