When I think about my own area of Carlingford, we have some large congregations but we are really only just scratching the surface here. As long as church planters are teaching the Bible, we should be praying that they will be able to reach the places we can’t.
I’m a bit busy to personally do it myself at the moment, but will start praying that God will call a nice young on fire Pentecostal to plant a church down your way;)
That’s a church plant within the diocese, and already happens with no difficulty under existing protocols.
...
I’m thinking that just as parish boundaries have tradtionally hampered flexible thinking, and now we’ve gotten rid of them; perhaps the new world post Lambeth ‘08 (or post GAFCON, really) will allow greater flexibility of thinking on a broader scale.
Sorry for confusing matters!
John Sandeman - 28 March 2008 02:49 PM
It’s worth noting that Adelaide has abolished parish boundaries, too. Which means that HTA can plant wherever they like.
{Cross posted with GC}
I’m sorry I’m a few days behind the comments here but I thought I’d chime in!
It’s worth remembering that an absence of Parish boundaries or other obvious impediments to church planting (Holy Trinity Adelaide operates under a trust deed that pre-dates the Diocese) doesn’t necessarily make it as straight forward as one might think reading the comments above! I’ve got a folder in my desk drawer filled with threats of legal action and all sorts of wonderful things from various members of the diocesan hierarchy in the lead up to Trinity’s 2001 church plant.
I guess my point is that people opposed to gospel ministry don’t have to have the actual legal structures on their side to pose a significant distraction to ministry!
Brian Houston’s already done that, and you probably know my opinions there.
I wasn’t thinking of Brian. I hear he is a bit busy at the moment to plant another church himself. There are plenty of other good solid Bible believing Pentecostals out there wanting to plant churches and training others up to minister as well.
It would be good to pray at this time that evangelicals would look for ways to begin church plants outside their normal diocesan boundaries. The liberal response to crisis in the church seems to be to appoint another bishop. The evangelical response is to enjoy the temporary distraction that the crisis brings and use it to get on with something worthwhile—at the moment, that would be church planting!
The other thing I wonder is if we couldn’t get evangelicals (Anglican or otherwise) to plant churches in Sydney.
The population regularly attending Bible teaching churches here is miniscule, although growing (What are we up to—1%?). There seems to be an inertia amongst Moore College grads in addressing this locally—perhaps they are afraid of treading on a mate’s toes, perhaps they have a blind spot in this regard.
Whatever the case, we aren’t doing very well at it (with a few—a very few—shining exceptions). I think we need help with this. And it may just be the spark to stir up locals to take their own initiatives.
I mean, 30 or 50 people, even 80, starting to meet in a local school hall is terrific. But it’s peanuts compared to the numbers we need to reach. Even if we filled up all the school halls in all the suburbs in Sydney!
You may be hit over the head with a baseball bat on occasions.
You may have to contend with false accusations.
You will have problems with insurances.
You may have no money and have to work at a job as well.
You may fail.
Like when Christ Church Gladesville planted the CCEC and 4 Corners started banging the drum against that Sydney Anglican sect, and talking about the 3 pillars of Sydney Anglican power?
It seems we don’t even have to plant specifically Anglican churches to kick up a stink if it is in someone else’s backyard. (And I remember 4 Corners trashing Gladesville helped Joy and I finally make the break from Matthias to Gladesville! If the ABC couldn’t stand Gladesville’s commitment to Christ, it must be a cool church!)
What practical differences does it make doing an ‘Anglican plant’ on another Anglican’s turf, and doing a CCEC plant on exactly the same turf? I mean, the CCEC have grown so much up in the Central Coast that they almost look like their own denomination. Wikid!
BTW — if the communion is totally breaking up, what’s the deal with keeping the ‘Anglican brand name’ anyway? In a post-Christian culture, does that really carry any kudos with our unsaved neighbours? How does this break-up affect infrastructure projects like Anglicare? What are the legalities in all this? (I’m not a ‘professional minister’ and sense I’m missing some of the subtleties of what is actually being proposed.)
Gordon what a wonderful topic to engage us with today.
Some thoughts:
Firstly I think the Diocese needs to actually form its aims clearly in regard to church planting. If it already has then best we all be informed.
One of its aims is to start new Bible fellowships, which I presume can grow into ‘full’ churches. However it is assumed that these ‘fellowships’ must be attached to an existing church and supported by clergy. Now that is a problem if clergy aren’t interested in quick multiplication of such groups. And as ‘lay’ pray week after week for ‘Bible fellowships’ to start (part of the mission) what are they expecting? I doubt many even know what they are. I can think of at least 4 Bible fellowships that could get started in a nearby church. Some might fail, some might grow by the grace of God, but none will probably ever be attempted.
If a ‘lay’ decided this was a good idea and started a group some of the problems faced can include:
o Finances for the leader – working and church planting is exhausting because church planting takes enormous amounts of energy
o No insurances for the group available because the institution says you need to have something like 90 people to be a ‘church’. Think we need to redefine the term ‘church’ myself.
o No insurances means that you can’t even hire a hall
o You cannot teach in a school
If the Diocese wants new growth from such ‘seed’ groups then they need to work out a way to encourage and support such ventures. Only a small group of people might be in a ‘seed’ group. PROBLEM at present is if the clergy aren’t keen that is the end of most ideas in this regard – so depressing!!
You can sit in a church year after year and watch it decline but you can’t do much to change anything unless you are ‘in charge’. If you run off and start a new evangelistic group then you are considered disobedient. Yet I think ‘lay’ are important servants in the growth of such ‘seed’ groups.
You may be hit over the head with a baseball bat on occasions.
You may have to contend with false accusations.
You will have problems with insurances.
You may have no money and have to work at a job as well.
You may fail.
Like when Christ Church Gladesville planted the CCEC and 4 Corners started banging the drum against that Sydney Anglican sect, and talking about the 3 pillars of Sydney Anglican power?
It seems we don’t even have to plant specifically Anglican churches to kick up a stink if it is in someone else’s backyard. (And I remember 4 Corners trashing Gladesville helped Joy and I finally make the break from Matthias to Gladesville! If the ABC couldn’t stand Gladesville’s commitment to Christ, it must be a cool church!)
What practical differences does it make doing an ‘Anglican plant’ on another Anglican’s turf, and doing a CCEC plant on exactly the same turf? I mean, the CCEC have grown so much up in the Central Coast that they almost look like their own denomination. Wikid!
BTW — if the communion is totally breaking up, what’s the deal with keeping the ‘Anglican brand name’ anyway? In a post-Christian culture, does that really carry any kudos with our unsaved neighbours? How does this break-up affect infrastructure projects like Anglicare? What are the legalities in all this? (I’m not a ‘professional minister’ and sense I’m missing some of the subtleties of what is actually being proposed.)
When I was a Sydney Anglican I never cared too much about being Anglican, it was the teaching and the fellowship that mattered. In the same way I never saw the Archbishop Of Canterbury nor the Primate of Australia as my leaders because they had no commitment to the authority of Scripture.
I often wondered why we bothered maintaining a relationship with the other dioceses when they were going in a completely different direction and it forced compromises on us. If the other dioceses refuse to do what they ought to be doing - proclaiming Christ and building up the body of Christ - then at some point we have to step in, not as Anglicans but as christians wanting to bring others to Christ.
Eventually the other dioceses will die off anyway (becuase they don’t proclaim the gospel) and something will be needed to fill the void this creates. Why not simply place church planters in these areas to evangelise and build up the church (the people), call them independent and get on with it? So what if they aren’t called “Anglican”? The important thing is that people are saved.
I’m cool with that David, if that’s what it takes, but I’m just wondering what ‘branding’ we might lose, what infrastructure, support, and financial benefits we might lose, etc.
The other option to consider is what benefit applies to losing the Anglican brand-name. Outside Sydney, there are truckloads of people who either haven’t heard of it, or think that Anglican is synonymous with things that evangelicals would not like it to be synonymous with.
Friends in church plants have said that people have come to them specifically because they are not Anglican, and have subsequently resisted any attempts at closer association with the Anglican denomination. I’m not saying that is good or bad, but it is observable reality amongst church planters.
You can replace buildings and set up super funds and the like, but you can’t replace people. So as a matter of gospel-driven pragmatics, I would be aiming at the people first, and let the infrastructure follow. That doesn’t mean you kow-tow to market demand, but where the brand-name is causing significant difficulties, best to drop it.
That said, you can probably get both markets in the major cities by setting up things that have the brand-name ‘Anglican’, and things that don’t. Post-GAFCON, this may be a lot easier.
If the Diocese wants new growth from such ‘seed’ groups then they need to work out a way to encourage and support such ventures. Only a small group of people might be in a ‘seed’ group. PROBLEM at present is if the clergy aren’t keen that is the end of most ideas in this regard – so depressing!!
You can sit in a church year after year and watch it decline but you can’t do much to change anything unless you are ‘in charge’. If you run off and start a new evangelistic group then you are considered disobedient. Yet I think ‘lay’ are important servants in the growth of such ‘seed’ groups.
You do raise some serious problems, Dianne. I am sorry to hear of the attitude of some clergy in this regard, and have witnessed it firsthand too.
I hope that some of the non-Anglicans training at Moore will end up with a more flexible attitude to this.
Are you looking for a specific resource but can’t find it? Do you have a resource or an idea that you’d like to share? Connect09 would like to hear from you.
You may be already using a tool, program or outreach event that could be of use to other Christians. Or maybe you have thought of something new and would like to get some feedback.
Use these fields to post your suggestion on our Ideas Page, view current ideas.
