Author Archives: The Briefing

Christ and culture

Life

|

Culture is such a slippery word. It means something like ‘who are and what we do together’, which is about as broad a definition as you could hope for. A culture is more than a number of individuals—it refers to how those individuals interact with each other, and what those interactions produce. So, Australian culture is cricket, it’s opera, it’s Bondi beach, it’s Backyard Blitz. But it’s also Chinatown, it’s fine wine, it’s cynical humour, it’s Westfield Shoppingtown.

(more…)

The servant’s paradox: Part III

Life

|

The last of Al Stewart’s columns exploring the tensions in Christian life and ministry.

Here’s one more paradox for those living to serve Christ and to grow his kingdom. It’s one which has been taxing my mind, because it goes to the heart of what Christians believe. We live in the time that gets called ‘the now and not yet’—the period of history after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, but before the revelation of his lordship to the entire universe. It’s an in-between time, so we have the blessings and securities of the eternal age, and yet we don’t see them all, experience them all, know them entirely or enjoy them fully.

(more…)

We need more churches: church planting in the Adelaide Hills

Pastoral Ministry

|

The church planting experience of Holy Trinity North Terrace.

What’s at the heart of your church? It’s either an easy question or a trick question. Answering ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ used to get me through the Sunday School quizzes, but will these answers work for me now? Trick question or not, it has left many a Parish Council debating long into the wee small hours. And it has certainly produced some long and cumbersome mission statements. I work at Holy Trinity North Terrace in Adelaide. We, too, have been through the process of developing a mission statement, on the way to developing a model for ministry. After looking over the shoulders of churches both here and overseas, our rector noticed that many of the statements told God what that particular church would do for him. Yet the Bible constantly tells us the opposite. It makes it abundantly clear what God has done for us.

(more…)