Got a few young people on the edges of your parish but no resources to do things for and with them? Maybe their parents come to church but the kids are a bit on the outer? Senior Ichthus sounds just right for you. Run by our own AYCF department, Senior Ichthus will help those young people to consider their own faith and enable them to bring that wonderfully positive experience back to their parishes...
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Facebook and your church...
On-line communities come in for a bit of a beating. Are they truly communities? Can you experience true community if you are not face to face with someone else?
One thing is for sure: creating relational infrastructure for our church communities using methods that people experience in the rest of their lives is a positive thing. Or is it?
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A Place for Mission
Be it at Synod or any other gathering of Anglican Christians, you don't have to talk for too long before someone is discussing the worth of our Anglican Schools, often adding comments about the faith value of those institutions.
A wonderful sign that things are looking up for our schools is this new website, A Place for Mission.
Drawing on the experts who work in and think deeply about schools with a faith foundation, this website demonstrates that this community is engaging deeply in every aspect of what our schools do and how they can continue to be a vital part of the mission of the church.
They, along with many other promising initiatives our Schools Office is developing, show that our schools are hotbeds of new ideas and advanced thinking.
Maybe now is the time to wonder what we can learn from them?
Why An Urban Church Abandoned Traditional Charity
This article is truly thought provoking because it challenges us to rethink one of the most basic ideas the church has held to about being the church: the idea of charity, or at least the traditional idea.
Maybe we should stop giving??? Read on...
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Wandering in Michael Leunig's Mind
I enjoyed a reminder of the joys of the work of Michael Leunig this week at the Dialogue Australia Network conference, a regular get together of Religious Education teachers fro around the country....
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Christian education is about small groups. And I like Zebras!
Training in Christian Education
Ever wondered what drives great ideas for ministry across the ages? Knowing how Christian education works, what underpins it and how to do it better is a start! Jonathan Sargeant is coordinating Christian Education (THL366) next semester at St Francis Theological College. Find out more here...
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Testament of Youth: film review
Vera Brittain’s 1933 600 page novel Testament of Youth is often regarded as one of the most well-known memoirs about the experience of World War One. Written from the perspective of a non-combatant, Brittain traces her journey towards adopting a philosophy of pacifism. But how does the film of this much-loved novel fare?
Read MoreA Distributed Church?
Watch the video for the Distributed Church program and then meet me back here. It only goes for 90 seconds or so...
You watched it? What did you think?
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Faith in action at Easter
Much of the chocolate in Easter Eggs (in Australia as well as overseas), is made with cocoa from plantations on the Ivory Coast, West Africa, that use trafficked children as young as 10 years old as labour.
Today we're inviting you to join in 4 simple actions you can take to help make this Easter a #traffikfreeEaster.
Read MoreBelieve by Mumford and Sons
Something different this time around...the video for the latest Mumford and Sons song, "Believe".
It's a poetic articulation of the challenges facing belief for young people today. Worth a look. What do you think?
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Movies and Meaning
Movies are an important text these days for our theologising about our world. Resources to help us do that are essential.
So here's Movies and Meaning...
Recommended by Richard Rohr, the website says...
Read MoreFree resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
The theme of this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (17-24 May) is - Jesus said to her, "Give me to drink". (John 4:7).
Here's all of the resources on offer so far for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Click on the these to download for free.
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Faith Formation Interchange
Have a look at the Faith Formation Interchange. A neat interface has you browsing the areas of faith formation you are most interested in quickly and efficiently. It all looks great and gives you much to think about.
Roberto combines top notch thinking in the field of faith formation with canny IT skills. This means that the websites he curates are always full to the brim with the latest thinking, new ideas, great strategies and practical resources.
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Building a Lifelong Faith
Noted faith formation specialist John Roberto curates the Lifelong Faith website you can find here. This is a kind of one-stop shop with resources gathered from all around the world to enable parishes and other communities to take faith formation seriously.
I'd recommend a wander around the site but first sign up for the newsletter so that you can be regularly reminded of new material appearing at the site.
Read MoreUsing Pilgrim: Tips from Rev Michael Stalley
Thought about using the Pilgrim material? Looking for some wisdom from an experienced user? Here, Rev Michael Stalley talks about what attracted him to the Pilgrim material and offers some tips for those new to the program...
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A Little Chaos: Film review
Madame Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet) is an established though unconventional landscape gardener to the upper set in 1685, Paris. Dismissed by others applying for a major project, an amphitheatre-like fountain to be built in Louis XIV’s gardens at Versailles, she is quietly confident. But once successful in the competitive evaluation process, the huge dimensions of the task become clear, just as her chances of success become more murky. For not only must she meet enormous physical challenges but also the intrigues of a Court in which her innocence is seen as nourishment for hungry wolves...
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Latest Pilgrim books available
The final two books in the Pilgrim: a course for the Christian journey series have been released.
Following the order of issues in the Catechism, the final two books are The Bible and Church and Kingdom. These use ...
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New website for Education for Ministry
There 's a new website for Education for Ministry (EfM) based in the states! This website hosts information, resources and more to make it indispensable for group members but also useful for anyone wondering what the program is all about.
Read MoreWeek of Prayer for Christian Unity resources
A message from Jela at Queensland Churches Together...
The theme of this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (17-24 May) is - Jesus said to her, "Give me to drink". (John 4:7).
This year's resources feature...
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Conversations with the New Testament
Every time I visit a parish to lead the BIBLE360: Introduction to the Bible program, the questions of 'where to from here' is posed towards the day's end. The program raises heaps of possibilities to answer that question, from starting small groups to further in-depth reading. This new book will now...
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