Winning or losing a city (pt.1)
As many of you will know, Jodie and I have moved from Adelaide to Sydney for me to do a few years of study at Moore Theological College.
While I could have studied in Adelaide we opted to go on an ‘adventure’ hoping to see how things are done elsewhere in aus. I have to say it’s been a great experience! I’ve been enjoying the glimpse i’ve had into a city where church is done well.
There is obviously much more ‘winning’ to be done here in Sydney, but ‘winning the city’ is where the church is headed.*
Winning a city
Here’s one thing I notice about the Anglican church in Sydney: There is a kind of ‘holy trinity’ at work. The diocese, the Bible college and the churches.
As I see it what makes for strong churches here are that they are supported by both the Bible college (in training clergy+lay people) and the Diocese (in administration and so on). All three serve different functions but seek a common goal. They agree upon the gospel and work to see it advanced. What results from these three working in concert is something greater than one alone could achieve – in business speak there’s a ‘synergy‘ created.
The situation is a little different in SA…more in the next post.
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*I hope you’ll forgive the many unsubstantiated sweeping statements and generalisations in these posts!
I agree with your assessment here Reuben and would also add in Anglicare as part of the mix. I can’t get over how well integrated Anglicare is to the mission of the diocese in Sydney. It really sees itself as an element for promoting gospel growth. This is refreshing and helps to break down the social justice vs. evangelism dichotomy.
Reply to Steve BoxwellHey Steve, yeah great point! a glaring omission…Anglicare is a wierd beast isn’t it – not really church as operates city wide across local churches …and not really dicoese since it doesn’t really serve to organise a network of churches. It’s something else altogether.
It’s not an either-or necessarily but I prefer Newtown mission’s approach of doing social justice stuff for their part of the city in that they do it in their building with their people and resources. It’s part of who they are as Christians in the city.
If you took it out, or it became ineffective would it head christian witness in a city toward decline? maybe…?
Reply to reubenYeah that’s a fair question. Of course we are operating in hypotheticals but my two bits in Sydney I would say yes absolutely.
Social Justice is important: In my reading of both modern and ancient evangelism explosions/revivals Christian “witness” and people “witnessing” Christians positively go hand-in-hand.
But in their forgetfulness evangelicals are pretty bad at doing social justice locally. Indeed in reaction to the social gospel and liberation theology that over-emphasise it and play down the gospel they have run a mile. Fortunately rather than abandoning social justice they just outsourced it.
My concern for Sydney is that if the Anglicare offices were all hit with swine flu tomorrow and everyone died, what social justice work would be left in Sydney?
I’m not president of the Anglicare fanclub or anything nor am I completely down on Sydney Anglicans (there are churches doing some great stuff).
Reply to Steve Boxwellcool. great comments – thanks!
Reply to reuben