Calendar dates for 2010

Calendar dates for 2010

The Trustees will meet on the following Mondays in 2010:-

22 February                  26 July

22 March                      23 August

19 April                         27 September

24 May                         25 October

28 June                         6 December

Any papers for submission to the Trustees must be in the hands of the General Manager no later than 10 days prior to the scheduled meeting date.

 

Standing Committees:

9.30 am Wednesday April 21, 2010 in Committee Room 5, of Presbyterian Church Offices.  The Commission of Assembly will not meet.

 

2010 New South Wales General Assembly:

The 2010 NSW State Assembly will  be Officially Opened at 7.00 pm on Monday July 5 in the College's Performing Arts Centre, known as the Audrey Keown Theatre of the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Meta Street, Croydon.

The newly elected State Moderator will be sworn in during the evening. The Moderator-elect is Elder, Mr. Peter J. Graham, OAM.

 

2010 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia:

The 2010 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia is to be Officially Opened at 7.00 pm on Monday September 13th within the Chinese Presbyterian Church located at cnr. Crown and Albion Streets Surry Hills (Sydney).

 

 

Moderatorial address to the 2009 General Assembly

Following his induction on the opening night of the 2009 General Assembly in Croydon on July 13, the Moderator, Rev Chris Balzer, gave the following address:

Does God speak today?

 

Do you introduce the person to whom you are married as your “partner”? If you’ve been married for some time, did you introduce that person in that way say 20 years ago?

 

In 2009 not all Christians refer to a husband or wife as a ‘partner’, but some do. Why? The short answer is that our culture has changed, and many, many people around us use that terminology. Such things rub off.

 

Now, we know why many non-Christians do it – often because they want to avoid the whole idea of marriage. Christians don’t want to avoid that idea – I hope.

 

I have no intention of ever referring to my late wife as my ‘partner’. Why?  Because she was my wife.

 

Where did I get the idea that a ‘wife’ is different from a ‘partner’?

The Bible, of course.

 

A number of large Protestant denominations around the world are at the moment being convulsed by long- running controversy about homosexual practice.

 

The Presbyterian Church of the USA, the mainline Presbyterian denomination in that country, has so far managed to insist on Biblical standards for its prospective Ministers, but the challenges keep coming. The Presbytery of San Francisco had recently approved for ordination Lisa Larges, a lesbian activist, but that has been halted because the denomination’s Constitution forbids it. This battle has been waged in that denomination for a couple of decades now, and I expect it to continue. I observed this battle in the USA in 1985 when I was there on a pulpit exchange.

 

In many parts of the Anglican Communion world-wide, a similar battle is raging. The Anglican Church in the USA has caved in - as you probably know.

 

The Church of Scotland, which many of us regard as our ‘mother church’, has just seven weeks ago, in its General Assembly, upheld a decision by the Presbytery of Aberdeen to allow a Minister openly living in a homosexual relationship to be called to a parish within that Presbytery.

 

We know churches in Australia that also have given in to this pressure.

 

What’s at the heart of this debate about homosexual practice – and the matter of ‘partner’ versus ‘spouse’?

 

 It’s not some alleged ‘homophobia’ but the doctrine of Scripture. Please don’t let anyone divert you from what the Bible says on this or that issue by calling you names, whether it’s ‘homophobe’ or ‘Fundamentalist’ or ‘Literalist’ or whatever.

 

In our denomination over the past 130 years, we have had the Presbyterian doctrine of Scripture (as in ch. 1 of the WCF) challenged many times, though the issues have been different in different decades.

Take, for example, a resolution that was carried at my very first NSW General Assembly – 1975. There was I, fresh-faced and bushy-tailed, eagerly engaged in the Assembly business and this resolution was carried:

Min. 148(15)(iv)

That the Assembly:

Request Ministers to emphasise the need to search for and find the Gospel that Jesus preached to his people Israel before the crucifixion.

 

How many of Ministers have been doing that during the past week?

If they haven’t, they can rest easy. They are not in contempt of the Assembly!   Min. 148(15)(iv) was rescinded in 1977.

 

Many Commissioners in 1977 believed that the Christian Gospel is clearly taught in the Bible, the whole Bible, and, for the Christian, the whole Bible is authoritative, and not just the teaching of Jesus to Israel prior to his crucifixion, which somehow is hidden just waiting to be discovered in the 20^th century!

 

Now, perhaps some of you are saying to yourselves, “The understanding of the nature of the Bible expressed in ch. 1 of the WCF is simply wrong. After all, Church Councils do err and have erred”

 

I hope to remind you of some things from The Letter to the Hebrews which reveal one aspect of what is the Bible’s view of itself.

 

ch. 3 vv. 7-8:

“So, as the Holy Spirit says:

"Today, if you hear his voice,   

do not harden your hearts 

as you did in the rebellion, 

during the time of testing in the desert,…”

 

What was the mechanism, in this instance, for the Holy Spirit to speak? The author to the Hebrews is quoting Psalm 95 here.

 

So, The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that the words of both the Psalmist and of Yahweh in Psalm 95 are the Holy Spirit speaking to us Christians.

I hope that you don’t believe that only the words of Jesus are authoritative for Christians.

 

(1) The words of Scripture are the words of God the

Holy Spirit.

 

- And what about Hebrews ch. 4 vv. 4-5?

 “For somewhere he (i.e. God) has spoken about the seventh day in these words:

      "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work." And again in the passage above he says,

      "They shall never enter my rest."

 

If we read Genesis 2:2, we see that there, those first-quoted words are spoken by the narrator, but in Psalm 95:11, the speaker is Almighty God.

 

So, it doesn’t matter whether in the text of the Old Testament words are attributed to God, or they are the words of the narrator, our truth remains:

 

(1) The words of Scripture are the words of God the

Holy Spirit.

 

That is the view that the Bible has of itself, and that guided the Westminster Divines to frame ch. 1 of the WCF as they did. They did a good job didn’t they, even if we think they dressed in funny clothes?

 

But perhaps you are one of those Presbyterians for whom the words of Jesus carry more weight than other words in the Bible. Perhaps you use that fairly recent phenomenon in Church history, a Red Letter Bible.

 In Matthew ch. 19 vv. 3ff we read:

“Some Pharisees came to (Jesus) to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"  

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,'  and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and  be  united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'.”

 

In my Bible, the words of Genesis 2:24 are not attributed to God but to the narrator, but in Matthew ch. 19 v. 5 Jesus says that they are the words of the Creator. How can this be?

 

(2) The words of Scripture are the words of God the

Creator.

 

Why have Presbyterians historically taken the whole Bible to be authoritative?

Because we believe that when we read the words of the Bible, we are reading words spoken by the Trinitarian God. That’s why we often call the Bible The Word of God.

 

(3) The Bible is the Word of God.

 

This Presbyterian cannot agree with the editor of “Life and Work”, the magazine of the Church of Scotland, in the Editorial of the May 2009 edition that:

“not everything Biblical is Christ-like.”

and then use that man-made slogan as a crow-bar to dislodge passages from the Bible which are uncomfortable.

 

If the words of the Bible are Almighty God speaking to us, then every Christian needs to get as much Bible as possible, I would have thought.

One obvious way for the Christian to get Bible is to hear it read in church.

Excellent. But have you noticed that the actual amount of Bible read in church these days has shrunk from what was the case even 30 years ago, let alone 200 years ago? Not good, I suggest.

 

That wouldn’t be too serious a problem if all of us read the Bible at home.

Do we? I think not.

If you’re game, take a poll next Sunday in church (anonymous, I suggest) and see what percentage of your church-going population answer ‘Yes’ to a question such as: “Do you read the Bible regularly, and in a systematic manner, at home?”

Think about this, please:

In 1538 King Henry VIII declared that a large copy of the English Bible should be set up in every parish Church in England, so that the poor as well as the rich might hear the Word of God. To guard against theft the Bibles were chained.

 

We are told that in Old St Paul's the people gathered, they even queued up, to hear the Bible read.  Altogether five copies were provided there.  They stood and listened, and many, who were illiterate, learned by heart passages of Scripture.  The great soul-saving message of the Gospel was sown in many hearts. 

 

Some who had very little knowledge of God's Word from the fragments of Wycliffe's version, used by the Lollards, were greatly strengthened by the better understanding and fuller light they now had.  Many who later, in the reign of Mary, were cruelly burnt at the stake, learned the Gospel, as they heard it read at the lectern in the Parish Church. 

 

How do we modern Presbyterians compare? If you judge that we compare poorly, then a solution is at hand. Never in the history of Christianity have Christians, especially English-speaking ones, had such a proliferation of Bibles to choose from – and cheap at that.

 

I have more Bibles on my shelves than street directories or telephone directories, yet sometimes I find it difficult to allocate time to read just ONE of them regularly.

 

You and I are fleshly human beings, and we suffer from temptations which come with that territory, one of which is to do anything else but read the Bible at home.

 

I think that most of you probably need to do what I have always had to do, and that is make a little rule for myself to read the Bible every day.

 

I’m not saved by keeping this rule, and I don’t insist that others follow it. I don’t even follow it myself every day, but the rule helps me read the Bible regularly, even if I miss some days.

 

When I miss, I don’t need to feel guilty, because such omission is not a sin, but I can be prompted to make time tomorrow for reading the Word of God.

 

Using dated notes like those produced by Scripture Union helps keep me up to it.

 

When I was at Talua in Vanuatu in 2003-4, I had difficulty finding the current copy of the magazine Australian Presbyterian in the college library. Then I discovered why. The Principal had it on his desk because he was using the daily Bible reading section.

 

Why do I need to read the Bible regularly at home? Because I need to know what this God, whom I worship, is like – and what he expects from his followers – and I won’t know these things unless I have a good knowledge of the Bible.

 

52 snippets a year from the Bible heard on Sundays at church are not enough! Once upon a time I would have said 104 snippets, or even 208, but now I know that most Christians go to church only once every Sunday – if that, and often only one Bible passage is read.

 

God’s written Word, the Bible, tells me what God is like. Otherwise I construct a god from my own ideas, and such exercises always produce an idol.

 

God’s written Word, the Bible, tells me what actions and attitudes God expects from his followers – what actions and attitudes please him. And we do want to please him - don’t we?

 

I exhort you all, after I have first exhorted myself, to get more Bible into you, because if you do that, you’ll be a better Christian.

 

 

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Presbytery changes

Three Presbyteries have undergone name changes and four have had their boundaries changed, following decisions by the 2008 General Assembly.

 

Presbyteries affected are Hawkesbury, Sydney North, Sydney South and Illawarra.

The Presbytery of Dubbo is now the Presbytery of the Central West, while the Presbytery of the Murrumbidgee is the Presbytery of the Riverina and the Presbytery of Bathurst the Presbytery of the Central Tablelands.

 

Meanwhile, the boundaries of the Presbytery of the Hawkesbury have changed. As a result, Castle Hill becomes part of the Presbytery of Sydney North; Camden, Campbelltown, Ingleburn and Liverpool become part of the Presbytery of Sydney South; and Wollondilly part of the Presbytery of Illawarra.

Photo: Commissioners take a break between sessions of the 2008 General Assembly.

General Assembly 2008

Two hundred and seventy Commissioners including 155 ministers and 115 Elders travelled from throughout NSW and the ACT to attend the 2008 NSW General Assembly at Stanwell Tops in July.

The annual meeting of the “Parliament” of the Church was held as a residential event for only the second time. Apart from debating matters of the Church, highlights included a Cross Cultural Multicultural Dinner organised by Cross Cultural Coordinator Mike Wilson, music groups and six-a-side soccer teams.

Photos from the General Assembly>

Download talks (mp3)>

 

The Assembly made the following decisions:

• Elected the Rev Bruce Meller, Ministry and Mission Superintendent, as its Moderator.
• Congratulated the Rev AR. Beaton, J.F. Broadhead and E. Hammo, Ministers Emeriti, on the 50th anniversary of their ordination to the ministry.
• Congratulated Mr. W. McLeod, Elder at St. Philip’s, Newcastle, on the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the eldership.
• Welcomed the following new ministers having been inducted into their first parishes, set apart for their first appointment in NSW or granted a seat by the Assembly for the first time-Rev. M.W. Deal (Wingham), M. Glanville (Tregear), M. Ham (Associate Minister at Gosford), D. Haley (Assistant to the Minister at St. Andrew’s, Newcastle), J. Lin (Assistant to the Minister at Burwood Chinese Presbyterian Church), R. Marsh (Defence Force Chaplain), B. Merchant (Grenfell), D. Powell (Associate Minister at Albury), T. Ravenhall (Young), P. Tamsett (Granville-Merrylands Home Mission Station) and N. Zakhary (Arabic Evangelical Toongabbie).
• Remembered the following former members of the Assembly who had passed away-Rev. C.M. Moulton, Minister Emeritus, F.G. Hollands, Minister Emeritus, Messrs R. Beasley, former Assembly Elder, H.I.M. MacFarlane, A.M., former General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in NSW, J.C. Mackillop, O.A.M., former employee of Church Offices and Assembly Elder.