Synod News 2007
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 30 Sep 2007 in From Steve's Study ::
For the last two weeks, Stephen Humphrys, Bruce York and myself have been attending the annual Synod of the Diocese of Sydney. It’s a fancy name, but it basically just means the “Parliament” of the Anglican Church, which meets once a year to discuss issues that affect all the churches in Sydney.
Last week, I told you a little about the “Connect 09” initiative, in which all the Anglican churches in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Wollongong will join together in a combined attempt to reach our city with God’s word.
Well, here are a few of the other significant issues we discussed:
- How we could be involved in responding to climate change – both through our actions and by promoting societal change
- Child abuse in indigenous communities – calling for the government to employ a broad-based approach to solve the issues that cause such terrible abuse, rather than simply trying to catch and convict perpetrators
- What we do when we meet at church each Sunday – in particular, how is our practice in our church gatherings driven by our understanding of God and why he calls us to meet together
- The effects of gambling on our society and the clear message we as a church need to send to try to break down our reliance and addictions to it
- The centrality of the teaching on the death of Jesus as a payment for our sins, whereby he took the wrath of God instead of us (in the light of some church leaders who have denied this truth)
- The fact that the biblical pattern for marriage can never be used as a justification for abuse of any kind & much more!
One of the highlights for me was meeting Bishop Masimango, who is the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of Kindu in the Congo. The more alert among you will recognise that he is the Bishop of the area in which Sue Jaggar is ministering. We hope to be able to organise for him to come and speak to us in November about life in the Congo, so we can better understand the situation Sue finds herself in.
Of course there were times this week when we would have preferred to be somewhere else (anywhere else really!), but on the whole, it has been an important time discussing issues that affect the church throughout Sydney and beyond.
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