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‘It’s the Father’s ministry’

When Ros O’Donohoe from Good Shepherd Para Vista in suburban Adelaide explains the story of the inspirational ‘Meet and Eat’ ministry, there’s a phrase that comes up again and again. ‘It’s the Father’s ministry.’

These words are a testament to the faith Ros draws on as she and a team of helpers prepare and serve dinner for 80 to 90 people at the church hall every Monday apart from public holidays. Congregation members also eat with the guests and gauge prayer needs.

Some who come for the food, friendship and singalongs have been sleeping rough. ‘All who come are a joy to have’, Ros says. ‘The addicted ones or the broken souls who didn’t want to be in this position, those who didn’t have a basic education; those are the dear ones I will protect.’ A collaboration with the homeless charity Orange Sky means guests can have clothes washed and dried while they eat and use shower facilities.

Much of the food served at ‘Meet and Eat’ comes from Pathway Community Centre at nearby Modbury North. The congregation contributes about $150 each month. ‘The church has been enormously supportive’, Ros says. ‘Basically, we don’t need more money … it’s the Father’s ministry. The church put in a new kitchen, which is such a blessing. And one day a Good Shepherd member asked to help, indicating that he loved to cook – praise God!’

But things don’t always go to plan. ‘When the freezer stopped working, all the food had to be trashed’, Ros recalls. ‘But I believed the Father would supply what we needed. And, by the end of the week, Pathway had an abundance of food, so God kept the food flowing.’

Meet and Eat had its origins in a smaller, simpler ministry, the seed of which was planted in 2008. Ros and her late husband Barry, who died in 2013, received a prophecy that God would start a new ministry through them.

It began with morning teas for several of Ros and Barry’s neighbours who had lost spouses to cancer. Some of them were hostile towards the church. ‘Eventually, we asked if they would come to “a hall”, for me to cook them soup and toast’, she says. ‘They agreed but there was to be “no church talk”.

‘We called it “Soup night” at first. Yet, whatever it’s called, it’s always the Father’s ministry. When the Father starts a ministry, he has all the resources.’

The food, friendship and faith on offer change lives. By 2011, 12 ‘grumpy neighbours’ were being welcomed by six Good Shepherd members, sharing soup and laughter. ‘All of my original grumpy neighbours later asked for Jesus’, Ros says. ‘They experienced love and acceptance.’

Ros explains, too, that, as a small child, her back neighbour saw a picture of Jesus with the words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me”. ‘Her fear was that the man in the picture would make her suffer. I couldn’t change that, despite being her neighbour for 35 years – yet soup and love changed her heart at 93 years of age! She needed what we had. Praise God!

‘So, the greatest blessing is to see others finding salvation over a bowl of soup. That energises me to work with joy.’

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LCANZ properties under contract

The LCANZ’s entire 1.9-hectare property at North Adelaide is under multiple contracts, with the total purchase price exceeding the various market evaluations.

The property was listed for sale in late March, with expressions of interest (EOI) closing on 15 May. All successful EOI applicants were assessed on predetermined selection criteria and have agreed to all LCANZ terms and conditions of sale.

Settlement conditions have been negotiated, with settlements for differing lots occurring over the next 48 months. Vacant possession will be provided over various sections of the site between July 2025 and July 2026.

Brett Hausler, Executive Officer of the Church, said that purchase contracts ‘will support the LCANZ in potentially purchasing a new building for the Churchwide Office and ALC but also provide the opportunity for other Lutheran entities interested in co-locating’.

Potential locations for the new workplace for ALC and the Churchwide Office are being investigated. It is hoped that the new location will provide opportunities to actively streamline operations, create a collaborative and supportive workplace environment, and foster a living missional culture.

‘God has blessed the LCANZ with the outcome of this sale, which has exceeded our expectations’, Mr Hausler said.

‘We look forward to where God leads us next, as we explore options for the new home for ALC and the Churchwide Office, as well as investing the balance of the proceeds to support the operations of the ALC as well as supporting mission and ministry.’

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To God be the glory

by Helen Brinkman

Whether it’s a home-baked cupcake, a home-grown pumpkin, or a handmade bracelet, giving glory to God comes in many forms for retired teacher Anne Kotzur. Life is a whirl of baking, gardening and volunteering for the mother of four and grandmother of eight.

Despite celebrating her 80th birthday this past month, she’s as busy as ever supporting her family, her local Our Saviour Lutheran family in Rochedale, Brisbane, and even families as far flung as Ukraine and Ethiopia.

Her dance card is full with giving – everything from weekly cupcake bake-offs for Our Saviour Sunday school children, to distributing the 40 pumpkins grown in her own backyard.

It’s also in receiving that Anne gives thanks to God. She is thankful for the handmade ‘Swifty’ bracelet made for her birthday by a student at the local school where she volunteers, as much as she’s thankful for the $500 birthday donation she’s sending off to the Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) to support Ethiopian families. It was just what she wanted for her birthday!

The donation came from the high tea celebration her church friends hosted to honour her coming of age – becoming an octogenarian, that is. She didn’t want presents but suggested that people could instead donate to the latest ALWS campaign supporting Ethiopia.

Supporting ALWS has been a lifelong effort for Anne.

‘Ever since I was a little girl, my grandparents always had a bowl on their Christmas and Easter tables for gifts to support Australian Lutheran World Service’, she recalls.

‘So, I grew up under the banner of ALWS and I always have had a heart for this organisation.’

In May this year, Anne was among the volunteers at the registration desk checking in almost 900 walkers taking part in Brisbane’s Walk My Way Ukraine which supported Ukrainian families displaced by conflict. About $190,000 was raised. ‘It was such a joy for me to see so many young families with little children, strollers and scooters, as well as older people too’, she says.

‘It brought joy to my heart seeing people come to walk to support families in Ukraine. The reason I wanted to support it was so children could get back to homes and schools, so schools could be repaired and school bomb shelters built. That was my motivation. I love the way ALWS partners with different agencies to help in these situations.’

The Rochedale community remains the hub of Anne’s world. It’s where she was born in 1944, the eldest of three, to mum Pearl and dad Colin Francis, who were local farmers, cultivating paw paws, potatoes, tomatoes and more.

As an adult, she’s still in the same family home in Rochedale that she and husband Elmore moved into 54 years ago. Elmore died four years ago after 52 years of marriage. ‘I give thanks as we had a wonderful life together and I am very grateful for those years’, Anne says.

The only time she moved away was when, as a 21-year-old graduate teacher, Anne answered a church call for teachers at the Hope Vale mission school in northern Queensland.

‘I always had a heart for mission and for Aboriginal people. I loved teaching and loved the children, so when there was a call out for teachers at Hope Vale, I went, she says.

It was at Hope Vale that Anne met farm manager Elmore Kotzur. Two years later they married and moved to nearby Wujal Wujal, where they had their first two sons. They returned to Rochedale in 1970 and were later blessed with two more sons.

Anne went back to teaching when the boys were at school, retiring about 16 years ago. Retirement has allowed Anne to put more time back into her home and community. She still gardens, cooks and visits. She also volunteers every Wednesday for the breakfast club at the local state school, organised through the school’s Scripture Union chaplain.

Anne is inspired by her favourite text: ‘And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’ (Micah 6:8).

‘I thank God that he helps me each day. And I can still walk, garden, mow, and help at church and be involved with my church family’, she says.

She comes away from her weekly hospital visits to the sick giving thanks, and grateful for the beautiful attitudes of those she visits.

And every day she gives thanks, having experienced breast cancer twice, five heart bypasses, open heart surgery and a stroke. She’s grateful for God’s wonderful healing hand which has made her well and grateful for his goodness daily. ‘To God be the glory – that’s the main thing I would say, just to give thanks to God for his goodness every day’, she reflects. ‘Wake up each day and thank God for his goodness. He is good all the time and his mercies are ever new each day.’

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Disagreeing well

As well as serving a Lutheran school community as its pastor, Chris Mann helps workplaces deal with conflict. Recently, he shared his thoughts with Lutheran Media’s Messages of hope about how to ‘disagree well’ with others. This is an excerpt adapted from that podcast interview.

Conflict is a values clash. When a conflict happens, it’s always around something valuable to us and therefore has some emotions attached to it.

However, if we’re in a conflict and we don’t see the other person’s perspective, even if we win, we lose. So, we might win an argument, but we lose our relationship with them, and we lose something within ourselves. We lose compassion, we lose wisdom and we lose humility.

So, instead of thinking, ‘How am I going to beat that person? How am I going to win in this situation?’, from a faith perspective it is: ‘How would Jesus have me deal with that situation?’ Sometimes that is turning the other cheek. Sometimes that is going the extra mile, but sometimes it’s having appropriate boundaries.

And, before talking about a difficult topic, I check my motives. Am I just trying to fix a problem, or am I trying to love a person? If I truly care about this person, I’ll find a way to speak the truth, even if it’s going to be difficult for both of us.

Ultimately, being able to admit that we’re wrong can be the most important skill we have when it comes to conflict.

Another thing that makes a big difference is pausing and taking a breath so that we can think clearly and not take all our conflicts personally.

Of course, being a Christian is an amazing help. We know that part of the Old Testament is about people being in conflict with God; people not wanting to do things the way that God wants them to do it. But, in Jesus, God chooses to enter our shoes in our conflict, and experiences as a human what it is to be in conflict with others.

So, Jesus knows what it is to enter a disagreement as a human being and knows how to respond well. But we see especially in Jesus going to the cross, that sometimes in a conflict we actually have to just suffer and suffer well.

Sometimes suffering well results in the life that we were trying to fight for in the first place. And God’s wanting to provide life for everyone on the other side of a conflict. We don’t always get to experience that, unfortunately – our world is broken.

But that is God’s best for us: life on the other side of a conflict.

You can listen to the full interview at www.messagesofhope.org.au/disagreeing-well

School pastor at Endeavour College Mawson Lakes in South Australia, Chris Mann is also a leadership coach specialising in communication under the banner of Lifelong Leaders. Photo by Amy Dahlenburg

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Website resource to support congregations

A Congregational Life website designed to support congregations and agencies in areas including worship, pastoral care, discipleship and faith teaching, outreach and church planting, and community service is being developed by the church.

As an outcome of a recently released report addressing the LCANZ’s ongoing ministry challenges, including its pastoral supply shortage, the website will help equip faith communities as they adjust to the church’s changing context. To be launched later this year, it will offer relevant resources and raise awareness of learning pathways that are currently available or being developed.

The website was recommended in the summary report of the Ministry Future project, which was received with approval in May by the General Church Board (GCB). Led by Victorian District Bishop Emeritus Greg Pietsch, the project was established by the College of Bishops (CoB) in 2022, with the support of GCB, to ‘consider and develop a coordinated response’ to the decreasing number of pastors in the LCANZ and the changing nature of its communities.

The report contains a multi-faceted approach to tackling what Pastor Greg says are ‘clearly evident’ difficulties facing the church. The three-part response developed to address these challenges is:

  1. a regional rather than solely congregation or parish approach to organising pastoral ministry,
  2. suitable pathways into general and specialised service – both lay and ordained, paid and voluntary, and
  3. a regular way of ordering the service of lay people involved in word and/or sacrament ministry, in addition to the existing preparation and call of Specific Ministry Pastors (SMPs).

‘(We have) a large number of pastoral vacancies, long periods in vacancy with frustration over the call process and communities struggling to afford a pastor’, Pastor Greg says in the report.

‘Yet ministry needs and mission opportunities still continue in the Lord’s harvest field.’

Pastor Greg says the Ministry Future project ‘does not pretend to be every answer to the changes we face’, but rather that it hopes to be of help. He also asks LCANZ members to commit the church, its communities and the project outcomes to prayer.

Read more, download the Ministry Future report and access a question-and-answer document about the project at www.lca.org.au/ministry-future  

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God’s word lights the way to life

by Helen Brinkman

Hedley Scholz credits dairy farming for giving him his strong voice. To be more precise he says it’s a credit to the cows and the working dogs which herded them.

‘I think God has blessed me with a strong voice, as I was a dairy farmer for 69 years and I had been shouting to the cows and dogs so much’, says Hedley.

It’s this upbringing that has established a voice perfect for lay reading, a service that Hedley has provided to his local Lutheran congregations for the past 70 years. That achievement was recognised in April by his fellow members at St John’s Lutheran Church, Eudunda, in South Australia’s Mid North.

Despite being set to turn 90 in August, Hedley’s strong voice still allows him to continue to serve as a lay reader. It’s a role that he began at age 20 at the Ascension Lutheran Church, Julia, SA. Over time, he has also helped out at other local Lutheran churches in the parish.

Hedley recalls travelling the nine miles (14.5 kilometres) from his home to Julia church on a cold Sunday morning one August with thick fog developing. Despite there being only three members in attendance for worship that day, Hedley didn’t shorten the service!

Born in 1934, the youngest of four siblings, Hedley was part of the fifth generation of the Scholz family in the region. His great-great-grandfather, Johann Gottfried Scholz, was born in Silesia in 1805 in present-day Germany and migrated to South Australia in 1845.

Johann settled at Light Pass in the Barossa Valley and was known to walk the more than 40 miles (almost 70 kilometres) led by the light of the moon on a Saturday night to Klemzig in Adelaide. There he would attend church services led by Pastor August Kavel – which were known to last for hours – before returning home again on foot.

Hedley has documented the lives of seven generations of the Scholz family in a book called The Diaries of the Scholz’s of Buchanan. His second book, The Hundred of Julia Creek, informs the reader of the struggles his forebears faced, living through droughts, dust storms, fires, floods, depression and isolation.

Hedley’s third book, entitled The Pioneers of the Sutherlands Area, recounts the lives of some of the first German and English emigrants to arrive in South Australia in 1838.

Hedley’s interests have also extended to membership of his local Returned and Services League (RSL) and Gideons International.

A heart problem caused Hedley to miss marching in this year’s Anzac Day march, from the local cenotaph to the Eudunda RSL club.

However, it has not stopped him driving around his area witnessing at local schools and churches for the past 16 years, through his promotion of the work of the Gideons. This gives Hedley an opportunity to provide New Testaments to secondary school students and share stories of people who have been touched by God’s word.

‘I go with God’s help and always pray that the students will accept a New Testament because it is not compulsory that they take one’, he says.

In August 2023, Hedley celebrated 60 years of married life with wife Joy (nee Materne), their two sons David and Michael and their families, including five grandchildren.

When reminiscing on what has guided nearly 90 years of life, Hedley shares that one of his favourite Bible verses is Psalm 119:105 – ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ (KJV).

Hedley says: ‘God’s word has been my guide in life. It offers direction, correction and forgiveness. His word helps me see right from wrong.

‘The world leads us the wrong way, God’s word shows us a forgiving God and the way to eternal life.’

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Learning can help bring change

by Angela Mayer

Some years ago, God led me to work in men’s behaviour change programs and, through the people I met, I became passionate about working to improve the lives of families experiencing domestic violence.

We can change people’s lives, increase safety and help them feel the love of God in their homes and families.

Consider the following scenario and ask yourself what you could do: You receive a text from a friend, wanting your help. They have only been married a couple of years, but their spouse has become quite different from the caring person they married. They have been expected to give up work they love to stay at home; their spouse gets angry if they disagree; they can’t even have coffee with a friend without their spouse ringing to check up, and they sometimes feel afraid.

This is domestic violence (DV).

Four facts you may not know:
• The rates of domestic violence in the Christian community in Australia are the same or higher than in the general community (National Anglican Family Violence Research Report 2021),
• DV is not just physical or sexual abuse, it is any behaviour that is intended to create fear, intimidate, isolate, or control. It disproportionately affects women and children.
• DV is not a one-off event – it is a pattern of behaviour that, without professional support, usually becomes more frequent and severe over time.
• DV can affect people of any age.

Most of us have heard of DV, but would you recognise the signs in your congregation? Would you be able to provide helpful support? Do you know how to encourage a person using abusive behaviour to seek help?

The LCA’s Learning Hub offers the Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention online module which explores domestic and family violence, keeping in mind a Christian perspective.

In the online module, you can read whole sections, or dip in and out. There are ideas around being an ally to those experiencing abuse. Other sections explore how we as a church respond to those who perpetrate abuse in ways that do not silently collude.

Start today. Be ready to offer help and resources when someone asks you about domestic violence and be the change you want to see in the world.

Angela Mayer is a member of the LCA’s Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence Taskforce.

How to access the LCANZ Learning Hub

Those with LCA email addresses can access this through the LCANZ Learning Hub button on the LCA Portal.

People who have had previous access to training via ALC iLearn can access the Hub using their ALC iLearn credentials via the ALC iLearn page https://ilearn.alc.edu.au/

Others will need to contact the Church Worker Support Department (email to churchworkersupport@lca.org.au or phone 08 8267 7300) for a once-off enrolment key. This will enable them to enrol and log in via the ALC iLearn page.

If you or someone you know is affected by domestic and family violence, visit ANROWS Get Support webpage or call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), the 24-hour National Sexual Assault Family Domestic Violence Counselling Service, or Lifeline Counselling (24 hours) 131 114. In an emergency, call 000.

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New bishop elected for NSW-ACT District

Pastor Richard Schwedes will be the next bishop of the New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory District of the LCANZ.

Pastor Richard, who will also have oversight of the Lutheran Church of New Zealand through a Memorandum of Understanding between the LCNZ and the NSW-ACT District, was elected during the district’s 40th Convention of Synod at Wagga Wagga NSW in March. He and his wife Veronica currently serve in St Paul’s Sydney and Redeemer Narraweena congregations.

Once installed to the role, most likely mid-year, he will succeed Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, who has served as bishop since October 2018 and has been a pastor in the NSW & ACT District for 23 years.

Bishop-elect Richard has served as assistant bishop of the district since 2019.

‘I see life about being focused on Jesus’ mission – helping people connect to Jesus, his love and grace and his community because he offers and gives a love that never gives up and is better than anything else we experience’, he said prior to the 8–10 March convention.

Also at the convention, Pastor John Borchert was elected as assistant bishop for the next synodical term. Pastor John also serves the Walla Walla and Alma Park congregations in NSW.

– Reporting by Tanya Cunningham

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Doin’ it all to the glory of God

by Helen Brinkman

In the Hoff family, teaching isn’t the only thing that runs in the blood. So does the sentiment embroidered on a family tapestry hand-sewn by Rob Hoff’s maternal grandmother Elsa Sickerdick: ‘Faith without service means nothing.’

It is a motto that Elsa’s grandson Rob Hoff takes to heart. Growing up, Rob witnessed his parents’ faith motivation for service: ‘Mum and Dad were great servants of the church. Their life was based around service to the church and community’, he says. Their influence led Rob to a lifetime of service in education, a lineage tracing back to the 1880s when his immigrant forebear Bernhard Hoff was a school principal at the farming region of Monarto, near Adelaide.

Rob retired in 2019 after 46 years of service as a school principal. His decades of service to primary education, including significant service to many professional associations, was recognised in the Australia Day 2024 Honours List, being named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division.

As a young boy, Rob, now 75, says he was influenced to join the long line of teachers in the family by his great uncle, Pastor Carl Hoff, who had served at Koonibba Mission, 800km west of Adelaide.

‘My brother (Tony – also a teacher) and I would go over there for afternoon tea as young kids. We would look at his books and collection of Aboriginal artefacts (now gifted to the SA Museum) and he would tell us stories. That’s where we got the idea of being teachers, or indeed a pastor.’

As a 16-year-old, Rob’s calling was reinforced by his Pastor Clem Koch who told him: ‘I’ve been watching you, and you’ve got some gifts … I think you should be a teacher.’ ‘That sowed the seed and I fell into teaching’, Rob says.

Rob was raised in Adelaide’s inner-northern suburb of Sefton Park, attending St Paul Lutheran Church, Blair Athol. His dad’s job at the railways provided a fertile opportunity for his parents to share their faith with work colleagues, many of whom were migrants. ‘That is where I witnessed how the social aspects of their lives influenced other people. They let others see Christianity come through in their lives. Every second Saturday we’d have new Australians over for lunch’, Rob recalls. ‘They were so thankful. That wider service in the community is what my brother and I grew up with. It’s just second nature.’

St Paul is where Rob met and married his wife of 52 years, Sandra. They’ve been blessed with two daughters, also Lutheran school leaders, and two grandsons.

In 1973, Rob became the inaugural principal of St Paul Lutheran Primary School, Blair Athol, followed by Trinity Lutheran Primary School in Southport, Queensland, and Immanuel Lutheran Primary School at Novar Gardens, South Australia. Rob is passionate about the role of Lutheran schools in sharing faith. ‘Where else do you get to proclaim the gospel boldly to 40,000 kids and 4,000 staff in communities across Australia, five days a week?’, he asks.

Rob and Sandra’s retirement has continued to provide the unexpected privilege of serving and witnessing in their own community. Moving to an independent living unit at Adelaide’s Fullarton Lutheran Homes in 2020, they discovered an opportunity to serve close to home! ‘We didn’t know what retirement looked like. We were both 70 when we retired, and we thought, “Let’s see where the journey takes us”,’ says Rob. ‘We got involved in the community here, and there was an opportunity to visit elderly residents, whose relatives may live away, and who could be lonely and seeking human contact. We saw that as a natural ministry.

‘It’s easy to walk across the road and say “g’day” and lift their spirits and have a cuppa with them.

‘We should encourage people to keep going. Everybody who is retired, if they chose to serve, our church would be even stronger than it is. There are lots of retired people who are contributing in so many ways we’re not aware of.’

And, he says, it’s all for the gospel and keeps communities going. ‘When I see these people 10 or 15 years older than me who are still so enthusiastic, that is a motivation just to keep going and not to stop’, Rob says. ‘They are all using their skills and talents, adding value to everything going on around this community, our church community, and the wider community.’

For the past 60 years, Rob’s confirmation text, Romans 1:16, has stayed with him: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.’

And, despite his contributions to boards and councils, Rob says: ‘I still think the most important work we do is going across the road to simply connect with people and pray for them.’

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Are we falling for the beauty myth?

Many of us have heard the saying ‘beauty is only skin deep’ or the notion that having a good personality is more important than being good-looking. But do we really believe that? Do we spend an unhealthy amount of time, energy and money on our physical appearance, or is wanting to look our best simply an extension of the biblical concept that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit? We asked Nick Schwarz, the LCANZ’s Assistant to the Bishop for Public Theology, for his thoughts.

How do you feel about your looks? How do you feel when you look at yourself in a mirror? Is there something about your face or body that you wish was more attractive?

Is your level of concern with your looks about right, or are you overly concerned or not concerned enough? Would others agree with your self-assessment?

Most of us do care about our looks. Here are five reasons why:

  • We care about our looks because others judge us by our looks, and we judge them by theirs. We believe that our acceptability, lovableness, and self-worth are determined by how physically attractive we are to others.
  • We are social and relational beings that reproduce sexually. Our sex hormones intensify our desire to be attractive, especially during our teenage and young adult years when our body chemistry is readying us to look for a mate.
  • Some parents and teachers, believing that children need frequent affirmation to build and maintain their self-esteem, condition them to expect praise, to be frequently told how special, wonderful and extraordinary they are.
  • Being good-looking has benefits. Good-looking people are judged more favourably and treated better than others because virtually everyone assumes – without evidence – that good looks go with positive traits such as friendliness, honesty and competency.
  • Contemporary popular culture idolises physical attractiveness and youthfulness. Advertisers, celebrities, social media influencers, and the beauty, fashion, fitness, and wellness industries set impossibly high beauty standards. They convince us that the better looking we are, the happier and more successful we will be! Most of us respond to the pressure to measure up because our peers are trying to measure up too.

DARK SIDES OF BEING OVERLY CONCERNED WITH LOOKS

The dark side of our social/relational nature and concern for our looks is our instinctive urge to compare ourselves with others, and the types of feelings such comparisons produce in us, such as pride, superiority, jealousy, anxiety, despondency and inferiority.

And the dark side of beauty-worshipping culture is that people who will never look like movie stars, models or sporting heroes – no matter how hard they try and how much they spend – can feel like ‘nobodies’, unworthy of others’ attention and affection.

Because of extreme concern with looks, body negativity and body anxiety are at epidemic levels, especially among young people, and girls in particular. Individuals with particularly negative or distorted self-perception may be diagnosed with serious – even life-threatening – mental health conditions, such as eating disorders, body-image disorders and obsessive desire for cosmetic surgery, and require specialist mental health assistance. Having loved ones affected by these conditions can be extremely distressing for families.

Whether we use artificial means to enhance our appearance, such as make-up, photo-editing software, anabolic steroids and cosmetic surgery, or more natural means, such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, we will be prone to anxiety if we believe that we will only be accepted and loved if we are good-looking and stay that way.

PUSHBACK AGAINST BEAUTY WORSHIP

Advocates of ‘body positivity’ are pushing back against the culture of unattainable bodily perfection and body shaming. They encourage us to ‘love, embrace and celebrate’ our bodies regardless of shape or size.

Advocates of ‘body acceptance’ say we should spend less time worrying about the way our bodies look and more time being grateful for what they can do.

Another form of pushback is rebellion. When teens and young adults aren’t part of a good-looking ‘in-group’, they often seek friendship and acceptance in groups that rebel against society’s ideals of masculine and feminine beauty, such as Emos, Goths and punks. The trend in recent years of identifying as ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’ can also be seen in part as a rejection of contemporary feminine and masculine ideals.

What wisdom do Christians have to offer?

CHRISTIAN TEACHING FOR PEOPLE ANXIOUS ABOUT THEIR LOOKS

The key question for us is, where does our self-esteem – our sense of self-worth – come from?

Christians’ self-image and sense of self-worth are based on something much more substantial than our looks. It is based on our knowledge that God knows us (see for example Psalm 139:1,2) and loves us. He loves us so much that, in his human form, he gave his life for us so that we might live in eternity with him (John 3:16).

How our outward appearance measures up against the beauty ideals of people in our cultural moment is of little consequence to our loving Father and Jesus our brother and Saviour. For our God, the state of our hearts is much more important than our outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7).

Yet God also made our bodies and wants us to care well for them and to treat them with respect and modesty (1 Corinthians 6:19,20). But we aren’t to value them too highly or to flaunt our looks to tease, arouse or use others in self-serving ways. If we do these things, our looks become a distraction, a stumbling block, an idol that leads us and others into sin (Matthew 6:21;25–34).

God’s word speaks to us not just about our own looks but about our attitudes to others’ looks as well. We aren’t to covet others’ looks (Exodus 20:17), put others down because of their looks, or make rash or unfair assumptions about others based on their looks (James 4:11,12; 1 Peter 2:1).

The evil one is at work in our culture trying to shape us and use us in ways that turn us against God and his way for us (Ephesians 6:10–12) and which pit us against each other. Let us be alert to the presence of the evil one and wary of his influence, especially when he tells us that we aren’t good-looking enough or that others aren’t good-looking enough to be loved.

Lord, fill us with the assurance of your unconditional love. Help us remember that other people are made in your image and loved by you too.

Nick Schwarz is the LCANZ’s Assistant to the Bishop for Public Theology.

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