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Planting for God’s harvest

by Helen Brinkman

For more than 60 years, retired teachers Trevor and Liz Winderlich have been working together to plant and grow schools in Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), sowing seeds of faith for God to harvest.

It was a match made in heaven when the pair met in 1959 while studying teaching at the then Concordia Seminary, at Highgate, in suburban Adelaide. Trevor still recalls their first date – a night at the movies to see Darby O’ Gill and the Little People, starring Sean Connery.

After their graduations in 1961, Trevor was unexpectedly called to a teaching post in PNG. Liz had been awaiting a teaching position with the SA Education Department, but once she heard Trevor’s news, she changed her plans. ‘I had always wanted to go there,’ Liz says, because her father, Pastor Fred Noack, had been a missionary there.

So, in 1962, they went to Melbourne to study at the Wycliffe Institute of Linguistics, before marrying. Three weeks later, they flew out to PNG.

Their five-year adventure began at Gelem school on Rooke Island, where Liz taught Grade 2 students and the school’s student teachers, while Trevor taught Grades 7 and 9 students. After they arrived in PNG, the Winderlichs overcame their language barrier with Pidgin English, and within weeks, they were using Pidgin to write Maths books for the students.

Only when the first pay cheque arrived did they realise that although Liz and Trevor both worked full-time, they received only a single wage. Church policy at that time meant that wives of married teaching couples did not receive a wage! However, that didn’t dint their enthusiasm, and the couple went on to work in Menyamya District, in the PNG Highlands southwest of Lae, where Liz supervised indigenous teachers and Trevor became a teaching principal and taught Year 4s. Beyond teaching, they loved being part of the community, helping to develop local gardens and expand dietary options by bringing in vegetable seeds and building a dam to support local aquaculture.

They even developed a travelling Christmas slideshow for surrounding villages featuring their students in the costumes of the Nativity, narrating the Christmas story in their native tongue. To power the projector on their journeys, they carried a battery in a wheelbarrow, with a borrowed sheet for the screen. ‘The good Lord had so many ideas for us,’ says Trevor.

One of the students who featured in the nativity play, Jesse Tanggwo, joined the family on a visit back to Australia. He later became a Lutheran pastor, and Trevor and Liz also supported his son Nicholas through PNG’s Martin Luther Seminary to become a pastor.

Their own son James was born in Lae in May 1964, followed two years later by their first daughter Kathy, now Matuschka. James, pastor of St Johns Southgate Lutheran congregation in Melbourne, was Australian Lutheran College principal from 2014 to 2023.

In 1967, the family left their peaceful Highlands life and headed to Tanunda in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, where Trevor became the teaching principal of Tanunda Lutheran School. ‘What a culture shock,’ Liz says about having to reacclimatise to a more structured life. Along with the birth of their youngest child, Christine, in 1969, another highlight for Liz of their new base was playing pipe organs at their Langmeil church and other surrounding Lutheran congregations.

Over the following decades, Trevor and Liz were called to establish three new Lutheran schools. Starting with Murray Bridge from 1978 to 1987, Trevor remembers visiting a dusty plot on the edge of town, which would soon become the primary school, where he became a teaching principal, and Liz established the library and later taught.

In 1988, both Trevor and Liz were called to establish Golden Grove Lutheran Primary School, co-located with the Wynn Vale state primary school. In their first year, the Winderlichs were the only school staff until a secretary joined them that October to help with administration. They established their classes in a large composite room, which, on the weekends, became the worship area. That required the weekly stacking of school furniture to make room for Sunday services!

By 1995, their three children had grown up and headed to Queensland, so Trevor and Liz moved north and set about expanding the Caboolture Lutheran Primary School on the Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast remains their community following their retirement in late 2004.

As well as being active members of Living Faith Lutheran Church, Murrumba Downs, for the past two decades Liz has been a part of the Streams in the Desert network of Lutherans, which supports women’s contributions to God’s ministry.

After retirement, relief teaching over the next few years supported their next adventure, volunteering for Finke River Mission and travelling around Queensland congregations to promote and fundraise for the Central Australian LCA ministry.

Today, their hall walls reflect their pride in their six grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. They are also honorary grandparents to their young neighbour, Hugo, whose father, Glen, suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body in a road accident in 2020, underwent approximately 20 surgeries and lost his lower legs. Trevor and Liz have stepped in to co-parent Hugo, now 6, and continue to support his mum, Roni, while Glen recovers.

Trevor and Liz’s wedding text from Psalm 37:5, ‘Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act’, reflects God’s continued grace as they tend to his earthly garden.

‘We’ll always have people in our sphere who just need someone to talk to and who just need to be loved,’ Trevor says. ‘I think God’s not finished with us yet. I’m tipping I’ll be around ‘til I’m 120. I’ve got so much left to do.’

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Grass-roots mission: Sharing the message of the cross

by Jodi Brook

After the first year of a new LCANZ grants fund designed to nurture a missional culture across the church, 10 congregations have begun a journey to bring their local mission dreams into being.

You can read about their inspiring grass-roots outreach and service endeavours in the April-May 2025 edition of The Lutheran. However, the story doesn’t end there – the Local Mission Fund and Seed Project funding will return this year.

So, if your congregation has a local mission idea that needs financial support to become a reality, these grants might be the answer you have been praying for.

A total of $400,000 is being made available annually with Local Mission Fund major project grants of up to $100,000 each, and Local Mission Seed Project funding grants of up to $10,000 each. Inaugural grants were awarded in 2025 for missional projects, including cross-cultural ministry and church planting, a regional learning hub, and mission and ministry activities that enhance school-church connections and outreach.

Ministry Coordinator Lisa Enever, from Wodonga Lutheran Parish in Victoria, which plans to better engage with co-located Victory Lutheran College, says members were thrilled that their funding application was approved.

‘After watching the Friday livestream of the Convention of General Synod, which focused on the mission work of the LCANZ, I felt incredibly excited and inspired by the direction the church is heading in’, Lisa said. ‘It was so uplifting to see the amazing mission efforts other parishes are making in their communities. I’m truly grateful and blessed that the LCANZ approved the funding grant for our parish, allowing us to extend our reach and connect with even more people in our community.’

College Chaplain Tala Aufai, from Queensland’s Trinity Ashmore Lutheran School Church Plant, says the school is ‘so grateful for the positive response from our alumni’. ‘Three students who graduated last year (have come) on board as part of our team of volunteer leaders for Encounter Youth – praise God’, he says.

Each of the 2025 successful local mission grants was awarded to a congregation whose project supports local mission innovation and efforts that might be applied more broadly across the church.

The LCANZ Local Mission Fund application process for 2026 grants opens on 1 July 2025.

HOW TO START PREPARING NOW TO APPLY FOR A GRANT

  • Place the 2026 Local Mission Fund on your church committee meeting agendas.
  • Read the application criteria available at www.lca.org.au/local-mission-fund
  • Invite your members to start thinking and praying about the local mission opportunity God might be placing before your congregation.

Jodi Brook is the LCANZ’s Local Mission Coordinator. As part of her role, Jodi mentors and supports groups that receive funding.

 

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LCANZ gives thanks for ALWS 75th anniversary

Hundreds of LCANZ members and friends have gathered to thank God for the 75th anniversary of Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) at the places where the church’s overseas aid and development agency had its beginnings.

The weekend of celebration and thanksgiving events in March centred around Albury in the New South Wales Riverina and at Bonegilla, just over the Victorian border, where ALWS’s ministry of practical love and care had its roots in the service of a Lutheran pastor almost eight decades ago.

Bonegilla was a migrant reception centre and camp that became a temporary home to approximately 300,000 post-World War II refugees and migrants, from 1947 until its closure in 1971. In its early years, many at Bonegilla spoke German and a high percentage were Lutheran, so Pastor Bruno Muetzelfeldt, who served at nearby Albury, was asked to minister to the new arrivals.

On Saturday 22 March, almost 200 people joined the commemorations and celebrations at Bonegilla, with some travelling from as far as Mackay, North Queensland, 2000 kilometres away. Former residents, some who had not previously returned to Bonegilla, shared memories of their time at the camp.

On the same day, 105 people participated in Bonegilla Walk My Way, walking all or part of the 10 kilometres return to the Old Bonegilla railway station. Through this and multiple other campaigns across 2025, including Walk My Ways in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, Executive Director Michael Stolz said ALWS aimed to support 75,000 children whose lives are affected by war or poverty.

Also contributing to funds being raised are proceeds from the book Table of Eight, which was launched on the anniversary weekend. It is the memoir of Dr Brian Neldner, whose own remarkable legacy of service in international aid and development began at Bonegilla.

Michael said that, as of the time of The Lutheran’s deadline, more than $16,700 had been raised, supporting 668 children. Adding to this will be an offering from the anniversary thanksgiving service at St Luke’s Lutheran Church Albury, on 23 March, at which LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith reflected on the origins of ALWS and the Christian life in service of others ‘whoever they are’, done in response to the saving message of the gospel.

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Connecting community: a job for all seasons

by Helen Brinkman

Jan Summers loves helping to connect the people of her Hope Valley retirement community in South Australia.

Whether it’s daily letterbox drops, coffee shop gatherings, community lunches, or livestreaming weekly church services to the village nursing home, the 88-year-old is all about bringing people together within her suburban community in Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs.

‘I just like organising things for residents to come to’, says Jan. ‘I like getting people out of their houses.’

And it certainly gets her out and about. As secretary of the Lutheran Homes Group Hope Valley residents’ group and the local church council, it’s a mission that keeps her daily timetable full.

Her passion for community is evident in everything she does, from coordinating rosters and directories to volunteering for the ‘Out to Lunch’ program, which supports people on home-care packages with a hot meal at the village community centre.

‘When I get to 90, I am going to retire’, she laughs, though it seems she has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Early each morning she’s out on a mobility scooter for letterbox drops across 284 units in the village, ensuring that about 350 residents stay informed and connected. ‘Wonderful things, gophers’, she adds.

Born Jan Dickenson in Frances, a small railway town near Bordertown in SA’s South East in 1936, she moved to Adelaide as a young child and was brought up by her grandparents and 11 aunts and uncles. She boarded at Immanuel College in suburban Walkerville in 1949 for four years before joining the payroll department of the Commonwealth Weapons Research Establishment. It was there she met her husband-to-be, Colin Summers, a tall man with a lovely smile who worked in the office next to hers, she recalls.

While Colin’s role took him on regular trips to the red dust of Maralinga in SA’s Far West, her job was as a research comptometrist, using a huge, mechanical adding machine known as a comptometer. This was the era before computers, but the role helped Jan develop skills that ensured she has no fear of technology to this day – she still operates the church’s sound control board for Sunday services. Her only fear there is remembering to start the livestream of the service to the village nursing home.

Married in 1958, the pair honeymooned in Waikerie in the SA Riverland before moving into their home in the Adelaide suburb of Klemzig, which was at that time still surrounded by farmland. ‘Because there were no main roads out in Klemzig at that time, we got bogged on the dirt road before we could get back to our house after the honeymoon’, Jan says.

Jan had to leave her Commonwealth employment as government policy prohibited married women from being employed. After several years of working for the de Havilland Aircraft Company and Nestle chocolates, she and Colin started their family of two girls, Tracey and Trudy, and a boy, Philip.

Jan later worked as a school assistant at Ridley Grove Primary School in suburban Woodville for 21 years, a job she says she only got because she could play the piano. It was a skill she developed due to the insistence of her great aunt Ivy, who thought that all young ladies should play the piano.

Jan and Colin moved to the Hope Valley village 28 years ago, and two years later, she put her administration skills to good use as secretary of the residents’ group.

In 2003 she also added the role of congregational secretary for their local Trinity Lutheran congregation to her job jar.

As she wasn’t sure if she’d been baptised as a baby in Frances, Jan was duly baptised at Trinity that March, and after the service, everyone who came went across the road to a local hotel for a celebratory lunch.

‘I’ve always been one to put up my hand to help’, says Jan. ‘I volunteer for the “Out to Lunch” program supporting people on home-care packages with a hot meal in the village community centre, setting up and serving lunches four days a week.’

Her afternoons are for bookwork, and she lives through lists. ‘I just like doing things and … I like things done just so.’

On top of her volunteering, Jan is a grandmother to seven, and great-grandmother to five children – the latest born just before Christmas 2024.

As the village prepared for its 40th-anniversary celebration in March this year, Jan says she hadn’t yet stopped to reflect on her journey of service to the community. She was busy organising the community lunch for the celebrations!

But she does find comfort in her favourite Bible verse from Psalm 121, which reminds us all where our help comes from: ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth …’ This psalm was read at Colin’s funeral 11 years ago at a popular family holiday spot on SA’s west coast. ‘We buried my husband’s ashes over at Tumby Bay and the grave faces the hills above the coast – the whole family chose it’, she says.

And if Jan hasn’t enough on her plate already, she is already thinking about new opportunities to volunteer.

‘My son and his family are into football, and he is setting up an inclusive football team in the suburban league this year, so I’ll probably be in on that.’

As always, Jan is quick to put up her hand to help.

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On the road with the body of believers

by Bethany Marsh

When people think of a pilgrimage, many would imagine a once-in-a-lifetime undertaking – travailing dangerous roads to the Holy Land, crossing the Pyrenees mountains as part of the Camino de Santiago, or persevering through the gruelling 2,000 kilometres of the Via Francigena from the UK to Rome.

The term ‘pilgrimage’ may evoke a relic of the past – a lone traveller bearing a staff and pilgrim shell, showing the pious devotion of a medieval peasant.

What many people probably wouldn’t envisage is a mass of 700 people – children, teenagers, mums, dads and grandparents – trudging through the Victorian countryside from one cathedral to another.

But that’s my reality as a pilgrim.

The Christus Rex (Latin for ‘Christ the King’) pilgrimage is an annual 97-kilometre walk from Ballarat to Bendigo. The hundreds of participants meander through beautiful Victorian landscapes, setting out from one cathedral and retiring at another, sleeping in fields and country halls, eating humble meals, singing, praising God and praying.

Worship is all in the traditional form, meaning plenty of incense, Gregorian chant, hymns, litanies, devotions, meditations, chances for communal prayer and quiet reflection – and even some bagpipes to close the day (a small nod to the Irish Catholic heritage of many taking part).

Some – including me – have been walking this since they were small children and now some of those now-adults take children of their own along. A common attribute for most attendees is that it’s not their first pilgrimage, and certainly won’t be their last.

‘It’s in our blood’, my Dad told me one year, packing (very last-minute) at the crack of dawn on a warm October morning.

He’s a pilgrim, through and through. He’s been doing this since its inception and now hires buses to ferry the dozens of pilgrims (including 10 from our own family) from Adelaide to Ballarat.

No matter what we do, we can’t seem to avoid the irresistible urge to go back, year after year.

So, what are we trying to prove by taking three days to walk by a non-descript stretch of Victorian freeway, which could be covered in just an hour by car?

I ask myself this question every year … mostly on Day Two, 35 kilometres in, when the first blisters have well and truly formed, and my calves realise they have been chronically under-worked on the other 360 days of the year.

And after 17 pilgrimages – and more than 1,600kms, dozens of blisters and a few sprained ankles later – I think I finally know why. There are four reasons:

1. ‘Life is a pilgrimage.’

This age-old adage is a perfect analogy for the human experience. Born, as it were, into sin in a foreign land, we each embark on our spiritual pilgrimage back towards our eternal home: God. Life, with its daily hardships and joys, its trials and abundant blessings, is that pilgrimage.

Dad was right: it is in our blood. Pilgrimage is simply part of the human psyche. And for centuries Christians have been clamouring for more.

To conquer something difficult, you should undertake something even more burdensome.

And putting one foot in front of the other for 130,000 steps is no walk in the park (although we do end up in our fair share of national reserves). There’s nothing like trudging through overgrown grass on the side of the road for three days straight to give you some real strength to overcome daily hardships.

2. During those three days, I get the feeling that the pilgrimage is a little closer to what life is supposed to be.

It’s a welcome break from our frenetic lifestyles that push endlessly onward, longing for the next thing, the next holiday, the next iPhone, the next job. The pilgrimage gives you permission to switch off and put aside the countless distractions vying for your attention. It gives you the ability to breathe, to live in the simplicity and honesty of God’s creation.

It’s the beauty of Christian community, the body of believers, the building up of the kingdom on earth and the opportunity to share the joy of the gospel with friends, neighbours, fellow wanderers and total strangers.

And, above all, it’s the simple joy of being surrounded by people who live as though God is alive.

3. The ‘snapshot moments’ – these are priceless moments of honesty and beauty that serve as a kind of spiritual injection for the rest of the year.

Highlights include a small army of children proudly singing church hymns by themselves, altar servers faithfully kneeling during a two-hour liturgy, an ex-army priest walking in blistering heat in full cassock, a man carrying gold candlesticks in his backpack so ‘God would have the best’, a liturgy celebrated in a forest, the smells, the bells, the crickets, the happy, grumpy and tired faces, new loves and old loves, friendships and conversations, the blisters, and the flood of gratitude when you realise there’s hot water in the showers.

All this is not to say that the pilgrimage is perfect. Each year has its distinct challenges (although I suppose that is the point).

One year it was bushfires. Another time a house fire affected a local farmer. (The pilgrims were quick to jump into action when they were woken by smoke and flames at 4am!). Then there have been mosquito plagues, fly plagues, relentless heat and subzero temperatures that only regional Victoria during spring can provide.

But these and the other trials – blisters, sunstroke, that strap on your backpack that never seems to sit comfortably – always seem to pale at the end of the three days, and you are left with the feeling of camaraderie, grace and consolation that helps you pick up your cross and continue your daily pilgrimage.

4. It’s the chance to treat time as cyclical, not linear, as you allow yourself to return to the same point, walk the same path, and recover some of the wisdom that you forgot (once again) during the year.

I am happily counting down the days until I can pack for Christus Rex 2025.

For now, though, I will continue with the pilgrimage that is life … and, hopefully, remember the blister band-aids this time round.

Bethany Marsh is the LCANZ Communications and Engagement Officer. She attends the Latin Mass at Church of the Holy Name, Stepney, South Australia.

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LCA bishops explain ordination pathways

There is not one exclusive pathway to ordination in the LCANZ. There are in fact four pathways, which are explained in the ‘Candidacy Pathways for the Office of the Public Ministry’ document released to the church in December last year.

The four pathways are:
• General Ministry Pastor
• Specific Ministry Pastor
• Entry from outside the LCANZ (e.g. overseas or other denomination)
• Case by case.

The ordination pathway likely to be best known across the LCANZ is that for General Ministry Pastor (GMP). After serving out their first assignment after ordination, GMPs are eligible for a call from anywhere in the LCANZ. To be ordained as a GMP, candidates complete the Pastoral Studies Stream at Australian Lutheran College (ALC), which typically takes a minimum of four years.

Students can complete the entire course from anywhere, as all required classes
are livestreamed.

As the title implies, the Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program prepares candidates for service in a specific ministry, for example, in a particular congregation or parish, school or aged-care ministry, or a culturally specific ministry. Assessment of readiness for ordination is through colloquy, consisting of not fewer than three pastors appointed from case to case by the LCANZ Bishop. The timing of the colloquy is dependent on the assessment of the district bishop that the candidate is ready. Unlike GMPs, SMPs are not available for call.

Ordained pastors of other churches, including non-Lutheran churches, may be admitted to the Roll of Pastors after they successfully complete a number of steps, including a colloquy and psychological assessment.

Finally, there might be special cases that do not fall into any of the above categories. Thus, an individualised process towards ordination will be required.

A candidate approved for ordination will have their first call under assignment by the College of Bishops. The first call will be equivalent to the graduate pastor call for GMPs, that is, participation in the Graduate Pastor Program, regularisation and a first call of four years.

LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith said the documentation on candidacy had been produced ‘to help the people of the church to better understand the different pathways that have been established to provide pastors for the mission of God amongst us’.

‘Our bishops oversee the important work of determining which candidates are properly prepared to be admitted to our LCANZ Roll of Pastors, either through ordination or otherwise’, he said.

‘I thank God for the women and men who offer their gifts to publicly proclaim the gospel. They seek to serve in the mission of God so that those who dwell in darkness would be gathered into the light of God’s love for them.’

The document ‘Candidacy Pathways for the Office of the Public Ministry’ is available for download at www.lca.org.au/ministry-pathways

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Keeping busy in the Lord’s service

by Helen Brinkman

Early in the life of the Christian church, Paul sent a message to the congregation in the seaport of Corinth in southern Greece: ‘Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord’s service is ever useless.’

About 30 years ago, that same verse – 1 Corinthians 15:58 – was stuck onto the family fridge of Lyall and Lois Kupke. It was a note of encouragement from their teenage son Tim to his busy mum.

It was a thoughtful reminder during a very busy time for the family which had not long returned to live in South Australia after almost two decades in Walla Walla, in the NSW Riverina. Lois was working as a family support worker at an emergency family shelter, run by the Lutheran Church, which provided temporary accommodation for families in need. Lyall had started as the LCA’s Archivist. And their two sons were in high school at Adelaide’s Concordia College.

Lois recalls the challenges of her job, which brought her into contact with a broad spectrum of families in need. ‘It certainly opened my eyes, and I could see how many people were in need of God in their lives’, she says.

Meanwhile, Lyall had become the first full-time, first lay person and first archivally trained director of Lutheran Archives. It was a big change after 27 years of teaching, but a move close to his heart as custodian of the church’s stories.

Lyall and Lois met in 1972, as teachers at Concordia College, where Lois taught German and English, and Lyall was a history and mathematics teacher. The couple both worked on the school magazine, with Lyall doing the proofreading – a skill he continues to use to this day in a volunteer capacity as a proofreader for The Lutheran.

Two years after their marriage in 1974, Lyall and Lois moved to teach at St Paul’s College in Walla Walla, New South Wales, where they lived for 19 years and raised their two sons, John and Tim. Their time in Walla Walla was marked by a deep connection to the local church and community, and a love for the natural beauty of the area. They lived in a farmhouse on the edge of the Gum Swamp Reserve, surrounded by birdlife and an orchard with 36 fruit trees. ‘We went thinking we’d stay five or six years but stayed for 19 years’, says Lyall.

At age 49, Lyall’s lifelong passion for history led to a career change. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when you consider that he started studying genealogies at the ripe age of seven, spurred by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

‘That got me interested in the genealogy of kings and queens … so I started looking through an old family encyclopedia’, he says. ‘I was only in grade three at school and I would have been seven years old. Seven-year-olds can be very inquisitive, and I had a very good teacher who encouraged a lot of inquiry.’

Lyall dedicated 19 years as LCA Archivist before retiring in 2014, including overseeing the Archives’ major move from North Adelaide to Bowden. ‘The Archives are the memory of the church. They contain the story of God at work with his people in the church here in Australia’, Lyall says.

He still returns there twice a week as a volunteer. Lyall is also researching the history of the family’s home congregation, Zion Lutheran Church at Glynde, in suburban Adelaide, which will celebrate the centenary of its dedication in August 2025. In retirement, Lyall and Lois remain busy serving through Zion’s community-focused activities, including language groups, a creche, a music program for preschoolers and tidying the church garden.

Lois teaches one of the Saturday English classes that attract people from many different nationalities. ‘Whether they are Koreans, Sudanese, Chinese, or Iranian, a lot of people who come in don’t know much about Christianity, and we might be one link in the chain to help them come closer to God’, she says.

Lyall’s passion for history, particularly the history of the Wendish people, has also led to his involvement with the Wendish Society for more than 30 years. He is president of the society in SA which helps preserve the history and heritage of the Wendish people, who were among the early Lutheran settlers in Australia from 1848 onward.

Lyall and Lois celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in January 2024. Through the busyness of their lives, they come back to the message from one of their wedding hymns (Lutheran Hymnal 579): ‘Where’er I go, whate’er my task, the counsel of my God I ask.’

Lois reflects: ‘You don’t have to be brilliant at everything before you have a go. If you say “Lord, help me today to do what you want me to do to be of benefit to someone else”, he will give you what you need … just have a go.’

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Mission-focused pastor takes on churchwide role

Pastor Mark Schultz has accepted a call from the LCANZ to serve as the church’s Assistant to the Bishop – International Mission from next year.

Despite serving for 18 years at Sydney’s LifeWay Lutheran Church, Pastor Mark wasn’t looking for a change. He often told people ‘God would need a sledgehammer’ to move him from his role as lead pastor at the multi-ethnic, multi-site church, which includes Chinese and online worshippers and worshipping communities at Newcastle, Illawarra, Western Sydney and Cambodia.

It turns out that the churchwide international mission role was the ‘sledgehammer’ God used to disrupt and eventually dislodge Pastor Mark from his ministry at LifeWay.

Pastor Mark said he didn’t give the LCA International Mission role any real thought when expressions of interest (EOI) were called for in August this year. ‘There was more than enough change and work to do at LifeWay, and I was happy to grow here for the rest of my ministry’, Pastor Mark said. ‘It wasn’t something I was looking for. I’ve always believed that the grass is greenest where you water it, and it is really lush here!’

However, Pastor Mark said God wouldn’t let him ‘find peace or let it go’. ‘I was restless, and everyone around me, to a person, expressed that they believed God had a bigger part for me to play in the church and that I should submit an EOI’, he said.

‘During this time, I had also personalised the vision prayer that we pray as a community, “Lord, prepare my heart for what you have for me next and give me a heart of faith to go where you call me to go” and added, “and use me where you can use me best for your kingdom purposes. Amen”. The peace returned the moment I pressed send on the email with the EOI attached!’

Pastor Mark will succeed Pastor Matt Anker, who served in the role from early 2019 until July this year. LCA International Mission Program Officer Erin Kerber has been Interim Assistant to the Bishop and will continue in that role until Pastor Mark starts early next year.

Pastor Mark was ordained in 1995 and first served in Auckland, New Zealand, in a community with more than 28 different languages. He then served at St Peter’s, Loxton, in South Australia’s Riverland, and moved to St Mark’s Epping, in suburban Sydney, in November 2006. In 2014, the congregation changed its name to LifeWay and embarked on a multi-site ministry.

During his time at LifeWay, Pastor Mark has led nine mission teams to Thailand and Cambodia and has been involved in running intensives on leadership, worship and law and gospel.

These ministry experiences, along with his service on the LCANZ Council for Local Mission and as a current member of the Australian Lutheran World Service Board, have all been training grounds for this new role. ‘Looking back, it’s hard not to see how God has been shaping me for this new adventure’, Pastor Mark said.

He said he is excited about ‘reimagining what collaborative and interdependent partnerships can look like in this new era of mission and ministry’.

‘We are entering an interesting time in international mission, as Christian mission is no longer seen as emanating from the West’, he said. ‘We can gain as much from our partners as our partners can from us, and these insights will be critical on the local mission front as Australia’s cultural diversity continues to increase.’

Pastor Mark will be installed in the role on 23 February 2025 at his home congregation in Mount Barker, South Australia, but will remain based in Sydney.

 

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The path of peace – an Advent reflection

by Reid Matthias

In the Book of Mark, he is described this way: ‘And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the River Jordan. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptise you with water, but he will baptise with the Holy Spirit.”’

For some reason, my brain connects so much more with the visual of this Grizzly Adams-type mountain man wearing a tunic of camel’s hair and eating grasshoppers dipped in a bowlful of honey. Imagine one of John’s after-hours parties – all the countryside and all the people of Jerusalem are out to hang out with him, the celebrity, and he says, ‘Hey, can someone pass the crickets? I’ve got the munchies’.

But he is a celebrity, it seems. He wanders in the wilderness, preparing an opportunity for one who is greater than he is, one more powerful, one who can do much more than baptise with what little water can be found in the wilderness.

He is coming. And we believe, because they (celebrities) inhabit our minds through a screen. Celebrity is as celebrity does, as Forrest Gump should have said.

John the Baptist can’t escape the celebrity status that he has gathered, but with it comes great responsibility. And, unlike present-day stardom, he is not drawing the light to himself. There is no self-aggrandisement, no braggadocio, no false sense that he thinks to himself, ‘Maybe I should think a little closer about my own sense of power’.

He recognises that there is someone greater than he is and his job, as foretold by his own father, Zechariah, in Luke 1:76–79: ‘And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.’

What incredible poetry (this is entitled ‘Zechariah’s Song’)! He is singing about his child’s future right after he is born and with the vivid understanding that his son has a role in showing God’s mercy, whose light shines down from heaven …

And guides our feet into the path of peace.

Isn’t that what we all want this Christmas? It seems like every Christmas I profess peace with my mouth, but it is still far from my heart. I wander around in a trance-like state, thinking about ‘Christmassy’ things, and yet the gift that I truly want is one that John brings to us first and foremost.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all people.

We’re not told much about John’s early life – only what Luke recalls after Zechariah’s Song: ‘And the child grew and became strong in the Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.’

Can you imagine the frustration of both Elizabeth and Zechariah at mealtime every night?

Elizabeth: Zechy, have you seen John? He’s supposed to be washing up for supper.
Zechariah: (shaking his head) Last time I saw him, he was by himself, heading out into the hills.
Elizabeth: What does he do out there anyway?
Zechariah: Who knows? I tried to find him once, follow his tracks, but they always lead to beehives.
Elizabeth: What?
Zechariah: I have no idea. My guess is he likes honey. Good thing his metabolism is still working. Wait until
he gets our age. He’ll have to hit the YMJA (Young Men’s Judean Association) and work off some of that desert fat.
Elizabeth: Well, I suppose it’s true. He never seems to
be hungry when he gets home. I just hope he is getting enough protein.

I would have loved to have heard what Elizabeth and Zechariah would have said when he showed up with grasshopper wings stuck in his teeth!

But the Scripture says that John lived in the wilderness. He wandered and waited for something. Perhaps he really didn’t know what that would be or what that would look like. Maybe John just assumed that he was destined for nomadism and that after his parents passed on, it was only natural to think – just like the rest of the Jews living under Roman thumb – that God had forgotten them.

In St Luke’s Gospel we read: ‘During the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Luke 3:2,3).

John went from place to place and talked about that which would set the people’s feet on the path of peace: forgiveness of sins. Here is the place where, in our spiritual lives, we find crooked paths of jealousy, rough roads of hatred and soaring mountains of pride. When baptism occurs, those potholes are filled in, and sin ceases to have power over our salvation (or damnation, as it were), because the power of Christ allows us to be ‘baptised into a death like his’, which gives us life with him.

It was in this wandering that John encountered the word of God at long last. Perhaps on a quiet morning when he least expected it, and at the perfect time, God beckoned in his own way to this rugged man of the wilderness, and said, ‘Dearest John, I’ve got a plan, and I need you near the front and centre for a while’.

For this man who wandered, life would never be the same – and for one who wandered by himself, great crowds would probably have caused him great stress.

But it is in the wandering that perhaps all of us can encounter God and the call to something bigger than ourselves – to allow the light of Christ to reflect off of us to show others One who is greater than us. In this way, even in the midst of the struggle of making the path straight for God this Christmas, we might encounter the path to peace.

Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. This article was originally published as ‘Advent II – The Wandering’ on his online blog https://ireid.blogspot.com

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Because we bear your name – Bishop Paul’s letter

Rev Paul Smith
Bishop, Lutheran Church of
Australia and New Zealand

‘Joy, O joy, beyond all gladness!’ These are astounding and inspiring words from the rarely sung chorus of the Christmas hymn in our Lutheran Hymnal and Supplement (LHS) 32, written by 17th-century hymnwriter Christian Keymann.

The good news of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is deeper and lasting beyond simply happy feelings. The angel told the Bethlehem shepherds, ‘I bring you good news of great joy!’ The telling of the nativity story is great joy. God has become enfleshed and dwelt among us out of great love for all humankind.

This story began with God’s promise at the dawn of time, to send a saviour to ‘strike the head’ of the serpent. At Christmastime, we remind each other that the promise unfolds in the story of the manger and the cross. God will bring about that exchange of our sin for the righteousness of the sinless Son of God so that we would have peace with God. This is the good news of great joy!

The chorus of Keymann’s hymn continues, ‘Christ has done away with sadness. Hence, all sorrow and repining, for the sun of grace is shining’.

This does not mean Christians are free from feelings of sadness, sorrow or struggle. Rather, this ‘good news of great joy’ of the coming of Christ means that, whatever we experience or whatever comes our way, we walk as people of grace in the light of the gospel. Because of the manger and the cross, we know God is with us. Because of Christ Jesus, we know God is for us.

With this sure promise of grace over us, before us and within us, we come to God with complete confidence with all our weariness and heaviness. We join with the psalmist, praying: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.’

The hymn’s image of the ‘sun of grace shining’ draws on another biblical promise spoken by the prophet Malachi where, in chapter 4, we read of the ‘sun of righteousness’ rising ‘with healing in its wings’. This image is also sung in the well-loved carol, ‘Hark! The herald angels sing’ (LHS 33).

As people of grace, the people of our Lutheran Church have been walking as sisters and brothers in Christ in the light of the ‘sun of grace’. We have travelled through 2024, during which our General Pastors’ Conference and Convention of General Synod met, and we resolved to remove our prohibition that required the ordination of only men as pastors in our church. We also resolved to continue as one church in which both the ordination of men only and the ordination of both women and men are received as faithful understandings of the word of God.

As we work through these things together as sisters and brothers in Christ, the words of Keymann remind us of the sure promises of God in all circumstances. We are people of the gospel who are given hope in what our Lord Christ Jesus has done for us: ‘Joy, O Joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness.’

As we prepare for Christmas festivities, we know that around us are people who do not know or have forgotten the joy of salvation. As the shepherds left their flocks to ‘make known’ what had been ‘told them about the child’, may the Lord give us the opportunity to give a good account to family, friends and neighbours of the Christmas hope and joy within us.

Keymann’s hymn ends with a beautiful and hopeful prayer:

‘Jesus, guard and guide Thy members,
Fill Thy brethren with Thy grace,
Hear their prayers in every place,
Quicken now life’s faintest embers;
Grant all Christians, far and near,
Holy peace, a glad new year.

Joy, O joy, beyond all gladness!
Christ has done away with sadness.
Hence, all sorrow and repining,
For the sun of grace is shining.’

Praise the Lord!

In Christ,
Paul

 ‘Lord Jesus, we belong to you,
you live in us, we live in you;
we live and work for you –
because we bear your name’

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