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Change is not death

Extracts from the report of LCA Bishop John Henderson

The church

The Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) exists so that the body of Christ may be recognisable in human society. As the inward association of faith, we remain steadfastly committed to the pure teaching of the gospel and the sacraments.

The ‘big topic’

Women and the Call to the Office of the Public Ministry We have been debating this topic for at least 15 years. In 2013 the General Convention asked for further study. A ‘moratorium’ on speaking and writing on the matter was lifted, and the ‘Ordination: We’re Listening’ website set up (owl.lca.org.au), providing core materials and a place to hold a conversation. (See pages 15-19.)

Lifestyle of reconciliation

Over the last two synodical terms the LCA has been establishing a Professional Standards Unit (www.lca.org.au/professionalstandards. html), (and) a Reconciliation Ministry (www.lca.org.au/ reconciliation-ministry.html) to promote a biblical lifestyle of reconciliation. We are attempting to ensure greater transparency and procedural fairness.

Marriage

In response to the Irish referendum, I released a statement on Marriage, (affirming) the LCA’s position. If samesex marriage does become law in Australia, the rites of the LCA will not allow a pastor to conduct such a marriage. (However) it is unlikely that the government will attempt to force churches to conduct marriages. (We have) begun to assemble a group to help steer the LCA’s contribution to the social debate and to provide resources for study.

Royal Commission

A hard-working group monitors the work of the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse on your behalf and responds to requests to produce documentation. The LCA (insists) all people in the church working with children complete ChildSafe training and, as appropriate, have a police check or Working with Children check, or (in Queensland) hold a ‘blue card’. If the Commission recommends ways to improve systems and processes, the LCA will impleme

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New. Renewing.You.

by Steen Olsen

By the time Pastor Nathan and Yvette Hedt (pictured above) and their family arrived in Packenham in eastern Melbourne a year ago, there was already a small group of Christians keen to plant a vibrant, growing church on the campus of Lakeside Lutheran College. In partnership with the college and the LCA Board for Local Mission (BLMiss), the Victorian District had called Pastor Nathan to be a church planter.

Pastor Nathan writes, ‘Our new church is not about multiple programs or flashy worship services. Rather, we will be looking to build authentic community. We are doing that through implementing ‘missional communities’—local neighbourhood gatherings of Christians who meet for a meal each week, share Scripture and prayer, and intentionally engage in God’s mission to the people around them. We hope and pray that as new people come to know Jesus, these missional communities will multiply so that eventually there’s one in each of the housing estates in Pakenham.’

The interim Board for Local Mission was established by the 2103 General Synod to promote, resource and coordinate the growth of mission culture in all the diverse ministries of our church in Australia and New Zealand. In adopting the tagline, ‘new and renewing churches’, BLMiss is saying that its focus is on both new mission initiatives and revitalising existing congregations and other ministries.

NEW CHURCHES

Dean Eaton is the BLMiss church planting mentor and mission facilitator. He works with our ten sending churches preparing them to appoint and support church-planting teams, assisting with leadership formation and evangelism training. Dean has provided training in each of the six districts of our church. Some training is specific to the sending churches but the six-part evangelism training is open to all. So far, over 600 people have taken up this opportunity.

RENEWING CHURCHES

Early in 2016, BLMiss will be launching its support for the revitalising of our congregations and other communities. We are not just asking ourselves what we should believe—as important as that question is—but also how we should live. In doing so we are not seeking to identify a set of rules that must be obeyed. Rather we are asking what practices we need to embed in the fabric of our lives together, so that the things we believe may truly shape who we are.

We want to support all LCA communities in their journey toward better health. Therefore, the approaches and resources being used in our ten sending churches will now be made available to all congregations, schools and other communities in the LCA, to assist them on their journey to

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Pastoral letter on the Unity of Synod

from Pastor John Henderson LCA Bishop

Soon our church will gather in a General Convention of Synod. No matter who you are or where you worship, the decisions made at the convention will affect you.

They’ll affect all of us—and our children and our grandchildren. Even if you won’t be attending as a delegate or visitor, you have been asked to pray for the delegates, for the convention and for the church herself.

The question of Women and the Call to the Office of the Public Ministry will not be the only issue on the agenda, but it promises to be the most controversial one.

It might not be the single most important issue in the kingdom of God, but right now it offers us a practical opportunity to get to the heart of some stuff that really matters: how we hear God speaking in the Bible, who we are as Lutheran Christians and what we hold most dear. If you wonder why we are still having this conversation, it’s because, after many years of study of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and two Synod votes, the question has not been satisfactorily resolved. Nearly 50 years after the union that brought the LCA together, God continues to test our faithfulness. Are we ready to listen?

As the convention gathers in worship, hears God’s promises and celebrates the gospel, God is preparing our church for the even bigger questions to come. The world is rapidly changing. Current global events threaten to make the pace of change increase even more. Now is the time to learn once more what it is to entrust our future to God, believe in his gospel, use his good gifts wisely and well, and follow the guidance of the Spirit who motivates us.

Understandably, there are those who feel anxious about what General Synod will decide. Others just want to move on. To face the future together, we need to confess our fears, identify our hopes and accept the challenges that we are called to face. If we can handle this difficult discussion with integrity, honesty and peaceful hearts, submitting to the inspired word of God as the ‘only true source, norm and rule, and standard of all teaching and practice in the Christian Church’, we will learn some important things that will help us with the issues that lie ahead of us. With God’s help we will continue to proclaim the gospel to a world so much in need of it.

Yes, there is a risk to the church. After Convention, feelings could run high. Some people are saying that whichever way Synod votes on the ordination question, some people—or even entire congregations or groups within congregations—will leave on the grounds of conscience. However, as we work through this issue, shouldn’t we be confident of God’s blessing as we allow the love of Christ to guide our actions?

If you are anxious about all this, please don’t rush into anything that is aimed to harm others or their reputations. Let’s stay away from deeds that we might regret or that might bring the gospel of Christ into disrepute. Division is a sadness that brings no joy or satisfaction. Every other possibility must be explored first, and we must give time for that.

In these weeks leading up to Convention, I encourage you to prayerfully reflect on Paul’s encouragement to the Ephesians (4:2,3): ‘Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’

Therefore, before we do anything after this convention, as a whole church we will need to stop, reflect and breathe deeply.

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Ordination two journeys

by Tom Pietsch and John Strelan

At the recent General Pastors Conference, Pastor John Strelan and Pastor Thomas Pietsch (members of the Ordination Dialogue group) were asked to share their personal journeys on the ordination of women.

This was done to foster a context of honesty and openness for all pastors to share their own journeys with each other. John and Tom’s edited stories are printed here in the hope that a similar spirit may be fostered in the church leading up to the General Convention, and that delegates might be prepared to answer similar questions in small groups. They are published in The Lutheran to help you to reflect on your own journey.

JOHN: I first encountered a woman in the pulpit when I worshipped in a village church in Germany as a teenager. My recollection of that first experience is that she was a pretty boring preacher! But then, I was a 14-year-old boy who didn’t understand a word of German, so perhaps my judgement was a little skewed.

I was raised within a traditional family structure and my parents had fairly defined roles. Mum was a housewife who looked after the children, while Dad was the bread-winner. I don’t think I’ve been scarred by that experience. I am the son, grandson and great-grandson of Lutheran pastors, but it was only after I entered seminary training in my mid-twenties that I began to think seriously about the issue of women’s ordination. I can’t recall having any definite feelings on the topic before then, one way or the other. I guess I trusted the church would know best. That is a position I still hold.

TOM: My dad was the first person to bring up the issue of women’s ordination with me. I was 16 or 17 at the time and not particularly interested in the debate, which seemed more of my parents’ issue than mine. But I took up the position natural to me, which was to support the ordination of women. The idea that women were somehow not equal to men was, and is, abhorrent to me. It seemed to be a no-brainer.

In my last years of school and first years of university, I spent some time thinking about sex, funnily enough. There was a lot of wonder, but also a lot of confusion. I began to come to grips with how sexualised our culture has become, and how demeaning and degrading this can be. But I also began to see the joy of the Christian vision of sexuality, which shone a beautiful light into the gloominess of what was around me at university and on TV.

It was at this time that I began to grow cautious of claims that our generation had reached clarity on issues of sexuality that the previous 2000 years had been blind to. It seemed to me much more plausible that our culture’s vision on sex and gender had been distorted rather than clarified.

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The last bastion

by Sam Paior

Inclusion—it’s a basic concept. One that Jesus was mighty good at. Tax collectors, prostitutes, people who couldn’t walk, children—you name them, he loved them.

But he didn’t just love them, he also included them. They were an integral part of Jesus’ world. Of our world. When a baby is born, parents hold a level of hope and expectation for their child: child care, kindy, primary school, high school or college, university or TAFE, a job, move out, find a partner, buy a home, have a family of their own—and so it goes.

When a family finds out that their child has a disability, that trajectory looks somewhat different: special kindy, special school, special high school, a job with an Australian Disability Enterprise (formerly known as sheltered workshops), move into a group home with strangers. A partner and children? Much less likely.

How can we change that? How can we include children and adults with disability in all areas of our spiritual and educational lives?

My 15-year-old son Ben has Down syndrome. But his life has been different from many others who share the same genetic enhancement. I have always expected him to be a fully included, valued member of my family and his community—and that includes his faith community. This hasn’t always been easy. One church wouldn’t allow him in Sunday school without my supervision (without asking even the most basic questions about how he might need to be supported). One Lutheran college never returned my calls when I inquired about enrolling him, while another told me that they received no funding to support ‘children like him’.

Leaving aside their magnificent grounds (which should surely be less important than welcoming and educating all of God’s children into our faith), these places of faith continue to shun our children and adults with disability. Whether the blocks are financial or are simply barriers of ignorance and prejudice doesn’t matter: we must do better.

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Angel of hope

by Rebecka Colldunberg

I wish I didn’t have to write this story. I wish stories like this didn’t exist.

I’m not alone. In her final months of life, our story’s protagonist put her heart and soul into a cause that she hoped would one day end the need for anyone to write a story like this.

At the beginning of 2013 Julie Schrodter was in the Royal Brisbane Hospital undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Eager for any distraction she gathered a handful of pamphlets and casually meandered through them. Some she kept, most she put back. But one in particular caught her attention: Weekend to end Women’s Cancer. It detailed a weekend event where participants— both women and men—entered as teams and undertook a 60-kilometre walk together. Funds raised by the teams supported ground-breaking and critical cancer research at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

‘She asked me one little question’, Lois Kube recalls: ‘“Will you walk with me?”’

 

Despite being seriously ill, Julie couldn’t shake the idea of forming a team for the event. The moment she arrived home she picked up her phone and called her dearest friend. ‘She asked me one little question’, Lois Kube recalls: ‘“Will you walk with me?”’

Up until the moment Julie called her, Lois had no idea what the Weekend to end Women’s Cancer was, but her answer was an immediate and enthusiastic yes. ‘I just knew that if Julie thought she could do this as sick she was, then I had to join her’, she says.

From that point on, their combined passion for the weekend became infectious. ‘Things began to snowball’, Neil Kube, Lois’s husband and fellow team member, remembers. ‘As the two ladies encouraged family and friends to join them, the team grew to 28 members. Almost all of them were Lutherans, from all over Queensland.’

Julie’s husband David says she‘was proud of the support she received from her team. It gave her the strength and drive to get herself through the bad days and make the most of every opportunity. Our team was named Legs of Hope.’

Hope was not just a word for Julie; it was an ethos she lived by. ‘Hope is what Julie hung onto’, Lois says, explaining the team name. ‘Hope that the pain would go away, hope for a cure and, mostly, the hope that God already provided for her with eternal life.’ Not only did Julie’s fellow team members carry her hope in their

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A century, not out

by Linda Macqueen

In 1938, 16-year-old Melva von Bertouch was at Adelaide Railway Station, farewelling a boy she liked. Young seminarian Bill Stolz was there too—not to farewell the boy, but to talk to Melva, a friend of his sister.

‘He talked and talked and talked … so much that I never got to say goodbye to that boy I liked!’ Melva laughs. They had chatted a few times before, outside Immanuel College, where Melva was a final-year student. Not long afterwards, 23-year-old Bill, as a brand-new pastor, had to head north to his first posting—Proston, in a home mission field in Queensland.

A few months later Bill’s thoughts returned to the lovely young Melva. He plucked up the courage to write to her, asking if they could correspond ‘with the idea that they might marry’. His boldness paid off. Bill and Melva have now been married for 70 years. ‘I don’t think he ever proposed’, Melva says. ‘I agreed that I’d write to him, and that he could come down to Adelaide in three years and we’d get engaged. But I didn’t want to get married until I was at least 21. And it would have to be in September; I wanted to get married in September.’

So they wrote, every month. And while their letters contained matters of the heart, they also described the ups and downs of daily life. ‘In the letters

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Walk the talk

by Rosie Schefe

It’s a bit scary the first time. Walking in, knowing nobody and needing to explain you are a chaplain.

And then there’s the atmosphere. High walls, fences and barbed wire. Uniforms, handcuffs, keys and following directions as a guest of ‘the system’. It’s enough to make anyone nervous about visiting a person in prison.

Pastor Neil Hampel knows this experience, knows it well. He began ministry as a prison chaplain after 40 years in parish ministry, continuing as a volunteer for another eight years after his retirement in 2002. He estimates that from 1998 to 2010 he spent ten years as a voluntary prison chaplain, taking time out occasionally to serve parishes in a locum capacity.

As a chaplain I was able to be a servant of Christ and to minister in his name. I believe; so I live and preach.’

He’d had some chaplaincy experience previously, working with small industries or government bodies, but his prisonvisiting experience was limited. He was ministering in Port Augusta, South Australia, when the call went out for people to serve as chaplains in the prison.

‘The coordinating chaplain, a kindred spirit from the Uniting Church, gave me some basic information and told me that my role was to get to know the prisoners and to share the gospel’, Neil says. And that is what he did, once every week for the next four years.

Neil’s first visit took him straight to the prison’s secure unit (Port Augusta houses high-, medium- and low-security prisoners). Effectively, his job was to cold-call, to identify himself as a member of the chaplaincy team and to build a relationship—through the trapdoor in the cell door.

Neil says, ‘It didn’t matter to me why they were there. Each one is a son of Adam. All I could do was to befriend them in the name of Jesus.

‘Some were willing to talk, some weren’t. Prisoners soon assess whether you are genuine or not. You have to be consistent, be reliable and dependable. You have to walk the talk and talk the walk’, he says.

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Statement on Marriage

Pastor John Henderson, LCA Bishop

On 22 May 2015 voters in the Republic of Ireland were asked to determine whether ‘marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex’. Of nearly 2 million votes cast, 62% voted ‘yes’.

The success of this referendum, supported by the Irish government, has sparked a worldwide response. It is seen as the first popular vote to enact same-sex marriage, rather than a vote by elected representatives, as has already happened in New Zealand (2013), many European countries, and parts of the USA. Does this signify a turning of the popular tide in relation to the issue, and how should we respond?

A senior Vatican diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has said, ‘The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelisation. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity’.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his deputy Tanya Plibersek were among the first Australian politicians to respond to the Irish referendum by introducing a private members bill to Parliament. Well-known voices such as 2GB’s Alan Jones have come out in support of same-sex marriage. Now Prime Minister Tony Abbot seems to be preparing for a free vote in the Parliament, without the usual ‘party line’ restrictions. It could take place as early as August. All this seems to mean that the odds of a change in Australian marriage law have increased significantly.

In Australia, marriage is regulated by a Federal Act (1961), which defines marriage as ‘the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life’. While in full agreement with this definition, the Lutheran Church of Australia recognises that governments have the duty and responsibility under God to make and enforce laws for the ordering of society. For Lutherans, marriage is not a sacrament belonging to our salvation, but an order for the welfare of human society. If the rules of society stand in clear contradiction of the Word of God, the church is not bound by them.

An example of this freedom occurred when the LCA discussed conscientious objection to conscripted military service during the Vietnam War. It argued:

When governments wantonly subvert their God-ordained functions and act in contempt and violation of God’s law, the individual Christian is bound to examine his position as a citizen and to let his conscience, bound by the Word of God, determine at what point and in which matters he must refuse obedience rather than to permit men to involve him in sin. Acts 5:29; Augsburg Confession XVI, 2.3.7. (Conscientious Objection to Service in War, CTICR, adopted by General Convention 1970)

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Present and distinct

By Nevin Nitschke and Rosie Schefe

What is a lay worker? What do they do and where do they work?

If you had been present at the Nunyara Conference Centre in Belair (Adelaide Hills) in May, you might have found this question easy to answer. About 70 lay workers, from almost every Australian state, gathered for the 2015 LCA National Lay Workers Conference. But an easy answer might still not have been forthcoming.

There were paid lay workers, and volunteers. The youngest was 17 and the oldest has seen a few more than 80 birthdays. They held various job titles: chaplain, pastoral carer, ministry support worker, child and youth worker, young adult ministry worker, camp manager, camp staff, mission and outreach worker, culture-specific worker, worship and music coordinator, musician … the list goes on.

These are the mission and ministry encouragers of the Lutheran Church of Australia. Their calling is to serve God and to be witnesses for Jesus in their communities. So they gathered together to explore what it means to be ‘knowing, hearing and following God in real life and ministry’.

Lay work, whether paid or voluntary, can be a lonely vocation. Sometimes lay worker roles are hard to define, or not well thought out before they are filled. Sometimes the lay workers get the jobs that nobody else in the church is keen to do. It can be easy to think that their work is not valuable or producing measurable results. Sometimes knowing, hearing and following God is the hardest road.

‘knowing, hearing and following God in real life and ministry’

That is why the Board for Lay Ministry runs the national conference every two years: it gives paid and voluntary lay workers an opportunity to gather together to learn, to network, to grow in their love for Jesus, to support each other and to be supported and encouraged in the ministry positions into which God has called them.

Core to the aims of the conference is learning. This time, pastors Peter Steicke and Michael Dutschke set the tone of the conference with their presentations on knowing and hearing God. LCA church planting coordinator Dean Eaton then led participants into study of 1 Peter. Tim Hein invited the lay workers to consider what it means to follow Jesus. He reminded them that to be holy means to be present and distinct, not distant or undetectable. What a great guiding principle for lay workers in their roles!

But it wasn’t all sitting and listening. On Thursday afternoon everyone was loaded onto a bus for a brief tour through Adelaide’s CBD and dropped off in Port Adelaide for a dolphin cruise on the Port River. Brandon Chaplin was the guest speaker for that evening’s cruise dinner. He shared from his heart

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