Celebrating St. Francis through Learning
The feast of Saint Francis of Assisi was celebrated on October 4th. While many churches host animal blessingsSt. Francis Day is also an opportunity for study and education.
Faith in action: The People's Climate March
Dear Friends,
Will you join us to create a vibrant Anglican presence at the People’s Climate March on Saturday 28th November? Find out more...
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Want to help people understand Anglican Christianity?
Launched now at www.formedfaith.org is the new Exploring Anglican Identity material.
Archbishop Phillip is the star of five short videos, each dealing with a different aspect of Anglican identity. Each video has discussion questions aimed at provoking conversation, whether you use them at a confirmation class, a bible study/other small group or even play one a week at morning tea after church. Archbishop Phillip has summed up nuanced ideas concisely and with humour.
Read More63 of the best church websites of 2015
What does your church website say about your parish? It's an interesting exercise to approach your website as a newcomer and make a list of things you'd learn if that was your first exposure... Pro Church Tools has just released what it considers to be the best Church websites of 2015 and it's interesting to glance through. Why?
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Growing Disciples 21C
If you are interested in having a stroll through the ideas of someone who has been working in the field of faith formation for a long time, and who has significant runs on the board of encouraging people towards discipleship then the blog of UCA Education specialist Craig Mitchell is a great place to start.
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First Communion for Children with Special Needs
Sue Hinderlider is a Pastoral Associate and Christian educator at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Johnson City, TN and in this article she shares a wealth of experience in the field of ministering with young people with special needs.
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Free Sunday School material!
Lesson Plans That Work is a website that provides weekly Episcopalian Lectionary-based lesson plans which follow the Revised Common Lectionary for young children, older children, and adults.
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COMING SOON – Big BIBLE360 news
You’ve already heard about the new modules in the BIBLE360 series coming your way. That’s Introduction to the Prophets and Exploring Anglican Spiritualities, in case you missed that news. Both of those are dynamite and manage to combine learning and personal faith growth material too.
But on the way is some big news about the expanded “360” family of learning experiences for your parishes.
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Marks of Mission conference
The Common Life Missions Conference looks like it will be a good one. I've heard of a few people from our diocese (Southern Queensland) who will be heading across, including people from ABM and others.
With more than 50 workshops focusing on all aspects of the Marks and keynote speakers from New Zealand, Ireland and more it'd be hard to come away feeling like you'd had anything other than a great learning experience.
Read MoreChildren's Church - Yay or Nay?
How we construct our worship so that it enables people to interact with God and God's story is a vexed question these days. Is it better to worship with all ages together? Is it better to arrange for separate educational activities for the young which match the purpose of the sermon for adults, but in another location? Or are the arguments for such bi-locational worship more about expediency for the adults left behind?
Read MoreFormedfaith at Synod
We look forward to seeing many of you at the Ministry Education information booth during Synod this month!
Do come by and check out the resources available through St Francis Theological College and the Ministry Education Commission.
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Small group resources - Exploring Life’s Big Questions
Small group material that deals with topical common questions about faith are like reality TCV shows: there’s a lot of them out there and most of them are rubbish!
Finding material written by terrific and trusted authors that get to the heart of issues without being bogged down is much harder. So that’s why the new SPCK series Little Books of Guidance are so valuable. There are four in the series so far.
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New BIBLE360 modules on the way!
After the huge success of BIBLE360: Introduction to the Bible, work is underway on a range of modules to extend your knowledge and engagement with Scripture. First out of the gates will be BIBLE360: Introduction to...
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Making church cool?
Relevance is seen as a dirty word in some circles. But what gives life in our parishes?
Whilst I am resistant to any thinking that suggests we don't need to think about change or retuning our telling of the gospel for today's ears and eyes, I was struck by this quote from this article..
"At church, I do not want to be entertained. I do not want to be the target of anyone’s marketing. I want to be asked to participate in the life of an ancient-future community.”
Sign up for learning about ministry!
Ever wondered what drives great ideas for ministry across the ages? Knowing how Christian education works, what underpins it and how to do it better is a start! Jonathan Sargeant is coordinating Christian Education (THL366) next semester at St Francis Theological College.
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New Youth Resources @ Roscoe
During the first quarter of the year, youth work has been an area the Roscoe Library at St Francis College has purchased widely in.These titles cover a broad spectrum and include general titles on youth work as well as specifically Christian resources. More detailed information on these resources can be found here.
Read MorePilgrim Author Bishop Stephen Cottrell @ SFC
The Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford in the UK, will visit SFC during August for two very special events.
2015 Felix Arnott Memorial Lecture
Bishop Cottrell will present the 2015 Felix Arnott Memorial Lecture at SFC at 2.00pm on Tuesday, 4 August. The topic for this lecture will be:
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Faith Formation for Yrs 10-12?
Got a few young people on the edges of your parish but no resources to do things for and with them? Maybe their parents come to church but the kids are a bit on the outer? Senior Ichthus sounds just right for you. Run by our own AYCF department, Senior Ichthus will help those young people to consider their own faith and enable them to bring that wonderfully positive experience back to their parishes...
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Facebook and your church...
On-line communities come in for a bit of a beating. Are they truly communities? Can you experience true community if you are not face to face with someone else?
One thing is for sure: creating relational infrastructure for our church communities using methods that people experience in the rest of their lives is a positive thing. Or is it?
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A Place for Mission
Be it at Synod or any other gathering of Anglican Christians, you don't have to talk for too long before someone is discussing the worth of our Anglican Schools, often adding comments about the faith value of those institutions.
A wonderful sign that things are looking up for our schools is this new website, A Place for Mission.
Drawing on the experts who work in and think deeply about schools with a faith foundation, this website demonstrates that this community is engaging deeply in every aspect of what our schools do and how they can continue to be a vital part of the mission of the church.
They, along with many other promising initiatives our Schools Office is developing, show that our schools are hotbeds of new ideas and advanced thinking.
Maybe now is the time to wonder what we can learn from them?