The architect, the activist and the academic - City Lab Melbourne

Have you heard the one about the architect, the activist and the academic?

At our last City Lab workshop in Melbourne, we had presentations from all three — in a library in Carlton.

Sydney Architect Melonie Bayl-Smith (Founding Director of Bijl Architecture and Adjunct Professor at UTS) shared about the challenges and opportunities of integrating her trust in Jesus with her professional practice.

Melbourne-based activist Andrew Naylor (Australians Together) spoke about our need to be interrupted and listen to the voices of indigenous Australians.

And Melbourne University academic Catherine de Fontenay (Associate Professor of Economics at Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne) gave her expert perspective on injustice in Australia today, and gave us a glimpse of her personal response in choosing to be part of a church that pushes her out of her socio-economic comfort zone.

One of the decisive convictions of City to City Australia is that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is both creator and saviour — and that those two things are deeply connected. We’re convinced that this makes all the difference for our Christian lives and leadership.

So it was a privilege to hear from three such articulate and personally engaged Christians about life in the trenches of integrating faith, work, justice and mission.

The whole event was framed by a presentation from Andrew Laird (City Bible Forum and Dean of the Marketplace Institute at Ridley College). Andrew took us on a whirlwind tour of the Bible’s teaching about the role integrated Christian lives play in God’s mission in the world.

All told, the City Lab was a rich and stimulating opportunity to reflect on the challenge and necessity of integration. My prayer is that it helped Christian leaders develop a theological vision for this urgent task — informed not only by the biblical pattern but also by the on-the-ground realities of work and the world.

Chris Swann
Director of Training

How many characters are there in your gospel? (Part 1)

One of the most interesting, important and distinctive features of Christianity is that it is what scholars call ‘an historical religion’. That means that it is about events that have actually happened, facts of history that can be investigated and understood, and which are to be acknowledged even if their significance is disputed - like crucifixion and resurrection. This is in contrast to a religion which is more like a philosophy, timeless ideas that don’t have any particular connection to actual events, but are designed to inspire people to behave differently.

One thing that follows from being historical is that Christianity can be framed as a narrative - a narrative not about what we do for God, but rather what God in his grace is doing. 

And if it’s a narrative, then there will be characters. And hence the title of this blog - how many characters are there in your gospel?

At first glance, it would seem obvious! But actually, it’s not quite as obvious as you might think, and it makes a huge difference to how you answer the question.

Most gospels I hear have three characters - God, humanity and Jesus. God is the creator, humanity rebels against that good and wise creator in a variety of ways, and Jesus is the Saviour who rescues us from our plight. Of course, it’s often much more sophisticated than that, but that doesn’t effect the basic structure.

Notice a couple of things about a story like that.

First, only having those three characters in the story directly effects the possibilities for expressing the purpose of humanity. All that humanity can do is be in a relationship with God. Now, don’t get me wrong, being in a relationship with God is wonderful! But the question is, is that the totality of what human beings were created to do? What’s more, because the ‘final state’ of a story is always a resolved or completed version of the initial state of the story, that will consequently determine what the purpose of salvation is in glory - ‘to be in a right relationship with God’. Again, that’s true and wonderful, but is it all?

Only having those three characters also carries a second consequence. Namely, that whatever is wrong or broken or evil, has to be located in one or more of those three characters. Obviously, it’s not going to be God or Jesus, which means that it must be humanity. And what that leads to is a very particular view of humanity after the fall, as totally responsible for all evil.

The question is, does the Bible support either of those conclusions? And if not, what other characters might the Biblical gospel have which would change the structural possibilities?

We’ll look at that in the next post.

Andrew Katay

Bondi Beach Anglican launches!

On Sunday 22 October, Bondi Beach Anglican Church officially launched in this iconic suburb of Sydney! Blake Hatton, Church Planter and Pastor, shared with us about how it all started and how the launch day went...

Because Jesus is good news for Bondi Beach, we've opened up a new church. We'd been gathering a team, thinking and working hard on contextualisation, refurbishing, painting, putting in new lights, advertising and praying for many months, and then on Sunday the 22nd of October the doors were opened and the new church started. 81 people came in, including a large proportion of locals checking it out for the first time.

We listened to Colossians 2 and John 3 hearing that as a person engages with the Lord Jesus, he gives them a new spiritual start and growth into someone who is spiritually "rooted, built up, established and overflowing". We sang to him, we prayed to him and heard about the growth he's worked in one of our team. It was a great time together and we're off with some good momentum now. We're very thankful to God and excited about this first season in our new church.

For those interested in becoming a part of the church, this Saturday November 11 they'll be holding a Welcome Brunch to hear about life at Bondi Beach Anglican Church.

Please join us in prayer for Blake and the team at Bondi Beach Anglican. Give thanks for the launch and for all those who came, including those from the local community visiting for the first time, and that many people in the area would come to know that God is good and has made himself known and available to us in the Lord Jesus.

Bondi Beach Anglican Church meets every Sunday at 60 Wairoa Avenue, Bondi Beach NSW. Find out more here.

Gospel-Centered Coaching

Planting a church or leading a church is a challenging task. City to City Australia is committed to supporting people in their journey as a leader and in this task. To do this we provide coaches. Coaches are trained in gospel-centered coaching based on the insights from the Gospel Coach.

This is what one of our trained coaches had to say about the coach training:

"I found the City to City coach training a delightful mix of applied gospel theology, pastoral skills, memorable coaching 'handles' and practical real life training with feedback. For the last two years I have been enriched in my own ministry by monthly coaching of a church planter. I look forward to these regular coaching moments as spiritually invigorating yet stretching collaboration in fresh church planting activity on the ground. I am invariably refreshed for my own ministry through this close partnership with a much younger gospel comrade in another city."
– Paul Winch, AFES Campus Director, UTS Credo, Sydney

Find out more on the Coaching page of our website.

If you are interested in having a gospel-centered coach or in learning how to coach, contact us at coaching@citytocityaustralia.org.au