Climate Change Justice

It was wonderful to have a packed house in Old Bishopsbourne for Friday evening’s conversation with Dr Mick Pope, climate scientist and eco-theologian - in collaboration with others. This is part of our diocese’s continued efforts to help address climate change.

Did you miss listening to Dr Mick Pope speaking about Climate Justice. You can catch up on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TkBFqHRcDA&feature=youtu.be

Praying for a Change

Our Formation students gathered for their intensive this past weekend, on a theme of Praying for a Change. Each intensive focusses on one of the key learning areas, personal growth, spirituality, ecclesial understanding, pastoral care or entrepreneurial leadership. This weekend was about spirituality, and we were privileged to have two keynote sessions from Fr. Nicholas Whearat introducing us to Franciscan spirituality from his perspective as a tertiary. We were invited to engage with this ‘reluctant saint’ and recognise how much of his message is important for the church today. This was particularly apt as we celebrate this year the 800th anniversary of the meeting of St. Francis and the Muslim sultan that underpins much interfaith dialogue today. In the wake of the Christchurch shootings, focus on St Francis’ call to peacemaking has never seemed more urgent. Nicholas also drew our attention to St Francis’ care for creation and again, with the recent school strike for climate change, his words had particular relevance.

There were many other sessions, with first year students particularly appreciating input around spiritual direction from Dale Keenan, who directs the spiritual direction formation programme, and later years learning something of how to deepen the spirituality of others in small groups and creative expressions of worship. Underpinning it all were acts of worship, opportunities for fellowship around meals and meaningful conversations. As in any diverse community we do not always see things alike, but as Canon Gary Harch our preacher and speaker on Friday evening pointed out, this is the very essence of Anglicanism, such that when we come together to ‘pray for a change’ there is great beauty in our diversity.

"So What Does Anglican Mean?"

You’re at a barbeque and conversation with some new friends takes an interesting turn. You mention you went to church that morning, an Anglican one in fact. The next question? “So what’s Anglican mean?”

And you’d say…?

The new St Francis College Short Course: Being Anglican is designed to enable you to answer that question. Five episodes (mostly under 10 minutes each except for the big finish!) come with discussion questions, transcripts so you can ponder more deeply and extra reading in case you want to ponder even more deeply still.

The content for the short course comes from a session Archbishop Phillip led in which he explored the word ‘Anglican’ in an interesting and unique way. You’ll have to watch to find out what that means!

Jonathan and Fiona love making these short courses for St Francis College and the next one is in planning at the moment.

Anyway the promo for Being Anglican is above to give you a taste, but the full course, free of charge is here… Enjoy!!

Grad Cert in Professional Supervision

GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN PROFESSIONAL SUPERVISION (PASTORAL/CLINICAL)

In response to the recommendations of the recent Royal Commission, St Francis College is offering for the first time, the Graduate Certificate in Professional Supervision (Pastoral/Clinical) The course is being delivered face to face on the Milton Campus of St Francis College, and being offered in partnership with St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra, who has been offering this course in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Western Australia for several years. The course has National Vocational accreditation, is part time, conducted over one year, and delivered in a series of 2,4,2 day Intensives. Fourteen participants enrolled for the course in 2019, commencing their studies in March. Enrolments were heavily weighted towards the Pastoral stream, but one person is enrolled for the Clinical stream. Course facilitators are Nicky Lock from St Marks – a supervisor and Clinical expert, and Dale Keenan from St Francis, a supervisor and Director of the Spiritual Direction program at St Francis. Dale skills will complement the expertise of Nicky to assist in the delivery of the course.

200 attend Elevation Training Day!

The annual Elevation Training Day for Youth, Children's and Families ministry brought together nearly 200 clergy and laypeople from near and far, across multiple denominations. AYCF has been a partner in leading Elevation for several years now, and it was great to see Anglicans present on the day from Sherwood, Kawana, St Barts Toowoomba, and North Pine among others. The keynote address from Scripture Union's Terry Williams offered five ways to 'walk with young people': express care, challenge for growth, provide support, share power and expand their awareness of possibilities. It will be great to hear how Anglican parishes have brought those five ways, and the learnings from all the day's elective sessions, to life in their local contexts.

'Being Community' Series

During Lent a number of parishes in the Diocese, including Community of The Way, are focussing on the Beatitudes using Dave Andrew’s book “Plan Be”.

Early in March, a group of 18 people gathered at St Francis College for the first workshop in the Being Community series. The workshop was led by Dave Andrews, Community Builder and writer, and explored the radical implications of a community shaped by Jesus’ beatitudes.

We spent time reflecting on what constitutes a healthy community and then looked at the framework the Beatitudes provide us for building and sustaining flourishing communities where all people are welcomed and celebrated. Dave has reflected extensively on the beatitudes and has identified 8 virtues that are blessed in the beatitudes and that healthy Community's live by: Humility; Empathy; Self-restraint; Righteousness; Mercy; Integrity; Non-Violence; Perseverance.

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St Francis goes to Hong Kong

Jonathan Sargeant with Senior Lecturer Matthew Jones and the class

Jonathan Sargeant with Senior Lecturer Matthew Jones and the class

Jonathan Sargeant recently traveled to Ming Hua University in Hong Kong to lecture with students there, a first for the Anglican Theological College.

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Working with an attentive group of postulants, school teachers and other theological students, Jonathan facilitated activities, lectures, group assignments and theological reflection to lead the group through 12 weeks of lectures in five action-packed days.

“This was a first for Ming Hua”, Jonathan said. “This was the first time an intensive subject has been delivered. It was a first for me too, lecturing overseas! But the students were great, with incisive questions, always eager to know more.”

“THL366 Christian Education is a subject that is very suited to mixtures of lectures, group work, discussion, and featured a unique version of online integration, too. We used devices continually to share information, thinking and research. Ultimately it was a great experience and I’d look forward to doing it again!”

Primary Ichthus Jan 2019 Wrap-Up

Gosh Primary Ichthus was such a blast everyone - we had the BEST time. Check out some snapshots and read all about it on our new blog post right here https://bit.ly/2HEJi8k.

We had 47 campers join us this year for our theme of 'The Quest'. So what did we get up to you wonder? So much and all of it fun. We kicked off our first night of camp with our top secret mission to recover our missing agent - code name: Bishop. They had some help along the way from a range of interesting characters including a princess, an old man, a zombie, a storm trooper, an adventurer, and a tree - who often left groups wandering around the campsite wondering where on earth she was hiding.

We also visited the Aqua park next door once again and it never gets old, there is nothing quite like running around a giant inflatable water park, eating sausages for lunch and doing it all over again to make a large group of kids really exhausted - not that that stopped the dance party/sing-a-long that occurred the way home. So what do you do with a bunch of very tired campers and leaders after such a great day? A movie night with LOTS of popcorn. Our final night of camp was a big puzzle night full of fun 'puzzle' rooms which complemented the final day really well alongside the always great and very gross messy games. While the games and activities are such a great part of camp, we also had the opportunity to really explore our theme in a different way and exploring what it means to run the race of faith in the light of Paul's letter to Timothy. Michael and Sharon did some amazing work by exploring this idea through a very fun video about the 8 stages of a marathon race. Over the course of camp we unpacked these different stages and explored what they could look like in our lives and learned about what other people have experience in their journey of faith within the bible.

Overall camp was an absolute blast and there are some great memories there, so a quick final BIG BIG Thank you to everyone who made camp possible - the leaders, the campers, the parents, and everyone who has prayed for and supported Primary Ichthus 2019 in both the small and big ways.

Who really created Anglicanism?

Here is a link to the latest contribution by one of our lecturers to Anglican FOCUS. https://anglicanfocus.org.au/2019/01/21/the-origins-of-anglicanism-what-difference-did-henry-viii-actually-make/. If you found this study interesting and would like to explore Church History more deeply, St Francis College, Milton is offering the subject Early Church History in the first semester of 2019 and two subjects, European Reformations and Anglican Foundations in the second semester of 2019. For more information, please contact SFC on 3514 7403 or email enquiries@ministryeducation.org.au.

2019 Subjects Now Available!

ENROL NOW!

Choose from:

  • Biblical Hebrew 1

  • Liturgical Theology

  • Early Church History

  • Intro to Old Testament

  • Intro to Christian Theology

  • Synoptic Gospels

  • Paul and his Letters

  • Triune God

  • Prophetic Literature

  • Youth, Culture and Mission

  • Biblical and Theological Interpretation

To enrol, or for more information, please contact Suzie on (07) 3514 7403 or registrar@ministryeducation.org.au

LAST DATE FOR APPLICATIONS 21 JANUARY 2019

Exciting New Course available at SFC in 2019

The Graduate Certificate in Professional Supervision (Pastoral/Clinical) is a Nationally Registered Training Course which will be offered in Brisbane for the first time at SFC in 2019.

The course gives clergy and/or therapists the opportunity to study the theory and practice of professional supervision.

Delivered part time over one year, this course will be held at St Francis College Milton, and is made up of 8 days of intensive classroom training, online and work based practice and input.

To register, please complete the application form online at https://stmarks.edu.au. A comprehensive brochure can also be downloaded from this site. For more information Contact Dale Keenan on 3514 7429 or dkeenan@ministryeducation.org.au. Applications close: 15 February 2019.

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