“Eternal life to a suburb that needs it”

Judy Adamson

There was cake, kids and crowds at Kingswood Anglican’s 125 th anniversary, which was celebrated with joy and thankfulness for how God has used his people since the church opened in 1898.

New rector the Rev Simon Twist explained that he was keen to present the Kingswood of 2023 rather than focus too much on the church as it was.

“On the day, we presented what Kingswood does every week,” he says.

“Sure, we had a ‘flashback’ video about our history, we had cake in the service, we had lunch together afterwards –and it was all great. But we had a kids’ program running, there was a kids’ spot in the service and, although the Archbishop was invited to speak, we asked him to continue with our series on Mark.

“The idea was not just to do an archaeological dig of what Kingswood looked like in the past but what it looks like the story of the paralysed man, he noted that the paralysed man had “excellent friends” because they brought him to Jesus; that the man’s greatest need – and ours – is not healing but forgiveness; and that Jesus had, and has, the authority to forgive sins.

Archbishop Raffel then noted that, throughout its history, the members at Kingswood had “sought to be excellent friends in this community, seeking in every way they could to being their friends to Jesus”.

Those proclaiming and living out the message of hope in Christ since 1898 were “not perfect people, not holier-thanthou people, [but] people who know the forgiveness and love of Christ and want to make his love known to others in every possible way – seeking to proclaim the message of freedom and forgiveness in Jesus and to bring help and hope in Jesus’ name to anyone and everyone in this district”.