M A G A Z I N E O F T H E LUT H E R A N C H URC H O F A US T R A LI A & N E W Z E A L AN D
N OVEM BER 2021
‘I always pray with joy becau se of your partn ership in the go spel’
VOL 55 N10
Print Post Approved PP100003514
P H IL IP P
IA N S 1 :4 ,5
a CENTURY of CAN DOs DOs New bishop for LCANZ – see inside
LUTHERAN
CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA
EDITORIAL
Editor Lisa McIntosh p 08 8267 7300 m 0409 281 703 e lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au Executive Editor Linda Macqueen p 08 8267 7300 e linda.macqueen@lca.org.au
CONNECT WITH US We Love The Lutheran! lutheranaunz lutheranchurchaus
SUBSCRIBE www.thelutheran.com.au
Playing a key role in our ministry With part of her role as LLL Operations Officer being to look after LCA Subscriptions, Gaynor Gower has spoken to, emailed or written to many of our subscribers over her 14 years in the role. With a friendly voice over the phone and a smiling face at the counter, Gaynor, a member at Para Vista Lutheran Church SA and with 19 years’ service at LLL, helps many people with queries about their print subscriptions to The Lutheran, Lutheran, Lutheran Women and Lutheran Theological Journal. Journal. One of the perks of the job is to see The Lutheran hot off the press each month and knowing what’s on and inside the cover before many of our other most loyal subscribers and supporters. Thanks for all you do for The Lutheran and LLL, Gaynor!
08 8360 7270 lutheran.subs@lca.org.au LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731 North Adelaide SA 5006 11 issues per year (Feb–Dec) Print or print & digital Australia $45 | New Zealand $47 Asia/Pacific $56 | Rest of the world $65 Digital only $30
Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and it may appear on page 2 of a future issue and on our website at www.thelutheran.com.au
People like YOU bring love to life Graeme Tscharke Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Para Vista SA
DESIGN & PRINT
LCA Insurance Manager. Years at LLL: 40 in August 2021
Design & Layout Elysia McEwen Printer Openbook Howden The Lutheran is produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Dharug peoples.
‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God … ’
ADVERTISING/MANUSCRIPTS Should be directed to the editor. Manuscripts are published at the discretion of the editor. Those that are published may be edited. Copy deadline: 1st of preceding month Rates: general notices and small advertisements, $20.00 per cm; for display, contract and inserted advertisements, contact the editor.
Terri Traeger St Peters Lutheran congregation Fullarton SA LLL Operations Officer. Years at LLL: 38 and counting Most treasured Bible text: Romans 14:8 ‘For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.’
Heidi Schalk
LUTHERAN
Pilgrim Lutheran Church Magill SA
OF AUSTRALIA
Lutheran Tract Mission Officer. Years at LLL: 40 in March 2021
CHURCH The Lutheran informs the members of the LCANZ about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand.
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Most treasured Bible text: Philippians 4:6–8
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Most treasured Bible text: Lamentations 3:22–23 NRSV ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning ... ’ Let the light of someone you know shine through their photo being featured in The Lutheran and LCA Facebook. With their permission, send us a good quality photo, their name and details (congregation, occupation, what they enjoy doing, most treasured text in these difficult times) and your contact details.
November Special features EDITOR'S
let ter
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Even though I almost studied accountancy and economics after high school, money management, budgets and finance are not my passion nor my strongest suit (just ask my husband Nigel, or The Lutheran’s Lutheran’s Executive Editor, Linda Macqueen). However, I get excited when I see the good that churches, care and service organisations, charities and schools can do with joyfully given donations or wisely invested or spent funds. What is compelling is the change that can take place in people’s lives as they are given opportunities, hope and self-worth through this investment in them – when teamed with the time and presence of others. That’s why we, as members of the LCANZ, may give a portion of hard-earned or saved money to New and Renewing Churches, LCA International Mission, Lutheran Media, or ALWS, for example. We want more and more people in our communities, broader societies of Australia and New Zealand and beyond, to come to know Jesus and to know his love for them through practical support.
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Today, the LLL has 18,000 depositors, 120 separate borrowing clients and manages 48,000 active client relationships. It has had to adapt to a changing regulatory environment, especially in more recent years, but one thing has never changed – its reason for being. As LLL Board Chair Graeme Huf says, the LLL ‘operates independently of the LCANZ but with the clear purpose of benefitting the church by providing loans for church projects and supporting the LCANZ’s wider ministry and mission through gifts, donations and allocations’. In the pages to follow, we celebrate and thank God for 100 years of the LLL, reflecting on the broad-ranging impact it has had on the lives of so many people. I pray that you’ll find joy and inspiration in the stories and snippets about this most remarkable ‘member’ of our church family.
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What LLL means to me and the church
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Leadership still about relationships – and mission
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From small beginnings, big things have grown
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‘I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds it’
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Regulars Heartland
In any case, we know it’s not ‘our’ money – it’s God’s. But we have the opportunity to ‘pay forward’ his incredible generosity to us. And this is the ethos that has underpinned 100 years of support by Lutherans in Australia for the LLL. As our church members have backed the Lutheran Laypeople’s League since its inception in 1921, so this rock-solid, reliable organisation has backed us – our congregations, schools, church plants, care communities, camps, publications, projects, resources, refurbishments and local and overseas outreach efforts. The LLL’s current tagline says it all – Finance with a mission. mission.
LLL 100 years on – changing times, same purpose
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Dwelling in God’s word
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The inside story
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Go and Grow
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Church@Home
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Directory
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Sudoku
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Your voice
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Going GREYT!
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Prayer calendar
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You’ll also meet our new LCANZ bishop-elect and read other news from the first-ever online sessions of General Synod. As usual, too, we’re pleased to share devotional materials and information about resources available to support our church family. God bless your reading,
Lisa
Our cover: iStock.com The Lutheran N OV E M B E R 2 0 21
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JES U S I S G OD'S LOVE. HE G IVES U S NE W HE ARTS TO L AY AS IDE O UR OL D WAYS, TO B EL IE VE AND FOL LOW HIM, TO L IVE WI T H HIM E VERY DAY.
heartland
RE V JOHN HENDERSON
Bishop Lutheran Church of Australia
C O M M U NI O N J O IN S U S W I T H C H R I ST A ND A L L B E L IE V E R S From 2002 to 2009 I worked as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia. It was a remarkable role. I served 23 member churches and connected with their global counterparts, attending gatherings as far afield as the Middle East, Europe, Africa, North and South America and China, and closer to home in PNG, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and elsewhere. During those years I noticed something about global Christianity which I still notice as LCANZ Bishop: despite being entrenched behind denominational, cultural and theological lines (usually in that order!), Christians almost universally value the practice of holy communion. I have found this to be so even among determinedly ‘non-sacramental’ groups like the Salvation Army. As a Christian temperance movement, it abandoned the sacraments to avoid controversy. But, a hundred years on, some officers I knew still attended communion in
I N CO M M U N ION WE ARE MADE ON E WITH CH RIST AN D, TH ROUG H CH RIST, WITH EACH OTH ER. 4
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other churches. One or two had even arranged their own baptisms. I don’t think they confessed this to their superiors, but they quietly admitted it to me. Why is the practice of holy communion so pervasive even where there is no emphatic theology, such as Lutherans have, to support it? During important early debates on the topic, Lutherans learned to use certain words to describe what communion is and is not – terms such as ‘means of grace’, real presence’ of Christ, ‘true body, true blood’ and ‘in, with and under bread and wine’. We also learned to take communion seriously and how to prepare and receive it worthily by faith in the words of Christ. Listening closely to other Christians, however, we find that they also describe a sacred act of God’s presence which humans cannot fully understand. Despite our partial, incomplete knowledge, we are all in awe of God’s saving work through such apparently simple means. I highly value and passionately believe in the Lutheran understanding of the sacraments – see Luther’s Small Catechism for the simplest explanation. Luther wrote, ‘The words “given for you” and “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins”, show us that forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation are given to us in the sacrament through these words.’ This is central. The Son of
God gave his life for us. In communion we are made one with Christ and, through Christ, with each other. That’s not just the people in the same room or our denominational group. It means all believers in time and eternity. All your brothers and sisters are there at the altar with you, being served and saved by Christ! So simple and yet profound. Some bread, some wine, and the word bringing together all of God’s people. Now, if we wanted to start a global faith to save the world, how would we go about it? We would want people to know the truth, understand it and obey. We would probably opt for a set of commitments, accompanied by appropriate rules and regulations. But what did God do? What we call the New Testament today tells the story of Jesus’ life and teaching, written from various perspectives, and some important early Christian letters. Among many important truths, it reveals these simple acts – water and the word, bread and wine with the word. They are saving acts. Through them we become members of God’s family and receive eternal life. Whatever our spiritual or theological bent, whatever church community we come from, communion tells the truth about who we Christians are. God gathers us as one body in him, a mystery beyond our understanding and a powerful, continuing, saving grace for all who believe.
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