The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele

In New South Wales, Australia churches are permitted to gather for meetings of 50 from Monday, but are not permitted to have communal singing. Rob Smith, Curtis Smith & Dr Charlotte Hespe discuss.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant says, "Communal singing and chanting should not occur because of the high risk of transmission of the virus. Instead, measures such as one singer standing at least three metres away from others would be safer.”

In a special edition of The Pastor’s Heart we talk about the future of singing in church with Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Council Member, and Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Doctor Charlotte Hespe, Songwriter and author of ‘Come, Let us Sing’ Rob Smith and Music Director of Church by the Bridge and St. Augustine's Anglican Church, Neutral Bay, Curtis Smith.

Some of our questions we consider are:

• Why singing matters for personal health / why singing together matters for church health.
• What does the science say about singing and the risks of droplet spread?
• What if it’s not safe to sing together? – greater good ethical dilemmas
• What if we’re prohibited from singing together? – thinking through our response
• Is singing with masks on an option?
• Reconceiving church in the short to medium term
• Singing privately / singing in families
• How do we navigate a way forward as churches?

NSW Government health department checklist:
https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/industry-guidelines/places-of-worship
Neil Foster’s helpful blogpost.https://lawandreligionaustralia.blog/2020/05/30/worship-in-coronavirus-time-the-latest-nsw-rules/

Here's the NSW government's official media release:
https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/changes-for-worship-weddings-and-funerals

Here are the NSW health department rules.
https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/_emergency/Public%20Health%20(COVID-19%20Restrictions%20on%20Gathering%20and%20Movement)%20Order%20(No%203)%202020.pdf

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How to pastorally approach the death of a little child.

We are having this conversation with three pastors who have had children die, because around the Christian world and in the secular press there has been discussion about the death just over a week ago of two year old Olive Aylne, the daughter of Andrew and Kalley Heiligenthal, who are key figures at the Bethel Church in Reading California.

Immediately after Olive’s death her parents called for people to pray for her to be resurrected. The call has sparked a social media movement #wakeupolive, which has been endorsed by many Pentecostal leaders.

We attempt to serve those who might be grappling with the death of a loved one or just may be thinking #wakeupolive doesn't seem to be right way of handling a little girl’s death, but aren’t able to properly articulate why.’

Teresa and Dan Lee are on staff at MBM Rooty Hill and Andrew Barry is from Janalli Anglican Church.

Kalley Heiligenthal’s original instagram post said, “Her time here is not done, and it is our time to believe boldly, and with confidence wield what King Jesus paid for. "It’s time for her to come to life."

Kalley later posted, “Day three is a really good day for resurrection.”

On Day seven, Bethel released a statement acknowledging that, ‘we haven’t seen the miracle of Olive being raised,’ and that 'we are moving towards a memorial service and celebration of her life.’

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Seven million Australian Non Christians Would Accept an Invite to Good Friday

Easter is a key time in the calendar year where Churches see non-believers visiting. How does Easter fit into your evangelistic pathway? How can you get Easter guests back? How do you create an atmosphere which helps believers celebrate the truth of the resurrection and equally, helps newcomers consider the resurrection for the first time.

This week we will speak with Luther Symons lead pastor of Hope Anglican Church and Matt Varcoe Maturity and Mission Director at Grace City Church about how they approach Easter. They’ll be sharing their approach to Easter including:

They’ll answer questions like: How does Easter fit into your evangelistic pathway? How can you see Easter guests return? How do you create an atmosphere which helps believers celebrate the truth of the resurrection and equally, helps newcomers consider the resurrection for the first time.

Matt and Luther share their approach to Easter including:

• Specific issues Churches face, and how to address them
• What not to do
• Meeting (and breaking!) expectations
• How to address different demographics
• Who is likely to be in the room
• Which services to emphasise
• Follow up opportunities and pitfalls
• How Easter needs to fit in with a wider, year long evangelistic strategy

However, this conversation is not at all limited to Easter.

Instead, Matt and Luther share how to create “credible, trusted, mission events” that our congregations will feel confident to invite people to, the problem with having one-off evangelistic events and how to create clear and specific next steps which your Church is working together to achieve. They discuss specific strategies like movie nights, carols in the park, “open house” Sundays and using baptisms or videos during the event.

While it is not too late for this to impact how you address Easter, it will also impact your year-wide evangelistic strategy.

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There are women in all our lives and churches who have had an abortion. Men, women and children who have been touched by abortion - in our workplaces, churches and families.

Senior pastors need to stop turning a blind eye to this subject and talk much much more about abortion in church.

New Testament scholar and former nurse Dr Claire Smith says we are currently not meeting this pastoral and evangelistic need.

Dr Smith has many suggestions on how to regularly teach pastorally and faithfully on abortion, potentially save many lives in your church.

Plus we talk mistakes made in counselling on abortion at seventeen and eighteen weeks and the fallout and pastoral response needed in a post abortion situation.

Watch online or subscribe to The Pastor’s Heart:

http://www.thepastorsheart/podcast/abortion-clairesmith

Pregnancy Support and post-abortion counselling

• Real Choices Australia: www.realchoices.org.au
• Zoe Support: www.zoesupport.com.au
• Embryo Donation Network: www.embryodonation.org.au
• Priceless Life Centre (Qld): www.pricelesslifecentre.org.au
• Karinya House (ACT): www.karinyahouse.asn.au
• Brave Foundation (teen pregnancies and help for carers/schools/health professionals): www.bravefoundation.org.au
• Diamond Women’s Support (Sydney): https://diamondwomensupport.com/services/
• Hope House (Western Sydney): http://www.hopehouse.com.au
• Rachel’s Vineyard retreats (Roman Catholic): https://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx?c=Australia

Resources for pastoral care

• Denise Cooper-Clark: http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/engage-mail/unspoken-grief-pastoral-care-around-abortion
• ERLC on counselling men affected: https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/how-we-can-speak-to-men-in-the-abortion-conversation
• ERLC on speaking to women about abortion: https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/why-our-hearts-matter-when-talking-about-abortion
• Andrew Cameron on abortion ethics (2004): https://sydneyanglicans.net/blogs/indepth/1721a

‘Pro-life’ Resources

• Australian Christian Lobby: https://www.acl.org.au
• Evangelicals for Life—Peter Barnes http://evangelicalsforlife.com
• March for the Babies (Vic): http://marchforthebabies.org
• Women’s Forum Australia (secular):

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The synod of the Australian diocese of Wangaratta, Victoria has decided to walk a path that stands in opposition to the teaching of the bible, defies the theology of the national church and rejects the agreement of the national bishops council.

Kanishka Raffel is Anglican Dean of Sydney and a member of the council of Gafcon Australia.

Dean Raffel has told Dominic Steele on The Pastor’s Heart that the decisions by Bishop Parkes' Wangaratta diocese parallel those made by revisionists in the New Westminster diocese in Canada, which precipitated the formation of parallel Anglican expressions.
Decisions similar to those in Wangaratta have ended up splitting the Anglican Church in Canada, the United States, Scotland and New Zealand.

Dean Raffel says to seek to bless something that God says is not blessed, is not the religion of Christ.

****
See further:

• Statement from Gafcon Australia on Wangaratta, 9 September 2019
• Regional synod vote ignores clear words of Scripture - Archbishop Glenn Davies
• Wangaratta Defies National Church by Kanishka Raffel (writing in the Australian Church Record, Spring Journal

Update 11.9.2019: After our discussion was uploaded, the Albury Border Mail reported that the liturgy for blessing parties to a same-sex marriage will not be used this Saturday due to a legal challenge, but quoted Bishop Parkes as saying it was just, ‘a delay, rather than an abandonment.'

The Church Co
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