Phil Weickhardt (Phool) wrote:
I would like to hear stories of the Anglican church interfacing with non-anglo cultures, please.
Hi Phil
My knowledge is mostly St Jude's-centric, but there's lots of encouraging stuff happening there. The team working on the Carlton housing estates have a huge amount of contact with other cultures through all of their services: sewing group; home-work club; kid's activities; they had a LaTrobe Uni team there recently, I think last week; Ramadan soccer games and lots more. Someone who is part of that team could tell you a lot more.
In the Student Ministries area, our international student ministry has really taken off in the last few years. There's a huge number of students, particularly mainland Chinese, who have moved into Carlton and the areas surrounding Melbourne Uni. A huge percentage of the students aren't Christians (some have never even heard the name of Jesus). Their motto is 'Make friends, meet Jesus'. Their weekly meetings take the form of a meal followed by Bible studies or a talk, and I think help with language in assignments etc beforehand. They have a very strongly social focus - lots of games (easy to relate without strong language), food and weekends away. Lots of internationals leave their 3-4 year stay in Australia without ever having been inside an Australian home. 'Dinner month' involves St Jude's families inviting a group of students around to enjoy a meal. Their staff team has grown over the last few years from a group of (highly committed!) trainees to a team of 7 or 8 (I think?). There's a fantastic welcome video on the website (
http://www.crosscultures.org.au/) which gives you a bit of a feel for it.
When I was doing my eQuip ministry traineeship at St Jude's, we had a couple of people who were doing eQuip with CMS. They were doing the placement side of their traineeship with the Melbourne Japanese Church, and seemed to have a number of teenages and young adults in their congregation there. I don't know a whole stack more than that, though - and I'm not sure whether it's Anglican...?
In other areas, Len Firth has recently been appointed as Archdeacon to the Sudanese. He is also Ridley's ESL Theology Coordinator, 'seeking to train and equip for ministry Christian leaders and congregation members from recently arrived immigrant communities whose first language is not English.' (from Ridley's website)
One missionary who has returned recently from decades in the Middle East has been doing a fantastic job interacting with many of the Muslim communities in Melbourne. He obviously has a great deal of love for the people he is seeking to reach, and is consistently gracious, bold and very welcoming of younger people joining him.
I've heard many other great stories - particularly at CMS' Summer Under The Son - but hopefully that gives you a small snippet anyway.
Cheers
Cat
