Also, I’ve started looking into the process of Ordination in the Church of England, so before anything official happens I need to do some reading on Christian leadership, on Anglicanism and on some issues, particularly on Infant Baptism… so it seems my blog would be a good place to record stuff that I learn from this.

At the end of the month, we’ll be gearing up for Bible by the Beach – I’ll be blogging all about what goes on and probably posting some videos about what’s happening.

So… you don’t really care about this, but I figure if I write down the stuff which I propose to blog about then I might actually get off my bum and do it.

So why was I here?? Well I’m sure most people reading have heard of Christianity Explored… I’m sure that most, but probably a few less have heard of it’s follow up course, Discipleship Explored which has been around for a few years. The great thing about the DVD is that it makes it much easier to run a course!

Here’s a trailer for the DVD, giving you a flavour…

The DVD takes you through the book of Philippians in 8 sessions    . Each session is about 10 minutes long; the passage is read by a guy with a cool Scottish accent, then a key verse is picked out. The key verse along with the rest of the passage is explained, common questions about the Christian life are answered, the presenter Barry Cooper does a great job of clearly explaining stuff and getting us to the point. These sessions aren’t really a substitute for a talk or Bible study but they’re a great launching block into the passage, and a great way to start a group and get people thinking.

Here’s another little video. Rico Tice interviewing Barry Cooper about the Discipleship Explored DVD… great question and answer is the one to the first question “Why Philippians?”… sorry about the angle of filming, couldn’t be bothered to move:

Coming soon… a couple of short video interviews, one with Barry Cooper, and one with Rico Tice.

For more information and to order resources visit the Good Book Company… the Discipleship Explored DVD is available for just £30.

Good interview. Sounds like we both had a similar overwhelmingly positive experience there (with a few little niggles).

The story has been mentioned by Martin Beckford in the Telegraph, Ruth Gledhill in The Times and on the Church Times Blog. It’s also been discussed on Peter Kirk’s blog. Now personally I don’t think it’s a huge story by any means, but it just goes to show how the media has changed, I can blog something which otherwise would go unheard outside its original audience, isn’t technology good?!

You can listen to Dr. Packer’s talk yourself, and the question time.

Video on SydneyAnglicans

There’s loads of other videos there, little snippets from the conference including Vaughan Roberts.

With that background in mind Packer set out to define 4 terms involved in the current debates:

1. Orthodoxy - Packer sees this as a synonym for Evangelicalism which focuses on the teaching of the Bible (because it acknowledges the authority of the Bible) and on the message of the Gospel (being based on Faith and Repentance).
2. Anglicanism - He highlighted two different views, those who saw Anglicanism as being bound up with historical practises (defined by traditions) and those who saw it as being defined by principles, as contained in the Creeds, Prayer Book, 39 Articles etc. Packer made it clear he stood in the 2nd camp – Anglicanism is based on principles. He also stated that he believed Anglicanism is “the richest version of Evangelicalism that the world has seen”.
3. Liberalism - Dr. Packer used 4 S’s to define liberalism…
   • Subordinates Scripture to the culture and individualistic Christian experience
   • Sanctifies the Secular
   • Scales down the Supernatural
   • Sweeps away Biblical Standards
4. Homosexuality - He basically made it clear that he was talking about the practise and not the temptation. Packer gave examples of temptations and how we should not yield to them and included homosexual temptations in this – we should not yield to the temptations because the actions are defined as sin by the Bible.

Dr. Packer went on to give the basic facts about his situation in the Canadian church, the history, how it happened and how things stand now. He highlighted the changing situation, that Bishops are no longer just theoretical heretics but are heretics in what the practise. He referred to Acts 27:27, Paul in the storm and used this as a metaphor to speak of being faithful through the storm in the hope of reaching land.

Big Jim then addressed 4 questions in conclusion…

1. What is God doing to the Anglican Communion?
   • Purging of liberalism
   • Preparing faithful Anglicans for counter-cultural and enterprising mission
2. What is the pattern of ‘alternative oversight’ doing to the Anglican Communion?
   • Drawing together a fellowship of the Orthodox
   • Parallel jurisdictions are disrupting the traditional diocese/province model
3. What are those who have ‘realigned’ to do now?
   • Pioneer faithful Christian outreach
   • Renewal of teaching, mission and discipleship
4. How should English Evangelicals react?
   • Watch and Pray

The question-time that followed came up with the usual questions from slightly ‘un-balanced’ folk, and a few good ones – “Dr. Packer, if you could have 5 minutes with the Archbishop of Cantebury, what would you say?”…

Packer stated that Rowan Williams’ views about homosexuality (documented before becoming A of C, and not changed since) mean that he is not qualified to lead the Anglican Communion and enforce rules layed down at Lambeth in 1998. Big Jim was clear, “Rowan Williams should resign”!

It so happened that earlier in the day I’d done some computer training with the Holy Trinity office staff, so as payment I got 3 free Packer books – God has Spoken, 18 Words, and Growing in Christ… good times.

Colin Slee (Liberal, gay-agenda-pushing, Very Revd.) described GAFCON on Radio 4 as a “a very small group” – Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Southern Cone, Sydney, plus others – this represents at least half of the Anglicans worldwide.

Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes, and Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester are members of the GAFCON leadership team and are there in Jerusalem now. You can watch events unfolding at GAFCON as they are streamed live, see below…

In other news Wallace Benn has been very rude to me, he said in reference to my lovely girlfriend, and I quote – “It’s obvious that God must have given her to you… there’s no way you could have got her yourself!”

If you’re in London, then he’ll be speaking on the 1st July at All Souls, you need to get in touch with All Souls to book in for that event. I’m sure he’ll be doing some other talks round the country, leave a comment if you know where and when.

…However, with deep reluctance and regret we have concluded that we cannot continue the Anglican ministry to which we were ordained under your jurisdiction. The Diocese, under your leadership, has departed from historic, orthodox Anglican teaching and practice. It has departed from what the Primates have unanimously recognized as the standard of teaching of the Anglican Communion. The Diocese is in a state of broken or impaired communion with the majority of Anglicans worldwide. Sadly, it appears the Anglican Church of Canada has now similarly departed from Anglican teaching and practice…

They’re going to continue to be Anglicans, but get their licences and Bishoply (is that a word?) oversight from a guy in the Southern Cone called Donald Harvey. You can read the full letter here.

Third question, for everyone… have you heard of Jim Packer? I’m guessing we’re at 90% plus now… that’s because this man has actually contributed something positive to the Church. And it’s not going to be up at 90% because all the people who read this blog come from a similar theological persuasion (although that’s probably true), but I’ve met Anglicans, Baptists, Charismatics, non-Denominationalists, Emergents, Free Churchers, (can’t think of a G)… Liberals, Pentecostals… who’ve all heard of, and at the very least respect Packer, and more likely will speak of how his writings have been of great help to them.

You may or may not know that there’s some rumblings going on in the Anglican church, particularly with stuff going on in the USA and Canada… essentially it’s all about Liberal Bishops denying the authority of Scripture, and the recent outworking of that has been the appointment of practising homosexual Bishops, women Bishops and the blessing of gay marriages. Anyway, Packer and others thought it better to have some oversight (Bishop = overseer) from some Bishops who are actually Christians and actually believe the Bible… their Bishop (Michael Ingham) didn’t like that and wants to remove their licence to be a Vicar. Justin Taylor gives a better explanation here.

Packer and David Short (another vicar facing his licence being removed) have put their thoughts into a DVD and on Youtube, you can see them here… See this one below – Who’s leaving who?

Also, you can see some videos made by Ingham, these make me quite sad, Packer says it makes him “sick”. These videos show some fairly clueless supporters of the Diocese along with the biblically inept Bishop giving some answers… the first thing that makes me sad is the way he misinterprets then along with the audience laugh at Leviticus 20.

Second thing that is sad is that they’re greedy, they’re worried about loosing land and buildings, that seems more of a concern than repairing the schism.