Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who prayed for the ABC’s Compass programme last Sunday night. As you know, the media can present things in ways that we didn’t intend, especially when they spent three days recording at NAC. But they treated us very fairly. Thanks be to God!
The NAC Churches came across as relevant to the present world, comprised of all ages, and clearly concerned with knowing the Bible and working together to live in light of the Bible.
And some of us were TV stars!!
That, of course, made me the focus of much mirth at Synod on the Monday. While the Archbishop was kind in referring to our young people visiting and praying for our shops in his address to Synod, many of my “friends” paid out big time on me.
Synod met this week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 3.00pm until about 9.30. It will meet next Monday and Tuesday.
Many of our new members mightn’t know what Synod is, so let me try to explain.
Australia is divided into dioceses which are composed of parishes. Each diocese has a bishop. Our bishop is called an archbishop because he is the bishop of the diocese of a capitol city, an archdiocese.
Each diocese has a synod, or parliament, that governs its affairs. In our diocese, every parish elects two “laymen” to represent it at synod. John Laing and Jeremy van’t Spyker are your reps. The senior minister of each parish also attends synod. So, you can see, in our diocesan synod lay people outnumber clergy about 2 to 1. Other people, like Andrew Frank from our parish, are invited to attend because they hold special positions or serve us in other ways.
Our synod meets once a year and it can have up to about 800 members. Synod elects a committee to do its business for the other eleven months of the year. This committee, the Standing Committee, has about 60 members and I was elected to it by the Western Region of the diocese. Andrew was also elected to it.
Synod does basically two things. It debates motions and ordinances. Motions can be about just about anything and any member can move a motion. If the synod passes a motion it can direct various office bearers to do things for the diocese. For example, next week we will debate a policy on alcohol that will direct Parish Councils to determine a local alcohol policy.
Ordinances are the laws which govern our relationship within the diocese. For example, we must pass the ordinance which determines how we spend our income this year, although it’s only about half of what we had to spend last year.
You can log on to http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/ which has a complete rundown on Synod to see/hear what’s happening. That will assist you in your prayers for us. (Hint!)
I will be available on Sunday for autographs.
Neil
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