anglican focus

The news site of the Anglican Church Southern Queensland: nourishing and connecting our faith community

Discernment

Reflections ACSQ ordination candidates Reflections

What is an examining chaplain?

“Our primary purpose is not formal testing, but ensuring that God’s plan is given the best chance…there is one ministry – the ministry of Jesus Christ. Examining chaplains are part of the process that enriches that one ministry, whether ordained or lay,” says examining chaplain, Dr Helen Lancaster

Reflections Reflections

My hairdresser call to the priesthood

“Sometimes going to the hairdresser can be unexpectedly life-changing. For about a year, people in my community had been urging me to explore a calling to ordained ministry. However, when my hairdresser, who is not religious, said, ‘You know what? You should become a priest!’, I knew I had to start paying attention,” says Melissa Conway, who is soon to be ordained a deacon and appointed as assistant curate at St James’, Toowoomba

"Some years ago a dear friend gave me an old Russian icon that has hung on the wall in my study ever since" (Bishop Jeremy Greaves)
Reflections

The angry young man in the fifth row

“When I was 15 years of age, I decided that I wanted nothing more to do with the Church…The Rector of that parish would sometimes refer to me from the pulpit as ‘that angry young man in the fifth row’. Some years later I was invited to preach at Fr David’s funeral and would credit him, in part, for fostering my vocation,” says Bishop Jeremy Greaves

Reflections

The conversations that encouraged my call to ordained ministry

“I would not be where I am today without those critical vocation conversations – with the caring Society of the Sacred Advent sisters, the insightful parish priest and the wise friends. God uses ordinary people like you and me to initiate conversations of encouragement,” says The Rev’d Canon Sarah Plowman on her call to the priesthood, as Vocations Month continues

Reflections

Going where God calls

“When I arrived at the evacuation point, I found Fr Dan Talbot talking to a Police Inspector – the police had decided to form a convoy of police and public vehicles to bring everyone down the mountain safely, and we were just waiting for the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services to give them the okay,” says police chaplain Jane Vines, who served in the recent bushfire crisis

Video

Is God calling you? – Sarah is a priest

The Rev’d Canon Sarah Plowman shares about her role as school chaplain at Cannon Hill Anglican College for Vocations Month this September: “The part I enjoy most about being a priest is hearing people’s stories…sometimes in talking to them I can help change their lives, and sometimes they help change mine.”