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

Prayer Book

Sunday April 28

The European Reformations: what do the stories of everyday people tell us?

“Students and strangers often tell me, sotto voce and slightly awkwardly, that history was never their favourite subject at school. They then often explain that they were told to memorise lists of king and queens or prime ministers, or dates and places of major events, all with little context. To me, that is not history. History is not primarily concerned with the when and where – history is the study of people and the world they lived in,” says Dr Sheilagh O’Brien from St Francis College

Priest and bishop’s daughter translates liturgy into Tongan

“It is so important for people to worship in their vernacular because worship and life are the same. They are God’s gifts. We worship in the language that God has gifted us,” says The Rev’d Eleanor Mancini

Girls from Saint Andrew’s High School perform an action song during the Gloria at the consecration of Bishop Afa Vaka in September 2018. Worshippers in Tonga now have a revised Eucharist using a translation assisted by members of the country’s royal family

Tonga's noble solution for worship

Revising the Tongan liturgy of the Eucharist has put the translators into a balancing act between Tonga’s most formal patterns of speech and the language Anglicans might want to use when they relate to Jesus

What is the purpose of the Prayer Book?

Archbishop Phillip Aspinall and Bishop John Roundhill tell us about the history, purpose and benefits of the Prayer Book in this St Francis College Short Course video

Understanding Worship

“The conversations in the new St Francis College short course ‘Understanding Worship’ remind us why generations of Anglican Christians have found communal worship so rich and valuable,” says FormedFaith’s Fiona Hammond

Anselm of Canterbury

“Anselm of Canterbury was the most significant Christian theologian between Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas and is regarded as the founder of scholastic theology,” says The Rev’d Canon Dr Marian Free on St Anselm of Canterbury whose Feast Day is marked on 21 April

Is there future in tradition?

Reflecting on his childhood, The Rev’d Stewart Perry asks ‘Is there future in tradition?’: “Each of us longs for traditional worship to be vitally embedded in our church, but sometimes wonder how a generation who have grown up without prayer and hymn books can be attracted and engaged to the type of worship we all love and value.”