Gather. Encourage. Sharpen. Love. Worship. Grow.
Introducing our tapestry of contributors. Click on them to discover their article (s).
Denise Austin
NSW
Denise Austin is Director of Accreditation and Standards and Associate Professor of History at Alphacrucis College. She has published widely in the areas of Pentecostal history, Chinese Christian history and oral history. Denise is an ordained minister with Australian Christian Churches and teaches in the areas of history and cross-cultural ministry. She is also involved with the Asia Pacific Theological Association.
Diana Blythe
NSW
Di is a wife, mum, primary school teacher, occasional worship leader and once lead singer in Speaking of Sarah. Christian music and godly lyrics remind her to lift her eyes beyond her circumstances to trust in God's goodness and eternal hope. Diana has a degree majoring in Sociology and Education with a focus on Theories of Social Deviance (particularly on Domestic Violence in Australia), and the Sociology of Mental Health, Family and Religion. She has a PTC from Moore Theological College.
Belinda Burn
NSW
I have spent the last ten years working as the Ministry Worker in team leadership of an Anglican Church plant on Sydney's North Shore. I absolutely loved it. Have completed 99% of a degree in primary teaching and 40% of a degree in theology. Married to John and we have five children and a dog named Sweetie. I love helping others to understand the Bible, and learning to understand it myself. Time and time again I have been moved by God's grace and kindness, by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and struck by the fact that Jesus is someone I really want to follow. I like to pray. I also like coffee, preaching, surfing when no-one's watching, singing and all things music, visiting my indigenous friends in the Northern Territory, playing Soda Crush (is it OK to say that?), watching Biggest Loser (or that?!!). I care about being authentic, about justice and about taking God's word seriously. I am learning: to play cello; to embrace middle age; that God actually does love me, a lot; to trust him.
Moyra Dale
VIC
Moyra is an ethnographer, with a focus on how women’s voices, and how they describe their own realities (her work has included adult literacy, and the women’s mosque movement, both in the Middle East). She is currently based in Melbourne, writing, teaching and training, in cross-cultural understanding and Islam.
Mary Elizabeth Fisher
VIC
I started following Jesus in 1972 while a journalist for The Courier Mail. I moved overseas in 1977 living in China, the USA, the UK for a little under 30 years. I returned to Australia in 2005. I love being among the nations. I love study. I love encouraging the coming generations.
Jessica Frost
SA
Jess lives in Adelaide with her husband and son. She is a high-school humanities and social sciences teacher. Jess is also currently slowly working towards completing a Graduate Diploma in Divinity.
Elise Heerde
VIC
Elise Heerde is a wife, mother, teacher and writer from Melbourne who loves Jesus and passionately shares about the grace, hope and love that He offers to all. She deeply desires to see the broken made whole, the captives set free and the lost brought home. You can find her instagram account here @her.anchor
Tracy Lauersen
VIC
Anglican Minister at St Hilary’s Kew, Melbourne. Speaker and advocate for gender equity in the church. She is involved in the broader Anglican Church of Australia through its General Synod Standing Committee and is the Convenor of its new national working group on Domestic Violence.
Philippa Lowe
NSW
Phil(ippa) Lowe is a writer, marketer, owner of Incredible Communications agency and operations manager at FEBC Australia. Married with two children, she blogs about her unexpected journey getting to know Jesus in her mid 40s at oneweekinaugust.com and - much to her surprise but likely not God’s - is undertaking a Grad Dip Div at SMBC in 2017.
Kara Martin
NSW
Kara Martin is Project Leader with Seed, lecturer with Mary Andrews College, author of Workship: how to use your work to worship God.
Bree Mills
VIC
Bree Mills is currently the Associate Pastor at Glen Waverley Anglican Church. She is a Ridley Graduate who has been worked in youth ministry for 12 years at various churches, until moving into her current role in 2013, overseeing missional discipleship at GWAC. She is undertaking Postgraduate study at Morling College in the area of Missional Leadership, with a focus on congregational change, and is involved with various missional movements around Australia. She has worked with both large and small churches to reinvigorate youth ministries, and launch missional communities. She is passionate about equipping the church to engage with the local community, encouraging women in leadership, and building healthy and sustainable teams.
Margaret Mowczko
NSW
Margaret Mowczko has a theology degree and a MA in early Christian and Jewish studies through Macquarie University. Marg has a website, Marg Mowczko where she 'explores the biblical theology of Christian egalitarianism.'
Bev Murrill
NSW
Bev is back in Australia after having spent almost two decades in the UK co-founding a church planting network. She is founder of Liberti Magazine (UK), Cherish Uganda for abandoned HIV+ children, and Kyria UK, a network for women leaders. She has an MA in Global Leadership from Fuller, is an author, and speaks at churches and conferences internationally. An entrepreneur, she is most passionate about the Church and its leaders, and the cause of women, particularly women leaders.
Megan Powell du Toit
NSW
In alphabetical order, Megan is a daughter, friend, mother, pastor, teacher, twin and wife. These relationships and roles are central to her sense of self, all of the relationships informed by her relationship with God. She is currently doing a PhD in theology, and is wondering why she wasn't warned off by her experience of two previous honours theses (one in literature and another in theology). She longs to live a grace filled life and asks for your grace with her in her repeated failure. You could also call her fickle and unfocused in her pursuits but she would rather you call her a renaissance woman.
Jillian Reay-Smith
ACT
Jill is one of the leaders of Redhill Church in Canberra and also works in government human resources. She likes satire, winter, writing and learning things. She occasionally blogs at jillianreaysmith.com
Jenni Stoddart
NSW
Rev Jenni Stoddart is the Chaplain at Abbotsleigh, an Anglican school for girls. She is an Anglican Deacon who has worked in Sydney Parish's for 20 years focussed on youth, children and families. She loves preaching Gods word whether the hearer is 5, 15, 25 or 75 and even more when the generations are all in together.
Laura Tharion
NSW
Hello, I’m Laura Tharion, and I am passionate about spreading the joy and wonder to be found in living a resurrected life inside Jesus Christ. I enjoy tea, cake, history, hammocks, wild bushland, gardening, reading, and gifting my favourite books into the hands of others. I had the pleasure of studying at Sydney Missionary and Bible College before my three lovely little boys arrived to fill my days. Here I picked up the pet soap-boxes of mission advocacy and teaching the Bible as one unified story. I have a heart to write—sermons, studies, articles, meditations, poetry, and epic novels, all which aim to explore theology and encourage everyone to fully realise all they have been given and commissioned in Christ.
Celia Toose
NSW
Senior Staff worker Sydney University Evangelical Union. My role is to make students aware of people who have less reached with the gospel of Jesus, or churches that are less resourced throughout the world. I equip and mentor students to take their profession of use vocational ministry to be a blessing to God's global church.
Lauren van der Merwe
NSW
Lauren is married to Grant and attends St James Anglican Church where she is a youth leader and has been for 5 years. She completed a Bachelor of Theology at Moore Theological College in 2015 and is currently working full-time with Cru Camps at Crusaders and is loving it! She loves people, food, Saturdays and the rain.
Jodene Watling
NSW
Jodene’s role is an Associate Pastor (Mission & Evangelism) at Gymea Baptist Church (NSW), the first female pastor in the church’s history. Prior to this, she pioneered the women’s movement in Christian Surfers for 10 years & worked in the corporate sector for 11 years. She has been part of the Arrow Leadership Program, studied at Flinders University, Morling College & is finishing her Master of Arts in Global Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Kristen Young
NSW
Kristen Young lives in Central West NSW, with her husband John and three children, and has been involved in various forms of ministry for over 15 years. She loves telling children and young people (including the busy young people) including the busy young women in her parish about Jesus and still manages to find ways to procrastinate in her spare time. Kristen is a graduate of Sydney Missionary and Bible College.
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* The views expressed on this website are the personal view of the author and may not be shared by other contributors or reflect the church we attend.