It’s been six weeks since the Way Forward was adopted at the National Synod. As someone who has been an advocate for the ordination of women for decades and who has listened to the pain and suffering of those who have been called by God but rejected by the LCANZ, I...

In silence groans caught up in prayer we plead for those we love not from the joyless stance of Judas returning to consciousness after betraying his deepest self but from an open-heart broken and gifted able to question and wonder hopeful in uncertainty free to...

There is a lot of talk about our need for resilience these days. I don’t know about you, but it conjures up for me, images of having to try harder, be braver, and have more positive thoughts, the latter of which has always been difficult for me. I’m more likely to cry...

The quick and easy way to end disputes. . .or maybe not. One of the great pleasures in life for some of us is a good game of Scrabble or – my favourite – Upwords.  A dear Aunty of mine and I are keen players, and the main house rule is about whether a word can be...

Two little words can bring me to know I can't, despair towards a pride in all that I can do those little words so telling the if-then proposition of law disguised as grace for when I try so very hard I always fall up short another word is needed to reach into my heart...

An invitation to join a 24 hour prayer room between Pastor’s Conference and Synod Often the New Testament urges us as Christians to ‘pray continually.’ But what does that really mean? The NT is often written in the plural but we read it in the singular. To pray...

“How dare you treat me this way! Can’t you see I’m suffering?” These were the words Dr Donna Hicks used to describe what underlay the emotion on both sides in many unresolved disputes. As a conflict resolution specialist, she found treating ourselves and others with...

Please note: Kathy wrote and submitted this post earlier this year, before the final Way Forward framework was released. When I first heard about the Conference as an element of the LCANZ’s Way Forward model, I pictured it as a hug: a hug from the entire LCANZ that...

In the tapestry of faith, a story unfolds, As female pastors respond, their truth in verses told, Some say the Bible denies their sacred quest, But in its pages, female leaders are manifest. Deborah, a prophetess and judge so grand, In Judges, her wisdom we...

Warning: decapitated head alert! Wow, there is a lot going on in our world right now that is negative, sad, heartbreaking, and difficult to take!  From rising costs of living and increasing levels of homelessness, the looming likelihood of outright war in the Middle...

Farewell, dear friends! I don’t mean you, dear reader, but this pile of papers sitting on my kitchen table. These are papers I’ve gathered since I first engaged with the LCANZ ‘ordination debate’, around the year 2000. There are theological papers, discussion guides...

Date: 30 May 2024 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Assistant Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop Andrew Brook, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Peter Hage, Bishop Richard Schwedes; and members of the General Church Board Kim Baumeler, Paul Argyle, Charmaine...

As I write this, ANZAC day is being celebrated in one form or another across Australia and New Zealand. The world has lived and is living through many wars, but it is the two World Wars that are in the forefront of my mind today. Quite by coincidence (or...

Date: 13 March 2023 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Assistant Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Peter Hage, Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, and members of the General Church Board Pastor Tim...

When someone asks how I am feeling about the Convention of General Synod I find it hard to know where to begin in reply. So I’ve gathered some of my thoughts here … At the personal level I'm feeling unsettled; in limbo until this Synod is over. I’ve been feeling this...

Firstly, I am not a theologian, nor a scholar, but one thing I know is that I am loved by God – warts and all. I have a huge pile of documents from the Ordination We’re Listening (OWL) website, have read numerous versions of CTICR findings over the last couple of...

As a latecomer to this group, I do not know if the following resource (poem or video) has been previously shared. I suspect that it has. For someone like me, a Pastor of the LCANZ, every time I watch it I am concurrently filled with sadness at the incompleteness of my...

Date: 16 January 2023 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Assistant Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Mike Fulwood, Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, and members of the General Church Board: Pastor...

Click here to read the response from Dr Nigel Long, Secretary of the Church Lutheran Church of Australia & New Zealand to the Open Letter dated 11 November 2022.

Date: 11 November 2022 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Assistant Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Mike Fulwood, Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, and members of the General Church Board: Pastor...

This job description is published on behalf of St. John’s German Lutheran Parish in Springvale (Victoria). The parish provides Germans living in Melbourne (either temporarily or permanently) an opportunity to access German church traditions in a bi-lingual setting....

Date: 9 September 2022 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Assistant Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Mike Fulwood, Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, and members of the General Church Board Pastor...

Date: 22 April 2022 Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Mike Fulwood and Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus and members of the General Church Board Pastor Tim Stringer,...

Dear Bishop Paul Smith, Bishop Neville Otto, Bishop David Altus, Bishop Lester Priebbenow, Bishop Mark Vainikka, Bishop Mark Whitfield, Bishop Mike Fulwood and Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus, Grace and peace in Christ to you. The purpose of this letter is twofold....

Unlearning the lies of closed doors, exclusive tables and limitations has been my life’s work. Sifting what I was given; Sorting the truth from the error. All I’ve learnt so far is We like to put God in a box; But you can’t. When I was 8 I read your bulletin. It said...

Suddenly, the scales fell from my eyes.  My heart seemingly turned in my chest cavity and I found it hard to breathe. It was like someone had shown me a route on a map that I did not know existed. You see, for the first time my Christian faith, my Lutheranism, my...

I sought to find a way to explore a comment made by a domestic violence survivor in response to another woman’s talking of finding connection through the image of the crucified Christa… Running around to see the sights, exhausted from all the planning, and finding it...

Welcome to the watering hole, a place for meeting Jesus, where the water of life revives thirsting souls, where there’s restoration for crushed people, and lives are made whole by Jesus’ transforming love and grounded in grace! Where Jesus’ love really does come to...

What if faith motivated by love infiltrated faith motivated by belief What if black and white opinions succumbed to all the colours of the spectrum What if courage and possibilities imagined replaced you must, you should What if we lived in reality accepting all skin...

For one who has almost reached four score years and ten, one of the many special reasons for thankfulness is that I have witnessed, from the beginning, the many decades in which Lutherans in Australia have debated, prayed, struggled and disagreed over the way women...

A collection of thoughts from various parishioners from St. Paul's Box Hill; expressing their views on the ordination of women.

“When I was in prison, you visited me". Matt. 25.43. As I entered the corrections forensic facility on Easter Sunday, I was startled by a huge (to me, anyway!) young Croatian Catholic man calling out: “Thank the Lord - the Church has remembered me!"  This underlined...

Fast forward several years — I’d returned to my home town and congregation after living away. I didn’t know either of the pastors very well. Women’s ordination failed to get the right number of votes again and I was baffled. I wrote an email to the pastors about it...

I have a problem with the label ‘progressive’. It suggests being more concerned with progress over scripture when in my experience, the opposite is true. It is the ‘progressive’ Christians who are the most committed to understanding scripture through vigorous study of...

I’m a bit of a failure as a good Lutheran, I suspect. Unlike most others, my celebration of Easter starts on Good Friday. Not at 6 am on Easter Sunday, when we traditionally celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but rather at around 3 pm in the afternoon at the...

Growing up in a country town in the 60s as one of a family of five boys I was completely unaware of the unconscious privileged position I, as a male, held in my society. I must confess, it didn’t really feel this way, particularly as I seemed to fall short when the...

“And then my soul saw you and it kind of went, “Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.” — Anon For me, this speaks of meeting each of my children for the first time. That first moment of wonder packaged within a level of intimacy that only a parent can...

Introduction I am on the fifth season of myself. There’s young Sara, there’s military Sara, scientist Sara, Sara the mother, and now church Sara.... I was very hesitant to offer to write this, because frankly, I don’t belong here. But isn’t that true of any of us? I...

A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change. So let's all choose to challenge. How will you help forge a gender equal world? Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality. Women at the Well aims to...

About ten years ago I was preparing for one of my regular trips “home”, to Germany. I then enjoyed the privilege of being able to combine annual professional and personal travel, often lasting an extended period. A family in my wider clan of in-laws invited my for a...

1st General Convention of Synod, Jerusalem, Year of our Lord 50 “It is a full agenda for this historic general convention of synod. Representatives from Judea to Antioch, as well as from the Jerusalem hosts, are in attendance to discuss matters including the...

It was a privilege to be able to document the following story for one of our most faithful supporters of gender equity and the ordination of women in the church – and also both heartbreaking and inspirational. This amazing woman is as steadfast in her faith and...

I was on the phone the other day when the door bell rang. There was a delivery man with a large-ish box on the doorstep. I said to my colleague ‘My new agitator has arrived’. We had a bit of a giggle at the thought of my need for a new agitator because the fins of my...

Many of you will be aware of the call of Indigenous Australians towards ‘truth-telling’ as part of the process towards true reconciliation and restorative justice. Truth telling is not about allocating blame, or pointing the finger, or seeking revenge. It perhaps can...

I honestly don’t know when I started believing female pastors is a good idea. Growing up in a strong old ELCA Congregation (Lobethal) and going to its corresponding Lutheran primary school might have meant that I received messages that female pastors were a bad idea...

Most of the millions, or is it billions, of living things God made are tiny, beyond detection by the unaided human eye. Countless essential organisms live in every teaspoon of soil. Most of God’s visible creatures are also, like Bethlehem’s Christ himself, small and...

I have started this article fifty times in my head, and it never ends.  Because what can I say?  What ever could I say, that would melt one heart hardened on this issue? I want these words to testify to my love of the Lutheran church, the church of my family and my...

As I examine my attitude towards various issues within our Australian Lutheran Church, and, as I also look back to my child-hood years, which were spent in a Lutheran manse, I clearly recall various Lutheran women’s issues, which mainly related to the wearing of hats,...

In 1963 my mother, Dulcie Held, had a life-changing experience when she represented the Lutheran Church in Australia at the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Helsinki and at the women’s gathering held in Germany beforehand. In 1997 the Women’s Ministry Network...

I have a photo from about 1959 of a group of little girls dressed for a mock wedding. Mock weddings were part of the fabric of home-made entertainment in rural parts of Australia. The spectacle possibly started in American women’s colleges in the late eighteen...

The Cost of Compassion by Tim Costello (Acorn Press and CPX, Sydney 2020). This morning I read in Tim’s book a quote from the Jewish theologian and philosopher Martin Buber that ‘nothing so tends to mask the face of God as religion’ (page 45). It comes in a part of...

Various incidents and events shape your life, some you have choice about and others seem to happen to you. Never in my early years did I ever contemplate a leadership position and particularly not in a church. When I was young, women just never had that option....

As far as I can remember I have never been against ordaining women. For all the early years of my life it was not even on my radar. I don’t remember any teaching or serious discussions on it during my Seminary years in the sixties. In my first parish in Auckland in...

As I thought about sharing my story for the ‘Women at the Well’ website, I noticed how my story has parallels with the Samaritan woman’s story. To show you what I mean, I have shared some of the verses from this passage alongside my story: Jesus sat down by the well....

There once was a young girl who was asked the question at a children’s address of what she wanted to be when she grew up. Instantly an idea popped into her head and she raised her hand to speak. “I want to be a pastor,” she said, and was met by a very awkward silence....

My wife Helen was a passionate teacher and leader within the church, and while not one to 'bang the drum' about women's ordination, strongly held the view that we as a church should encourage male and female leadership, including women who hear God’s call to be...

Some time ago I followed a debate of some clergy and laity on the Ordination of Women. It tried to grasp the implication, and impact, of the recent letter by the LCA Council of Bishops on the three (and a half) options for the future of this saga. The letter can be...

I am not used to writing my thoughts anywhere, perhaps other than in cards for special occasions. My response to my thinking is usually in actions rather than words. When I feel passionately about something it is usually regarding a situation where I see room for...

We are called to be faithful; to faithfully follow our Lord. But what does one do when human structures and rules mean that might not be possible? I am facing a dilemma. If I stay in the LCANZ I have few options and no opportunity to explore a call into ministry. Yes,...

One Woman was born in the 1940’s. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and the family were all encouraged to assist in the mission of the church. In the same country town there was a female pastor. One Woman and her friends worshipped at the woman pastor’s church from...

I love the woman at the well story! It has so many messages for any of us struggling as women to find a place in the church. For me, I love how one day it spoke to me about being a failure and a reject. . . It can be tough growing up. And sometimes, it can actually be...

Whatever Happened To Freedom? ‘For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.’ (Galatians 5:13). As a denomination, we deeply value the freedom...

I grew up in a fairly typical Lutheran church. As I was growing up there was never any question whether women could be pastors or not. Of course not. Everyone knew that women couldn’t be pastors, because they never had been. Besides, Jesus only chose male disciples. I...

As a recent migrant to South Australia (2006) I got interested in, and to some degree involved with, the Lutheran Church of Australia. In a conversation with a friend about the Ordination of Women she told me about her discussion with her mother about this issue. My...

Like many people my age I grew up in a post-feminist world. There was nowhere else that told me that I couldn’t do what I felt called to do when I grew up – except the church. I had that childhood sense of wanting to be a pastor that’s not really that unique –...

"Mum, can women be pastors?" "In the Lutheran Church right now, no." Even though i was driving and couldn't see her, I could hear so many emotions in my 8 year old daughter's voice. She couldn't understand why. Never before in her life had she been told that she...

I grew up in a non-Christian household in Germany and first came to Australia as a backpacker in 2005. After travelling around for 6 months, I arrived in Adelaide on a warm Friday morning in December and wandered the streets of the CBD until the beauty of Bethlehem...

What follows are simply some of my reflections. These are not tightly argued points, rather a collection of observations, reflections and personal conclusions. They may however draw others into pondering, reflecting and weighing up their own points of view. To God be...

I was never much bothered with the feminist movement when I was younger. I actually didn’t see the point. The reason why was that my mum, Irma Dymke, role modelled to my sister and I that we could do anything. To be confident, have opinions and to stand alongside...