Chapter 17: Holy Days and Christmas Holidays

Christmas comes but once a year, with its harvest of goodwill, Church nativity liturgies, charity donations, family and community celebrations, Christmas shopping, and journalistic ruminations about the meaning of it all. In Australia, the land Down Under blessed with unusual inhabitants like the wallaby, that are not mentioned in the Bible, naturally we reshape some Christmas customs and foods to suit our environment.

Since Jesus was born, the way Christians and others speak about his birthday feast, and the twelve days before Epiphany (the visit of the Three Magi to the Christ Child), has been vastly extended to include popular legends, characters and customs, such as Santa, elves, reindeer, decorated Christmas trees, holly, carolling and Advent calendars, and "religion-neutral" terms such as "season's greetings", "summer ( or winter ) vacation", and "Xmas". But however we choose to speak of, or write about Christmas, everyone within cooee of Christmas, even the most determined Scrooge, is somehow caught up in an infectious spirit of playful Christmas bonhomie. For instance, today I heard of a gentleman who, although he boasts to everyone that he does not "do" Christmas, generously treated his neighbour to a magnificent Christmas ham. And at St John's Anglican Church in Launceston, Tasmania (my current family holiday location ), the thoughtfully arranged children's playrooms, and the colorful baskets of hand knitted rugs placed handily near the pews, are also witnesses to the same Christmas spirit.

Besides the Day at the Beach (or Park) for those not exiled to the outback, two memorable Australian popular Christmas customs are the annual Christmas pageant, and the healthily irreverent Christmas pantomime. Both involve rampant imaginary (as well as traditional) characters, and a hilarious running commentary on the events of the past year, always seen through a prism of Christmas goodwill and merriment. In Australia, these annual events (and other regular celebrations) used to loom large in childish imaginations, leaving little room for boredom or mischief, as we were busily occupied with progressive preparation and excited anticipation. The Christmas pageant and pantomime were (and in many Australian towns still are) an Australian version of the old English Church mystery plays and pageants, where comedy, fun and rustic merriment (often at the Church's expense) ruled the roost.

Christmas 2013 has brought us an increased mindfulness of human sadness and suffering, together with a determination to do what we can to oppose and reverse ill-will, and help those in trouble. This Christmas intention for good takes many forms, none of which should be rejected. May our popular and church festivities mirror this determination, reduce human greed to insignificance, and magnify God's glory as best we may in the coming year.

Chapter 16: Advent, the New Year of the Church

Most Australians know about Chinese New Year, Hanukkah, Ramadan and Loy Krathong, but many don't know that the Christian Church has a New Year celebration called Advent Sunday, four weeks before Christmas. In America this post-Thanksgiving feast is well known, and children's Advent Calendars for the countdown to Christmas are common. Advent Calenders (crafty, commercial and often e-calendars these days) have pockets for each day before Christmas, that open to reveal gifts and surprises, including Christian prayers, music and reflections. The Advent season is both a new beginning, and a time for preparation, so we are ready to celebrate the saving presence of Jesus Christ among us. All Christmas customs - decorations, the gift-giving, and family visits -  grew out of Christian gratitude for the birth of one little baby boy who, in the space of his short earthly life, miraculously laid the foundations of an unshakeable faith in God that reformed the values, laws and social structures of the Roman Empire and it's subject peoples.

Chapter 15: Digital Church Boosts, Bloopers and Busts

Australian Churches as a whole seem to fall into two categories at the moment - those that carefully preserve print and real time worship traditions without digital technology, and those that combine print and face to face communication modes with digital equipment of various kinds, in various ways. That said, there are very few Churches in Australia today which do not use digital equipment at all: every Australian church has a digitally produced weekly liturgy booklet cum bulletin, and most Australian clergy and musicians can tell woeful tales of digital sound system misbehaviour. Some flourishing Australian churches now have digital tablet donation systems and worship programs that parishioners can access.

As one of my weekly tasks as a 1960s teenager at St Theodore's Anglican Church (at  Elizabeth South, Adelaide, South Australia) was to type, draw illustrations, and set up the "Parish Pump" carbon stencils on the roneo drum, then print many copies by laboriously turning the roneostat machine handle, I must confess that I thank God for digital technology. However, I do value my carefully preserved copies of the ancient St Theodore's Parish Pump!

Digital Church technology is a fairly recent phenomenon in Australia, where full suites of Church equipment are very expensive to buy, maintain, power, license, and keep connected to the internet. Some of the reluctance of Australian churches to use these new technologies is due to costs, but other factors also influence church decisions. Foremost among these is the idea that digital technology is the exclusive province of the young, a dogma that has been promoted in Australian schools and media. The other conceptual barrier is that digital technology is often believed to be totally incompatible with, and a threat to, the familiar traditions of print, libraries, real time traditional worship, traditional church architecture, and seminar teaching / discussions. Neither of these two assumptions are necessarily true. Digital technology can be adapted to the requirements of any church, and many overseas churches have used it to enhance traditional liturgies, assist elderly parishioners, and establish profitable online mission outreach and sales of local church products.

Negative myths and prejudices about digital technology can and should be challenged, not with the intention of rejecting them utterly, but to point out that it can be of great benefit when used properly, therefore all Christians, whatever their age, have both a right and a duty to familiarize themselves with it as far as they are able, and to use it wisely and moderately to promote the Church and it's mission, while also preserving the treasures of Christian faith and tradition.

Chapter 14 : Where have all the faithful poets gone?

Australian Christians know, and can often recite from memory, lots of beautiful scriptural poetry, including the psalms and the Beatitudes, and countless other well loved texts - but where are the Aussie Christian poets of our era? This is one public arena that Australian Churches have, little by little, deserted, since the 1960s cultural cringe got the better of us. St James Anglican Church, King Street, Sydney, is one of the very few Australian Churches that still make an effort to value, recognise and publish local Australian Christian poetry - see their monthly magazine, Collections, at www.sjks.org.au

Thankfully, Australia has its share of brave social justice poets, such as Bruce Dawe, and the irrepressible Michael Leunig, not forgetting the rising crowd of young hymn-writers. I've just met the enterprising Rev. John Bunyan, who's just published his collection of contemporary sonnets. Attending Aussie poetry performance events and slams can also be an eye-opener. However, overtly Christian poets are barely there, due to supercilious pressure from the Great Unchurched, and a new consciousness that religion is as prone to human error and falsification as any human endeavour, when left unguarded.  

However, a little digging may unearth a new generation of brave Aussie Christian bards. 

Hence my poetic rant below :

Theopoetica

(by Elizabeth Sheppard)

I went to read my poems at a festival, one day,

I milled about with hardy minds intent on speak and say.

Some raged about the status quo, some decorated pages,

A few explored in metaphors, and fame adorned the stages.

I stepped up, page in hand, to spout my lines as well as able;

Poetic censors viewed my rhymes, to gauge their market value.

They scanned my writing, peered at me, tut-tutted, sneered, and quibbled;

"Dear lady, take your scribbles home! No faith's allowed, in Babel!"

I said, "Hang on, your poster said you welcome all and sundry!

God's Word, expressed in rhyme and song, has always fed the hungry!"

They looked again, and said, "Your views are well beyond the pale,

Why can't you just convert to us, and tell a faithless tale?

Pick out a premise, patronize, promote a well-paid fashion!

We don't mind how you put it - just don't mention God, or Mammon!"

I retreated, shocked and sobered by this cynic attitude,

Then reviewed the poems offered by parades of poets new.

Not a skerrick of religion, of God's Word, or truth, or right:

In their place sat King Disorder, with his Jester, Poet Lite!

There were atheistic sonnets and iconoclastic odes,

Wandering agnostic ballads, endless paradigms of woe,

There were formulaic wonders, cybergenerated clones

Of great Shakespeare, and I-sonnets of a narcissistic tone.

In this Godless realm of Babel, where the voice of faith is stilled,

There's a way to save religion, that our ancestors knew well.

With faith, disguised as fiction in a Potter-like abyss,

We revert to allegory, laced with satire, dreams, and myths,

So, as metaphysics comes of age, perambulating far,

And teaches faith in parables, raising the Christmas star,

A greater witness lies in store, in this our cyberspace;

God's love unfurls its flags of faith, victorious over hate.

Chapter 13 : All Hallows Eve, Sydney Bushfires, Women’s Ordination & Christian Spiritual Traditions ...

What a week! Anglican women's ordination passed by the Ballarat Anglican Synod, fires, smoke-filled trains and exhausted homeless people fleeing the Sydney bushfires, noisy Halloween parties around my Western Sydney local area. With much prayer, thankfully I just finished my Spiritual Traditions assignment for St Marks Theological College (it  felt like a major spiritual battle). At 12.00 pm I'll be praying the Midday Office with a friend, for bushfire-affected Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Southern Highlands residents. Lunch to follow ...

P.S. The photo is from St Johns Anglican Cathedral, Fremantle, one of my favourite places, where I read my poetry at "Poetry and the Sacred" in 2008 with the Rev Elizabeth Smith and others.

God bless you, every one! (Tiny Tim, in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol)

Chapter 12: Ballarat Anglican Diocese approves Ordination of Women Priests, Sat 19th Oct 2013

See link below.

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1851730/ballarat-anglican-church-approves-women-priests/?cs=62

Chapter 11: Anglican Intercesdions and other Liturgical Labyrinths

After exploring several intercessional dead ends (BCP, AAPB, APBA) in search of keyed-to-the-liturgical-day intercessory prayer texts, I discovered ( with the kind assistance of Rev. David Robinson of St Marks National Theological Centre, and Kate Ross of St James Church King Street) Janet Nelson's "Let us Pray", which contains a 3 year cycle of intercessory prayers, useful (with local adaptations and additions) because they are based on the (previously unmentioned) Revised Common Lectionary readings. Thank God for Pauline Books & Media at Castlereagh Street in Sydney, who keep Janet Nelson's book in stock.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to write original Intercessory Prayers based on the known needs of one's parish community. The "original" component of these prayers should, however, be soundly grounded in Anglican doctrine and tradition, and the obvious sources to turn to are the St James Bible and the BCP (1662 Book of Common Prayer).

Being visually oriented, I am currently designing a large, demystifying coloured wall poster, depicting the fascinating labyrinth of Anglican / Episcopal liturgical planning sources. Including, of course, the various liturgical planning websites and mobile apps, who promote a variety of Anglican agendas, and use different text sources. Being a veteran student of Catholic liturgical convolutions, I plan to draw a roaring Minotaur of doctrinal disagreement, that appears to be roaming the corridors.

Chapter 10: UK Women Bishops

Reviewing Blogdom in between writing profound Intercessory Prayers today, I found the following fascinating updates on the state of play re UK women bishops :

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005985.html

and a (totally unrelated, of course) compilation of writings on holy fools :

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005985.html

Chapter 9: Vespers Evening Prayer with Candles

Vespers, otherwise known as Evening Prayer, is prayer throughout the world in many Churches. It is one small section of the immense Christian Church prayer system known as the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office. Scratch a Christian prayer and you'll find that it originates or has an echo somewhere in this ancient system. Vespers has a very large Christian musical repertoire, that is greatly underrated, and deserves greater exposure and use in Churches and Christian homes.

Some years ago I made a Powerpoint Presentation on Vespers to explain how it is used today in many forms and in most Churches. Of course this is only an introduction - Benedictine sites in particular contain much more detailed information about how Vespers and the other six prayer offices are planned and performed.

Here's the Vespers Presentation link to cut and paste into your URL -

http://www.slideshare.net/elizabethsheppardstb/the-divine-office-evening-prayer-vespers 

If you find my presentation useful, please use it, with acknowledgement.

Chapter 8: On Footwashing

Last night's Maundy Thursday Service with the Mandatum ( Footwashing Ceremony) at St James Church King Street was very pastoral and inclusive. The footwashing (a Christian symbol of mutual support and purification) was done as a mutual act by the whole congregation, with the Choir singing quietly in the background. After the Procession to the (beautifully palm-and-candle adorned) Altar of Repose, the Choir sang the last Psalm lined up in the two outer aisles, facing each other across the congregation. Rev. Steven Ogden's sermon was also appropriately inclusive.

Chapter 7: Responsibility in Church Ministry

Having just submitted a mountain of forms, and wrestled with various angels in the area of coordinating my supervised ministry placement schedule, I know how Jacob felt!

Scheduling sufficient study and travel time in a sprawling urban environment is made possible by having a notebook computer, but coordinating multiple supervised ministry rosters with busy lay coordinators is another kettle of fish. So far my student ministry placement involves juggling six rosters by keeping in contact with six patient and forbearing lay coordinators - hospital / nursing home visitor, hospitality assistant, parish networker, chorister, reader, and intercessor, and after Easter, server will be added. Adequate how-to procedure manuals are seldom supplied, so it is often necessary to source one from the net, or research and purchase an authoritative text, or write one's own on the job. Needless to say, every parish should have an easily accessible, up to date set of these.

The area of ministry coordination and scheduling is a nuts and bolts area of Church ministry seldom aired in the media, but it is fundamental to efficient and effective Church ministry. As a workplace, the Anglican Church environment is quite different from any corporate business environment, in that it is committed to provide highly responsible pastoral care of its lay and clerical ministers. For any student minister, treading the line between learning professional ministry practice, and receiving ongoing ministry counselling while training, is a difficult act, reliably supported by committed supervisors. In Anglican parishes, destructive competition for dominance between ministers, although it may raise its ugly head, is generally tactfully ameliorated by clear communication and responsible pastoral oversight. However, few Anglican writings express or discuss the differences between secular corporate practice and Christian business practice, and the unavoidable conflicts these produce.

Our new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Portal Welby has no hesitation in articulating the major differences between pastorally oriented Christian business practice, and profit oriented secular corporate business practice, as a means of upholding the Christian faith. The Anglican Church's pastoral care of its ministers and people is aligned not with any secular gospel, but with specifically Christian values, ethics and standards. Good pastoral care of assistant ministers by those charged with authority in a parish, together with responsible self-care by the ministers and their families, enables supervised ministers to extend excellent pastoral care and effective ministry to parishioners, and engage in outreach ministries without risk of burnout. Thank God for good ministry supervisors!

For student ministers, getting to know and keeping in touch with the local Church teams you are assigned to is a priority. This means keeping accurate, up to date, secure electronic and written records of contact details, and contacting / meeting with your ministry supervisor and roster coordinators regularly. Sometimes this contact is formal, as in a supervision meeting, but usually it's an informal phone call, or a brief SMS or email message. Various electronic calendars and email / contact list systems / liturgical planning systems can be used to keep track of this process. Theological colleges help student ministers by providing these resources as part of online ministry courses, and by teaching them how to link faith to supervised ministry practice through PTR (pastoral theological reflection).

Readers, please pray for all student ministers and their supervisors - they are doing great work in the Church.

Chapter 6: Mothering Sunday, Lent IV, Sunday 10th March 2013

It always strikes me as slightly ironic that Mothering Sunday and Simnel Cake consumption occur near the end of the penitential season of Lent. Just as we remember how Mary's Son and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, prepared to enter Jerusalem so we could be saved, here we are taking a break, saying "thanks, Mum", and feasting on a fruity cake adorned with symbolic apostolic eggs. Meanwhile, the supermarkets are already doing a roaring trade in hot cross buns. Chronological concatenation! No wonder non-Christians get confused about the Church. I guess one of the tasks of ministry today is to explain and, if possible, disentangle, this apparent confusion.

My Anglican ministry course via St Marks National Theological Centre (Canberra) came online this week, with a swag of assignments and readings. Thanks to helpful Church friends and colleagues, I'm well on the way with organizing my ministry Field Placement at St James King Street (that's in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, for overseas readers).

Meanwhile, at St James Hall, Sydney, the Rev. Dean Andrew Sempell's Thursday Lenten Group has been busily exploring a variety of personal and communal life journeys, all with our ultimate end (i.e. God) in mind, and the adventurous and provocative 2013 St James Institute series of lectures and seminars is under way. Last Sunday (3rd March 2013) Rev. Martin Davies led a lively poetry reading seminar called "Anticipating World Poetry Day". Poetry-lovers, clergy, musicians and poets read and discussed original and favorite poems on themes that included the Australian landscape, love, religion, medical history, childhood, and more. Innovation abounded. Alistair Nelson recited Donne beautifully from memory, Sue Mackenzie gave a multimedia presentation of her landscape poetry, Rev. Sempell read a soliloquy on ordination candidature, and John Bunyan presented his completed poetry book "75 Sonnets", and read selections. The St James Institute series is an excellent opportunity to explore current Church issues, study scripture in depth, have your say, and develop creative projects.

Networking at St James is full of pleasant surprises. Last month I was thrilled to meet, through a hospitable gathering at Christine Cheetham's, two "Adelaide girls" of my generation - Joan Gibb and Rosemary White, both now parishioners of St James. We shared happy childhood memories of Adelaide's famous John Martin's Christmas Parade, Church worship, and beach frolics. In the 1960s I was at St Ann's University College, studying for my Arts degree in English and History, singing for Morning Prayer at St Peter's Cathedral with Michael Betts, Andrew Mander-Jones, Derek Van Dissel and Margaret Cheesman (among others), and writing mysteriously metaphysical poems at the Creative Writing Group with John Healey, Helen Gregson and Charles Kaiser. That was the era of Max Harris and the Ern O'Malley poetry hoax - when two larrikin Aussie tricksters fooled the literary establishment into lauding "poetry" concocted from randomly selected dictionary words.

It so happens that Adelaide will be well represented at St James this Easter. I'm looking forward to hearing the Rev. Steven Ogden from Adelaide's St Peter's Anglican Cathedral, preach at St James.

Chapter 5: Lenten Musings on “Home”

After three weeks of cogitations on the meaning of "home" in Church communities, Church writings, and secular and indigenous societies, I have discovered that 1. there are as many ideas of home as there are people in the world, 2. leaving home to migrate to another country is an experience common to many, 3. those who believe in God can be at home anywhere, and 4. providing a safe physical home for people has the potential to empower them, but it may also imprison them if they are handicapped by fear.

In an ideal world, a home is a place where we can gather family and friends, welcome them, and share food together. But not everyone has a home today: for many the mission van or Church hall is the closest they come to a physical home. Many urban unit dwellers eat out habitually with friends at restaurants and clubs, as it's much safer that way in a crowded city. Jesus and his disciples were travellers who depended on their friends and innkeepers for meeting places and accomodation. For Christians, sharing communion together, and remembering Jesus, reminds us of all these concepts of home, and unites us in the attempt to help people in need, whatever their situation.

Chapter 4 : Australia’s Anglican Women Bishops

The new Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury elect Justin Welby, who is to be consecrated on March 21 2013 (the Feast of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer), has declared that the UK Church of England will soon have women Bishops. Just as they have a Queen who bears the title of Defender of the Faith and Head of the Church of England. But it hasn't happened yet.

The British press seems to be encased in a bubble of unreality, impermeable to the fact that USA Episcopalians and the Anglican Church in Australia have jumped the gun as far as women Bishops are concerned. It's all very reminiscent of how Australia led the way in the early 1900s, with Votes for Women.

For those still unaware of who and where Australia's three admirable and articulate Anglican women Bishops are, I append the following links:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/women-congregate-to-celebrate-ordination-20121120-29ofq.html

Bishop Kay Goldsworthy (Perth, Western Australia)
Bishop Barbara Darling (Melbourne, Victoria)
Bishop Genieve Blackwell (Wagga Wagga, New South Wales)

Another Australian Anglican woman Bishop is in the pipeline, due to be consecrated at St Johns Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane, on April 6, 2013 (see link)

http://anglicanbrisbane.org.au/focus/taylor-made-brisbanes-first-woman-bishop/

Bishop Alison Taylor (Southern Region, Brisbane, Queensland)

The Anglican Church in South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory of Australia has some episcopal catching up to do.

Chapter 3: Australian Aboriginal Women in Church Ministry

The apartheid system is so prevalent in urban Australian Churches that many non-indigenous Australians think that all Australian Aboriginals are non-Christians. Some Anglo-Australians still believe the myth that Aboriginal Australians are all dying out, or can be "bred white".

Sorry, that isn't the case. Crowds of Australian Aboriginal Christian families inhabit all the mainstream and not-so-mainstream Church denominations. There aren't many Aboriginal Australian Church buildings, because the bush is God's Church in indigenous spirituality. The Australian Aboriginal Churches have a national governing body called NATSIEC (the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Church) where Aboriginal representatives of all the Church gather. Each Church denomination also has a peak Aboriginal organisation - for Anglicans it's NATSIAC, for Catholics, NATSICC, etc. etc.)

Many of Australian Aboriginal Churches are led by Aboriginal women. Elder Elsie Heiss's Reconciliation Church at La Perouse NSW, the Rev. Joan Hendriks in Queensland, Jan Kennedy's Aboriginal Catholic Mission at Emerton NSW, the Rev. Lenore Parker's ministry at MacLean, are just a few examples. Gospel music and healing is a big part of Australian Aboriginal Church women's ministry. If you want to hear great Australian Aboriginal Gospel music, go to the Tamworth Country Music Festival NSW in January.

In 2008 I attended a Church conference, and gave a presentation called "Aboriginal, Christian, and Woman" to Anglo Australians who were convinced by racist propaganda that there are no Aboriginal Christians in Australia. They took a lot of convincing! Here's a video of my Powerpoint presentation from the conference:

Recently, two Anglican Aboriginal women ministers have been making a splash in the media. Archdeacon Karen Kime of the Canberra-Goulburn Diocese is involved in international advocacy for indigenous people, and works with the reconciliation and social justice systems to improve inter-racial communication and upgrade living conditions of Australian Aboriginal communities. The Rev. Gloria Shipp of the Aboriginal Anglican Church at Dubbo, runs retreats for indigenous women out west, and is building a Church culture that takes account of traditional Aboriginal culture and customs.

Here are some links to information about Archdeacon Karen Kime's ministry:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/kime-appointed-archdeacon-20120225-1tvdf.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-25/anglicans-appoint-first-female-indigenous-archdeacon/3852586

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-25/anglicans-appoint-first-female-indigenous-archdeacon/3852586

http://www.anglicancg.org.au/articles.php?action=vp&aid=2

http://www.facebook.com/ReconciliationAus/posts/390356744313570?comment_id=5432547

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXkYBruFxfM

http://www.nitv.org.au/fx-story.cfm?sid=00373998-C1EC-CAD0-8BD3260B79114F18

http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/747514/wagga-woman-makes-church-history/

http://www.reconciliation.org.au/home/latest/australia-s-first-female-aboriginal-archdeacon-congratulated

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2012/3/14/ACNS5064

Chapter 2: Women Church Cantors in Australia

In 1967, when I first started singing as an Anglican chorister at St Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide, the Church Cantor tradition had pretty well died out in Australia. Australian Church Clergy (who were all men in those days) canted or refused to cant with varying quality, choristers sang, and soloists within the choir were called singers. The Decani and Cantoris seats still adorned Anglican Cathedral Churches, but the origin of the Cantoris seat was forgotten, except by academics. At that time in Australia, the title of Cantor was reserved for male Jewish synagogue Cantors. Then the Jewish women took up the Cantor baton, and, following the role model of Miriam, they revived the art of the Jewish woman Cantor. Their leadership was invaluable.

Throughout my childhood and youth, I sang in church choirs, and accompanied singers on the piano and organ. As a young mother I continued singing in church choirs, taught music, trained as an opera singer, and sang in stage as a soloist, and in large choirs. In 1996 I was suddenly called to solo Cantor ministry when my parish Church burned down, so I looked for contemporary female role models to follow. I found no female role models for Cantor ministry in Australian churches, but male mentors in the Royal School of Church Music and the UK Guild of Church Musicians helped me to shape and develop my female Cathedral Cantor ministry. My role models were gleaned from historical female Church Cantor traditions, the Australian Conservatorium system supplied my musical training, and a six year theological degree provided the liturgical and compositional skills I needed. I waded through a varied Church music repertoire, honed my liturgical liaison craft, and sorted out the musical wheat from the chaff. I discovered that being a woman Cantor involves not only liturgical singing, but also arranging and composing new music on a weekly basis, and constantly defusing male assumptions that men are entitled to take credit for everything a skilled woman creates or does.

Seventeen years later, the art of the woman Church Cantor is well established in Australia, with claases for female Cantors flourishing in Churches. Since the Catholic and Anglican churches have historically defined Cantor ministry as one of the two essential precursors for priestly ordination (the other being Lector ministry) the establishment of women’s Cantor ministry in Australia, has enhanced the status of Australian church women. Although the quality of Cantor and chorister instruction varies, the UK Royal School of Church Music has worked with ecumenical Pastoral Music associations to establish and promote examined Voice Syllabuses for churches, so much progress has been made in helping Australian congregations to worship through music. Clerical recognition of female Church Cantor ministry is nevertheless slow to catch up. In most mainstream Churches there is no reason why female Cantors cannot be clerically commissioned, but this seldom occurs. I was fortunate to be jointly commissioned in 2000 as an accredited ACertCM(UK) Cathedral Cantor by Rev. Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, then the Very Rev. Basil Hume.

Female Church Cantors in Australia (and worldwide) are invariably diligent, collaborative and highly skilled. All the Australian women Church Cantors I have met have a genuine desire to serve and honour God rather than themselves. A few are paid, but many are volunteers, who have paid for their own tuition. A favoured few, such as June Nixon and Kathlleen Boschetti, have achieved remarkable heights of Church music mimistry in Australia. So It grieves me (and I have no doubt, also God) when a few ill advised  Church music critics accuse female Church Cantors of impious self-aggrandizement, rail against women in ministry, and declare us unwanted. Their hostility is ridiculously unChristian and unproductive.

Chapter 1: A Church Childhood in 1950-1970s Australia

Unlike today, 1950s Australia was crammed with churches of all stripes. Most Australian people attended church each Sunday, because that’s where the whole community met, mingled, and conducted community business. Racism and exclusion of socially unacceptable people from churches was rife, it was difficult to find a job if you didn’t attend church. Australian lay people like my parents founded and ran churches in collaboration with clergy, who they employed. Like many Australian girls, I started doing volunteer work in churches very young, by helping my parents with their church work. My sister and I learned to read as toddlers during lengthy sermons, as we played with hymnbooks under the pews. That accounts for my antiquated vocabulary and my encyclopaedic knowledge of hymn authors, hymn metres, and tune names. My father was a Protestant lay preacher, elder, and Church Vestry committee member who "planted" a new Church with a group of like-minded families in our new suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. I used to help my parents set up the Church every Saturday for the Sunday service, so I'm great at arranging flowers, setting out chairs in rows, polishing brass, finding my way through the mysterious indexes of liturgical books in order to place bookmarks, inserting hymn numbers in hymn boards, laying credence tables, and carefully pouring wine. At a huge church rally in 1950s Adelaide, American evangelist Rev. Billy Graham’s preaching, and George Beverley Shea's rendition of "Just as I am" called me to come to Jesus, so I obediently disappeared into the huge surging crowd, to be found by my frantic parents two hours later, sitting at the feet of the elders. Clearly, Jesus was present in all this, and through the teaching and steady example of my grandparents and parents, he became my friend for life. When my mother started the Church choir, I sang with them, played the piano and organ, and learnt to read music. By the time I was a teenager I was teaching Sunday School, organising Church concerts and liturgies, roneoing and folding church newsletters, and playing the organ for Sunday evening services. After doing my school homework, I started to write religious poetry and compose hymns.

All my virtuous Church experience suddenly became unfashionable when the Beatles, the Pill, and the torrid sexual revolution, hit the shores of Oz. My parents were horrified by this, and kept me closely coralled. Guitars were the rage at highschool, so I saved up, bought one, and strummed Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Nina and Frederick, Peter Paul and Mary, and Singing Nun ditties, but I still continued with classical piano lessons. I was intrigued by the new fashions, but not seduced - I stuck to my Church work. In 1964 I joined the local Anglican Church, which had even more Church ministry stuff for me to learn. The local organist took me under his wing and taught me to accompany Anglican chant and choral anthems. When I (by some divine miracle) acquired a Commonwealth Tertiary Scholarship, a new Church world opened up to me. At St Ann's University College (where my work included setting enormous college dining tables) I trained as an altar server for College Services, and, clad in my black undergraduate gown, I learned to chant Morning Prayer and sing four part Anglican anthems at St Peter's Cathedral. When I married and became mother to four children in Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales, my Church involvement with music, feeding people, and teaching, continued, and developed into full-blown theological studies and ministry as a Cathedral Cantor with a community that was unable to sing after their Church burned down.

Introduction : Unsung Women's Church Ministry in Australia

This blog is about my experience of women’s Church ministry in Australia.

In my lifetime I've learned a lot about Church ministry work, as carried out by girls and women in Australia, and I’ve been involved in this work as a woman musician, Cantor, poet and theologian. But this blog is not all about me - it’s about many great Australian Church women, and the way they've founded and shaped Australian Churches through clerical, monastic and lay ministries. Like the crocheting Aussie Church women who inspired those beautiful iron lace verandahs on the old convents. If you're a treasure of a woman with an untold Church ministry saga to relate, consider starting your own blog.

Lots of Australian girls and women work as unofficial ministry volunteers in Australian Churches, but few are paid or properly acknowledged. Even in Church denominations that ordain women, the percentage of Church women whose names and work are praised and recorded in Church archives and histories is lamentably low. Australian Churches couldn’t continue functioning without women workers, yet time after time I've found reports on the internet of Church girls and women being undervalued, bossed around like children, denigrated, and denied full liturgical recognition.

Well, now we have a remedy. Don't wait for your clergy or parishioner colleagues to praise and record your Church ministry. They're probably so overworked, or so obsessed with promoting themselves, that they'll never give you a second thought. Take the Church bull by the horns and guide it gently to the water of eternal life - the ministry of Australian Church women.