Education and schooling is such an easy way to divide Christian congregations. But what truly is at the root of Christian education? Why is it such a divisive topic? And what can our history tell us about the problems we now face in regards to our education system in Australia? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe

Dear friends A few episodes ago we broached the subject of work, and put forward an alternative view (which I’ll summarise briefly below). And we suggested that there were various implications of this view that we needed to return to.  Well, your numerous questions and comments on the topic have provided the perfect opportunity and framework to do just that. In today’s episode, we—or should I say ‘I’, because it’s just me this week—tease out a number of important implications and applications...

Dear friends This week I am joined by a good mate and a lecturer in ethics at Moore College, Chase Kuhn. As we usually do whenever we get together, Chase and I end up chatting about ethics, but the main focus of our conversation is Chase’s new Advent-focused book, Waiting for the Christ, which is due out any day now. I hope you find our conversation edifying. Your brother Tony This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,...

Summer draws near here in Sydney, and so do the Christian camps and conferences that fill up our calendars. As we engage in the excitement and fun of these camps, how can we ensure that we're not just doing it for the sake of having them? And what are some dangers and risks of camps that we need to be mindful of and actively avoiding? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe

Welcome to another edition of Two Ways News. This week, our subject is work. It’s an important subject for everyone, including Christians, and there are many questions that arise. The classic question, and especially if you're a younger, keen Christian is about ministry and work: Is full-time ministry for me, or should I go into the ‘workforce’, and what are the implications of that choice? Is one sort of work more meaningful than the other? But there are lots of questions surrounding...

Last week, Phillip talked about war and the horrors of war, and one of those wars is in Armenia or a part of Armenia. Today we have with us Talar who is Armenian and has come to share about the history of Armenia and her own journey in living for Christ. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe

Dear Friends Tony is down sick and so this week’s edition is me interviewing myself.  However, this is not a week for jokes and humour as we are confronted once more with the horror of war. The news out of the Israel/Hamas conflict is quite frankly appalling. The frightful cruelty and savagery of the incursion of Hamas into Israel villages on 7 October has opened up a new chapter in the protracted conflict. At the time of writing, we await with trepidation Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip....

Dear friends This week’s edition touches on a subject that we’ve talked about before—or at least that I’ve talked about before in the old days when this site had a different name. Should we think of church mainly as a family which exists for its own sake and the building up of its members in Jesus Christ? Or is church more like a voluntary society with a mission—to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ? And what are the consequences of emphasizing one of these options more than the...

Dear friends This week we welcome back Marty Sweeney to the podcast to talk about an old topic and that needs talking about afresh: ministry apprenticeship. It’s fascinating—Marty and I have been running ‘Trellis and Vine’ workshops around the US for the past 15 years, talking to pastors and church leaders about the various ministry principles and practical issues that arise from The Trellis and the Vine. But in all that time, I could count on one hand the number of people who have wanted to...

Dear friends In last week’s episode about modernization, we touched briefly on the constantly changing nature of language. Words often shift, drift or drop out of use. New words are invented, or new meanings attach themselves to old words. This is not right or wrong—it is just how language inevitably works. Sometimes, this is just a bit funny, such as when we use the wrong word, or use an older word not realising that it has shifted in meaning. But sometimes it can be confusing and lead to...

Dear friends It’s been a pretty constant message for most of my lifetime—this call for the Christianity to ‘modernize’ or die—but a couple of recent instances have been notable. In late August, The Times of London had a story about a survey of Anglican ministers, in which nearly half were in favour of same-sex weddings, and almost two thirds said that the Church should no longer teach that sex belonged only in marriage. It was a strange and probably misrepresentative survey, it must be said,...

Dear friends Over the past few months, I seem to have had a higher than usual number of conversations with friends about their feelings of unhappiness in the various churches they belong to—including email feedback from some of you.  So in today’s episode, we thought it was time to explore this unhappy topic: what’s the best way to think about and respond to feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in church?  Hope you find it useful, and shareable with struggling friends.  Your...

Dear friends After catching up on some overdue Q&A about pastoring and singing in church (what else?), this week’s episode asks us stop and think about the way we use technology. And we don’t mean just the usual sort of discussion about how our lives are becoming ruled by our phones. This week’s topic goes deeper, and talks about the powerful modern marriage of convenience between our technologically driven economy and our equally strong impulse towards individualism. How can Christians...

Dear friends If we don’t tell our stories, we lose our history. And if we lose our history, we lose part of who we are.  In this week’s episode, we look back on an aspect of our recent history—or rather on a person of our recent history, who in his day was one of the most famous Christians in Australia. His name was Brian Booth. We’re glad to welcome his grandson, Nathan Anderson, to our conversation this week to tell us about Brian Booth’s life and ministry, and to reflect on the lessons...

Dear friends Australia will soon be voting in a referendum to change our constitution.  (Background for inattentive Aussies or overseas readers: the proposed change involves recognizing the place of Indigenous Australians in our nation’s history, as the original inhabitants of the land, and creating a new mechanism for the participation of Indigenous Australian in our nation’s government—a constitutionally guaranteed Voice to the federal parliament and executive government.) As might be...

Dear friends Following our episode on the ‘Atmospheric Church’ a few weeks ago, quite a few of you have gotten in touch with questions and comments about the nature of our church gatherings, about singing and music, and about how we should think biblically and theologically about these things.  In response, this week’s episode has another crack at these issues, by means of a quirky proposal: “Speaking as an Anglican, I’d like to bring back the church choir”.  To listen to me try to persuade...

Dear friends One of the most enjoyable aspects of doing Two Ways News is interacting regularly with so many of you—through emails and casual conversations as we bump into each other.  This week, I thought it was time to pause and deal with a couple of the interesting questions that have come in recently, both of them about gospel ministry in its different aspects:  - One is about what makes gospel ministry grow, and whether we can learn from the success of other churches or ministries, or...

Dear friends This episode Phillip and I chat about how the ‘gospel’ that we proclaim (such as in this new book, or via the Two Ways to Live framework) relates to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The former declares some news, along with its background and implications; the latter tells a story and introduces you to the person of Jesus. Many questions arise:  - If there is only one ‘gospel’, how come the way the gospel is preached in Acts seems very different from the lengthy,...

Hello again everyone We received so much positive feedback about my conversation with Marty Sweeney (a few episodes ago) that I thought we should talk again.  This time around I wanted to talk to Marty about a subject that we have discussed often over the past decade, especially during the ‘Trellis and Vine’ workshops we often run in across the States. The question is simple enough: if we want to have a church with ‘disciple-making’ as its heartbeat—and we’re aware that our current church...

Dear friends It’s increasingly common these days to hear scholars and intellectuals acknowledge the benefits and even the necessity of the values of Christianity for our culture—people like Tom Holland, Louise Perry and Jordan Peterson. But it’s interesting how these kinds of commentators still resist the claims of Christianity itself for their own lives. And quite often, what they say they’re rejecting is ‘organized religion’.  Have you had friends say something like that to you? “Look I’m...

Dear friends In a world wracked by wars and rumours of wars, by strife and conflict and international crises, you can trust your faithful correspondents at Two Ways News to tackle the truly weighty issues—like the stumping of Jonny Bairstow.  Perhaps it’s a symptom of just how comfortable and prosperous we really are that the populations of England and Australia should be so outraged and obsessed about one incident in a five-day cricket match.  For US and other listeners outside the...

Hello again everyone In this week’s edition, we talk about the confusing words of Christian leadership: ‘pastor’, ‘minister’, ‘elder’, ‘overseer’ and ‘deacon’. Christians often mean different things by them (in different denominations) and the world often attaches different meanings again.  How can we make sense of what the Bible says about these roles?  As always, we will no doubt provoke as many questions as we answer. Please get in touch by emailing [email protected] with your questions...

Hi everyone Phillip and I are back together again this week, and tackling a curly but very important question. It’s the one that I promised we’d get back to, from Craig in the US, who wrote to ask about the creation of ‘atmosphere’ in church. No doubt our answer will provoke even more questions, but we hope it’s a help to Craig, and to all of you, as you think through emotions, affections and ‘atmosphere’ in our church gatherings. Your brother Tony This is a public episode. If you’d like...

Hello again.  It’s Tony’s turn to be sick this week, so you’ll have to put up with just me speaking to you—about the subject of statues and heroes.  Phillip ----- If you have been finding Two Ways News beneficial and encouraging, we would love for you to consider joining our Supporters Club—the people who make it possible for us to keep producing this newsletter/podcast—if you haven’t already. To subscribe for free or join the Supporters Club, follow the link below to the ‘subscribe’ page....

Hi everyone Great to see some of you at the King’s Birthday Conference this week in Sydney. In the week leading up to the conference (with Phillip preparing his talk and struggling with a bout of covid), I had a chat with Ken Noakes about the subject of Christian maturity and its essential nature. Ken has written a unique and helpful book on the subject, and I started by asking him the basic question that I think all authors want to be asked. TP This is a public episode. If you’d like to...