Before I actually finish the notes from last week, did you happen to see on the news, or current affair, the news about this memorial that has been established in Israel for William Cooper? You remember a couple of studies ago we mentioned Daniel Matthews and Daniel Matthews and his wife started a mission in Victoria and then left Victoria and came over to just the other side of the river at Mannum and continued on the ministry there. And the lesson that I would like to bring out for us in all of this is that we don't really know the long-term results of our ministry. I think what we do need to realise is the long-term ministry. I think we need to recognise that relationships take time and the fruits of those relationships are going to take time. Let me read this out to you. This comes from the news. The efforts of Aboriginal leader William Cooper are to be recognised. An Aboriginal elder is about to make history by becoming the first Indigenous Australian to be honoured with his own memorial and garden at the Yasham Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Following a year-long examination of the records, historians at this museum have approved the memorial for the late William Cooper, who led a protest march in Melbourne against the treatment of Jews in Germany only weeks after this particular Nazi assault in Poland, I think, the Kristallnacht in 1938. The memorial will be at the entrance gate garden at the entrance of the huge Yad Vashem complex. Yad Vashem receives about one million visitors a year, about 600,000 from overseas and 400,000 from inside Israel. So the positioning of the memorial means a huge number of people will be exposed to the story of William Cooper. The memorial will be an acknowledgement of Cooper leading a protest after the notorious 1938 pogrom in Nazi Germany. On November 9, 1938, in a state-sponsored reign of terror which came to be known as the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Jews in Germany were targeted for killings or bashings, and Jewish businesses and homes were smashed. Cooper, from Footscray in Melbourne's western suburbs, was secretary of the Australian Aborigines League, which he himself had formed. And as it turns out, he would have been around about 72 years of age when he started this program in Melbourne. He was around about 72 when he formed the Australian Aborigines League. It appears that he had seen reports in Melbourne's papers about this offence in Poland, and gathered as many people as he could for a protest. December 6, 1938, they walked down Collins Street to the German consulate, where they attempted to present a petition to the German consular general, who would not take the petition, but the protest caused a stir. The petition protested the cruel persecution of Jews in Germany. Now, that was a long time before the Australian government protested the treatment of the Jews in Germany and he was up there with the American nation that pulled its representatives out. The reason I've raised that is because what's not mentioned in the paper was that William Cooper was brought to the Lord through Daniels. The evangelical work provided Cooper, this is Daniel Matthews' evangelical work provided Cooper and other Yorta Yorta people with powerful ways of understanding and protesting against their plight, and so helped equip them to fight for equality. First, Christian teachings were a powerful antidote to racism for Aborigines, as for other colonised people, since they proclaimed a vision of humanity that encompassed Aborigines treating all peoples as God's children. Second, they prevented God and religious principles as a form of authority that was distinct from and higher than government and its secular principles. We mustn't underestimate what our biblical teachings have given to us and what we can then give to other peoples, including 17-year-old angry kids in some boys' home somewhere. Third, Christianity offered a prophetic or predictive sense of history, a perspective on the unfolding of historical time that promised salvation for the downtrodden. More particularly, Matthews encouraged the Yorta Yorta to identify with the Jews of the Bible. He did so both through teachings, especially from the Old Testament, and his music, which included hymns and spirituals such as There is a Happy Land Far, Far Away. I hope you realise the incredible richness of the legacy that we have in New Creation hymns, a legacy for the Church that will outlast New Creation itself by decades, if not centuries. The Trinitarian richness of those hymns. Cooper still recalled Matthew's guidance and teachings which had helped those gathered at Maloga to formulate a sense of themselves as a people or to use the language of the day as a race. Most importantly, the historical narratives of the Bible especially the Book of Exodus, encouraged them to envision themselves in terms akin to the persecuted and suffering Israelites. At the same time, this history offered them not just the hope, but the unconditional promise of deliverance. According to God's binding covenant, the dispossessed who took their destiny into their own hands would eventually regain their place. Cooper and others at Maloga seem to have embraced this reassuring story of collective salvation. He once wrote, that's Cooper once wrote, God's mercy endures forever. Do right, have faith in God, incline your heart and you unto the Lord and the Lord will give you victory over your enemies. I don't think Matthews would have had any idea what Cooper would go on to be, a leader in the nation and having a memorial in Israel. And I don't think any of us can put our hand up and say, we've got that. He was a man who abundantly blessed his peoples and he has brought and will bring blessing to the Australian country, to the Australian nation. Now, I might say that his counterpart in his political efforts was a man called Bill Ferguson, who was also a strong Christian man, but you read his biographies or his official biographies and they don't record that. But he was also strongly influenced by Matthews. There was another man who I've already mentioned, Burt Marr, who was a political leader during the 1930s in the eastern states, also was in fact a pastor, also obviously a strong Christian. So these men were men of God and they brought their Christian principles and allowed Christ to actually direct them into the political arena to try to make a difference for the downtrodden. Now I'm just going to speak for a couple of minutes and that's all and then I'll be handing over to Don and I trust this may be a little bit of a lead in. Last week I finished off by referring to Pastor Jack Brayside. I don't know if Don even knows who that man is but anyway that might come up somewhere along the line. Aboriginal Christian Fellowship, page 3 of the notes. For the sake of the tape, obviously, Pastor Jack Brayside is Don's father-in-law before he went home to glory. As successful as the AEF was, and although it sprang out of a frustration with the established Baptistic ethnocentric missions, I'm happy with that, it nonetheless, I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, I'm simply saying that's basically a way of explaining their character, if you like, In fact, most of them historically came from Baptist churches. The AIM and UAM particularly came and sprung from Baptist churches in South Sydney. Ethnocentric, we've already talked about how the missionaries, even though they may not have wanted to, actually imported their culture as much as they did anything else. It nonetheless reflected those same missions. It adopted their theology, pastoral practices and structures. An example of this tie was evident when the mainstream churches across Australia struggled with the issues of the charismatic renewal movement. The Fundamentalist Baptist churches, and I was raised in one of those, I have very lovely memories of Edwardstown Baptist and I was raised in that structure and there was certainly no acceptance, no recognition of the validity of the charismatic gifts or the charismatic movement. These were the same churches from whom the Aboriginal missions had sprung. The AEF then followed their example and they too banned the charismatic gifts in worship. Now if you look down at the footnote down there, number 15, clause 15, the clause from motion presented at the AEF AGM in 1986, this clause states, we should make it clear that they, that is Christians who agree with the charismatic movement, should not teach their divisive doctrines on the aboriginal evangelical fellowship platform or cause division among the ranks of the fellowship. Now, at this time, when this event was occurring, my wife and I were involved in UAM. And we were given written instructions from the UAM head office that, I suppose, in effect, the same instructions. My wife and I are not charismatic in the modern sense of the word. We're not Pentecostal in the modern sense of the word. But we couldn't sign the document, and we were subsequently our resignation was called for. But at the same time, unbeknownst to us, there were some other very significant Aboriginal mission workers that couldn't sign it either. And whilst we were only sort of little fish, they were very significant fish in the mission sea, and their loss to the UAM ranks was very, very significant. So it did have significant effects, But then, amongst the UAM and the Baptistic mission workers, but then the AEF followed suit and this clause in the 1986 demonstrates that. But, not wanting to come down too hard on the gentleman, there was a lot of pressure being brought to bear. The AEF leaders were forced to show their colours when the Brethren mission at Amiwara, Amiwara is a mission site just north east of Port Augusta and quite close to Port Augusta there. On whose land the annual AEF convention was held. The brethren organisation informed the leaders that if they wished to go down in that direction then they would sever their ties. Brethren leaders of the day held a cessationist view of the gifts of the spirit. That basically means that a select number of the gifts of the spirit had a limited lifespan. and that after the era of the New Testament church those gifts ceased to be valid and that the Holy Spirit was now using only his word and the proclamation of his word to propagate the gospel. So, and hence officially it's referred to as a cessationist view of the gifts of the Spirit. A further repercussion occurred when the AEF pastors became involved in the charismatic movement themselves. Some of the AEF pastors and so had to leave the affiliation to form the Aboriginal Christian Fellowship, the ACF. God's covenant promise, in spite of all these hiccups and all the frustrations that are brought to bear that we bring upon ourselves and the frustrations we cause, I think sometimes to God's program, God's covenant promise still remains. In Exodus 34, 6-7, It's evident in the growth of the Aboriginal church when his blessings flow from one generation to the next. The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Maintaining love to thousands implication meaning thousands of generations. Now, you obviously folk are not Lutheran, but believe it or not, you are still reaping the benefits of God's faithfulness to the promise God gave to Luther over 400 years ago. The church around the world is still reaping the benefits of John Newton and his faithfulness. But John Newton and us, therefore, are still reaping the benefits of his mother's faithfulness in prayer for John Newton, even while he was a slave trader. We see God's gracious actions in the passing of the gospel from one generation to the next. For example, Pastor Ozzie Cruz was a prominent AEF leader and was grandson of Nathaniel Pepper. Bishop Arthur Malcolm of Yarrabah, Queensland is a great nephew of Pastor James Noble, sorry, Reverend James Noble. Sir Douglas Nicholls was a grandson of Eddie Atkinson. Now, we could multiply this, I'm sure, many, many times over. I would leave it there if I may and I know it's a bit of a sort of a hiatus but if I leave it there then I can hand over to Don because my notes are finished for tonight. Thank you. Thank you Bryce. I just want to read a couple of verses and it's right from Genesis chapter 1. And I'll talk a little bit more about myself when I finish these particular verses. It says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep. and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day. And God said, let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse sky. And there was evening and there was morning the second day. And God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear. And it was so. God called it dry ground land. and gathered waters of all seas and God saw that it was good. I don't want to read all of that particular chapter but just to introduce myself as Bryce was saying earlier, my father-in-law was Jack Brayside and what a great man of God he was. He was a prolific reader of the word and prayer. He was second to none. I've been to theological college. I spent four years in Sydney and sometimes I'd sit down with him and talk to him about, you know, what does this mean? What does this particular chapter mean? Or what does this verse mean? And some of the answers he was giving back to me I was reading in some of those books by people who were regarded as great theologians, you know, of that time or even earlier periods. So he was a prolific studier of the Word. And, you know, the tragedy, I think, with the issue with the charismatic movement in the AF and the stance they made, I believe in my heart, in many ways, it began to dismantle the vision that God had given to those men from the east and the west of Australia. And I remember way back, you know, we used to go to the Port Augusta Convention and a little 14-year-old running around in the mud, in the bush. I wasn't really interested in the services at that time. But the amount of people that came together and worshipped and praised the Lord, it was just amazing how that just filtered right back to all those communities right around Australia. I want to talk a little bit in a minute about Some of the issues that are facing Aboriginal people today and the importance of the church and the response that we need to make as a church and the opportunity, I believe, that God has given to us as a church, not just the Aboriginal church itself, but also those churches who want to support that particular ministry. I was born in Kattening, which is a town in the southwest corner of Western Australia, and I grew up in an Aboriginal reserve. about 12, 13 and in those days you had three rooms, two bedrooms, one side and a kitchen in the middle and once you became proficient at looking after your house then the government said well then you can move into town because all the reserves are placed in obscure places so it was out of sight out of mind and I remember when we first moved into town it was just like a mansion you know you had your own toilet, you had your own bathroom, you had hot water You didn't have to go and light this heater all the time, and no one would hardly light the things, so you'd have cold showers all the time in the reserve. But to experience a warm bath, especially a bath, and if that light wasn't working on the reserve, it was so dark. And little fellas, we got scared, you know. You go in, you go in. No, I'm not going in, you go in. So it was all like that. So, you know, even though we had some tragic experiences on the reserves, there were some great times that we had as children. I finished, I did all my schooling at Kentenny, went to Year 12 and then went to Perth, went to Teachers College and then it was there that really I drifted away a lot from the Lord and got into a little bit of trouble and decided I've got to get away. from Western Australia and headed over this way. Because one of my friends said, oh, my father's not well, can you drive the car? I helped him drive. And so I helped him drive and came over here. And the father, I liked his daughter. So it kept me here for at least a couple of years. But I didn't end up marrying her. I ended up marrying Jack Brayside's daughter, Carly, who's not able to be here tonight. I have four children and currently I'm the pastor in the Aboriginal Berean Church which we meet here actually on a Sunday night and really appreciate the support of the Northwestern Community Church and especially those that continue to be involved in the service on a Sunday night. I don't know if you know a lot about Aboriginal churches but we don't have a great amount of leaders or support and it's really appreciated the support that the North Western Community Church provides to us. Tonight I just want to talk maybe three or four points and it's in relation to leadership. I've done a lot of leadership programs over the years to develop those qualities as a leader. Some have worked, some haven't. Some have been good and some not so good and you think what was the point of it. But I just want to mention, there's some points I want to mention tonight. And the first one is, it's really related to me as an Aboriginal leader, as an Aboriginal Christian leader. And the first thing is, as an Aboriginal Christian leader, I need to have a strong sense of my identity as an Aboriginal man. And, you know, if you look at the history of Australia, a lot of those that identity is lost for a number of reasons and there is a resurgence at the moment for people to come back and find out about their family and who they are and what their history is. The issue is, Bryce has mentioned, in the early years we were put under reserves and so we weren't allowed to speak our language and some of the elders weren't able to go and perform different ceremonies and those sorts of things. So in the end you started losing a lot of that and someone really never thought at that particular time to try and capture and maintain some of that history and we lost a lot of it. So even the restructuring of our language at the moment, which is the Noongar language, we actually have to adopt words from other areas because we can never really have the full language but we have words that sort of connect so we can make sentences from those particular words. The biggest difficulty I think for an Aboriginal person today is how do you live between the two worlds. You know someone once mentioned, gave me an example of what that might mean and they said well if you put your foot on a escalator going, a flat escalator, or whatever those things are, conveyor belt, if you've got a foot on one conveyor belt going that way and the other conveyor belts going the other way, that's what it feels like. It's a tremendous struggle that we have to be able to live between the two wells. And I try and do that, I try and talk to my children as much as I can about the knowledge that I have in relation to Aboriginal culture. I'm from Noongar and my wife is from Yamaji and years ago we never interacted with each other. There was a boundary and that was it and we also had our social systems in place around who you could marry and who you couldn't. So I'm hoping possibly maybe halfway through next year to try and take my boys up to where Jack was born. He was actually born on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert And the family up there, Jack's family, they speak the language fluently so it's almost like an Aboriginal person going in there but you've got to have an interpreter to interpret the language. And that's the diversity we have within this country. The second thing I want to mention is that as an Aboriginal Christian lady you also have to have a strong sense of principles of social justice, equity and fairness for Aboriginal people. And it's interesting that Bryce mentioned William Cooper and William Ferguson. And they were strong advocates for Aboriginal people around, especially around the inequities that were in society at that particular time. And the truth is we still have inequities that exist between Aboriginal people even today. And if you look at the statistics from the ABS or the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it tells us we still have a bit of a way to go. Hopefully we have a new concept out at the moment which is called closing the gap and the government is pouring tremendous amounts of money in to try and close that gap. And that gap really refers to the life expectancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. At one stage it was 20 and now it's beginning to come down. So it depends which collection of information you look at as to what that age might be. So the question for me as an Aboriginal Christian leader in the church is how do I become involved in those social inequities to ensure that Aboriginal people have a fair go. And I think the biggest difficulty we have is You know, as Aboriginal people, there is still this gap, this division between us and non-Aboriginal people. And I've had to deal with it myself. You know, it's taken me a long time to be able to deal with that, to say, well, you know, we need to be able to stand together and support each other. But there are still a lot of Aboriginal people that are still angry because of the past and the things that have happened. And so, really, we've got to start trying to break those barriers down. and there was the concept of reconciliation that's been around for quite a while now and we actually have a national body which is, I think it's referred to as Reconciliation Australia to look at how we can break those barriers down and I think doing something like this is critical to that. You know I heard a comment that was made by I think it was either Patrick Dodson or Mick Dodson saying that if we respect each other's differences then we'll learn a lot and I actually like that statement but you can't do that without understanding the differences that exist between both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal and the things that have caused us Thank you. The things that have caused us to be divided and you know I always refer to the scripture where it says we are all one in Christ but that doesn't make us the same. You know we will still have our unique differences and you know and I think about the body of Christ even the differences that exist there and they're there for a reason. And the reason is that they complement each other. And I think we can, you know, if we work towards it in the wisdom of God, is that we can, with our differences, complement each other in the word the Lord has given to us. The third point I want to make, I'll just have a bit of a drink here, thank you Trevor. Because I'm always aware that we have to, as Aboriginal Christian leaders, at least have an understanding of the Aboriginal culture and history. I've been involved in a training program a couple of years ago which looked at the issues around drug and alcohol in Aboriginal communities and some of the ways we need to be able to respond to it. One of the issues that we talked about was two words, internalised oppression. and I've never heard the words before and I'm not an academic like Bryce and so I thought well what does this all mean and it took me a long time to understand what it meant but it made sense in the end is that when you know the Aboriginal traditional way of life we then had colonisation occur and so life as we once knew it really just changed you know so Even a reserve, if I look at the reserve and I didn't understand it as a child, but to be then taken off your land and put into the reserve, you then become disconnected with everything that you were as an Aboriginal person. And I especially saw the, you know, I now look back and I can see how Aboriginal men lost their place. And then what happens is because there's a lot of anger and rage and pain is there, they can't sort of really express it. Because if they did, we know that if you did then you're put into prison or you're shot or you're whatever, you know. But that anger and that rage and that pain has got to go somewhere. You know, it's got to go somewhere. So quite often I always talk about the issues that happened on the reserve and the tremendous amount of domestic violence that was on the reserve. And I shared the story one time when my mother walked in the door and blood was just pouring from her head. One of the men had hit her across the head with an axe. I thought, you know, that was the end of my mother. And there were many incidences that we saw on the reserve like that. So that's one way is we take that anger and that rage and that pain out on those around us, and it's normally the closest ones to us. Or the other way that we do is we take it out on ourselves, you know, and filtering through that is, you know, at that particular time there was a thought about Aboriginal people as being, I suppose, the lowest on the evolutionary ladder. You know, we have a terrible problem with self-esteem, you know, self-pride. I don't know, some of these messages, they get passed on from generation to generation. And I'm always saying to people, you'd be very careful what you say to your children. You know, if you say to your child, you're no good, you're useless, you're no good, you're useless, in the end they begin to believe that. And I think we're still the beneficiaries of some of those thoughts. And there was in 19, I think it was in 2008, Kevin Rudd issued a public apology to the members of the Stolen Generation. And some of you may not know that out of that apology they then set up a healing foundation. And this healing foundation is, they created an amount of money which is I think about 20 odd million dollars. and what they want to try and do there is look at the impact that the pain and the suffering and the healing that needs to occur with those who are impacted by the stolen generation and we've actually put in for some money through Cooriella, the place where I work and one of the things really is to understand that Aboriginal people really need healing and there are things that were just continually transferred on from one generation to the next generation. So hopefully within the next two or three months we might know the result of that funding. But we need a tremendous amount of healing in our communities. You know, the amount of loss and grief, and that comes in many different forms. Aboriginal people have always said to me, we're continuously going to funerals. Funeral after funeral after funeral, and there is an obligation that is set upon many of our Aboriginal people who attend these funerals. But it does something to them, you know, in the end they just say they become numb. In the end, that's how they protect themselves. But then it has its impact on them. So it's looking at those sorts of things. I'm hoping that as Bryce shares a lot of that information and myself that we as a church would be able to pray for those issues that are happening within the Aboriginal community. The last one I want to talk about really is just a strong sense of staying connected to the Aboriginal community. Bryce mentioned about the AEF. My understanding of the AEF was set up as, back in those days, the talent, the amount of leadership and the leadership qualities that many of Aboriginal men had and many of Aboriginal women had was not given opportunity to be expressed within the churches for a number of reasons. I think there was also movement around the world. I've read some of the letters from, because Jack kept some of the letters and they were in the shed, so I read them every now and again. I read them because I've got to send them over to Western Australia soon to go into the archives. But there was an accusation against the AEF in saying that they were equated with the Black Panther movement. which was happening in America at that particular time. So they had to respond to that and say, no, we're not the same. We're really looking at providing opportunity for Aboriginal history to be developed in the Christian world, but also to be able to present the gospel to the Aboriginal community throughout Australia. Now those men had a tremendous vision. And that vision was not just happening in the West, it was also happening in the East. And I think it was in 1970 they had the meeting where they all came together and formed the AF. Something I want you to pray for is men in my generation and I'm 50 now, we actually need a new visual. I've been starting to meet with Aboriginal men in Adelaide and we've now really sought the Lord on the names of Aboriginal men who have been in ministry and have drifted away and some of these men in some of the positions they've held in communities have actually allowed them to develop their leadership abilities, but not in the same way that you would develop those in the church. And many of them have drifted away from the Lord. And I've always been a believer that Aboriginal men need to take their place back in the community. Aboriginal women have had a tremendous amount of support. They have always been the backbone of our families. In actual fact, they've always been the backbone of the church. And they've always prayed and they've always said to me, well, where are the men to stand alongside us? And the men have lost their way. And so what we're hoping to try and do is really bring men back together. But I'm hoping that the Lord will show us a new vision, because we need a new vision. We have A generation that's coming through now of Aboriginal young people that have not had the same experiences in church that we have had. The missionaries have gone out to communities all over Australia and have preached the gospel to the Aboriginal people. Now we have a generation that has never experienced that. The only time they may go into the church is when there's funerals or when there's a wedding. So the Lord has placed a burden on our heart for that, but we actually need a vision. And as the Lord says, if we don't have a vision, then the people perish. And so we actually need that vision. The challenges for Aboriginal Christian leadership or the Aboriginal church today, and I haven't written them here, but One of those really is the resurgence of Aboriginal culture and there was a meeting of quite a number of Aboriginal groups that met somewhere along the Murray River and they actually sort of did song and dance all the way down to almost the mouth of the Murray to look at the ways that, you know, because that's a very important story especially for those groups groups that live across, live along the river. But what it means for us as Aboriginal men is the question is posed to us then, you know, what do we believe in? If we don't believe in what they believe in, does it make us an Aboriginal man? Does it make us an Aboriginal woman? You know, and I read this verse from Genesis. If you look at culture and history of Aboriginal people, The stories in there are very different to the one that's in the Bible. So the challenge is on me. What do you believe? As an Aboriginal man. And I always say, and always respond in saying, well, when you become a Christian, it doesn't matter what culture you're in. There's always going to be some challenges or issues that are going to confront you. And you have to make a decision. about what you want to embrace and what you don't want to embrace. It's interesting because we've been having this training at an Aboriginal organisation in Adelaide which is called Ngunna Wurrungyonti. It's a big health, Aboriginal community health organisation. And one of the guys in there, he doesn't believe a lot in the Lord. But he was actually saying, well, you know, it says in the Bible, because we're talking about reconciliation, and he said, the difficulty you have, and I've heard it before, the difficulty you have with trying to reconcile Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people is we're never equal in the first place. So how can you sort of, you know, use a concept? And then he says, well, you know, if you look at the Christian concept, and I'm sitting back, I'm surprised that he's talking. He said, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, had this relationship with God and then it got broken and so there was a relationship between God and man and woman in the first place. So that's the true essence of reconciliation. So the message is there within Aboriginal communities but there is also a great challenge upon us in the resurgence of Aboriginal culture. The other one is The challenge upon us is how we respond to the role of women within the church. I remember a long time ago when I went to Port Augusta Amiwara and there was a community just next door to Kordavenport and they were meeting in a shed and it was about 40 odd degrees. sweltering. And so they had like the chairs one side and chairs on the other side. So I'll go and sit on that side and then someone comes and taps me on the shoulder. Yeah, and they said, hey, you know how to sit on this side. I said, what do you mean? They said, only the women sit this side. And so then I had to go across the other side. It was interesting, you know, you had the men all one side and the women all the other side. And then I asked the question, why do you do that? And they said, well, you know, it was to do with the way that men and women have their role within the families and the groups. And then I thought, well, you know, if you look at Aboriginal culture in its truest form, Aboriginal men and women were just as important as each other. In actual fact, the women were the ones, if it wasn't for them, a lot of our people wouldn't have survived. because the men used to go travelling out for a long time trying to catch a kangaroo or whatever, whereas the women knew all these other bush foods that were around. And so it's a challenge on us to try and work out what is the role of women, Aboriginal women in our churches. We don't have a lot of Aboriginal pastors or leaders. Denise Champion is very unique and she's located there. Did you have her here last week to speak to you? Next week? Yeah, well you'll meet her next week. She's one of the very unique women that are in Australia at the moment. I think I might end it there but is there any questions that anyone has in relation to what I've spoken about? I'm afraid it's not very well at all. The issue of working out what it's OK to believe and what it's not OK to believe, how do you imagine that that's going to be dealt with as time goes on? Is it just going to be an individual thing or is it going to be done by denominations? How do you think the right way to deal with that is? Just ask the question again. I'm trying to figure it out. You mentioned different things. One, it's OK to believe. How are you going to work that through as Aboriginal people? Well, you actually pick something up in your book that you've all mapped out. and there was a bit of a struggle with traditional aboriginal men and especially from the AF, one of the issues was around whether they could be a Christian and still be involved in the traditional practices around... and the point that the traditional men were trying to make was Well if we disconnect ourselves from that then we lose our authority and you know if you lose your authority then you lose your place in the community and that was a struggle for them. Now there were some men that actually went back and took their place in that and then tried to hold onto their Christian faith as well. It is a tremendous struggle. It really is. I've had men come to our church. I've been to areas where Christian men have really been struggling with that old issue. I think Paul used a bit of an example about the food sacrificed to idols. There were those that said, no you just can't eat it. Paul was saying, God created those things anyways. But the issue for me is becoming a stumbling block. If a person continues to express their faith and the message of the gospel is spoken and the testimony is given with it, I think that's really important. And it's a real dilemma for us because I think as a church, what we've done is is, and we've done it in the Aboriginal Church ourselves, is we've actually sort of almost determined what a Christian is, how they should speak, how they should dress, how they should live and all those sorts of things. So anyone who's outside of that feels really awkward and I always try and be aware of that because we have a guy that came Sunday night and he's rough as anything, like really, really rough. And I'm saying to the other guys on Monday, you know, what he can come to our prayer meeting, but he's really rough. And what I mean by rough, you know, he swears like a trooper and smokes and all those sorts of things. And then you think, well, where is, you know, is he really a Christian? But I know that guys aren't. And he really, really loves the Lord. Now, you know, if the Lord wants to work in his life, then he will do so. I shouldn't put the pressure on him to say, no you need to be like this. It's really not my job. My job really is to make sure that my heart's right with the Lord and to encourage people in the faith. And the Lord will give you the opportunity to do that all the time. But this danger of trying to transfer what we believe is the right way to do things as a Christian, I think there's a little bit of a danger, there is a danger in that. But you know there are some things that are blatant that you could say, well I don't think that's the right thing to do. Because you know in the Aboriginal community, the issue we have in the Aboriginal community, everyone knows everything. So you know if there are things you do wrong, It's like wildfire and it gets distorted. So you're fighting against that as well. Even though you might get back on track with the Lord, in people's minds you're still down, away from the Lord or whatever it may be. Can you tell us the appointment of Christian leaders and how do you think in Aboriginal communities they are recognised and appointed and how can we as the wider church assist the Aboriginal church in actually acquiring Christian leaders if you like? The thing about that tonight is How do we do pastors? Even within the church, like if I look at my own self, sometimes I say to people I'm one of the leaders in the church and they say, no you're not, you're the pastor. But it's the community that says it, no you are the pastor. Because when we look at pastors, there was a definition or there was a certain amount of things you have to go through to become a pastor. That could be going to college or whatever it may be. One of the issues we did have when we sent a lot of the young men and women to places like Pemberdeen and especially Pemberdeen because there's quite a number of people from this state that went into Pemberdeen is when they came back into the churches is the roles they were given and if there was anything that I did struggle with with the AF was that the older men held on to those positions for a very long time and should have encouraged that leadership, especially with the next generation. For, you know, if the churches are looking at, you know, and I always know that when you work in an Aboriginal church, it's a huge challenge in the sense that You don't have a lot of people, so you're not paid. That's the first thing. So there's a struggle in you. And that's my dilemma at the moment, is because I'm not a paid pastor, then I've got to work. And when I work, my dilemma is, well do I want to work or do I want to be the pastor in the church, because the need is so great. But I know that I can't, because I've got to look after my family. And it tells us in the scripture, you can't look after your family, that's not the way it is to be a leader. I don't know if that's answering your question. Is there anything that the wider church can do to assist in the recognition of leadership? If anything it would be the criterion that determines what a pastor is or you know because I know that show your church you have to do five years is it five years of and it's a big big huge commitment by and I don't know how many Lutheran pastors are around I know Edmund's just finished his. There's about 25 or 26 indigenous Lutheran pastors but all up in Central, in Australia. 25 in Australia, 25 or 26 in Australia, but they're all in the centre, with the exception of Edmond and retired pastoral in Queensland. So the question really is how do you then, why is it the case, you know, why are they only there and not in other areas around Australia? So that's a bit of a challenge I suppose to the Lutheran Church. Q. You were saying about the vision, you are looking at a vision of what the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ will give you in life to actually go ahead. So what you are actually looking is for now pouring the Holy Spirit himself to invite you to come together in that form of prayer. And communion is so necessary to break down all these differences in America. I can remember at the war that Jesus prayed for the cross for us, that that would actually bring this union together, the unity of the body of the soul, as looking to the head and coming up with a solution Q. Sir, I have a question for you. Yeah, look, and I think What we realise as Aboriginal leaders and Christian leaders is we have been disconnected for a very long time. Whether that goes back to the time when there was a break between the charismatic movement and Aboriginal men and women who embraced that and those who embraced the AF. They didn't see eye to eye on those particular things. So that disconnection has been there for a little while. It's interesting, it's the first time where some of these men have been talking about getting other men from other denominations together, which has never been spoken about before because you only have to see it in the general church. We have this church and that church and so we do our own things in our own way. And really that's what the Lord did. with that vision that he gave to those that formed the AEF. They were all from all different denominations, but he gave them that vision which united them all. So that's really the thing. I think you're right. As we meet together and pray together, the Lord's going to do it. He'll give us that vision. I'm excited. But I know it's going to be a tremendous challenge as well to continue. Well it is, it is. And I think that's the key is the Lord has to do it. We can't manufacture it, we can't sort of, and I keep on saying to the men, you can't sort of make it up in your own mind that this is a vision I think we have. We've got to continue to pray, continue to pray and Just as the Lord showed those men in the East and the West back in the 60s, early 70s, the Lord's going to show us. That's what I believe in my heart. One of the things that I think it's so important for us to realises that God has not stopped his work, the revival that occurred, which really is, I suppose, the impetus for being invited up here to speak right from the start. The revival that occurred has not stopped, it's changed its colour, bad word there, it's changed its nature, sorry, it's changed its nature. But if I reflect on the character of the church in Australia now, compared to what it was before the revival, it's vastly different. You may not realise it because you sit in the church pews from week after week and you maintain your work etc. But now church leaders don't talk about missionaries and going to missions in Australia, they now talk about partnerships. Now that's not just a change in word, that's a whole change in attitude that has had to come about from the donor organisations in the Australian church. We now talk about including Aboriginal leaders in denominational meetings. And we now talk about how do we facilitate this. We now talk about how can we change our meeting styles to accommodate the Aboriginal style of meeting and making decisions. Now they're all changes that have come about in the Australian framework since the revival. We now have the Anglican Church, for example, has, I think it's three Aboriginal bishops in the top end of Australia. They've got quite a few Aboriginal pastors. I'm not sure if they've got as many as the Lutherans have got, but they've got quite a few Aboriginal pastors. The Baptists now have a record of ongoing church ministries by Baptist elders. The interesting difference is they don't refer to them as pastors. Now, I'm not sure whether that's because of the Baptist-Caucasian hierarchy or whether that's a decision made by Aboriginal communities. It matters not. The fact is that they are continuing to pastor and nurture their churches, which, by the way, in the scriptures, elder and pastor is the same word. So it really doesn't matter what term you use. So I think a good remembrance where the elder don or pastor don. But you see, the fact is the church has changed its nature. I think, too, to know that God is still working, He does not always have to work in such obvious ways that we feel, oh, really good. Sometimes He works by us feeling, oh, I'm not sure if I can cope. Oh, you can't cope? Well, how about you trust me again? Sometimes the Lord has to bend our knees so that He can strengthen our backs. And I think oftentimes we sort of think, oh, the Lord's stopped working now. And even the call for a vision, which I think is a very good call, and I commend the church to do that, but sometimes we're sort of looking for something that if only God would come back. And the Lord says, hey, if somebody left, it wasn't me. He's still here, but he's doing a different work and bringing about a different result. And I wonder sometimes if maybe the church in Australia, meaning the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, needed to come together and far more Aboriginal strength be found in leadership, before the revival could continue on in further growth. I believe one day it is going to continue on and there's going to be a resurgence of God's Spirit and that vision is going to be renewed for all of us, but when that happens the church will need to be far ready next time than it was last time. We know of some pockets in the Aboriginal congregation that are still resisting it, but God by His Spirit is still working and you cannot pigeonhole His Spirit. He will break out every time. Praise God for that. I've got a question, Don, without notice. I've often wondered whether things are best with an Aboriginal church or an Indigenous church and a European church, whether it's, you know, Lutheran Germans or Dutch Reformed or English Anglicans. or whether one of the problems that we have is even within the church, should we give more attention to being together as the church and elevating or seeing the significance of the Aboriginal input, which is best? Or does it happen that when you try to do that and work together, that the white fellows have their way, sort of political ways of doing things and then the Aboriginal input is sidelined. So I don't, I mean it's just a question I've wondered in my mind whether does that tend to happen. So it's best to kind of build up a head of steam amongst primarily Aboriginal people or would it be better to sort of have both to work both as tribal and you know as Aboriginal peoples but to kind of hand and glove that into the whole wider church so that congregations are made up of and have regular input from Aboriginal leaders. There's a question for you Don, thanks. Thank you Trevor for the question. And we do, we have, there are many, and it's not just in the church sense, it's also in the secular world where there are Aboriginal units or Aboriginal organisations that have been set up specifically for the purpose of concentrating on the issues that are related to Aboriginal people. It's a great challenge, it really is, to try and bring Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people together and be able to treat each other as equals. The problem we have in the church is that not everyone is at the same level, so all it takes is one incident, which has happened in the past, it takes one incident and it filters And the problem with, you know, the issue that you have with Aboriginal communities is if you offend one person, many of our churches are made up of extended families or strong families, so if one family member don't come, then that can influence quite a number of family members that are in the church. But I think it's something we should continue to work towards. I don't have the answers of how we do that, but I think The way that we work, the Northwestern Community Church and the Adelaide Breon Church, I think is a step in that direction. Even though we don't all go to the Northwestern Community Church or vice versa, there's interconnections that are occurring there. And whether we'll ever get to the point one day, and I think that's why the the AEF was formed because of those issues around being able to develop Aboriginal leadership. That's one part of it, but also how do you reach out to the Aboriginal community so that if they do come to the church, where is a church that they can feel it's their home or where they feel secure and safe. And that's always going to be a challenge for us. Yes. I haven't really given you an answer to that of how we could do it, but it shouldn't stop us from trying to work towards it. Because the reality of it is we're going to be standing together one day anyways, once the Lord comes back or takes us home, so why don't we start trying to develop some relationship with each other now while we're on the earth. And in actual fact I think Australia hasn't got it right in a secular sense. I'm sure the Lord can help us get it right or work towards getting it right within the churches. But you know the churches do go up and down. Sometimes they're strong and sometimes they're not so strong. I think personally, second only to St Paul's, Ferryden Park, you guys have got it very well here. I think my congregation is quite unique, possibly in Australia, certainly unique in South Australia, in that we have what I consider to be as ideal a marriage as you can between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. I think the alternative would be something to the effect that you have here. I think one of the issues, first of all I suppose I would ask the question, why would a congregation want to come together? What's wrong with what's happening? Because we are one in Christ, but be our unity in Christ is not something we can bring about organisationally, it's something that is there. But if I can just tell a little anecdote, and we're talking here about the Aboriginal community and the Caucasian community, so I'll tell you a little anecdote about an African situation because we've also had those at Ferdinand Park. Not long after the refugees started coming, we had some African folks sitting down and they were sitting in our foyer and during their chats, and I was standing at the door shaking hands. Oh my goodness me. Did any of my ladies see that? Oh my goodness me. What am I going to do with this? So I thought, well, okay, I will have a fellowship meal at home. And we invited these particular ladies, African ladies home, sitting down in the lounge. Now, I've had the privilege of being to these people's homes in Sudan. And there's nothing wrong with spitting on the floor because the floor's dirt. And it's not a problem. And when the house gets too dirty, you just upstakes the house and build another one next door. So it's not a great difficulty. However, in the Australian context, it caused a few hiccups. And after a while, the cleaner, God bless her, felt she had to complain to the pastor because there were great big saliva marks appearing on the toilet walls in both the men's and the women's toilets. Now, I think at Walsh, we at Ferryden Park have learned to accommodate the changes. And perhaps another more practical level is we raise our children in different ways. Aboriginal people don't have the same attitude towards discipline of children as certainly in my family that I grew up with. Things have changed a little bit for the next generation, but still, we raise our children in different ways. And if you have a church that is governed by a European Caucasian group, and even if there's one or two Aboriginal people in that group, it is still a European Caucasian structure, and you're making decisions about how your church plant is to be looked after, You've got to find a conflict. Can't you keep those little demons out of the car park? Can't you stop those little demons climbing up all over the neck? On a Sunday for example, how many kids did I have crawling around my feet at the altar out here? I've said to the parents, look this is perhaps a special space if you can just keep your kids over there. So after a while, a couple of times I've had to reach down and grab the ankle of a little nail biter who's just crawling under the altar and I've grabbed an ankle and sort of pulled him up. Who owns this? And a couple of times in front of my congregation I've put a hand of knowledge on the seat of wisdom. And one of my dear elders came up to me and said, you could be up for abuse at that. I said, oh, the mother's right there. She'll tell me off if she wants to. But you see, we raise our kids differently. So if you're having a congregation that is, you're endeavouring to bring the two churches together, you could actually be asking for more trouble than it's worth, especially if you've got one group that are happy to meet there and one group that are happy to meet there. and we can nurture and foster our unity in Christ without having to deal with all the organisational issues, because we are different. And I think the richness is in our differentiations. I really do. I think there's a great richness that we can enjoy in our differentiations. I would, however, suggest that Aboriginal folk go and worship in the mornings and white folk go and worship in the evenings, because I think that's a great way of honouring one another in our differentiations. Thank you. Thank you again Bryce and anyone else who'd like to add to our discussion this evening. We're nearly to a close. It's been very helpful and Don thanks very much. Let's pray together and close with a prayer.