Giving Honour in Canberra

I am just finished with a very busy and very rich weekend in Canberra. I will offer the details in a moment, but I was impressed to lift up some key Christian champions in Australia and to give them some much needed recognition, respect and honour.

In Romans 13:7 we find these words: “Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.” I am not here to talk about taxes, but I am hoping to give a bit of honour to whom it is due based on my time in Canberra.

canberra_parliament_houseThe annual National Prayer Breakfast and the National Alliance of Christian Leaders both had their annual events in Canberra this weekend. I have attended quite a few of each over the past few decades, and this year’s events were very good indeed.

Let me begin by giving honour to a terrific couple, Paul and Hilary Moroney. They are some of God’s choice servants in Canberra and have been doing so much great work. Almost five years ago now they set up this amazing place called the Canberra House of Prayer.

Even the building and the location they are in is so neat, being amongst the various international embassies. C-HOP is strategically nestled between the Nigerian High Commission and the Saudi Arabian Embassy! It has rooms for worship, teaching, prayer, dining, etc., but also can accommodate around 35 guests.

So all year long it is a beehive of activity, with Christians coming and going from all around the world, with vital prayer, intercession and spiritual warfare taking place, and great times of teaching, fellowship and worship. I told Hilary the fellowship and community almost reminds me of some of the communes I stayed in back in my younger days!

Some of the times of intercession, repentance and worship that occur here are just amazing. It keeps the Moroneys very busy indeed, but they are real servants who seek to serve the Body of Christ worldwide. They perform invaluable tasks for the Kingdom, and the enemy is certainly displeased with what they do, so please keep them in your prayers thanks.

See more about C-HOP here: http://www.c-hop.org.au/

The NACL dinner which is held on the Saturday night before the Parliamentary function was once again a superb event, really being, in so many ways, the highlight of the weekend. Graham and Pam McLennan put this on every year, and it really is something to keep your calendar open for.

Key Christian leaders from around Australia and overseas are given a chance to briefly discuss their ministries and what God is doing in our world. That coupled with a great meal and time of fellowship makes it a not-to-be-missed event. So I must honour Graham and Pam for their years of dedication and commitment to this great work.

See more about the NACL here: http://www.nacl.com.au/

And see more about the great work Graham does with the Christian History Research website here: http://www.chr.org.au/

One special highlight of the weekend was the showing of the new 2-hour documentary Gallipoli: The Road to Jerusalem by Kelvin Crombie. This remarkable video traces some of the amazing moves of God in history, with Australian and New Zealand connections to things like the formation of the modern state of Israel.

See this short video clip about this amazing documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2WwCq2JyHc

And see more here: http://www.heritageresources.com.au

The breakfast itself features a Sunday night function along with the main Monday morning event. Anyone familiar with my site will know that during the past few years this event has been a bit disappointing for various reasons. The clear distinctives of the gospel tended to get a bit lost, and at times the whole affair seemed to lose its clear Christian edge.

I wrote about some of these more disappointing sessions in years gone by, but I am happy to report that the breakfast seemed to get back to its roots this year. Under the leadership of NSW MP and evangelical Christian Louise Markus, the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, which puts this on, seem to have gotten its groove back.

The gospel, Jesus and the Bible were all clearly and unashamedly affirmed this weekend. The keynote speaker this morning was Michael Ramsden of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He shared on various things from an apologetics point of view, including the relationship between love and truth. Good stuff.

So the two-day affair was quite good and a real improvement on recent years. Hopefully it will stay that way in coming years. As always, Satan wants to minimise or quash any work of God, and that can include things like prayer breakfasts. So keep that in prayer as well if you will, and uphold Louise.

One final thing: I also had the joy this afternoon of attending another meeting of the Christian Values Institute run by Warwick and Alison Marsh. Each year they honour a few great Parliamentarians who stand strong for the faith in the busy and draining world of federal politics.

Several MPs received the Christians Values Award today, including Senator Bob Day, and I was privileged to be able to present one to George Christensen, MP from Queensland. I have long said that George is a champ. He is bold and brave, not willing to let the forces of political correctness keep him down. He will speak out resolutely for faith, family and freedom. I wish we had more politicians like him. So I honour George and his five year stint in Parliament.

Keep Canberra in your prayers. There is a lot of nasty stuff going on there, but God is also at work. God is concerned about cities and about nations. The enemy wants to claim Canberra and Australia for his own nefarious purpose, but we need to work and pray against that.

We need to reaffirm and proclaim that Australia is indeed the great Southland of the Holy Spirit.

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22 Replies to “Giving Honour in Canberra”

  1. Thanks for the encouragement Bill.

    After days of MSM attack on our PM it is great to get your news.

  2. I am sure the House of Prayer has something very profound to do with the Australian rejection of sodomitic marriage so called, again. Almost alone in the world, Praise God you are still shining the light.

  3. And immediately after a bunch of us Christians left Parliament House, Malcolm Turncoat called for a spill motion to dump Abbott. This is war – spiritual war.

  4. Dear All
    Please pray for Tony Abbott to remain as PM. Turnbull has a shady past in his dealings with the Packers. He is not to be trusted. He is also Pro Gay.

    Tony Abbott is much more righteous than Turnbull

    regards
    Phil

  5. Pleased to hear the Prayer breakfast is back on track. I bet Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t there. He was too busy undermining Tony Abbott. If Turnbull becomes PM I will not vote for the Liberal Party. They seem to have learned nothing form the Labor Party.

  6. Pretty sad that we will have to succumb to a leadership spill motion yet again. It’s like we do not know how to fail or loose anymore. We see it even in national sporting teams, when they lose a major match or game, they decide to fire the coach, captain and half the players. Now we are doing the same thing in the top job of our nation.

    What happened to staying power and staying the course especially since Mr Abbott was elected into the top job by the citizens of Australia?

    From that YouTube video, you posted, we see the devilish reasons behind all this. Bill the prayers of you and the many more, Men and Women of honour, that gathered in Canberra over the weekend will not go in vain. We will continue to pray for our leaders and those in authority that God’s will will prevail in our country.

  7. .Unfortunately, Malcolm Turnbull is now the Prime Minister of Australia. The vote was 54/44. A sad day for Australia.

  8. Thank goodness I will be voting for the CDP next election. Malcontent Turncoat just gave Labor the election.

  9. Time for all conservative voters to be busy with writing emails to have their voices heard.

    Consider writing to Andrew Hastie- to stand independently or risk the backlash of disgusted voters.
    ( he is a good man who deserves his seat but I fear that it will be lost because of voter anger)
    Writing to the Nationals- not to go down with the LNP and not to support the new leadership.

    Writing to your own MP and to any other MP with whom you take issue. Bishop, Turnbull, etc

    NB. By not supporting Abbott publicly and standing as deputy with him, people like Morrison, whom I have always respected, essentially gave the leadership to Turnbull. If he had of stood as Abbotts deputy- the outcome would very likely have been completely different.

    It is not a time to sit by quietly and be upset but to send a clear message that conservatives will not forget this and will not support this.
    Please get writing.

  10. In fact, there is now no difference between Liberals and Labor at least not in the major issues such as ssm and the republic. I am often puzzled as to why some people stick to conservative economic policies but promote radical and destructive social ones. Is this to prolong the agony? CDP has been waiting in the wings, waiting to serve Australia with godliness and self sacrifice. God’s timing is always perfect and we must still wait for it. But a sad day, yes, as I said on my Facebook page, if I had a flag I would fly it at halfmast.
    Many blessings
    Ursula Bennet

  11. Hi Bill,

    When and where was that youtube clip filmed?

    Many thanks,
    Jeremy
    ACT

  12. Early comment; The vote has been taken and we cannot do anything about that in particular.

    It seems to me that this is a spiritual attack that perhaps had to happen. If this is so, and indeed, if we can see God’s sovereign hand behind this we must begin to pray that what the enemy means for evil, God will turn to good.

    Tony Abbott is a man of honour and it seems (from reading between the lines) that he has accepted this with the grace of God. The two stands for righteousness that he made that are most prominent are now under threat. Climate change and “same sex marriage”. But it seems to me that he was not getting the traction needed to go where we need to go with these issues. Failure at the next election would be a dismal failure for both these issues.

    Now, we may still have failure on these issues, though the let down will be more gentle.

    There is still hope though. May we rise in prayer and ask that God will stir up this nation to choose the righteous path.
    Turnbull will be listening to everyone it seems, including foreign influences no doubt. Can we have hope that this man may listen to God and be used of God like king Cyrus?

    May this people cry out, and may God turn this for good.

    PS I’m sure that there is a quip or two here somewhere with the name of the prime minister elect.

  13. I know what George Christensen has done to deserve a Christians Values Award, you hear him in the media often standing for truth, but I’m at a loss to think of anything Bob Day has done to deserve that award. It seems to me that Day has been completely silent on the major challenges like abortion, Islam, or homosexuality.

    Ewan McDonald, Victoria.

  14. Hi Bill, just wanted to post a note to say I appreciated and enjoyed the read..

    Michael.

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