Episode Details

In this month’s Q&A chat, I spoke with Phil Colgan, the Senior Minister at St George North Anglican Church in Sydney, and one of Sydney’s most gifted preachers. Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation.

I kicked things off by asking Phil what he was preaching on at the moment.

Phil: As we're coming out of lockdown we thought we'd do something that's just really encouraging for people and it's proven that way. We’ve been preaching on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. And I've found it an incredible joy, because I've been moved to think how I’ve seen the fruit of the Spirit growing in people over the 18 years I’ve been at St George North—seeing the way people have grown in love, have grown in gentleness, have grown in showing kindness to one another.

It’s been an incredible encouragement to reflect on the work of God's Spirit through the teaching of his word over the time of our ministry here. It's a challenge as well because Galatians 5 also has that verse 25 about walking in step with the Spirit or following the Spirit.

Tony: Is there a fruit of the Spirit that you felt challenged about as you were doing your prep? I always find when I'm prepping to teach or preach something, God sometimes slips a dagger into my own heart and convicts me from the passage I'm reading. Have you found that?

Phil: Well, it's funny. It has been the same couple of fruit of the Spirit that have challenged me every time I've read Galatians 5 since I've been a Christian, which is patience and gentleness. They are the two. And for some reason, whenever I think of patience, I can immediately have something I need to repent of within the last 24 hours.

Tony: Oh Lord, give me patience and do it quickly! Phil, you are a solid and well known part of the fellowship of Sydney Anglican evangelicals here. In fact, I'd probably regard you as my friend who is probably the best connected amongst Sydney Anglicans. We're all part of this fellowship but you just seem to be one of those people who knows people. You’re part of the central diocesan structures a bit, you get involved in the committee work, but you're also out and about and you know lots of ministers and seem to have your finger on the pulse.

And so I thought it would be a helpful question to ask for the sake not only of people who are listening here in Sydney and are interested, but many of our friends all around the world who know about Sydney and its Anglican evangelicalism—if you were going to do a little mini SWOT analysis of Sydney Anglicanism at the moment, what would you are our strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats?

Phil: Well, when you look for those opportunities and threats and that sort of thing, that's a helpful thing to do—though with something as wide and complex as a diocese I sometimes wonder if it is that helpful. Sometimes I think every church should be thinking about that in their local area, which is actually a distinctive of Sydney Anglicanism, isn't it (our congregational nature)?

But I think our opportunities, our threats—they tend to be the same at every point; they just vary by degrees. And for me at the moment, the opportunity in Sydney for ministry is the opportunity of evangelism. We have the most wonderful news in the world and millions of people that need saving. We have this incredible situation of an Anglican diocese with a couple of hundred churches that faithfully preach Jesus, thousands of lay people ready to serve.

I think that is a peculiar thing about Sydney in the Anglican world and that is our opportunity. But although some say, "Oh, the fields are dry and the fields are hard”, I actually think we are at a point where people are more open to the gospel than at any point in my Christian lifetime. Some are more antagonistic, but I think they're a small number who are repres