Sydney – 50th Anniversary
The Sydney congregation of the WCG officially started on January 30th 1960. John Mclean wrote:
Dear Sydney congregation,
Congratulations on your 50th anniversary from the national office and all your brothers and sisters around Australia. What a wonderful milestone for you to celebrate together.
Our very best wishes to you as you rejoice and enjoy your celebration. Anniversaries are great times to reflect and give thanks. We look back with gratitude at all God has done for us and in us and through us. We look back in hindsight, seeing the hand of God in our midst on the long, and sometimes difficult and challenging journey. We thank him that he never leaves or forsakes us.
We also thank and honour those who have gone before. We thank them for their faithfulness, steadfastness, sacrifice and service. We miss those who, for whatever reason, are no longer with us, but we appreciate the time and journey together. And we thank God for one another, for those continuing their walk of faith as dedicated disciples with us.
At anniversaries, we also look forward, in foresight, anticipating our future in Christ, and celebrating our spiritual blessings in him. We recognize there are still miles yet to travel, led by the Spirit, responding in humility and faith, and continuing to learn and be transformed into the full measure of Christ. We keenly anticipate what God is in the process of doing with us as his family.
And we celebrate the present with deepened insight, “Joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12-14). We rejoice in our adoption as sons and daughters in Christ, loved by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:1-5).
Through the Word becoming flesh, we receive the gift of joining in the relationship of the Father and Son through the Spirit. “And our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). And because of this, we have fellowship with one another, as sons and daughters together in Christ.
Although geographically separated, we are one in Christ, united by his Spirit and his love. Our lives, and our journeys, are shared; the road is travelled together, not as isolated individuals. Your church family joins with you at this delightful time of celebration. The national office was started barely a month before the first church service, so those of us here feel an added connection to your rejoicing. And, on a personal note, Sydney has been very much a part of Heather’s and my life, joining the ministry there in 1976, and later again in the 80’s, when our son was born as a New South Welshman.
Special thanks to your current pastor, Rod and Vicki Dean, to immediate past pastor and current pastoral team member Peter and Cathy McLean, and the other members of the pastoral team. They love you, pray for you, and seek to serve you in Christ. And heartfelt thanks to you all, for your faithfulness, dedication, and your continuing love and service to one another in the Spirit.
Together, we celebrate the blessings of our shared fellowship with God.
May God continue to guide, edify, comfort and bless you, according to his good and perfect will. And may he bless your celebrations together today, and your lives together into the future.
With love and affection,
John and Heather McLean and the National Office Team