Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand
The Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) was incorporated on 30 July 1998, following several meetings from 1995 onwards. The founding committee was Ian Duckham (President), Tim Dyer (Treasurer), Gary Baker (Secretary), Bessie Pereira (Minute Secretary), and Doug Hynd (Newsletter Editor). They agreed to appoint Mark and Mary Hurst as full time Pastoral Workers in a partnership agreement with the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions (USA) which was finalized in June 2000. In September 2001 in response to the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001 (9/11), Mark and Mary Hurst commenced AAANZ Mailings, having previously also become editors until 2009 of On The Road journal (website https://ontheroad.org.au/) which commenced in 1998, with current editors Matt Anslow and Doug Hynd. The bi-annual conferences typically had 50 members in attendance.
Occasional visits from Stuart Murray Williams (author of The Naked Anabaptist) in June 2000 and June 2002, and from Alan and Eleanor Kreider in July 2005 with themes of "Praying the Anabaptist Tradition," and "Worship, Mission, and Peace After Christendom," plus regular annual visits by Mark and Mary around Australia and New Zealand, ensured ongoing input to the highly dispersed groups.
In 2007 Doug Sewell became President of AAANZ and was active in filling in while Mark and Mary were in the USA, and in 2009 AAANZ formally adopted the Vision Statement, “Jesus is the centre of our Faith, Community is the centre of our Life, Reconciliation is the centre of our Work.” A new partnership agreement was struck with Mennonite Mission Network which saw Mark and Mary Hurst become independent workers for AAANZ.
The New Zealand mainstay for AAANZ was Chris Marshall, Professor at the University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand, where he continued in 2019 as Chair in Restorative Justice, and who spoke at the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) assembly in Paraguay in 2009.
There were also guest-speaker visits from Michael Hardin (2012, author The Jesus Driven Life) and Darrin Belousek (2014, author Atonement Justice and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church), and by Vern and Dot Jantzi covering for the Hursts on different occasions when they were in the USA (2012, 2015). In 2018 Table Fellowship meetings were linked quarterly by webinar across Australia and New Zealand as a development of the successful phone conference links. AAANZ also participated in the global Anabaptist Network meetings organized by MWC in Zimbabwe in 2003 and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 2015.
Bibliography
Information from original documents and discussion with Mark and Mary Hurst.
Additional Information
Address: 190 Magpie Hollow Road, South Bowenfels NSW 2790 Australia
Phone: +61(0) 2 6351 2896
Website: https://anabaptist.asn.au/
AAANZ Biennial Conferences
| Date | Location | Theme | Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1995 | Sheffield, Tasmania | "'A Call to Gather" | Chris Marshall and David Shenk |
| June 1999 | Wollongong, NSW | Graeme Chatfield and Mark and Mary Hurst | |
| January 2001 | Melbourne | "Peacemaking, Reconciliation and Mission" | Chris Marshall, Marita Munro, Gordon Preece, Mark and Mary Hurst, Ross Langmead and Tim Costello |
| January 2003 | Sydney | "Peace Church: Sustaining Discipleship for Building Community in a Violent Time" | Ross Langmead, Mark and Mary Hurst |
| January 2005 | Canberra | "Christianity and Violence" | Chris Marshall, William Oates, Christine Vertucci |
| January 2007 | Perth | "Living Anabaptism – Seeking a Community of Promise" | Ian Barnes, John Olley, Ian Packer, Jarrod McKenna, Christina Gibb |
| January 2009 | Melbourne | "Communities of the Kingdom – New Monasticism and Anabaptism" | Gordon Preece, Paul Wallis, Community of the Transfiguration |
| February 2011 | Ngatiawa River Monastery, New Zealand | Stuart Murray | |
| January 2013 | Sydney | "From Pieces to Peace: More Than Just Neighbours in a Multi-faith World" | Dave Andrews, Matt Anslow |
| January 2017 | Sydney | "Called To Community" | Representatives of intentional Christian communities from Australia and New Zealand including the Bruderhof, Wellspring, and Urban Vision communities |
| January 2019 | Sydney | "Reconcile" | Paulus Hartono, Andrew Shepherd, Jonathan Cornford, Simon Moyle |
| Author(s) | Jim Longley |
|---|---|
| Date Published | April 2019 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Longley, Jim. "Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. April 2019. Web. 21 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Anabaptist_Association_of_Australia_and_New_Zealand&oldid=163918.
APA style
Longley, Jim. (April 2019). Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 21 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Anabaptist_Association_of_Australia_and_New_Zealand&oldid=163918.
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