A school teacher turned minister is finding the challenges of working in Sydneys Hills district a test of his sense of humour as well as his evangelistic skills. The Rev Dane Courtney, rector of Quakers Hill Anglican has had to deal with past-life royalty and Russian language problems, as well as the usual trials of a parish minister.

Alain de Botton has made a career out of contemplating the dilemmas of everyday life with the aid of philosophy. His The Consolations of Philosophy was a self-help book for people who cant stand self-help books, taking the agonies of Neitzche and the outpourings of Schopanhauer and applying them to our financial troubles or lack of friends. De Botton does all this with a pleasant and reassuring style not lacking in the self-deprecatory humour that an Anthony Robbins or a Steve Covey couldnt even begin to understand.

Brothers who make international peace their business have visited a Sydney Anglican school, to the benefit of all the students. Eight members of the Melanesian Brotherhood visited Australia this past month as guests of SHORE and Anglican Board of Mission. The brothers have been heavily involved in the front line working for peace in the Solomon Islands.

Fledgling film maker Rodney March has taken a love of science fiction and used it to create a space-age vehicle for the good news. Mr March, a member of St Pauls Carlingford, is the driving force behind a dramatic retelling of Jesus parable of the ten virgins.

The Windsor Report is a document that stands for peace in times that are filled with turbulence. I admire the way in which it has resisted all calls for expulsion, disciplines and head-banging. Instead it offers a calm tone, a long term view, an endeavor to create space, a reconciling spirit and practical suggestions arising from a desire to hear and apply Gods word.

A new Privacy Act introduced by the New South Wales state government is pulling some Anglican chaplains and hospitals apart, but pushing others closer together. How individual hospitals interpret the Act is drastically affecting the number of patients being referred on to chaplains.

Bibles are being handed out hand-over-fist in Sydneys south-west thanks to the vision of an Anglicare worker and her Macarthur-based church. Eighteen months ago Wendy Estall, Anglicare manager for Macarthur / Liverpool region, began developing a deep conviction that her clients needed to come face to face with the Bible.

A Sydney congregation is using the latest technological 'must have to transport the Gospel to new ears. Inner-city parish, St. Barnabas Broadway, is converting all of their sermons to the MP3 format so that they can be played through iPods and other digital audio devices.