Origin Story by Stephen Harrison
Have you ever pondered why origin stories are so important to people?
Anglicare has a few special origin stories.
In 1870 a small group of Christian women in Brisbane were part of a social movement that was deeply concerned about the plight of women and children in their community. In other parts of the world, this movement pushed for legislation to establish inheritance rights for children born out of marriage, and to ensure fathers contributed to their welfare. They also focused on reforming other laws that disadvantaged women financially and politically.
In Brisbane this small group of women felt that there had to be a better life for the women they were visiting in goals and lock hospitals. One of those women, Mrs Drew, with a small group of friends, started a Female Refuge Home, in her own house in Ann St. They kept it open for twelve months before announcing that due to lack of funds they would be closing.
The following day someone made an anonymous donation. Fifty pounds. It was enough for them to keep the doors open and to inspire them to keep going. They secured funding from government, clergy and parishioners and within twelve years the home was self-sufficient, housing both women and children.
This story is important for both Anglicare and the Anglican Church in Southern Queensland. It tells us something about our identity, about who we are and what we are about. Anglicare is an organisation that looks out to the community seeking to serve. We focus in particular on two of the Anglican Marks of Mission. First, we respond to human need with loving service. As we look at our community, we see people who are suffering or struggling or in need and we ask: What can we do to help right now? But we also focus on another mark of mission that calls us to transform unjust structures of society. We ask why are people in our community experiencing these problems? What can we do to change the system, so these problems don’t happen?
The story of the Ann St Refuge reminds us that the mission we have today is the same mission our founders had. This story is also a story of the church in this Diocese and one we might draw on to help remind us who we are in times when we feel we are struggling to know what our future looks like.
When I hear the story of the women who started the refuge it feels like a mirror from the past is held up for me to reflect on who I am as a Christian and what our church is today. I see a church that recognised that spiritual issues were linked to social issues. A church that was engaged with what was happening in their wider society and was trying to do something about it not just by putting band aids on but by changing the way society worked. Is this not still our mission today? Why did Jesus teach about the kingdom of God and why did he give us a vision for what the world would be like if God reigned in people’s hearts if we weren’t meant to live it out.
These stories of our faith filled forebears strengthen our sense of identity not because they are somehow greater than us but because in their stories, we can see that they are us and we are part of an unbroken thread of people seeking to live out Jesus’ call in a context that in many ways is not so different to our own.
I wonder If someone asked you: What is the origin story of your faith community or ministry? What would you say? I wonder where you might start. What would you highlight? What bits might brush over? How you tell the story would probably say something about what you see as important and what you value.
The Ann St. story very much helps Anglicare think about and talk about what we value. It tells us we are an organisation that is active about caring and that we have a determination to get things done. There is second important origin story for Anglicare.
The Mothers’ Union began in this diocese in 1904 in the Brisbane suburb of Milton. That MU branch, concerned about the many deaths of women and small children in the district, paid for a nursing sister, Miss Emma Packer, to visit the homes of those living in destitution. She used a bicycle to go on her rounds. Sister Emma started on a six-month trial as a ‘district nurse’, using her own bicycle to ride from client to client around Milton. This was the beginning of “The Mothers’ Union District Nurses’ Association”. That association, formerly known as St. Luke’s Nursing Service, was part of what became “Anglicare”.
Today Anglicare Southern Queensland has hundreds of cars and 35 000 home and community clients.
There are a few things that strike me about this story. First, it is about a church group with their eye on problems in the community reaching out to do something practical. Second their plan was provisional. They had funding and a plan for six months. They were giving it a go and that was it. Last, they clearly weren’t flush with resources. Emma Packer used her own bike just like Mrs Drew initially used her own house for the refuge in Ann St.
In reflecting on these origin stories, it is good to think about legacy.
I wonder did those five women who started the refuge home in Ann St ever imagine that their actions would lead to 150 years of Anglicare serving Queensland. That we would still be telling their story, remembering, taking inspiration from their actions.
And the Mothers Union in 1904 could they have ever imagined that for so many people in Southern Queensland – Anglicare is synonymous with our cars out and about serving and caring for people in their homes. Would they be bemused that on the wall of our head office hangs a 120-year-old bike to remind us of them and their values?
Without question their minds were not that far in the future and much more concerned about what was happening in the here and the now for those that needed help in their community. But it does make me wonder, what are we doing today that Anglicans might be talking about in the year 2175. How will they recognise that we lived into our identity as Christians and as Anglicans. Will they recognise an unbroken thread between us and themselves in how we express all that was important to us.
The answers to these questions we will never know but if the question of legacy focuses us on the now it is of value. So I I invite you to dream about your faith community. To listen to the whispering of the Holy Spirit. To the tiny flame of hope in your heart. As a people called by God, serving Christ in the world: What legacy would you like your faith community or ministry to leave behind?
Stephen Harrison (Director of Mission for Anglicare)