Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows part of an informal Christian service of the House of Freedom Church being held in a suburban home in Brisbane. Worshippers include young children, who are shown seating themselves on the floor in front of a low table on which are a wooden cross and flowers. Other participants are mainly young adults seated around the room on chairs and sofas. One man leads a Bible reading and participants follow and respond. After the reading they sing a religious song accompanied by an electronic keyboard.

Educational value points

• A particular style of religious service is shown in the clip, one that demonstrates the attempt by the founders of the House of Freedom Church to transform the more rigid, traditional Christian church-based service to one that emphasised egalitarianism, informality and inclusion. The suburban home setting, the informal circular seating of the gathering, the lack of a leader and the participation of everyone in the service were all part of this intended transformation.

• The home church movement is an example of changes in religious practice in Australia that began in the late 1960s. The movement was initiated by those who rejected aspects of institutionalised Christianity and who sought to rediscover a sense of the early close fellowship communities of the New Testament. It emphasised simplicity of fellowship and rejected dogma and clergy-dominated services in church buildings.

• Athol Gill (1937-92), founder of the House of Freedom in Brisbane (as well as the House of the New World in Sydney and the House of the Gentle Bunyip in Melbourne), was a Baptist theologian and leader in the radical discipleship movement. Radical discipleship emphasised community and social justice. All the Houses Gill founded were based on the belief that Christianity must minister to and advocate for the poor and oppressed.

• Significant changes had occurred in Christian religious belief and practice in Australia by the 1980s. After a growth in church attendance following the Second World War, numbers steadily declined from the mid-1960s, reaching a low in 1979 of around 18 per cent of the population attending monthly.

• This service shown in the clip represented a departure for the ABC. It was a major change from the traditional church services usually broadcast as part of the ABC’s Divine Service program and indicated the ABC’s endeavour to represent the diversity of religious practice in Australia in the 1980s. The Divine Service series was broadcast by ABC television from the 1950s until the 1990s as part of its mandate to provide religious broadcasting.