Bronwyn speaks about submission in marriage

I recently preached on marriage from Ephesians 5:21-33 at our 7pm (Night Church) congregation of St Michael’s Anglican Church, Wollongong.

My own beautiful wife Bronwyn couldn’t be there – in fact, each Sunday evening she does a tremendous amount of work feeding, bathing and reading the Bible to 3 young kids all by herself to enable me to be there!

But I asked her what she’d have to say to Night Church about this issue? What might submission look like? She wrote a few thoughts down for me to read out. I commend the audio file to you, particularly her own comments.

Forget the Channel: a name for this site

I’ve been thinking about naming this site for a while. The new name, Forget the Channel, is taken from the final verse of the hymn ‘May the Mind of Christ my Saviour’ by Kate Barclay Wilkinson (apparently written before 1913, published in 1925):

May His beauty rest upon me,
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him.

The idea is that the site is designed to contribute to the vital task of seeing people come to a saving trust in Jesus Christ. If it furthers that end, it’s achieved its aim. If all it does is make people appreciate Lionel Windsor more, then it’s failed.

The name was suggested by my very beautiful wife, Bronwyn. It’s actually a song we sang while standing together at the Mid Year Conference for Campus Bible Study (University of New South Wales) in 1997, less than a week before I asked her out. We remember the song, because I had to ask Bronwyn what the words ‘forget the channel’ meant, and she patiently explained it to me. We were married eleven months later.

Same gorgeous wife, different name

She’s been wanting to do it since she was in year 3. Now she’s done it! My lovely wife has decided that she’d like to be known by her middle name, Bronwyn. She says:

I do prefer my middle name, and after 10yrs of marriage to Lionel we’re so over our names *still* being confused (much rather change the name, not the spouse).

NB this is not a change by deed poll and officially I’m still Leonie Bronwyn Windsor nee Harper. It will take time to stick and I don’t have the energy to enforce it by not responding to “Leonie”, but I’d appreciate your efforts. Thanx.