Weekly reflections

Dear Friends, As I mentioned on Sunday, last week I was in Melbourne, at my annual pastor’s retreat, a gathering of the ‘Baptist city pastors’ from each city in Australia and – this year – from Wellington, New Zealand! It was an encouraging and stimulating week, and as well as correcting my Baptist ecclesiology (listen to Sunday’s sermon!), we also talked about the function of ‘city churches’ (aka ‘cathedral churches’) and how they compare with suburban churches. Canberra Baptist is Read more…

Dear Friends, On 14 July, NSW/ACT Baptist churches received a letter from Assembly Council to tell us, that having been charged by the May Assembly to develop a process to disaffiliate churches and disaccredit pastors who do not support the Association’s Position on Marriage, they are making progress. My mother has been serving in a leadership role at Frenchs Forest Baptist Church, and received this letter, and was greatly distressed to realise things had reached this point. She rang me Read more…

Two weeks ago, Cecelia and I were part of the Micah Women Leaders’ Delegation, meeting with politicians to raise Micah’s A Safer World for All Campaign that will be launched early next year – focusing attention on ways we can alleviate the crises, or polycrisis, that are/is derailing decades of development progress around the world. Our delegation (including at least eleven Baptists – photo) met with 43 politicians in a total of 42 meetings. Most of the politicians we met Read more…

Dear Friends, I mentioned on Sunday that I recently re-read Tim Winton’s autobiographical short story Twice on Sundays. In addition to his wonderful references to “Jacob pulling a hamstring in his struggle with the angel” (last Sunday’s Bible reading) what also struck me was Winton’s observation that the intergenerational nature of church is countercultural.   “In a society where relationships between generations are increasingly rare,” he writes, it is remarkable that church facilitates relationships with people who are, “neither relative[s] Read more…

Please note – the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Rod Lavender will be held at the church on Monday, 7th August, 2:30pm, followed by afternoon tea in the hall. If you would like to help with the afternoon tea, please contact Meryl Jackson. Dear Friends, On Sunday I told the story of a moment that impacted Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s life when he was 9 years old – a moment he describes as the defining moment of his life. Read more…

Dear Friends, Tonight at 7:30pm the BIG Book Group is taking place in the church hall – several book groups and many individuals coming together to discuss The Voice to Parliament Handbook by Thomas Mayor & Kerry O’Brien. (It takes the same time to read as it takes to watch a film – so if you can get hold of a copy of a copy this afternoon – feel free to join us!) We are going to be discussing: What Read more…

Dear Friends, We are currently in NAIDOC Week and this year’s theme is ‘For the elders.’ On Sunday night, a group of young adults gathered in the Lounge (to finish off the chilli-con-carne from Sunday’s lunch!) and to watch a short film (38 minutes), Footprints on Our Land, about the life and legacy of Ngunnawal elder, Aunty Agnes Shea, who passed away in March this year at the extraordinary age of 91. The film comments on how significant it is Read more…

Last night my family went to see – as some of you have done – Come from Away at the Canberra Theatre, the remarkable true story of what happened in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, when 38 planes were forced to land in Canadian landscape and this town of 11,000 people accommodated 7,000 stranded passengers. It’s the second time I’ve seen the show and this time around, I had tears in my eyes from the opening number. The detail, Read more…

My great-grandfather, James Castle, came to Australia in the late 1800s looking for somewhere to use his skills as an art metal worker. One of the stories I have been told – that highlight how strange people in England thought Australia was – is about him sending a dead cicada home in a matchbox to his family, telling them this was the size of flies in this new country!  I think that story also helps to explain where my father Read more…

Following Sunday’s sermon, the following joke was shared with me. I’m told it is an original! “When God asked Abraham what sort of family he wanted to have. Abraham said, ‘I’ll have one with the Lot!’” (If you’re missing the punchline, go back and read Genesis 12:1-9!) But it reminded me of a story (I almost included in the sermon) that Jim Barr, a former minister of this church, told years ago about a friend of his, an older woman, Read more…