Dear Friends The following statement is part of a helpful email distributed to Churches this week by Steve Bartlett, the Director of Ministries for the Baptist Churches of NSW & ACT. With the Covid19 virus present in our communities and the projections for how it will spread in coming days, weeks and months, we find ourselves in Read more…
Dear Friends What a difference water makes! Kristine and I were in Wellington (NSW) for 18 months while I did an Intentional Interim at the Baptist Church. The region had already been in a prolonged drought when we arrived, and it continued during our whole time there. Farmers and businesses Read more…
Dear Friends It was a journey that Jesus had undertaken a number of times before. There was inherent excitement and expectation in heading off from Galilee for the capital, especially with the prospect of worshiping at the Temple. It was even more exhilarating to travel to Jerusalem for the Read more…
Dear Friends Today is the first Sunday of Lent. In some traditions it is called Quadragesima, the Latin term for fortieth. Lent commences on Ash Wednesday and extends up to Easter Sunday (40 days, excluding Sundays). It is a time of preparation for Easter in a similar way that Read more…
Dear Friends The theme in today’s services is “sharing God’s love and justice and words and actions” (the third of our three church goals). As we consider that, I’d like to refer you to the “Lausanne Covenant”. www.lausanne.org/content/covenant/lausanne-covenant It is widely regarded as one of the most significant documents in modern church history. It arose Read more…
Dear Friends On Tuesday morning I attended the Ecumenical Service commemorating the commencement of Parliament for 2020. I also decided to stay afterwards for “morning tea”. (More like breakfast seeing the service finished at 8.15am!) Apart from my desire for my first coffee of the day, I thought it would Read more…
Dear Friends We had a plan. Well, in fact, for SMAD Camp we had several plans. We had a plan for the day. We had a plan for smoke haze. We had a plan for wet weather. What we didn’t plan for was hail. We can’t plan for everything Read more…
Dear Friends You know how from time to time a passage of scripture gets stuck in your brain and stubbornly refuses to budge! For me, over the past few months, that passage has been Luke 17: 5-10, our lectionary reading from the beginning of October, particularly verses 7-9: “Who amongst Read more…
Dear Friends Like you, I distinctly heard John and Kristine say they would not be returning to Canberra Baptist. In Kristine’s words, “Pilgrims never go back!” There’s been a few attempts to explain why they have come back (and gone back on their word!) but I have been thinking lately Read more…
Dear Friends Last Sunday – specifically Sunday night – was twelfth night. The Christmas trees are packed away. Christmas is officially over. But as we continue to think long and hard about the magnitude of the fires our country is currently experiencing, I wondered if there was a way to Read more…