Dear Friends Some weeks ago I wrote in the Pastoral Note (1 Sept) about the man sleeping in the patio near the men’s toilets; how we assisted him, looked after his cat and how he was so grateful that he gave us $20 for the Centre and resolved to return Read more…
Dear Friends Over the next three Sundays (8th, 15th and 22nd September) and – after the school holidays – on the 20th October, we will be working through a sermon series produced by Baptist World Aid called The End of Greed: Consuming as if God, People and the Planet Matter. Read more…
Dear Friends I mentioned at the church meeting that last week we had a guy sleeping on the patio near the men’s toilets. We were able to talk with him, assist him, and give him rest. In fact, more than that, he had a cat with him, and when he Read more…
Dear Friends “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…” Last Sunday’s Bible reading followed me this week, all the way to New Zealand, to Christchurch, where the inner-city pastor’s conference was Read more…
Dear Friends Sometime around my sixteenth birthday I became very worried about what is meant by 1 Thessalonians 5:17. “Pray without ceasing.” (By the way, if you thought “Jesus wept.”, John 11:35, was the shortest verse in the Bible, it has contenders -besides being longer in the original languages! 1 Read more…
Dear Friends We spent our holidays with our daughter and her partner in the top-end: first in Darwin, then Katherine where our daughter works as a nurse specialist in an Aboriginal medical clinic called Wurli Wurlinjang, and then camping in and around the district including Kakadu. It is haunting country, Read more…
Dear Friends In my experience, nothing stirs the Sunday lunch conversation, among the women anyway, like a sermon on Mary and Martha! “Belinda,” I heard last week, “It doesn’t matter what people say, someone has to be Martha and do the work!” Or, “I still don’t get that story. It Read more…
Dear Friends This week is NAIDOC Week, a week to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The theme for NAIDOC Week 2019 is Voice. Treaty. Truth. and Read more…
Dear Friends The three synoptic Gospels record that, prior to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he was led (or as Mark writes, driven) into the wilderness where the emphasis focuses around Jesus’ temptation. But we are not sure what this really means. Is it about formation? Is it about identity Read more…
Dear Friends, Refugee Week has come to an end, but the challenge of refugees, and the challenges faced by refugees, continue around the world. The UNHCR’s 2018 Global Trends report released this week shows that the number of refugees and people seeking asylum increased by 1 million during 2018 to Read more…