Blog

The first priority in our 'Towards 2020' Church Vision is that we continue to remain and even grow as a healthy church. In pursuit of our vision we have decided to have a church health theme for every calendar year. Last year our theme was'Exiles Fit for Mission',encouraging us to see our entire life as a mission endeavour as we wait for the coming of Jesus.This year our t...

She walked into church looking for the Pastor. 'Yes, that's me. Can I help you?' She handed over a rainbow coloured book, a gift from the Christian Democratic Party and Australian Christian Lobby. I said 'Thank You' and wondered what the heck all this was about. I often get given books. Some I'm glad to read, others not so. There is only so much time and I prefer to set m...

We live in an age that celebrates individualism and self-expression. Be yourself. Don't let others define you. Stand out from the pack. Shine! Social media has become a significant platform for expressing individuality. Facebook pages, Twitter and Instagram accounts lets the world know who we really are: the real me, not a manufactured one no one would be so shallow so a...

Last Sunday night I began a new series in the book of Exodus and, as always, I felt both excited and daunted. Excited because I haven't spoken on this part of God's Word before and I'm looking forward to unearthing new treasures. Daunted because I know it's going to be hard. I'll be dealing with weighty matters, difficult passages, truths pertaining to life and death, an...

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large g...

February 1. The silly season is now officially over. We mourn its passing. Time to get back to work, into routine, nose to the grindstone. Stress and competition, traffic and queues, early moring, late nights, meetings, projects, deadlines and agendas until 2015 comes to a close and the silly season returns for another brief respite. Is it really that bad? The pessimist i...

It's been a tumultuous week in our city. The peace we all assume as normative was brutally disrupted by a crazed gunman who caused enormous disruption and the sad loss of innocent life. It should not be so. We all long for a world where peace is normative.The Hebrew word for peace is 'Shalom'. To be in a state of shalom, for the ancient Hebrew, was much more than the absen...

It's been a tumultuous week in our city. The peace we all assume as normative was brutally disrupted by a crazed gunman who caused enormous disruption and the sad loss of innocent life. It should not be so. We all long for a world where peace is normative.The Hebrew word for peace is 'Shalom'. To be in a state of shalom, for the ancient Hebrew, was much more than the absen...

Last week we launched Elvanto, our new church database. It should be a great blessing to our church, providing us timely information, helping us establish effect processes, and offering a central local for such things as event planning, calendars, and rosters. A church database is not ministry, but Elvanto will help us create structures to facilitate more effective ministr...

I remember when our kids were small, days out, even holidays were often planned around the location of playgrounds. If the kids were happy, we were happy.Anna and I got to relive this experience a few weeks ago. We were out with some friends on the Central Coast when their kids spotted some humble play equipment, just a slide and climbing bars, in a small, non-descript par...