Weekly reflections

Dear Friends, I am very thankful to James Cox who stepped in to preach on Sunday even though we weren’t – sadly – heading away on church camp. (We hope that another campring opportunity may be possible a little later in the year!) I am also very thankful for the way he opened up Romans 12:1-8 for us – his reflections on how the ordinary activity of our lives is spiritual; that what we do every day in our bodies Read more…

Dear Friends, Before you go any further – just wanting you to know that tonight at St Pauls, Manuka, at 7pm there will be a special prayer service for the Ukraine. Today is also Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent! At prayers this morning we read parts of Matthew 6, and Lucy drew our attention to the assumption the passage makes that, as people of faith, we do faith! We do alms giving (Matt 6:2). We do prayer (Matt Read more…

Dear Friends, As many of you have heard, our lovely friend, Bev Galloway, died early yesterday (Tuesday 22nd February). She was able to come home from hospital last Friday and to spend her last few days with James, and her very good friend, Gina, and with her children and grandchildren coming and going from the house. She will be very missed. We are so thankful for all that she brought to the life of our church; her work on the Read more…

How is National Church Life Survey Week going? Have you taken 15-20 minutes to fill in one of the forms? This week – Sunday, 13th Feb to Sunday, 20th Feb – we are participating in the National Church Life Survey.  This survey has been carried out for the last 30 years and is the largest longitudinal church survey in the world! It will help us identify the ministries and activities that are important for us as a church, understand our Read more…

It is a steep climb down into our church baptistry! It is only three steps, but they take you down deep fast! I am curious if it was based on another architectural/theological feature of baptistries – that there should be three steps to represent being baptised, “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” or whether they just wanted more room to move in the baptistry! There is a wealth of fascinating architectural detail in baptisteries. In her Read more…

Each time I filled in the hospital admission papers, for giving birth, I was asked, “What is your religion?” and each time I would get into trouble with the Baptist chaplain because I wrote ‘Christian’ – not ‘Baptist’ – so she never found out that I was there. (I would be forgiven after she had a cuddle of the new baby!) The correct answer to the question, however, was ‘Christian’! My religion is Christian – not Baptist. Far more significant Read more…

Dear Friends, Last Sunday we held Aboriginal Sunday, a day Yorta Yorta man and Aboriginal leader, William Cooper, called on the Australian Church to observe, on the 26th January 1938, to be in solidarity with Aboriginal peoples. And yesterday, on Australia Day, Common Grace sent out a list of the 10 best ways to engage on January 26. It’s a thoughtful list, but the one that most struck me was #5 – Observe 65 seconds of silence, one second for Read more…

Dear Friends, As I write this, bottle rockets are raining on the office roof launched by very happy and excited SMAD campers! 😊 It is wonderful to see (and hear) the programme happening again – even amid the concerns of Covid – and to see Penny able to be here and her and Ally and Andrew (and so many others) running it so ably for the tenth year in a row! It has also been wonderful to have John and Read more…