There is more significance to this coming weekend than having people in-person at church! (Though that is VERY exciting and it will be lovely to see those of you who live on streets with names between A and H!) This Sunday is the day before All Saints Day or All Hallows Day (which is why the day before is ‘All Hallows Eve’ or ‘Halloween’) a Christian feast day, which according to Wikipedia is, “celebrated in honour of all the saints Read more…
Dear Friends, It is times like this we need to remember “what a friend we have in Jesus”. Last Sunday morning, Merle White, a long-term member of our church and a good and loving friend to many of you, passed away. Don and their children, Elizabeth and Peter, and the rest of the family are grieving deeply and appreciate your prayers for them. There will be a small service, for family and some friends, at the crematorium next Monday to Read more…
Sunday’s service and the conversations we have been having about mental health emphasise how important it is to talk to friends. As I related in the children’s talk with the teddy bears and other soft toys, in the course of our lives around half of us will suffer from some form of mental illness, but only 1 in 5 people will reach out for some form of formal support. One of the first ways to seek help is to talk Read more…
According to my Mental Health Month Calendar on Wednesday 6th October you are meant to “reminisce on a funny or joyful time you’ve had in the last year”. There are plenty of those! But there has also been one in just the last few hours! The incredibly wonderful news is that Lisa has made it safely back from Uganda and is currently in hotel quarantine, with medical facilities at hand, in Melbourne. Hooray! Thank you, God! Thank you, thank you, Read more…
This week is the start of Mental Health Month in Australia. Many months ago, we planned a special service for the 10th October (which is also World Mental Health Day) but after weeks of lockdown and pandemic anxiety, Cecelia and I thought it would be good to use the full month to focus on the Mental Health Month objectives: 1. To raise community awareness and understanding of mental illness. 2. Reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness. 3. Read more…
I am technically still on holidays, though a lot has been happening at the church this week, and there’s a lot happening this evening! You might have seen Canberra Baptist now has a double – a mini double! Inspired by the cardboard replica of the iconic Canberra bus stop, Cecelia has produced a cardboard replica of Canberra Baptist Church and we have spread the word to those who attend family programmes at the Community Centre and the church, and families Read more…
Well, it was a blow hearing lockdown had been extended for a further four weeks! However, it does feel like what needed to happen, considering the ongoing case numbers and our desire to protect our neighbours and friends in the Canberra community, particularly those not yet fully vaccinated or whose health is more vulnerable. What this means for church is no in-person gatherings until the 10th October, and after that date, we will proceed carefully following ACT Health advice. If Read more…
Tonight at Community Hour we are sharing small scale ‘show and tell’. I am torn between showing the knitting project I relocated over the weekend (and worked out again which line I was up to!) or a photograph of the drawer under the kitchen sink that I finally got around to cleaning on Monday! So please don’t be put off! This is an opportunity just to share one thing which you have accomplished over the last couple of weeks which Read more…
Well, it looks like everyone will be zooming to church for another two Sundays (6th Sept and 12th Sept), and we will wait to see what the public health orders are after midnight on the 17th September. It is good then to remember the final words of Ephesians, that we are ‘to be strong in the Lord…in the strength of God’s power (3:20)’ and – most importantly – that we do this as a community of faith. We strengthen each Read more…
Dear Friends, I love being Australian. I never really thought about my nationality much until I was 15 and I moved to the United States for a year. Being Australian became my entire identity; my funny accent, my strange lexicon, the way I said Narrr instead of No, all these things were unique to me. All of a sudden I found myself being the sole representative of what it meant to be Australian. There is probably still a portion of Read more…