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 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 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 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 Read more…
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 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 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 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 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 Read more…
Last Sunday we sang a very simple – but very lovely – hymn which perfectly summed up the words of Ephesians 1:2-14. The great love of God is revealed in the Son, who came to this earth to redeem everyone. That love, like a stream flowing clear to the sea, Read more…