Pastors Letter (Page 22)

Dear friends I’m a plant killer.  It’s not intentional. I admire the green-thumbed plant lover surrounded by mists of colour and shades of green. I’m not a plant hater, believe me, I’m not. I love a blossoming garden, lush, thick forest or an exquisite bunch of flowers as much as the next person. It’s not a malicious dislike for the colour…

Dear friends Can you “serve” God for all the wrong reasons? Does motivation matter? This is a question explored in the Old Testament book of Job. “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.…

Dear friends, I’ve been thinking this week about our Christmas Mission and how it can be best achieved. I concluded it is not best achieved alone. Our Christmas Mission is a task to be undertaken together and with the help of God. It is easy to be dragged along by the Christmas tide of feverish action and business. If this is the case, what then differentiates us, as…

Dear friends On Sunday we introduced our idea for Christmas this year. With not being able to have a carols this year we thought it would be a great opportunity to try something different and so we’re encouraging people to get together and think about how we can make and distribute gifts to people in our community. We’re hoping doing so might be a meaningful…

Dear friends I thought I would share a few thoughts with you about singing that I picked up as I read some more of my friend Jonathan Edwards’ works.  I am sure that you will see how relevant this in as we have (almost) all missed being able to sing during the recent COVID thing. So, why do we sing? Why are there encouragements and exhortations (and perhaps even commands)…

Dear friends As we kicked off term 4 a couple of weeks ago our Young Adults group decided Ecclesiastes would be a fun book for us to study for the term. I don’t know if you’ve read it recently or are familiar with the book, but it’s a deep reflection from a “teacher” who’s struggling with big questions. In the first few lines of the…

Dear friends Last Sunday we started to talk about church health – particularly, how we could know if what we think is God working in our midst is actually God’s work, or not. Jonathan Edwards, the US pastor from the 1700s, asked the same question of the revivals that were happening in his time.  What are the distinguishing marks of a work of God’s Holy Spirit? We…

Dear friends I’m writing the pastoral letter this week on Wednesday morning, and I’ve just been flicking through the news articles following the budget which was handed down last night. Big tax cuts, money for infrastructure and incentives for businesses to hire people seemed to be the big news stories – all designed to get our economy going again as we…