Reflection of the Week - 15th August 2023
In many of Jesus’ stories, he uses excellent illustrations to point out who and how we are called to be God’s people.
New Times - Faith
Reflection of the Week - 8th August 2023
In this earthly life, we walk around blind to much of the world. While many of us are blessed to have all our senses, it isn’t until one or more of them are compromised that we become more in tune with both the light and the darkness surrounding us.
Reflection of the Week - 1st August 2023
I have many favourite passages in the Bible. The whole of Mark’s gospel is one of them. Matthew’s gospel (aside from the gnashing of teeth) is another. I also cherish the ancient hymn fragments embedded in the New Testament, such as the Colossians hymn 1.15-20.
Reflection of the Week - 25th July 2023
In all the bewildering maze of religions and faiths in the contemporary world competing for the allegiance of human persons, Jesus Christ stands solitary and supreme. He was genuine through and through. He was what he claimed to be.
Reflection of the Week - 18th July 2023
It’s been reported that two out of three Australians think that religion does more harm than good in the world.
Reflection of the Week - 11th July 2023
We can understand why people who are victims of oppression, violence, war, abuse, or terror of any kind, want the evil that caused their pain, eradicated. This is as true today as it was in the first century.
Reflection of the Week - 4th July 2023
The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is moved by a disrupting power. But not the kind of power that needs an empire or an army. The kingdom of God disrupts the way a mustard seed disrupts.
Reflection of the Week - 27th June 2023
As I have lived most of my church life primarily in Anglican and ecumenical settings, I have to admit to some bemusement about the annual marking of the Uniting Church’s founding.
Reflection of the Week - 20th June 2023
Jesus came and stood among his disciples and said peace be with you, then he didn’t try and hide the mark from the spear on his side. He didn’t wear gloves to conceal his scars. Jesus came and stood among his disciples and said peace be with you then he showed them his hands and his side.
Reflection of the Week - 13th June 2023
Trinitarian theology says that true power is circular or spiral, not so much hierarchical. It’s here; it’s within us. It’s shared and shareable; it’s already entirely for us.
Reflection of the Week - 6th June 2023
When the Holy Spirit arrived on the first Pentecost, it was not a quiet event; the sound was as if a great wind (breath) filled the room in which the disciples had gathered in their uncertainty and fear.
Reflection of the Week - 30th May 2023
Prayer and action can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.
Reflection of the Week - 23rd May 2023
The Christian belief in the Trinity says that God is absolute relatedness. God is our word for the ultimate ecosystem that holds all things in positive relationship (see Colossians 1:17).
Reflection of the Week - 16th May 2023
For a long time I didn't really understand the necessity of prayer. Why pray if what God wants to happen will happen? Why pray if it doesn't impact the actual world and people we actually live with?
Reflection of the Week - 9th May 2023
Our passage continues Jesus’ offer of comfort to his disciples. He is in the middle of breaking the unwelcome news that they will soon be without him.
Reflection of the Week - 2nd May 2023
To be calm and quiet by yourself is not the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside of you.
Reflection of the Week - 24th April 2023
Author Judy Cannato believes we experience Christ’s resurrection through ongoing growth and transformation.
Reflection of the Week - 18th April 2023
Our heart is at the centre of our being human. There our deepest thoughts, intuitions, emotions, and decisions find their source. But it’s also there that we are often most alienated from ourselves.
Reflection of the Week - 11th April 2023
It will bother you off and on, like a rock in your shoe, or it will startle you, like the first crash of thunder in a summer storm, or it will lodge itself beneath your skin like a splinter, or it will show up again—the uninvited guest whose heavy footsteps you’d recognise anywhere, appearing at your front door with a suitcase in hand at the worst. Possible. Time.
Reflection of the Week - 4th April 2023
I imagine the crowds sounded a bit like the chattering of morning birdsong - awaiting the arrival of the charismatic wandering preacher, in the midst a city already celebrating the joy and sorrow of Passover.