Today is a special day in the life of our congregation. We are fortunate to have several retired ministers among us and two of them have reached the milestone of having achieved over sixty years of ordained ministry. Rev Jack Goodluck and Rev Trevor Oates have served God and God’s church faithfully and this is…
It seems that if you don’t like how things are, you can just create your own reality. We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. If your team loses, it’s because “the others cheated”. If your candidate doesn’t get elected, the election was “rigged”. If you don’t like a protest,…
“It was a lang time ago, right enough – thoosans and thoosans o years since. There was nuthin whaur the earth is the noo – absolutely nothin at aw. “weel noo,” God says tae himself wan day, “I’ll fix a wee bit dod o land – doon there” (A Glasgow Bible – Jamie Stewart) As…
One of the things about being a minister is that you get asked a lot of questions. We are faced with a lot of issues today and many Christians want to do their best to live as well as they can according to their faith. As examples, I’ve been asked the following at various times,…
Before coming to Australia, I did some research. I watched “Neighbours” and drank a tin of Foster’s lager and was not impressed. I watched a video of Shane Warne’s greatest wickets and was impressed. I read a book by Bill Bryson about his travels in Australia which was funny and heart-warming. But he highlighted an…
Last week I was watching those unbelievable scenes from America on television. I tried to explain what was going on but found the only thing I could say was “you have to come and see this”. There are times when what we are experiencing is so unusual, or powerful, that we cannot really explain it…
When I go to see a doctor, while I hope they have a genuine heart to see people healed, I also hope they have a medical degree and have been trained according to approved professional standards. Same when I go to a dentist. It’s nice if they have a passion to see everyone with good…
A lot of people these days tell me they are “blessed”. It’s become the default reaction to anything positive that has happened to them like receiving some windfall, gaining a promotion at work, or simply getting a car park nearer the store entry. Such usage now tends to lead us to associate “blessing” with some…
I know that this year has been an extremely challenging one for everyone. For the majority of the year, we’ve been living with the fear and anxiety over the international pandemic. We are painfully aware of all the things we couldn’t do as we would have liked to have done. We think of all the…
As Christians we are commanded to love God and one another. The naturally occurring question arising from this is, “How do we show love?” If we believe advertisements, we might have to buy expensive gifts of jewellery. Maybe we need to be lavishing flowers, wine and chocolates on one another? Perhaps we should reserve a…