All people are made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The offer of salvation through Jesus is available to everyone (John 3:16-17). All people in the church family are also seen as equal, regardless of their gender or social status (Gal …
Like a significant number of people in my city and the world, I spent most of the past two weeks in isolation. My wife and I and two of our children contracted COVID. While the children recovered very quickly, it was a rougher few days for the adults of the house, worse than I expected. …
I recently wrote some documents for our church annual general meeting. I know, that sounds boring, right? Most of us hate going to meetings, and we usually have a series of drawn-out unnecessary meetings in our past that have made us feel that way. Yet preparing these documents were a great reminder of God’s kindness …
All of will wonder at some time or other if God might have more important things to do than to pay attention to us. There are always big problems in the world. Right now it might be COVID and the Ukraine; next year it will be something else. And who are we? Small people with …
What makes a sermon a good sermon? Everyone will have a different personal opinion. Some like loud, enthusiastic preachers who call for ‘Amens’ and ‘Praise the Lords’ at regular intervals. Others like careful, logical, well-thought out dense sermons. Many have a favourite preacher. But how might we assess preaching in a Biblical way? The basic …
The advertised time for the church service I am part of is 10am on Sundays. This is not a new time, but is the time our church has met for decades now. Yet, most Sundays, less than 50% of the people who will ultimately be present are there at 10am. Sometimes the service leader stands …
You know what it’s like. Partway through a service, you hear a baby cry. It distracts you, but you try to ignore it; the parents are trying their best. Then, a little later on, there is a rustling noise while a toddler opens a packet of chips during a prayer. And during the sermon, some …
Today’s children are very busy. In previous generations, at least in Australia, it was common for children to spend a great deal of time outside, in parks, riding bikes, and relaxing. Now life is different. There are many after school activities, music practice or sports training, and for Christian families, church. How does this reality …
I have recently published my second book! The cover looks like this: What is this book about? While the topic is retirement, this book explores what the Bible says about older age more generally. Here is the official blurb: Most of us assume that when we reach a certain age, we will retire from …
In the past few years, we have seen the rise of a new career choice: the influencer. An influencer is someone who has many followers on social media and is therefore paid to advertise products. As they ‘influence’ many people, some can make a lot of money in this manner. From an advertiser’s perspective, and …