God's Loving Discipline  The entrance of sin in the world began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. As a result, they were banished from the Garden of Eden and thereafter their lives, and our lives, have been affected by the curse of sin. Sin is the root cause of all the evil in the world and is the cause of our death.   Sin is universal in its effects. Trials and tribulation are the lot of all mankind; both the outsider and the Christian indiscriminately. The non-Christian attribute their trials to chance, and are quite unaware that they are governed by God's hand. Those of us who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and have been brought into the

Caring for One Another: A Note on Pastoral Care This week I was blessed with a beautiful encouraging email and gift from someone in the Church. It reminded me of the joy and responsibility we have in caring for one another as a Church family. While the Bible speaks clearly about the qualifications and responsibilities of pastors, elders, and overseers (1 Timothy 1:3-7; 2:1-15; 3:3-13; Titus 1:5-9), it also teaches that all Christians are called to care for one another. As followers of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, we are to walk in His footsteps—loving, serving, and encouraging each other in faith. The Call to One-Anothering Throughout Scripture, we find many "one-another" commands that shape our relationships as believers. We are called to love one another (John 13:34), bear one

God’s Good Gifts I love gardening. I love everything about it, the sun on my back, the rain in my face, the dirt under my nails, the grass under my feet. I even like that pleasant, tired feeling that comes from digging, pruning, planting, moving compost or mowing. Any opportunity I get I’ll be outside in my garden, just ask my family. And if I’m not actually gardening, I’m sitting with a coffee thinking and dreaming about my next gardening project. My most recent project has been to turn the space between the house and the side fence, which was once the kids cricket pitch, into my vegie patch. This is a bit of an ongoing project as I continue to add more vegie beds and have plans to

Evangelism: Imposing Our Truth on Others?    "What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth." – Oprah Winfrey    Oprah’s advice summarises our cultural moment perfectly. In Western countries like America and Australia, we believe that we must find our true selves and be brave enough to express them if we are to discover real joy. This is the key to self-actualisation. This belief involves a lot of knotty assumptions, some of which are deeply flawed. I’m not going to deal with them here, but there are great resources online that can help you untangle it.    This blog has to do with how our cultural story affects Aussies’ perception of evangelism. Two decades

Feeding the Masses  Perhaps it is less impressive than Jesus feeding 5,000 or 4,000 with just a few loaves and fishes, as we have been seeing in Matthew’s Gospel. However, every fortnight, we have the privilege and opportunity to feed hundreds of students at Bray Park State High School (BPSHS), in partnership with Scripture Union and our very own Chappy Hannah Bongers.  Recently, our go-to has been to cook up just under 400 sausages each fortnight. The lines are seemingly never ending. As soon as the sausages come off the bbq, they get snapped up and eaten.  When it comes to cooking up pancakes, we pull out two BBQs (which we should probably start doing with the sausages, too!) and we can go through 20+ shaker bottles. And still,

Time with God  The kids are back at school and so guitar lessons and soccer practice and whatever other extra-curricular activity your kid does is also starting back. And it doesn’t take long for life to get crazy busy again. I remember what it was like when our kids were small and our calendar was full of reminders about school meetings, cello lesson times, orthodontist appointments…and the list goes on. And if those appointments, meetings and lessons weren’t written down and put in the schedule, well then, they just didn’t happen.  We tend to naturally prioritize those things in life we see as important. We’ll rearrange the schedule and find time for those things we value.   So, what about our relationship with God? Do we prioritize time spent with