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

What if?What if? This question can cripple us and send us spiralling into anxious thoughts. What if I lose my job? What if Australia gets pulled into a global war? What if? When we’re worried or suffering it can encourage us to hear how other saints have travelled through suffering with Jesus. One such saint is our sister Hannelè, the wife of Dirk Kotze. Dirk was serving as a deacon at Oasis when he was struck by lightning and passed on to be with the Lord in 2023. Below, Hannelè shares how she found strength in Christ and his people during this time. I trust it will encourage your faith.“During the most difficult time in my life with Dirk’s accident, and after he went to be with God, I found

Church is Never Boring   The ‘b’ word is banned in our household. I’m talking about the word ‘boring’. Our saying at home is that ‘boring people get bored’. If there are toys or games available to you, if the weather is fine outside; then one should not be bored (cue eye roll from my kids). I also believe that Church is never boring! Now my active, wiggly twelve-year-old might find this truth hard to believe… but it’s true! At the moment I’m reading ‘What Happens When We Worship’ by J L Cruse, and this truth was echoed in the opening chapter. I love what Cruse says: “Worship is never dull, but we are sometimes”.   The book unpacks the wonder of ‘worship’ in the context of Sunday worship services.

Lessons from a Lost Bird  While staying at the coast earlier this month we got quite the surprise one morning when we opened our door. We were on the top floor, and as it was an older building without a lift, there were a number of flights of stairs up to our apartment. So, imagine our surprise (and some might say terror) to find a bird flying around in the stairwell. It was lost trying desperately to get out. It kept flying at the window, but of course, being so high up it was bolted shut. We tried to coax it down the stairwell with no success.  That bird was lost. And thinking that the window was the way out, it flew at it, over and over and over.

Working all things together for good  A little while ago my brother-in-law, Trevor, loved his job as a truck driver. But out of the blue, he got seizures and stroke-like symptoms. It took a long time before doctors could diagnose his condition as functional neurological disorder. As a result of this condition, he’s lost his job and will most likely be unable to work a normal job again. He can do some work, but it is very limited in nature. Some days he feels good, while others he doesn’t. This is your classic ‘life’s turned upside down’ story. For those of you who don’t know Trevor, you may remember reading about it in the prayer news.   What has transpired from that moment until now is an incredible act of