Blog
In one of the churches where Kym and I served previously, we had a copy of a photograph taken of the church some eighty years before and in that picture you can see that the magnificent tree that today stands outside the church building was only just above head-height.
With so much busyness at this time of year – plenty of stressful arrangements, financial worries and the like – it takes being very intentional to remind ourselves of what this advent season is really all about. How are we to think about Christmas?
Heavenly Father, we look forward to another Christmas season, the time that your children celebrate Your unending love and great sacrifice.
This week our Exec met for the last time in 2022. One of the themes that kept coming up as we spent time looking ahead into 2023 was the need to refresh our property. More than just a maintenance issue, we are wanting to be very intentional about welcoming the hundreds of people who enter our property each week, so this is also about hospitality and mission.
People have often said to me that the thought of standing up and speaking in front of a crowd terrifies them.
This Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent and we are suddenly less than a month from Christmas! So much has happened over this year
Did you know that we host an amazing adult literacy and IT skills project on our property in the evenings each week?
Driving out of a school parking lot this week during the morning drop-off chaos, I was stopped by a woman who gave me a handwritten note, which introduced her, explained that she was from Malawi, had gardening experience and was looking for work.
If you worship here at 09h00 or 18h30 you will know that an important part of the experience is building community over tea and eats (after the morning service or before the evening service). Historically we haven’t been able to offer this at 07h30 – but now a great injustice has been addressed :)
This week Kym and I have been up in Johannesburg for the eighth and final module of our Spiritual Direction training course with the Jesuit Institute of SA. It's been a fantastic journey - learning from Christian communities and authors that were completely new to us, and meeting people from across the full range of Church traditions.