I know I’ve asked before, but I think it’s so important that I’ll keep asking; Are you getting by on little more than one Weet-Bix a week? I trust that you find the Bible teaching here at Trinity encouraging, stimulating and challenging, and there’s no question that the reading and explaining of the Scriptures is a key part of what we do when we gather. But is Sunday morning the only time you spend seriously reading and studying the Bible? If it is, I think you’re getting by on one Weet-Bix a week! Weet-Bix are good for you, nutritious, tasty and all of that, but if you tried to live on only one each week, you wouldn’t be very healthy and you certainly wouldn’t grow. So let’s make sure we’re not trying to live like that when it comes to our spiritual health.
Of course, reading the Bible isn’t limited to what happens in an “official” Bible Study Group. I’d encourage everyone in our community to spend time individually reading God’s Word and praying regularly, even daily, hence the Daily Reading Notes we’ve made available for the Building A Kingdom teaching series. But for almost all of us, I’m sure, reading the Bible with others, meeting regularly for that purpose and talking about what we’re learning is a great way to help us get the most out of our Bible reading, to practice good habits and to develop accountability as we live out lives as people of the Word.
On August 8th 2005 The Jesus, All About Life marketing campaign was launched in Adelaide. The message that Jesus really is “all about life” was splashed across roadside billboards, and beamed into homes on TV and radio. It was described as the largest promotional campaign ever undertaken by Christians in Australia and has since been repeated in many Australian cities. The theme of the campaign was based on Jesus’ words in the second half of John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The campaign was considered a great success. People from all walks of life across our city were engaging in conversations about Jesus and Christians were encouraged to share the hope that they have in Christ. It was great to be able to publicly identify with the ads and with the picture of Jesus that was being presented to Adelaide. It was a privilege to stand with Christians from churches all across the city and say, “Yes, I believe that Jesus is all about life.”
I wonder though, if our lives agree? Does the way we live suggest we really do believe that Jesus is all about life?
School Chaplains have been in the news a bit recently because of the ongoing High Court challenge to the Commonwealth’s National School Chaplaincy Program. Around 2000 chaplains (called Christian Pastoral Support Workers in SA) are employed in state schools across the country, with many funded, at least in part, through the Federal scheme. In 2009 a survey conducted across the nation found that 98 per cent of school principals who had a chaplain in their school wanted government funding for school chaplaincy to continue.
While the outcome of the High Court challenge to the constitutionality of the Commonwealth program is still unknown, it seems to me that it would be a great pity for the work of our chaplains, particularly those in our local schools, to be overshadowed by the legal wrangling.
I realise that if you're under about 40 years of age, the idea of wearing a name badge to church on Sunday seems like a pretty silly idea! And being in that age bracket myself, I understand the feeling. "I know my name," we think, "why do I need to advertise it to the world?"!
But as our church has grown and there's more and more people around the place on Sundays, it's getting harder to get to know people and even more tricky to remember people's names. So we've decided to get name badges!
If you're a Trinity regular, I want to encourage you to buy a name badge - and not just buy one and leave it on your desk or in the car, but buy one and actually wear it to church on Sundays! Sure, you might feel a bit like a ... what's the word? ... a goober ... but the whole point is, it's not about you, it's about trying to look after each other in our church. When we wear a name badge it's especially helpful for new people who join us who are trying to learn the names of 150 other people!
For some of us it’s been part of our experience, for others perhaps a worst fear. It’s the phone call, the knock on the door or the word from the doctor, “It’s bad news, I’m afraid.”
What is our response? Whether we are the ones facing the bad news or if it’s someone we care about, how do we respond? If you listen carefully in those moments you’ll hear all sorts of messages from different people, “Just be strong,” “You’ll get through it,” “God will pull you through,” the list is almost endless.
Surely, if you're a Christian person, we should be able to speak much more helpfully into those kinds of situations. We should be able to speak to ourselves, to remind ourselves of what is true and what we know, and we should be able to speak to others who are struggling with the trials of life.
For the last 10 years or so, every October Long Weekend, I’ve headed down to Victor Harbor to be part of CV Conference. CV Conference is part of a strategy to see faithful and passionate Christian leaders raised up for the growth of God’s church in Adelaide, Australia and around the world. Since we believe that God raises up leaders for his church, CV aims to provide space and opportunities for everyday Christians to consider whether they should be serving God in full-time or part time vocational gospel ministry in Australia or overseas.
One of the things I love about being at CV Conference is the chance to work as a “Coach” helping people assess their gifts, aptitude and personality in order to help them discern the best ways that they can serve God and his church. Over the years I’ve come to the realisation that one of the reasons that many people who could be serving the church in full-time or part-time leadership aren’t doing it, is simply because we haven’t been intentional about helping people think it through.
When I write to people who have visited our church, I often tell them how encouraged we are when we have newcomers amongst us.
Newcomers help teach us some really important things about what it is to be the church.We’re reminded that our church gathering isn’t all about us.Sunday mornings aren’t just an opportunity for us to do a range of things the way we like them.When new people come amongst us, we’re reminded that other Christians express their faith in different ways.They have traditions and expectations that are different to our traditions and expectations.We’re also reminded that lots of people in our community have no background in the Christian faith.Some newcomers don’t know where to find a given passage in the Bible.They don’t know at what points in the service we generally stand and at what points we tend to sit.Many newcomers don’t know why we say declarations of faith together or why we pray.
Peter’s declaration about Jesus “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68) is a high point, not only in the chapter, but a high point of the whole gospel account.
So many people have so many different ideas about Jesus. So many want him to be and do different things; feed crowds, heal the sick, provide bread every day, lead the nation against their enemies, and right at the end of the chapter we hear Peter’s acknowledgment of Jesus’ true identity. He is the one whose words are “spirit and life.” He is the Holy One who has come from God.
“Psssst! Hey you, wanna be part of something big?” It sounds like a line from of one of those 80’s TV cop shows! A man with the collar on his trench coat turned up high, hat pulled low over his eyes, whispering at passers-by from the shadows of a dark alley.
Well, the scene might fit with a bad television mystery, but the invitation comes straight out of the pages of the Bible! In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth in the first Century AD, the Apostle Paul says that God invites us to be part of what he is doing in the world. In fact the language is even stronger than that; Paul says that if we are a Christian, then through the message of the apostles, God has “committed to us the message of reconciliation”.
The good news that transforms lives and hearts has been committed to us! We are Christ’s ambassadors, as Paul goes on to say. When we speak to those around us of the great lengths God has gone to in order to achieve reconciliation, God sees that as if he himself were imploring our friends to respond.
I remember a Wizard of Id cartoon posted up on the wall in my high school physics laboratory. It pictured a person saying, “It’s dark outside” and another person opening a door to the outside world. Instead of the usual pool of light spilling from the inside to the outside, illuminating the darkness, the darkness spilled inside casting a black beam across the room! “That sure is dark” was the understated observation! Of course that’s not what happens in reality, and even the written description of the comic without the pictures struggles somewhat! But I’ve always thought that amusing cartoon highlights the reality of what actually happens. Light shines. Light shines into darkness, driving the darkness before it.
In the first letter of the Apostle John to the New Testament churches, he says “God is light.” It’s a major theme of the letter and serves not only to communicate a truth about God, but also to encourage Christian people to live in a way that is pleasing to God. Thus John speaks of light in theological but also practical terms. For John, who loved to use the light-darkness dichotomy in his writings, light is the source of life. To say “God is light” is also to say that God is absolute and unequalled in his glory and holiness. John urges his readers to “walk in the light” which means to walk in the fullness of life as revealed in Jesus. Walking in darkness means living apart from Jesus’ revelation of life.
That’s an answer I seem to be giving more and more often. Perhaps you find yourself answering that way too. Life is busy. If we took a survey in our own church community, we’d find that many individuals and families find themselves constantly pulled in lots of different directions. I remember one parent telling me they had four separate engagements for their two children on one week night!
We have more “time-saving” devices than ever before in human history and yet we feel busier than ever! It seems to me that our busyness is not an efficiency problem but something deeper. What do we make of God’s description of his own work and rest in Genesis 2? By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
You're invited to a special Trinity Mount Barker event.
Making Disciples is the kind of occasion that has the potential to profoundly shape the way our church thinks about Christian life and ministry. I hope you're able to join us.
I hope you're able to join us this Sunday as we consider our hurting world and our place in it. I'm confident that the things we hear and take part in will be helpful, encouraging and challenging. This topic title comes from John Dickson's book. You can buy a copy from the bookstall on Sunday or get it from Matthias Media if you want to wrestle with this issue some more.
In the first Century AD, the Apostle Paul, one of the leaders of the early church wrote these words to the church in Rome: We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
In recent weeks I have been following a discussion between some Christian friends about whether we should commemorate “secular” or “civic” occasions in our Sunday gatherings. The debate hinges on the challenge of acknowledging occasions such as Anzac Day, Australia Day or Mother’s Day in a way that doesn’t seem trite but also reflects our commitment to keeping Jesus at the centre of our gatherings.
Regardless of the debate (which I suspect will rage ad infinitum!) if you're at Trinity Mount Barker this Sunday you’ll notice from the prayer of thanksgiving (amongst other places!) that we’re celebrating Mother’s Day!
The traditions associated with Mother’s Day started late in the 19th Century with Ann Jarvis, her daughter, Anna Marie Jarvis and a small ceremony at the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia. It should come as no surprise to us that Mother’s Day started in a Christian church. God commands us to honour our mothers. It’s in Exodus 20:12. There among the other 10 Commandments, like, “I am the LORD your God … you shall have no other gods before me,” God says, “honour your father and your mother."
But is Sunday morning the only time you spend seriously reading and studying the Bible? If it is, I think you’re getting by on one Weet-Bix a week! Weet-Bix are good for you, nutritious, tasty and all of that, but if you tried to live on only one each week, you wouldn’t be very healthy and you certainly wouldn’t grow. So let’s make sure we’re not trying to live like that when it comes to our spiritual health.
But as our church has grown and there's more and more people around the place on Sundays, it's getting harder to get to know people and even more tricky to remember people's names. So we've decided to get name badges!
I remember a Wizard of Id cartoon posted up on the wall in my high school physics laboratory. It pictured a person saying, “It’s dark outside” and another person opening a door to the outside world. Instead of the usual pool of light spilling from the inside to the outside, illuminating the darkness, the darkness spilled inside casting a black beam across the room! “That sure is dark” was the understated observation! Of course that’s not what happens in reality, and even the written description of the comic without the pictures struggles somewhat! But I’ve always thought that amusing cartoon highlights the reality of what actually happens. Light shines. Light shines into darkness, driving the darkness before it.
I hope you're able to join us this Sunday as we consider our hurting world and our place in it. I'm confident that the things we hear and take part in will be helpful, encouraging and challenging. This topic title comes from John Dickson's book. You can buy a copy from the bookstall on Sunday or get it from 
