By Not Known There are people who perform lowly deeds around our hawker centres. They remove and wash dishes, disposed of garbage and wipe tables. They are rarely noticed or thanked and are almost never in the limelight. In New Testament times, these people would be called ‘deacons‘ or ‘servants‘. What is a servant? A…

By Not Known Today we continue our ‘Created for God’s Purposes’ series of sermons and studies with a practical focus on being God’s person. To be God’s person is to bear God’s likeness or image and so to fulfil our identity at Creation (Gen 1:26-27). To be God’s person is what we were made for.…

By Not Known A recent article declared that the virtual church is the way of the future. This ‘church‘ has no building and does not meet together. Instead, it is a cyber- community where members log on from home to download a service of their choice and then make their offering by electronic fund transfer.…

By Not Known Recent years have seen what many call the ‘Worship Wars‘. Churches have been divided over issues related to worship styles, especially with regard to music (lyrics and instrumentation), prayer styles, degrees of informality and such like. New churches have been formed in which the defining feature, power of attraction, is just in…

By Not Known Life without purpose Around us we see people who live life without purpose. They have no centre to give inner and outer poise and are easily unbalanced. Many of these live for the experience of the moment – with no sense of past or future. It is not surprising that many of…

By Not Known Today we have a happy link between Easter Sunday and our Communion service. First, we look backwards: Like the Jewish Passover from which it is derived, the Christian Communion looks backwards (1 Cor 11:24-26). We look back to the saving deeds of Jesus on the Cross. As we look back to the…

By Not Known At the start of Easter week we are conscious of Jesus’ death. The Cross that hung over him since birth is now a looming shadow that will soon blot out all light in the darkness of that Friday afternoon. A classic interpretation of Jesus’ death is found in Rom. 3:21-26. It can…

By Not Known Easter is soon here and it is timely to think about the Passion of Jesus. The Passion has central place in each of the four Gospels. This is so much so that someone describes them as ‘Passion stories with introductions’. For example, nine of the 21 chapters in John are concerned with…

By Not Known In today’s world, a wealthy person is someone who can choose what to eat, what to wear, where to live, and who has savings. That makes just about all of us wealthy. We live in a wealthy country and the Christian population tends to come from the better-educated and better-paid section of…

By Not Known A new membership class starts this week. Some will join us by adult Baptism, as a public declaration that they want to trust, follow and serve Jesus. Others will join Confirmation, as a public declaration that the faith of their parents, in which they were baptised as infants, is also their faith.…