Opinion

LOVE MEANS being part of something bigger than myself. It is something that reorientates the way I live my life; from the way I spend my time to my priorities. Love means getting up in the middle of the night to change dirty nappies. But I guess it is also about being vulnerable to the point where someone else’s wellbeing ...

HOPE IS very important for Prison Ministry; hope in Jesus. Christ means hope to everyone who wants to reach hope. In the prison hope is tangible. Many times when we talk with the inmates we need to share the hope of Christ. Last Friday I was in one of the prisons and one of the inmates said to me, “I’m ...

WHAT IS your favourite Christmas symbol? A star? A tree? An angel? A gift? My favourite Christmas symbol is a tent. In the first chapter of the gospel of John we read that God took on human flesh and came to live on earth. Another translation puts it this way: “God pitched a tent and came to live amongst us”. ...

Jasmin: LOVE MEANS God and love means if you care about someone, say your neighbours, you care about how you love them. If you love someone, like your mum and dad or grandparents or carer, you always say, “I love you”. When you love someone you always take care of them. God loves me and we need to take care ...

ONE OF my favourite quotes is from the Russian author Tolstoy. “He did not know where he began and she ended.” That is what love is to me. It is that intrinsic part of ourselves that connects us so deeply to each other; that part in you that is the same in me. We can never outgrow it and we ...

FAITH IS pretty hard to define, really. When I think about faith certainly, for me, it is easier to think about the results of faith. I think of a child who has faith in its parents to give that child unconditional love and acceptance. When I think about faith I also think about the congregational members I serve within the ...

IF FAITH sustains me in the present, then hope directs my gaze to God’s future. In the letter to the Hebrews the image of hope is that of the anchor in uncertain times. So during Advent I need to remind myself to put my anchor, my hope, in the Lord who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and ...

AS WE EDGE closer to Christmas, we begin to focus on the hope embedded in God incarnate in a helpless being; a newborn baby. I recently heard World Vision CEO, Rev Tim Costello, speak about the Federal Government’s proposed mandatory precommitment on pokie machines. According to Mr Costello, when the Crown Casino was opened in Melbourne, then Victorian Premier, Jeff ...

IN 2005 I spent Christmas morning in hospital in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. I wasn’t sick or injured; I was singing. At that time I was the Army Chaplain deployed to support about 400 Australian Federal Police personnel and 100 Aussie soldiers who were part of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). The local ...

SINGING CHRISTMAS CAROLS has certainly been part of my heritage. As a teenager it was great fun being driven around the suburbs adjacent to the local church on the back of a truck, dangling our legs over the side, singing carols accompanied by an inadequate reed organ or an inaudible guitar. Part of the deal was that we also encouraged householders ...