Posts by Admin (Page 7)
Pastors Ponderings
What freedom means to me by Phil S. I’ve been thinking about what freedom in Christ means to me personally. To me, it’s yielding to Jesus and emptying myself to him, putting on Christ, and dying to myself and all the world things. It seems to me, the more I empty out, the more he fills me with the Holy Spirit. As I listen to the conviction of Holy Spirit and confess my sins and nail them to the…
Pastors Ponderings
The question of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of any group is usually decided by a few people in power. It can be decided by a committee, a dictator or it can simply be because someone is born into it. I am an Australian for two reasons, first I decided I wanted to be but then I had to submit the decision to those in power – the Australian government – to decide. Advertisers also create desire…
Pastors Ponderings
During the year we host a Sunday service called ‘perspectives’ where people from CBBC share their understanding on a topic—this year it has been ‘what’s your perspective on church?’ It’s become a valued part of our year. Here’s Holly’s thoughts, What is our role as the church, the body of Christ? Ephesians 4:11–13 says “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body…
Pastors Ponderings
Last Sunday we had 3 excellent speakers who shared their perspectives on Church. Joan shared and her thoughts summarised the conclusions we’ve been coming to for the last couple of years as we’ve been studying Acts. She said; “These past few days the word Oneness has been there every time I think about the meaning of Church. I wrote down just what I see. Church: a group of sinners, broken wounded brought together as one because of what Christ has done…
More Jottings From My Journal
A Moment in Time I knelt to lace up the familiar little shoes for my two-year-old granddaughter. As I began, a strange thing happened and, like the change of seasons in a movie, I saw it. I was doing this very same thing but now it was her older sister smiling down at me and, no sooner had those memories flashed by, than it was their older brother, a concentrated look on his…
Pastors Ponderings
We’ve been working through a series of videos by N T Wright in young adults group recently and there are certain ideas and questions that keep coming back around. Here’s a simple version for those of you who might be unfamiliar. The bible teaches us… God is so all-powerful and utterly good that the goodness of anything is measured by how well it aligns with Him. Evil is not a thing unto itself, but what is evil is only…
Pastors Ponderings
A dream by Bill I was awakened at 5 am in the morning because of a dream which I wrote down so as to not forget it. This was the dream. I was with a friend (the people of God) – we were walking in the country (a wilderness) and we came upon many small gold nuggets upon the ground – ripe for the picking, so we began to collect them until our hands were full. We began to drop…
Pastors Ponderings
During our Sunday service prayer time, Colin shared a prayer that he had written just through using scripture verses. I wanted to share this with us for a couple of reasons. First, to encourage us to also do the same. 1 Corinthians 14:26 speaks of each of us bringing a song or a prayer to share when we meet together. So if you haven’t thought of being pre-pared for church, or you don’t like praying off the cuff, then have…
Letting Light Shine out of Darkness.
We’ve no doubt heard this before: its not what happens to us but how we respond. This is so true, but over these past few days this saying has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I’ve been reflecting on the passage from 2 Corinthians 4 where Paul says…so then death is at work in us that life may be revealed in you. Paul was constantly facing hardship, persecution even death but he saw these circumstances as times when…
Pastors Ponderings
This week’s blurb is the latest from a Jesus follower: Contained within the walls of God’s sovereign purpose I’m finally getting it! After days, weeks even, of having new and exciting snippets of God’s truth seep into my dull brain, I’m finally seeing a clearer picture. I need to begin way back when I was a child growing up. All of my life I’d had the security of my parents’ love and the knowledge that they would do everything in…
Pastors Ponderings
This pondering has been written by John, and is a very timely word, particularly given the Sunday message last weekend that spoke about never forgetting the wonderful things God does for us. Have you ever spent some time inside a great church cathedral or maybe a small, humble, country church building? I find there is something special to these kinds of spaces. Perhaps it is because in them I feel a stronger connection with the church through the ages. Perhaps…
Pastors Ponderings
A couple of weeks ago, I suggested it was time to consider and define what ‘freedom in Christ’ is. Galatians 5:1 says, “it was for freedom that Christ has set you free. Now make sure you stay free.” It’s difficult to stay free, if you don’t know what freedom looks like. Then, in last week’s pastors ponderings, a transcript of the word that the Lord gave to CBBC was provided that you could pray and then together we might discern…