Posts from 2021 (Page 4)

St John’s Kids Photo Request On Sunday 23 May, our Grade 4/5/6s will be creating a church family collage, which the wider congregation will be invited to add photos or drawings to in following weeks. It would be much appreciated if each child in those year levels would bring a family photo to St John’s Kids either this week, or on the 23rd. Note: For privacy and child-safe reasons, no names will be displayed with the photos.   Going Bananas…

Over the past two weeks, we have had guest speakers from Prison Fellowship and Open House tell us about their mission to share the love and truth of Jesus with others. This week, set yourselves a Family Mission. You may like to do something for someone else: Bake a cake or biscuits for a neighbour (include clean up!) Do some gardening for someone you know that is not well or plan some time together: A family movie or games night,…

Family Discipleship is not so much about cramming more into busy schedules as it is about being intentional and leveraging the time parents already have with their children, to help them become friends and followers of Jesus. If you would like to utilise some time you spend in the car on the way to school, or swimming, or music lessons, etc., you may be interested in The Word On The Street – an Australian, Christian devotional podcast for families. Each episode is…

Welcome to Term 2! I hope you have all had an enjoyable term break. The lead up to Easter, as with Christmas, can be busy with end of term activities and family and other social get-togethers. We can run the risk of solemnly commemorating Jesus’ death and celebrating the resurrection and then … we often just stop. But the excitement did not stop on Easter Sunday! Over the last few weeks, we have had talks (in-person and online) looking at…

Click here for details of our Easter services, in-person and livestreamed. At our in-person services, we will have some free resources to help you investigate the life and death of Jesus further. One of these is specifically for kids: Who, What, Why of Easter. This has also been made available as a digital resource which you can watch here: https://vod-progressive.akamaized.net/exp=1617267892~acl=%2Fvimeo-prod-skyfire-std-us%2F01%2F512%2F21%2F527563268%2F2480047302.mp4~hmac=fc4a282d97d753de0e5be1ba21f5da2071f1cc49a2022bb413392ebcb70c22d9/vimeo-prod-skyfire-std-us/01/512/21/527563268/2480047302.mp4?filename=Who+What+Why+How+of+Easter.mp4 And there are some related activity sheets available too: 1, 2, 3, 4. Please connect with us if you are not…

Sunday 28 March You can access our digital services here and/or attend in-person at 10am or 5pm. This week we conclude our current talk series. Read Jeremiah 31:27-34 in preparation. This passage points forward to God making a new covenant with his people – one that would not write his law on tablets of stone, as in Moses’ time, but where he would write his law on their hearts. This prophesy was ultimately fulfilled through Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the…

Sunday 21 March You can access our digital services here and/or attend in-person at 10am or 5pm. This week we continue our current talk series. Read Jeremiah 23:15-32 in preparation. Jeremiah had to contend with false prophets who were telling the people that everything was going to be okay – that they were God’s people and had nothing to worry about, when in fact God had told Jeremiah that they were heading for military defeat and exile. We might be…

Sunday 14 March You can continue to access our digital services here and/or attend in-person at 10am or 5pm. This week we continue our current talk series. Read Jeremiah 15:10-21 in preparation. Jeremiah is feeling very sorry for himself in this passage – to the point of wishing he had never been born. He feels as though he has done what God asked of him, but that his message has been rejected and the people curse him for it. He feels…

Sunday 7 March This week we continue our talk series, looking at the book of Jeremiah. You can continue to access our digital services here and/or attend in-person at 10am or 5pm. The people of Judah had put their trust in the temple and the associated sacrifices and rituals. But outside of that system, they were overtly disobeying God in other areas of their lives. Are we sometimes guilty of attending church ‘religiously’ on Sundays and forgetting that a relationship with…

Sunday 28 February This week, we start a new talk series, looking at the book of Jeremiah. Quite often, children are referred to as the future of the church. While it is true that our young’uns are likely to outlive the current leadership of the church, referring to them only in terms of the future undermines their role in the present and can leave kids thinking that they need to wait before they are of any use to the church…

Sunday 21 February Over the past couple of weeks, we have been looking at Songs of Joy in the Psalms – specifically singing for joy and sharing the joy. This week, our focus is on living with joy. I was reading this morning about the overview effect – the intense emotions and awareness that astronauts experience because of their unique perspective of the earth from space. It can be so overwhelming that some have built ‘awe-time’ into their schedule. Before…

Sunday 14 February The Sad News is … There will be no in-person services this week. Melbourne is heading into 5 days of lockdown. While sad, I believe it is far preferable to have occasional short, sharp ‘circuit breakers’ than to end up back in 6+ months of lockdown. So, I give thanks to God for the lessons learnt last year and the leadership that we have. The Good News is … Our made-for-digital service is still up and running,…

Sunday 7 February You can access our digital services here or attend an in-person service at 10am or 5pm. If attending in person, please take the time to scan the QR Code on arrival and enter your details. Keeping electronic records is mandatory. As are masks again this week, for the whole service! Thank you for your willingness to adapt to changing regulations.   This week we start a new talk series, looking at the Psalms and the topic of JOY.…