The Cell Group Invitation
A parable of what might have been Once upon a time Neoh Cheng Hean and his wife Boon Nee had just moved into a small apartment on the fourteenth floor of an ageing residential building. The old-fashioned timber floor creaked and the ceiling sagged, but it had been freshly painted, the curtains were bright and […]
With God as my GPS
For my birthday last year, my family gave me a Global Positioning System receiver – otherwise known as a GPS. A few days later, I needed to drive right across Sydney. It was the ideal opportunity to try it out. It was not an auspicious start. In fact, I think I nearly gave the young […]
Tell Me an Old, Old Story
In our quest for academic excellence, it is easy for Christian scholars to forget that much of our best theology was first presented through stories. The teaching of Jesus is the finest example of all. Stories are too often a neglected form of communication. But they have unique qualities. Barry Chant discusses the great potential […]
Learning a Lesson from Lenses
It was February 2008 and time for me to give the annual Vision Sunday message at our church. My job was to inspire the congregation to join in faith for a great year with greater growth, flourishing finance, expanding evangelism, deepening discipleship and more missionaries. I would remind them of our Mission Statement and our […]
The Day Lockett Broke the Record
Sunday 6th June 1999 was the day that Tony Lockett was expected to kick the three goals that would make him the highest-scoring Australian footballer of all time. The strange thing is that when it was all over, I wondered what all the fuss had been about. Let me tell you what happened. I had […]
Hanging on Regardless
Hanging On Regardless I have an aversion to just standing on an escalator. I can’t simply step onto it and wait for it to carry me upwards like a departing soul to heaven. I have to be active, to stretch the leg muscles and the lungs, to prove my fitness, to make the most of […]
The Greatest Story Never Told
The Greatest Story Never Told Just before Christmas, I noticed a sales desk in the Piccadilly Arcade off Sydney’s bustling Pitt Street. The attendants were promoting a telephone system and handing out free festive sweets. I picked up a candy cane. ‘Do you know what this represents?’ I asked the young woman sitting there. She […]
Pathways to the Power of God
To meet Peter Igarobae today, you would never imagine the dramatic events that revolutionised his life just over 20 years ago. He is a gentle, gracious and quietly spoken Papua New Guinean in his late forties. There is a twinkle in his eyes and a permanent smile on his lips. That he was once a […]
A Childhood Christmas
During what we came to call the ‘War years’, my Mum and Dad, my brother Ken, my sister Coralie and I all lived in a modest house in Woodville, a pleasant Adelaide suburb, in the dry and sunny State of South Australia, half way between the city and the sea. I was fortunate to have […]
The Sergeant Saw Me Pray
I was not a happy young man. It was January, 1958—on a hot summer’s day in South Australia, the driest State in the driest continent on earth. Together with many of my mates, I had been lined up in the fierce heat waiting to be loaded on a bus that would take us away from […]