Spirited Word

Send us a textIt is the Sunday we ponder and celebrate the uniqueness of God and the Christian confession of faith about him. It is Holy Trinity Sunday.It is a difficult thing to try and ponder how God can be altogether one and yet also altogether three. Even the best illustrations of the three-leaf clover or water ice and steam experiment or a tricycle and etc don’t do this mystery any justice.Better to just marvel at God and let him be who he has revealed he is.We do that today as we also reflect on other beliefs about who God is that abound in our culture. There are many beliefs about who God is. We humans search for God but often don’t listen to what he has revealed about himself in the pages of his Word, but rather, make him in our own image.One of the current images we have of God seems to be a God who is just making sure the world keeps on ticking. He is distant and impersonal. Another one is that God is here to meet our every need whenever we need it. Another one is that God is meant to help all of us unravel our internal issues and gain help and healing on the inside as we navigate life.Holy Trinity Sunday is a day to marvel at who God says he is and how good he is and how that makes this life worthwhile and full of hope and love.Pastor Adrian

Send us a textEveryone has got problems. We all try to deal with them with some mind of grace. Sunday was Pentecost Day. It is the day we celebrate how the risen Jesus delivered on his promise to fill us with new life, new hope and give us a sure future in his grace. But we tend to think that all our problems are outside of us and the only way to fix them is to draw what we can from inside of us.Not true. Our hope and help and healing come from that rushing wind; those tongues of fire; those words about all the mighty acts of that God has ever done that fill the hearts of thousands of people from all over the known world in that city of Jerusalem on this Day of Pentecost. Love you to share the wonder and get the help!Pastor Adrian Kitson

Send us a textWe have made it to the end of another Easter Season. Does that mean we have come to the end of Jesus? It can seem that Jesus has indeed departed to some other ‘spirit’ place as if he has no place in this place – until the end when ‘we will all go to heaven’ and somehow be with him wherever he is.If that is the case, what are we meant to be and do now? Are we just waiting around doing nothing in particular, just waiting for our eventual end? And what is Jesus doing – just setting the place up waiting for the guests to arrive one day?I suspect we all want God to do more in the here and now.We know our sorrows and pains and regrets. We know the trouble of the world. We know the darkness of evil within and without. In moments of real searching, I suspect you have called out “Where are you God!?”.I am sure Luke wants to give you confidence when these moments come. I am sure he wants to challenge the common belief that Jesus is now removed or just spiritual; unconcerned with our bodies and our work and our day. Luke tells of this ascension moment not only as an end of Jesus’ ‘earthly ministry’ but the beginning of his still earthly ministry! This ascension moment is like a detonator for faith, hope and love in your life.Praying that you get fired up for your living this resurrection life once more today.Pastor Adrian.

Send us a textThere is a question that seems odd to our ears in the gospel account of Jesus healing a man living with a long-term debilitating disability. This man has been living poolside for 38 years. He has been seeking healing in the intermittent bubbling up of the water at the pool of Bethezda – the ‘house of mercy’. But it does not sound like the place is built on mercy! It sounds more like we are used to – an ‘every person for themselves’, competitive, ‘dog eat dog’ kind of life because no matter how hard he tries, the guy cannot get into that pool when its healing waters bubble up. But there comes this day when healing will be given by other means – the word of Jesus. And it all begins with this strange question... “Do you want to be healed?”; strange question asked of a man who says he has been trying to find healing for nearly four decades! I wonder what Jesus is seeking from this man. I wonder what he is seeing in this man. I wonder what he is hearing in this man’s heart and what his healing gift really does and means.Praying that you respond to his heart-question today: “Do you want to be healed?”Pastor Adrian Kitson

Send us a textHuman beings love to erect boundaries. In Jesus day, there was a big barrier between Jew and non Jew. Today, we have our own barriers that separate people on social, racial and political lines.So you can imagine the scene when Peter meets with the leaders, and they have concerns about boundaries. “You mean you went into Gentiles houses. You ate with them. You baptized them!! But they need to become one of us. They need to be circumcised to enter the covenant”.So Peter told them a story - the story of what God had showed him. He told them the story of a vision of a sheet with all sorts of animals and a voice that says, “Kill and eat”. Peter, a good Jewish man, could not eat an unclean animal. It’s against the Jewish law. It’s a barrier that dare not be crossed. But the voice replied “Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.”The vision was not really about food at all. It was about people. The Gentiles, who good Jewish people saw as unclean don’t need to go through the Jewish rituals to become God’s people. God includes them, involves them, invites them.Whenever barriers are broken down; wherever the “other” is embraced in Christ, someone has caught the vision. Grace happens. And it’s an act of God reflecting the will of God.

Send us a textIt is easy to believe that Christianity is only for the super-spiritual people who can pray a mountain to move or raise the dead and power on through anything in life untouched by the ordinary things of the day.Big things can happen in this new community where resurrection over even death is entirely a ‘thing’. But, even with that startling claim, the small things still are what counts. Come and hear about a woman named Tabitha.Her life shows that this resurrection life of Jesus is a very everyday life – but with a whole lot of hope. Pastor Adrian

Send us a textIt is a beautiful scene we survey: A boat full of fish. Breakfast cooked on the coals on the beach with the resurrected Saviour. Not a bad way to start the day!This is his third appearance since that first Easter morn. It is not down in the city but up here at home. We are back by the sea in Galilee. He is in their place. He has something he needs to do. It centres around Peter.Peter is still close. But is there unfinished business about his terrible failure? It seems so. Something has to be done to fully deal with the pain and regret of that shameful behaviour that Maundy Thursday night.The Saviour is here. The smoke and fire and smell of burning coals is here. The last time these things were together for Peter is when he spoke those terrible words:“I am not his follower. I don’t know the man ...”What does Jesus do with terrible sinners like this? We shall find out.In doing so, we might finally trust that even when we cannot love deeply enough or do well enough or be enough, our calling and living and loving can go on.Come to the beach. Hear the words. Know the resurrection life now yours today. There is plenty of fish!Pastor Adrian Kitson

Send us a textOn the sanctuary wall hangs our theme: Set free to live free. But the fact is that no one can appreciate freedom unless they have known slavery – in whatever form that might take. No one can appreciate the incredible gifts they receive every day unless they have experienced want and known times of need. It’s true that we take most of our lives for granted. We don’t think so much of food, clothing, health and most other things as solely gifts from God, but see them as things earned by our hard work and good choices. And we tend to compare what we have with what others have – especially if we don’t think they deserve what they have. And that affects our gratitude. An atheist once said: “One thing I envy about you Christians is that you have someone to thank.” The text may seem to be a strange one for today – the parable Jesus told about the employer who paid all his workers the same wage regardless of how long they worked. After all, this is the one story that goes against all our instincts. What’s the point of hard work and long hours in ‘the heat of the day’ if ‘johnny-comelatelies’ receive the same reward as us? The answer that Jesus gives highlights the outrageously generous, totally free and unearned grace of God that all believers in Jesus receive. It is only in receiving grace and living in grace that we understand true freedom. And being Set free to live free is what motivates us to say every day: Praise the Lord! Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Pastor Robert Voigt

Send us a textWelcome to ‘Gather Easter’ – the best ‘Round’ in town! This is because Easter deals not only with winning and losing a game but also with our living and dying in this life. It is BIG. Work, family, unexpected trouble, surprising joy, occasional worry and despair and fleeting moments of happiness meet us all the time. But there is this longing too. We’re looking for a new communion; a love that can handle our suffering. This longing for connection and contribution and affirmation and joy that frees us from the fears. Unlike any other god we might have heard of or sought, instead of asking us to do something, make something, achieve something or be something we just can’t be, Jesus enters our storm and embraces our questions without demanding anything from us. Welcome to ‘Gather Easter’, a celebration of the man who killed death and lives to give you new life in all of your life. Pastor Adrian

Send us a textThe world has taken many turns for the worst these last months. It is easy to worry and fret about what it all means. As Christians we ask why it is that the wicked seem to do so well and the everyday folks have to keep copping it!Maybe it would be a good idea to switch off the news, the social media news feeds and whatever else contains all those voices of chaos and simply enter this journey with Jesus of his last week where he gets to the bottom of our sin barrel and creates a whole new future of this world.Isaiah the prophet suggested similar to the people of God locked in a generational exile far from home. He speaks of this mysterious Suffering Servant to these suffering people.Whoever this Suffering Servant is, he is sure that whatever he suffers, the Lord is with him in it and will one day deal with all suffering at the hands of evil.The Servant says, ‘I set my face like flint’ and ‘do not hide my face’ from my accusers.Sounds like Someone we know?As Jesus descends into the place where darkness temporarily reigns this week, the prophet calls us Christians: Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on their God.Pastor Adrian