Central Church Port Kembla

This month we sat with the teachings of Meister Eckhart.

Caro looks at some of the stranger details of this story including how Jesus liked to wander in ‘in-between’ places; how these men in their physical suffering had found a remarkable social healing; and how this might just be the unsexiest miracle Jesus performed. She finishes by reading a Rilke poem which alongside this passage encourages us to stay close to Jesus our Source.

How is the nature of our personal healing tied up with the world’s salvation? Becca looks at Luke 17 and what it might mean for us today.

The content of Acts 10 lends itself well to the idea of spiritual direction. Caro shares with us a little about what Spiritual direction is and then we hear an imaginative interpretation of Peter unpacking his vision and it’s implications with a spiritual director (Kym Dixon kindly agreed to participate as a director.)

In this episode, Oran takes a look at Peter's vision of the animals in the sheet from a psychological view, considering the mindsets around disgust, purity, sacrifice and mercy and how they affect our interaction with those around us. Peter's reaction to the vision of the unclean animals is not exclusive to just ancient times, that same psychology affecting Peter's perspective is still very present in us today. God was inviting Peter beyond his cultural and religious boundaries, but Peter had to overcome deeply embedded 'disgust' (uncleanness, impurity, unholiness etc) in order to discover God in the 'other'.

We look at the life and the teaching of St. Francis and reflect and listen to the wisdom Francis offers us today.

As we continue to explore ways of decolonising our church practices, Caro leads us into a communal exploration of Acts 10. We read the passage with some context explained. Then we wrestle together with what this story might show us about what God is doing and how God is ‘doing’ it.

Caro shares how her upbringing leaned more towards spiritual bypassing that equipping her to lament when needed. She shares how lament give us a way to protest to God, express and process emotion with God and voice our confusion. Becca also shares briefly what breath prayer is and how that has been a gift for her in prayer.

Caro shares how speaking to God as we speak to a friend provides a space of prayer as connection. And how the prayer of silence, or wordless prayer, can be a way we discover God in all the spaces in between.

Caro shares how liturgical prayer has been a source of life for her. Liturgy can be a gift to our prayer lives, a way we can join in the rich prayer life of the church across geography, time and history. As part of this service we had the opportunity to spend 15 minutes engaging with some liturgy. If you’d like to have a taste of this, get in touch and we can help you out.

Caro speaks briefly about St. Ignatius then leads us through an imaginative prayer experience with the text. Inviting us to find ourselves in this story and see how the Holy Spirit brings the text alive in our lives.

Larissa Minniecon, a Kabi Kabi, Gureng Gureng, Ambryn and Zenadth Kes woman, shares an Indigenous perspective on abundance and Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well.

In this month’s contemplative service we looked at the life of St. Teresa of Avila and participated in a couple different spiritual practices. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Food is a highly political topic. The injustice between the “haves” and the “have nots” can be seen in our local communities, as well as on the global scale. In Jesus’ times, the Romans controlled the food supply, and the Pharisees wrapped so much religious red tape around food, many of the Jewish people struggled to keep their families fed. Yet amidst this boiling pot of tension, Jesus fed 5000 people through prayer and provision. In this podcast, Oran explores the significance of this miracle, and the freedom it presented to the crowd following Him, and to us today.

The audio recording from our service failed, so Luke and Caro have put together a snippet of Simone's life and writings for people to enjoy and reflect upon. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Caro shares some of our story as a church and how our culture and approach to finances and resources has changed over the years, including where we’re at now.

Some of the members of our church board share our ethos and values around giving and chat about our current financial situation as well as our hopes for the future.

This week Oran gives an overview of the biblical narrative through a lens of generosity. This lens shows God's love as abundant, plentiful and generous. Sin, on the other hand, is not so much scarcity, rather the lie of scarcity - that there is not enough and we must take as much as we can to find wholeness and happiness. We can see this lie come to people time and again throughout scripture, and also in our own lives presenting the challenge of trusting in God's unlimited provision instead of our own limited resourcefulness.

This month we dive into the life and writings of St Therese of Lisieux, engaging in an Examen and a brief Lectio Divina.

Tonight Belinda Fleming, Cheryl Meers and David Fleming share thoughts, reflections and insights from the book "God Walk" by Mark Buchanan, that they have been reading together over the past several weeks.