Central Church Port Kembla

We do a few short practices to help us be present to the moment and engage in a Lectio Divina from Jean-Pierre de Cassaude’s classic ‘The Sacrament of the Present Moment’. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Bryony considers how Miriam could be a queer icon while exploring the stories of Miriam as an adult in Exodus and Numbers. Miriam’s significance to the people as a leader and prophet is contrasted with Moses.

Caro looks at the often overlooked women in Exodus 1 and 2, without whom there would be no Moses and no liberation from Egypt. She looks at the different ways each woman resisted and disobeyed the powers and we celebrate the significance of small acts of mercy and justice.

It’s Palm Sunday and we immerse ourselves in the story of the Son of Man who stands as antidote to empire. We explore the quiet ways we also practice resurrection and live lives of resurrection.

We wrapped this gathering around the story in Luke 17:11-16 where Jesus raises a widow’s son. The story is a collision of celebration and mourning, life and death. We begin with doing a lectio divina on the passage and then do a short imaginative prayer exercise. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

The mystery of the cross lies in how Christ’s death reconciled us with God. While many theories exist, none can be known with absolute certainty. In this episode, Oran explores two perspectives, reflecting on how Christ’s death and resurrection signify the end of death itself—and what that means not just for Christians, but for all of humanity.

Caro shares how the Cross makes plain a pattern of death and resurrection that is built into the universe; a pattern that God undergoes in Christ and one that we experience in our own lives.

The term scapegoat comes from the Ancient Israelite practice on the Day of Atonement. The priest confessed the wrong doings of the people over the head of the goat and the goat carried that guilt far away from the people. Rene Girard observed that all cultures have participated in scapegoating. Jesus was a scapegoat and his death and resurrection revealed the mechanism.

We start off with some cantering prayer and then using Gary Thomas’ content we dive into the nine different ways we can connect with God. We consider the ways we naturally experience God’s presence and acknowledge what feels foreign to us. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Becca shares about the “weirdness” of Christian community as well as the gifts of shared grief and hope.

Caro talks about hospitality as welcoming the stranger.

In many ways our spirituality is personal and private, and in other ways we cannot walk this road of faith alone. This month we engaged in lectio divina and an examen to explore the gift of community and remind ourselves of the gift other people have been in our own journey of faith. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Caro shares some of our journey as a church, highlights some of our values and shares some changes for us in 2025. Those changes relate to leadership structure and to our rhythm of gatherings.

In today's digital age, we have access to an abundance of online resources—podcasts, videos, books, and journals—featuring insights from some of the world's brightest minds. With such a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, what is the value of attending church? In this message, Oran will explore this question, encapsulated in the Greek phrase Egó mésa ekklisía - Ekklisía mésa mou, which translates to "Me within the church, the church within me."

We look at the story of Jacob’s Ladder from Genesis 28, reading it as if we were hearing it as a story told around a campfire and seeing what truth we might discover about humans and God.

Luke’s gospel begins with God disturbing many lives. Reflecting on the way God disrupts Mary’s life helps us to look for ways God might be disrupting our lives too.

Using Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel inviting her to participate with God’s good plans for the world, Caro invites us to see this story as an archetype of our own ‘yeses’ to God at different points in our life. This sermon used 6 different artworks… If you’d like to see them as you listen to this episode you can find them post on our Facebook page (and it the community group) posted on 9/12/2024.

In this message, Oran looks at some of the theological principles around forgiveness and how it does, and doesn’t, relate to God.

Caro unpacks Jesus’ teaching around turn the other cheek, give your robe as well and go the extra mile and looks at how Jesus is encouraging people to maintain their own dignity within a system of oppression. We are called to forgive people and resist systems of oppression and injustice.

Becca shares about the challenges that come with forgiveness, spiritual bypassing, and how we can “lower the bar” and offer ourselves and other deep compassion on the journey.