Central Church Port Kembla

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.

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 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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Together we reflect on forgiveness, what it might be and what it might not be, and then we do an examen considering what we might need to send away, let be or move away from in our lives. Ambient background music is by karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

This contemplative service leads us in reflecting on some quotes and poetry that invite us into wholesome confession, honesty, truth-telling and vulnerability. Ambient background music is by https://karlverkade.bandcamp.com/

Luke and Caro share together to kick off our series on forgiveness and we begin by looking at being people of humility who are able to confess our mistakes as well as what a healthy apology looks like.

Research highlights the many health benefits of immersing ourselves in nature. This connection extends beyond the physiological and psychological to touch on a deeper spiritual level. We aren't merely coexisting with nature; we are an integral part of it. Returning to nature, akin to returning to a Garden, is crucial for our well-being. In this message, Oran examines the link between nature and humanity from both scientific and spiritual viewpoints, while also exploring how the lack of nature in our lives relates to the concept of sin.

Caro looks at the way the Bible speaks of creation as an active participant in God's world, and how mysticism opens us up to seeing all creation held together in Christ… along with humanity. We consider how this challenges the idea of human superiority and how it may inform the choices we make and lives we live.

Bryony explores different passages of Scripture that highlight the ways that Creation teaches us about God. We then reflect on what it's like being a student of creation and what we're learning.

Parables are like riddles, they can be difficult to understand and may have multiple and unclear meanings. They often leave us feeling challenged and uncomfortable. In this podcast, Oran looks at the parable of the wheat and the weeds and considers the lenses in we approach this parable through, and if there is more to Jesus' story than the separation of the saints and sinners at the end of days.

Caro unpacks the parable of the net and helps us discover a way this parable can fill us with hope instead of fear.

This month we're wrestling with the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13. Caro starts by unpacking the nature of parables before looking at the strangeness within the mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure and pearl. The whole point of parables is to leave the listener thinking, provoked, confused or even annoyed. So we draw no conclusions but aim to let the strangeness sit with us and do its work.

Adam joins us for this Sunday at the end of NAIDOC week. He shares how Western, Indigenous and Biblical perspectives on fire can weave together to bring wisdom to our lives.

This Sunday we asked our young people to curate the service and they chose to discuss the topic of God and suffering and wanted a panel style discussion. This is what unfolded as people shared their experiences of God in the midst of their suffering.

The art of lamenting is not often practiced by the modern day Christian. Yet, it is a sacred, age old form of spiritual practice, possibly the most raw and honest way we come to God. In this message, Oran looks at the godly nature of lament and using Psalm 10 as an example, walks through the four movements of the lament psalm.

More than any other book in the Bible, the Psalms teach us how to be human. They reveal to us that our humanity is not a flaw, but the very means by which we encounter God. Using Psalm 25, Caro invites us to consider how we might carry the unfinishedness of our lives in a way that helps us to remain open to God's grace.

Becca introduces us to Walter Brueggemann's pattern of the life of faith. We are always moving in different ways (and perhaps even in different parts of our life) from: * secure orientation - where life makes sense, all seems well, we're in a state of equilibrium; to * painful disorientation - where life is chaotic, disordered, things don't make sense, we're swept off our feet by something unexpected (or unjust) and we feel disoriented; through to * surprising reorientation - where things begin to feel 'new' again, not a return to what was, but a movement towards surprising grace, risky hope, unexpected regrounding. We are rarely in control of when or how this reorientation comes. The Psalms as a whole book contain the full spectrum of human experience and emotions, and even within any given Psalm we can see the movement from secure orientation to painful disorientation or painful disorientation to surprising reorientation. The Psalms give us permission to be ourselves, exactly as we are, raw, honest and unfiltered before God. The Psalms remind us that God does not want a curated 'nice' relationship with us, but can handle our grief, rage, despair, fear, longing, lostness and exhaustion.

Becca hosts Laura, Bekk and Kim as they share their thoughts and experiences with the motherheart of God. They share ways in which seeing God as mother has been healing, and also the ways they see God as beyond gender. This is a really authentic and honest discussion and highlights the ways each of us have an individual and unique relationship with the Divine.

The Myth of Redemptive was a term popularised by Theologian Walter Wink in 1945, in his book The Powers That Be. It is the idea that war brings peace, might makes right, and out of violence and chaos comes peace and order. We see this myth at work all throughout human history and still today in our everyday lives. We think that if we, the good guys, can just hit the "bad guys" hard enough, there will be justice. But this only perpetuates the violence, not stops it. In scripture we see Jesus' whole ministry as a push back against the Myth of Redemptive and instead shows us redemptive suffering on the cross. In this podcast, Oran looks at this myth and how it has influenced us over history, including scripture and theology.

How does Jesus' post-resurrection encounter with two people who don't recognise him speak to our own experiences of loss and grief?

Becca shared about how Jesus' resurrected body still carried the wounds from his past, giving us courage to be honest about the wounds we still carry.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment is the practice of being present and aware of God within the individual moments of our lives. This reminds us that God is everywhere, all the time, always waiting to engage us. In this message, Oran looks at how we might practice this sacrament in our daily lives, and observed the writings of Jean Pierre de Caussade and Eckhart Tolle.

This week we talk about the mysterious power of Christ's death not as an historic event but as a real energy at work in us and the cosmos. How can we trust in death and resurrection in our own lives?

We continue with our lent series sitting with Henri Nouwen's wisdom. This week Caro unpacks how our self worth can be stuck in what other people say or think about us. We wrestle together being honest with how we struggle with this as well as looking at Jesus and asking ourselves ‘how was he able to live from such a sense of beloved identity?'

We wrap this contemplative service around Henri Nouwen's wise words: "I'm not what I have, I'm not what I do, I'm not what people say about me. I am the beloved of God." Caro leads us in a practice that helps us ground ourselves in our belovedness and Becca shares how needing to be in control or responsible for things has been a challenge in her life, and she leads us in a practice she has found helpful in letting go. **There is a part of Becca's sharing that we have edited out as she shared some personal things she didn't want up on the podcast.

We continue with our lent series sitting with Henri Nouwen's wisdom. This week Caro unpacks how our self worth can be stuck in what we have or do and how God invites us to live a little more from our belovedness.

This month we looked at the gift of having a contemplative posture in life.

Caro zooms out and in on this strange and wonderful account and we look at what it might have to offer us as a metaphor for our spiritual lives.

It is easy to assume that the way we read and interpret the Bible today, with our modern and scientific minds, is the way it has always been done. That the words we glean through scripture from God are the same today as they were for the early church. However, it may be surprising, and perhaps confronting, to realise that our way is a relatively young way of approaching scripture. In this message, Oran looks across seven pivotal stages of biblical interpretation throughout Christian history and discusses what we might gain from a greater hermeneutical awareness.

Walking through the lectionary texts Caro invites us to consider the trajectory of God's presence in Scripture which ends in the high point of our bodies being the dwelling place of God. We then unpack what this means about the sacredness of our bodies and how we might listen to our bodies to hear God speaking to and in us.

It's the first Sunday after epiphany and our texts for today have the themes of water, Spirit and birds. We read through the texts and Caro shares some insights around God's presence hovering over all creation including us.

Caro preaches through the lectionary texts for this second Sunday in Advent and we discuss how we hold on to hope when it feels like God is slow.

In our contemplative service this month we sat in the theme of Light, engaging in an Examen and Lectio Divina to connect us to God this Advent.

Oran leads our community in unpacking the lectionary texts for this first Sunday of Advent centering around the questions of 'what are we waiting for?' and 'how do we wait?'

This month we sat with the teachings of Meister Eckhart.