Last year, in social media circles, FOGO – the Fear Of Going Out – was used by millennials as a light-hearted piece of slang to tease friends about their hesitancy to join in some social activity, especially night-clubbing. But over the course of 2021 FOGO has come to mean something far more disturbing.

That means that any law a state government introduces that impacts on religious freedom cannot be overridden by the constitution. In Victoria, we are fast coming to the place where we Christians and “religious bodies” will be required to justify to secular authorities our freedom of religious expression.

That is a line in the sand for me. And that means it is time to speak.

By the end of the process, after many stirring and scooping steps, the lead looked like pure silver in the melting pot – exactly like mercury. The surface looked like a small round mirror, in which I could see the shadow outline of my head.…

I am convinced that this is one of those times when the people of God need to speak and voice their concerns about the preservation of justice and fairness for everyone. It is time for God’s people to add their salt to all this…

I am convinced that a similar virus has infected much of the Australian church, too. We behave more like Gehazi and slip into panic mode, abandoning our renewed mind and losing our poise. Not a great witness, is it? The end result of that misshapen mindset is that…

I am forever grateful that Jesus never insisted on His rights but, instead willingly laid them aside because He loved me – even when I was still a sinner and far, far from Him. I have no rights of ANY kind to this grace and love. If Jesus had not given up His rights, as God, we would all still be in sin – and eternally doomed.

He wasn’t happy – not at all! He was cheesed off, to say the least, and what was God doing about it? Nothing. So it seemed. There he was, morning after morning, praying to the Lord and pouring out his heart. The frustration and anger, he does not hide. Just listen to him …

After lunch we began with worship once again. The same thing happened. My brother behind me was singing out of tune again – but even more loudly and passionately out of tune now….

It seems to me that, lately, I am hearing a resurgence of the argument that women should be silent in the church. And this translates into, women cannot teach or preach and so on. I heard it again last night…

After a few moments of staring at this old jumper in my mind’s eye, the Lord quietly said to me, “That jumper was stretched for so long and so hard, it could never return to its original shape. And so it is with the faith of these people you are shepherding. Their faith has been stretched so far and for long enough in this testing season, that it can never go back to its original size. Their faith is bigger now … and capable of so much more.

There is a flood of prophetic voices today – not many of them are truly prophetic. Almost anything is deemed a prophecy these days, and there is little accountability. There are YouTube “prophets” arising everywhere. One, that has caught my eye this last year…

I prayed with a hurting brother this week who, with voice quavering in hurt, simply said to me, “Pastor, I feel so broken today, so hurt, so disappointed …”, and his voice trailed off a little before he gathered himself, “… I am concerned that I will not get over this … this brokenness.”…I wept with him.

Helen’s physical eyes were useless. But not her eyes of faith. Those who knew her in her later years recall her joy and enthusiasm. Though living near poverty in a sparse one-bedroom apartment, whenever she was asked how she was faring, she would reply, “I’m doing well in the things that count.”

The pro-vaccination vs anti-vaccination debate has heated up quite a bit this last week and, if we are to believe the daily media reports, the whole nation is really polarised on the issue. I really don’t think that’s the case, but we’re being led to believe otherwise.

Everyone was shocked. This outstanding young man, just 41 years of age, so capable, so strong and so courageous in handling the most difficult of policing tasks, was suddenly, inexplicably gone…

Welcome to COVID DAY, 2021! This is our own Groundhog Day we’ve been living for so long. I won’t suggest that we all have to improve our attitude and try to be better people before we are somehow released from all this…

Up while it was still dark, I was “down the back” as quickly and as quietly as I could go. I set up on a slope covered by a stand of eucalypts which were slightly bending to the early morning breeze – the breeze blowing past me up the slope. I waited with binoculars trained on a clearing below.

COVID 19 is not God’s punishment on the world, or His church. But in some ways we are in a difficult place with many circumstances beyond our control during this COVID 19 ‘exile’, and I believe God is…

Here’s the thing: the apostle is not coaching us here on how to win in public debate, or winning arguments for God, or proving our point against opposing human voices. No! He is calling us to pray and intercede so that we pull down in the spiritual realm the sources…

After the 1600 paces are counted and the carrier keeps going when the soldier expects the carrier to lay down his burden, but doesn’t even pause and just keeps going, who is doing the counting then?