This week a few of our staff have been on the Baptist Churches SA Pastors conference. This was an opportunity to connect with other Pastoral leaders, gain insight from guest speakers and hear what is influencing our churches across the state. Several speakers highlighted we are living in complex and challenging times. Now our churches are wrestling with the growing implications of same sex relationships, gender diversity, the royal commission on institutional abuse. For … Read More

What does Baptist Care SA do? Most people can identify their work with the homeless through the ministry of Westcare. Baptist Care does much more. It provides out of home care, disability care, youth education and employment, and homelessness and therapeutic support services. Currently over 1000 dedicated staff and volunteers serve in Baptist Care to help some of South Australian most vulnerable achieve their full potential. This … Read More

As part of our business on Tuesday night, Council had a mid-year review of our progress as a church. In January, together with the staff team, we set goals for our year, where are we at? The list included items such as:  Increase participation in service;  Increase participation in our growth groups;  Strengthen our welcome and integration.  Increase our engagement with our local community;  Grow authentic faith in people;  What is your view, how are we going? The Council concluded at this point of the year, church life is positive, with growth still required. My own observation … Read More

Our newest staff member starts this week! We look forward to Miranda Dixon joining our staff team as Associate Pastor. Miranda’s will have a generalist role alongside me with pastoral oversight of the whole church. I look forward to working with Miranda as we strengthen our church in growing together in following Jesus. I can see I have many loose … Read More

Who is your favourite person in the Bible, our Lord aside? The Bible is full of many fine and strange people, it can be impossible to choose. But, when pressed to pick, mine is Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite.  At 40 years of age, Caleb was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land God … Read More

This encouragement was shared in our recent Kids and Youth Service: When we asked the youth what growth they’d like to see in our church they said… If we are the family of God, then we must learn to mix with the whole family – to be welcoming, loving and to know all the members of that family. It would … Read More

This Sunday is a full day. We have a Kids and Youth service, which will be fantastic. Guaranteed they will encourage us and bring life to the service. Our Members vote on a new Associate Pastor appointment. This would make it 4 new staff in two years and should set our staff team for at least the next two. Our PM service will close out our important series on “Australians … Read More

As this financial year ends, I am personally thankful for the generosity of our church. It is encouraging to see our income reach our target. Our giving has enabled a really fruitful year of ministry and we look forward to another year of increasing growth. I thank our congregation for the many ways you support God’s work among us and from us. Because if this, you share in the blessing and joy of what God is doing.  … Read More

These past two weeks I enjoyed two opportunities in engaging our local community. I was part of the review panel for Blackforest Primary School Chaplain Ann Nadge. Ann has been at Blackforest for 11 years and is doing an extraordinary job. This school is on the edge of 2 council regions and has several vulnerable children and families. I am very impressed with Ann’s pastoral practice and strong rapport with children and their families. For her review Ann received strong positive feedback from … Read More

If you walk through the cemetery at the Raukkan, in Ngarrindjeri country you would see the graves of many teenagers and young adults. Too many have died from suicide. In 2011 Indigenous youth suicide was 80% of the total Australian youth suicides. By March of this year nearly 90% of Australian child suicides had been First Nations children. Behind the tombstones and heartbreaking statistics, who cares for the affected … Read More