Caro talks about hospitality as welcoming the stranger.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 Faceb…

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

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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/Par Central Church Port Kembla

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/Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 mess…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 separat…

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

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 t…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.**Content Warning** this episode does contain some explicit language.…

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 sens…

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 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…

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

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 Causs…

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?Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 li…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

This month we looked at the gift of having a contemplative posture in life.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 yo…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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?'Par Central Church Port Kembla

This month we sat with the teachings of Meister Eckhart.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 sta…

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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 …

We look at the life and the teaching of St. Francis and reflect and listen to the wisdom Francis offers us today.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla

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.Par Central Church Port Kembla