Teamwork – A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction. (Despair.com) But what if the church, united, could be the change for good that the world needs right now?
A message by David Toscano

There is a whole industry devoted to personal improvement – known as self-help. The self-help industry rests on the idea that individuals can become more by making small personal changes or shifts in thinking – to develop our hearts, our souls, if you like. The reason there is an industry is because this holds some truth to it. But as we will find as we look at the next section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today, we actually can’t become all that we are intended to be without empowerment that comes from God’s love.

A message by Samantha Barlow

'Just don't seem right somehow that all the good you did,
That people preach, not practise, what you said,
I wonder, if it all died with you, that day on the cross,
And if it just never got raised from the dead.' (Watson)
What would it take for the Maureen Watson's of the world, those who look at the church and see nothing but hypocrisy, to see the risen Christ working in and through the church today? A message by David Bone.

If you were to travel by car in the 1930s from Sydney city to North Sydney, less than 1 km away, the long way round the harbour – all the way to Parramatta and back along the northern side of the harbour it would have taken 2 hours or more. The Bridge connected the north side of the harbour in ways that car ferries and land roads just couldn’t. Bridges are all about crossing the divide. And that is what we are thinking about this morning as we come to Ephesians 2.
A message by Sam Barlow.

It can happen to the best of us. The inverse proportional nature of our denials, that the older we get, the more we deny and protest our need for glasses, hearing aids, health checks, home help or giving up driving.
And as we push the reminder notices that come in the mail to the side, we convince ourselves that all is OK.
Then a whole new world opens up when we accept that things are not as they should be, perhaps even could be.
But what if this included the way we see living a life well?
A message by David Toscano

When we realise the scope of the power Jesus has and understand his authority over other powers – it will change how we live.
A message by Sam Barlow

Call and response – we see it in so many areas of life. For the jazz musician, one instrument puts out the call, and another instrument in the band provides a response. Or a singer on stage sings a line and points the microphone to the crowd, who respond with the next line.

Then you have the Australian chant that is apparently an adaptation of a 1960s Cornish Oggy, Oggy Oggy. With the Australian call of Aussie and the response of Oi – which should not be a statement about our intellectual capacity or our originality.

But if God were to issue a call, how would you respond?
A message by David Toscano

There is something fascinating about paintings. While many are WYSIWYG, others demonstrate that there is more going on than immediately meets the eye of the observer. Take, for instance, Salvador Dali’s Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) with Jesus crucified on a tesseract, with Dali’s wife Gala depicted looking on, but is also seen on one of the knees, while Dali is represented on the other.
Then there’s Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm, and after carefully counting the number of people in the boat, you discover a 14th person looking back at you – the artist’s depiction of himself.
And without becoming conspiratorial, what if – what if there is more to this life than meets the eye? Would you be willing to look in?

https://youtu.be/0MvfwPO0RC8
A message by David Toscano