Jul2015
It’s ‘a God thing’
by Reid Matthias
At the Lutheran Youth of Queensland annual appeal dinner, I spied someone across the room that I really wanted to talk with: Danielle Robinson. Danielle is the family ministry chaplain at Grace Lutheran Church in Redcliffe. When you meet Danielle, you find that she is affable, quick to laugh and even quicker to engage in… Read more
Jul2015
Pregnant congregations bring life
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
A healthy tree produces fruit. God created it to do just that. Jesus tells the story of a man who owned a fig tree that produced no figs, so he instructed the gardener to cut it down. The gardener replied, ‘Let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure… Read more
Jun2015
A hearty welcome and new beginning
by Rachel Kuchel
Post-war, one in six Lutherans was a refugee. By the mid-1960s, one in five Australians was a post-war migrant It was a topsy-turvy state of affairs. The world had been turned upside down, inside out and back-to-front and was now trying to find a new way to balance. Armistice had been declared and World War… Read more
Jun2015
Welcoming the stranger
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
For three months we worshipped at a different church each Sunday. Ruth and I had just moved back to Adelaide so I could begin work as the SA/NT Director for Mission. When we arrived for a service I would go and stand by myself in a corner and wait to see what happened. In those… Read more
Jun2015
An alien in the pulpit
by Reid Matthias
Philip Yancey, in his book Vanishing Grace, quotes the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathon Sacks: ‘The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in one verse commands, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”, but in no fewer than 36 places commands us to “love the stranger”. He adds, “The supreme religious challenge is to see… Read more
May2015
The story of a little seed
by Rachel Kuchel
This is the story of a little seed. The little seed that could … sprout! The little seed that did … sprout! The place of germination for our seed was, rather extraordinarily, a photography shop in Adelaide. Customer Louis Archibald Borgelt’s eyes were drawn to a pamphlet advertising a photographic cruise to Port Moresby. A… Read more
May2015
Making room for more people
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
We had seventeen members. It was a congregation in my first parish. One lovely older guy had bought the land and built the church, largely with his own hands. He no longer held any official position in the congregation. All decisions were made by quick meetings after the service. One day we made a small… Read more
May2015
The meeting on the ute
by Reid Matthias
‘God set me up.’ David says this with a smile. His rheumy eyes stare at me from behind smeared bifocals. He is about to tell me his role in the birth of the Lutheran school where I work. ‘We started out with a thought—a dream, really—of a school at Plainland. People thought we were crazy…. Read more
Apr2015
The curious case of the invisible church
by Rachel Kuchel
The scene of the invisible church is the since-disappeared suburb of Kirkcaldy in Adelaide. The year is 1959. The leading figure is Rev Alfred Zinnbauer. Other participants include the Metropolitan Mission and Migrant Committee (MMMC), which had called Pastor Zinnbauer to be the Adelaide city missioner. Despite repeated attempts … to get Pastor Zinnbauer… Read more
Apr2015
Gospel glimmers in unlikely places
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
Anzac Day is perhaps the most ‘holy’ day of the year in modern secular Australia. We get up early to remember. We make pilgrimages—some even to the distant shores of Gallipoli. We hear speeches about sacrifice. ‘No-one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13) is ripped out… Read more
