Building Update, December 2, 2018

* With the opening today of the new toilets the first part of the building project is complete.

* Access to toilets is via the door behind the lectern, the door behind the band, and down the outside lane on the south side of the sandstone church building and through the hall doorway.

* For safety reasons we ask that children going to the toilets have an adult with them.  

* Morning tea will continue to be in the Soundy Lounge until the Hall has been refreshed, however arrangements will be a little more difficult than before, so please bear with us while we manage with reduced facilities. 

* The demolition of the old toilets etc will begin on Monday December 3.

* Finally, and praise God, the BFS loan has, at long last, been approved.

Heather Galloway HBC Secretary

This Christmas we will follow Matthew’s story.

Writing to a Jewish readership, Matthew endeavours to explain how Jesus is their long-anticipated Messiah. However, his arrival is nothing like they expected and indeed quite curious.

Yet we celebrate Christmas amid festivities that have become more and more commercialised and full of materialism.  It is curious how the celebration of God emptying himself of what it meant to be God and becoming a human being (Philippians 2:7) has become an excuse for us to consume, spend and focus on ourselves. Such consumerism has very little to do with the birth of Christ or the celebration of Emmanuel – God with us.

Looking at some of the more curious aspects of the Christmas story as told by Matthew will hopefully help us to take our minds off shopping list and on to the things God has done for us. Being curious may just enable us to give less room to commercialism and materialism and more to the eternal. The curious just may help us ‘do’ Christmas differently this year.

The Parables of Jesus: Simple Stories | Profound Truth

The Parables of Jesus are found in the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. They are a very important part of the teachings of Jesus and make up approximately one third of what is recorded of his teachings. No wonder, Christians count them very highly.
Many of the parables are about everyday life. They include a woman baking bread, a farmer sowing seed, a man knocking on his neighbour's door at night, a woman losing a coin or a wayward son’s homecoming. Despite their seeming normalness, the parables are about major spiritual and religious matters. Although they can often seem simple, yet deep and profound truths central to the teachings of Jesus. British scholar William Barclay summed up by saying a parable “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
In this series we will explore eight of the Jesus’ parables looking at the deep truths they point to allowing them to speak to us today.

Thank you for your prayers as we begin our building development.

CO/MISSION: Witnesses for Jesus

Jesus called his disciples to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). We are not eyewitnesses to his bodily resurrection, but we are those who have experienced God’s love, forgiveness and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So, what does it mean for us, his disciples today, to be his witnesses in our communities?

Sadly, in many parts of Australia today, the church has a bad name. Some of it deserved, some of it not. Nevertheless, there is a dissonance between Jesus and his mission, and the community that is meant to represent him.

Jesus was a man of unconditional love who had an amazing ability to connect with and accept people of all types and persuasions. He loved people with such a sense of abandon that it killed him.

In this series we will look at the mission of Jesus and explore what it means to follow Jesus in his mission, and discover what it means to be church in Hobart today.