Each year our Parish Council gives prayerful consideration to our needs and opportunities as it sets the budget for the coming year, setting the target for giving necessary for our expenses.

This year we decided to increase our target by only enough to cover increases in costs from inflation, but in January we realised that we were really struggling to meet this amount.

So, we prayed that God would supply our needs.

We know that the Lord is intimately involved with every aspect of life, so we asked him to provide for our church so we could keep telling each person in the village, valley and region how to follow Jesus and why it matters.

Then, after weeks of prayer, our Parish Council asked each of us to consider an increase in our regular giving, or even the possibility of a special, one-off gift that could pay back our hall renovation loan, and reduce the repayments by $325 a week.

We prayed… and the Lord answered!

Giving has increased by at least $350 a week… and we’ve received a gift of $25,000 to cancel the loan and its repayments!

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was… because even though I knew that the Lord hears and answers our prayers, I was blown away by the wonderful way he has done this for us.

Yet, the greatest blessing has not been an increase in our giving, it’s been an increase in our faith!

I can personally vouch for how much this trial has lead me to depend more on God, and to delight in asking him boldly for the big things and the little things… so that he will receive the glory.

What a wonderful surprise to see afresh the kindness of God!

JODIE McNEILL

One of the great things about School Scripture is that it gives the best of both worlds to parents and carers who wish their children to have a public education, along with instruction about the faith of their family.

Now more than ever, there is some discomfort in having ‘God’ in our government schools, but the long-standing arrangement of ‘SRE’ (Special Religious Education) means that we can maintain the ‘firewall’ between church and state, whilst ensuring that students still learn about religion.

In our school at Jamberoo Public, we’ve got a team from our church of six, qualified and accredited teachers, who help the students learn more about the faith that’s been nominated at their enrolment, and using fun-filled, educationally-designed programs, we help kids know more about Christ, whether or not the household is currently active in practicing religion.

Alternatively, students can choose to be taught by the Roman Catholic church, or by a group that provides Special Ethics in Education (‘SEE’), for parents who wish their children to learn a worldview that is separate from a belief in God.

This arrangement means that students can attend a state school, whilst also receiving teaching about religion that is consistent with their household’s heritage and worldview.

Our teachers follow an authorised curriculum which has been developed over decades to utilise current research on how students learn and think, so that they might better-understand biblical principles, and then build upon them to develop values that underpin everyday life.

Our curriculum is publicly available at cepconnect.com.au/curriculum and provides a great overview of what we hope to teach our kindy, infants and primary students… and there’s an accompanying curriculum for High School students called thinkfaith.com.au 

Please pray for our teachers as we start again this Thursday—and ask that God would use SRE to help our students know more about how to follow Jesus and why it matters.

JODIE McNEILL

If you’ve ever visited our church you’ll know that we love to include and integrate enquirers into every aspect of our church.

So, if someone wants to come and check out Jesus, then our everyday church is the perfect place to drop in and see what we’re on about.

This is also true of our home groups, as we love to have people along who might prefer the relaxed nature of meeting with a few others to talk about what Jesus has said and the real difference he makes in our lives.

Some people think that it’s too tricky to run a group that helps mature Christians grow stronger, whilst also being a place that helps visitors learn about the basics of what Christians believe.

But, the thing about the Bible is that as it helps us understand more about who God is and who we are, it ends up being a message that is for everyone, no matter what their place on their journey of faith.

This is what we see in the Apostle Paul’s second letter to his colleague Timothy, where he says:

“But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:14-15)

The same things that enquirers are taught as they come to know Jesus for the first time are the same things that long-term followers of Jesus need to keep hearing and believing.

Which is why it makes so much sense to be integrating new believers into the everyday life of our church… so you’re very welcome, no matter where you are on your journey to know Jesus!

JODIE McNEILL

One of the most amazing things about being a Christian is that we are saved by God’s free gift of grace, and not by what we’ve done.

But the problem is that this clashes with our performance-based world, in which we love to reward achievement and success.

We love to be able to point to our wins and, ultimately, to justify ourselves by all the good things we’ve done.

Yet, if it was possible for us to achieve enough to save ourselves from God’s righteous anger, then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die for us.

But Jesus had to die because we were helpless: and so that’s why we can only, ever, be saved by free grace—God’s rich mercy.

However it was only a short time after Jesus died that some of his redeemed people felt the need to reintroduce some of the Old Testament laws into the New Testament life.

The most obvious of these were related to the infamous Jewish customs of food laws (not eating with non-Jews) and circumcision (a physical ‘badge’ for men.)

But the Apostle Paul, who was converted to Christ after a life as a zealous Jew, saw that a return to this legalistic past was to deny the riches of the mercy of Jesus, and to instead return to the failed religion of the past.

Some did this because they wanted a clear way to show their own contribution to their faith, as some sort of visible guarantee or tangible achievement.

Yet, to do that was only to return to slavery, even though they had been freed by Jesus.

This is the message at the heart of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia, and it’s a timely reminder to embrace the rich mercy of Christ and celebrate true freedom.

JODIE McNEILL 

The summer holidays are generally a good time for some R&R: get-togethers with friends and family, time at the beach, backyard cricket and time off work are just some of the reasons we love summer. 

But the summer break is also a time for a third R: Reflection. 

As we look toward the year ahead, we also reflect on the year that’s been, with all its ups and downs.

We reflect on life’s big questions: what we’re doing with our lives, and who or what we are living for. 

Each summer, thousands of tourists come to the Kiama area for a holiday and together with locals, they pack out the cafes and beaches in town, as well as the surrounding area. 

And each summer, a few dozen Christians from Sydney come to our area to talk to people about Jesus, as part of the ‘Summerlife’ (Kiama Beach Mission) team from the 28th December to the 5th January. 

The goal is to get people to spend time chatting and reflecting on who Jesus is, and what he’s done for them, and we look forward to seeing how the Holy Spirit works amongst these chats. 

For us at Jamberoo, there are two things we can do to support this mission.

Firstly, we can pray for the team as they seek to lead people to Christ through conversations.

Secondly, as the team members encourage contacts to head along to a local church, then you could be the local person who they can connect with.

So, be praying, and also head down to Surf Beach and support the team each day at either 1pm or 6pm.

It would be such a great encouragement to the team to see you, and it would be a terrific way for Jamberoo Anglican to be amongst our community. 

BRAD VIDILINI