Living Church City South | Church

Living Church City South

Phone: +61 7 3844 0575

Address: 20 Bailey St 4101 West End, QLD, Australia

Website: https://livingchurch.org.au/citysouth

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20.01.2022 The story of 2 Samuel gets pretty gritty and awful. The only way out of the gritty awfulness we see in 2 Samuel and in our world is to turn to the love of God we see in Jesus. Here’s Ryan on one of the darkest chapters in David’s story.

20.01.2022 This week’s talk. TL:DR; version: David makes a mess with Bathsheba and Uriah because he’s like Adam and Eve. We make a mess when we’re like Adam and Eve. We take our dirty hands and unclean hearts and smear mess around while we try to cover it up. Jesus cleans our hearts and our hands so we can live lives where we don’t see other people as objects to take, but people to love. Watch/listen here.

17.01.2022 Matt and I (Nathan) were invited to Griffith University today so that Matt could share his experiences as a gay Christian. The event was promoted as Matt sharing "his story of finding inclusion in God's family as a gay person." Matt shared with real vulnerability and courage about his experiences, his faith, and how he navigates a world where two parts of who he is are often pitted against each other in polarised debates. He shared about his pursuit of faithfulness to God's ...word means celibacy for him, and finding satisfaction and connection in his relationship with God and in the church. He mentioned how important it is that he, and other gay, sexual minorities, or same sex attracted people navigating these questions aren't talked about as 'others' who only exist outside the church, but as brothers and sisters in Christ, to be known and loved, who bring a richness and diversity to our life together as the church. He mentioned that this richness can include having a heightened understanding of the importance of friendship, and a perspective that challenges how we view marriage and sex, and times where our idea of 'normal' can exclude, rather than include, people. He also spoke of his sense of being loved by God being found in the Gospel, especially in a passage in Luke's Gospel about a shepherd who pursues lost sheep, because they belong to him, in his flock. Jesus tells this story because the Pharisees want to exclude 'sinners' from God's family. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Luke 15:4-7 It's this picture of radical inclusion that shapes how we try to live together as a church family, and we're thankful for Matt, and others, who make our church community richer. One of the best and greatest things about today was that the Christian group at Griffith have formed a relationship built on trust and communication with the Griffith University Rainbow Society. The Rainbow Society promoted the event on its facebook page, and members of the club's executive came along to hear and appreciate Matt's story. This was a brilliant and encouraging picture of how people can practice inclusion and conversation rather than running to conflict. It was beautiful to speak to the members of the Rainbow Society over coffee after the interview, and a real testimony to the value of crossing 'divides' to build relationships.

13.01.2022 If you’re around West End our very own Nilima Harjal has an exhibition at Hope on Boundary Café. The Hope St Cafes are two local social enterprises that our church community has been involved in since they began. They provide workplace based training for people who’d otherwise be excluded from the workforce, but they’re also great public spaces that serve the local community in all sorts of ways. This week Hope on Boundary is a hub coordinating support for some West End residents who lost everything in a recent fire. There’s lots of great reasons to get down there, support what they do, and support our local/global artist.

06.01.2022 This week we picked up the story of King David from where we left off last year, at the start of 2 Samuel. We’re on a 9 week journey through one of the Bible’s darker narratives; a story about kings and swords and what happens when we seek to rule with power, violence, and control... it’s a story that had its first readers, Israel, waiting for God’s true king who would break the vicious cycle and the cut and thrust patterns of our world (hint/spoiler: it’s Jesus). Here’s the first talk from the series.