Combined Churches Hurstbridge | Good Friday Outdoor Service 10am 3rd of April 2026

 

Coming to the City Nearest You

Palm Sunday, 29th of March 2026!

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you.
Jesus comes to the gate, to the synagogue,
to houses prepared for wedding parties,
to the pools where people wait to be healed,
to the temple where lambs are sold,
to gardens, beautiful in the moonlight.
He comes to the governor’s palace.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you,
to new subdivisions and trailer parks,
to penthouses and basement apartments,
to the factory, the hospital and the Cineplex,
to the big box outlet centre and to churches,
with the same old same old message,
unchanged from the beginning of time.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, the city nearest you
with his Good News and…
Hope erupts! Joy springs forth!
The very stones cry out,
“Hosanna in the highest,
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
The crowds jostle and push,
they can’t get close enough!
People running alongside 
flinging down their coats before him!
Jesus, the parade marshal, waving, smiling.
The paparazzi elbow for room,
looking for that perfect picture for the headline,
“The Man Who Would Be King”.

🍁 Autumn 2026 Newsletter 🍁

Greetings friends,

I can’t believe it’s Easter in just a couple of weeks!

Watching the news each day, so much has already happened in just the first few months of this year that is disquieting! We live in interesting times! Values we thought were nailed down have come loose. Institutions that were trusted are no longer trusted.  

The economic and political and religious systems we kind of assumed would also be the scaffolding for our lives are looking  shaky. There are so many disruptive forces at play, and we do not know what the landscape will look like when the dust settles.

The hope of Easter is the foundational belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which signifies victory over death, sin, and despair. For Christians, it is this "living hope” (1 Peter 1:3) that provides the assurance of new life and the power for transformation in the present, regardless of the turmoil that we see. 

The Easter message is as fresh and pertinent as it ever was!

We’ve attached a short news-letter to give you bit of an update: HERE

We want to say a huge thankyou to the many who encourage, support and pray for us and for Haven — You are SO appreciated! 

Sincerely,

M & E

Dona Nobis Pacem | Grant Us Peace

 

Lenten Prayer

Revise our taking

You, You giver!
You have given light and life to the world;
You have given freedom from Pharaoh to your people Israel;
You have given your only Son for the sake of the world;
You have given yourself to us;
You have given and forgiven,
and you remember our sins no more.

And we, in response, are takers:
We take eagerly what you give us;
we take from our neighbors near at hand as is acceptable;
we take from our unseen neighbors greedily and acquisitively;
we take from our weak neighbors thoughtlessly;
we take all that we can lay our hands on.

It dawns on us that our taking does not match your giving.
In this Lenten season revise our taking,
that it may be grateful and disciplined
even as you give in was generous and overwhelming.
Amen

Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven Rooted in Earth (153-154).

Lent: The Writing’s On The Wall | Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier

"It’s the cliché that means everybody else knows but you, you’ve been blind to the bleeding obvious. The phrase originates from an episode in the Old Testament, Book of Daniel, where the Babylonian King Belshazzar was entertaining his courtiers on the eve of battle, getting drunk from cups stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem, instead of being with his troops."

"The hand of G-d appeared and proceeded to write on the wall, words of judgement about not measuring up to expectations. Belshazzar was dead by dawn. He never saw it coming. 

None of us see it coming..." (Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier).

What are the certainties that weigh us down? What are the illusions and assumptions that immobilise and paralyse us until too late?

Marcel Proust said: "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."  

   (Click pic to play song...)