Dapto Anglican Church

What makes a good story? A great story and mystery and villains. The victory of “good” only makes great reading if there is a significant enemy we wish to see overcome. The happy ending is profound when it follows real threat and danger. Suffering whether in the fantasy world or in real life is park of making the story meaningful and purposeful.

God has created a world which has real characters, real challenges and real sin. People are not puppets but are more agents who make real decisions with real consequences. We rejoice when they choose well but we suffer when they do evil.

Suffering is an unavoidable consequence of living in a world where we all get to make choices. But most of us are willing to suffer as long as its for a reason. We don’t want to be part of meaningless suffering.. We don’t even need to fully understand the meaning, just that the suffering has real importance and meaning. The Old Testament’s “job” was not a hero of understanding he was a hero of faith.

Our lives are the most realistic story we know. If god had revealed to us the script of our life would we have exited the comfort of the womb? Would we have chosen to be born and face the insecurities of life? The weeping and wondering, the joys and the sorrows, the drama and the mystery, the meaning and the purpose

God caused us to be born into a real world, with real relationships, with real suffering and with real purpose. Not only that, He also promises the ultimate happy ending. We need a vision of heaven which rights all wrongs and makes sense of all suffering.

Stephen Semenchuk

Dapto Anglican Church has spent the last two years doing “Whatever it takes to build real Christian Community”. This weekend is a wonderful occasion for our women to take their community to a new level. The best way to build community is to live in community.

We do that regularly every week through church, small bible study groups and other get togethers. But nothing comes close to actually spending extended time together with God’s people, around God’s word. The extra day provides opportunity for relationships to depen and intensify.

For you men, you haven’t been forgotten. Our time away comes on the 5th – 7th August.

In 2005, Dapto Anglican Church is “all about people”. We pray that many women will have a life transforming weekend and that many men, youth and children, will take the opportunity when their camps come up later in the year too.

Stephen Semenchuk

If there is one character filing most Aussies could be accused of, it is the discomfort we feel when giving and receiving compliments. Meanwhile the “put down” dakes on a proportion of an art form in our country. It’s almost a compliment to be called a “silly old b….”.

Tennyson wrote, “We all need somebody to help us see what we can become.” The Bible says;

“let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds … Let us encourage one another…”
Hebrews 10:24-25

God has given us teh responsibility of being mirrors to each other. Perhaps we should remember that it is the devil, not God, who is called the accuser.

Today we especially remember our mothers. They offer us the source of our encouragement in life. Let us honour and affirm them for their great ministry in our families.

Stephen Semenchuk