Greetings to the Koonung Heights Community I received some positive comments about the sermon on Joseph, anger and forgiveness last Sunday. A few said it spoke to them in their own struggles to overcome either guilt or challenges in forgiving others. As I said last Sunday these are issues everyone faces, not just religious people.…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights Community I have been reading about you recently. Graham Ray was kind enough to pass onto me some old copies of Koonung Corner with autobiographical pieces from several members of the congregation. And a piece about Jim’s Well’s parents being involved in the production of the Yirrkaka bark petition, and…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights CommunityI received notification of the 2026 Australian Census during the week. My wife and I have yet to have the conversation as to who will be appointed head of the household and fill it in.Being a minister, I will be interested to see the trends in religion when the results…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights Community,I found the presentation from Joel from Prison Fellowship after worship last Sunday interesting and challenging. We sometimes use the language of freedom and captivity in church, but mostly we mean it as a “spiritual” sentiment rather than a literal “I have been released from captivity”. But there is a…

Last Sunday we began our series from the book of Genesis and based upon Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, sometimes known as the Patriarchs. The promise of land, descendants a “blessing that you may be a blessing to all the nations” is given to Abram and Sarai (as they were known then) and this…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights CommunityI had opportunity recently to be in conversation with a psychiatrist who now works with the Victorian Government as head of the state’s Mental Health Services.We began to discuss the apparent escalation of mental health issues in our communities. I asked the question: ‘Why do you think there is such…

“Thank you so much” and “Get lost”Saying thank you can be transformational for the one who hears and the one who speaks. In recent times I have been saying thank you to Gillian by name much more than I used to. It honours her and blesses me.In the Koonung Corner earlier this year I shared…

What’s in a name? One of the delights of having lived among Pacific Island peoples is to have understood how important are the names given at birth. One encounter was with a young Tongan man whose name was Lonisestoni Vaitohi. ‘The name, Lonisestoni, is the Tongan way of saying Launceston, a town in Tasmania. When…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights Community, What to write for the last time? … that’s the question.  It seems that saying ‘thanks’ is not enough for all the love, care, support and generosity that I’ve received from the members and friends of Koonung Heights congregation since I was inducted here in 2019.  We have done…

Greetings to the Koonung Heights Community, ‘O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!’ These words are the opening verse of Psalm 8, the psalm for Trinity Sunday which we will celebrate this week.  If you read this psalm you will hear these words being repeated in the final verse,…