I'm a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia, with two congregations: one in Northcote / Chalice, which now includes Cafechurch Melbourne, and one up the road in Reservoir, confusingly known as Preston High Street. I am
In Carlton, where I work and spend a lot of my time “studying” (aka drinking coffee in cafes, occasionally adding a little cake, (purely for my health’s sake)), the local government has built a beautiful library called the Kathleen Syme Centre. It is a state of the art facility, including a space for the senior […]
Consider this archetypal story. A man named, let’s say, Gary is lying in the gutter, covered in his own vomit. He has lost everything – gambled it away, pissed it up against the wall, snorted up his nose. His wife, his kids, his house – all gone. He is absolutely desperate. Then, just as he […]
It used to be so easy. You got up at the crack of dawn to have your enriching quiet time. At church, which you regularly attended (Sunday evening, Wednesday house group, a couple of committees…) the singing moved you, the message was pitched right to your condition. The Lord was with you, and you were […]
Sermon preached at Wesley Church Melbourne at the evening service 15/1/2017 on the text John 1:29-42 What are you looking for? This is the question Jesus addresses to his first disciples. And it is also the question that Jesus addresses to all of us who want to be his disciples. What are you seeking? What […]
I preached about Zachaeus (Luke 19:1-10) on the 30th of October at Wesley Church. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Zacchaeus. It’s possible that it is due to a song we used to sing at Sunday School: Now the crowd was very tall And Zacchaeus was very small But the Lord […]
I feel a bit nervous about putting this sermon online – I had just read an article (here, but behind a paywall) about a report recommending legalizing euthanasia in Victoria (the state in Australia where I live), and I was very aerated about it. Perhaps the ideas in the sermon don’t fit together quite as neatly as they […]
I go a bit off-piste in the talk – and if you listen to it you will discover why I am still earnestly writing my sermons out in full first. Wealth. Money. Always an interesting topic. Actually, I find the whole topic of money – what it is, how it works, what it means – […]
Every age has its key dilemma, its key anxiety. For us in the post-modern west the key anxiety is the crisis of meaning. What is life really all about? Does it actually mean anything at all? All our traditional ways of finding meaning in life are disintegrating. Given that, I think we will find that, […]
Here is a link to the readings. One of my personal heroes of the faith is the great reformer Martin Luther. His stand against the abuses of the medieval church – from nailing the famous 99 theses on the door the Wittenberg church to his courage at the Diet of Worms, summed up in the […]
This is a sermon I preached a couple of weeks ago about Mary and Martha. You can listen to it here (and marvel at how slowly I’m managing to speak) Or you can read it below. Luke 10:32-48 Sermon at Wesley Church Melbourne 16/7/2016 Life can feel very mysterious sometimes. Random, and often terrible, events fill […]
Alister Pate