West Baptist Church

God be with the mother.  As she carried her child may she carry her soul. As her child was born, may she give birth and life and form to her own, higher truth.  As she nourished and protected her child, may she nourish and protect her inner life and her independence.  For her soul shall [...]

From Matt C:
About a month ago, Michael, Jacob, Nathaniel and me took the long trip down to Manfeild Park in Feilding for EC10. We had to fill in time in the 2 + hours car voyage so we played heaps of boring games. (e.g. Car Cricket which I won by miles, Llama Llama and the [...]

‘Whether your relationship is strong, or you are struggling,’ is what our advertising will say when we go to the printer this week.  The Marriage and Relationship Course we’re running with Northpoint is for any couple who wants to invest in their marriage in a comfortable, non-threatening way.
You don’t have to talk to anyone except [...]

My Mum used to say to me and my sisters, whenever we were losing a fight and trying to get her to step in on our side, ‘it takes two to tango.’
She meant that it takes two to start a fight, so she wasn’t going to take sides.  I think Jesus would agree, and would [...]

I’ve been quite sick this week, and found it hard to do justice to the texts we looked at today.  Lucky for all of us, what the Holy Spirit chooses to do with preaching seems to be pretty independent of its ‘quality’!  If anyone would like to think further about what we discussed today, I [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here is number 4: one of the 5 things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
Don’t tell numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5, but this is [...]

Unplugging is particularly hard if you live by yourself.
Other people are great sources of alternative entertainment – you can play games with them (or play tricks on them, I suppose), have relaxed chats, do some cooking or a jigsaw, eat dinner together with some great music playing, and if you live with other people, you [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here is number 3: one of the 5 things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
#3 Head meets Heart meets Hands
It’s still a huge buzz for me that I [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here are numbers 1 and 2, the things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
#1 Shelter, Faith, Laughter
Our identity as ‘a place of shelter, faith and laughter’ has come to [...]

Ruby Duncan is a provocative thinker and local hero.  She’s lived in New Zealand, Australia and the slums of Manila, and is now the head of Iosis, the family support service of the Baptist Union in Aotearoa.  
I mention this because she was invited to speak at Parachute this year as part of a [...]