On the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, 1,300 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle is the Svalbard Seed Vault. Built 150 metres deep into the rock of a mountain at a site with no seismic activity, kept at a constant -18 degrees Celsius, and aided by the permafrost, the massive concrete and steel structure is designed to withstand a nuclear strike, or any other global disaster in order to keep its contents safe for thousands of years and ensure the survival of the world’s crops.
If Jesus wanted to ensure the survival of the church you might have thought he’d come up with something like that. Instead, he chose Peter. Go figure.
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
My maternal grandmother died of a heart attack when I was a teenager. She was the quintessential grandma: every morning she would have the wood stove stoked long before anyone else was up so the kitchen was snug and cosy. She was kind and patient. Best of all, as a late-night snack, she would whip up these delicious cheese sandwiches: soft, white bread cut into triangles (with the crusts cut off, of course!) She was married to my grandfather for 44 years. Several years after she died, I asked my grandfather how he was going. He answered: “The evenings are the worst. It’s too quiet. It’s the silence that kills me”.
Silence is not always profound, or welcome, or spiritual. Sometimes it just sucks!
Like when you’ve been to every specialist under the sun and there is no answer to your pain.
Like when your child is backpacking in South America and you haven’t heard from her in three weeks.
Like when you turn the key in the car’s ignition and nothing happens.
Or, like when you pray, you plead, you petition God and he answers not a word.
Sometimes silence is not golden.
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
Duthy Street.
Someone needs to teach Google Maps how to pronounce Duthy St. (it’s not Duh-thee, it’s Doo-thee!) But, that’s beside the point.
Duthy Street. Every workday between 8-8.30am and 5-5.30pm Doo-thee Street is transformed by the sound of progress, of productivity, of advancement, of achievement, of energy, of power, of modern life! I crack open my office window and hear it. Traffic noise. People busily, and importantly, going places. Often places so important that there is only one person in each car! Buses rumbling, motorcycles revving, the modified exhaust of that souped-up sports car popping, even electric cars aren’t silent, their tires hum on the asphalt. And, in all those vehicles radios are blaring, speaker phones are intruding, kids are arguing on the way to school, Google maps is pronouncing street names wrong. It’s the soundtrack of modern life as we all try to be somewhere.
But, Duthy Street at 10pm on any weeknight is a different story. I can stand in the middle of the road without a car in sight (and I occasionally do). I don’t have to be anywhere, I can just be. And, it’s quiet. So quiet. So quiet it’s profound. Even spiritual!
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
What’s in a word? Amen. That’s the word I’m talking about. Amen.
What’s in a word?
At the end of each sentence we are used to seeing a mark, or a symbol. Punctuation we call it. Fullstop. Question Mark? Exclamation mark!
Is that what Amen is? A bit of punctuation at the end of the sentence? A mark to tell us the prayer is over?
Amen is an ancient word – thousands of years old – handed down unchanged from ancient Hebrew through to ancient Greek through to modern English and many other languages. Amen. It is an expression of confidence, of faith, of trust, that what is said is true. It is an expression of agreement, of solidarity, of participation. It is a promise of commitment, of assurance, of engagement. It shall be so! Amen.
Notably, Jesus used Amen not at the end of his sentences but at the beginning! Often twice, just to make sure no one was in any doubt.
In fact, Jesus himself is the Amen. Our Amen. And God’s last word to us in the Bible is Amen (Revelation 22:21).
I don’t think that’s just punctuation.
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
Penicillin was discovered in 1928 when Alexander Fleming accidently left a petri dish uncovered and noticed that a mould had killed the surrounding bacteria.
The microwave oven was invented by Percy Spencer in 1945 after he noticed the radar equipment he was working on melted a chocolate bar in his pocket.
Way back in 1754 the English author Horace Walpole had already coined a word for such events: serendipity. He formed the word after reading an ancient Persian story known as the Three Princes of Serendip in which the main characters are always making accidental discoveries of things they weren’t intending or looking for. Serendipity, then, is the phenomenon of finding valuable, pleasant, or agreeable things you weren’t actively seeking (such as discovering that ‘Serendip’ was the historical Arabic name for Sri Lanka).
Way, way back in around 33AD Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone found”.
Serendipity.
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
Some history:
1839 First Lutheran synod founded by Kavel.
1846 Fritzsche splits from Kavel, forms Bethany-Lobethal Synod which becomes Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Australia (ELSA). Kavel heads up Langmeil-Lightpass Synod.
1858 Tanunda-Lightpass Synod splits from Langmeil-Lightpass Synod. Joins with Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Victoria.
1902 Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Australia (Old Basis) splits from Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Australia, joins United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia.
1966 Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia joins with United Evangelical Church in Australia, becomes Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA).
2024 Lutheran Mission Australia splits from Lutheran Church of Australia.
It all sounds a bit Monty Pythonesque, doesn’t it? Lutherans, it seems, know better than Jesus when it comes to tending the garden.
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
Earlier this week Pastor Ezra Jin, the leader of one of the largest underground churches in China was released by authorities after spending 266 days in prison. Pastor Jin founded Zion Church in 2007 with 20 members. In 20 years it has grown into a network of 10,000 members across 40 cities. However, many other pastors and other Christians remain imprisoned.
But, despite decades of restrictions, suppression and persecution, the number of Christians in China continues to grow, with numbers currently estimated to be 100 million.
All because a sower went out to sow.
~ Pastor John
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
Last Tuesday ‘A Current Affair’ aired a segment that was meant to challenge unrealistic beauty standards. The reporter presenting the program chose not to wear any of the usual make-up a TV presenter would wear. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, she received many on-line responses commenting negatively on her appearance. It seems in this social media driven world anyone with a keyboard thinks they have a God-given right to comment, critique, criticize and condemn. I’m told Lutherans are not immune from this sort of behaviour! It’s all too easy to criticize others, especially anonymously on-line, but I wonder how we would fare if God would critique us? After all, if anyone has a right to do that, it’s God!
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here
The Law of Inertia, also known as Newton’s First Law of Motion, states that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force. Inertia is the inherent property of any physical object to resist changes to its current state of motion. So, if an object is sitting still, it wants to stay sitting still; if it is already moving it wants to keep moving.
Makes me wonder whether, when it comes to the mission of the church, we have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Perhaps it’s just a matter of showing up?
~ Pastor John Strelan
Click here for a link to our new spotify podcast containing the latest sermon recordings.
If you are unable to access spotify, 2026 sermon recordings can be found here