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

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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