Does your "stuff" define who you are?

You and STUFF...

As we go through our series on "you and..." tomorrow's sermon is all about stuff, that is- the material things that we own.

As I was preparing the sermon I thought to myself "why do we like stuff so much?"- I came up with a few reasons, one of which is that stuff provides us with our status.

An examples I heard of recently was to do with the apple iPhone. With the iPhone, you can purchase different applications to do different things- you can get games and helpful utilities, with most applications costing around $2.

But I heard of one application that someone created that doesn’t actually do anything. It’s called “I AM RICH”, and all it does is add a little crimson diamond to your phone’s screen (pictured left)... That’s all it is! A diamond logo- and it costs… $999 US

So, once you've payed your $999 US; all you get is this little “I AM RICH” diamond picture as proof to others that you are indeed rich.

Sounds pretty stupid right? Who would buy that? But- the crazy thing is that 8 people bought it before Apple removed it from the store! 8 people payed close to $1000 US, and it does nothing. And some guy just earned an easy $8,000. Talk about using stuff to define your status!

And we might not be that extreme, but I do think that we do it in other ways. The question is: is it a problem that we rely on stuff to define us? And what does God think about our stuff?

Come along to church this Sunday morning as we think about our "stuff", and see how Jesus has actually given us a better option than relying on stuff.

you and ....

On Sunday we starting our new preaching series at Morning Church (9.30am) on 'You and ...'. The topics and dates are in the picture below. This week the topic is 'You and God'. Look forward to seeing you there! Chris.

National Day of Mourning

On Sunday we will be observing the National Day of Mourning for the Bushfire victims as part of our normal Sunday church meeting. It is an opportunity to 'honour those who have lost their lives, support those who have suffered and recognise the work of our emergency services.' There will be an opportunity to write in the national Bushfire Message Book and we will be ringing the bells for two minutes at 11am like churches across the nation. Our prayers will be particularly focussed on the issues to do with the bushfire situation. Chris.

Connect 09 - Big Day In

Yesterday Orion was able to get the Australian Christian Channel up and running for the Connect09 'Big Day In'. Church will start at the normal time of 9.30am and along with thousands of others across the city we will watch the live broadcast from 10.50am.

Looking for an Anglicare Parish Link Person

Anglicare are making big efforts to partner with local parishes and I've been asked to appoint a 'Parish Link Person'. Catch me sometime if you are interested in this role.

Growth Groups sign-ups

The sign-up for our Growth Groups started last Sunday and goes over the next two Sundays. These are a great way to learn more about what it means to be Christian and get to know other people at church. There is even a group for people just wanting to find out more about Jesus.

Christmas at Summer Hill Church

Christmas is a very special time for us and so we have some special events. On Christmas Eve (24th) we have Christmas for Kids at 6.30pm, Midnight Christmas at 11pm and Christmas Day (25th) we have our Christmas Celebration at 9.30am. Look forward to seeing you there.

Daylight Saving starts on Sunday October 5th

Daylight saving is kicking in and you need to put your clocks forward one hour before going to bed on Saturday 4th October. If you don't believe me check out the official website.

Splash Family BBQ & Movie night

Everyone and anyone is invited to the BBQ and movie night we are having this Friday night (19th Sep). We will be starting a bit early at 6pm. Bring $4 per person for food. The movie is a really fun one called 'The Emperors New Groove'. Look forward to seeing you there.

Church in the Hall - an exercise in flexibility

On Sunday we all found out what the surprise at church would be - we met in the hall! The surprise will not be long lived since it is only a temporary thing. The idea is to be in the hall for another three weeks as a training exercise. The two main goals are:

1. being able to do new things together as a church
2. seeing our church building with new eyes when we go back

I know that there might be lots of positives and negatives about being in the hall, this is really just secondary to the two things above. What did you think of it?

Wanted: computers

At the moment our office has two computers:

1. A Dell Dimension 8200, Pentium 4 - 2.8GHz, 384 MB RAM running Windows XP Professional and:

2. A Windows machine running at 450 Mhz with 255MB RAM.

We are looking to update these with newer machines. Let me know if you have something that might be suitable. NB We also run Mac based things as well, so anything along those lines are also welcome.

Open Week!

Our church Open Week is coming up next week with a bunch of great things to come to. We really want to introduce you to Jesus - so when you come along expect to hear something about him. Click on the image for a larer version.

Lamb spit after church - 23 Sept

After church this Sunday we will be sharing lunch together as Suli organises a wonderful lamb spit. Join us at 9.30am for church and then for lunch afterwards.

The Pope is a Catholic and we're not a church!

The Pope has released a document affirming the teaching of Roman Catholicism on the nature of church and where we Protestants fit it. The Pope calls us a religious community and not a church:

"According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense."

We need to remember that there are very real differences between the teaching of the Roman Catholic church and Protestantism: how we are saved and what church is are only two! The Reformers in England wrote the 39 Articles which are the statement of belief for Anglicans.

Article 19 says this "The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance ...."

Phew, we really do have a church!

For the 39 Articles check out the Anglican Church League website.

You might like to check out Mark Gilbert's new set of Bible Studies that go into what the Bible really teaches on how God saves.

Check out the full document from the Pope.