Dec2015
Ready, willing and available
The phone startled me. I wasn’t expecting the phone to ring while we were on holidays a few days before General Convention at Rochedale. His voice was soft, with a trace of an accent—German, I think. ‘Hello, Reid, this is Matthias Prenzler.’ After a few brief pleasantries, Matthias reached the apex of why he was… Read more
Nov2015
The artist speaks
On the western edge of the Lockyer Valley, the Toowoomba Range stands as a silent sentinel. Throughout the day, the hills reflect different hues from the sun. It is an amazing thing to see them redirected from the early morning greens to the afternoon browns and then the lavender that springs across the ridges in… Read more
Aug2015
The origin of worship
The annual State of Origin Rugby League contest captured my interest again this year. As I viewed the football matches, and the various traditions associated with them—the costumes, the sounds and the (almost) charismatic fervour stemming from the pre-game rituals—I pondered how the rituals of Origin and the worship service tell a similar story. Because… Read more
Jul2015
It’s ‘a God thing’
At the Lutheran Youth of Queensland annual appeal dinner, I spied someone across the room that I really wanted to talk with: Danielle Robinson. Danielle is the family ministry chaplain at Grace Lutheran Church in Redcliffe. When you meet Danielle, you find that she is affable, quick to laugh and even quicker to engage in… Read more
Jun2015
An alien in the pulpit
Philip Yancey, in his book Vanishing Grace, quotes the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathon Sacks: ‘The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in one verse commands, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”, but in no fewer than 36 places commands us to “love the stranger”. He adds, “The supreme religious challenge is to see… Read more
May2015
The meeting on the ute
‘God set me up.’ David says this with a smile. His rheumy eyes stare at me from behind smeared bifocals. He is about to tell me his role in the birth of the Lutheran school where I work. ‘We started out with a thought—a dream, really—of a school at Plainland. People thought we were crazy…. Read more
Apr2015
The perfect cuppa
I’d never really been exposed to tea drinking while living in the United States. Until I met my wife’s family, who are prodigious tea drinkers, I’d learnt to live on a pot of brewed coffee per day. Tea drinking was something I only saw on the Public Broadcasting System. My exposure was limited to images… Read more
Mar2015
Night terrors
All 75 were nestled in their beds, visions of Vegemite sandwiches dancing in their heads. When all of the sudden, with a shriek and a shrill, the fire alarms went off and they awoke … screaming their heads off. The last night of Year Seven camp. We’d had a great, tiring day, and after some… Read more
Feb2015
Real cheep food
Every spring an amazing thing used to happen at the Matthias household in small-town Iowa. Sometime right after Easter, when most of the snow had melted, the mail truck would stop in front of our house. The mailman would descend his metal steps in a cloud of dust, slide open the big back door of… Read more
Dec2014
Familiarity breeds … impatience?
Jesus told us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation’. But every year my parents did what we asked God not to do—they led us into temptation. And temptation was called The Christmas Tree. Every year, about four weeks before Christmas, our parents would drive us 20 kilometres down the road to a tree farm… Read more
