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Lutheran Church of Australia

where love comes to life

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      The Lutheran Church is the largest Protestant church in the world, with over 70 million members. This website tells the story of Australian and New Zealand Lutherans, following Jesus Christ – where love comes to life. Whoever you are, whatever your story, you're welcome here with us.
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Little Church

‘Little Church on the Prairie’ was a regular column in ‘The Lutheran’ from 2012 to 2015, subtitled ‘reflections of an American pastor from an an Australian country parish. It was written by the bright and sparky Pastor Reid Matthias.

10
Dec2015

Ready, willing and available

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Nov2015

The artist speaks

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Aug2015

The origin of worship

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Jul2015

It’s ‘a God thing’

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Jun2015

An alien in the pulpit

by Reid Matthias

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

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10
May2015

The meeting on the ute

by Reid Matthias

‘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

Read more...

10
Apr2015

The perfect cuppa

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Mar2015

Night terrors

by Reid Matthias

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

Read more...

10
Feb2015

Real cheep food

by Reid Matthias

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

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10
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

Read more...

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