The Record – 12 July 2026

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

+ Worship Leader: Eddie Chapman; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking this Sunday at ‘The Element of Confession.’

+ Scripture: Psalm 32: 1-11.

+ This is a ‘Back to Box Hill Baptist’ event with Bruce Rumbold reflecting on the Rumbold years at Box Hill..


Order of Service

  • Welcome
  • Bible reading 1: Psalm 32:1-2
  • Song: Great is Thy Faithfulness
  • Prayer of praise and thanksgiving
  • Community News
  • Offering (inc. offering prayer)
  • Interview with Bruce Rumbold
  • Bible reading 2: Psalm 32:3-10
  • Song: Come as You Are
  • Prayer of Confession
  • Song: We Seek Your Kingdom
  • Sermon
  • Song: God, We’ve Known Such Grief and Anger  
  • Pastoral Prayers
  • Bible reading 3: Psalm 32:11
  • Hymn: How Great Thou Art
  • Benediction

Community News


+
 At our Church Members Meeting last Sunday we discussed

  • The church’s current financial situation.
  • How we will be responding to the financial situation with some changes to our priorities and staff workload.
  • The progress of the Ellingworth Project, and received an update from Andy about what’s happening around that space, the Suburban Rail Loop, and planning changes.
  • The next steps to our involvement with the Open Baptists association.

+ We had two concerts last Sunday afternoon at the Community Musicale—the first at 2.30pm when 14 adults or adult groups played music (piano, cello, flute, violin, ukelele, cor anglais and tuba) or recited poetry and the second at 4.30pm when 20 children and young people played instruments (violin, clarinet, piano, cello) and one young girl sang. The talent was exceptional and the occasion also gave an opportunity to those just learning an instrument a chance to play in front of a live, appreciative and encouraging audience. People commented positively on our church sanctuary—noting the wonderful acoustics, the lighting and the fantastic piano. $600 was raised for the Community Shed. Don’t miss out on attending the next one!

+ Holiday and the New Term: The Bible & Chat Group recommences this Tuesday night but the Box Hill Community Choir is taking another week and they will restart on 21 July.

+ Last chance to sign up for the new Exploring Faith course. Whether you’re new to this fuzzy question of faith, or something that’s been part of your journey for years, this is a great opportunity to ask questions, share with others, and explore what faith may be for us. We’ll be organising a time that will hopefully work for everyone, so we’d love to have more people involved.

Feel free to share with others in your own networks too!


Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ If you love the way our Bakehouse saves food from going into landfill, feeds the needy and eases scores of family budgets, you’ll want to watch ‘Furnished With Love.’ (ABC iView) In this Compass programme you’ll see how every week 25 homeless families come through Re-Love’s Sydney warehouse to furnish their home. Known as the Oz Harvest (or Second Bite) of furniture, Re-Love diverts furniture from landfill and plans to spread their love across Australia.

+ How good are Australians at addressing race? Grace Lung writes about ‘Diagnosing Racism in Multicultural Australia.’ The WADR Project, 6 July 2026.

+ 500 years ago the Biblical scholar, William Tyndale, translated much of the Bible into English and for his efforts he was executed. On this anniversary, Oxford history scholar, Diarmaid MacCulloch, uncovers the importance of Tyndale’s translation and its place in history. St Paul’s Cathedral, London.


Upcoming Events

An evening of stories, music, creativity, conversation and community (run by Kendall Bryant)

More info and tickets available here.

Church Working Bee – 22 August


This Week

Monday

+ 4.30pm-8.30pm Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

+ 7.30pm Our Deacons are holding their monthly meeting.

Tuesday

+ No gathering of the Box Hill Community Choir

+ 7.15pm (cuppa) for a 7.30pm start: The Bible & Chats Group, which meets in the ground floor of the Village Well will be studying the Scripture for next Sunday’s service. This is a good time for newcomers to start attending this group.

Thursday

+ 11am-1pm The Social Chat Group (upstairs in the Village Well) will be learning basic English, playing table tennis and other games, drinking tea and coffee and making friends.

+ 1.30pm-2.30pm Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.

Friday

+ 4.30-8.30pm: Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Saturday

+ 7.30am-8.30am Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.


Small Groups @ BHBC

Box Hill Baptist Church runs a number of small groups which create opportunities to build friendships, study the Bible and other resources, pray and strengthen our spiritual journeys.

If you are interested in any of the groups below, feel welcome to contact the convenor, or speak to one of our pastors. (And if you’d like to be part of a group but these don’t work for you, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can start something new!)

  • Bible & Chat: Currently each Tuesday, 7:15pm for 7.30pm start at the Village Well (5 Ellingworth Pde). The group normally reflects on a Scripture passage for the following Sunday service. Convenor: Geoff Pound
  • KYB (Know Your Bible): Tuesdays fortnightly via Zoom. (Convenor: Helen Timms)

Next Sunday 19 July at 10am.

+ Worship Leader: Andy McCulloch; Preacher: Eddie Chapman.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship and Corporate Prayer.’

Worship Roster

 

The Revealing Confessions of Box Hill Baptists

aka “How Confessions Have Become Braver and More Blatant Over 125 Years.’”

If this was the title of our forthcoming history of the Box Hill Baptist Church, on 18 October (our BHBC Anniversary date) at the launch, the book might sell like hot cakes.

The media uses the word ‘confessions’ to signal an intimate disclosure designed to capture the audience’s attention. Such confessions might be brave and vulnerable but they are designed to garner readers and recognition rather than to bring about contrition and lead to a change of life. In a film entitled, ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’, viewers become an interested witness to things forbidden not participants who seek to support personal transformation.

This Sunday in our series on ‘Rediscovering Worship’ we are examining the element of Confession in public worship. It might be tempting to call the sermon ‘True Confessions’ but we’ll hope to learn from the Scripture why confession is essential and how genuine confession is not about exposure and revelation but about experiencing release and restoration.

The Record – 5 July 2026

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

+ Monthly Communion Service (usually on the first Sunday of the month).

+ On this Sunday we bring non-perishable food items as part of our offering that are given to support needy people in our community

+ Worship Leader: Shueh Wah Kennedy; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking this Sunday at ‘Worship with Scripture and Preaching.’

+ Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10.

Our Church Meeting will take place after Morning Tea.

+ At 2.30pm and 4.30pm the Community Musicale will take place in the sanctuary. See additional note.


Order of Service

  • Call to Worship
  • Prayer of Gathering
  • Song – Be Still for the presence of the Lord
  • Welcome and Community News
  • Offering
  • Song – Taking Shape
  • Reading – 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10
  • Sermon – Worship through Scripture and Preaching
  • Song – Jesus calls us here to meet him
  • Communion
  • Prayer for the World
  • Benediction Go out to the world in Peace

Community News


Church Meeting: Our next church meeting will take place after morning tea this Sunday. The short agenda will include reports from the Pastors, the Treasurer and an update on The Ellingworth Project.

+ Our next Back to Box Hill Baptist event will be on Sunday 12 July when Bruce Rumbold will be interviewed about the Rumbold years in the life of Box Hill Baptist. Let Eddie know of former BHBC people who may be interested in coming on that day so we can write and send them an invitation.

+ Many of our regular events (Box Hill Community Choir, Bible & Chats) are taking a holiday break in this coming week.

+ In case you missed our ‘Music that moves you‘ service last Sunday, we’ve put together a Spotify playlist so that you can share in the music that moves at least one other person in our community.

And if you’d like to contribute your music to this playlist too, we’d love to keep it going! 


Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

What a pitythat the Vatican is blocking women from preaching and the Southern Baptist Convention is opposing women from serving as pastors.

+ Historian, Heather Cox Richardson, writing about some new voices in US politics, reports on James Talarico, a seminary student who weaves his Christian faith into his political messaging.

+ Religion News reports that religion is all over the 2026 Soccer World Cup.

+ In a comprehensive essay, Whitley College lecturer, Jason Goroncy contends that Pauline Hanson’s policy of monoculturalism runs deeper than politics. It is religious at its root and monoculturalism is a heresy.


Upcoming Events


This Week

Monday

+ 4.30pm-8.30pm Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

+ 7.30pm Our Deacons are holding their monthly meeting.

Tuesday

No gathering of the Box Hill Community Choir or the Bible & Chats Group during the holidays (this week and the next).

Thursday

+ 11am-1pm The Social Chat Group (upstairs in the Village Well) will be learning basic English, playing table tennis and other games, drinking tea and coffee and making friends.

+ 1.30pm-2.30pm Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.

Friday

+ 4.30-8.30pm: Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Saturday

+ 7.30am-8.30am Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.


Small Groups @ BHBC

Box Hill Baptist Church runs a number of small groups which create opportunities to build friendships, study the Bible and other resources, pray and strengthen our spiritual journeys.

If you are interested in any of the groups below, feel welcome to contact the convenor, or speak to one of our pastors. (And if you’d like to be part of a group but these don’t work for you, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can start something new!)

  • Bible & Chat: Currently each Tuesday, 7:15pm for 7.30pm start at the Village Well (5 Ellingworth Pde). The group normally reflects on a Scripture passage for the following Sunday service. Convenor: Geoff Pound
  • KYB (Know Your Bible): Tuesdays fortnightly via Zoom. (Convenor: Helen Timms)

Next Sunday 12 July at 10am.

+ Worship Leader: Eddie Chapman; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship with Confession.’

+ Scripture: Psalm 32: 1-11.

+ This is a ‘Back to Box Hill Baptist’ event with Bruce Rumbold reflecting on the Rumbold years at Box Hill.

Worship Roster

 

Preaching: is it all just talk?

Did you hear about the pastor who received a query from the State Emergency Service? They wanted to know, “How many people could be accommodated in the church in the event of an emergency?” The pastor said, “I don’t rightly know but we sleep 100 here comfortably every Sunday morning!” That’s a preacher who knows all too well the demands of preaching Sunday by Sunday with interest and effectiveness.

This Sunday in our series on ‘Rediscovering Worship’ we’re focusing on the element of proclamation. In our church, preaching is the element that is given more time in the service than anything else so it’s important to reflect on what we’re doing, including the role of hearers as well as the preacher.

Karl Barth gave an insight into his sermon preparation when he said he takes the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other then he seeks to build bridges between them and between God and his listeners.

Our Bible & Chats group on Tuesday evenings is an interesting group that studies the Scripture that is the text for preaching the next Sunday. They give lots of ideas as to what the Scripture might mean in people’s lives today.

When John Stott was pastor at All Souls in London, he had a group in the church with whom he studied a book each month and they also watched movies to get a better awareness of the times in which they were living. His book ‘Between Two Worlds’ presented the challenge to bridge the gap between the world of the Bible and the world in which we live.

A good preaching experience is like what happened on the Emmaus Road—the Scriptures were opened, their minds were opened, their hearts were opened to the Stranger and those who were bereft and downcast now recognised Jesus. They were uplifted, nourished, they sensed a new future opening up and they ran to share with others what they’d experienced.

The Record – 28 June 2026

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

+ The Last Breakfast led by Eddie Chapman. Eating breakfast or brunch around the tables (bring food to share); A great opportunity to discuss with others.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship with Music and Song. When has music moved you?’ 


Community News


Church Meeting: Our next church meeting will take place after morning tea on Sunday 5 July.

+ Our next Back to Box Hill Baptist event will be on Sunday 12 July when Bruce Rumbold will be interviewed about the Rumbold years in the life of Box Hill Baptist. Let Eddie know of former BHBC people who may be interested in coming on that day so we can write and send them an invitation.

+ As we enter the school holiday period, many of our regular events (Box Hill Community Choir, Bible & Chats) will be taking a two-week break.

+ Remember Greta Carter as she begins a six-week rehab process as a day patient at Epworth following her recent surgery; Pray for Ian Young, part of our online community, is mourning the loss of Margaret who has been like a second family to him.


Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ Jon Stewart talks Bible and theology with Rev Ralph Warnock. Link.

+ Check out the books in our Church Library (in a room off the Barn). In our 125th anniversary year you may want to read about the early years of the Rev Dr Gordon Moyes who became the Superintendent of the Wesley Mission in Sydney (Australia’s largest church). In ‘When Box Hill Was a Village’ Gordon reflects on living in 5 Miller Street, the bakery and the Moyes Cake Shop owned by his parents, attending the Box Hill State School, the move to 55 Birdwood Street, his dentist Mr Tweedie, his GP Dr Kemp and his coming to faith through the Box Hill Church of Christ.


Upcoming Events


This Week

Monday

+ 4.30pm-8.30pm Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Tuesday

No gathering of the Box Hill Community Choir or the Bible & Chats Group during the holidays (this week and the next).

Thursday

+ 11am-1pm The Social Chat Group (upstairs in the Village Well) will be learning basic English, playing table tennis and other games, drinking tea and coffee and making friends.

+ 1.30pm-2.30pm Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.

Friday

+ 4.30-8.30pm: Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Saturday

+ 7.30am-8.30am Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.


Small Groups @ BHBC

Box Hill Baptist Church runs a number of small groups which create opportunities to build friendships, study the Bible and other resources, pray and strengthen our spiritual journeys.

If you are interested in any of the groups below, feel welcome to contact the convenor, or speak to one of our pastors. (And if you’d like to be part of a group but these don’t work for you, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can start something new!)

  • Bible & Chat: Currently each Tuesday, 7:15pm for 7.30pm start at the Village Well (5 Ellingworth Pde). The group normally reflects on a Scripture passage for the following Sunday service. Convenor: Geoff Pound
  • KYB (Know Your Bible): Tuesdays fortnightly via Zoom. (Convenor: Helen Timms)

Next Sunday 21 June at 10am.

+ Monthly Communion Service (usually on the first Sunday of the month). On this Sunday we bring non-perishable food items that are given to support needy people in our community

+ Worship Leader: Shueh Wah Kennedy; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship with Worship with Scripture and Preaching.’

+ Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10.

Our Church Meeting will take place after Morning Tea.

+ At 2.30pm and 4.30pm the Community Musicale will take place in the sanctuary. See additional note.

Worship Roster

 

Music (and other things) that move you.

You know the moment. A song comes on, and something in you shifts before you’ve had a conscious thought about it. Your throat tightens. Your eyes sting. You’re suddenly back in a kitchen from twenty years ago, or at a graveside, or holding someone who has since let go of your hand. You didn’t choose to feel it. The music simply reached in and found you.

We don’t often stop to ask what’s happening in moments like that. But as part of our Rediscovering Worship series, we’re sitting with the question for a while, because we think it matters more than we usually let it.

Here’s the thing about being moved: you can’t manufacture it.

You can’t grit your teeth and decide to be stirred by a piece of music, any more than you can decide to find a sunset beautiful or a baby’s laugh contagious. It arrives unbidden, or it doesn’t arrive at all. And that involuntary quality is exactly what makes it interesting. Whatever it is that moves us, it tends to slip past the part of us that manages, defends, and keeps everything in order. It gets in under the door.

This is not a new observation, and it’s certainly not foreign to faith. The longest book in the Bible is a songbook. The Psalms are not careful theology essays. They are raw with feeling: grief, rage, wonder, relief, the whole untidy range of being human in the presence of God. Long before the church worked out what it believed, it was singing.

Augustine, writing about sixteen hundred years ago, described weeping in church, undone by the singing, and then immediately worrying about it. Was he being moved by the truth of the words, he wondered, or just by the loveliness of the sound? He never fully settled the question. We rather love that he didn’t. There’s an honesty in admitting that we don’t always know why beauty does what it does to us, only that it does.

C.S. Lewis circled the same mystery from another angle. He noticed that the things which move us most deeply – a piece of music, a line of poetry, a particular quality of light – tend not to satisfy us so much as to awaken a longing for something further on. The beauty, he thought, was never quite the thing itself. It was a signpost, a rumour of a country we haven’t reached yet. The ache it leaves behind is not a flaw. It’s a clue.

And this is why we’ don’t want to lim’re not limiting the conversation to music alone.

For some of us it isn’t a song at all. It’s a film that wrecked us in the best way. A poem we’ve carried around in a wallet until the paper went soft. A painting we stood in front of for far longer than we meant to. The particular medium seems to matter less than the moment of being reached. If God is in the business of speaking (and we believe he is!) then it would be a strange kind of arrogance to assume he only ever speaks through ‘official channels’. Grace has a habit of showing up in the ordinary and the unexpected. A meal on a beach. A stranger’s kindness. A melody you can’t account for.

Worship is not only the things we say and sing on cue. It is also a posture of attention. A willingness to be moved, and then to ask, honestly, what is moving us and where it might be pointing. To pay that kind of attention is already half a prayer.

So this week, you might notice it when it happens. The song in the car. The clip that stops your scrolling. The line that lands. Don’t rush past it. Sit with it for a second longer than usual, and wonder what it’s trying to tell you.

It may be more than you think.

The Record – 21 June 2026

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

+ Worship Leader: Shueh Wah Kennedy; Preacher: Eddie Chapman.

+ Scripture Reading: John 4:19-26; Revelation 7:9-12

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at worship as Eternal and the Everyday; with our theme “Does Worship make any difference?”

Order of Service

  • Call to Worship
  • Opening Prayer
  • Song Creativity
  • Community News
  • Offering
  • Reading John 4:19-26
  • Sermon Does Worship make any difference?
    • Song: Guide me O Thou Great Redeemer
    • Song: Abide with me  
    • Song: We Shall Overcome 
  • Pastoral Prayers
  • Benediction Go out to the world in Peace

Community News


+ Last weekend Box Hill Baptist Church was warmly welcomed into membership of the Open Baptists Association (openbaptists.org)

We do this as a church that is committed to and remains a part of the Baptist Union of Victoria. For us, joining Open Baptists is a positive step toward more fellowship: another family of churches to pray with (from across Australia and New Zealand), to learn from, and partner with in the work of the gospel.

For us, this is a deeply Baptist thing to do. From our earliest days, local churches have freely associated with one another in many circles, held together by a shared love of Christ and a shared heart for the people God gathers.

We give thanks to God, to the people hard at work in establishing the Open Baptists, and to everyone in both of these families who has welcomed and encouraged us. We can’t wait to see what God does through working, sharing, (and, yes, sometimes even arguing!) together

+ Check out the Whitley College offerings for Semester Two, new publications and other events.


Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ Faith and the Environment: The University of Otago has marked a significant milestone in the establishment of NZ’s first Centre for Creation Care, University of Otago, 11 June 2026.

Tim Costello,‘Thank you, Australia, for welcoming Irankunda,’ CPX, 16 June 2026.

DrAlbert Peck: Pastor at Melton Baptist, ‘the Scott Pendlebury of Whitley College’ and how Whitley shaped his ministry, faith and calling, Whitley College.


Upcoming Events


This Week

Monday

+ 4.30pm-8.30pm Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Tuesday

+ 9.30am The Box Hill Community Choir meets in our sanctuary for practice and morning tea.

+ 7.15pm (Cuppa) for 7.30pm (Study and discussion) The Bible & Chats Group will be studying the Scripture reading for next Sunday morning.

Thursday

+ 11am-1pm The Social Chat Group (upstairs in the Village Well) will be learning basic English, playing table tennis and other games, drinking tea and coffee and making friends.

+ 1.30pm-2.30pm Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.

Friday

+ 4.30-8.30pm: Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Saturday

+ 7.30am-8.30am Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.


Small Groups @ BHBC

Box Hill Baptist Church runs a number of small groups which create opportunities to build friendships, study the Bible and other resources, pray and strengthen our spiritual journeys.

If you are interested in any of the groups below, feel welcome to contact the convenor, or speak to one of our pastors. (And if you’d like to be part of a group but these don’t work for you, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can start something new!)

  • Bible & Chat: Currently each Tuesday, 7:15pm for 7.30pm start at the Village Well (5 Ellingworth Pde). The group normally reflects on a Scripture passage for the following Sunday service. Convenor: Geoff Pound
  • KYB (Know Your Bible): Tuesdays fortnightly via Zoom. (Convenor: Helen Timms)

Next Sunday 21 June at 10am.

+ The Last Breakfast led by Eddie Chapman. Eating breakfast or brunch around the tables (bring food to share); A great opportunity to discuss with others.

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship with Music and Song. When has music moved you?’ 

Worship Roster

 

Does worship make a difference?

What do a Welsh coal mine, the Berlin Wall, and a prayer meeting have in common?

In each of them, something remarkable happened that began with nothing more than people worshipping God. This Sunday we’re asking a question that sounds simple until you sit with it for a moment: Does worship actually make a difference?

In our Rediscovering Worship series we’ve been looking again at things we thought we already understood. We’ve thought about worship as something that meets us in every season of our lives. This week we widen the lens as far as it will go, and we do it in two directions at once.

Our two readings pull worship out to its furthest horizons. In John 4, Jesus tells a Samaritan woman at a well that a time has come when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, no longer bound to this mountain or that temple. Worship breaks out of the building and into the whole of ordinary life, the eternal meeting the everyday. And in Revelation 7, John is shown a countless crowd from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne in worship that never ends. The small and local gathered up into the global, this present Sunday morning opening onto eternity.

So does it make a difference? This week, we’ll let history answer.

We’ll sing some songs together, and then hear the true stories of what happened when people sang them. A hymn that galvanised a people, strengthened them through bloodshed, and was eventually written into law. Prayers and candles that faced an army without raising a fist, and helped bring down a wall. A revival that ran so deep the local courtrooms ran out of cases to try.

Worship, it turns out, has a way of escaping the building and changing the world outside it.

If we let it.

The Record – 14 June 2026

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

+ Worship Leader: Andy McCulloch; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Scripture Readings: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8;Lamentations 3: 1-23.

+ Theme: In our new series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking this Sunday at ‘Worship that Reflects the Seasons in our Lives.’

+ This day is a ‘Back to Box Hill Baptist Church’ Sunday when Richard Mallaby will be visiting and helping us to reflect on the Mallaby years at Box Hill.


Order of Service

  • Call to Worship/Responsive Reading (Lamentations 3: 1-23)
  • Song: The Steadfast Love of the Lord
  • Welcome & Community News
  • Offering & Offering Prayer
  • Interview with Richard Mallaby
  • Bible Reading: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
  • Reflection ‘Seasons’
  • Song: Morning has broken
  • Sermon
  • Song: Great is Thy Faithfulness
  • Pastoral Prayer
  • Benediction

Community News


+ Greta Carter is home from hospital but continuing with her rehab; Meriel Barber has returned to her home at the Surrey Hills Gardens Care Community but is confined to bed and is receiving supplemental oxygen.

+ Last Monday at the monthly meeting of the Diaconate our Deacons:

  • Expressed delight with the news of Vahid and Mina getting their PR after 12 years.
  • Were encouraged by the recent baptisms of Grazia and Lucien and Rae, Lucien and Vahid becoming members of the church.     
  • Heard of new groups hiring our facilities.
  • Were concerned that we are currently $20k behind the budget.
  • Wondered how best to change the high fluorescent tubes in the Barn.
  • Proposed that the next Church Meeting take place after worship on 5 July.
  • Discussed an updated Grievance Policy for the church.
  • Received a report on food from the Bakehouse being delivered to people in Jubilee housing.

The Open Baptists annual conference is being held online on Saturday 13 June 1.00-5.30pm (AEST). Check out the programme and registration details. Speak to Eddie if you’re thinking of attending online. Several Box Hill people are gathering at the church to watch online.

+ We are connected to 30 other churches in our city through Whitehorse Churches Care (WCC). Learn more via this three minute videoOne of the main projects is the Forest Hill Chase Community Space which is a partnership between WCC and the shopping centre. Take a look.

+ You’re invited to enjoy and support the Box Hill Community Choir as it performs in the Box Hill Mall (corner of Market and Main Streets, directly opposite the entrance to Box Hill Central) this Tuesday, June 16, from 10am to 11am. They’d like you to join them for coffee afterwards.


Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ Holy ground, holy moment, holy Bible, holy day… We were looking last Sunday at the holy experience that Isaiah had in the temple. Anne Lamott has a crack at defining the word ‘holy’ in Hallelujah Anyway, 7 June 2026.

+ “Choose a [church] community and stay in it. Stay when the music grates. Stay when the preaching disappoints. Stay when someone bruises your feelings, when the programs are mediocre, when a shinier option seems to beckon from across town. Stay long enough to be known, long enough to be formed, long enough for the shallow roots to grow deep and begin to draw up living water.” Excerpt from The Body You Cannot Return by Graham Joseph Hill, 8 June 2026.

+ In late September 2025, instigated by Ian Bunston, a group of 11 participants from Australian churches and wider society gathered for an online Roundtable to answer this question: What would a thriving Church in Australia look like in 2035? Check out, download this document and pray about these Six Key Principles as they might develop at this Box Hill Baptist Church.


Upcoming Events


This Week

Monday

+ 4.30pm-8.30pm Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Tuesday

+ 9.30am The Box Hill Community Choir meets in our sanctuary for practice and morning tea.

+ 7.15pm (Cuppa) for 7.30pm (Study and discussion) The Bible & Chats Group will be studying the Scripture reading for next Sunday morning.

Thursday

+ 11am-1pm The Social Chat Group (upstairs in the Village Well) will be learning basic English, playing table tennis and other games, drinking tea and coffee and making friends.

+ 1.30pm-2.30pm Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.

Friday

+ 4.30-8.30pm: Social Table Tennis (upstairs, 5 Ellingworth Pde)

Saturday

+ 7.30am-8.30am Bakehouse in the Barn: Saving bread, fruit and vegetables from waste by giving food to those wanting to ease their weekly budget.


Small Groups @ BHBC

Box Hill Baptist Church runs a number of small groups which create opportunities to build friendships, study the Bible and other resources, pray and strengthen our spiritual journeys.

If you are interested in any of the groups below, feel welcome to contact the convenor, or speak to one of our pastors. (And if you’d like to be part of a group but these don’t work for you, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can start something new!)

  • Bible & Chat: Currently each Tuesday, 7:15pm for 7.30pm start at the Village Well (5 Ellingworth Pde). The group normally reflects on a Scripture passage for the following Sunday service. Convenor: Geoff Pound
  • KYB (Know Your Bible): Tuesdays fortnightly via Zoom. (Convenor: Helen Timms)

Next Sunday 21 June at 10am.

+ Worship Leader: Shueh Wah Kennedy; Preacher: Eddie Chapman.

+ Scripture Reading: John 4:19-26; Revelation 7:9-12

+ Theme: In our current series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next Sunday at ‘Worship as Eternal and the Everyday; Worship for the world and local.’

Worship Roster

 

The canvas of worship

The website ‘Storied Colors’ is a catalogue of 250+ colours with information about their names, what each colour is made of (mineral pigments, plant or insect dyes) and stories about how they’ve been used, traded or banned. They range from some of the oldest colours like Egyptian blue (2500 BCE) to some of the more recently created colours like Safety orange which is used for safety cones, life rafts and high-vis jackets.

Such a collection is a rich metaphor for the colours of our lives, the ever-changing palette of life and the spectrum of human experience.

As we continue our sermon series on ‘Rediscovering Worship’ we’re thinking this week on how our worship gatherings need to encompass the whole range of the seasons we pass through as well as the seasons of life. It’s tempting to want to stage services that are always upbeat but then we would miss out on the turning of seasons and the ebb and flow of life’s tones. All these experiences shape and teach us. It’s valuable to ponder what is the good news for the different stages we pass and to think of how our faith is changing. It’s useful to recognise how we are being formed not only by the bright tints of joy but by the deeper shades of waiting and loss.

Danny Kaye said, “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.” The same might be said for the canvas of worship