Box Hill Baptist Church

The Record – 28 June 2026

June 25, 2026 eddie

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 125^th 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.

June 24, 2026 eddie

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

June 20, 2026 eddie

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.

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?

June 17, 2026 eddie

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

June 12, 2026 eddie

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 video. One 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.

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

June 10, 2026 eddie

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

The Record – 7 June 2026

June 5, 2026June 5, 2026 eddie

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

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

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

+ Welcome into membership: Come and add your welcome to those joining our church.

+ Worship Leader: Keith Dyer; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Scripture Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8.

+ Theme: We begin a new series on ‘Rediscovering Worship.’ We’re going to ask: ‘What is worship? Why do we worship? How do we best worship? And what are the essential ingredients of a worship service? What are the questions about worship that you are asking?

Order of Service

Acknowledgement of Country and Call to Worship (from Psalm 118)
Hymn: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty’ (BPW 51)
Prayer of gathering and confession
Welcome and community news
Our offering and prayer (including the offering of non-perishable food for the needy in our community)
Song/Hymn: ‘Lord, You stand among us’ (Ross Langmead)
Bible reading: Isaiah 6:1-8 — Ian
Sermon: ‘Why Worship?’— Geoff
Song/Hymn: ‘Living Lord’ (BPW 444, verses 1&2)
Communion & welcome into membership of Rae and Lucien
Song/Hymn: ‘Living Lord’ (verses 3&4)
Prayers for the world (with candles)
Song/Hymn: ‘Here I am Lord … I, the Lord of sea and sky’
Benediction: Geoff

Community News

+ Greta Carter is undergoing rehab after surgery in the Epworth (Box Hill) Hospital; Meriel Barber was admitted to the Box Hill Hospital with pneumonia. Do keep Greta, Meriel and their loved ones in your love and prayers and others known to you who are not well.

+ We are thinking of running the 12 week Exploring the Faith series in the next little while and we wanted to gauge who and how many people might be interested in doing this. Do talk with Eddie if you’d like some information about the group or if you’d like to express an interest in joining this group.

+ Do chat with Geoff if you’ve got questions or you’d like to enquire about baptism and/or becoming a member of the Box Hill Baptist Church.

+ 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. We are looking at the possibility of Box Hill people meeting together to watch online and perhaps having dinner afterwards.

+ The Box Hill Community Choir is performing at the Box Hill Mall on Tuesday 23 June at 10am. You might like to get along to support them, enjoy their music and share a celebratory coffee afterwards.

Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ John Ortberg in ‘The Life You’ve Always Wanted’ writes about how a Sabbath or Sunday is a great gift: “Set aside a day a week—one day a week eat foods you love, listen to music that moves your soul, play a sport that stretches and challenges you, read books that refresh your spirit, wear clothes that make you happy, surround yourself with beauty – and as you do these things, give thanks for God’s wonderful goodness.”

+ ‘How Worship Music became the Soundtrack of today’s political right,’ RNS, 27 May 2026.

+ Kate Bowler on ‘Unexpected joy, even in the midst of pain,’ RNS, 1 June 2026.

Upcoming Events

This Week

Monday

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

+ 7.30pm The Deacons are meeting for their monthly meeting.

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 viz. Lamentation 3: 1-23..

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.

+ 1.00-5.30pm The Open Baptists annual conference online.

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.

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 14 June at 10am.

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

+ Scripture Reading: Lamentation 3: 1-23.

+ Theme: In our new series on ‘Rediscovering Worship,’ we’re looking next 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.

Worship Roster

Why worship?

June 3, 2026 eddie

It’s not every time when you climb a high mountain that you get a good clear view. There are times when the clouds descend and the rain pours and you can’t see much beyond your nose.

So, it is with our experience of worship. Sometimes there are factors that are beyond our control and we find it hard to concentrate and enter into a spirit of worship. But what are the factors within our control that can enhance the experience of worship?

This Sunday we’re commencing a new series on ‘Rediscovering Worship’. We’re asking questions like ‘What is worship?’ ‘Why do we worship?’ and ‘What are the essential elements of a time of corporate worship?’

One church had a simple sign out the front that read like this: “Box Hill Baptist Church. Founded 1901. Where People Meet God.” That’s a good definition and a fine hope. A service of worship should be the occasion for an encounter with God—a time when the holy One breaks out of the sphere of mystery, touches the lives of human beings and readies us for service in the world. To be the means of such a miracle is the highest hope and the deepest purpose of worship.

The Record – 31 May 2026

May 29, 2026May 29, 2026 eddie

Welcome to Worship this Sunday

This Sunday 31 May at 10am.

+ It’s our Last Breakfast led by Eddie with conversation around tables.

+ Please bring extra food to share for our visitors and people who turn up not knowing about the breakfast.

+ Scripture Reading: Matthew 28: 16-20.

+ The baptisms of Grazia Sedawie and Lucien Toth will take place during our gathering. This will a great time to invite friends and neighbours to church.

Community News

+ Greta Carter has been in Epworth Box Hill after surgery last Monday. Pray for Greta as she undergoes rehab before returning home in another ten days.

+ A draft copy of the new Church Directory will be available again this Sunday in the Barn. We made a good start on this last week. Please check your name and contact details and add a tick when you have done this. If your name isn’t listed there, please add it if you wish plus your contact details.

+ Have you noticed the pithy sayings on the digital noticeboard on the front of our church facing Station Street? It catches your eye as you wait at the crossing. A man come to church last Sunday before the service. He had specifically come to take a photo of one of the messages that had been on the screen but sadly the screen had been updated with another saying. (Good news: We did locate the saying and he went away glad!) Thanks to Eddie for keeping this screen informative and attractive.

+ Someone said recently, “I would have been at church if I’d known that Dave and Lidia Mutton were going to be at church on the 17^th.” Richard Mallaby is going to be with us on our next ‘Back to Box Hill Baptist’ Sunday on June 14, when he will help us to reflect on the Mallaby years. Inform Eddie if you think of someone who may wish to attend on this special day.

Food for Thought, Prayer & Action

+ Check out the Whitley College website for the latest news plus Jason Goroncy’s recent publications. Is there a course in Semester 2 that you might like to take, especially while Whitley is based in Box Hill?

+ This week marks the start of National Reconciliation Week, which runs from 27 May – 3 June each year. The 2026 theme is ‘All In’, inviting all of us to join with Indigenous peoples to learn together about our shared histories, cultures and achievements.

+ Pope Leo released a major paper on AI. Check out the overview. Read the total encyclical.

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 viz. Isaiah 6:1-8.

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.

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 7 June at 10am.

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

+ Welcome into membership: Come and add your welcome to those joining our church.

+ Worship Leader: Keith Dyer; Preacher: Geoff Pound.

+ Scripture Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8.

Worship Roster

Remembering your baptism.

May 28, 2026May 22, 2026 eddie

Martin Luther had a habit. In moments of doubt or fear, when the dark crept in, he would touch his forehead and say to himself, “I am baptised.” Not “I was baptised” (past tense, finished, filed away), but “I am.” Present tense. A current reality.

That’s a strange way to talk about something that, for many of us, happened so long ago we couldn’t pick the day out of a calendar if we tried.

Some of us were dunked or sprinkled as infants.

Some came to it as adults, with photos and a date we could still find.

Some were old enough to remember the cold water, the words said over us, the faces watching.

So what does it mean to remember something we may not actually remember?

Paul had this exact problem with the early church. When the Romans started drifting, his question wasn’t “have you been baptised?” They had. His question was “don’t you know what your baptism means?” (Romans 6:3). When the Corinthians fragmented into factions, he reminded them they had all been baptised into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). When the Galatians went wobbly on identity, he pointed them back to the waters: “all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

For Paul, baptism wasn’t a one-off event you graduated from. It was a place you kept returning to. An identity you put on every morning. The shape of a whole life.

Remembering your baptism, then, isn’t really about remembering an event. It’s about remembering who you are. That you have died with Christ and been raised with him. That you belong to him, and to his people.

This Sunday at our Last Breakfast service, we’ll be taking time around our tables to share our baptism stories with one another: what we remember, what we’ve been told, what it means to us now. And we’ll be welcoming two people into those same waters, joining the long line of the baptised.

Come ready to remember. Come ready to witness. And maybe, like Luther, find yourself touching your forehead this week and saying quietly: I am baptised.