I’m writing this now, just a week after my commissioning service as the Senior Minister of St. Mark’s. Along with Camille, Ethan and Finn, I am pleased to be in this place. Our family has been so blessed by the experience of joining this church, and I’m looking forward to becoming a part of this community and sharing our lives with you.

As yesterday was the shortest day of the year, it made me reflect on the different seasons and the benefits and difficulties they bring. For instance, I love the cold weather, but I also love the sun! Churches have their own seasons too, when we have different opportunities to learn new things from God, and when we face different challenges.

Many people have said to me that they feel our church is now entering a new season of its life, after a period of reflection and strengthening in our dependence on God. This new season is likely to be one of change and renewed vision for the future of St. Mark’s. Our challenge is to take the lessons of grace and dependence on God that we have learnt, and apply them to this exciting new season.

My first job as your new minister is to get to know St. Mark’s, its people and ministries, and to begin to understand our community. I also hope to start our conversation about our church’s vision, and through that, to take us back to the heart of our mission as a church. So I aim to be in regular communication with you about this process, and to keep the big picture in front of us all as we go along. I’m starting my time here with a series of sermons I’ve called ‘Signposts’, which are principles that I deeply care about and which I believe need to be part of the future of our church. On Sunday I put forward my first principle, ‘Grace Comes First’, which means that everything we have and everything we do is a gift from God, both as our Creator and as our Saviour in Jesus Christ. This sets us free to face every season of life with hope. If you want to stay in touch with this series, you can follow our podcast at www.stmarksemerald.org.au/stm_podcast/  I also expect to update our blog and Facebook page twice a week with various reflections as we go.

I’m looking forward to getting to know you, and please say hello and drop me a line if you want to talk more about what’s happening at St. Mark’s. My email is andrew.bowles@stmarksemerald.org.au.

-Andrew-