BCUC Sunday Sermons & More

This week, we're exploring the sapling stage of the greenhouse, or what we might call the "budding leader." Saplings are incredibly fragile. As they grow, they depend on water, sunlight and the right environment. Without the care they need, they struggle to thrive. In discipleship and leadership, this is the stage where intentional investment matters. As a church, how are we caring f...

This Sunday, we begin a new three-week sermon series called Leadership Greenhouses. While the title might sound like a series just for church leaders, it's actually a series about discipleship, growth, and raising children of God. Using three parables from Mark's Gospel, we'll explore how Jesus creates environments where faith can grow and flourish. Just as a greenhouse provides the ri...

This can be a confronting reading. Jesus is preparing his disciples for their mission and the opposition that they will face. They should expect what happened to their teacher to happen to them. However, he wants to stress loyalty and courage and emphasise that trust in God is greater than any fear of people. The Jews needed that message particularly when Jerusalem had been destroyed and they foun...

Psalm 67:2 sings, “May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere.” When you read the big picture of the whole Bible, from Genesis through to Revelation, one of the themes you will notice is that the nation of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, were blessed by God to be a blessing to everyone else. At times they remembered this; many times they kept the ble...

What does it look like to do local mission? In 1 Thessalonians we see a church with an incredible story - a complete turnaround from serving idols to worshipping the true and living God. The gospel went deep into this church, transforming them from the inside out. As this church lived out authentic gospel shaped community, the good news rang out from them to others all around their region, and man...

Dear friends of BCUC, Anyone who has watched the cult classic film The Blues Brothers would know that the movies is about Jake and Elwood Blues who are “on a mission from God” to get the band back together and raise money for a church orphanage. Church mission is a word used by many people and can sometimes seem to mean almost everything the church does or very specifically, making new converts. ...

This week we celebrate Pentecost! Followers of Jesus celebrate this day as the birth of the Christian Church. Happy Birthday! In Acts 2:1–21, we read of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples, empowering them to speak in different languages so that people from many nations could hear and understand the good news of Jesus. The crowd was amazed by what they witnessed, while others questioned what...

On Sunday we have the last in our “Jesus invites” series, with Jesus inviting us into relationship with Him. In the John reading Jesus explains the concept of remaining in deep relationship with God to the Jews using words and pictures the Israelites, an agricultural people should understand well - the vine, or vineyard. Jesus casts God as the gardener, himself as the vine, and us as the branches,...

Megan, Bryan and Benji talk about BCUC for the fourth exciting instalment of BCUC Talks! Jokes, faith, heavenly slices and more. Special guest Kaitlyn!

When you think of transformation, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, or simple ingredients like flour, butter, and sugar turning into a cake in the oven. Or perhaps it’s more personal, reflecting on your life before Jesus and your life with Him. Transformation is something we all recognise in different ways, and it often brings the beauty of new life. As we explore...

Dear friends of BCUCHow often in the last six months have you thought about baptism? Has the topic been part of your prayers? Do you have a passion to see and be part of the journey of more people being baptised? Do you consider what you are doing right now—even reading this message—as part of you “living out your baptism”?Jesus invited his disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to go and make d...

Dear friends of BCUCImagine being invited to a party and, as soon as all the guests have arrive, the host stands up and makes a speech telling everyone to leave. You might think, “But I just got here!” This may be a little like how the disciples felt when Jesus told them to “go and make disciples of all nations”. The Christian life is actually a rhythm like the tides, coming together and going out...

When you think of security, what comes to mind? Cameras around your home? Financial stability? A child clutching a security blanket? Or perhaps it’s a feeling of peace, comfort, being held in a loving embrace. As we continue our series exploring how Jesus invites us into something new, this week we consider His invitation into security. In Matthew 28:18 , Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and o...

Our Easter weekend services commenced on Thursday evening in an olive grove with Jesus’ arrest, progressed to the sombre remembrance of his crucifixion on Good Friday and today the joy of the Resurrection. Our Lenten theme of “Jesus Cares” also reaches its climax as Jesus demonstrates how he cares for us. He provides an example of how to care by showing his love for his disciples. At the Last Supp...

In the coming series, we will be looking closely at Matthew 28: 16 – 20. This passage is often referred to as the ‘Great Commission’. It can equally be thought of as the ‘Great Invitation’. We will be prefacing each message in the series with “Jesus invites …. “.I have been asked to focus on “Jesus invites worship”. We see a number of times in the scriptures that people’s response to Jesus, either...

Our Easter weekend services commenced on Thursday evening in an olive grove with Jesus’ arrest, progresses to the sombre remembrance of his crucifixion on Good Friday and then the joy of the Resurrection on Sunday. Our Lenten theme of “Jesus Cares” also reaches its climax as Jesus demonstrates how he cares for us. He provides an example of how to care by showing his love for his disciples. At the...

Dear friends of BCUC,Jesus riding into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, with crowds waving palm branches, spreading their coats and shouting, “Hosanna in the highest!” It sounds like Palm Sunday is upon us! Next to Christmas and Easter, it’s probably one of the most well-known stories in the Bible. This year, I want to explore what this story says about how Jesus cares. In Matthew’s Gospel, we’r...

Have you noticed the sea of orange around the place this week? This week we celebrate Harmony Week. The Harmony Week initiative is to acknowledge and foster a sense of belonging in Australia, celebrating our differences and diversity in our beautiful country. And isn’t it a nice feeling to feel like we belong to something beyond ourselves? This Sunday, we will be exploring how Jesus cares about ev...

Fearing God is not about being scared of God but it means being in reverent awe of God which results in paying the appropriate respect and honour to God and so we will be happy to faithfully obey God. If we live like that, we need not be frightened by anything (that could paralyse with fear of simply make us miserable). That is a powerful message, and it comes from Psalm 112. This forms a pair wit...

What an occasion! This Sunday we are commissioning two new elders, Ben Price and Helen Waldoc, as well as praying for the rest of our eldership team and giving thanks for the many different leaders who are part of what makes BCUC. The church has always been led by those who are called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Right back from the first chapters of Acts, we see the church appointing...

Dear friends of BCUC,There’s been a lot happening in the world lately. As I write this, it is an official Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi shootings. There is great concern, and much commentary, about whether we are living through the collapse of the current rules-based world order. It seems that today’s Western society is becoming even more polarised, to the point of violence. We need...

Dear friends of BCUC,Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to the wonderful blank page of 2026, ready for God’s Holy Spirit to work amongst us. If your life were a musical or a song, what type of song would you be singing? Would it be a sad song, a love song, or a song of triumph and joy? If you could describe the type of song your life sang in 2025, what would it be? Is it possible that the song...

The effect of sin in our world is pervasive and deadly, hardening our hearts towards God and numbing us to the concerns of others. Failure to recognise the corrosive damage sin inflicts on our minds and in our world leaves us unable to interpret much of what goes on within and around us. We will be looking at the book of Esther and the decisions of King Xerxes, ruler of the enormous Persian empire...

Happy New Year! The Christmas season celebrating the birth of Jesus - Emmanuel, God with us is coming to a close with Epiphany.  The date for Epiphany is 6 January, but this will be our focus in worship on Sunday. We celebrate the day Jesus was revealed as the king of the world by the magi’s visit to the Christ child.  According to the gospel of Matthew, sages from the East came to Jerusalem seeki...

Revelation and indeed the whole bible finishes at Chapter 21 and 22 with a vision of a new heaven and new earth. God says in a loud voice from the throne that tears, sorrow, death, pain and crying will be “gone forever”. Then we see this glorious picture of what the holy city, the new Jerusalem will look like. I remember when our oldest son Jake was about to be born, people kept telling Nicole and...