Sermons, essays, ideas.
Hi, I’m Alister. After twenty years in software development in London and Melbourne, and more than a decade leading a church in a pub in Melbourne, Australia, I became a Uniting Church Minister in 2019.
I’m interested in how you can reconstruct your faith if you’ve been bruised by your experience of church by taking the tradition more, not less, seriously. I also think about how do to church in post-modernity, having spent more than a decade leading a church in a pub. What does it mean to be a Christian in a world of suffering, doubt, and complexity?
Jesus, Month Python, and The Mandalorian
Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father, except through me” Did he mean something like “if you want to get to the Father, you have to get through me first? Is Jesus standing in the way, preventing people from getting to God, like a soothsayer on…
Do not be afraid
A Sermon for Easter Day – Year A – Matthew 28:1-10 It is a bit of a commonplace among some science-y types that humans are insignificant in comparison to the universe and all the many things in it. They love to point out how small humans are, how a brief a human life is, in…
Jesus, Chuck Norris, and Two Donkeys
A Sermon for Palm Sunday / Liturgy of the Palms Year A – Matthew 21:1-11 Martial arts expert, Hollywood actor, and internet favourite Chuck Norris died last week, which feels strangely timely for the topic of Palm Sunday. I know that sounds like a bit of a long stretch, but I promise you that there…
Springs Gushing Up to Eternal Life
“So, I see you are something of a prophet. Well then, riddle me this. Where does God want us to worship?” Top quality banter? Maybe. But to ask where we are to worship is to ask how we are to do it, which is to ask the most important question of all: who, or what,…
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Alister Pate 