Box Hill Baptist Church

05/09/2026

Join us live this Sunday morning! We're gathering for worship, communion, and the next hard, honest step in our series "The Letter to the Church in Box Hill": this week, our weaknesses, and the grace that meets us there.

And, of course, a happy Father's Day to all the dads, grandads, and father figures among us.

Whoever you are, wherever you find yourself today, you're welcome here. https://youtu.be/epC9zPZvpDY

03/09/2026

Parents have to do it. Teachers have to do it. Employers have to do it.

Any leader has to give critical comments and this for most people is the hardest part of being a leader. But there’s an art in giving constructive criticism.

We will all have vivid memories of when we were given criticism that was blunt and our self-esteem took a big hit or we were humiliated in front of others.

Some of the old-style footy coaches are remembered for their legendary sprays. Their blistering attacks on their players which were intended to cause hurt and provide fuel for a better performance.

In our ‘Listening to the Spirit’ series on the Letters to the Seven Churches, we’ve reached the hard part—the bit in most of the letters where the Son of Man reveals the weaknesses and wrongdoing of the churches. They’re not necessarily models of how to say hard things and the weaknesses in those first century churches may not be the faults that we share.

In each letter the criticism is followed by a call to action which illustrates the principle that the purpose of criticism is not to make a person or a church feel bad about what they have done; it is to help them to become better at what they do.

Remember that we are writing an eighth letter - to the church at Box Hill. So think about our weaknesses, our wrongdoing and our neglect but speak the truth in love.

26/08/2026

What are we good at?

It's a strangely hard question to answer out loud, isn't it?

Ask most of us what we're bad at and we'll give you a list. Ask what we're good at and we go quiet, or we deflect, or we change the subject. Naming a strength can feel like boasting, so we don't. Especially for Australians!

But this Sunday, at our Last Breakfast, we're going to try anyway.

We're continuing our series writing The Letter to the Church in Box Hill, and we've reached the letter to the church in Pergamum. It's a church living at a hard address (Christ calls it the place "where Satan has his throne"), and yet the first thing he says to them is not a criticism. It's a commendation. He tells them what they are getting right. "I know where you live... yet you remain true to my name."

That's a pattern worth noticing. Before the difficult word, the positive word. Before what's lacking, what's good. Christ names the strength first.

So this week we're asking it of ourselves, and of each other. What has God actually made us good at? Not to boast. But because a gift unnamed is a gift half-received. Because the strength you can't quite see in yourself is often obvious to the person sitting across the table.

And we'll ask it of us together, too. What is the church in Box Hill good at? What are we like at our best? Those answers become the next line of the letter we're writing.

Of course one thing we are definitely good at is putting the food on the table, so come and eat with us! And come and find out what someone else sees in you.

Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

24/08/2026

"I know. I know. I know."

Across these ancient letters, the risen Christ says it to his churches: I know.

In Sunday's message, Geoff drew out what that means through something we've all felt. When something's wrong with our health, we want a doctor who truly knows. Who knows our history. Who can read the tests, name what's wrong, and help us heal. And even when the news is hard, we still want to know.

That's the voice speaking to the church in Smyrna, a community worn down by affliction and loss: "I know your affliction and your poverty." Not "to whom it may concern." Known. Fully, and by name.

Part of our series writing the Letter to the Church in Box Hill. Have a listen... (Full service and message at https://youtu.be/wB9tpwRbkRE)

22/08/2026

We continue our series on the Letters to the Seven Churches this week, turning to the letter to the church in Smyrna. Where last week’s letter (to Ephesus) focused on identity, this week we look at the Sender: the vision John receives of the risen Jesus as “the First and the Last, who was dead and came to life.”

We continue our series on the Letters to the Seven Churches this we...

19/08/2026

In our series on the Letters to the Seven Churches (Revelation 2 & 3) we’re challenging ourselves at Box Hill Baptist to write an eighth letter based on the Patmos template.

Last week we came up with the address: “To the Church at Box Hill Baptist.”

This Sunday things get harder as we describe the Sender, “From…” and like the other letters penned by John on the island of Patmos, we include aspects of Jesus that are appropriate to the church in their context and in that time.

In Box Hill there’s the ‘Immanuel Lutheran Church.’ That’s comforting to know God with us.

In Mont Albert there’s ‘The Church of the Holy Redeemer.’ That’s all-encompassing.

In Ascot Vale there’s ‘Christ the King Anglican Church.’ Would you go if you had republican aspirations?

Does ‘Sacred Heart’ or the ‘Corpus Christi’ Baptist Church cut it?

Who gets to choose the name for a church? Some bishop a hundred years ago? Some ecclesiastical body?

At least we get to choose (with the help of the Holy Spirit of course!) the name of the Sender of the letter to our church. We get to provide some aspects of their character and action that we need at Box Hill. We’ll get it right if we have ‘ears to hear’ and ‘listen to the Spirit.’

18/08/2026

Box Hill is one of the most diverse places in this city. And yet it's easy for a suburb to arrange itself, over time, around a single story, until some people walk through the middle of it and quietly feel there's nothing here for them.

So what does it look like to love this place?

First: we keep loving our neighbours, the ones already at our door. Not a problem to be solved. Not an audience to resent. Neighbours.

And second: we become a home for the ones this suburb has possibly overlooked. Our neighbours from across the world - Iran, India, Greece, and beyond. The people in local supported accommodation. Our LGBTQ+ or neurodiverse neighbours. All of them as much a part of this place as anyone else.

Together, at one address.

(From Sunday's message, the first in our series writing the 'Letter to the Church in Box Hill' - Full message https://youtu.be/oKq7nGKUECs )

12/08/2026

😂

12/08/2026

This Sunday we start something unusual. Over the coming weeks we are going to write a letter. To ourselves. The Letter to the Church in Box Hill.

We take our cue from the book of Revelation where the risen Christ writes to seven real churches in seven real cities. Every letter opens the same way:

"To the church in..." and then a place. A name, and an address.

He does not send a group email To: the church . He writes to a particular people in a particular place, and he tells each of them, "I know." He knows this church, because he has been to this address. We are addressed by name. Christ knows where we live.

Which makes us ask what our address says about us. Say it slowly. The church in Box Hill. What does that stir in you? It is a place, not a preference. We are named after a suburb on a map, not after the people who happen to think like us. And a place comes with whoever else lives there.

That is where it gets interesting, because our name and our address don't always match. We know who we are, but do we know where we are? And what happens when the two rub up against each other?

Over these weeks we will sit with some questions:

- Who has Christ addressed us to be, here, at this particular address?

- What did we once love about this place, and has some of that love gone cold?

- Are we ever tempted to pick up our lamp and find somewhere more "like us," and whose choice is that to make anyway?

- How do we hold on to what we believe without letting our certainty outgrow our love?

We are not going to answer all of those this Sunday. But we are going to begin listening.

Because every one of those ancient letters ends the same way: "let anyone who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." A word spoken to one church, at one address, is meant to be overheard by all of them. And by us.

So this week, just sit with the name. The church in Box Hill. Ask what it might mean that Christ has addressed us here, on purpose.

Listen to what the Spirit is saying.