Bruce Staley

Recently my wife emphatically reflected out loud,  "We are spoilt!" I wholeheartedly agreed. We were sitting at table following our evening meal. The past three years had been difficult. My recovery from heart bypass surgery hadn't been all plain sailing.  However, we had received wonderful support throughout. It had come from all quarters, the medical professionals, family and friends. My wife went on to ask, "Why us?" I thought afterwards I could have responded with, "Why not us?" However, I didn't but responded with the thought that we had been spoilt so that we could spoil others. I had in mind the passage in Ephesians where the Apostle Paul writes, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us." Ephesians 1:7‭-‬8 NIV In difficult times we had experienced the lavishness of the riches of God grace and we in turn could help others experience s...

Counting Your Contentment Cash was the final sermon topic of our Pastor for Children and Families before she concluded her ministry at one2one Church of Christ. I was taken by the profoundness yet simplicity of Kay's presentation based on Philippians 4:11-13, I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Previously each of the children in  the children's ministry were involved in constructing a duct tape wallet the making some contentment cash for their wallet. The cash was cards and the children were invited to write on the back of the cards the things they were thankful for. Remember the words of Jesus when he explained that the kingdom of God belongs to little ch...

Neil attended our Discovery group recently. In my post, Disruptive Grace, I mentioned I met Neil at a pedestrian crossing which I was about to cross to attend our Discovery group held in a local cafe. Later that week I was able to meet Neil again. Here's our text messages, Hello Neil, Nice to meet you on the pedestrian crossing near the entrance to the Botanical Gardens this morning...I would like to get to know you more, maybe Thursday afternoon, to see if I can help in any way? Let me know and we can arrange a convenient time and venue. Bruce 😊 Thursday afternoon is fine. Would you like to come for a cuppa at my house or would you like to meet somewhere else. Thanks for your lovely message. See you on Thursday. Please confirm the place to meet. Cheers Neil  A cuppa at your house would be lovely. How about 2 pm? While visiting Neil and his family and I was able to explain in more detail what I was doing on the day we met. So I invited Neil to attend our Discovery group as my gues...

I greeted Anne when she arrived just before the start of the Sunday evening service. It was the second time I had met Anne. A few weeks earlier I had met her in the reception area to the church offices. Anne was leaving after attending a Woman2Woman craft activity. It was good to see Anne again at the evening service. I was attending because my daughter was conducting the baptism of a lass, who was a member of the youth group. After the service,  a friend, Amie, told me she would be conducting her first Discovery Bible Study Monday lunchtime in the food court in Central Square, and Anne, and another lady, would be joining in. Monday morning I sent this text, "Hello Amie, You, Anne and Marg are in my prayers for your first DBS in Central Square today. Praise God, he is always at work drawing people to himself, through our Saviour Jesus. Bruce" Monday afternoon I received this message, "Thanks Bruce. Anne came and we did knowing God  personally and she accepted Jesus as Lo...

In one of my posts in July 2014, Meg told her story and mentioned she and her husband, Shane, wanted to get married again. They were married in 2007 in a registry office in Japan. Now  they wanted to be married in a church. Today, Saturday 28 February, I attended their re-commitment ceremony. It was a special day. Their pastor invited the guests to stand and to the music of Steve Grace's, Marry Me Again , Shane and Meg entered the chapel with their three delightful children, Nina and Mae on either side, and Taiki held safely in his father's arms. Shane looked very smart in a new suit, Meg was radiant in a lovely wedding dress and the children were all dressed for the occasion. I was very emotional. It was ten months since I baptised Meg following her acceptance of Jesus as her Saviour and I had watched her grow in her understanding of her new relationship with her Heavenly Father. Not only was a I privileged to pray a prayer of dedication during the ceremony but I knew I had be...

My name is Philip. During a recent conversation with my mentor Bruce I emphatically stated I was having a ball. If you knew a little of my history life had been anything other than a ball. What has changed? Earlier in 2014 I decided to contact a former teacher. While it took nearly twenty minutes I was determined and I persevered until I finally contact Bruce. We became re-acquainted. It proved to be the first of many phone calls and text messages since. I wanted to thank Bruce for calling me a Christian, over 40 years ago. Bruce was a teacher at the school I attended and a fellow student had encouraged me to speak to him. Bruce welcomed our conversations and counted it a privilege to explain to me how I could get close to God and become a follower of Jesus. During one conversation in a local cafe I responded and received Jesus as my personal Saviour. Then Bruce declared that I was now a Christian thus confirming the transaction that had taken place between me and God. Over the phone m...

My name is Meg and I am married to Shane. We have three children, Nina, six, who has started pre-school, Mae, three, and Taiki, who was born last year. I grew up in Japan and Shane grew up in New Zealand. We met in Alice Springs when I was touring Australia. I didn’t want to get married but Shane was very persistent and he followed me home to Japan. We were married in Japan in 2007 Shane is a Christian but I never understood anything about be a Christian. We settled in Ballarat. I had to stay home to mind the children while Shane went to work. I was very lonely and we argued a lot. I realised something had to change so I started attending MOPS, Mothers of Pre-School children, at a local church, York Street Church of Christ. I then joined a Bible Study. However, my home language is Japanese and I found it very difficult to understand. One day two ladies, Karen and Janine, from one2one MOPs, came to speak at the York Street MOPs. I cried while I was listening to their stories. One day I ...

The number of text messages between me and Vic is now in the seventies. Fortunately my phone plan is very accommodating and I can send substantial messages covering the Seven Commands of Jesus, Seven Stories of Hope and Seven Miracles in John. In reply to the question, "If God could perform a miracle in your life what would it be, what would it look like?" Vic responded, "Peace and someone to love me as I am unconditionally." We have started reading the book of Acts together taking it two chapters at a time. This has allowed me to include some brief commentary and words of encouragement. As always God is transforming us from the inside out, for He can be trusted to bring to completion the work He began in us the day we decided to follow Jesus.

Vic had seemingly turned up unannounced at the church office. He wanted to talk to someone about getting back to God. A person in the office listened to Vic's story and explained how he could return to God. I was invited to give Vic a follow up call. After several attempts I was able contact Vic and arrange a time to catch up. As I listened to Vic's story I waited on the prompting of God's Spirit. Vic's world had come crashing down around him and he wanted to get back to God. I invited Vic to read aloud the story of the lost son, Luke 15:11-32. It didn't take long, tears welled up in Vic's eyes, and I was moved to tears. I explained to Vic that he didn't need to wait, that before he left he could be sure he had returned to God. Vic followed me and prayed aloud to commit himself to God. Since then we have communicated by text message with Vic expressing his appreciation of the Scripture passages I've provided. I've been thrilled to observe the growth ...

The remarkable little book He Leadeth Me , by Walter Ciszek, shows childlike faith exercised in the most demanding of circumstances. (I'm looking forward to reading my copy when I have have finished Steve Addison's, What Jesus Started: Joining the Movement, Changing the World .) Ciszek, raised a devout Catholic in Pennsylvania, joined a Jesuit mission and volunteered for service in Soviet Russia at the height of its militant atheism. To Ciszek's consternation, his superior assigned him instead to a mission in Poland. A few years later, war broke out and Hitler's army invaded Poland. In the horde of Polish refugees fleeing toward Russia, Ciszek saw a providential opportunity. Disguising himself as a worker, he joined the refugees and sneaked into Russia, where he had always wanted to serve. His prayers had been answered so he believed. Not long afterwards, though, the Soviet secret police arrested Ciszek. The next five years, he was kept in Moscow's notorious Lubiank...

If we live to please God alone, we set ourselves free from the cares and worries that press in on us. So many of my own cares trace back to concern over other people:whether I measure up to their expectations, whether they fine me desirable. Living for God alone involves radical reorientation, a stripping away of anything that might lure me from the primary goal of pleasing God, far more than pleasing me. I know a hand surgeon who specialises in reattaching fingers that have been partially or totally severed in accidents...Once my friend got an emergency call at three o'clock in the morning and could hardly face the prospect of beginning such an arduous procedure. In order to add incentive and focus, he decided to dedicate the surgery to his father who had recently died. For the next few hours, he imagined his father standing beside him, his hand on his shoulder offering encouragement. The technique worked so well that he began dedicating his surgeries to people he knew. He wo...

Today I visited a welfare agency store that sells recycled goods to the public. Low and behold I bumped into another ex-student, Martin, who works there. We chatted and Martin explained with a smile that after a long time he now had access to his two children and was appreciating their company. I asked Martin, "If God can do a miracle in your life today, what would it be?" Then I asked, "Can I pray for you?" He looked at me and said, "Not here." We were standing at the front of the store near the service desk. So we moved to the rear of the store and Martin invited me into his "office," a second-hand sofa surrounded by other second-hand furniture. Martin didn't hesitate, he asked that he would express positive and encouraging words toward his children and avoid putting them down. So sitting on the second-hand sofa, and with heads bowed, I prayed for Martin that he would indeed have the right words to say to his children.

Leo Tolstoy, who did not disdain adding a moral lesson to his stories, ended his short story "Three Questions" this way: "Remember then: there is only one time that is important-Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. A record of God's faithfulness in the past combines with hope in a better future for one end: to equip us for the present. As Tolstoy said, we have control over no other time. The past is unchangeable, the future unpredictable. I can only live the the life directly before me. Faithful Christians pray, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," and then proceed to enact God's will-love, justice, peace, mercy, forgiveness-in the present on earth.; Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God Passing through the checkout at a large department store I came face to face with Davy. Davy is a former student of mine from over forty years ago. Every now and then I bump into Danny who loves a cha...

Bruce: How come you started attending one2one Gillies Street Church of Christ? Shaun: A few days before Christmas 2011 I attended hospital for some treatment. While there I struck up a conversation with one of the medical staff and inquired what they might be doing over Christmas. The common response of spending time with the family was given but along with that was an explanation that they would be attending the 11.00 pm Christmas Eve service at one2one Gillies Street Church of Christ. Furthermore the person extended an invitation to me to come along and I would be most welcome to join in. After leaving hospital I didn't give the invitation much further thought. However, as Christmas Eve approached I gave it serious consideration. The 2011 Christmas Eve service at one2one Gillies Street Church of Christ was the first time I attended and I have been a regular attender at the Sunday evening services ever since. Bruce: Shaun you've got cerebral palsy, can ...

6 years ago I was a lost sheep ... Wandering through my life.  I was lonely, depressed, and wondering if this was all life had for me.  Sure I had things to be thankful for - my loving husband and a beautiful 2yo boy who brought much joy to my world - and I was pregnant with a beautiful girl - another blessing!  But yet something was missing in my life.  I couldn't put my finger on it.  I yearned for more but deep down I knew the world could not fill it - no amount of shopping, eating or chasing after success could satisfy that part of me that felt empty. About this time I had been going along to Mops (Mothers of Preschoolers) here at one2one.  It was such a lifeline to me.  As a first time mum I was so lonely.  I enjoyed being a mum yet at times it was overwhelming and no-one in my normal circle seemed to know how to help me.   It was the love of the Mops mums that kept me sane.  Indeed, the Mops leaders (Patsy, Tanya, Sally, Helen...

I grew up in the south-east suburbs of Melbourne in an area known as Hartwell. During that time the family, my parents and five older brothers, moved house twice. Initially the family moved from a home on a residential block to a home in the Hartwell shopping strip. Alongside the home was an operating dairy and at the front a milk bar. After several years the family moved again to a home on a residential block around the corner in Summerhill Road. All this time, and while I was completing my primary and secondary schooling, the family worshiped at the Hartwell Church of Christ where my father was church secretary and my mother, who had a lovely soprano voice, sang in the church choir and prepared the flower arrangements for the Sunday services. The evening services were traditionally known as the Gospel Service where the minister on finishing his sermon would give an altar call for anyone, who wanted to commit their life to Christ, to go forward to the front of the c...