Worship Reflections from 2025
26 October 2025
Even the hard pathways … MUC Fellowship@10, 26 October 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Psalm 65 Back in the 1800’s, a vast swamp and river basin in Toronto were covered over. The wetlands were buried eight metres deep in dirt and gravel so that the city could expand. In the 1920’s, the river itself was re-routed into a concrete channel, so its path could be fixed and the area even more heavily industrialised. Factories poured their waste into the river;…
19 October 2025
Our persistence, God’s justice MUC Fellowship@10, 19 October 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Luke 18:1-8 Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a war on. Authorities were concerned that power stations might be bombed, and with them, the people who lived nearby. So, along with many other children, a little boy was evacuated from his home near the power station at Yallourn, and sent to live in Bendigo. At his new primary school, he sat next to a…
12 October 2025
Planting with the prophet Jeremiah MUC Fellowship@10, 12 October 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-11 Ten years ago, the scientist Glenn Albrecht coined a new word. He was studying the impact of open-cut coal mining on the people of the Upper Hunter region of NSW. The mines were creating new and horrific scars in the landscape; the power station was polluting water, air and soil; there was persistent drought. As the earth groaned, Albrecht realised that the people…
5 October
INCREASE OUR FAITH! MUC Fellowship@10, 5 October 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Luke 17:5-10 & Lamentations 3:22-23 In the 1900’s, John D. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world. At the peak of his wealth, he was asked by a reporter, ‘How much money is enough?’ To this he famously replied, ‘Just a little bit more!’ If only I had a bit more money, says the rich man, then I’d relax. I’d be able to slow down and take…
28 September 2025
LOVE & MONEY MUC Fellowship@10, 28 September 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Luke 16:19-31 A few years ago, my colleague Rev Nguyễn Hữu Trí took a group of young people from a nearby church on a trip to Vietnam. They planned to visit Christian communities aligned with factory workers, street kids and people addicted to heroin, both to build connections and to witness the gospel being embodied in these contexts. As Trí tells it, the young people turned up at the…
14 September 2025
THREE INVITATIONS INTO JOY MUC Fellowship@10, 14 September 2025 Alison Sampson, reflecting on Luke 15:1-10ff ‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked our friend Carl. ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Is that an Anglo no, or a Lebanese no?’ I asked. Our friend Carl is from a Lebanese family. In Lebanon, if someone offers you a drink, it is the height of rudeness to say yes straightaway. It might be 36 degrees, you might have walked across Beirut to get there,…
7 September 2025
MY GRANDPARENTS’ BREAKFAST TABLE Alison Sampson, MUC Fellowship@10, 7 September 2025 (Psalm 1) My grandparents’ breakfast room opened off the kitchen. It had a brown sideboard, brown scratchy chairs and a brown shag pile carpet. Whenever my sister and I stayed with them, we participated in their morning ritual. First, we held hands and said grace. Then my sister and I would gobble up our breakfasts while our grandparents were still fussing around assembling theirs. Cornflakes. Sultanas. Bran. A bit…