St Marks Anglican Church

Welcome to the website of St Mark’s Anglican Church Pennant Hills.

You can watch a short welcome and introduction to St Mark’s from our Pastor here.

HAWK is our Huge Awesome Week for Kids running in the school holidays from July 2 – July 6. HAWK involves fun, mayhem and learning what’s in the Bible. It is always a memorable week.

You can find out all the HAWK 2012 details and you can now also register by going to our HAWK page.


For parents with children registered for HAWK, don’t forget our new and improved parents’ Cafe, The Nest. The Nest will feature not just good food and coffee but some free, practical seminars relevant to parents. Plus, just for dads, one morning we’re going to put on an early BBQ breakfast for you to enjoy before you head off to work.

Come to English for life.

Learn of practice English in a friendly, relaxed group. Morning tea is provided and a crèche is available for small children. Classes will use a variety of resources, including the text of the Bible.

Details:

• Mondays, 9.30am to 12pm (during school terms)
• At St Mark’s (corner of Rosemount Ave & Warne St, see here for map)
• Cost is only $2 per week

To register or for more information contact us.

The feedback suggests that Easter 2012 at St Mark’s was a special time. Lots of people have shared about the spiritual benefit that got from time spent focused on ‘authentic Easter’, reflecting on the ancient message of Jesus death and resurrection.


Here’s the Easter Sunday talk if you’d like to listen to it:

If you’d like to reflect more on the significance of Jesus death and resurrection for you the why not join our next Jesus: An Introduction course? The details are here.

Why did they execute the guy who said “love your enemies?”

Jesus: An Introduction is a short course St Mark’s runs for people who want to take an adult look at Jesus and what he was on about.

What have people said about our Jesus: An Introduction course?

• “Very clear and easy to understand”
• “Great course, well structured”
• “Very helpful in my struggles with Christianity”

You don’t need to know anything about the Bible and you won’t be asked to read it out loud or to pray. You do get a chance to ask any questions you want.

• 6 sessions, Sundays 3pm – 4pm. Next course starts April 29.
• Cnr Rosemount Ave & Warne St, Pennant Hills
• St Mark’s is pleased to offer this course at no cost and to throw in afternoon tea and a free Bible.
• To get more details, or to register for our next course just contact our pastor Craig Schafer here.

I don’t know why, but lots of people nowdays have to put up with being intolerant to gluten.

That’s a bit of a problem if you want to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, because one of the two essential ingredients is bread!


To make life a little bit easier, St Mark’s Pennant Hills has introduced the option of gluten free bread at 6.30pm church. We use Country Life Bakery bread and it is prepared and stored separately to the regular bread. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper once a month, and you’re welcome, whatever your stance towards gluten!

Briony Nurcombe has just started as Pastoral Assistant at St Mark’s. You can read a bit about her and see her happy smiling face in the staff section on our about page. Welcome to the team Briony!

Professor Kim Oates shared lots of wisdom with us at our recent parenting seminar.

He also mentioned some links he though would be helpful to parents. They were:

Royal Children’s Hospital which has lots of helpful stuff including this and this.

The Children’s Hospital Westmead

The Raising Children Network

We recently hosted a Women’s Event called “Taste & See” where women got to enjoy a fantastic Italian feast and also got some food for the soul as they heard a talk on one of the great themes of the Bible.

UPDATE – to see some photos from the event, click here .

The women had a great time and while we can’t share the food, but we can share the talk.


Here it is:

Update – to see some photos from the event, click here.

At our last men’s dinner, our after dinner speaker Roger Kennett from the science faculty at the Kings School spoke on the topic “Science and the Bible – Friends or Enemies”.

The recording of his talk is below:

As part of our HAWK holiday kids program in July we ran a parent cafe called The Nest. They served great coffee and yummy treats and hosted a free series of seminars. These seminars were pretty popular and so we thought we should share them with those who couldn’t be there. So here they are:


Monday – Living Under the Clock (Anna Moss)

Tuesday – Strengthening Your Marriage (Sue Bartho)

Wednesday – Parenting Your Primary Children (Annette Coleman)

Thursday – Gardening With Kids (Fiona Cheng)

Friday – Get Sorty (Rhonda Mason)

St Mark’s Pennant Hills is a church willing to consider the claims of various ‘celebrity atheists’. More importantly, we’re open minded enough to consider the issues that ordinary local people might have with the Christian message.

We’ve just finished running a mini series called ‘Christianity can’t be true because…’ and the three talks are now online, along with five talks from a similar series last year.

You’ll find the 2011 talks below:
“Christianity can’t be true because…

1. it requires blind, unquestioning faith
2. there are so many religions
3. Christians are a bunch of hypocrites

If you wanted to listen to the talks from 2010, knock yourself out:
“Christianity can’t be true because… (2010)

1. it depends on a bunch of fairy stories that contradict one another
2. it fails the test of science
3. bad things happen to nice people
4. it has caused so much violence and oppression
5. Christians hate gay people