Comments on: The Greatest Challenge (I Think)

By: Romani Sergyos

Romani Sergyos — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:50:38 +0000

It was introduced recently in our Coptic church in Sydney in the west “not sure if uniform in all churches ” a great compulsory program of a course for those couples who are intending to merry under our awareness and education programs which we have seen them activated a lot of such programs recently in the western areas of Sydney such bible studies etc. thanks to all those honest people who are working behind the scenes , great stuff all over the place …back to our issue that couple of days course of “prevention better than cure ” for those who are intending to get married , just it had been mentioned in a couple of announcements so far after Sunday,s regular announcements and i believe most of those who wants to take the step forward to do it are not sure of what is what ??? some they work on Saturdays as well ???!! we wonder if our church discussed the advantages and disadvantages of this course , its long term benefits, checked the concerns of those who want to tie the knot of this great Church sacrament ??? nothing as usual in our local media Spring of love and Elmanara as usual, they are busy with news of our mother church of Egypt and politics which everybody is getting in CTV and Agapy tv channels, pls have mercy on us and do not waste our resources and time, make use of these media for the benefit of our church in this part of the world ??!! we wonder if that issue of our proposed course discussed in our local youth meetings to encourage the participation in this great beneficial course which will equip them initially with a lot of skills in their coming holy joined event ????!! we learned in life that usualy in school and college we learn lessons and then we go and face the exams but in our big school “LIFE ” we face the exams and then we learn the lessons , so pals do not learn the lessons the hard way, prevention better than treatment and go and register in the course and learn more skills …may our lord guide us all and give us the wisdom to do the right thing …

By: Romani Sergyos

Romani Sergyos — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:34:58 +0000

most of our aging people in our community had a high expectation of a nursing home to be build up by our Coptic community in this part of the world …that dream was dreamed with our late father Mina Nematalla “God bless his soul ” and planned in Archangel Church , where do we stand from all this ???!! elderly Coptes understand that the church under pressure of some debits but they believe it could pay itself by itself by the federal government subsidy ???!!on the other hand these days the Coptic community heard about decisions already made without any consultation with the broad community and out of the blue moon about a house will be built up by our church Coptic community for the consecrated ladies ???!! already i believe few of them around and we believe serving and visiting the sick , look after the distressed , preach the bible , visit the widows as they do in Egypt , great spiritual job needed by our community ??!! however ,nobody heard about those houses before for those consecrated brothers or consecrated ladies as they do serve their Coptic community in Egypt while they are staying at their own homes and no community or church took commitment of their accommodations ???!! if one day our lord wants us to build a monastery for the sisters who we do not have any currently , let” HIS WILL BE “, it would be great , we never know our children might do that in this part of the world >>>>

By: Romani sergyos

Romani sergyos — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:44:10 +0000

The other day i came across one of those real honest people of our church , one of those who do a lot of good work to our community church behind the scenes , he mentioned something very important and urgent i believe our community in need for it under education and awareness program and that he suggested that as far as the church started a compulsory course for new marriage couples why not to be a compulsory medical check as well for them to go parallel with it ???!! he said if we look at the statistics of our failed marriages due to medical backgrounds “physical and mental ” is scary…from here i would say it is a wise approach if we could implement this medical program in this part of the world specially it will cost nothing so no additional financial burden for this check to be done by the couples , so at the end of the day we work all of us in the strategy of “PREVENTION BETTER THAN TREATMENT AND HIT THE SIN AND NOT THE SINNER “, may our lord give all our church community members with our priests and our bishop the wisdom to approach all our issues of concerns , we encourage every honest person who loves God from all own heart and love thy neighbor as thyself to work positively and constructively to praise the name of our lord all the time by our life … oh mate , little things with care and love are great in front of the eyes of God , you do not need to do big things …

By: Romani sergyos

Romani sergyos — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:34:33 +0000

One of the important ares of church challenge in this part of the world is the awareness and education of COMMUNICATION among the whole community vertically from the top to bottom and horizontally across all partnership members of this community …oh pal communication problems causes a lot of problems such loss of interest , loss of motivation , lack of self esteem , lack of trust , lack of acceptance , and you name it it can pull down not only families but big organizations …. the cycle of our communication in our church among parents , children , confession or spiritual guiding fathers , bishop and the clergies and all these among themselves …oh God a lot of players and if anything goes wrong even misunderstanding with good faith it can cause big disaster ??!!! let us start with our ritual confession procedure , it is Advice “decision “verses Guideness “options “??!! our priests advice people what to do which has got big negative impact on our youth as our adults …the decision which made for them by our confession father they do not have any control on it , no responsibility and no accountability at the end of the day ..besides if something goes wrong the blaming game starts , oh mate the priest or the bishop told me to do so and so ….i believe it is time we need to look at those things seriously to build a healthy community ..we have to make sure that the options which the confession father guide the confessor not to be in conflict with the options of the relevant confessor parents specially in non spiritual aspects ??!! a lot of scenarios in our real life ???!! parents have got enough problems in language gap or age gap or might be education gap etc. so we do not want more to be added to them from somewhere else …may our lord Jesus Christ guide us all to help and support one another and above all love one another , amen … please when a despert member from a community looking for a priest please make yourself available …please also if you are following a topic for any person please as a matter of courtesy feed back to them …we must practice what we preach !!!???

By: Romani sergyos

Romani sergyos — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:26:23 +0000

I read in our current church site about an initiated course for newly married couples to be run in our church …i believe now we started to face the great challenges facing our church and our Australian Coptic Community in this part of the world ..i believe a big revolution in its way in our attitude and way of doing the right thing ……it is great to do the right thing through the right people and right channels ..i believe if our priests as front line spiritual leaders from the whole parish attend as well the benefit will be maximized …..please spread the word so couples intended to marry from other churches to attend and benefit will be maximized …prevention is better than cure …may the holy spirit guide us all to be positive and constructive TO LOOK AFTER THE OTHER AREAS so we do the right thing as Christians focusing all the time on our lord and God Jesus Christ and our great christian values and Christian meaningful way of life ,amen ..

By: tony

tony — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:23:06 +0000

Pray for me Abouna,

I thought you might like the following quotes

On the selfishness of materialism,

“We are survival machines- robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. Our genes made us. We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than throwaway survival machines. The world of the selfish gene is one of savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit.”- River Out of Eden: a Darwanian View of Life. Richard Darwkins.

“It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us. ” (Stephen Hawkings, A Brief History of Time)

“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.” (Arno Penzias, Nobel Prize Winner, proved Big Bang Theory by discovering background radiation- “a fossil of the past”)

“The mathematical probability of God’s existence is just over 62%. So says a German science magazine. P.M. (Peter Mooseleitner’s Magazin) tried to settle the issue by using mathematical formulae devised to determine the plausibility and probability. Researchers started with the hypothesis ‘God exists’ then tried to analyse the evidence in favour or agaisnt the hypothesis in five areas: creation, evolution, good, evil and religious experiences. The scientists applied the formulae to calculate how statistically probable different answers were to questions such as ‘How probable is it that the evolution of life took place without God?’ and ‘How probable is it that God created the Universe?’ Their conclusion will be cheering to many, although not, perhaps, Richard Darwkins.”

(All quotes were found in The Dawkins Letters- David Robertson; a book I highly recommend. It is a faith-affirming book that is quite well written by a Presbyterian, wide-read, science-literate, English pastor- in my opinion.)

By: Romani sergyos

Romani sergyos — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:24:05 +0000

Dear father and alll….great and in real depth thoughts…. forgive me father just let us look at the big picture of Christianity in our world today …let us put all the above mentioned facts of current Christians and Christianity in one side of the coin and let us look at the other side of the coin in that big picture !! in the other side of the coin which i believe it is factual as well that a lot of people with different believes they come to Jesus every day … today heaps of people enter Christianity on daily basis ..so the bottom line in that big picture that those who are those who are already inside the green paddocks of God are struggling to last to the end and inherit eternal life while those who are coming from other believes into the green paddocks of the Lord on daily basis are determined to last long till the end to inherit eternal life , they found the real meaningful God …truly as our lord said in his great news the bible that FIRST WILL BE LAST AND LAST WILL BE FIRST … WHO LAST TO THE END INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE …THE NEED ONLY FOR ONE AND ONLY ONE !!!! anyhow in our church in this part of the world , atheism might be one of those underlined causes , might be our identity ” cultural war ” with consequences of lack of love , lack of trust , lack of acceptance , lack of interest etc. but i believe at the end of the day ,it comes under the big umbrella of ATTITUDE AND OUR WAY OF LIFE AS CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WITH CHRISTIAN MEANINGFUL VALUES …may the holy spirit guide us all and strengthen us to last to the end and inherit eternal life amen …