open icon
baptist church
baptist church
Preacher: Alison Sampson
At Open Icon Baptist Church, we value great preaching — preaching that engages deeply, humbly and honestly with Jesus, the Bible, and the pain and joy of living in the real world. And since going permanently online, we have been able to welcome great preachers from all over the world without having to wait for them to visit our shores. Click here to meet the inspirational preachers depicted in the gallery above, none of whom have preached for us!
Alison Sampson
Alison Sampson is an ordained Baptist pastor, a preacher, a writer, a dreamer, and a frequent maker of soup. After many years as a member and then a pastor of our church, then known as South Yarra Community Baptist Church, in 2016 she moved to Warrnambool to set up and pastor Sanctuary Baptist Church. There, queer, neurodivergent and questioning folk found a home and assumptions about church were exploded. After returning to Melbourne in 2024, she became part of the ministry team at Manningham Uniting Church. Alison is passionate about communicating with diverse people, facilitating encounters with the Spirit through Word, ritual, conversation and prayer, encouraging others in their ministry, and sanctifying every area of life.
Sermons by Alison Sampson
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15 October, 2023
Even in the midst of our worst troubles, uniting with God brings purpose and joy (which is not the same as mere happiness), and joy is an antidote to fear.
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2 July, 2023
The usual interpretation of the binding of Isaac is that God requires us to sacrifice everything, even, if asked, our own children. But could a contextual awareness reveal a more life-giving reading?
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17 July, 2022
Inviting Christ into your dwelling means being renovated from the inside out.
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24 December, 2018
Preacher: Alison Sampson
Scripture: Luke
It is not from the halls of power but from humble places that the love which offers wholeness and healing and peace erupts into life.
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3 December, 2017
Preacher: Alison Sampson
Topic: Children, Church, Hospitality, Mission, Worship
Scripture: 1 Corinthians
Stories of life, worship and ministry from the new church we have helped to plant in Warrnambool, where more than half of the congregation are children.
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12 June, 2016
When we offer hospitality to, and accept hospitality from, anyone who comes – every sinner, wretch, reprobate, and wicked woman – we will encounter Christ and experience forgiveness.
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17 April, 2016
There is no more waiting; there is no more longing. The wait is over. Jesus is alive, and he lives in all those who hear his voice and follow him.
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13 March, 2016
Preacher: Alison Sampson
Topic: Abundance, Gratitude, Love, Resurrection
Scripture: John, Philippians
Because of God’s abundance, God’s never-ending supply of extravagant and eternal generosity, we are raised out of death and into God’s life: a life of gratitude, of loving, of belonging, out of which flows a life of service and a burning desire to participate in God’s passionate concern for the world.
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28 February, 2016
Our lives are gift: a gift from abundance, a gift to be shared, a gift given for the life of the world, a gift we can give away because we are confident that the eternal source of life, the God who promises healing and freedom, will always replenish us.
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7 February, 2016
Jesus calls us in a new direction, full of strangers and dangers and turmoil and wonder. And in that vision of a new way, a new future leaping with silvery hope, we will find the courage to leave everything.
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17 January, 2016
It is as members of the body that you are given the gifts that are needed for this body to serve in this time and this place.
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3 January, 2016
Jesus came into the world to fill us with new life, and encourage us, and show us how to grow, so if we remain focussed on the light, letting it shine into our areas of darkness, then darkness will never have the last word.
