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Logo of the Open Icon Baptist Church featuring a stylised bread and cup over a faded icon of the Trinity
members’ section
open icon baptist church
  • Home
  • Church Life
    • Notices
    • Calendar
    • Church Camp
    • Decisions & Governance
    • Participants’ Guide
  • Worship & Prayer
  • Sermons
  • Music
  • Cloud of Voices
Logo of the Open Icon Baptist Church featuring a stylised bread and cup over a faded icon of the Trinity
members’ section
open icon baptist church
  • Home
  • Church Life
    • Notices
    • Calendar
    • Church Camp
    • Decisions & Governance
    • Participants’ Guide
  • Worship & Prayer
  • Sermons
  • Music
  • Cloud of Voices

Sermons

  • Out Standing in My Field

    12 July, 2026

    Out Standing in My Field

    Preacher: Craig Bartlett

    Topic: addiction and grief, generous sowing, Indigenous reconciliation, open table, parable of the sower, Red Road, rural ministry, Sun Dance

    Scripture: Matthew

    Sowing without sorting the soil first: reckless, generous welcome amid addiction, loss, and quiet hope.

  • Two Necks, One Yoke

    5 July, 2026

    Two Necks, One Yoke

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: inclusion and exclusion, Reconciliation, rest, scapegoating, Tribalism, truth-telling, yoke of Christ

    Scripture: Matthew, Romans

    Being “inclusive” doesn’t end the old habit of exclusion – it just relocates it. Jesus offers a different yoke instead.

  • Gotta Serve Somebody

    28 June, 2026

    Gotta Serve Somebody

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: Abraham and Isaac, child sacrifice, fear and religion, law and grace, populism, scapegoating, slavery metaphor

    Scripture: Genesis

    Fear-driven religion and fear-driven politics run on the same engine. Paul knew it. Abraham discovered it. Grace is the only thing that breaks the cycle.

  • Faith is not a thing of the mind

    7 June, 2026

    Faith is not a thing of the mind

    Preacher: Aksel Lund

    Topic: eucharist, Faith, Grace, Healing, inclusion

    Scripture: Matthew

    Faith is not a mental exercise — it’s the reaching, grasping, hoping of beggars who trust that God’s grace will prevail.

  • Our Invitation into the Trinity

    31 May, 2026

    Our Invitation into the Trinity

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: belonging, church identity, Hospitality, image of God, Reconciliation, Trinity

    Scripture: Genesis, Matthew

    An ancient icon of the Trinity shows us a table of radical hospitality — and calls us not just to sit at it, but to become it.

  • What Spirit Are You Drinking?

    24 May, 2026

    What Spirit Are You Drinking?

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: consumerism, eucharist, Feast of Tabernacles, Holy Spirit, living water, nationalism, paraclete, Pentecost, thirst and longing

    Scripture: John

    Jesus offers living water to a world sold counterfeit spirits — but bad experiences with cheap substitutes needn’t put us off the real thing.

  • Still Staring at the Sky

    14 May, 2026

    Still Staring at the Sky

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: Ascension, change and loss, church identity, Community, Holy Spirit, liminal space, multilingual worship, Pentecost

    Scripture: Acts

    When everything familiar has gone and the new thing hasn’t arrived yet, the disciples’ upper room is closer to home than we might think.

  • Findable: Faith Across Traditions

    10 May, 2026

    Findable: Faith Across Traditions

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: Evangelism, fasting, interfaith, Islam, Paul in Athens, Ramadan, Reconciliation, religious diversity, spiritual formation

    Scripture: Acts

    Paul in Athens, a Muslim Uber driver, and a Georgian bishop walk into a sermon — and together reframe what Christian interfaith encounter could look like.

  • What God Actually Looks Like

    3 May, 2026

    What God Actually Looks Like

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: Christian nationalism, Forgiveness, Girard, image of God, Indigenous Australia, mimetic theory, nonviolence, retribution, Trinity

    Scripture: Acts, John

    Philip asked Jesus to show him God. The answer dismantles centuries of angry-God theology — and exposes the retributive impulse hiding in all of us.

  • The Gate That Stands Open

    26 April, 2026

    The Gate That Stands Open

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: abundant life, icon theology, immigration, Israel-Palestine, security, sovereign citizens

    Scripture: 1 Peter, John

    Jesus came that we might have life in abundance — but abundant life can’t be hoarded. The moment we try to secure it for ourselves at others’ expense, it stops being life at all.

  • What Were You Expecting?

    19 April, 2026

    What Were You Expecting?

    Preacher: Nathan Nettleton

    Topic: Forgiveness, Resurrection

    Scripture: Acts

    When the executed one comes back, everyone expects retribution. The shock of resurrection is that he doesn’t.

  • Both Feet on the Ground, and One Eye on Forever

    12 April, 2026

    Both Feet on the Ground, and One Eye on Forever

    Preacher: Geoff Leslie

    Topic: Justice, Land and faith, Resurrection, Vocation

    Scripture: 1 & 2 Peter, Psalms

    Psalm 16 began as a farmer’s prayer about good land and steady faith — and became something bigger without leaving the earth behind.

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Open Icon Baptist Church is an inclusive, contemplative congregation of dedicated Jesus-followers, weaving ancient and modern spiritual practices into warmly participatory online Sunday liturgical worship and daily prayer. Based in Melbourne, Australia, but now with members far and wide.

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Open Icon Baptist Church acknowledges that we live on unceded Aboriginal lands, many of us on the lands of the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri peoples. We express our gratitude at the sharing of this land; our sorrow for the personal, spiritual, and cultural cost of that sharing; and the hope that we may walk together in harmony in the spirit of reconciliation.

Open Icon Baptist Church is affiliated with both the Open Baptists and the Baptist Union of Victoria.


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