ASSEMBLE Church

What actually is the church? Not a building, not a service, not an organisation on a register. In the opening message of our Being Church series, Pastor Dom O'Connell takes us into 1 Corinthians 1 to rediscover what Paul meant when he wrote to the ekklesia — a gathered people who belong first and foremost to Jesus. Before Paul addresses a single problem in Corinth, he reminds them who they are and whose they are: sanctified in Christ, called to be holy, bought with a price. We are not our own.

On the opening night of our new home at Barmby Gate, Pastor Dom O'Connell asked a question far bigger than bricks and mortar: are you ready? Walking through God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, we discovered that God's people are called to be burden bearers, blessing receivers and blessing carriers. Abraham was told to go before he was shown where — because the destination isn't always disclosed before the obedience is required. In the same way, our church has stepped out without a map, trusting the faithfulness of the One who called us.

We love an easy read — the kind of book you take on holiday. But the Bible rarely presents itself that way. Sometimes it's hard because it challenges our opinions, and sometimes it's hard because we genuinely don't know what's going on. In this message, Pastor Sam O'Connell hands us two practical tools — parallelism and symmetrical patterning — that help us notice what the biblical authors are deliberately drawing our attention to, and pairs them with the practice of hagah: sitting with Scripture, chewing it over, and asking the Holy Spirit why.

Culture tells us to follow our hearts, trust our gut and "do you" — but how's that working out? In this message from 1 Peter 2, Pastor Dom O'Connell reminds us that Peter's letter was written to a people, not a person. God isn't building a collection of isolated individuals; He is building a spiritual household — an oikos, a dynasty — out of living stones, with Jesus as the cornerstone that every life is measured from.