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Welcome to Hurstville New Church!

One of the most common questions we get is "What is the New Church?" To start with, it is its own denomination that is based on the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. If you've never heard of him, you're not alone. He was an 18th century genius, basically the Leonardo daVinci of Sweden. He was raised a Lutheran, but in his 50s had a spiritual awakening, realizing that much of what he knew to be true was in fact not true. Through the rest of his life he wrote 34 volumes of books detailing how God is to be understood, and standing against Biblical literalism to show that the Bible stories are in fact a metaphor or allegory for our life. While most of the events actually did happen, the Bible is written from the perspective of the author, which enables us to relate to the plight of the people involved.

However, what really separates the New Church from other religious groups is our understanding of God. We believe that there is only one God and He is known by many names to the religions of the world. All religions lead to God, but what makes Christianity special is the belief that Jesus was the human incarnation of the one true God. Swedenborg makes the point that believing in one God is essential to our lives, because if we split Him into a trinity of persons we come up with all kinds of errors about His true nature.

Take this for example: traditional Christianity says that Jesus had to come to Earth to appease an angry Father. The Father needed "justice" for the sins of humanity, and it was only Jesus' sacrifice that could bring it. By contrast, Swedenborg says that God loves all people, is never angry, and certainly does not need a blood sacrifice. More to the point though, if Jesus IS God, it shows that He came to us out of pure love, and not to satisfy the needs of an angry father. If we see God in this way, you'll find that is has a transforming effect on how you see the world around you.

Please take a look at the video below, or at our Media page to see a quick description of our weekly messages, and see if anything calls to you...or just click around through our site. Of course we'd love it if you attended one of our worship services, Bible studies or events! We'll do our best to make you feel right at home.

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Events

Discussion/Class -Why the Jesus was Born on this Earth 11am, December 14th.

Unlike Big W, Kmart and every other retail store, we’re not really kicking off the Christmas season until December 14th, with a class on “Why the Lord was Born on this Earth.” I’ve given classes before on the timing of the advent, as well as why the Lord was born, but this year I am going to focus on the teachings around why was He born on this world in particular. I think there are some distinctive New Church teachings on this, and what I find particularly interesting about it is that a lot of the teachings on this topic come from “Earths in the Universe.” Considering that I started 2023 with a presentation at the virtual retreat on the subject of aliens, and I wrote about them in last month’s newsletter, having reference to EU in the final class of the year seems like a nice tie-in to the unintentional theme of the year.


As usual, this will be available via YouTube and Zoom, and we’ll have a potluck lunch afterwards. I hope you can join in!

Discussion/Class - November 23rd - Divine Foresight vs Human Free Will

Thursday the 23rd of November we have a class at 11am, followed by a BYO lunch at 12.

Christians often will say that God knows everything, but can He really? Does He know that a baby is going to grow up to be a criminal, and end up in hell? If so, does that mean that child was pre-destined to hell? Or does God not know if the child will choose an evil path, and therefore God doesn't know everything?

If you can't make it in person, you can join in via Zoom or the YouTube.

New YouTube Channel

We are now streaming our services from a new channel. The idea is to separate the Bible Study videos from the worship services, in hopes that it will actually increase the viewership of both. Essentially I think that people want consistency, so that's what we'll give them. We'll still be posting the links to each weeks live stream in the "Upcoming Message" section, so it will likely be a non-issue for regular viewers, but here's the link to the channel: Hurstville New Church YouTube Channel

Upcoming Message

supernatural events jesus dies
Good Friday & Easter 2024

The Tearing of the Temple Veil

First off we have a Good Friday service tomorrow(Friday!) at 7pm. In the past I usually just do a simple reading of one of the Gospels, with some music to break up the reading. This year will be similar, but different in that I will be offering some commentary at different places in the reading to give us some insight as to the deeper teachings in the story. I hope it will add to the experience, and Holy Supper will be offered as well. You can watch here: LIVESTREAM

Easter Sunday we have a 10am service. When Jesus dies, several things happen: an earthquake, splitting of rocks, and the tearing of the temple veil in two. These are not random happenings, but offer real clues to a real spiritual change that occurred. What we will see is that while this is a change for the better, it also puts more responsibility on us! You can watch here: LIVESTREAM

Please join us!

prayer request

Prayer Requests

Having a rough day, month or life? Maybe you know somebody who would benefit from a prayer? Send us your prayer requests and we will add them to our prayers!

Send prayer request

Who is Emanuel Swedenborg?

The New Church is founded on the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Watch this video to get an introduction to this not so well known yet extraordinary man.


Want to make a donation?!

You can use this Paypal button to donate. Thank you and God bless!