Thats Amore

Tonight our Young Adults connect group Pepper had our very own baker Syd show us how to make pizza’s, and let me tell you, they were fantastic! In honour of the masterful skills of Syd, plus the requests from our young adults, I have decided to put the recipe online here.

If you intend to use the dough straight away, you need to turn your oven on as soon as you start making the dough, at the highest temperature it goes. Place a pizza stone, or a terracotta tile you can pick up from a tile supplier, into the oven at the same time. This needs a good 1.5 to 2 hours to heat up before you place your pizza in the oven.

Pizza Dough

3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups water
1/4 cup virgin olive oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
12gms yeast (fresh yeast available from any good deli)
* makes around 4 pizza’s.

Put these ingredients into a mixing bowl, with the sugar & salt on one side and the yeast on the opposite side. This is to prevent the yeast from retarding, which would result in a sub standard dough. Use a mixer to mix until the dough reaches a temperature of 28.2 degrees Celsius. Set aside, covered with cling wrap for 30 to 45 minutes – dough should roughly double in size.

Divide into 4 even pieces of roughly 200 grams each, and knead out any air. Set the 4 pieces aside on a tray, covered with a damp tea towel, for 15 to 25 minutes or until dough has roughly doubled in size.

Spray some oil on a pizza tray, which helps the dough stick, and place your dough on it, gently spreading it about 2 cms. Now, pick it up, and forming a slight fist with your left hand, throw it from your right hand onto your fist in a gentle motion, enlarging it with each throw. Once it is roughly the size of your tray, or slightly smaller, place on the tray and spread it until the dough reaches all the edges. Try not to get any holes in the dough.

And that’s it! You know have the perfect pizza base on which to put your toppings. Below are the pizza’s we had last night.

Sopressa & Mozzarella Pizza

150gms napolitana sauce (home made or brought)
12 slices sopressa salami
80gms mozzarella cheese
1 tbsp olive oil

Spread the napolitana sauce over the pizza, leaving a border around the edge with no sauce. Place the sopressa salami slices over pizza and cover with the mozzarella. Brush olive oil on the edge of the pizza.

Bake until edges are a golden colour, roughly 5 to 8 minutes.

Provolone, Rocket & Tomato Pizza

80gms provolone cheese
80gms mozzarella cheese
6 cherry tomatoes (halved or whole)
Handful of rocket
50ml olive oil
1/2 lemon
Salt & pepper

Prepare the rocket in a bowl and dress with lemon, oil, salt & pepper – set aside. Sprinkle the provolone & mozzarella over the pizza, leaving a border around the edge. Brush olive oil on the edge of the pizza. Bake for 4 minutes.

Remove and add tomatoes. Bake a further 2 to 3 minutes until edges are a golden colour. Remove and add rocket to cooked pizza.

Have fun with these recipes, they really are great pizza’s. Thanks to Syd for everything tonight, we all had a great time and went away with very happy and very full bellies! Be sure to comment on how you go with the above recipes.

New Sermons Online!

After a long hiatus in uploading sermons to our podcast, we have just finished uploading 5 new sermons. Go to our media section to download them now or add our podcast feed to iTunes via this link. By adding our feed to iTunes, you will automatically be notified of when new podcasts have been uploaded!

Service Recap – 31.05.2009

Music: All to You (Lincoln Brewster), My Saviour Lives (Jon Egan), All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises (Lincoln Brewster), Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew) and Jesus Paid It All (Passion).

Message: Today we had Kestrel give a message on the Fear of God. Too often we have a muddy and foggy view on what the fear of God means. We need a healthy balance between fear and love as the two are inseparable when it comes to God. Too much fear results in a legalistic/religious view of God; whereas, too much love results in a Christian walk that is out of control/cruisey. God is the perfect father, He has the perfect balance of love and fear. Three points were:

1. Recognition: we must realise who God is.
2. Accountability: in God’s economy, we will give an account for our life.
3. Go by God’s plan: His plan is revealed in the Bible.

We were given 5 Fringe Benefits of fearing God: Psa 25:12, Psa 103:13, Prov 24:4, Psa 34:9-10 and Psa 25:14.

Highlights: Farewell tribute video for Kestrel, Skye & Dylan, everyone having lunch together as a community after the service.

Service Recap – 24.05.2009

Music: I’m not Ashamed (Hillsong), Today is the Day (Lincoln Brewster), One Way (Hillsong), Let Me Sing (Todd Fields) and How Great is our God.

Message: Today Pastor Larry was in Geelong so we had a message from Bronson entitled Two Enemies of the Gospel.  The key passage of scripture was 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

Bronson spoke about how idolatry, loving or worshipping something above God, and religion, the belief that salvation is determined by how good you are, are the enemies of the true Gospel of Jesus. Idolatry occurs when we look to someone or something else to be our saviour, from a perceived hell we fear, that causes us to make them our god and they then become our idol. Religion tries to tell us that we must obey, be good, come from a good background. It use’s God to get something and results in pride or despair.

We were challenged to put aside any idols or religious belief’s we may have and to instead rely on Jesus and his Gospel because through him, all things were completed and finished.

Highlight: The passion and zeal in which this message was delivered.

This message will be available from our media section shortly.

Next week: Kestrel will be preaching a message that is sure to inspire and grow you in your Christian walk. Make sure you join us for a farewell lunch for Kestrel, Skye & Dylan as they leave Melbourne to go start a new life in Adelaide.

Pastor’s Desk

Recently it seems that a number of doors of opportunity have opened for me to be of influence for the Kingdom of God.
1.  I was asked to attend the “National Consultation on Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century”. This is a series of meetings taking place around Australia where the project aims to work with faith communities and other civil society organisations to record their concerns and propose solutions to build a more socially cohesive and harmonious society. I represented the Christian faith among some 20 varying faith leaders of Melbourne. It was a rather interesting evening, with many concerns tabled. It was interesting to note that the Muslim, Hindi and other representatives considered Australia to be an overtly Christian nation and they were a little taken aback that my opinion was that Australia was far from being a Christian nation.

2. I have also taken the opportunity to become a Venue Chaplain for Etihad Stadium (formerly known as the Telstra Dome). This means that most weeks I’ll attend a game or event at the stadium as Chaplain for the patrons and staff. This may not be of any advantage for our local church, but it does ensure that the Kingdom of God is represented in a major attraction in our city.

3. Global Care continues to make enormous impact in the Kinglake bushfire region. On Thursdays I have been working with the many volunteers from all over Australia where I spend time with them and help them adjust to the environment that they find themselves in. Our own Syd Colyer has done his bit by assisting at the local bakery where he has been a great hit with the other hard working bakers. Good Onya Syd.

Pastor Larry Blackmore

New Website!

The first website that Melbourne West Church had lasted about 10 years.  Then, back in 2006, we updated our website to a fresher more modern look. Well, we’ve just undergone another website change and are proud to announce it here. Have a look around and tell us what you like/dislike.

On top of a new website, we are going to be posting much more frequently to this blog and will also be trying to upload recent sermons that have been preached at Melbourne West Church.

So, make sure you add our blog to your RSS reader and check the our podcast feed for updated sermons.

Service Recap - 07.09.2008

Music: Salvation is Here (Hillsong), All the earth will Sing (Lincoln Brewster), You are Good (Lincoln Brewster),

Message: Pastor Larry finalised 'The Warrior' series today with a message titled 'The Passionate Warrior'. Some key points were:

1. The warrior who abandons his cause becomes passive
2. The warrior who abandons his cause becomes abusive
3. The warrior pursuing his cause becomes consumed with passion!

The passionate warrior always has:

1. Someone to protect
2. A Kingdom to advance

This was a great series and definitely put out a challenge to Men to live life as a Passionate Warrior for God!

Highlights: We had egg and bacon muffins pre-service to celebrate Father's Day. The were simply delicious and were a hit with the Dads. The Fathers also got a Darrell Lea gift bag filled with Chocolates and Licorce!

Next week: We will be starting a new series called "Freedom!", you can check out more details here. It's bound to be a fantastic series as we go over some of the fundamentals of Christianity.

Service Recap - 17.08.2008

Music: I'm not ashamed (Hillsong), Let the praises ring (Lincoln Brewster), God is with me (Citipointe), Jesus paid it all (Kristian Stanfill) and Awesome God (Hillsong).

Message: Today we had Gary Hourigan as guest speaker and he spoke an awesome message on 'The Power of the Gospel'.

The main theme, of Gary's message, was that we have to believe that the Father is working in the world around me, I just need to follow and watch God's reconciliation. Our job is to work with Christ, lift up our eyes and see the work that God is doing! You see the Father is already going ahead of us to prepare the way for us, we just need to believe this truth. It gives you so much freedom.

Some great scripture verses that Gary shared were: John 20:21, 2 Cor 5:18 and Luke 10:1 .

Next week: 'The Wounded Warrior' is the third part of our 'The Warrior' series and we'll be looking at this next week. Check out information on the series here.

Service Recap - 10.08.2008

Music: I'm not ashamed (Hillsong), What the world will ne ver take (Hillsong), You are good (Lincoln Brewster) and Almighty God (Tim Hughes).

Message: Pastor Larry continued with week two of our current series, The Warrior, with a message title "The Hesitant Warrior". The main scripture passage used was Judges 6:14-15, with the classic story of Gideon.

Three points were highlighted:

1. Every warrior faces fears of failure
2. When a warrior's internal fear of failure exceeds hi faith in God, he becomes hesitant
3. The warrior has what it takes

Next week: We'll be taking a break from "The Warrior" series next week as we have a guest speaker, Gary Hourigan. Gary is the National Coordinator of Church Development in COC so it is bound to be an awesome day. Make sure you get along!

Service Recap - 03.08.2008

Music: The time has come (Hillsong), God of the universe (Citipointe), For

all You've done (Hillsong), You reign (Citipointe) and Worthy is Jesus (Rhys Anderson).

Message: Pastor Larry Blackmore kicked off the first message in our 'The Warrior' series, with the title being 'The Warrior's Cause'.

The common potrayal of Jesus as being meek and mild is grossly under-estimating the incredible strength and power of the Son of God. He was a true Warrior to clean out the temple, to pass through the crowds when they wanted to stone Him and to die on the cross when He had power to consume all those before Him.

Larry made three main points to the men in the church:

1. God created you with the heart of a Warrior
2. Every Warrior has a cause to fight for
3. A Warrior without a cause to fight for will find the wrong thing to fight against

The men were then challenged as to what cause they are fighting for at the moment. Is it for their marriage? Is it for you children? Is it for your career? Is it for God?

Next week: We'll be continuing part two of the series with the title being, 'The Hesitant Warrior'. Make sure you don't miss it!