Animated films have taken out the top two prizes in the Ignite Film Festival, Sydneys premier Christian film competition. More than a thousand people packed Sydneys Town Hall to see the finalists in eight categories, including drama, science fiction, musical and documentary. Entrants were challenged to take one of Jesus parables and translate it to the big screen.

When a recent meeting took place between Indian Hindus in Fiji and eight Christians from Richmond, it was the start of an unlikely friendship built on a mutual love for Christ. In September a group from St Peters, Richmond embarked on a mission trip to Fiji to work with missionary couple Frank and Robyn Hawkes at an Indian Baptist church near the capital, Suva. The team shared the Matthias Media gospel presentation Two Ways to Live with the local Indian minority.

The following is a web-log contributed by Sarita England, a committed Christian heading off to Africa to get a first hand view of the Kingdom work being carried out in some of the most difficult conditions on earth.

An Illawarrra prayer group that began as a single-room affair is preparing to celebrate 21 years of sending financial and spiritual support to missionaries. Six Church Missionary Society supporters formed the core of the group in the early 1980s, starting their meeting in the Bishop of Wollongongs offices. The group has now grown to almost 60 people traveling from as far afield as Woonona in the north, to Gerringong in the south.

The New South Wales governor has cut the ribbon on a school facility that preserves Sydneys colonial past while providing Anglican students room to develop their future. Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir was special guest at the opening ceremony of Danebank Schools new technology and design centre, the Terraces.

Anglicare, one of Sydneys leading nursing home providers is calling on the federal government to rethink a funding policy that it says is driving many charity-run facilities to the brink of destruction. ANZ bank analysts estimate the governments current Aged Care policy contains a three billion dollar black hole when it comes to funding for the nursing home sector over the next ten years.

A school teacher turned minister is finding the challenges of working in Sydneys Hills district a test of his sense of humour as well as his evangelistic skills. The Rev Dane Courtney, rector of Quakers Hill Anglican has had to deal with past-life royalty and Russian language problems, as well as the usual trials of a parish minister.

Alain de Botton has made a career out of contemplating the dilemmas of everyday life with the aid of philosophy. His The Consolations of Philosophy was a self-help book for people who cant stand self-help books, taking the agonies of Neitzche and the outpourings of Schopanhauer and applying them to our financial troubles or lack of friends. De Botton does all this with a pleasant and reassuring style not lacking in the self-deprecatory humour that an Anthony Robbins or a Steve Covey couldnt even begin to understand.