Words from the streets of Kings Cross and Bondi Beach

About Jon Owen
I am the Pastor and CEO of Wayside Chapel. I write with my heart wide open and my eyes looking at life. I am a philosopher, a dreamer, a tower of weakness, a leader and a follower, a husband and a father and I hope to give you a flavour of life by the wayside.

Where Love and Sadness Collide
Dear Inner Circle, Much has been done, and there is still much to do. It isn’t our job to finish all the tasks of healing

The Great Healing
Dear Inner Circle, Together the world’s population recently crossed the eight billion mark, and it would serve us well to take a moment of pause

Joy In The Free Fall
Dear Inner Circle, It is quite a sight to behold – the sheer amount of planning that goes into putting together our Christmas Day Street

All Of This Is Us
Dear Inner Circle, In the eighties and nineties many in our community were living through the time when HIV/AIDS first arrived at our shores. There

A Table Somewhere
Dear Inner Circle, As soon as November 1st rolls around, I’m asked the same question, in a thousand different ways – “Will the Christmas Day

Lend Your Voice
Dear Inner Circle, In one of the less divine ironies of having three musically-talented siblings who can sing exotic, soul-stirring harmonies (replete with matching names

Artefacts of the Future
Dear Inner Circle, Wayside’s mission is built on the observation that people are lonely – not the kind of loneliness that is simply lack of

All that’s underneath
Dear Inner Circle, In an act of desperation to save his son from a summer of obsolescence after completing year 12, my father decided which

Being Response-able
Dear Inner Circle, If the smallest human unit is two rather than one, then perhaps one of the reasons western society renders us as lonely

In the margins
Dear Inner Circle, It is lovely when the sun sneaks a way through the seemingly ever-present clouds above us, bringing joy to those who have