Monthly Archives: January 2005

And you Thought your Family Sucked?!

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One of the challenges I have taken up this year is that of the ‘one year Bible’, reading the whole Bible thru in 12 months. It means a fair bit of reading each day and I’m not sure I’ll make it… but so far so good. I particularly like that I can read it online and make notes alongside in a word file as I sense God speaking. Although going from OT to NT to Psalms and then Proverbs is a bit tricky.

I’ve just been reading Genesis the last few days, about Jacob and Esau, the mum who loved Esau more and led him to him rip his brother off, the dad who got tricked, the family feud that followed and that brought years of anguish.

Then there was that jerk Laban who screwed Jacob over with Leah and then another 7 years of work before giving him Rachel. Laban is a nasty character all round only concerned with himself.

Then of course there’s the rape of Dinah followed by the slaughter of the Caananite men after they have all been under the knife and lobbed the ends of their willies. I like the clever way Jacob got them all laid up before finishing them off!

But its not a pretty story – the Bible is full of mess and crap and well… real life. If I were still a preacher I reckon I’d be firing up some thoughts on ‘life in a family’. There is plnety there!

So much crap happens in families that no one ever knows about and because they are family you can’t just dump and run.

Anyway… I’m not a preacher so I’ll just rant on here instead!

Flawed Dream?

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It struck me again today that what we are seeking to achieve is nothing short of ludicrous; those of us who dream of building communities of passionate Jesus following disciples.

I mean that.

What makes anyone think that a bunch of people who are fairly content with their lives and who are moving ‘up in the world’ might want to make that a secondary priority to ‘taking up their cross daily’ and following Jesus?

Why would your average middle class suburbanite sacrifice the pleasures and self gratification of life as they know it to live a counter cultural life of discipleship? How do we communicate that kind of a call to people?

My ego is interested in seeing a ‘bigger church’, but I’m really quite unimpressed with just more people if we have no more disciples, no more people choosing to live life like Jesus would. I know this whole thing is a process etc etc. Blah blah blah… but some days I look at how hard it is to make disciples out of those who are in the church and I wonder how the hell are we going to make any kind of a dent on those outside…

Some days I look in the mirror and I am reminded that if I’ve been at this for 30 years and I am still struggling along then what can I expect from people who have no concept of who Christ is?

When you think about it what we are really asking people to do is to lay down all of their hopes and dreams, all of their ambitions (not just to sing about doing it) and to live a life of humility, sacrifice and ‘downward mobility’ to quote Bill Hybels. I know it doesn’t mean all pain, suffering etc, but the call to discipleship is a brutal one – a disturbing one.

I am fairly sure we could get a bunch of people coming to a ‘church service’ – the disguntleds will come from far and wide to sniff your proverbial and see if they like you better than the one down the road, but is that the start of a discipleship journey? Blah!

We don’t want to simply pick up the flotsam and jetsam that gets dropped on our doorstep from other churches. We do want to connect with ordinary Aussies who have no concept of Christ and call them to discipleship – to live lives of wild abandonment to the values of the kingdom and to reproduce that in others. We do want to see communities transformed as people live lives of devotion to Jesus and the stuff he is about.

Some days it just seems like a crazy dream… nothing more… can it really happen?…

Here’s what Jesus had to say…

Matt 10: 39 If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.

Do we believe that?

Maybe this time?…

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After my previous attempts at trying to fix the keyway on my landcruiser crank with devcon (plastic steel) I was at the point of ‘nothing to lose’ so I spoke to my mate Graeme about welding.

He is a machinist by trade and offered to come up and have a bit of a crack at it. I think we may have got it this time…

At first we were just going to weld the key in place, but Mase reckoned we could try and build up the crank so the key could still be removed.

It involved laying some weld along the damaged key way, grinding back, more weld, more grind and finishing off with a dremel.

The final result was really encouraging. I think we may have done it…

The key slotted in snugly, the balancer went back on and with loctite everywhere it will hopefully not need to come off for quite a while.

Here’s a few pics in case you ever find yourself in a similar dilemma

1. The damage 2. Progress 3. Finished

Crank1_1

Inprogress

Finished_1

Now I have to say that Mase is not a ‘she’ll be right’ kinda guy (unlike me) so I reckon we have a pretty good chance of seeing this one stay together for a while…

I have no idea why the pics don’t line up… (click on them to see them a decent size)

Give the Guy a Break!

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One topic I normally veer well away from is that of the royals. I’d be happy if their corgies turned into sharks and ate the lot of them.

But…Prince Harry is copping a royal hiding for wearing a nazi swastika to a party and its ridiculous. He’s 20 years old, he’s a bloke growing up, expressing himself, having a laugh etc.

Along the way he’ll make some mistakes – I think he would see this as one. But give him a break. Would anyone give a hoot if he wasn’t a royal?

‘Fur’st Impressions

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I recently finished ‘The Fur’ by Nathan Hobby, a young west ozzie who has done pretty well for himself by winning the TAG Hungerford lit prize.

In a past life I was an English teacher and aspiring writer (may still get it done one day…) so I am always keen to read the work of others, particularly those whose spirituality is given expression in their work. I never been much for classics and even less for trash, but I think I can detect decent writing from crap. Hobby’s stuff is definitely in the decent category, but certainly not in the same league as Winton – not yet.

Its probably a bit of an unfair comparison, but having just read Winton’s latest book, and seeing him as the guru of writing he is my benchmark! I was partly drawn to reading The Fur because of an interview in the Baptist Advocate (West Aus Newspaper) which discussed his work. It spoke of him originating from the south west town of Collie and being a member of Collie Baptist – a fairly conservative church if I hear right.

As a novel its a story of West Aus when it has been overrun by a mould like substance which he calls ‘fur’. The west aussies are quarantined from the rest of the country and also from some of their wealthy Western suburb neighbours (who are referred to thru-out as ‘the wealth’.) The main character is Michael whose mum gets killed by the fur when it wipes out her internals – nice…

Michael is a young guy who is just finishing year 12, moving to Perth to Uni, wanting to be a writer and also exploring his faith and sexuality. I liked the depiction of Michael as he moved from died in the wool fundamentalist to a more astute thinker and as he came to grips with the greying of the world.

It reads very autobiographical – kinda like Hobby was keeping a journal as he went thru year 12 and just wrote down what happened. That said I’m sure he has used his own experience to shape a character without it being him completely.

I probably wouldn’t have picked it up had I not shared some common ground as a recovering fundamentalist, but I’ll be interested to see what else he puts out. Its worth a read if you are interested in local talent.

Frontyard Remembering

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As you may already know little Johhny has declared this Sunday a national day of mourning for the tsunami victims.

I know it has impacted people round here fairly significantly so we have arranged for a remembrance event at our place for our church community, our friends and neighbours.

It was as I was thinking of who to invite that I realised how many people we have got to know in the last year or so. I think we finished up inviting around 15 families, who would not see themselves as part of our church community to join us, and so far about 8 have said they will be there. One of them is the tow truck driver who brought me home when the cruiser carked it and another the mobile mechanic who has helped me work on it. Its great to see how networks form as we get to know each other and live closeby.

Add 4 families from church and a few of their friends and it’ll be a big gig…

download ramen girl the online

The plan is pretty simple :

– eat and drink from 5.30-7.30

– have a short reflective time from 7.30 to 8.00 at the latest. This will involve an ‘imagine’ experience, perhaps question raising, prayer, a short thought from yours truly and anything anyone wants to contribute.

– an opportunity to reflect some more at a space we will create in our backyard with a looping PP pres with ‘God Weeps Too’ as audio, and various prayers on the wall – hope, confusion, anger, consolation. People will be invited to pray the prayer that fits with where they are at and then to light a candle etc etc. This will be a purely optional thing, but my guess is that many will at least explore it.

I am hoping that we will create a space and place for all in the community who want to, to come and do something meaningful and signifcant to remember the tragedy that has been.

Off and Walking…

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The last two days have been spent praying, thinking and deciding where my time will be spent this year.

I found it frustrating yesterday just trying to get focussed and assess my life and the year ahead. I just wanted to get up and meet with someone, tee some activities up, get something happening. It is such a temptation just to be an activist, but I know in my head that I am doing good stuff taking time now to reflect and decide where to invest energy rather than simply running full steam ahead.

Yesterday was difficult – overwhelming – swamping – today I think I am getting a bit of a handle on some of the year’s priorities and main projects and how I will aproach them.

A few years ago I moved away from pure goal setting to compiling a personal development plan. It involved goal setting, but was more holistic in its sweep.

Last year I ‘ran on instinct’ with no deliberate planning to keep me focused. I had a few primary objectives and I think for the most part I got there.

But as a person who values achievement highly I really don’t find much joy in ambling thru life. I want to make the most of it, accomplish as much as I can etc. So its back to being my old self a bit this year.

Plan – work – evaluate – plan – work – evaluate.

I sense part of why I was so loose last year was that in a year of mess and transition it was hard to develop any regular disciplines. When my disciplines are good I find my life ticks along well. When my disciplines are poor I invariably feel like I am coasting.

Now I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, nor should it be. But here’s hoping that this year will be a year of doing what I sense God calling me to do. Not just stumbling along and hoping for the best!

Back Into It

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Well, three weeks of holiday was definitely enough!

I never thought I’d say that, but I am well and truly ready to get going on all that 2005 holds. I am used to taking two week breaks and not feeling like I have had enough rest. It seems week one is wind down, week two is enjoy and then suddenly its ‘crash bang’ back into it.

The extra week in a 3 week stint is good for winding down that extra bit so you actually want to get back into it.

"Getting back into it" looks a little different for me to most folks though. It means I stroll from the bedroom into my office and sit at the computer for a while catching up on the emails I have let slide for a few weeks.

One of my priorities for this week is some relfective time, looking at priorities and organisation for the year ahead.

Again this year I wear three ‘paid’ hats:

– Brighton mission team leader

– Forge WA Director

– Youth Ministry Coach for the Baptist churches

The challenge will be to keep immersed in the local community as the last two roles take me out of the community for periods. I have managed to offload 3 interstate trips this year and now only travel east 4 times. But with the odd country trip as a youth min coach I do still need to keep things in balance.

Anyway, its good to feel like I want to get back to work and get things rolling, so I might finish morning tea now and get back into it.

Some days its fun being your own boss 🙂