I am looking very seriously at ditching the landline in favour of a VOIP service. With cable internet we are not at all bound to Telstra so $9.95 / mth sounds a hell of a lot nicer than $100.00.
My concern is for line quality but I reckon its an experiment worth trying!
This mob watch boston strangler the untold story in divx look worth a try and if we get enough local folks its gets real cheap.
Any wisdom from others out there?
Thanks to Scott for this great quote from a great man!
“…These missionary experiments have until recently left untouched the position of the local congregation as the definitive form of the church, the place where the word is preached, the sacraments dispensed, and Godly discipline administered. These other activities have been seen as rather unecclesiastical or at best para-ecclesiastical activities which were the outworks of the church rather than its main structure, the scouting parties rather than the main column.
…We must ask, ‘is the church only truly the church when it is in camp, and not when it is on the march? Is mission not as truly churchly as congregation? Are these goings forth, these self-emptyings, these fallings into the ground, not as truly of the life of the church as the settled local congregation? Should these not also have at their heart the ministry, the word and the sacraments as truly and fully as the other? When we use the word ecclesiastical only for the settled and not for the experimental, only for the congregational and not for the apostolic, are we faithful to the bible? Or are we putting the traditions of men in place of the word of God?”
Mark Wilson sent me a text today letting me know the local Whitford Church have had a fairly significant write up in Australian newspaper.
A very positive article indeed.
The Australian has been giving Christianity a bit of airtime lately. Last week’s ‘Cool to be Christian’ download secret life of bees the dvd
article was interesting (even if the idea did make me want to puke).
Tonight at our Upstream meeting we each have to share something of significance to us , in regard to the Christmas story. Today I was spending some time reading and reflecting on Mary – just an ordinary girl who God chose as the mother of his son. What was it like for Mary?…
Just a Girl”
I wonder”
Of all the women in Nazareth, why choose Mary to be the mother of Jesus?
14 year old Mary” just a girl” so young” so little life experience” so much to learn” was she ready for this?
And why not Josie, or Katie, or Sally or anyone for that matter?
Why Mary?
Was she an especially good girl?
Was she an especially bad girl?
Was she especially anything at all?
Or was she just a girl” a girl who had found favour with God
I wonder”
What was Mary doing on the day the angel came?
Having breakfast? Shaving her legs? Doing the ironing?
Did she have any idea that today she would meet an angel and get chosen to be the mother of the saviour of the world?
Was she ready for her world to change for ever?
It was just an ordinary day in her ordinary life
And she was just a girl”
I wonder”
What went thru her mind when the angel had gone?
Did she ask ‘why me?’ Did she wonder what her baby might look like?
Did she wonder what Joseph would say?
Or how she would explain this to her father?…
Did she begin to dream of her baby’s future? Of his wife, of grandkids of family holidays of…
Did she know?
What did it feel like to have the saviour of the world growing inside you?
And to be” just a girl?…
I wonder”
Did Mary see Joseph that night?
“An angel?!… You’re kidding” No way!… Me too” Us” Why us?…”
Did she tell her mum?
Her dad?
Did they believe her? Did they interrogate her?
Or did they dismiss her
As just a girl?…
I wonder”
As the lump started to grow, as Mary started to show”
What did people say?
What was the ‘word on the street’ about Mary and Joseph?
Did her friends share her joy or did they slowly stop coming to see her?
An unmarried mum” bad company” a liar”
“Says it wasn’t Joseph” but the Holy Spirit”
“As if?”
“Not a bad story really. No one’s used that one before!”
“But why would God pick her?”
“Its pretty tall tale””
“She’s just a girl””
I wonder”
When the time came and they were in forced into a dirty stable
Did Mary get mad at Joseph for not booking a hotel? Nine months is fair warning after all.
What did she expect at the birth of her first child?
What kind of baby would ‘the son of God’ be?
Would anyone come to congratulate her and celebrate his birth?
Would anyone bring gifts for the baby?
Who would share this moment with her and Joseph?
When the shepherds came, when the wise men came, when the word spread and his life was threatened how did it feel then to be mother to this baby, the son of God, the saviour of the world?
A tiny baby
Vulnerable
Dangerous
And her” just a girl”
I wonder”
As Mary fed the son of God at her breast, as she toilet trained the Messiah, as she played with God enfleshed and watched him grow”
Did she know that one day he would die for the sins of the world?
Did she realise that he would be branded a criminal, an agitator a rebel?
Did she have any idea that her baby would be arrested and beaten, then whipped and left on a cross to die?
Did she know about the resurrection, the coming of the spirit, the birth of the church, the spread of the Way?
Or was she just a girl?…
A girl favoured by God.
A girl trusting God.
Just a girl”
In between distractions (see photo!) I have spent much of today developing a short 5 minute talk to give at our local carols evening this Saturday night. As I browsed back over my carol’s talks from my church days I realised how unsuitable much of that stuff is for this context.
When you put on the event and people come to you – and are on your turf – you are free to say what you like – within reason. I asked permission to speak at this event (run by the local developer) as there did not seem to be any specific focus given to speaking about the significance of Christmas. They were quite happy for me to do it, but it is not a church service nor is it a church event, so the approach and the content needs to reflect that.
My hope is that the few thoughts I share will provoke people to think more about the person of Christ at this time. Ironically it involves saying very little about Jesus per se but hopefully just enough to spark some interest.
While I have spent 4 or 5 hours on this today, I imagine on the night I will ‘wing it’ and hope the ideas flow from my mouth as they have on paper today. They reckon there will be 2-3 thousand people there so hopefully it’ll be ok!
A friend suggested I just ‘preach the gospel’ and don’t worry about the flack. However I don’t think that’s gonna happen! I’m not at all worried about the flack, but ‘stun and run’ presentations often do more harm than good and my hope is to build credibility that will allow all of us to say more in the future.
Its walking a line of respect for where people are at as well as doing justice to the core message of Christmas.
So today I have sat in my study all day tinkering with ideas for this talk as well as for Sunday night at Mt Pleasant Baptist Church. As of this Sunday I will be preaching 10 times over the next 14 weeks – something I wasn’t seeking (I try to limit myself to once a month) but some opportunities were simply too signifcant to knock back.
I am a little annoyed with myself for taking on so much, but the beauty of my life is that I can schedule less in during the week to compensate… Gonna be doing some compensating…
Its that post-holiday feeling.
So many things to do… so little motivation.indian in the cupboard the dvd download
Holiday world is great but sooner or later you have to come back to real life.
I am hitting the ground slowly.
The time away consisted of 5 days of holiday followed by 6 days of work and then another 5 of holiday. It was nice, but if you live in WA you’d know its been one of the coldest starts to summer we have had in a looong time.
Unfortunately for us we were in Albany during the cold patch – one of the southern most parts of WA – and it was like winter almost every day. Warm clothes, icy winds and grey skies were the order of the day just about every day. The temperature averaged 20, but the wind chill factor was much higher, which made going outside a little less appealing.
It meant I did a fair bit more reading than I had hoped to, but nowhere near as much getting out in the ocean.
Now its back to ‘real life’ again… people to see and things to do… It takes a while for the brain to adjust to the different pace.
On a positive note I reckon the Mindarie Boat Ramp is about a week away from re-opening! Yeeha! At last we’ll be able to get back out in the water locally.ghost ship download free
