Monthly Archives: February 2006

The fun begins

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This week I am off for a few days on a retreat with .acom november son divx download as a Spiritual Formation Director. Scott asked me to replace him, so I will be working with a small group of students trying to help them keep growing in their connection with God. I reckon it’ll be a great experience and am looking forward to it.

The next 2 months see me coming and going quite a bit, not something I am all that excited about, but something that in many ways is unavoidable. We have a Forge National team meeting in Melbourne, an SU conference in Brisbane, Danelle and I take a 5 day trip to Melbourne for our 15th wedding anniversary and then the week after we get back some really good friends fly in from Thailand and we take them away for 6 or 7 days.

I am supposed to do a youth ministry coaching trip a couple of weeks later, and then have 3 weeks holidays a fortnight after that. I doubt either of those things will happen as planned! Right now the calendar is in need of some re-gigging if I am to actually spend some significant time here in Brighton between March and May.

If we didn’t see our primary calling as that of being missionaries then the travel would be no drama – just a great way to spend life – but because we are serious about being based in Brighton for a large slab of the year, the current schedule has my warning lights flashing.

Sometimes stuff is unavoidable. That’s the nature of life. Sometimes you hit these patches. I’ll be enjoying it but also wanting to be home… an interesting tension.

Learning Jonah

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At our Upstream meetings on Monday nights we have just started looking at the book of Jonah – a great book about a grumpy prophet.

We did some overview stuff the first week and then last week we picked up on chapter 1.

Jenny led us in a time of worship that was simple, creative and engaging and then it was my turn to lead us thru chapter 1.

For those seeking ideas for how to help people learn here’s what we did on the night. Again its very simple but it gets people learning in different ways:

1. Read chapter

2. Whiteboard our observations and questions with no discussion. This took about 15 minutes and produced some really good insights.

3. Split into 3 groups for different learning experiences. The learning experiences focused on different learning styles. I was tempted to offer people a choice of where to go and what to do, but in the end I didn’t. Some forms of learning are a little more intimidating than others, but people also need to be encouraged to stretch their brains!

So the three activities were these:

a) You are preaching this weekend in a normal church and you must use Jonah Chapter 1 as your base point. As preparation you need to answer these questions:

What do I want them to know? (There must be 3 points! )

What do I want them to feel?

What do I want them to do?

Discuss this as a group and then come back ready to share your thoughts.

This one is good for the analytical types – left brain Baptists.

b) Each person is to draw an icon that represents what they believe to be the essence of chapter 1. Do this alone first and then share your icons with the rest of the group. From there either choose one icon that you all feel is most symbolic of the chapter or construct a new one using the insights from the first attempts. Share this with the bigger group when we re-group.

Here the creatives / intuitive right brainers can have some fun.

c) Reflecting on personal experience – where does this story intersect with your own story either currently or in the past?

As you share your stories note down what you learn either from your own story or from someone else’s – only one ‘learning’ per story/person.

Come and share the 3 or 4 learnings

Here the more relational folks can come alive

We each did the activity which took around 20 minutes – but could have taken longer and then returned to share what we had learnt as groups.

It wasn’t the greatest night we have ever had, and in hindsight if I had more time I would probably give all three assignments to each group as it would help them work thru the text more rigourously.

Still – live and learn!

Opinions and Orifices

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(I accidentally published the half finished version of this post this morning and then got to work and realised it made no sense!)

When it came to having an opinion a friend once said to me “Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone’s got one but no-one wants to see yours.”

I wasn’t the least bit interested in the Danish cartoon saga until it suddenly became news. Now I have searched for and viewed the cartoons. Ho hum… Such is life in a country where freedom of speech is normal and we regularly poke fun (and enjoy it) at sacred cows.

Jonny Baker summarised the tangled issues as ‘freedom of speech | blasphemy | deliberate provocation | embarassment to muslims | legitimate outrage’

Matt (a gifted Aussie cartoonist) is surprisingly surprised at the power of cartoons. I think cartooning is a wonderfully subversive mode of critique and a good cartoonist is a treasure – think Leunig (although I don’t always ‘get’ him)

So if you want to ‘see my butt’ read on… I have a few opinions:

I am not for persecuting or ridiculing people of other faiths, but I am for freedom of speech, and if a situation warrants a bit of jest then so be it.

Perhaps it wasn’t real smart to publish the images… however in a reasonable world (as I view it thru my lens) we ought to be able to cop stuff like that on the chin.

The extremist response and its spin offs have been appalling and done nothing for any kind of healing relationship. In many ways the cartoons are now more widely viewed than ever before and the whole muslim cause (at least in the west) has been more discredited than ever by the nonsense.

Now we have people over here making decisions about what we will and won’t publish partly from a desire for good relations and partly from fear of reprisals. Are we being wise and discerning or are giving in to extremists? Even if the average garden variety muslim is offended I don’t believe that ought to stop their publication. Its not that I am wanting to offend, but rather that I believe we need to be consistent with what we are prepared to publish. I’m sure the SMH wouldn’t bat an eyelid at pulling the piss out of Jesus on Easter.

It is very much a clash of cultures and worldviews. I fully admit that I am unable to view the world as a muslim and hence make good sense of their response. But even so from where I do sit it looks like it is out of all proportion.

Saint has plenty to say on the whole issue if you are interested. Funnily enough I notice many people are avoiding giving opinions.

Anyway there are my opinions… Maybe the saying is true!

Names for Church Plants

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Mark Driscoll writes:

One of the toughest parts of planting a church is coming up with a good name. So, in an effort to help young church planters find the perfect name for their church I have composed the simple chart below. It follows the marketing “Rule of Three” which states that for something to be truly memorable it must have three parts. Therefore, all a young church planter needs to do is choose one word from each list to arrive at just the perfect church name. In conclusion, you’re welcome.

I think this is tongue in cheek!…

If not then here are some names that I came up with from Mark’s chart:

Shekinah Outreach Tabernacle

Overcomers Miracle Headquarters

Triumphant Bible Compound

Glory Dominion Centre

Anyway I hope it was funny because it made me grin 🙂

Down Tools

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What I love about my life at the moment is the autonomy/flexibilty that goes with what I do. I work pretty hard, but I get to do it in my time and in my way.

At 2.00pm today the temperature was up around the 37 degree mark and by that point I hadn’t done any exercise so it was a perfect time to head out for a swim.

I have been swimming along the beach for the last couple of weeks as a way of staying fit, now that my knee is almost cactus.

Today I hopped in the landy and bashed my way thru the tracks to a private beach just north of where we live – private enough for an old guy to be walking along it in the nuddy.

It was one of those days when the ocean is dead flat and deep blue/green – beautiful! I am not a big fan of swimming as I tend to get bored looking at black lines in swimming pools, but the ocean is always a bit different.

Today I swam out about 200 metres until I was over the rocky bottom and then swam a kilometre north from there. It was really nice being able to observe all that was going on below and to see the changing ocean bottom – much more interesting than a swimming pool.

Occasionally I worry as I swim along. What if I get a cramp? What if I start to get pulled out to sea and couldn’t get back in? If anything went wrong, I’d be stuffed. There is no one around for miles!

I guess that’s the risk of swimming alone in the ocean away from the crowds, but its a risk I’m happy to take for the enjoyment it brings. Gotta love a blue ocean on a hot day!

Jack

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Last night the ABC’s Compass program showed a brilliant story love potion no 9 download on the life and faith of CS Lewis – or ‘Jack’ as he is known.

I imagine it would be hard to capture the spirit of Lewis in a doco type show, but these guys did him proud. It was in story form with an actor playing Lewis as he narrated his own life. They did well to capture that amazing mix of razor sharp logic, wonderful creativity, agonising honesty and perpetual questioning that has made Lewis one my heroes.

Thanks God for Jack.

If you missed last night’s show then you can see it repeated again this Saturday.

$504.00 sends an atheist to church

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Recently an atheist put himself on e-bay stating that he would go to church with an open mind if people bid on his auction.

Well… he got $504.00 for his trouble. Not a bad deal really… Maybe if I put myself on as a Christian willing to go to the Mosque?…

Here is his blurb:

I’m a 22-year-old Atheist from Chicago. I stopped believing in God when I was 14. Currently, I am an active volunteer for a couple different national, secular organizations. For one of them, I am the editor of a newsletter that reaches over 1,000 Atheist/Agnostic college students. I have written several Letters to the Editor to newspapers in and around Chicago, espousing my Atheistic beliefs when Church/State issues arose. My point being that I don’t take my non-belief lightly. However, while I don’t believe in God, I firmly believe I would immediately change those views if presented with evidence to the contrary. And at 22, this is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me.

So, here’s my proposal. Everytime I come home, I pass this old Irish church. I promise to go into that church every day– for a certain number of days– for at least an hour each visit. For every $10 you bid, I will go to the Church for 1 day. For $50, you would have me going to mass every day for a week.

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