40.6 degrees celsius today.
That’s hot in anybody’s language.
I find myself concerned for our lawn that is dying, and our garden that is thirsty. Maybe I need to keep some perspective.
We lament a brown crunchy lawn, whereas in other parts of the world real people die for lack of water. Makes the lawn issue seem a little trivial by comparison…
I’m baaacckk!
Ok – so I didn’t write anything for a week… and it actually wasn’t that hard. So much sleeping and eating and beaching to do!
I won’t bore you with holiday details but here is a brief overview of my life for the last week:
* Kids were with us for the first four days – I love them – but the next three days (minus kids) were veerrry nice too!
* I was pretty depressed for the first two days – for no apparent reason. I went out on Monday afternoon and had a chat with myself, told myself to snap out of it and then came home and watched Jackass with Mase. I needed a good laugh. But seriously I’m not sure what happened – just felt like crap for a while…
* Cafe Pronto is excellent! If you are ever in Mandurah then this place rocks. Great food and service. Its on the corner near the old bridge. I had a seafood pizza the first night and then an ‘Olay’ (steak in garlic & chilli) the next – beeudiful.
* We saw Love Actually. It was great – loved the variety of storylines and the whole way it was put together. Don’t under-estimate it… I’m thinking if I was single I’d be off to America…
* Caught up with TazDaz the Tasmanian Forge director and his family/friends for lunch. I had chocolate fudge cake for lunch.
* Didn’t surf… that really sucked.
* Read part of ‘Intro to Ecclesiology’ and re-read Liquid Church
* Watched the cricket – a lot…
* Tonight is a ‘school re-union’ for 5 or 6 of us. It should be good to catch up with some of the crew again. I never stayed in touch with anyone so I’m not sure how I made the invite list (of only 8 or 9) but I’m happy I did.
There’s heaps more, but I don’t really care to write it so I’m guessing you could care less reading it!
Now its back to real life – work…
Yeeeha!
We are off for a week of holidays with some good friends.
We’re headed to a place called Mandurah for a week of relaxing and beaching and surfing and eating and…
You may hear from me while we are there – if I feel the need to write – if not… then you won’t!
Just to wind up, if you’d like another insight into the scary mind that is mine then you can go here and read an ‘interview’ thingy I did for emerginchurch.info.
In looking to 2004 and doing some dreaming and some planning I spent some of yesterday afternoon (before I fell asleep) reflectingnon what had happened in 2003.
If you’d like an insight into my life and what happened for me this year then read on!
* Most Significant Event – Sam’s birth and our leaving Lesmurdie
* Most Enjoyable Book – Mindless Ferocity of Sharks by Brett D’Arcy (you’d have to be a West Aussie to like it!)
* Favourite Movie – Whale Rider – powerful and beautiful!
* Most Memorable Experience – not sure – probably seeing Sam for the first time
* Most Forgettable Experience – ‘holiday’ in Hedland where we were all sick for 10 days
* Most Transformative Experience – reading Hugh Mackay’s novel Winter Close – these two paragraphs in particular:
“Rich is fond of saying that the thing about Winter Close is that it fosters a real sense of community. That’s a big claim and I wish I could share Rich’s confidence in making it. Now that Sydney has grown to four million, communities are hard to come by: a common complaint among Sydneysiders is that ‘we don’t know our neighbours’ – as if that’s the neighbours fault. I’ve given up saying ‘why don’t you knock on their door and introduce yourself?’ The puzzled looks I receive make it clear I have missed the point: plenty of people like not knowing their neighbours and only pretend to complain about it. Suburbia offers the wonderful cloak of anonymity for those who want the security of proximity without any of the demands of intimacy” P.10
“The contract between neighbours is based on resistance to intimacy, so a quite different kind of closeness becomes possible: easy open, comfortable, but devoid of any ultimate responsibility or any glimpses into each other’s souls. These are adjacent lives – sometimes even parallel lives – rather than shared lives. We compensate for our physical proximity by keeping our emotional distance. These are not like relationships between friends, or even between people who work closely together – I know Maddy better than I know Rich, Abel, or Mrs Spenser, or Joe Riley. Perhaps the thing suburban life offers us is the possibility of living the life of a herd without the bonds of a tribe: proximity, familiarity, trust, support… but not intimacy. When we cross that line we cease to be neighbours and become something else” P.156
* Biggest Change – not preaching regularly anywhere – felt weird! Having no set routine.
* Biggest Buzz – getting to know our new neighbours so easily – great people.
* Regrets – gaining 5 kgs, losing my way with personal disciplines
* Challenges Ahead – losing 5 kgs and regaining a more disiplined life
* Toughest Challenge – leading a team of people on this journey of exploration with no map
* Greatest Joy – sensing God in the middle of that journey and seeing all of us learn and grow and face things head on.
* Most Significant Scripture Passage – Isaiah 55
* Things I Learnt:
– I can maintain and grow in faith without attending a Sunday church serice
– Other people can do that too
– You don’t stop being who you are just because you are on long service leave
– I may be losing my ability to communicate with teens
– Its still ‘God’s show’
– Measure twice cut once
* Greatest Discovery – Rambos – our local surf break
There is probably heaps more – but it has been a great ‘sabbatical’ year.
Now its down to business!…
Last night was the first new year I have stayed up for in about 5 years!
Despite my decision to celebrate on eastern standard time we finished up going home from Mick and Caroline’s at 12.05
We had a great night eating dinner, drinking some good red wine, watching Robbie Williams on DVD, chatting and discussing life the universe and everything.life as a house free download
Over the last few years I have made it a priority to try and develop a ‘personal growth plan’ at the start of each year.
I use that phrase because I see it as more than simple goal setting. (Interestingly it is a phrase I picked up from John Maxwell!)
For me it is about spending time with God, listening and trying to sense priorities for the year ahead – major life areas that I need to focus on and grow in. When I have a sense of what these are it does then entail setting some goals or establishing markers to head towards.
Normally I seek to grow in three main areas – character, ministry and lifestyle.
Character involves personal development, spiritual formation and the like and normally I only seek one or two growth areas here (usually that’s enough) Previously areas I have focussed on were things like servanthood and competitiveness.
Ministry and ‘work’ overlap for me – (as they ought to for most of us – whether we are in ‘paid ministry’ or not.) Normally I choose some key areas of ministry that need developing and make them primary focal points for the year.
Lifestyle relates to health and diet and exercise and relationships. My intention this year (injuries permitting) is to be able to run again regularly and to shed the 5 kilos that I have lugged around during this last twelve months.
You could look at that and say I have missed stuff. I don’t think it really matter though!
At the end of the day its not about getting the categories right. Its more about the time spent with God listening to him and hearing his direction and calling for me.
You may ask ‘why write it down?’ or ‘why record this as a plan?’
Pretty simple really. It increases intentionality and increase the chances of actually doing something. Most people I know who are intentional in their lives develop more and accomplish more than those who go with the flow.
There have been times in the past where this has been a fairly ‘binding’ thing for me whereas the last 5 or 6 years have been more relaxed. I don’t think its healthy not to plan ahead, nor is it healthy to be anal about it either. As with most things the balance lies somewhere in between.
I’m interested in what others do in this area.
It seems that any kind of ‘goal setting’ has acquired a bad rep in em church settings often because it has been equated with a modernistic ‘pure achievement’ oriented worldview. I’m not sure those who critique it like that have shown me a healthier way to go.
Any ideas?
For the last few days my laptop has been playing up. It’s mainly the backspace key that either stops working, or sometimes goes psycho deleting everything I type. It is also running slow and doing weird stuff. Apparently its not a virus.Thankfully we are off on holidays on Jan 3rd so I can drop it in to HP and hopefully see it again before the middle of the year!
