Our annual Baptist Pastor’s conference was a hoot!

Since moving it from Serpentine Baptist Campsite to Mandurah Quays Resort it has improved about 9000%. We get decent beds, air conditioned conference rooms and units and sensational food.

The speaker was a guy called John Kaiser from the US, a kind of ‘2IC’ to a bloke called Paul Borden who has been making an impact all round Australia with his story of how they transformed a denomination in the north west of the US.

While John’s stuff was good it was not new and for that reason I found it a little hard to engage with.
– we must be missional
– we need to have a vision and values
– we need a contextual strategy for mission

That about sums it up.

I think we could all agree on all of that.

The real fun of the three days came in the late night discussions in the units where we sat around and contemplated life, theology and red wine.

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This morning I discovered that someone had arived at this site by searching for ‘proximity and intimacy’. Seemed a strange search, so I followed it back a bit and discovered that Dante’s definition of hell is ‘proximity without intimacy’

Interesting way of seeing it…

Why come here?

Because I had a quote from Hugh McKay’s novel Winter Close, a story simply about a street in Sydney, which says the following:

“Rich (central character) 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

So… it would seem that if McKay’s view of suburbia is correct, then Dante would view living in the suburbs as hell…

Why does Luke begin his gospel with the two miraculous birth stories?

He tells us firstly about John the Baptist and then about Jesus. What do you think is the signifiance of these stories at the start of his account?

As a primary community we are starting to focus on Luke as the lens thru which we will look at Jesus. These chapters are a different start to the other gospels – would be interested in some opinions.

A few people asked what this looks like.

To save me re-inventing the wheel go here

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to see Darren’s take on it.

Or pick up Sacred Companions by David Benner. This is a brilliant book on personal spirituality.

Essentially for me what it means is something like this:
– 10 mins centring prayer – very difficult
– 10 mins reflection on God’s presence in the day just gone
– confession
– a short passage of scripture to meditate on
– maybe journal on it
– 20 or so mins of intercessory prayer

Often I will use Sacred Space as a guide.

The essence of it is the fact that when I slow down and stop to be with God I realise that I am not keeping the world going – a helpful reminder of my place in the scheme of things…

The last year I have been on long service leave, and while it was a great break it has played havoc with my spiritual disciplines.

The chaotic nature of that period actually made it harder for me to regularly connect with God than easier. I think I need a structured approach to life to help me practice the disciplines. If I have lazy days I just never seem ‘to get around to it’. When I am busy I can always seem to find time. Ironic hey?

Just this week I have been trying to bring some order back to life and have started practicing a form of the ‘examen’ again as a regular morning discipline.

In 2002 I developed a pattern where I did this almost every day for an hour or so and I experienced some significant shifts because of it. In that year I really enjoyed the time with God and felt my own spiritual health increasing as I did this.

I know some are suggesting we forget about ‘reading your Bible and praying every day’ and I understand that it is about trying to remove the guilt motivation.

However for those of us who really enjoy and benefit from regular time with God in a structured way that is a very unhelpful suggestion.

I’d suggest you do what works for you to connect with you with God – but whatever you do – do something

!

My fear for those who chuck out regular engagement with scripture and prayer is that it doesn’t get replaced with anything of substance. And if that’s the case then spiritual health must suffer

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Last night I watched the annual Christmas pageant on TV – along with the Chung Wah association and the Hare Krishnas were all manner of people walking the streets of Perth to ‘celebrate Christmas’.

This Sunday we also have our local carols by candlelight (thankfully I will be away!) and the local churches have no participation at all in it, as it is being run by the developers.

I’m open to the possibility that somewhere in all of this people may experience God – but I’m also sick of seeing this dilution of the Christmas occasion to the point where its really just a pagan festival with some religious overtones.

Why don’t we stop this nonsense of calling it Christmas and call it ‘Family Celebration Day’ or something similar.

I actually don’t like Christmas much and I think its partly because I feel really ripped off when people lob in a day that could have real significance for me and turn it into a meaningless event – or worse still distort the meaning to make it into something totally removed from the original intent.

If we’re going to call it Christmas then let’s get real about it.

Otherwise call the day something else and let those who do find the time significant get on with what it means to them.

Not impressed…

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The Shaping of Things to Come opens with a story about the ‘Burning Man’ festival in the US. If you’d like to have a look at what happens in that festival then check out Sean’s pics here hellraiser bloodline dvdrip .babylon a d dvd

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