Category: life

Around the web:
>>> Floating church
>>> New (& better) design
>>> Mexico should now win!
>>> Episode 12: Funniest episode yet

Last Friday I had a meeting in at St Andrew’s House. The car park is tight. And the paint was pretty fresh.

An official apology to Rod & Robyn (my parents-in-law) for taking touch parking a bit too literally! They are currently away overseas for 5 weeks (hence driving their car) so hopefully the ding in the car will be a nice ‘welcome home’ present.

I buffed out most of the yellow paint… but haven’t finished getting it off the black ridge… I think it looks like a nice pin-stripe!

This reminds me of a movie Row and I saw recently: Monster-in-law. Thankfully my mother-in-law isn’t like that one!

I started reading Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church by Don Carson in September last year. While pointing out the contribution the movement has to make, he is gracious in showing their weaknesses (read: rips it to shreds!). I still haven’t finished it but here are a few problems I have with the movement after reading Carson’s book and their websites:

>>> Their critique of the Seeker Sensitive church movement is based on it no longer being what people want. The Bible and theology ought to guide our critique of any movement.

>>> In attempting to be culturally-sensitive it fails to see the need to be COUNTER-cultural. I agree that its appropriate to be sensitive to the culture you’re working in, however the call of the gospel is a call to be distinct and different.

>>> Worship of God seems to be on my terms rather than on God’s. Eg. “lighting this candle or looking at this cross helps me to feel close to God.” That sounds like idolatry.

>>> Their advocates get cranky on forums when you raise the topic!

The whole emerging church thing seems to have significant interaction with a growing number of youth ministries (at least in the US). So I thought I’d read a book on both: Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus. So far… it’s terrible! Stay tuned.

UPDATE>>> Doctrine doesn’t seem to matter – hence evangelicals can hook up with catholics and liberals.

For the past 3 worlds cups I’ve gone for Germany at the finals. This year they will be my 2nd team because of the SOCCEROOS making it for the first time in 32 years… giddy up!!!

One of the things that we did last world cup was pray for both of the nations at half-time. There is a book called Operation World which has some great info about all the countries in the world along with prayer and praise points for each of them. If you can’t get hold of the book you could do a little bit of research into the country at this site.

If you’re planning on watching world cup games pray for the teams and their countries… not that they’d win… but that they’d be won for Christ.

I’ve been in bed (and the toilet) for the last day and a half. It’s a bug thing that’s spread around some of the staff & their families. Hopefully Row doesn’t get it!

The following are the DVDs I had on yesterday:
#1 Napoleon Dynamite
#2 School of Rock
#3 We can be heroes
#4 Frontline

The first three I had playing during the day. They are all very funny, however, I didn’t really watch them. At best I would have listened to about a quarter of each video as I slept for most of the day.

Row hired Frontline from the video shop and I watched it in the evening. I was awake for most of the 4or5 Episodes I had playing. It’s a really funny show!! I didn’t watch it much back when it was on television but I’m a fan of all the shows that the Working Dog folk produce. The sad thing about the satire on Frontline is that it probably is quite close to the truth! Current affairs shows in Australia are shocking in their sensational journalism. Not having a TV the only current affairs program I listen to is HACK on Triple J.

I’m going back to bed. Hopefully I’ll be okay to make it to youth group. Rhett has kindly offered to give the talk. We will be looking at Acts 2.

I’m going public with this blog thing!! It’s taken 2 years to do it (see the 1st post back in Oct 2004!). I’ve just sent an email to a bunch of people telling them I’ve come out of the blogger closet… so there’s now no looking back… unless I decide to stop.
—–
Here’s a few ground rules for my blog:
>>> Concise – I don’t like blogs where the post goes for a few pages
>>> Colourful – put pictures in so it isn’t boring and those who can’t read will still enjoy the site
>>> Original – I’ll try not to just post to other news stories all the time
>>> Insightful – Among other things, I’m keen to talk about youth ministry
—–
The following picture is from a funny site called www.stuffonmycat.com

Is anyone actually reading this???

Let me introduce you to Aaron. Aaron is one of our year 8 boys youth group leaders. We meet on Tuesday afternoons to read, pray and encourage one another. He normally stays for dinner as well. Yesterday we didn’t get to open the Bible… BUT we were able to talk about life and ministry all while Aaron had a marvellous haircut crafted by yours truly!

These photos were taken on my phone… there are 4 effect settings: normal, sepia, greyscale & negative. I’ve used all 4 of those settings in the above photos.