So Close!

I can't believe that after 2 hours of football it can come down to one point! For someone not really into sport, I loved today's AFL grand final. To 'kick off'* the long weekend, we invited a few friends round for a lazy Saturday afternoon. After kebabs on the barbie, we watched the game on a great home theatre system - so it was surround sound sadness for the Swans supporters, and widescreen winning for the West Coasters.

*I know it's a bounce down, not a kick off...











Soph thought the West Coast Eagles were far cuter than the Sydney swans.

Let man not separate

This week, Sam and I attended our first pre-marital counselling session with the minister who is marrying us come February. It was a particularly special session for me, mainly because that minister also happens to be my Dad.

One of the things we learnt that night was that the essence of marriage is the union between a man and a woman. This might sound obvious, but often we can mistakenly think that the essence of marriage is about other things: having a family, being in love, working out the biblical principles of "manhood" and "womanhood", or leadership and submission.

Although these things are important, they aren't the essence of marriage. Ultimately, marriage is about God joining a man and a woman together, as they in turn make promises to uphold that union. I love the passion and joy with which this union is described in Genesis:

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the manThe man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Another helpful pointer dad gave us was to think about our priorities when it comes to the wedding ceremony. A valuable ceremony, according to Dad, is one that inspires and helps the couple to keep the promises they make to one another. Although God joins them together, they must also work at keeping that union. A great ceremony will be something they can look back on to encourage them to do this.

Online youth ministry lectures

Dave Miers put me on to these lectures on youth ministry. I spent an hour listening to the first one this morning, and it was really helpful. Covenant Seminary in the US have put them up - an entire semester of lectures online.

It was interesting to hear Mark Davis talk about the way he came to Christ through youth ministry, especially the importance of a godly life on the part of those trying to reach him. Modeling and sharing a godly life with youth is vital to reaching them with the gospel.
He also gave a brief history of youth ministry, and of the views toward youth ministry. Sad to see that so many people still view it as a 'junior office' or entry level position. As if those doing youth ministry haven't grown up sufficiently to share the gospel with adults. I pray this changes.

We've made the switch.

No we're not listening to WS FM, but we are now posting with Beta Blogger. We were having real trouble with slow posting - sometimes up to 10 mins. Beta Blogger publishes in real time, so that should never be a problem again!
Also now we can control the look and feel of the page - so expect a colour overhaul soon! Maybe even a photo of us? We'll see.
All the old posts are now in the archives on the right, and we've added a 'Blog of the Month' which is a live feed. Craig Schwarze, the big blogdog (h/t the poddy - I love that term) gets it for September.

Relevance?

We've been discussing relevance and culture and the mission of the church in the thread below. I read an article by Mark Dever today that was most helpful. (h/t Craig).

Here's a bit to get you thinking.

"On the other hand, I am concerned about those who, in the name of evangelism, alter everything in their churches’ services to make the non-Christian feel more at home, all the while, ironically, assuming that everybody sufficiently understands the gospel. In other words, they don’t preach the whole counsel of God, and they do not speak week after week about God’s holy character, his holy wrath, his love made all the more astounding in light of his holiness, and his remarkable act of substitution on the cross. Like I already said, read their books and attend their conferences and you learn that they apparently think that knowing how to "be relevant" is the church’s major challenge. Holding onto the gospel, it would seem, is comparatively easy.

Consider what might actually be happening to the gospel message when all our effort goes into changing the "presentation" until we successfully yield a response from carnal man. Might we
not actually be at risk of changing the message itself?"

Mark Dever

Read more here.

10 points for anyone who knows me well enough to get the joke with the picture

We're currently upgrading...

...to blogger beta. It'll all be back up shortly!