our holidays

As you can see from the pictures above, Sam and I had a great time holidaying at the Blue Mountains.

Staying at Leura was so relaxing. We rented a gorgeous little cottage near the main street in Leura and our five days consisted of reading Harry Potter 7 (yes to each other, I can’t decide if that makes us incredibly sweet or incredibly sad), drinking red wine at night by the toasty heater, going for walks and browsing Leura shops. Every morning we went to a fantastic café in Katoomba called Fresh to drink espresso and read the papers. The coffee there is great – woody and caramel tasting – and we made sure it was Free Trade too!

It was great to go away for a few days and now we feel energised for the rest of the year. Hopefully that will mean more thoughtful posts at thefountainside as well!

Stop the Traffic

Having ideals can be an expensive business.

After seeing pictures of battery hens locked in cramped, metal cages last year, I was determined to buy only free-range eggs - until the supermarket price forced me to relent on my stance a little. The same goes for natural cotton clothes. I would love to be able to buy clothes that are made from environmentally friendly fibres, but again, $50 for a short-sleeved top is currently out of my budget.

Ethical purchasing is all the rage right now, especially with climate change issues peering over our shoulders. Maggie Alderson wrote a great piece in the Good Weekend on how our culture seems to have slipped into a pattern of spending heaps on cheap clothes for one season, rather than investing in quality clothing that lasts for years and years. She also calls on the fashion industry to reform our understanding of consumerism by promoting an attitude of conservation: spend more but less often, on quality, environmentally-friendly and ethically produced clothes.

Our Christian faith, inspired by the witness of god-fearng activists like Wilberforce (download the talk here), urges the same attitude towards the way we spend our money. Our finances shouldn't drive the way we live, but our conviction in Christ and determination to shine like stars in this dark universe. This should affect the way we relate to people in this society, the things we care about. There are matters in this world more important than saving money.

One of those that has been mentioned in previous posts is taking a stance against the trafficking of men, women and young children overseas. The Stop the Traffik site has some ways we can help bring down the slave trade, including signing a UN petition, buying Free Trade coffee beans and chocolate.

Coffee and sweets aren't like eggs: if we can afford to put luxuries on our grocery list, we can afford to be ethical in the way we purchase them. Sam and I are trying to only purchase Free Trade from now on (Cafe Bianci in Leichhardt offer a range!). Chocolate is a little harder. I haven't bought any since the unfortunate Car Regurgitating Incident last month, so if anyone knows where you can purchase Free Trade in Sydney, please let me know.

Spectrum and the SMH

Has anyone else noticed the change in Spectrum in the Saturday Herald of late? They are running more and more stories that are not about plasma televisions or renovated houses (quite a feat in the SMH!). On Saturday just gone they gave a positive review to Amazing Grace, did a piece on the importance of faithfulness and trust in relationships (can't find a link for this), followed by a feature essay on the problem of death (again can't find a link). Granted, the death article was pretty poorly researched, and the relationship article dealt with swingers as well as monogamous couples, but at least there is one section of the SMH that is more about ideas than things to acquire.
The other thing I've noticed is the relentless recycling of the 'coffee school' story. They seem to have one of these every month - and they never say anything insightful or new. They don't even bother to come up with a new pun in the headline in today's one.

Wilberforce and the slave trade.

We heard a brilliant lecture tonight about the abolition of the slave trade in England 200 years ago. This really is worth a download and an hour of your listening time when it comes up on our website. Wilberforce was an amazing man, who stuck to the convictions of his faith. Lots of people like to adopt Wilberforce for their cause, but ignore what it was that actually drove Wilberforce: his faith in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without this gospel, it is impossible to truly grasp what it means to live by grace and show grace to others. The challenge tonight for those of us who claim to belong to Christ is: Does belonging to Christ shape our view, prayers and actions towards society?

Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Make sure you see the Amazing Grace film about his life that comes out this weekend.

Best scrabble word

So far while playing scrabble on facebook, my best word has been 'bevellers' for 78 points, followed by 'harness' for 72 points. Neither were very high scoring words themselves - it's just the 50 point bonus for using all my letters that got them up there. What's are some of your glory moments on facebook scrabble?

Holidays

Soph and I are going on holidays to the Blue Mountains tomorrow. We can't wait! I'm looking forward to having some time off, and reading Harry Potter. Hopefully we'll both gets lots of sleep too! See you when we get back.

'Tricky' bits of the Old Testament.

On Wednesday at Bible Study there were only four of us. It seems almost everyone has this dreaded sickness that is going around! So instead of pushing ahead with our regular program, we spent an hour or so dealing with some of the 'tricky' narratives in the Old Testament.

Reading Old Testament narrative can be hard. Often when we get round to reading the Bible for ourselves we much prefer to read the New Testament - it's practical and seems easier to understand. We might venture in to the Psalms if we're having a bad day (especially Psalm 51 if we're feeling guilty), but I don't know many people who regularly read through a slab of Old Testament narrative for their quiet times.

This trend is a bit of a problem, since the Old Testament makes up over two thirds of the Bible, and almost half of that is narrative! By not reading it, or not knowing how to read it, we miss a significant chunk of God's revelation to us. On top of this, 1 Corinthians 10 tells us twice that the Old Testament narrative was written for us - on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come.

If we love the New Testament because it's so 'practical' we then need to put it into practice – we must read the Old Testament as that's what the New Testament tells us to do!

But what about those 'tricky' narratives? Times when God strikes people down on the spot, or commands the murder of someone, or acts differently to how our 21st century sensibilities would have him act? Are those narratives really "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness"?

Last night, one of the narratives we looked at was the story where God sends Saul an evil spirit. Read it here. It seems like a tricky narrative because we see God actively in control of evil, and directing an evil spirit to torment someone. What makes it even trickier is the suggested solution: David is brought into Saul’s chambers to play the harp for Saul. When the Spirit comes upon Saul, David plucks away and Saul gets relief from this spirit.

What are we to make of this narrative? Our group on Wednesday night identified a number of pitfalls that a reader can make when dealing with this kind of passage.

The most common pitfall in reading OT narrative is to put ourselves straight into the role of the protagonist. That is, to read a passage like this and say “I am like David – I can play music, and when I do, God will use it to give spiritual relief to those in my presence”.
This is a very common reading, but it will end us up in all sorts of problems. Read the OT too much like this, and you’ll become convinced from Genesis 12 that God is leading you towards a land (probably some nice new development out in the suburbs), That he plans to give you countless children, and that he will bless whoever you want him to, and curse whoever you don’t like. We love to read ourselves into the centre of every story – but we mustn’t.

The second pitfall is to do the exact opposite. To completely ignore the original meaning of the story and understand all OT narrative in the same way – that it is an allegory about Jesus. That means you understand this passage to mean something like this: “Jesus is the true David who deals with evil spirits through his ministry”. Apart from being far too simplistic, understanding the OT in this way becomes very predictable, as every story means the same thing and you won’t be able to spend very much time reading the OT because you will quickly become bored of it!

The third pitfall is failing to take note of the surrounding chapters and the context they give. In this case, if the surrounding chapters talked of God’s plan to deal with sickness through music healing ministries, then it might be fair to interpret this section as an example of such an activity. Read around this passage (the start of chapter 16 before it, and chapter 17 after it), and you find it sandwiched neatly between the story of David’s anointing to become king, and his famous battle against one seriously oversized Philistine.

Those two surrounding stories which sandwich our ‘tricky’ narrative give big clues as to why the writer might choose to tell us this story.

Firstly, we know that God has a plan to install David as King - which means that pretty soon you won’t be able to find David doing his older brother’s bidding or living out in the fields with sheep. David needs to get into the palace if there is going to be any kind of shake-up in Israel’s monarchy. Both the anointing by Samuel, and the victory over Goliath, show us how God is at work to get David onto the throne. The happenings in our ‘tricky’ narrative are rather important, as they are now the means that God uses to bring David into the limelight.

Finally, the fourth pitfall for modern readers is to be shocked by the wrong things and miss the real surprises. When we first read this passage, we were surprised by the evil spirit being sent from God, and the manner in which God gives relief to Saul – music.

However, if we recognise the context, we know that God has rejected Saul as king (1 Samuel 16:1) so we shouldn’t be too surprised at the fact that God’s spirit has left Saul. The evil is still a surprise, but it becomes clear rather quickly why God has done this.

Notice that it is Saul’s attendants who propose the remedy for Saul (1 Samuel 16:16). They are the ones to propose that a harp player be brought in! Now here is the real surprise.
Out of all the harp players in Israel (and there must have been thousands), who happens to be chosen? David! What are the chances? As Saul tries to cling to the throne after God rejects him, and as he tries to ward off an evil spirit that has been sent to him, who do he and his advisors choose to come and help them? Only the future king of Israel! The very one that Saul wants to keep away from the throne! He invites him right into the palace courts to become his armour bearer.

What are the chances? Completely unlikely …unless God is working in his sovereign way to bring his purpose about. So what we see here is not the prescribing of a new healing ministry, but the sovereign and unshakeable plan of God to install his king upon the throne. Now we can make the jump to Jesus, and see parallels between God’s sovereignty at the cross (Acts 2:23-24). Our God is in complete control, working in great ways to bring about his purposes. How deserving of our trust he is, and how rich the picture of God that can be gained from reading ‘tricky’ narratives.

I’m planning on preaching a ‘tricky’ narrative at our men’s breakfast in a few weeks.

Blackle

Something for those worried about energy consumption and all its downsides.

When your screen is white, be it an empty word page, or the Google page, your computer consumes 74 watts. When its black it consumes only 59 watts. A recent article talked about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen - taking into account the huge number of page views, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved.

In a response to this article Google have created a black version of their page, called Blackle. It has the exact same functions as the white version, but with lower energy consumption. Check it out here.

Friday

I am currently trying to resist the urge to fill out my personal profile on Facebook. There is something oddly pleasurable about summarising your personality in a "favourites" list, maybe because normal conversations don't allow us to self-indulge in this way. However, I'm tempted to put something I think I should like to give me indie credibility rather than the truth - i.e. that my favourite movie is a Coppola masterpiece or intellectual foreign film, when in fact it is Zoolander. Then I get to the "favourite quotes" section and it's all too much pressure (Should I put something Christian? A Bible verse perhaps, or is that too corny? Do I go for funny, or elusive and introspective?).

I really should get back to work.

In other news, I am still carrying what seems to be a hybrid of every disease currently circulating around Sydney. I have a head cold, which means lots of sneezing, coughing and nose-blowing. I am desperate to get well, but thankful I am functional and able to get out of the house. Tonight is Christine's birthday dinner at Ice+Splice and I'm looking forward to it immensely (though of course, still wary of my current germ-carrier state).

*Pic is of me and our niece Ele (plus nephew William in the background)...just because!

council approval

Tonight at 7pm there will be a council meeting to determine whether or not our church's building application will be passed. The outlook so far has been quite negative; I was quite amused to watch a bulletin on 10 News tonight on Leichhardt council being notoriously slow and unwilling to approve building projects. Perhaps this negative press will work in our favour.

I can't be there tonight as I'm still sick with loads of work to do, but I will be praying for our church. I will also be praying that we will rejoice no matter what the outcome is, for our God is good and always knows what is best.

protecting marriages

In my training class, I get teased a fair bit for being married at twenty-four.

Generally it’s in the form of harmless comments, like “Did you make toast for your hubby this morning? Did you clean his socks and wash his dishes for him? How’s the marriage – still together I hope?” They are usually made with no harm intended, so I tend to reply with a quip and a smile.

Last week, I mentioned to the class that Sam was away for five days at a conference, which led to a long-running joke that his fictitious “conference” was a guise for his affair – i.e. that my husband was cheating on me, so I’d better “drive up there quick smart and spring him”. It doesn’t seem very funny as I write about it now, but there were puns and lots of giggling. Of course, I would never seriously believe that Sam is having an extra-marital affair, but no wife wants to hear insinuations about her husband cheating on her. The reality of infidelity is destructive and heart-wrenching.

To many people in this world, marriage is a joke. Step outside the Christian community and it’s often thrown about as if it means nothing. Perhaps it’s just the cynicism of a generation that has seen so many divorces, but many young people think I am foolish for getting married so “young”. The price I pay, according to some, is too much: loss of freedom, too much commitment, inability to focus on career, the high risk of divorce. There is also an assumption that to be married you must have certain things in place, like a mortgage on a house or a couple of years living together. Marriage has become a luxury you need to be able to afford, not the foundation that binds families together. Weddings are a million-dollar business, whereas keeping couples together and away from the divorce courts is supported only by the church, plus State and Federal Government funding.

God loves marriage and takes it very seriously. Not only did he give marriage to His own covenant people, but He blessed the whole of humanity with the gift of marriage. Songs of Solomon 4:18 says, “May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth”.

God also showed the world how marriages should work through His law. One wife, one husband. Faithfulness. Love and service. Head and body. Christians should theoretically have the best marriages, not just because we know marriage reflects the church’s union with Christ, but because we have a good God who gave us laws concerning our marriages.

There is much in this world that makes us despair. I don't believe that we can stop the trajectory towards genetic cloning, eradicate the exploitation of the weak and oppressed, or prevent marriages from breaking down. But that doesn't mean we don't act and shine like stars in this dark universe.

Good marriages are for everyone, not just the Christian. As a church, we need to promote happy, healthy marriages in our society. We need to help people see that good marriages lead to functional families and loving communities; that they are important to the fabric of our society. Amidst the chatter about same-sex couple rights, abortion, divorcee rights and women in the workplace, we need to put the health of our marriages back on the agenda.

This means supporting marriages in our churches, but also voicing our opinion when it comes to issues that can threaten the health of marriages and families in our society. Tanya Plibesek has done it, so can we. One issue which is becoming increasingly prevalent is the work-ethic in Sydney. We work longer hours, take less annual leave, go to work much sooner after having children and are driven far more by the mortgage than many other capital cities. This isn’t healthy and I believe it will cause harm in the long run.

Marriage isn't a joke, but it can be filled with much laughter and joy - if protected and honoured as God intended.

sick

I'm sick today.

I went out with Matt, Kate and Sam to watch Harry Potter last night, and on the way home in the car started feeling really dizzy and naseous. Sam then had to pull over before we hit the Freeway so I could throw up on the side of the street. Oh, it was awful - like some drunk Saturday night clubber puking from side of taxi. It was also in no way related to Matt's tasty Jamie Oliver burgers.

I then spent the next 24 hours freezing cold despite four layers of blankets and jumpers, with a migraine that made me hallucinate about all sorts of crazy things.

I feel slightly better now, though my head is still pounding and I'm not sure if I'll make it to church tonight. Sam has been lovely, even running me a bath and that's not easy in our flat - requires lots of kettle boiling and going back and forth between the ktichen and bathroom.

I enjoyed Harry Potter very much though. It's an excellent movie and condenses The Order of the Pheonix really well (though I was disappointed that Ron and Hermione being prefects didn't make it into the movie, as that is one of my favourite parts). I'm going to read the sixth one so I will be well primed by the time the seventh comes out!

Gambling 2.0

Thanks to everyone who commented on the post below about gambling. I’m writing a second post responding to the comments that have been posted over the last week, as the prospect of answering so many things in a comment field is daunting, and it was an old post, so no-one would read comments there anyway!
I’ll see if I can stretch it out as a penta-post – so here goes.

Firstly, I’m pretty sure most people commenting here agree that there is a problem of addiction in our society in regards to gambling, and we are saddened by the actions of casinos and pubs that seek to exploit these people in our society. Since I gather that most people agree on this, I’m not going to write any more about it for the time being.

Secondly – I have no problem with the game of Texas hold ‘em (or any other poker or cardgames for that matter) per se. They are simply games. To forbid Christians to play these games with matchsticks, or just for fun, is not my intent. My problem lies with gambling for money.

Thirdly – I am not trying to persuade Christians away from gambling in order to protect the consciences of weaker brothers. A number of comments below responded as if I had argued something like: ”Gambling might cause a brother to stumble so don’t do it.”
I am not using passages like Romans 12 or similar passages in 1 Corinthians for my argument. Perhaps that’s an argument other Christians have used against gambling, but it’s not mine. However, if you do want to know my thoughts on matters of freedom you are welcome to check them out.

Fourthly – I did argue that a major problem is greed. Perhaps another word for this is covetousness. Whatever the word – winning in gambling is always at someone else’s expense. At this point, it is all to easy to respond – “If that’s the case, how can I do anything that might put me ahead of someone else? – like get a promotion over someone else, or ask a girl out that someone else likes?
The problem with that response is that it fails to take ownership into account. A job that is on offer to people is vacant – it doesn’t belong to anyone – that’s why they are advertising for it to be filled. Likewise, a girl who is able to be dated isn’t owned by anyone – that’s why she may be willing to go out with you… but more likely she’ll go out with your non-gambling friend :-p
Sure, if you get that promotion or win the girl, someone else misses out - but how is that person worse off than before? They are in fact in the exact same position. They never owned the thing in question in the first place. So you are not actually doing anything against them in that action.
Gambling for money is different. Money that is brought to the gambling table is always owned by someone. We must not think that just because we threw it into the middle of a pile and ‘up for grabs’ that it stops belonging to someone. The money won in gambling is deducted from someone else in order to be credited to yours.
We would not dream of pursuing a woman that already belonged to someone. Why are we happy to pursue something else that already belongs to someone else? Which leads to my final point.

Fifthly, some of the comments have asked for a direct command from the scriptures that forbids gambling. Christians are united on all sorts of things that are not mentioned in the Bible. Pornography is not forbidden in the Bible. But because it is impossible to look at pornography without ‘looking lustfully at a woman’ – we are quite happy to blanket an activity as wrong despite it not being explicit in the scriptures. Because of the nature of gambling – I am convinced that it is always covetous. The final commandment in the Decalogue is "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." The money belongs to your neighbour – and we are not to covet it. The whole aim of gambling is to win from others what they own. I cannot see a way to do this without coveting.

thursday

I'm finally home from a hectic day, looking forward to the end of an extremely full-on week.

Work was crazy today. After I finished submitting my regular columns and putting together a new flat-plan (a diagram of the magazine's layout from cover to cover), my editor asked me to pull some data together for a couple of fact pull-out boxes for next week's issue. I thought, "easy, it'll be done in half an hour". How wrong I was! The topic was so broad I was calling everyone from AC Nielson to Roy Morgan, Westfield, JC Decaux and every media agency I could think of, large enough to pull such random data. It took all afternoon and afterwards, I was so exhausted I didn't have the energy to even look at my feature article.

Then tonight I had dinner with my parents - it was great to catch up with them before my Dad flies off to China on Saturday (he's going on a cultural mission trip with some people from my old church). However, he's sick with the nasty flu that everyone seems be down with at the moment, so I'm praying that he'll get better in time for his flight.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to Sam coming home, as I've missed him this week. On the cards for the weekend: sleep, shopping for groceries, lots of talking and hopefully, Harry Potter!

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

I read in the paper today that the sequel to Elizabeth is being released at the end of the year. Cate Blanchett is reprising her role as Queen and the rest of the cast is fantastic: Abbie Cornish, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush and Samantha Morton (playing Mary, Queen of Scotts!).

I was so excited I borrowed the DVD from Blockbuster on the way home from work to watch again.

If you're interested, you can watch the trailer for Elizabeth: The Golden Age here.

humility over knowledge

Lately I have been learning a lot of new things about God, delving deep in His Word and hearing some amazing speakers reveal so many truths.

However, I must keep remembering that it is not knowledge which matters in the end, but love. It is great to know all the things of God, to understand theology and discern many things. But it is woeful to love knowledge more than God, to have opinions but no action, to know a lot about Christ, but fail to actually be Christ-like.

"Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God."

1 Corinthians 8:1-2

tagged

I was tagged by Libby (and Matt)

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.

2. Each player blogs eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. At the end of your blog, choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Here's my list:

1. For some reason, I don’t know why, I intensely dislike Pete Murray’s music
2. Same goes with Human Nature’s music (Sam thinks it’s a subconscious throwback to a bad boy experience)
3. Playing drums makes my hands itchy
4. I get in a really bad mood when my hair needs washing
5. I took life drawing classes when I was 16 until I was 20.
6. I spilt tea down my side on the first day I met Sam (we worked in a café together) and I still have the scar
7. I like peeling grapes
8. I edited the rules list.

I tag Nixter.

Monday

Sam is away this week at MYC, so I turned on the TV for some background noise while washing up tonight. Instead I ended up watching this show called Wife Swap, where a wife from one family swaps for two weeks with the wife of another. In this episode, a Christian mum (or mom) swapped with an atheist wife. It was like knowing a train crash is about to happen, but somehow not being able to turn away.

It was nice to relax in front of the TV after such a busy day. Thank God for the rain. I work near a large window, so I could watch the water streak though grey steel and concrete while transcribing my interviews and subbing profiles. The only time I left the building was to go to a birthday lunch at the RSL across the road, where old ladies putting coins in poker machines looked like they hadn't gone outside in a while either.

In the afternoon it was back to my notes. I've been taking shorthand classes the past few months. My rate is supposed to be up to 120 words a minute by the end of the year, but so far I'm only up to 60. My vocab is also limited at high speeds. I can take down a fine reading of "Cat in a Hat" without breaking a sweat, but when it comes to the latest trends in experiential marketing, I have issues. I wasn't brave enough to use it in my interviews today, so I relied on my old recorder. It's the kind that takes little tapes and makes whirring noises when you push rewind. I would get a digital recorder, but I like the way the wheels turn while it's recording. I find the mechanical motion reassuring.

Tonight, after visiting Ian the chiro, I went out for dinner with my friends Roz and Em at Al Habibi (or is it El Habibi? U Habibi?) in Newtown. I ate the perfect felafel - nutty, flavoursome, crunchy yet moist on the inside. I also laughed a lot and missed Sam a little. At 10pm we reluctantly left and I realised I had spent around $30 on food and coffee today (very bad. Must make amends by bringing sandwiches for the rest of this week). Why does socialising always revolve around spending money on food and drink? why don't we catch up over, I don't know, a walk around the block? I would love to catch up with someone over a stroll across the Bay.

So now I am finally in bed, wondering how to get this big mattress warmed up on my own.

Maybe a hot water bottle....

In the Kitchen

Today I asked Craig what he cooked for his boys and he blogged his answer here. I've always found the way families prepare and eat food interesting. I think it says a lot about how the family functions - its routine, culture, background, even relationships.

One of the pleasant surprises I discovered when marrying Sam was our vast differences in how we approach food. Sam is from an anglo family and is used to eating predominantly western food at 7pm around a dinner table, always nicely set with dessert readily available. I'm from a Indonesian/Malaysian Chinese background. Meals at my house were always ready at 5:30 or 6pm, with a serving of rice. We ate at various times, sometimes in front of the TV, often without waiting for someone to get home. Eating together around a table only happened on special occasions.

Our contrasting backgrounds means that in little ways, Sam and I approach food differently:

* I get hungry and want dinner at 6pm, whereas Sam is happy to wait until 7-7:30pm.
* I've had to learn how to cook food in portions - i.e. meat, veggies and bread or some sort of carb. This may sound strange, but it's a whole new way of thinking for me. In Asian cooking, vegetables are often cooked in with the meat as one dish. There isn't really a concept of having "sides". So I never think to make a salad, because we never ate salad in my family.
* My family doesn't do dessert so I never do, whereas Sam often likes ice-cream after a meal.
* I serve Asian dishes like stir-fries with large portions of rice - usually two-thirds rice and one-third meal. For me rice is the main meal, whereas for Sam it's more of an accompaniment. I wasted a lot of rice before realising his portions are different from mine.
*My approach to cooking is really haphazard. My mum cooks by her nose - a dash here, a quick taste to see if it has enough oyster sauce, the impromptu adding of ingredients and flavours. I am the same, while Sam when helping me in the kitchen needs specific measurements and instructions. "Just add it until you think it's salty enough" doesn't cut it.
* Sam and I always eat together, which I quite like. I don't have regrets about not doing this at home, but I want to make it a part of the way my future family works.
* I'm starting to miss Asian food. Not the kind you can get from a jar (I can cook that!) but the food I ate all the time in my parent's home: chicken laksa, sambal chilli, mie goreng, silky tofu with garlic and mince meat, lumpur, saucy eggplant, hot and sour soup. This year I purposely avoided the meals I grew up with, but I should learn how to cook them. It would be nice to share these foods with Sam.

I do enjoy cooking for the two of us. Food is creative and fun. Sam and I have a pretty sweet deal at the moment - I do all of the food preparation and he does all the cleaning. He says I'm a good cook and I take his word for it. I'm not an amazing chef - I can't bake and what I cook is often based on what's in the fridge - but I try to do different dishes each night. I love Donna Hay (so easy and accessible!) and for special occasions, recipes from the Good Weekend or Jamie Oliver.

Next on my list is learning how to cook a tasty baked dinner!

Gambling - Poker is wrong.

I will be up-front. I am anti-gambling. I am aware of a growing number of Christian's who don't agree with my stance, but you might as well know my opinion - I think gambling is wrong. And it dismays me that lots of Christians get involved with it.

I was deeply worried by this article in todays Herald. It's a long read, and a dismaying one at that. It talks of the growth (especially in suburbia) of pub-poker. Aside from the whole 'gambling consortiums preying on suburbanites' thing, (which is a serious issue and needs to be addressed and regulated) I have a number of concerns with Christians playing poker:

1. Gambling is built upon greed. Sure you can talk about the skill involved, and just enjoying the game, but there is no getting around the fact that the construct upon which gambling has always been built is greed. For centuries mankind has been looking for a way to get more money quickly, and gambling has been, and remains, a key vehicle in the quest for 'more'. Poker, while it might be skill based, is unashamedly built upon winning money, and taking the pot. Here's a quote from a young female player: '"I love the feeling that I have outplayed all of the boys at their game," says Fiorentino, savouring how it is to win all the chips, as she has done in Sydney at least a dozen times'.

2. Gambling is an enourmous social problem in our world. It is addictive and destructive to many families. But aside from the bigger social scale, gambling has the potential to destroy relationships on the small scale too. How can you build a brother or sister up while you're trying to get their money off them? It is a simple fact that someone has to lose in order for you to win. Sure you might often be the winner, and it doesn't affect your finances or social well-being, but it must affect someone else's. It boggles me that groups of Christians can go to 'poker nights' and play with real money against each other.

3. I am certain that we put too much trust in ourselves on these issues. I am by nature a wicked man. Redeemed, yes. Spirit filled, yes. But unable to be tempted? By no means! So why would I would want to dabble around the edges of a past-time of winning money from others through gambling? Many Christian brothers and sisters have fallen by folly and ignorance - not recognising the danger of the sinful nature that lurks beneath a veneer of self trust and self reliance.

Indulgences

At MYC next week, I'll be giving part of a seminar on Reformation church history. I'm certainly not an expert by any means, but I've enjoyed researching it. One of the big things to understand about the reformation was the (then) current Catholic practice of selling indulgences.

One guy in particular, Johann Tetzel, used slogans to advertise this doctrine. To entice people to pay money to buy their dead relatives out of purgatory he used the slogan "When a coin in the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory springs."

Tetzel even went as far as creating a chart that listed a price for each type of sin and claiming that the indulgences he sold could save a soul who violated the Virgin Mary. He wasn't really the Biblical type!

Do pray for Christine and I as we run this seminar twice next week!

I love my husband...

...because he drove across the bridge picked me up from work today.

And he hates traffic.

No comment.

This is a fantastic story from the Australian's media section. And it's very true!

Be a Christian on Facebook

I've been on Facebook for just over a month, and I find it fantastic. I've been in touch with people that I haven't heard from in ages, been invited to events solely through Facebook, and had some great laughs. I could write a whole post on how great it is, but the last couple of days I've been thinking more about how important it is to think Christianly about Facebook. Here are two things that I think Christians would do well to keep in mind while using Facebook.

1. Recognise the construct and worldview that Facebook is built upon. Because Facebook was created to help college students network with each other, it naturally places supreme emphasis on things like education, social status and connections. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it can be tempting to buy into that worldview without thinking about it. A Christian's status is found in Christ, from being united to him by his grace, not because of how many friends we have, how educated we are, or who (in the world) we are connected to.
Inherent to Facebook also is outward appearance. Everyone has a photo of themselves up there. No-one ever puts up their ugly photos, and I’m not encouraging that, but surely the temptation can be to make ourselves look better than we really are. For women, this generally means a photo taken at an event where they were very dressed up (often from behind them, looking back over a bare shoulder with a sultry expression), or for men, a photo taken with a number of attractive girls around them, to show how popular they are. There is nothing wrong with looking your best, but we must remember a Christian’s attractiveness does not come from outward appearance. We need to recognise these underlying constructs for what they are, and setup our profiles in a way which shows that we belong to Christ, not the world.
Facebook is all about relationships, but not necessarily Christian ones. Don’t let Facebook prescribe what kind of relationships you have. Christians are not looking for ‘Random Play’ or ‘Open Relationship’. Christians don’t ‘hook up’ (at least in the sense that Facebook is implying). Our relationships are defined by the Father, Son and Spirit – and we should reflect that in our relationships on Facebook.

2. All your friends can see pretty much everything that you do on Facebook. This is great for keeping in contact, but means we need to think about our actions while online. When you join a group – everyone is notified. When you leave a group – again, everyone knows about it. So choose carefully which groups you decide to join – think through what it says about you and your priorities. This week my ‘news feed’ informed me that people joined groups with words in their title that I can’t repeat here.
It seems like simple advice, but watch your words – especially swear words. Some of my friends have started a group which has swearing from ostensibly Christian people written on the wall. Christians are to rid filthy language from their lips (and keyboards).

Enjoy Facebook, and the internet – but think as a Christian while you’re on there.

Statistics

Simon posts up his stats for his first thousand visitors. A very amusing post.

Affluenza

A great video on Dave's blog. If you have any contact with youth - it's a must see.

July Prayer Event

Our church had its monthly prayer meeting last night. We spent an hour singing, praying and reflecting on God’s goodness in our lives.

Each prayer event has a theme, and last night was “thankfulness”. At the end, we spent twenty minutes or so writing down all the things we can be thankful to God for in the past 12 months. Doing this made me realise just how good my God has been to me. It has also changed my attitude towards the future. If God has provided for me so wonderfully in the past year, how can I not trust him for the years to come?

Here is what I wrote on my list. Things I can thank God for in the last 12 months:

• My marriage to Sam – for both the blessing of marriage and Sam
• Making Christians in the Media my home
• Keeping my family well both physically and spiritually
• My new position at work
• Money to live on
• A place to live in – and in such a nice suburb
• Giving me ways to develop my skills as a writer
• My Bible study group, who have been a great blessing
• Crossfire – for growing this ministry everyday
• Giving me opportunities to serve – I’ve had so many opportunities to serve others this year, from playing drums to giving seminars and preparing supper. I am never lacking for ways to give
• The kindness of people from Carlingford, where Sam used to go to church. The people there have been so generous with their time, money and hospitality. They always try to spend time with us and support us – we feel very loved!
• Both our parents, who were incredibly easy-going and supportive during our wedding, and now our marriage
• Trials and heartache
• Financial support from people for Sam to do MTS
• And finally, the hope of tomorrow. It is a privilege to live everyday confident that tomorrow is safe in God’s hands.

What is the Gospel?

This morning I began listening to Don Carson’s sermon “What is the Gospel?” (from the gospel coalition conference) on the peak hour train to work.

I listened to the first ten minutes, went back to the beginning and listened to what I had just heard again. He really is a fantastic preacher. Here is what I learnt:

The Gospel is not just a series of propositions that rightly believed tip Christians into the Kingdom of God, but the consuming story of the Bible. Sometimes Christians think of the Gospel only as God’s initial act of grace that sees people saved; and then the rest of the Christian life is a struggle towards godliness, happiness or self-growth. The Gospel is bigger than this. It is the all-embracing ethos by which we live.

The Gospel is Christological, which is Dr Carson’s way of saying that it is entirely about Jesus Christ, from the beginning to the end. This may seem obvious to some, but it’s something we must hold onto dearly. The Gospel is not a vague pantheism; it doesn’t grope towards an indistinct deity. It is about Christ.

More than that, it is about the salvific work of Christ – the victory he won for us over the power of sin through his death and resurrection. There are some who try to separate Jesus’ earthly works, his teachings and compassion, from his redemptive work on the cross. Just as we cannot view Jesus’ sacrifice apart from his teachings, we also cannot divorce the Gospel from Jesus’ death on the cross, or his resurrection. It’s like missing the whole point of the story.

This is what I’ve learnt so far. The sermon is an hour long, so I will post some more later. How great is the message we believe in, how deep and wonderful and satisfying!

You can listen to the sermon here.