The Child Within (8 of 40)

Today's Challenge: Draw a funny picture and hide it in an unexpected place for someone else to find.

We were at a bit of a loss as to how we might pull this one off, but after some head scratching, we decided that we would create a movie poster for our friend Matt. Last night he went to see The Bourne Ultimatum, so we thought we'd stick with that theme, and add him into one of the posters.

As for hiding it - it's kinda hard to hide something for someone you don't live with, so we just sent it as an email - I guess you could call it hiding it in his inbox!
We were pretty proud of our photoshop skills - matching the colour of the face took ages!

What do you think?

Tomorrow's Challenge: Do one thing today to support a cause or issue you really care about.

friendship

When Carrie and her friends became the top rating television show Sex and the City, they put more than promiscuity on the map.

The show also put its finger on something complicated yet precious, an aspect of life that is important to all women, no matter who they are. Sex and the City talked about friendship.

Women love their friends, and that’s what made Carrie and her entourage so appealing. These girls firmly lived out the adage, “mates before dates”. They had the kind of friendship where you could call at any hour of the night to just chat, or have long, lazy lunches on the weekends.

But what is the essence of female friendship? Women think differently on this, which is where problems can happen.

Some see friendship as spending lots of time together. Things go well until your best friend gets a stressful job or – the death knell for this kind of friendship – The Boyfriend. Suddenly, time is scarce and your friend has a new priority in her life, causing jealousy and hurt.

Others base their friendship around common aspects of their lives, whether it’s having the same job, going to the same church or even just being at the same stage of life. Difficulties begin when one friend’s situation changes. It’s hard to keep hanging out with your girlfriends when they all like to stay up late on Sunday night after church and you need to be in bed early for that 7am start.

This is where Christian friendship is different from Sex and the City. In the show, friendship was based on fulfilling the need for companionship. Carrie’s best friend or “pseudo-boyfriend” was someone she had a connection with, who she could rely on and spend time with. Christian friendship mirrors some of this (minus the pseudo boyfriend part) and with more depth. It’s about putting your girlfriend’s needs first. It’s about thinking of what is best for her and encouraging her to be godly, the best way you can.

Often, this means doing things that come naturally, things like talking on the phone and celebrating each other’s joys. God has blessed us with the fun and laughter of female companionship. It makes life so rich and worth living.

But sometimes, putting your friend’s needs first is difficult, even painful.

It means forgiving her when she’s done something incredibly hurtful, or rebuking her when she is unrepentant in her sin – something any girl is loath to do.

It means putting a stop to unhelpful, manipulative behaviour. Taking those sobbing 11pm phone-calls can be loving, but not when you’re encouraging her to rely on you over Jesus. Going through a messy break-up for the 15th time might make her feel better, but it won’t help her to move on with her life.

It means encouraging her to spend time with her husband, even if you’re single and wish she had more time for you. On the other side, it means limit the “couple speak” (beginning every sentence with “Dave and I….”) and making sure you include her in the marriage, that you still make time for her.

It means supporting her when she has a baby and is too tired to cook, go out or clean the house. But it also means remembering to ask your friends without children how they’re going, rather than talking about breastfeeding all the time.

Being a good friend is about desiring her godliness over her company.
That is the kind of friend I want to have, and the kind I hope to be.

I thank God for the wonderful girlfriends in my life:)

Correction

Just a quick correction on the post below about feedback. I'm not encouraging people to slag off their minister with negative feedback beause they don't like the way he said what he said.

I was simply talking as a trainee who wants to be given lots of constructive feedback. I feel like I don't often get told things that I can improve on, and I would like that more. I think it is important for senior people in ministry to help train younger people in ministry by being honest with them and challenging them to improve. Please read the post in that light - that seniors should be constructive with those that they are training.

Snapshots

We just added a widget to our blog to allow you to preview links before you click on them. Just mouse-over the link, and you should see a small copy of the page you're about to go to. Try this one. It's kinda cool - but has the potential to annoy. We're going to let it run for a week, then decide whether to keep it or not, so let us know what you think. If you don't like it - tell us, you're the reader of this blog, so you might as well be happy with the feel of our site too...

The Child Within (7 of 40)

Today's challenge: Spend 15 – 30 minutes doing something you love that you don’t often have the chance to do.

Warning: the first half of this post contains nerd speak.

For me, something that I really enjoy doing is dusting off my Xbox and taking it to the aliens in Halo. Sadly, It's been a while since I last stuck someone with a plasma grenade, though I'm almost certain my last victim was guthers007. That was at my bucks night, but it was hard to feel like I was kicking butt while dressed in a tu-tu and pink singlet top.

So at about 9pm last night, I sat down on our couch, set up a new 1 player game and made my attempt to find the 'silent cartographer', on expert difficulty. I was dead in about 25 seconds. I momentarily considered changing my mind about this challenge, as this was meant to be something I enjoyed, but on my third attempt at the battle, I was back to destroying enemies long range with the pistol. It was fantastic. I'm going to finish the level when I get home from the council meeting tonight!

Soph spent her 15 minutes with mud on her face. Yep, she gave herself a $3.99 mud-mask. After applying the wet stuff, it's a pretty easy 15 minutes. Just sit back and let it cement your face into one unmovable position. It's a poker players dream - just 2 minutes application and you can't change your facial expression even if you wanted to. This is as much as I understand about facemasks and the like, but Soph certainly looked as if she was enjoying herself afterwards, even if she couldn't smile during the 15 minutes!

We in no way endorse poker.

The next challenge: Draw a funny picture and hide it in an unexpected place for someone else to find.

Honest Feedback.

I've been thinking a lot about how to give feedback to people in ministry.

Soph and I have been training our home group in leading Bible studies, as well as opening up the Crossfire platform for some new preachers to try their hand at a skill.

As a naturally critical person, I like to be honest with people. I tell them the things they did well first, but I don't hold back on things I think can be improved. I want people to do this for me too. When I give a talk or lead a seminar, I would much prefer for someone to say, "thanks for that...now, have you thought about X? Oh and you need to make sure that you don't..." etc. That's far more helpful than, "It was great".

I've really appreciated the feedback that was given to me when I was learning to preach in youth group five years ago. Every Friday night after I preached, the youth minister would sit me down, tell me some reassuring positives, but then really grill me on every detail - ranging from, "you've completely got the passage wrong" to "that illustration had a hole in it at this point". I was challenged on choice of words, length, mannerisms, passage break up, outline, illustrations, the big idea, the songs that we chose to go with the talk, even the jokes I used. There were no holds barred - sometimes the 'constructive' feedback would take up to an hour.

I'm convinced this has helped my skills (especially in preaching - though I still have lots to learn) far more than "Oh, it was great!" ever would have. Sure, at times my ego was a little bruised and battered, but I had to learn not to have my self esteem rely upon my performance. Instead, I learned to accept feedback and improve on the areas where I was weak.

I think that honest feedback is quite rare in many Christian circles. We want to be encouraging, and "build each other up in love". These are great things to desire. More than anything, feedback needs to build others up, and encourage them. But should that mean that feedback can never be brutal, or completely honest?

Are there times where it is right to say ,"That was a poor effort, and you should have put more work in"? My pastor said that to me once - and he was totally right. I had rushed my preparation and given into the temptation of preaching on my personal hobby horses, rather than on the passage. I needed to be told that this was unacceptable, and I was rightfully humbled. I felt terrible about it on the night, but I learned a valuable lesson. If my pastor had failed to give me this feedback, and simply said, "Well done, you're a natural communicator" - far from being built up, I'd probably still be rushing my preparation rather than delving into the passage in order to preach it correctly.

Feel free to give your honest feedback on my opinion.

The Child Within (6 out of 40)

Today's Challenge: Write down one big dream of yours. Draw or find a picture to go with it and put it somewhere you will see it often.

I had lots of big dreams when I was young. Often they involved possessing superpowers or being just like my favourite fictional characters, like Anne of Green Gables or the purple ninja turtle. As I grew older, my dreams grew less outlandish and more achievable. Before long they were hardly dreams, but manageable goals. The problem with having dreams is the possibility that they may never come true.

But a child doesn't think like that. Children dream of all sorts of things that exist outside the realm of possibility. The fear of failure doesn't stop them like it does with adults. So I tried to think the same and wrote a big dream of mine in my diary: to be a published writer.

I couldn't think of a picture to go with this, so instead I wrote a list of published writers who have inspired me. I don't necessarily enjoy all of these writers' work or read their books now, but they have each taught me something about writing, whether through their style, structure, content, creativity or sheer audacity.

Some names from my list:

Zadie Smith
George Orwell
William Gibson
Joseph Conrad
Margaret Atwood
Helen Garner
Jack Marx
Ariel Levy
C.S. Lewis
T.S. Eliot

I've asked Sam to write about his "big dream" too:

Sam here. There are stacks of things that I have as dreams: To be a father, and hang out with my kids and wife at a park on a rug in the sun - that would be great! To take a hot lap in a WRX around bathurst (Soph's done it in a ute), to travel through Europe with countless funds at my disposal. Some of them are realistic (hopefully the park one), others (like the europe one) will never happen - and that's ok. I'm not really the "Life sux unless you're living out your dreams" type. Those people are condescending, showy and generally unemployed.

But as a fun thing to do, I would seriously love to restore an old espresso machine. Just buy some classic, rusting old warhorse and bring it back to it's crema producing glory and let it live in my kitchen. This guy did it - and he chose pretty much the best machine in the world to restore - It would take quite a few thousand dollars, so it's not really on the cards any time in the next 10 years. But maybe one day - we'll see.

Soph again.

Thinking of big dreams was fun, but Sam and I were reluctant to plaster them on our wall as our life's ambition.

We firmly believe that our lives are not our own, but hidden with Christ. This may sound a little like the beauty pageant contestant that answers "world peace", but our deepest desire is to know God: to love Him and enjoy Him, to love others and tell them about his grace, to walk in obedience to Him and be there on the last day, praising His name forever with the saints.

It's hard to keep this vision at the forefront of my mind. Being an adult has filled my life with worries and fear so that I no longer boldly seek the deepest treasure, but settle for the dross.

There are many things we dream of having here on earth - cafes, publishing books, travelling, growing a church, being part of a community, raising a family, owning a house with a balcony, spending time with our friends and family - but there is only one thing in life that we are assured of. So this is what we displayed in our house:

Proverbs 28:18-20
He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty. A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.

Colossians 2:6-7
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Tomorrow's challenge: Spend 15 – 30 minutes doing something you love that you don’t often have the chance to do.

Fun day making coffee

After a shaky start with some machine problems, I had a great time making coffee today. It's nice to know that I've still got the skills to handle some big rushes. One of the girls I served said - "Oh wow, that's better than Campos." That kind of comment makes your day.

Blogger now offers videos inside posts.

As long they are less than 100mb. Sweet.

The Child Within (5 of 40)

Challenge 5: Become a scientist. Conduct a silly experiment.

Aim: To discern who has a bigger mouth - Sam or Soph? Sam definitely talks more, but Soph has the bigger smile. We need to conduct an experiment to give us some exact results!

Equipment:

A bag of marshmallows

Two mouths
Fingers
A digital camera.
Two plates for "post stuff scrutineering"

Method:

1. Open Sophia's mouth.
2. Insert a single marshmallow inside mouth.
3. Add another,
4. And another, continuing to add until you can't fit anymore marshmallows in.
5. Have Soph spit them out in a gross way for scrutineering
6. Count up the total marshmallows
7. Repeat steps 1 through 7 for Sam
   

Results:










Soph - 13, Sam - 23

Conclusions:
Sam definitely has the bigger mouth of the two. Soph's mouth can hold only 56.52173913% of the total capacity of Sam's mouth. Soph still has the nicer smile.

Tomorrow's Challenge: Write down one big dream of yours. Draw or find a picture to go with it and put it somewhere you will see it often.

Driscoll on seondary matters.

This morning I had a free hour, so I listened to the next sermon in the 1 John series I've been slowly working through from the Mars Hill church website. It was a sermon on loving one another, and there was a really helpful section on loving people you disagree with. Here's a snippet. I found it challenging.

You can disagree with your brothers and sisters, but you don’t bust up the family over things that are secondary. You love each other and you hang in there.

And for those of you that are intensely academic, like me, you’re real theological, you white guys, who read dead white guys, you guys – those are the ones I’m talking to – Think about this: Maybe if you were nice to people who disagreed with you – they would listen and learn something and agree with you, but in the mean time you need to be more loving, and you’ll get a hearing.

I think this could be the great Mars Hill problem. We are the very biblically minded, orthodox, well argued, jerks. That could be who we are.

The Child Within (4 of 40)

Today's challenge: Add something childlike (not necessarily childish) to your workspace or home.

I didn't feel as excited about this challenge when I read the brief. How to do this in an interesting way? I was racking my brain. For a brief moment, I considered covering my fingers with peanut butter and just touch everything below waste level. Greasy fingerprints are the hallmark of any child inhabited house. But this house has a lot of stainless steel - so I needed a new plan. What do kids do? Then it came - Drawing. Kids draw. They love it! Just give them a piece of paper and a 12 pack of derwents and they are away.

And so were we.

It was lots of fun. Now our fridge proudly displays two childish items!

Tomorrow's challenge: Become a scientist. Conduct a silly experiment.

Stay Tuned.

Scripture this morning

Didn't feel like my lesson went as well as it could have this morning - the kids were a bit rowdy, and wouldn't focus on what I was trying to get them to do. On top of this, there were two kids who constantly agitated against every point I tried to make (which really irritates me!). Most of these agitations were just for the sake of arguing, rather than genuine questions too.

Anyway, I was feeling quite down about the whole lesson, until I got home tonight and read over some of the work that the class did today. One of the questions on the worksheets was "what have you learned about God in the last six weeks?"

Here are all the responses that I could decipher. They are unedited. Some are a bit sad, but others are really encouraging. You can see how God is planting seeds in some of their lives.

• God is more forgiving than I thought
• He is a very proud creator
• He rejects people
• He forgives you if you're really sorry.
• He is Jesus' father
• If you believe in Jesus you can die and have eternal life
• He can reject people
• That if you trust him, you will have eternal life and if you don't he will reject you. (I think this kid might have become a Christian today)
• Believe in him
• If you want to have eternal life, do not reject him
• That I want to stay the same way that I am now.

Facebook Dashboard Widget

There are a few out there, but this* is the best I can find. It automatically advises you of what is happening on your profile without filling up your inbox with useless mail. Plus, it keeps you away from wasting time just hanging around facebook waiting for something to happen - not that any of us have ever done that...
*mac os x only.

The Child Within (3 of 40)

Today's challenge: Do something that is typically seen as inappropriate for someone of your age.

Due to certain complaints that we may have gone a little soft in our last challenge, Sam and I thought we'd step up the effort for today's task.

Our location? Leichhardt shopping centre.

When I was a kid, I used to love riding in those dinky little $2 coin-operated rides they install in shopping centres, the kind that play creepy music and allow mums to plonk their kids down for a five-minute break. The novelty lost its charm as I grew older. Then I started working at a bakery which was situated right next to a Postman Pat coin-operated ride. There's only a limited number of times you can hear "Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his black and white cat" before wanting to put your head through the bread slicer.

In the name of discovering the child within, Sam and I decided to experience the coin-operated ride once again, this time at Leichhardt market place.

We found a coin-operated vehicle near the shopping centre carpark, sans a postman and his cat, but still with the same dinky lights and garish colours. The $2 fee was expected, what we didn't expect was how much our bodies had grown since we last had a ride. It was like trying to squash oneself into a tin can - albeit a brightly decorated one, but a tin can all the same.

I took some very funny footage of Sam being rotated in the van with his legs sticking out (think rotating frankfurt in a hotdog vendor), but realised when we got home that the camera phone was on "pause", not "play" the entire time. Hmm.

However, we did manage to catch some of our night's childish endeavours...



Tomorrow's Challenge: Add something childlike (not necessarily childish) to your workspace or home.

on voting

I’ve been reading the coverage surrounding Rudd’s visits to a strip club and the Heiner affair today. I haven’t yet worked through the issues (particularly with the Heiner affair), but I had a few thoughts:

I noticed on the blogs a lot of Christians were quick to judge and condemn. I wonder if this is the best attitude. Rudd is human and makes mistakes. As someone pointed out, I’m sure if I was running for PM and had the spotlight thrown on my past misgivings, there would be things I’d rather hide. Are we casting the first stone, I wonder?

That led me to wonder whether Christians were voting for Rudd simply because they liked the fact that he had the “squeaky clean” Christian image, or because they believed in his policies and direction for Australia. Surely wise voting decisions should come from a combination of both? I hate to think we are heading towards a version of campaigning where personal life matters more than public policy.

Thirdly, I also wonder if we have the right to demand “repentance” from Rudd. In the case of the strip-club scandal, surely the only person he has sinned against is God, and his wife (I’m not sure the same can be said of the Heiner affair). If he has repented to both, then shouldn’t that be satisfactory? He has already expressed remorse over what he did; it therefore surprises me how some people cry for blood, insisting, “that’s not enough – that’s not genuine”. This strikes me as a little self-righteous. I also think it raises a deeper issue of how accountable should a leader be to the public for his/her personal life.

This won’t change the way I vote in the Federal election. I’m still voting for Labour and Rudd as my PM, not because I have resolved any of these issues in my own mind, but because of my own political beliefs.

I just think these issues are worth thinking about.

Scripture tomorrow.

Tomorrow, my scripture class will finish up the gospel outline that we've been working through the last 5 weeks. I'm excited, because I'm going to give them an opportunity to become Christians.
I'm going to pray with, and for, anyone who now wants to live with Jesus as their king. I've realised that Scripture ministry takes time - you can't move at the same pace that you might in youth group, but after 5 weeks I think there will be some kids who are ready to respond.

Pray for the kids - that God by his Spirit would convict some of the kids in this class of the gospel that we have worked through in the last five weeks.

Pray for me - that God would speak clearly through me, and the lesson I've prepared.

John 3:36 "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

The Child Within (2 of 40)

Today's challenge - Instaparty: Find a reason to celebrate and do something to celebrate it.

We had some great ideas on how we could meet today's challenge before Crossfire this morning, but they were promptly discarded by the rainy weather and the snooze button on the alarm. It's hard to find things to celebrate when the world outside is grey and soup-like. Checking our diaries in the hope that it was someone's birthday today didn't help either.

We had almost given up when we realised the inspiration for our celebration was right in our faces (literally): the rain. How good is God in sending us the rain? Not only does our parched city need it, but it is the perfect excuse for sitting inside a warm house with a cup of tea, good books and some DVDs.

So, after lunch with a friend and before night church, we got under our freshly washed sheets, put Season 1 of our favourite TV series 24 in the laptop and had a Doona Afternoon. It was a great way to celebrate the rain, so great I even fell asleep halfway through the episode.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's challenge: Do something that is typically seen as inappropriate for someone of your age.

The Child Within (Part 1 of 40).

Today, Soph and I began the Adultitis escape plan.


Here's the challenge for day one. Different World: Spend at least 15 minutes immersing yourself in a field you know nothing about.

There was no real doubt for me what this activity was going to involve: Art Galleries. Modern art galleries. Specifically, the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. Up until this afternoon my artistic appreciation stopped somewhere round about classicism. I can cope with guys like Lord Leighton, but knives hanging from the ceiling as art? I've never really got that kind of stuff.We got to the MCA around 2pm, and stayed for an hour. At first I had to read each of the placards, but after some time I began to see for myself how fake anuses and nipples paraded upon an evening gown (with matching nipple shoes and anus bag) really did showcase the irony of our fleshy obsession in fashion. I enjoyed the museum a lot, and I'd even go back again, though I don't know if I'm up to looking at this kind of art without some kind of explanation - we'll see in the future.

Already a pretty sensational drummer, Soph spent her 15 minutes learning to play the guitar, wondering if her rock chick cool could extend beyond "bashing something in time" to "bashing something in time and creating a tune".

After the initial startup cost of fingernail cutting was out of the way, it was on to learning how to tune the guitar (E,A,D,G,B,A). The main plan, however was to learn four neck chords - A, E, D and G.

Soph was good! By the half hour mark she was making pretty quick changes between the four chords, and even thinking about strumming patterns and technique! Now she's equipped with enough guitar know how to play almost anything published by Nicky Chiswell or U2.

So are we feeling less adult? The jury is out at this point, but we had fun all the same.

Tomorrow's challenge - Instaparty: Find a reason to celebrate and do something to celebrate it.

We'll keep you posted.

Carson on mystery and certainty

"Christianity that is nothing but certainties quickly becomes haughty and arrogant, rigid and unbending. Worse, it leaves sthe Christian open to the most excruciating doubt when the vicissitudes of life finally knock out the supporting pillars. The God of such Christianity is just not big enough to be trusted when you are up to your neck in the much of pain and defeat. Conversely, Christianity that is nothing but mystery leaves nothing to proclaim, and makes faith indistinguishable from blind credulity."

RTA ads

Richard Blackburn doubts RTA’s latest Pinky ad is effective, but I disagree. It may take a little while to prove its effectiveness, but going back to gruesome ads which show the 'consequences' of speeding is not going to solve the problem.

When I was a teenager with a fast car, a license and lots to prove, I saw stacks of these kinds of ads and they didn't stop me. It took something far less subtle to slow me down - a Toyota Echo appearing out of nowhere on Anzac parade (read: I wasn't concentrating, and was way too confident). Writing off my favourite car made me realise that speeding is dangerous. From then on, I was forced to look like a dork - driving a slower and much cheaper car. It was really hard to look cool while driving a Suzuki.

Those old-style ‘show them the consequences’ ads just didn't work – not for me anyway. I think it's similar with the smoking campaigns that show you the consequences. No one believes that will ever be them, and they convince themselves that they'll stop by that time anyway.

I'm sure that questioning the manhood of guys (especially if hot girls catch on to this practice) will help slow guys down. And if there was a slogan of the “Not happy Jan” calibre, then I reckon we'd really see some real progress. Can you imagine it? Some guy is pulling out of Penrith Panthers, dropping a set, while the hot girl in the passenger seat says "that impresses me as much as nasal delivery technology", while holding up her limp pinky finger. That guy will be Ned Flanders in no time.

Far from abandoning these kinds of campaigns, I'd like to see them tried on smoking too. Forget all about lung disease and heart problems - just try "Your skin looks festy and I wouldn't want to sleep with you". See how it goes, I think.

Simpsons piracy

Although the simpsons have been increasingly dominating the internet during the last month, it seems there are some parts of the internet they don't want to be found in!

Adultitis

Sam and I took an important test yesterday.

It was on the Internet, as most important tests are, and diagnosed us both with Stage Two Adultitis – the unnatural acceleration out of child-like play and into adulthood.

When I think about it, the symptoms were all there: staying in to do the laundry, yawning for bed at 9:30pm, playing Srabulous with each other while sitting on the same couch (I kid you not), breaking in the Colarado gear. You know you’re on a downhill slide when you start wearing Colorado shoes; it’s just one step away from the polo fleece.

There is a cure: The Adultitis 40-day Escape Plan

Inspired by RodeoClown’s experience with this program, Sam and I have decided to give it a go, starting tomorrow. Not only does this help stem our downward spiral into adulthood, but it conveniently gives us something to blog about for the next few weeks, as we are light on content at the moment!

Barista Work

I'm doing some coffee making in a few Saturdays time - I'm really excited about it, because I haven't done any in quite some time. Plus it's paid work, which is nice!

Theological stands.

I'm grateful that our Archbishop is taking a hit for his diocese on this whole Spong issue. It is good leadership, but clearly not going to win any friends in the media. I'm praying hard for the ministry of Christians in the Media to one day see such a change in the way stories such as these are reported. I'm praying for a day when God-honouring church leaders will not be derided or scoffed at for loving Jesus. The incredible thing is, the SMH don't have one single quote from Peter Jensen to allow him to explain his actions, yet they litter the article with 'ad hominems' from Spong. Very poor, sensationalist reporting indeed.

Church Staff Meetings

One of the things I never thought much about when I began full time ministry was the prospect of spending up to 5 hours a week (sometimes more) sitting in administration meetings. I think it’s fair to say that few people like meetings. Most people see them as a necessary task probably designed to teach us endurance.

Knowing that most people don't want to be at meetings should shape the way we run them, so here are my 6 tips for people running church staff administration meetings.

1. Make sure that your staff team read the Bible together at least once in the week. And I mean really read it. If you've done anything right with the people you've hired, your staff team will most likely be filled with people who love Jesus and want to read his word - so this shouldn't be too unrealistic a goal. Reading the Bible as a team brings Jesus to the forefront of whatever plans you're about to make, helps establish team unity, and helps the staff team to encourage each other on the important stuff. Doing this regularly will help set the tone of the way in which a staff team relate - and Godly people in meetings will make meetings far more bearable.
As an aside - I think staff Bible time needs to be more than just reviewing a sermon, or thinking through a point of application for an upcoming talk. These things need to be done, but cannot and should not be substitutes for sitting under the scriptures together.

2. Have an agenda. There is nothing worse than fronting up to a meeting, knowing that something needs to be discussed today, and not getting to that important issue because everyone wants to give their opinion on the way supper should be handed out next week. As you set the agenda think about how important each issue is. If it's not that important does it need to be the on the agenda at all? (can you just take it up at another time with the person involved?) Perhaps it can have a limited time slot in the meeting. Explain your agenda to your team at the start, and if you're no good at keeping time, ask someone to make sure that the meeting moves along as it should.

3. Have some items on the agenda that are open to discussion, and others that are not. Some things simply need to be reported and prayed about, and then moved on from. If you don't make it clear that a certain item is not being discussed, you fall behind time from agenda item one. Some issues need all minds to be engaged on them, others only need a few. If you are in charge of the meeting explain to people what kind of agenda item you are dealing with.

4. Don't make meetings too long. Most attention spans are only an hour, an hour and a half at best. This will mean you might have to have more smaller meetings through the week, rather than just one big all in nightmare. Items that come to be discussed after the 1.5 hour mark just won't get the attention or creativity of thought that they deserve.

5. Think about where your meetings are held. Is the atmosphere conducive to what you're trying to do? Meeting in an enormous room with everyone sitting far apart won't help you to do intimate Bible study. Sitting in a poorly lit or cold room won't help people be creative and come up with exciting new ventures for the church. Some meetings work better in a lounge room, others need to be around a table. Have more than one meeting space for your meetings. Some suggestions: Book a regular table at a cafe, meet in the church hall, meet at someone's house etc. Don't do meetings outside. It just doesn't work.

6. Deal with distractions. It is impossible to have an effective staff meeting if people are distracted. Have a clear policy on laptops and enforce it. Ask people to turn off their phones during the meeting. Ask people to save their private discussions until after the meeting has finished. Don't feel like you have to answer every question that someone raises. Often people distract the whole meeting from an agenda by asking questions that could be asked later.

my week

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. It has been a busy few weeks!

On Monday I started a new stint at a medical magazine. After spending the last six months trying to get my head around the advertising and media industry, I’m now trying to make an even bigger jump to the health profession. I haven’t started writing articles yet – just short news pieces and a few profiles – but I’m ready to dive into it. At lunch yesterday my friend Roz commented that my research skills must be impeccable, having delved into manufacturing, advertising and now medicine. It’s called “Google”.

I gave a talk at Crossfire last Sunday – my second ever youth group talk (or talk, for that matter). It was on Colossians 2, about sticking with Jesus and growing in Him. I think it went okay, much better than my first time. I’m praying the Spirit used my words and the passage to inspire the kids to say rooted in Christ. High school is a time when many young people decide to either claim Jesus as their Lord or walk away. I hope our guys and girls in our group will stick with Jesus for the long haul.

Sam and I have had quite a few friends and family over in the past few days. This has kept us busy, but in a good way. Sometimes I find it difficult to invite people over on the weekends or be proactive in spending time with others. It’s due to a few things - I can be introverted, so I often finding doing the initiating hard, particularly in Christian circles. I didn’t realise this until I changed churches and had to build a whole new network of friends, I’d been at my old church for my entire life. Also, Sam and I spend a lot of time with other people during the week (Sam especially, so Saturday is a good day – sometimes the only day – we have to fully relax with each other. It’s hard not to be selfish about that. Hopefully I’ll become wiser with this, as I love spending time with friends.

And finally, I started a going to a pilates class on Tuesday night with people from work. So far, so good. The course is really basic, so much easier than previous classes I’ve done at the gym. That still didn’t prevent my stomach muscles from aching for two days afterwards!

SMH online is annoying me

They are now using video ads which play automatically when you load the page. Not only does it waste my bandwidth, but it is so distracting when you are trying to read static text to have a moving image right next to it. It's like trying to do your homework in front of the television! Argh!
Is there a firefox plug-in to allow me to stop videos playing unless I want them to?

P.S Sorry about the comment moderation - it was a mistake. All fixed now. How gross is freddy's moustache!

Freddy Mercury had a gross moustache

Man it was gross. Fashion and trends are horrible things sometimes...
ABC2 are playing an old live concert at the moment.

Public Lectures@UTS

Two exciting events next week. Should be good times.

Thanks Dave for the fonts.

Five Significant Books in your Christian life.

Here's mine.

1. Hanging in there - John Dickson. Not a theological heavyweight, but it was the first Christian book aside from the Bible I ever read. My sister gave it to me, and God used it to help me begin to find my feet in the Lord.

2. Knowing God - J.I Packer. a great book of evangelical doctrine. I still love it.

3. A Call to Spiritual Reformation - Don Carson. I've read this a number of times both on my own, and with others. It shaped my prayer life greatly.

4. The Cross of Christ - John Stott. This book deals with the atonement in great detail, I read it after my first MYC, have begun to re-read it recently.

5. Religious affections - Jonathon Edwards. I got onto Edwards through reading John Piper. I love reading things outside my own generation. There is a sense of wonder when you read of men from centuries ago delighting in the same Lord that I do.

These are not necessarily the best books that I've ever read, but they are five books that God has used in his kindness at various points in my Christian life to significantly work in my life. Which books has God used in your life?

I'm bringing sensible back... (yeah)

When I was a young girl, I loved reading Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series.

Featuring a boarding school by the sea, the six books delved into the joys and trials of English high-school girls. My favourite character was Darrell Rivers. Headstrong yet compassionate, Darrell got into a lot of scrapes during her time at school. The one thing that kept her steady was sensible Sally - Darrell’s stalwart, her leveler, her Hermione Granger. Even though Darrell was the girl who had the adventures, Sally was the one to emulate. In Malory Towers, it was the solid girls - the ones with a good head on their shoulders – that always saved the day.

Today, sense is no longer a prized virtue. Maybe it’s because British boarding school values are considered passé compared to the Americanised cool of today’s fictional characters, but bravery and following one’s heart is often favoured over having sense. To be sensible is to be dull. A sensible outfit means “staid and boring”; a sensible choice is an unadventurous one.

Christians can also spiritualise the daring and provocative over the sensible. Phrases like, “take a leap of faith”, “just do it and trust God with the consequences” or “as long as you’re both Christian, you can make the marriage work” make considered decision-making seem overly fastidious, even betraying an unwillingness to trust God. On the other hand, taking a risk makes the adrenaline run and our senses feel alive. It makes us feel like we’re on the coalface of Christian living.

Trusting God with our lives doesn’t mean abdicating our responsibility to make considered decisions. In Jesus’ parable of the talents, He teaches us to be shrewd and thoughtful in the way we offer our gifts to God.

It also doesn’t free us from our duty to our family, church and society. Too often, people eschew these duties in the name of “following God’s calling”. It’s not God-honouring to neglect your family to pursue ministry, drive your church into financial ruin in pursuit of a vision, or refuse to work for a living because you’re trying to figure out God’s dream for you. It’s true that following God defies the logic of this world and we need to be radically different in order to follow him, but this is not to be confused with being foolish. At the same time, being responsible doesn’t mean you can’t do something fresh or different.

Like Justin with sexy, maybe it’s time to bring sensible back. God gave us a mind; he gave us the ability to reason and think through our decisions. We need to encourage each other to use it for his glory.

Our internet speed

Can anyone tell me if this is good?

Dave's trying some new marketing techniques

What do you think?

Prayer Event

Last night we had our August prayer event. In my opinion, it's the best event on our church calendar - the one event I won't miss for anything. We sing, we pray in lots of different ways and for lots of different things. It's never dull, it's never awkward, but a joyous time to thank God. It's short (one hour), well organised and different each month. There can easily be a tendency for prayer meetings to be routine or lack creativity - but I've not found that once at the prayer event.

On top of all this, it puts things in perspective when you spend an hour praying with brothers and sisters at the beginning of the week. I would love to hear of more churches doing this kind of thing regularly - I'm sure that it would teach us to rely upon God amidst all the busy-ness of a regular church calendar.

How does your church do corporate prayer?

chef's notes

I'm no baker but I made the best lemon cakes yesterday for church supper tonight. Sam said they were the best he'd ever eaten, and after lots of interrogation, I was satisfied that he wasn't just saying that to humour his baking-novice wife.

I also invented a really tasty minestrone soup recipe. It has all the usual suspects (celery, tomato, carrot, pasta, borlotti beans, chick peas, onions, canned tomatoes and stock) but at the last minute I decided to add some cummin and lemon zest. Not only is it tasty, but it stops the minestrone from being overpowered by the tomato taste.

Also on the topic of food, yesterday Sam and I celebrated our six-month anniversary with lunch and a beer at the James Squire Brewery by the harbour. It's hard to believe we've been married for this long! We also watched Notes of a Scandal on DVD that night. It was a great movie with powerful performances, but somewhat disturbing in its portrayal of loneliness.

My Simpsons Character

Over at the Simpsons Movie site, you can create an avatar to look like you - it's kinda fun. What do you think of ours?

exercise

Sam and I had a free night on Thursday, so we ate apricot chicken while watching Driscoll's Death By Ministry series, then went out to Double Bay for Moroccan mint tea at the Cherri Jam bar.

Sam was thinking about posting on Driscoll's series at a later date, so I won't go into too much detail. I found a lot of what he had to say really helpful, especially the section on "ministry wives" and the importance of physical health.

Exercise is something I've been struggling with since getting married. Full-time work and a busy life makes it hard to fit it in regularly. I'm also not as motivated as I could be. Many people wake up at a crazy hour in the morning to run around the park with a fitness trainer or go to the gym. I think the birds in Bicentennial Park must think humans are a bit mad, puffing around in the chilly dark wearing tracksuits when any sensible creature would be warm and asleep. I struggle just to get out of bed on time, especially when we've had a late one the night before.

I dislike a lot of exercise - running bores me, I don't like treadmills or machines at the gym and sport does not appeal to me at all. Things I do enjoy: dance classes, body combat, pilates - I used to do these three classes regularly when I was a Fitness First member. I also enjoy long, scenic walks.

So I'm thinking of joining a gym again, though part of me is loathe to pay for something I should be able to motivate myself to do without any cost. I'd actually prefer to do a dance class once a week, but I'm still working up the courage to go by my-uncoordinated-self. Plus the last class I researched had the lessons divided up into video-clips you wanted to emulate. Hmmm...somehow the PussyCat Doll's Buttons does not appeal....

Paris Hilton

Gorden Cheng wrote an interesting op-ed in the Tele: treat Paris Hilton with respect, losers.

As someone who keeps up with celebrity gossip and reads about pop culture, I feel the sting of his rebuke. I liked what He said about Jesus treating all people with respect. Perhaps we should do the same too.

Lloyd-Jones on the Holy Spirit

This quote was in a sermon by the great doctor from the 1950s on 1 John 5:20. I read it with a friend today. Great stuff.

"The purpose of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into this world was to send this gift of the Holy Spirit upon his people. Must we not agree that there is a tendency for us to forget that? Is there not a tendency on our part to stop with the life and example and teaching of Jesus Christ, or to stop only with His work upon the cross, as if to say that the whole purpose of the coming of the Son of God into this world was to purchase pardon and forgiveness for us and nothing more? Thank God that we do emphasise that, and it is forever central, and must be; but the work of the Lord Jesus does not end at that point. His work in the resurrection is equally vital for us; His ascension, too, is equally important; and above all, this great event that took place on the Day of Pentecost at Jerusalem."

Matt Rants...

...about the white pages. ROFL!

words

If you read other blogs, you may have noticed general discussion about arguments and the use of words.

One thing I noticed in all the comments was the term “arguments”. Discussion was often based around the idea of “debating” an issue, “arguing” with an opponent, “putting forward” a case, “rebutting” falsity. While none of these discussions were promoting aggression (most of them were advocating the exact opposite: humility and love), it was interesting to see how talk about blog-writing tended to focus on masculine ways of communicating.

I’m aware that describing arguments as masculine is a generalisation. Any analysis of gender involves a certain amount of generalising, as girls and boys don’t always wear pink and blue. I know some women who love a good argument, and likewise blokes who hate conflict.

Having said that, you only need to surf the net for five minutes to see how different male and female blogs are.

Woman: The cottage we stayed at in Leura was absolutely gorgeous. The owner had placed hydrangeas on all the tables and the furniture was quaint and lovely. We had such a beautiful view too – there were many nights spent drinking red wine over the fireplace. On the second day, we went to Leura shops and I was so tempted to buy a set of purple lavender scented candles….

Man: We went to Leura. It was awesome (insert link somewhere).

While male blogs tend to feature one-liners, links, adept arguments, tightly-written think-pieces and sparsely written accounts, female blogs are far more introspective. Women talk about all sorts of things – their kids, husbands, craft, what they’re reading, cooking, thinking, feeling. They tend to communicate in pictures rather than get straight to the point. They are anecdotal, relational, experiential. On the whole, there are far less arguments and controversy. Instead of points to debate, experiences are swapped in the comments section, as women are far more interested in the question, “how was it for you?” rather than “prove me right or wrong”.

These differences should not exacerbate the battle-of-the-sexes. One style is not better than the other; I love precise, forceful writing that packs a punch and gets to the point, but I also enjoy insightful pieces that deliciously tease the reader. The styles are also not exclusive to either sex, as many men can write in the “female voice” and vice versa.

Female writing on a blog discussion can be helpful for those participating, particularly if everyone involved is a man. Women can – if they choose to – bring a sense of warmth and gentleness. They can appease raising tempers and bring unity where it is possible.

I also don’t think women should feel bad for taking a comment “personally”. Sometimes blog discussions don’t take things personally enough. We forget that the moniker we are arguing with has a face and feelings. Having sensitive people in a blog discussion makes us all aware that we need to watch that we say everything with love and gentleness. It reminds us to be more like Christ and care for those with a weaker skin. What can be bad about that?

But with every gift, there is also a danger. The dark side of a personal/experiential style of blogging is that it can too easily veer into self-indulgence and the over-sentimentalising day-to-day issues (i.e. writing tomes on the spiritual implications of cooking dinner for your husband) and a failure to marry feelings with solid truths.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with being real about your life. Sanctimonious writing never helps anyone. However, the reality of blogging is that everyone can read what you write, so there is an automatic responsibility to make sure you put up posts that edify other Christians. While we want to be real about experiences and thoughts, we don’t want to fall into the danger of causing others to struggle because we did not think to hold our tongue…or keyboard, for that matter.

Lots happening on the Christians in the Media Website

Our site has really come together lately. It's a great tool to have in our ministry. Check it out, and post any ideas/feedback in the comments below. I'm really impressed with the embedded video on the front page - looks great.

Simpsons 24 episode

Matt has the youtube vid. It was brilliant.

Blackle - a Furphy?

h/t MW

By Stilgherrian, admitted ubergeek and former broadcaster

The website Blackle provides a black version of Google.

On the surface it sounds great. “A given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen,” he says about Blackle.

So if everyone turns Google black we’ll save heaps of energy, because it’s such a widely-used website. At least that’s the theory. And Sydney-based Heap Media is getting attention because they’ve created Blackle.

But as always the devil is in the detail… Here are some initial back-of-the-envelope calculations and questions:

It’s only old-style CRT monitors which use less energy when displaying darker images. Modern LCD flat-panels use the same power no matter what.
Blackle is a front-end onto Google, serving out the adverts and all. So using Blackie adds to the total power consumption. As well as whatever Google uses, you’re also adding in the overhead of routing your requests via Blackle.
Currently the Blackle home page claims "122,373.006 Watt hours saved", up from 113,834.304 Watt hours last Thursday morning. That’s not a lot of electricity. 2kWh is enough to run a small server computer for maybe 4 hours — perhaps 6 if it’s not fully loaded. In other words, Blackle uses 4 or 5 times more energy than it saves.
Still, it’s a great way of getting attention for your business under the banner of “saving the planet”, eh? Plus, having a black background means your site can have that oh-so-current style of having everything look like it’s reflected in some shiny black surface.