Tomorrow morning I'm getting up at 6am to begin training for the City to Surf. I have two and a half weeks to get fit enough to run 14kms in under 60 minutes. That's the goal. If I actually try and achieve that goal these next two and a half weeks are going to be like a freakin' Rocky montage. Prepare to be inspired people.

My blog is getting a few visits from my work colleagues. This means I'll have to stop writing rude things about them here. Darn. The dream had to end some time.

I've noticed that some blog readers who don't see a lot of me in real life don't know where I work. This is because I have deliberately not told anyone. It could be because I work for the Government. But that would be too obvious. Because everyone knows that if you do something secret you work for the government.

No, I work for a Christian ministry organisation, which is a front for a government organisation, which is in itself a front for the R&D division of a dummy corporation set up by a charity run by wolves. Real wolves, that live the forest, hunt in packs, and organise to get tax-exempt status for their charitable works, those kind of wolves.

Of course I pretend I don't mention what organisation I work for just in case I say something that the people in the marketing division don't like ("Hello Marketing Division!"). Like for instance if I said that at work we regularly door knock the area and abuse people pretending to be from another religion, hoping people will join our religion because the other religion we were pretending to be was so horrible to them. We don't do that, but that might be the kind of thing that the marketing department would not like me saying on the internet if it was, in fact, true and I actually worked for an organisation which not just a front, for a front, for a dummy corporation of a K9ish charity. Really I'm just terrified of being hunted down and killed by a pack of wolves.

Anyway, I just wanted to say "Hello" to all my work mates and friends in the animal kingdom.

I feel like Lesley's comment was such a good and challenging comment, that it needs a post of it's own. Down below she wrote:

I wonder why comedy in preaching seems so important for many preachers? Let me be clear - this is a general statement to anyone who preaches, not Tom in particular. The sermons I remember best are those where I'm challenged to change. Not quite on the scale of fire and brimstone, but challenged nonetheless. Yes, a well-placed laugh can be effective, but jokes can also make for lazy, self-conscious preaching. I hunger for intelligent, thought provoking sermons. Raise the bar, I say. How do you want to be remembered? As a funny preacher? Or something more than that? Here's a challenge: Can you can deliver a sermon without cracking a joke? ... Let the flaming begin.

I must say this is something that I've thought about a lot. Obviously if you've heard me preach, or read my blog, you'll know that comedy is an important part of my preaching. I think there are quite a few reasons for having jokes in a sermon but I certainly don't think they're vital. You can preach an excellent sermon without one joke, Piper and Stott are both key examples of this. And you can preach a useless sermon which is plenty funny. I won't give you an example of that.

Pilavachi*, in a seminar, once said that there are three types of people giving extended monologues in secular society these days, politicians, lecturers and stand-up comics. Of those, stand-up comics seem to be the once who people are most likely to listen to.

While obviously that's a generalisation I think there is a lot of truth to the statement. The best stand-up comics are making a serious comment on society in a way that is more likely to be heard. Politicians should be the ones doing it, but we're all so jaded with their self-serving, narrowly focused rhetoric we've stopped listening long ago. It takes someone with truly great oratory skills, like Obama, to make people sit up and actually want to listen.

Comics, on the other hand, can demolish pretences and prejudice just by highlighting the absurdity of people's stupid behaviour and ideas. Good comics will make you laugh and make you pay attention to the world at the same time. Driscoll once said that the best lesson he ever got on preaching was going to see Chris Rock do stand up.

Now as far as preaching goes, I feel like comedy serves many different purposes.

Positively, and in it's most basic form, comedy relaxes and focuses a congregation. A few jokes early on can help people feel pleased to be listening to the sermon. A joke or two during some of the more theological bits of a sermon will keep people focused when they might be tempted to drift off.

Another useful tool of comedy in preaching is that you can use it to highlight sin without people getting defensive. In my experience, highlighting your own sin with a self-deprecating story frees people up to laugh at you, identify with you, and realise that they too are sinful the the same way. Often we laugh because it rings true.

Also in the context of self-deprecation, is when you use humorous stories about yourself to "un-sanctify" the preacher. Preachers can seem like spiritual giants when they preach. Sometimes this is because they use the sermon to highlight their spiritual strength or to give the impression of spiritual maturity. Or because, through no fault of their own, the preacher preaches well about spiritual matters and gives the impression they are accomplished in everything they're encouraging their congregation to do.

A self-deprecating story can go a long way in putting the preacher on the level of the listener, and hopefully, by contrast, show Christ to be the hero of the sermon.

Thirdly, humour will help hard truths go down easier. As Mary Poppins said "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." Biblical preaching necessarily touches on some of the most painful parts of human existence. To tell people that they are sinners, deserving of God's judgement, is not an easy thing to do, and to be told you are an object of God's wrath, is not a nice thing to hear. A little humour, without diminishing the gravity of the truth can make things a little easier to hear, and give people a bit more good-will so they are more likely to listen.

Mostly I just use humour because it helps make listening to sermons a more enjoyable experience. While I sincerely believe that the greatest enjoyment in preaching is not in laughing but in seeing the beauty of Jesus, and the most valuable moments of preaching are not when people smile, but when their heart is broken by God convicting them, I do not think the process loses value or meaning if people are amused along the way.

However this is not to say that humour isn't used for unhelpful reasons either.

Negatively I use jokes to help with my insecurity about a message. I might feel like a sermon or talk isn't very good, so I'll add jokes to cover up the perceived lack of content or weight. Obviously this is a bad use of humour. It elevates my insecurity over my trust in God's word to be powerful, relevant and life-giving beyond the skills of the preacher. Plus it shows my laziness. It is an inadequate response to a deficient message. The answer is not to make more jokes, but to work harder to find God's voice for his people in the message he has given me to preach.

Also I use humour because it makes me feel good about myself. However high myself esteem is, it can always get higher. To have 100 people laughing at one of your jokes feel pretty good. And so the temptation is to make more jokes, so that more people laugh, more people think you're funny and you feel better about yourself. Comedy feeds my pride.

That's not to say that a sermon devoid of jokes cannot feed a preacher's pride too. The preacher will always be wrestling with pride and insecurity when they preach. They will always go to the pulpit with mixed motives. I think the task of any preacher is not to remove anything in a sermon which might make the preacher look good, or feel good about themselves, but to constantly seek the Holy Spirit to change their heart so that they recognise their own sin, and that it is only God's graciousness that they are gifted with any skills to preach at all. I think it's also a matter of praying that God might give you new desires, not to glorify yourself but to glorify him through your words.


Obviously, comedy is only a tool in preaching. It has its strengths and its weaknesses. The strengths are seen in funny preaching that is enjoyable, dynamic, insightful and God glorifying. The dangers of making jokes are that people will be more interested in having a laugh than in hearing God's word, and the preacher will be more interested in looking good, then showing how good God looks. When it comes down to it, I feel like the preacher should use the tools available to them as best they can. If you're good at being funny, then use it, for God's glory, to help preach his word. If you're not funny, don't be, because it makes everyone awkward and doesn't serve God, you or your congregation at all.

I try and use comedy only to help me preach. I try hard not to trivialise God, God's word or God's work. I try hard to help the congregation pay attention as much as possible so that they might be listening to God's truth. I know I've got it wrong in the past, and I will again. But I am sure that for me, at this time, the ability to make jokes is a gift God has given me to use, and I need to put it to service for him.

As far as Lesley's challenge to preach without making any jokes, I did it once. You can read about it and listen to it here. I might do it again. I probably will at some stage. If I do I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, that's my opinion on comedy in preaching. I know there's a good bunch of you out there who are both preachers and regular preaching listeners, what are your thoughts?

*Speaking of Pilavachi, this is one of his funniest sermons, it also serves as a great example of preaching that is both funny and important. It takes a little while to get started, but it's a good one none the less.

I just read this blog post from Justin Taylor about finding a Christian ethic of cremation and burial. The post talks about the need for Christians to consider the ethics for cremation, because it's something that more people are interested in. From what I can tell from the article it seems like it's generally a given in the States that Christians get buried. I assume this is because Christians have a hope for bodily resurrection, so burning a body is not really demonstrating that hope.

It was interesting to read, mainly because it's an issue I haven't really thought about before. The only time I've thought about the ethics of cremation vs burial is environmentally. I saw a video once about it (which I can't find now) saying that cremation is way more environmentally friendly than burial. So I've always just thought, "Hey, cremation sounds fine." But this article suggests that burial is the most Christian way to deal with a body.

I actually don't feel like it's a big deal. But what I do find interesting is that it's an issue where the assumption is made that most people will be buried. In Australia the majority of bodies seem to be cremated, and no one really talks about the biblical ethics of cremation. It's just not on our radar. It's one of the cultural things which has never really occurred to me, except perhaps when I've noticed in American movies that almost everyone is buried, but I figured it was just because grave-side funerals, in the rain with black umbrellas, are a whole lot more visually striking than a coffin going behind a curtain by some mechanical magic.

Anyway, I was just intrigued by just one more way we are culturally different from the US, which no one really talks about.

Then again, I'm basing all this on one blog post and a handful of scenes in movies, so I could be way off. Any American readers (if there are any) care to comment?

One thing I can say about the ethics of cremation vs burial, if there is a zombie outbreak, Australia will be totally safer to live in, because I'm pretty sure cremated bodies don't get infected by the zombie virus.

Photo by: Drewwh

Ryan and I went to see Predators the other night. It was pretty cool. It has spec ops guys and girls (well one girl), some criminals and a Japanese gangster, all stuck on an alien planet, being hunted for sport. How is that not going to be a fun movie? Especially when the Predator has a habit or ripping peoples' spines out.

You should probably go see it.

I do miss Arnie though.

So whenever I hear Usher's OMG on the radio, my mind gets stuck in an infinite loop. It happens when he sings the line "Honey's got some boobies like wow, oh wow."

The problem is I hear "Wow, oh wow" and I think "If you take the WOW, out of 'Wow, oh wow' you have an acronym for 'Wow, Oh Wow.' And then if you take the first Wow, out of that, you get an acronym for 'Wow, Oh Wow'. And then if you take the first or last WOW out of that..." And then, well, I just get stuck thinking about how in every "Wow, oh wow" there's another "Wow, oh wow" hiding at the beginning and the end of every line. It's like the fractal equivalent of RnB lyrics, it just goes on forever.

Still at least I spend all my time thinking about the infinite rabbit hole of acronyms, rather than about the boobies. But now that I think about it, he does say "boobies" which is pretty funny.

This could be one of the greatest YouTube videos ever!

Week two of preaching is done. Preaching in a new church is interesting. It's nice to have more than one go, and to see people more than once. I felt like the congregation was with me more this time. But it may have just been that I made funnier jokes, and I judge how much people are with me by how much they laugh. I'm totally shallow like that.

I made a joke about teenage girls loving hair straighteners and Taylor Lautner. Someone pointed out to me after the service that it was a rather sexist joke. I thought it was a rather broad, unfair generalisation of teenage girls rather than a blanket dig at their entire gender. It's interesting. While I did feel that maybe I should have been nicer to teenage girls and not painted them in such a shallow light, it didn't cross my mind that women in general might be upset. Funny that. I'll think that one through a little more.

Even though I was preaching on John the Baptist's beheading tonight and Herod's marriage to his niece features prominantly in the story, I was pretty light on the incest jokes. It was hard, but incest jokes while preaching are like digging for comedy gold in a mine field, there's a chance you could strike it rich, but you'll more likely kill yourself and injure many around you.

I'd rather people came out remembering Jesus, rather than remembering the preacher who made jokes about terrible things that happened to them in the past.

To tell you the truth, I didn't even want to make decaptitation jokes in case John the Baptist is sitting in heaven, watching and he's a little touchy on the subject.

If only you could preach and not have to worry about the people who were listening to you.

No one writes about this stuff in preaching books. I don't know why.


That said, I did enjoy preaching, and it felt like it went alright. I'm missing my church though. I haven't been there in weeks. I want to go back. One week left, then I'm back.

I just found a website that will turn my blog into a book. This is a narcissistic dream come true. I've always had secret hopes that people would come across my blog and say "Wow, that's amazing, that should be a book." And then some dedicated editor would go through all 3700 posts and pick the best ones, then make it into a freakin' epic. It'd be awesome. Well, now for a low, low price of $169.65 for the first volume (Dec 2002-Mar 2004) I can have my blog book, with no editing necessary. It's only 460 pages long. Woo!

To tell you the truth, I can't really be bothered making a book of my blog. But feel free to head over to the site and make your own book of my blog. Or in fact, you could just print it all out at home and get it bound at Kinkos. I promise, I'd sign it for you if you did. I mean, it'd be a dream come true.

Levi, the soldier who comes to live with us sometimes, just buzzed our buzzer. He buzzed for about 10 seconds so I assumed it was one of my housemates being lazy. I picked up the phone, said "Would you like to be any clearer?", didn't find out who it was and buzzed him in. I then opened the door to our appartment, walked away and sat on the couch. And in walked Levi, no housemates to be seen. Had he been a serial killer, I'd be dead by now. Or perhaps drugged and tied to the table and a about to have medical experiments done to me.

Happily he's not a serial killer, he's a soldier. And when he turned up, I just let him in. I'm French, what else would you expect from me when a soldier turns up on my doorstep?

Yesterday, on my way to my car to go to church to preach I had an encounter with a man who I have very little relationship with, wielding a shovel, who was very angry. He swore at me, and got in my face. I was pretty sure he was going to hit me, but happily he didn't. While I'm rather unsure as to how I upset him, I do know he really was upset with me. He seemed mostly upset about all the noise I was making disturbing him. Seeing as I had just spent the previous 25 minutes practising my sermon, in doors, in a whisper, I was pretty sure my noise wasn't the direct cause of his anger.

I learnt a few things in the encounter:

• Fight or flight needs a third option like "stand there and look confused as to why you're being attacked", because I took the third option.
• It would be totally disappointing to be murdered because I picked the wrong moment to walk to my car, rather than say, get murdered for my faith, or because I was standing up to a corrupt mafia gang.
• People really do use shovels when angry. This was something I had been pondering just the night before, as I was thinking about putting a joke in my sermon about someone hitting me over the head with a shovel. I thought perhaps it was a little obscure and I should find a more common household implement to be hit over the head with. But I left it in because saucepan sounded a little too Looney Toons. And then, to my small delight, I was vindicated in my decision to leave the shovel in, because as I headed off to preach the sermon with the shovel joke in it, a man came at me with a shovel. I also felt happier to make the joke. in light of my encounter I felt I had more permission to joke about such violence. Like fat people have permission to make jokes about being fat. Although really, for it to be a direct correlation in analogy it'd be potentially fat people making fat jokes, which I think probably isn't PC.

To be totally fair to the guy, while he did approach me very angry, with shovel in hand, he never raised it up to hit me. It was always by his side. In fact, it took me a while to figure out that the shovel was actually a potential weapon. I was wondering for a lot of the encounter why in the middle of doing some gardening he suddenly became enraged at me.
In the end, after a while of me trying to decipher his rage, his wife pulled him off, a couple of times, and I got in the car and left while he stared at me.

A quiet Sunday afternoon.

Well, as I mentioned, I went to see Eclipse today. I was going hoping for a massive pile of rubbish that I could smash with my eloquent and witty blog prose. But alas, the film was a whole lot better than I was expecting. It wasn't necessarily good, but it was a vast improvement on the last two films in the "saga", so I was almost enjoying myself.

Let me tell you what was good. The action was vastly improved. There was a training scene, where the vampires were training to fight other vampires which was fun to watch. Then there was a werewolves and vampires vs other vampires war, which wasn't bad, some good punches, throws and slow-mo. Plus there was a small army of vampires walking out of a lake like the undead, which was a cooler undead walk out of the water scene than when the army of the undead come out of the water in Lord of the Rings, or am I thinking of the undead pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, I get those two bits confused because that undead army on LOTR was probably the dumbest bit of the trilogy and looked just like POTC except glowing green. Anyway, I actually thought the vampires walking out of the water was cool, which is really saying something.

Then there was the humour, which was at times intentionally funny. Like when Edward when confronted with a topless Jacob asks Bella "Doesn't he own a shirt?" It was self-deprecating humour which is certainly something needed for a saga which takes itself way too seriously.

Additionally Edward looked less like a cancer patient with big hair in this film. And it had some good shots. At very least it didn't look like a Celine Dion film clip.

What I didn't like about the film, was the fact that Bella, Edward and Jacob were in it. I still dislike them all. Especially Bella. She's a whiney, selfish, mopey girl. She just spends the whole time depressed about how much she's in love with Edward and how he doesn't want to turn her into a vampire. I'm pretty sure we established he doesn't want to turn Bella in the first film. Why we have to keep dwelling on it I don't know.

Plus she spends the whole time being totally selfish. She'll do highly provocative things in front of her boyfriend, like running away on a motor bike with another boy who is in love with her right in front of Edward. She spends long periods of time hanging out with Jacob just so he can tell her how much he loves her, while she insists she doesn't love him, until she kisses him. Argh! It's not even a film about dumb girlfriends. It's romance porn for teenage girls who want two strong men fighting over who gets to protect them better and show off their big abs and big hair, and Bella is setting a bad example for any teenage girl who might have even a hint of potential for femine self-respect in them.

Once again the film idolises relationships to the degree that Bella's total commitment to Edward to the point of turning her back on all her family and friends and is portrayed as romantic. Had the film been about a girl becoming a Muslim, cutting off her family, moving to Saudi Arabia and wearing a burqua for rest of her life, I'm not sure the film would seem nearly so romantic. Even if the Muslim husband was just as kind and loving as Edward.

As for the other characters, Jacob is annoying and broods as much as Bella mopes. And Edward spends his whole time looking sad and in chronic pain. It must be his cancer playing up again.

So can I recommend this film? No, not really. I still think the whole "Twilight" thing is decidedly unhealthy for the undiscerning (which may or may not include most of its teenage readership). And it has plenty of dumbness. But I am at least happy to concede that this film is vast improvement on the last two. It probably won't be the worst film I watch this year, though there's a good chance it'll make it into the bottom five.

I'm going to see Eclipse today. Considering last time, it promises to be another terrible cinematic outing. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm preaching for the next three weeks at Pennant Hills Baptist and I just noticed on the website they've got a graphic for the series. How exciting. I've never had a graphic before.

"If you have never really wrestled with the offence of Jesus Christ, you haven't come to understand the trajectory of his salvation - the graciousness of his salvation - you really don't know what he stands for. If you've never felt the offensiveness of Jesus Christ, and sensed it, and struggled with it, you don't really know what the gospel is." - Tim Keller in his sermon The Offence of Jesus

Twice at Bible Study over the last three weeks we've been asked to write down the answer to a question about the Holy Spirit and what we'd like him to do in us. Both weeks I've written down self-control. I wish self-discipline was part of the fruit of the spirit because I'd write that down for sure. And invisibility. "For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, invisibility, magical wizardry and self-control."

I've been feeling un-self-controlled lately. Doing the whole full time work, 8:30am-5pm thing has thrown off my whole "I'm a youth minister/unemployed person and I'll get up whenever I want and laze my way to midday" routine. Which has meant this year I've really been struggling to read my Bible and pray every day. So I want self-control, which is probably self-discipline, to actually get up and do my quiet times and not sleep as long as possible before I start turning up to work unreasonably late.

I've also been feeling un-self-controlled, because every fortnight, without fail, I run out of money. I'm on a full-time wage. Albeit a full-time Christian wage, but a full-time wage none the less. Last year, I was living off unemployment benefits, this year I'm living off a descent salary, with tax-benefits, and I still run out of money. You'd think I'd have learnt to save money last year. It's like I have a gambling problem. So I want self-control. I'm not sure spending all my money in the first few days of getting it is honouring God with my money. But it is honouring the that place that sells take-away potatoes. Oh yeah.

Anyway, all this to say, after Bible Study on Monday and praying for self-control, I got up at 6:30am on Tuesday morning, had my shower, had my church planting prayer meeting, and arrived at work half an hour early. This morning, I got up at 6:40am, had a shower and a shave, had my quiet time and arrived at work 5 minutes early. It could be a miracle.

Of course, I know getting up at twenty-to-seven isn't a miracle in most people's books, but I'm willing to believe, if only for the last two days, the Holy Spirit has done a tiny little bit of sanctifying of my relationship with the snooze button. Now I'm hoping he's sanctified my wallet too.

Although I really want to get Friday Night Lights: Season 2 on DVD.

This is an awesome teaser. Good work teaser makers.

I've been spending many hours at work in Photoshop this past week. It's been quite fun. I've been making posters and bookcovers for the ministry resources we put out. Sometimes, when I get carried away, I start to fancy myself as a real graphic designer. And then I look at size of my 14" display and remember that I wasn't hired for my photoshop skills, but my Jesus-skills. And Jesus workers doesn't need 30" displays.

Speaking of skills, let me show you one of my youth evangelism designs that didn't quite make the cut:

Howie, Josh and I went on the Sydney Airport Tarmac Tour, which was awesome. Then we did some crazy stunts in the Maccas' carpark which was even more awesome. Probably the awesomest thing on YouTube. Dramatic Hampster, you're going down.

If we are going to have to have a new leader, I think Mark Schwarzer should be the new PM.

It was great watching the Socceroos play this morning. They played so well. SBS are nattering on at the moment about how they're national heros or something. I'd be inclined to agree, except I'm not sure heros should be people who kick a ball well.

Still they did make me happy to be Australian, even if we didn't make it through to the group of 16.

Now if only New Zealand can beat Paraguay tonight.

I was so happy when Kevin became our Prime Minister. Now I'm sad that he's not our Prime Minister.

I think I'm feeling rather let down by Labor today. I voted for Kevin. Well technically I think I voted the Labor person in my electorate. But I voted for a Labor party with Kevin as its leader. I liked that he seemed to care more about people that pleasing big business. I liked that he was going to say "Sorry". I liked that he was going take action on climate change.

So when Labor won, I was excited by the prospect of a new government. I liked that Julia was his Deputy. I was happy to see so many women in prominant positions of power.

Over the past few years, I can't say Kevin has made all my dreams come true. Though I thought he probably would be a little of a let down. Politicians always are. Actually, he was quite a lot of a let down at times.

But the past 24 hours have been most depressing. I'm sad that Kevin didn't get a chance to lead when things got tough. I'm disappointed that our politicians are so scared of losing an election that they'll oust their leader when things don't look good for them. I'm sad that Julia stood by her leader right up until she had him kicked out of the Prime Ministership. None of this makes me believe that they really believe in leadership at all. Only power, fear and job security.

Lots of people have been excited about the fact that we have our first female PM. I was looking forward to that prosect. But I don't want it this way. I don't really care about the gender of the Prime Minister if they get in through disloyalty.

But then again, that's politics. It's not like Kevin got in to leadership in any better fashion. And Julia will probably lose her leadership that way too, if she doesn't lose the election and step-down as a result.

Ahh. It's a shame.

Still, all the best Julia. I hope you lead us well.

Tomorrow the Socceroos could be out of the World Cup and Kevin Rudd out of office.

Could be a big day for Australia.

My guess is more people will be paying attention to the soccer.

I'm home from my last exam, for my last subject in my BTh. This really could be it. I really could be finally done with Bible College. I only started in 2002. I have a full six months left to sit the last subject again if I fail before subjects start slipping off the back end. I've probably been a little hasty getting this done.

The first question I had to answer in the exam was What are the main objections to the doctrine of predestination? Discuss the strengths of the responses which may be given to these objections. I really wanted to discuss the weaknesses of the responses just because the question was a little too biased for my liking. But I answered like a good Calvinist because I can't be bothered risking another six months of assessments and stuff to teach the examiners a lesson they probably wouldn't even notice.

That said, I was pretty happy with the exam. I think the 5 hours or so of study I did for this exam really helped. I was pretty impressed. I think 5 hours is more study than I've done for college in the last 5 years combined.

I celebrated the end by eating Pad See Ew and reading Time magazine. Tonight I'm gonna go watch a movies with Ryan. I party hard.

Anyway I should go do some real world work, because I still have that to do. Probably for another 40 years or so.

Dear New Zealand,

You rock my world cup.

Love,

Tom

I'm pretty sure it's time for a hair cut.

And some hair plugs.



"Advanced hair, yeah, yeah."

I've stuck up part one of the Busting Sex Myths talks I did at Soul this year. Remember, y'all helped me write them back here.

If you're interested you can go find it blogged about here or you can get the audio file here. I'll stick up part two next week sometime.

Remember if you like the talks and sermons I post, you can subscribe to the podcast by sticking http://feeds.feedburner.com/tompreaches in your RSS machine or iTunes. Or you could just search for "Tom French" on iTunes and you'll find me.

I'm telling you now, because like I said, I have 2 to 5 more talks to be sticking up on the podcast and I don't want you to miss out on hours of me pontificating about Jesus and sex and all that.

Enjoy.

These guys are leaders on a Christian summer camp in the US. If they were my leaders, I'd become a Christian straight away. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" - even be awesome at trick-shots. Yeah baby!

If you were going to define humility for an 8-12 year old how would you do it?

I wrote "Humility is not thinking you're better than you are." I'm not sure it's the best answer though.

"At least they know the ground even if they don't have good memories here." - SBS Commentator early in the New Zealand vs Slovakia game, finding a positive in New Zealand's experience at losing at the ground - "Well at least they've got practice losing here."

I'm pretty happy I got up at 4:30am to watch the Socceroos get smashed by Germany. Not because it was an enjoyable experience, but it was an important one. It's going to be defining our national sporting identity for the next week, so I figure, I'm glad I shared the experience with the rest of Australia.

Tonight for youth group we took our boys to play laser tag. Usually we get about five or six boys along, last week we had eight boys, tonight we had fourteen boys. We've almost tripled in size in two weeks. It's the great laser tag awakening.

I told them all to come back next week. Let's hope they do. Next week we'll tell them about hell and punch them till they give their life to Jesus. Youth need the gospel and not just laser tag.

I stuck up a new talk on the preaching podcast/blog. It's one I did at a school last month. I recorded it on my phone because I thought it might be good to post.

Things have been very quiet on the podcast this year. This isn't for lack of preaching, but lack of access to recordings. But between now and August I should have about seven new talks and sermons to post. So things should speed up a little.

Anyway, if you want to listen, you can go listen to the new one here.

I've often dreamt of making full use of the Sydney Film Festival. I'd love to take two weeks off and just watch movies all day.

Alas, this year was not the year. But on Saturday I did manage to find a day mostly free to watch movies. So Ryan and I went movie watching. Three movies in one day. Excellent.

Movie One: Ordinary People



This is a film about how war makes ordinary people willing participants in atrocities very quickly and easily. At least I think that's what it's about. It was certainly the most pretentious and arty of the films we watched. It was shown in a cinema full of film snobs who say they love movies, but only go to the cinema three times a year.

I think watching the film brought out my rage at the pretentious attenders of the Film Festival. Because they have this love of cinema, which doesn't extend to going to the cinema to watch the movies that everyone is watching. In fact they don't go to the movies, they only watch "films", because they're snobs.

I know all this because I judged the back of their heads in the darkened cinema.

Of course the film should have made me angry about war and stuff, but there were more immediately pressing issues for me to be concerned about.

But if I must talk about the film, it was about the day in the life of a young, Russian (probably) soldier, who spends most of the film sitting around, sleeping, drinking vodka. Every now and again he executes "terrorists". The film had many long silent shots of this guy sleeping, staring at the sky, riding on a bus, and drinking vodka, just as you expect to see in a Dendy cinema. It seemed to be about how mundane and ordinary life is, except when you're putting people to death.

It wasn't a bad film really, though it can't have been that good an arty film because I think I understood the point. But it has certainly confirmed my desire never to be soldier in any army. Despite how much I love guns and tanks and stuff, I hate killing people more. Thank you, film.

If I was Margaret or David, I'd give it three and a half stars.

Movie Two: Cell 211



Now this was a freakin' movie!

The Sydney Film Festival described this as a film that "delivers a sharp uppercut to the fiercely clenched jaw of the Spanish penal system." If that doesn't make you want to watch the film, nothing will. The Spanish penal system has been crying out for a sharp, celluloid uppercut for a very long time and we're glad someone has finally gotten around to delivering it!

By golly this was a good film. I didn't go in expecting much, but I think this is the best prison film I have ever seen.

It's about a prison guard who gets caught in the middle of a riot on his first day of work and pretends to be a prisoner to survive. It's amazing. It's tense, got brilliant characters, it doesn't preach, it has plenty of blood and unflinching uppercutness (which made many of the film goers gasp and say "oh my"), and it has a tight, well paced, fast moving story.

If you get the chance to see this film, see this film. It'll make your month.

Movie Three: The Loved Ones



After a falafel roll and a can of drink, it was time for our third film. Jemma joined us for this.

The Loved Ones is an Australian horror film. I didn't know anything about it, but I was looking forward to watching something in English.

It turns out we were at the Sydney premiere and the Director, Producer and some of the actors had come along to introduce it and do a bit of a question and answer afterwards.

Once the film started I really wanted to like it, because the director was there. I didn't want him to see that I wasn't impressed. But I didn't have high hopes, because Australians don't tend to make a lot of good movies. Especially not horror or action. (Though Wolf Creek was pretty good).

Once the film started it seemed to confirm my fears. It was just your average horror film. A carbon copy of every teenage slasher flick to come out of Hollywood in the past 30 years. There's the requisite troubled main character, hot girlfriend, nerdy best friend, sex scene, kidnapping by a freaky man and high school dance. It was all there. I was really disappointed that this director I just saw interviewed had made something so unoriginal.

And then at the beginning of the second act, the whole film took a brilliant twist. A really simple one, but it changed the whole deal, and suddenly it was a new take on an old idea, done with humour, wit, and charm. I'd tell you what it is, but if you can watch the film without knowing what's coming, it'll make it all the more exciting.

It being a horror film, there's plenty of blood and painful torture, but it's also a whole lot of fun. It's obviously made by a guy who loves horror movies to bits. It's like Shaun of the Dead if only Shaun was actually a good zombie movie (though it's still a good comedy).

This was excellent film number two of the day. If you can handle a horror film, go see this one. It's one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time. And it's Australian. Who'd have thought?


So there's my SFF experience. Maybe next year, I'll take the two weeks off work and just watch "films" the whole time. That'd be great. And pretentious. Oh my.

I bought a fridge on Sunday. It's been more significant than I thought it would be. Now I feel like I'm properly an adult. I own a whitegood. All the stuff I own doesn't fit into one room anymore. I feel like it's time to settle down, like it's time to get a mortgage to house my fridge.

Damn it, van Warmelo, you seduced me into middle age. You and your reasonably priced, lusty fridge.

I had a beer tonight and I just had two cold and flu night tablets, which you shouldn't take with alcohol. Things are going to get cra-zy.

I expect to wake up in my frontyard with no pants on.

Today I did a talk in a primary school where I ate a chocolate éclair as part of my opening illustration. Because of that all the kids thought I was amazing and mobbed me afterwards.

Chocolate éclair eating leads to celebrity status. I'm living the fatties' dream!

I went to see Q&A getting filmed last night with Howie and Dingo in Studio 22 at the ABC.

On the show was Liberal Senator Corey Bernardi, Clare Bowditch, Miriam Lyons, Mitch Grady and Maxine McKew. They were a good group. Everyone spoke rather well. Bernadi and McKew just sounded like politicians who can never say anything much except for the party line. Bowditch spoke like an artist about "listening to your inner ear" and "speaking from the heart", but I generally agreed with her. However, the winner of the night, in my view, was Mitch Grady. He's an "aspiring Liberal" whatever that means, but he was smart, persuasive, and spoke very well. I hope he doesn't become a politician because he won't be allowed to speak well anymore.

It was a rather rowdy crowd. I had some young Liberals in front of me who would only listen to Bernardi and spent the rest of the night muttering that everyone else was an idiot and should shut up. I wanted to kick them in the back of the head. But I didn't because Jesus would not be pleased.

The largest applause of the night followed Corey Bernardi's explanation of why he wants to ban the burqa: "If we think that we’re not going to have a problem in 20 years as the burqa becomes more prevalent, I think we’ve got to think again and we’ve got to nip it in the bud now and say, “Enough is enough. We have a different culture, a different society here, one that is open where you can see people’s faces and you can communicate effectively with others."

He says his argument stems from people using the burqa as a disguise to commit a robbery in Sydney. It seems like a rather absurd reason to ban a burqa, it's not like there's a campaign out there to ban ski-masks and motorcycle helmets. This has to be about more than just public safety. Otherwise you can just ban the wearing of face coverings in banks, police stations and at airport security screening.

It worried me that there was such a depth of approving response in the crowd to the idea of banning the burqa. I'm disturbed by any attempts to limit religious freedom in our country. Just because I'm not a Muslim doesn't mean I want to stop them expressing their faith in the way they believe is right.

Mitch responded pretty well when he said: "I think there’s a very fine line between a country who, through a law, interferes with somebody’s choice by banning the burqa and a country who, through a law, interferes with somebody’s choice by forcing them to wear a burqa... When we’re having these debates, we need to go back to first principles. When do we ban something in a western liberal democracy? ...We have to accept that in a Western liberal democracy we all have rights and freedoms and choices and that those rights are not granted at the whim of the state but they’re granted to us on the basis that we have innate integrity as a human being and so what it essentially means is that rights in our society must apply axiomatically. You don’t need a reason to give somebody a right but you do need a damn good reason to take it away."

The issue of Rudd's back flip on using government funds to pay for political advertising in the mining taxes debate came up. Corey scored some easy points in that one, because poor Maxine is stuck trying to defend something which is clearly the result of Rudd's lack of integrity and by trying to make it out as being in the public interest.

Once again Mitch put it well: "What I find interesting about this debate is that the government seems to think that if somebody expresses a point of view that’s different to theirs, then that is misinformation. That’s not - it’s not misinformation, it’s an argument and as a government you need to be prepared that other people are going to have different points of view. Now, the government has no shortage of mechanisms available to get its message out there: political journalists and what not. If you want to air a political advertisement, then that should be paid for by political parties and nobody is stopping the Labor Party from submitting an ad defending that policy. But the government should not be - whether it was Howard and WorkChoices, whether it was Labor and the mining tax, the government should not be spending money to defend policy and it’s very different to swine flu, which had a clear public benefit. This is a benefit that only serves to try and keep Kevin Rudd in power."

To which the Liberal Senator responded "Hear, hear!" I think he may have only listened to the last line and missed the bit where Grady stuck the boot in Howard.

All up it was a fun night. Probably most fun was being part of live television, I love live TV. And I love politics. But live TV is 1000 times better.

I think I might go back.

One day we'll get there.

I was asked after church on Sunday if I was going to "the young adults thing downstairs".

There's been discussion over the past few months about starting a young adults hangout time downstairs after church. So I asked "Is this the new hangout thing?" To which my friend Gough, who was inviting me, responded in the affirmative.

After I had been talking upstairs for a while, Gough said to me "It's just started, are you coming?" So I trotted on down.

When I went in there wasn't the buzz of hanging out young people I expected. There were just a few people sitting in a circle with one person reading the Bible. I thought "Wow, this is pretty intense for a post church hangout."

Then the Bible reading kept going. And going. We read almost the whole of Colossians. I thought, "This is going to be a full on Bible Study, I don't know if I'm up for this every week. I'm pretty tired from church." Then I noticed everyone was holding Bibles and photocopied pieces of paper. "How did they know to be prepared, and not me?"

Then I realised there must have been an email sent out and everyone here was invited, except me. I started to feel a little miffed that I'd been left off the invitation. I also worried a little bit that so few people had turned up to the first young adults hangout. It didn't look like it wasn't going to be very popular. I felt bad for Tamie who has been organising the young adults stuff.

Then Tamie, started by saying "So I wanted us to read and think about this passage before we plan what's happening with the young adults."

I realised then that this wasn't a young adults hangout, it was a meeting about the young adults ministry. I had been asked if I wanted to be in this group a few weeks before and I had said "No" and now here I was in a meeting for it. I realised that that was why I never got the email about it, I was never meant to get an email about it. This wasn't my group.

I started to feel really bad. I had turned up to a meeting uninvited, and just sat myself down like I belonged there. I was sure everyone was thinking "What's Tom doing here? We didn't invite him. How do we tell him he wasn't invited?" It was like a bad dream, thinking you're one place then realising you're somewhere totally different...and you're wearing no pants.

Thankfully I was wearing pants, I checked.

Then Tamie said something about how she wanted to check with us if we were still committed to working to make the young adults thing happen. I didn't want to seem rude and say "No" but seeing as I had said I didn't want to be in the planning group, I wanted to say "No". Plus I didn't know if they would want me to say "No" because I had turned up uninvited. Perhaps they would be relieved if I said "No".

Then Chris, the Associate Pastor, piped up and said something like "I think we can assume we're all happy to help make this thing happen. None of us are here under duress. Except perhaps Tom." To which everyone laughed.

I thought, "Is that a joke because I'm not meant to be here? Or does he think I'm meant to be here and he just made a joke and unwittingly hit the nail on the head?"

He went on to say "So if no one has any questions we can probably move on."

At that point I was confused enough that I thought I should speak up. "Sorry, but I don't really know what I'm doing here." Everyone just laughed at me, like they all just thought I'd made a good existentialist joke, and didn't realise that I really was confused. I didn't know how to make them understand that I had no idea what was going on.

Then Tamie said "This is the group you told me you didn't want to be part of, but Gough invited you anyway, because he thought you should be part of it."

And then everyone laughed a little bit more and moved on with the meeting. It seems that everyone knew I'd been asked to come even though I had said "No" to joining the group. Gough had asked me to come because he thought I should be there, and I thought it was the hangout that was planned, so I went. He maintains that he didn't trick me into going there, but I'm not so sure.

Anyway, if you want to play a good practical joke on someone ask them to come to a fun, relaxed hangout and then surprise them with a church meeting. It really is like a bad dream in real life. Hell is probably an eternal, unnecessary, church meeting.

That said, sometimes a meeting is necessary even if they're hard to endure. And this one wasn't too bad, it wasn't too long, things moved fast, and I'm excited about the young adults ministry. Seeing as I realised everyone knew I was uncommitted I decided I'd just say what I thought and remain uncommitted. I managed not to pick up any new commitments all meeting. Win!

So it should be a good young adults ministry, they were a good team I met with, it's in capable hands. I'm looking forward to being a part it as a young adult and not running it as a young adult. I run enough.

And Gough is still one of my favourite people even if he did promise fun times and give me a church meeting. He gave me spaghetti bolognese tonight which turned out to be spaghetti bolognese. Excellent.

I handed in the last assesment my life and we finally got our internets working.



Woo!

I blogged last August saying I was writing my last essay for college. But it turned out to be a fallacy.

But tonight, I think I really am writing my last ever essay for my Batchelor of Theology. I know it's not that exciting for anyone but me, but 8 and a half years after beginning this darn thing, I might be about to end it.

This last essay is on "Can a Christian lose their salvation?" It'd be an interesting topic if I wasn't writing an essay on it.

I went to see When in Rome a few weeks ago with the parents. It was pretty embarrassingly bad most of the time.

The film is full of people who are funny. Almost every supporting character was played by someone with real comic talent. There was Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez from Napoleon Dynamite, Dax Shepard from something, Will Arnett from Arrested Development among other things, Danny Divito from lots of stuff, that Chick from Flight of the Conchords and Jack Black even made a cameo. But sadly none of them could save the film. I probably laughed about five times, and that's five times I was very thankful for, because the rest of the film was like having to watch a car accident in slow motion, without any of the novelty factor of getting to watch a car accident in slow motion.

The film was the same old romantic comedy that we keep getting put through, but with terrible acting and an absurd premise. At the beginning of the film Kristen Bell is shown as this girl who is so obsessed with her work that she can't keep a long term relationship. She is given an assignment at work which, if it doesn't work out, will mean she'll lose her job. Right in the middle of this she has to fly to Rome for her sisters' wedding. This is about five minutes in. At this point I turned to Dad and said "She's going to meet a man, fall in love, and need blow off her work for true love. Ask Mum what she thinks." So Dad turned to Mum and asked. Mum responded by saying that she agreed, and the guy the girl was going to fall in love with would be the best man at the wedding.

As it turned out, we were almost exactly right, she did fall in love and it was with the best man, and she did blow off her work for true love. Or at least as a result of lost true love, which is an indication of love for man more than love for job.

As you can see it's more predictable than Avatar but without the naked blue computer people. And that's about all I have to say about the film. Let me just encourage you never to bother watching it, because it's dumb.

I thought I might clean out the photos on the iPhone. All the photos I take and think "I'll blog that." So here they all are.

Photo One

Ever wondered what Time Crisis 2 was all about? Well the secret is on the side of the machine:



This is what it says "Time Crisis 2

There's another plot for the world in 1998

Mission: Prevent the launch of and enemy military satellite!

We have no time to be lost!

With your partner, shoot all enemies!

Is the evil "Wild Dog" still alive?"

I'm so glad we made it through 1998 ok. A better video game blurb I have never heard.


Photo Two

The other day my work mate when out to buy us all crazy Asian ice creams. She asked what we'd like. I asked for something crazy. So she came back with this:



I can only guess that the Korean says something like "Frozen Polar Bear Blood"

Turns out polar bear blood tastes a lot like chocolate. There's a survival tip for when you get lost in the Arctic.

Photo Three

I injured my nose trying on a jacket at SDS the other day. I had trouble working the zipper and it got me on the nose. Most people were too polite to ask what happened. I had to wear the scratch to the wedding. It looked much worse in real life.




Photo Four

I was on my way to the cinema the other day and discovered this piece of culturally relevant advertising by Sultana Bran:



As you can tell they have their finger on the teen pulse.

Photo Five

I was setting my alarm the other night, looked at all the various times stored in my phone, and noticed this:



I really do value that extra few minutes sleep.


Photo Six

One day, before the Witteveens left the country, they peer-pressured me into sticking pegs on my lip. Then they they went to Europe to peer pressure French women to hang coat hangers from their underarm hair. Now they're back and I'm not getting attached to any handy, household implements no matter what they say.




And thems are the photos.

I started writing this a while ago. In fact I think I started on the Anzac day long weekend. So it's taken a while to finish. But I didn't want to let all these keystrokes go to waste.

It was a long weekend recently and I decided to go to the movies as much as possible. I got there three times.

Seeing as I haven't reviewed a movie once this year, I thought it might be time to do three in one hit.

Movie One: Avatar



This wasn't the first time I'd seen the film. But my Dad wanted to see it and he was paying, so I was there. Oh, and I got to hang out with my Dad.

Watching it a second time was enjoyable. I was still struck by the visuals but not as impressed by the battle the second time around. It was kinda just that the humans got beaten by the shear numbers of the Navi and friends, rather than being out witted. It was like nature won in the end because it bashed the humans with a bigger stick. That doesn't really say much for Eiya (or however you spell Mother Nature in Navi), just that she's happy to sacrifice a bunch of rhino things, dinosaur birds and Navi to protect the glowing tree.

I also spent more time paying attention to the spiritual themes of the movie. This is what Mark Driscoll had this to say about Avatar:



Now that just makes him sound like a grumpy, old fundamentalist who thinks everything but Narnia and McGee and Me is from Satan.

He does have a pretty good analysis of the film. It is full of new age, pantheism. It's totally at odds with the Christian gospel. But so are most films. Driscoll picks on Avatar because its worldview is so clearly presented. But it's clarity of presentation, also makes it easy to debunk.

Much more important is that most films present a worldview at odds with the gospel which is a whole lot more subtle. We need to interact with all of it. And if you're going to call Avatar demonic you should probably call almost everything demonic.

Or you can enjoy the story and the critique the worldview, as you need to do with every message that is presented to us in our culture.

I vote for option two, funnily enough.

Movie Two: The Book of Eli



I think this must have been the weekend of spiritually themed movies, because this one is about one man (Denzel Washington), in a post-apocalyptic world, on a mission to save last copy of the Bible from the hands of bad men.

I reckon if you didn't care about the Bible you wouldn't really care about this film. But I care about the Bible, so I cared about this film. I was gunning for Denzel the whole way.

People have said the film is boring, which it probably could be. There's a lot of walking, talking, hiding and sitting around and then suddenly there's 10-seconds of ultra-violence with Denzel left at the standing over pile of dead bodies.

I thought it was a pretty cool film. Good fighting, cool guns, and it looked great.

The opening scene was one of the most atmospheric openings I've seen in a long time. It set the tone for the rest of the film. I'd describe it but I can't. I reckon it'd be worth watching the film just for that opening scene. It's not thrilling, it's just a great post-apocalyptic image.

As far as faith goes for a film with the Bible as a central piece of the plot, it's not very Biblical. That is, it is the expected sanitised version of the Bible that Hollywood gives to keep everyone happy.

What's interesting though is that the Bible is blamed for the war that destroyed the world, the Bible is sought after by the bad guy so he can control people, the Bible is protected by Denzel's character because he believes it can bring hope back to the world, and the Bible is given to Denzel by God so he can take it on pilgrimage to get it into safe hands. The other sacred texts of the world are around, but only the Bible is given such power. It is a pretty loud affirmation of the unique power of the Bible. I'm not going to trumpet this as a victory for the Christian faith, it's just interesting to me that Hollywood would allow such an overtly narrow presentation of the Bible be an overtone of the whole film. However...

***SPOILER ALERT***

Right at the end, when the book has been saved, and printed, it is put on a shelf in a secure facility right next to the Koran and the Torah. When I saw that the Bible nerd in me wondered why they go to work straight away on getting Genesis printed when they already had a Torah sitting around. But it is also a moment right at the end, when the filmmakers decided to bring the Bible down to being just one of the sacred texts. It's not lifting the other up to the level of the Bible, because the whole film isn't about keeping the Koran or the Torah safe. It's saying that in the end the Bible is just like these other books, which pretty much weakens the rest of the film. Plus it kinda saddened me that the last time we saw the Bible it was getting placed on a shelf, not given to the people who were supposed to gain hope from it.

But that's the Christian, Bible lover in me coming out.

***SPOILERS OVER***

All that said, I had a good time. It's definitely worth watching if only for the imagery. It's one good looking movie. Plus it's got Bible love, cool fighting, and Denzel playing a bad ass rather than an inspiring black coach, so it's hard for it not to be good fun. In fact don't watch it just for the imagery. It's a whole lot more than cool looking shots.


Movie Three: Clash of Titans



The third movie of spiritual themes was Clash of the Titans. If you know the story, it's about a guy whose family is killed by Hades the God of the Underworld, so he teams up with a city living under the threat of Hades' giant, angry monster to fight the gods who are out to teach the humans a lesson for refusing to pray to them and grant them eternal life. He goes on a fighting odyssey to gain the power to beat Hades' sea monster and along the way manages to forge a friendship with a desert wizard, ride an over sized scorpion and fall in love with a beautiful, immortal beauty. It's quite an adventure.

The main character, Perseus, played by our Sam Worthington, is a demigod, half-man/half-god. He was conceived when Zeus snuck into some Queen's chamber disguised as her husband and slept with her to punish her husband for something.

There is a point in the film where it is mentioned that Perseus, being a demigod, has the best of the gods and of humanity in him. The implication is that he has the strength and fighting talent of the gods, but the compassion, love and honesty of humanity.

It's interesting that the gods are portrayed as being capricious and powerful, and it's the humans who have the monopoly on goodness. It's this worldview where the humans are pit against the gods. It's us or them and, happily, in the end the humans triumph over the gods. And as Perseus embraces his humanity, he is encouraged to lead the people well, unlike the gods. The gods have failed, now it's up to humanity to save themselves.

Of course, the film makers aren't trying to make a statement about how we relate to Zeus and Hades. But the message is pretty clear, hope lies with us, and it's up to us to use the best of who we are to save ourselves. Looking at all three movies of the weekend, it's easy to see that Hollywood thinks that we're at crisis point in human history. It's a rather clear undertone to each of the films. Some perhaps more obvious than others. Where they look for solutions though is interesting, Avatar looks to nature, The Book of Eli looks to God's word, Clash of the Titans looks to humanity. I'm pretty sure I know which solution I'm trusting in.

But all this in Clash of the Titans is secondary to the giant computer generated monsters and sword fights. Aside from some terrible writing, and much silliness, the film was a lot of fun. Not very good, but a lot of fun. And that's good enough for me. It appeals to the best of my humanity within me.

I went to a conference a while ago about children's ministry. Someone raised that point that we often say things like "We need to care for the children because children are our future." Or we say we need to look after kids because they're "the leaders of tomorrow." Which seems like a nice child-orientated thing to say, except that in essence it devalues children. It says that the value of a child is in their potential, not in who they are now. Really we should value children because they are our present. As much as a teenager, adult, senior citizen is valuable and important, so is a child. They are special not because of who they will become but because of who they have become, from the moment they began existing.

I've thought about that a lot. Kids are pretty awesome.

Today I took my car to one of those fancy hand car wash places that people with Mercs go to. It was a little sad. While they didn't manage to get rid of the bugs off the windshield they did put fragrance in the car which has the aroma of Lynx deodorant. Now my swanky Corolla doesn't smell like a new car it smells like a high school boys' change room. They managed to get rid of something I liked and leave the stuff I didn't. I think I'll write to Today/Tonight.

Well I made it to the wedding down here in Canberra. I'm currently sitting in my classy room here in Queanbeyan at the Wallaby Motel. It has free wifi. That's why I'm staying here. Down the road there's a motel advertising "video movies". I'm now disappointed that I didn't stay there. I'm intrigued by these "video movies" everyone keeps talking about.

As far as the wedding goes, I think it was a success. With weddings I usually worry a lot about making sure I dress within the dress code. I stress about looking formal or semi-formal or cocktail or whatever. It's hard for me. But this time the invitation said "Smart Casual" and I feel like a have a good grasp of that. Nice shoes, jeans, nice shirt, nice jacket. And that's exactly what Courtney told me when I happened to ask her the other day, so I felt pretty sure about my clothes. I even got myself an expensive smart casual jacket to wear.

And then I turned up at this wedding and I'm the only smart casual person there. All the guys are in suits and ties, and the girls were in nice dresses and heels. Now usually this would be my worst nightmare, turning up to a wedding underdressed. But I knew the wedding invite said smart casual, so I felt quite comfortable knowing I was the only one who actually dressed properly. It was everyone else who should have felt embarrassed in my presence. I reckon I made everyone else feel over dressed.

Apart from the clothes, it was a nice wedding. I didn't know anyone when I arrived but I got sat one a table with some friendly people so I pretty much had people to talk to all night. I even got to decorate the wedding car. So I think it was a win.

As far as the challenges from the blog world go, I only got two. I didn't get any food on my clothes, so tick that one off. But I didn't get any candid photos of people because I don't really have a camera. Just the iPhone one which is pretty useless. There were however 5 official photographers at the wedding so I hope they managed to cover something.

Oh, and it was really special to see James get married.

I should be a journalist.

So I've just set up for Amazon Associates. I think it means that I can link to products that I talk about and then you all can click on them and buy them and I get 15% of something.

I got it mainly because I want pretty links. But I figured I might make the most of the pretty links and see if I can make a dime. I've never made a cent off this blog. In fact I'm pretty sure it's cost me at least $20 over the past 9 years or however long I've been blogging. It's hard to keep a slick operation like this going.

I've always refused to stick ads on my blog because they're ugly and I'm not a blog pimp. But I figure this is just letting you buy the stuff that I'm talking about. All I'm doing is encouraging consumerism, not making my blog look ugly. Anyway so let me see what this looks like by showing you a little of my life:

What I'm Reading:

So currently I'm working through a thousand books. But here are the more prominent ones:



Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Tim Keller this was going to be one of the most important books of our generation for New Testament scholarship. Or something like that. Or maybe he just said I should read it. I'm not sure.

Anyway, it's good. It's a nice look at some of the ideas about the historical Jesus that are out there from a more conservative standpoint.





Planting Missional Churches

This is meant to be the book to read on church planting. And it's pretty darn nice. If only he wrote an Australian edition, it's all very North American-centric.





Tomorrow When the War Began

I'm reading this again because the movie is coming out and I'm reliving my childhood. It's fun but the action is pretty dull compared to almost every other war book I've read.



So there you go. There's my chance to make some money. And now that I look at it, it's a rather ugly way to make money and I feel like a dirty blog pimp. So unless I find a way to make it more pretty, I probably won't do that again.

Update: Actually I've fiddled with it and it's not very intrusive at all any more. It's kinda like the sort of linkage I would do back in the old days when I didn't worship money. So maybe I'll let it stay. But except every blog post from now on to be about a product you can buy. Probably an expensive one.

I've been watching a bit of UFC lately on One. It's the good thing about living in a house of guys who like watching big men punch each other in the face.

Anyway I've noticed this ad, it makes me laugh every time I see it:



Do you have what it takes to sit on your couch and push some buttons on a controller?

Hard core.

I'm off to the wedding of my friend James on Saturday, and James has informed me that I'm not going to know anyone there.

Knowing that I'm not very good in situations like this, I just stand around and feel awkward, I thought I might ask all you folk in blog world to give me a hand. Would you be willing to set me challenges to do at the wedding. Maybe conversations to have, tasks to do, photos to take. Then I'll come back and blog how I did.

I'm not going to do everything you set me to do. And I'm not going to do anything that'll distract from the wedding. But I will try to do as much as I can. This is your chance for interactive blog fun. Woo!

Photo from: Scarlatti2004

I heard the Prime Minister on breakfast radio this morning being funny and stuff. He wasn't actually that funny. In fact I was a little embarrassed for him. But I could at least tell he doesn't take himself too seriously.

He was telling us all why this new mining superprofit tax thing is a good idea.

When it was on the news tonight, I saw that the mining companies had fired 600 workers (I can't find that figure anywhere). I laughed, as did my house mate. I laughed because I thought "The mining companies are making $80 billion in profit and they're laying workers off and blaming the government." My house mate laughed and said "This tax is a joke!" I'm pretty sure we weren't laughing for the same reason.

Still I learnt about the $80 billion figure for K-Rudd, so I'm just swallowing the propaganda thank you Prime Minister.

All the resources stocks have dropped as a result of this tax. It'd be pretty amusing if their stock slumped so much the government couldn't get their planned amount of tax out of them. I don't know if that's possible, but it'd amuse me if it was.

Party's over. 'Twas good. The house feels warmer.

There are people across the road doing bad karaoke. I'm glad I'm not there.

I signed up to get some internets today. Fast internet. Good-bye wireless broadband! Hello ADSL2 and superfast Justin Bieber downloads!

I also went and door knocked my neighbours again and gave them invites to our house warming on Saturday. I feel like a Mormon. I reckon they're going to get sick of me soon. "Oh gosh, here comes that guy from Unit 5 again. Here to give us chocolates or another freakin' invite. We just want to relax! We have a security door at the front to keep people like him out!"

Oh and I'm pretty sure my flatmate is a wizard. I think he might even have a Pensive because he stores his memories in a box:

Today was ANZAC Day so I wore my Gandhi t-shirt.

I had my jacket on all day so no-one saw.

I just found this for the first time. Why haven't I found it earlier? Youth ministry would be so much easier.

Favourite quote:

If a girl walks up
With her arms spread wide
And she's front hug bound with that look in her eye

You better turn to the side
And pat her on her back
Cause Jesus never hugged nobody like that

At 6:30am we had the first prayer meeting for my church plant this morning. I was the only one there. Well, there was me and God. Which if you include God makes it pretty big.

I decided after Soul that I should be doing regular prayer for this church. So Tuesday mornings it is. Probably at least until someone else joins the team then it might be at a more reasonable time.

I just wanted to blog it, because it felt like an auspicious occasion.

While I was at Soul Survivor my division at work moved into new offices downstairs.

This is good. Everything is quiet now and I think I concentrate more.

People keep asking me questions about my work. So I thought, I'd show you where I work. It's like taking you on a tour of my work place. I'm sure you'll all be thrilled because offices really are thrilling.



This is a wide shot of the office. It's still messy from the move. But it's nice and corporate looking. This is to help us all fulfil our childhood dreams of becoming desk-jockeys.



This is my desk. I put paper on it to make it look like I do work. There's plastic on the phone because I work for a Christian organisation and the plastic filters out any swear words I might hear or satanic messages from hold music being played backwards.



This is a close up of my phone. It says my name on it so that when it rings I know I should pick it up. It's like the other end of caller id.

I took the plastic off because School Chaplains swear so much if I kept it on I wouldn't hear 80% of what they said.



These are the faces that look over my shoulder. They are accountability faces. They make sure I don't go on Facebook more than 30% of the working day.



This is what I eat as a snack at work sometimes. It looks like poo. Slimy poo.

I'm at work now. On my lunch break. It's a little sad the youth conference season is over and I'm back to the old work. However we are in a new office and that's making me feel very productive.

I am a little tired now that it's over it was pretty big.

This year was the first time I had ever been to KYCK. I know it's terrible. I've spent 8 years in conservative Sydney Bible Colleges, 7 years working in Anglican Churches as a Youth Minister and not once did I make it to a KCC convention. It's only now that I've become a Baptist that I'm forced up the mountains to listen to Bible teaching.

But it was a good experience. We had a group of 8. There were 5 leaders, 1 assistant cook and 2 youth. We were perhaps the most over staffed youth group in attendance.

I did enjoy having a whole weekend of solid Bible teaching. And the music was a whole lot less Sydney Anglican than I thought. There was not one saxophone to be seen, let alone there being a glut of saxophone solos. Plus the songs sounded more like Hillsong than a theology text book most of the time. Which I like. I still would have liked to the music to be louder. Worship music is best played at rock concert levels in my opinion. I think because then only God can hear me sing, and this is probably better for everyone.

I went up to Soul Survivor on Tuesday night, going straight from work. The music was louder there. Soul was up in Newcastle this year. We were doing Soul in the City which means that in the morning and evenings there was a main meeting with worship and teaching, and during the day everyone went out to do projects to serve the community.

I really love the format of getting hundreds of teenagers together to love a bunch of people they don't know just because Jesus loves them. It's entirely outward focused and you very rarely find youth events, or any big Christian event for that matter, that is so outward focused and practical about it.

What I appreciate about Soul is that as far as growing a large, Christian conference goes, it's doing everything wrong. After 5 years in one location it packed up and moved to Canberra. Then after two years in Canberra, it packed up and went to Newcastle. Next year it'll be back to Sydney. The year after I think the plan is to split itself across a bunch of rural towns and bless them with acts of kindness, like Soul in the City but it's Soul in the Bush. If you want to build a big conference this is not the way to do it. You would think the best thing to do is find one adequate location, run the event in the same place, at the same time, and then do the same thing every year but bigger and better with more and more famous people every year.

But this isn't really about building a big conference, it's about following Jesus. And Jesus is outward focused, and has no desire to build big movements just for the sake of big movements.

I like Soul because they follow Jesus*.

For me the Soul Survivor experience this year was hectic. I was speaking in seminars on 3 out of 4 mornings. And making videos with Sal every day.

We'd start making the video after the main meeting at about 1pm and then have to have it done for showing before 7:30pm. The 6 hour turn around from concept to shooting to editing then rendering, was pretty hectic. But I did enjoy it. It was like the extreme sport for video geeks.

This is a poor quality version of the first video we made, teaching people how they should behave while on projects:



It was a fun few days. I would do it again. Though I would like a little more sleep when it's all over.

*That's not to say that the KCC crew don't follow Jesus. My reflection on one conference is not in contrast to the other.

I watched The Biggest Loser finale tonight. It inspired me to lose weight. But first I need to put some weight on so I have some to lose. So tomorrow I'm going on a trans-fat diet with sugar for snacks.

(I think there's a Soul Survivor/KYCK blog in me, popping out soon.)

I'm in the middle of a youth conference frenzy. I'm currently in lying on an air mattress in a church hall in Blackheath. Someone is snoring and someone else's stomach is grumbling. I'm up here with my youth group for KYCK which is a conservative Christian youth conference in Katoomba. It's been good so far. The talks have been solid, Dave Miers spoke well tonight and I got to pray with some guys who recommitted their lives to Jesus. Excellent.

On Tuesday, after working Monday and Tuesday, I'm heading up to Newcastle for Soul in the City. I'll be there doing video stuff at night and seminars in the mornings. Every spare moment I get now is for seminar prep. Except perhaps for the youth leaders meeting on Monday night. Goodness. I'm just living youth ministry these days. Once I just did it for a job, now it's my volunteer life too! Still, youth ministry rocks, so I'm not complaining.

Good Friday is good.

I love that we spend a day considering the death of Jesus. I love the sombre mood of church. The darkness. The quiet.

The King is dead. Our Lord crucified. Naked, alone, suffering the wrath of man and God. It's hard to know how to feel on Good Friday.

Sad. Contemplative. Thankful.

So often we jump straight to the resurrection from the crucifixion. But at Easter we have time take it slowly, to let the reality sink in.

Now, at this time on the Friday, darkness had fallen on the land. Jesus was in the grave. Hope crushed. The creator's lifeless body, on a cold rock shelf, in a darkened tomb.

Tomorrow our Lord does not stir. Decay begins. The dawn was coming, but who really knew?


He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors. - Isaiah 53:5,12

He has done it. - Psalm 22:31c

Photo by: jurek d.

I got real excited the other night because I've been trying to figure out how to connect to my neighbours and I realised I could give them all a packet of Easter eggs. I thought I could door knock, say "G'day" and hand over some eggs and an Easter card.

However, while I have the eggs, now that it's not 1am on Tuesday night, I'm not feeling so excited. My house mates asked me if I'm going to dress up in a bunny suit and hand them out. Bah! I wish I didn't believe in community.

But I'm going to do it. Sunday 11:30am. You can hold me accountable to that.

When I arrived at work today the head of the finance division came into my cubicle and asked if I had time for a chat.

He pulled up a chair, and said "Now this hasn't really gotten out yet but on Friday we got a letter about you..."

When he first starts talking I think "Oh no someone's got cancer" then he keeps talking and I think "Oh crap, I'm totally busted for something". And my heart starts beating and I get nervous till he finishes his sentence:

"...from Centrelink. They want to know your employment details."

He's very serious, and I'm wondering why he's so serious. I wonder if I'm going to jail or something. Then I remember that Centrelink sent me a letter a while ago asking me for my employment details. I had already given them my new employment details but not the ABN number of my new work. I had ignored the letter on the advice of the Centrelink worker who told me that because of the way I'm paid in my full time employment I would be receiving $12 a fortnight from Centrelink forever, unless I stopped handing in their forms. So I stopped handing in my forms. My multiple attempts at breaking up with them face-to-face handn't worked. I decided to screen their calls and not return their mail. It's healthier this way.

This ignoring worked enough to get a letter in the mail from Centrelink telling me my Newstart is cancelled (win!) but not enough for them to not think I'm up to dodgy business and send letters to my employer (fail).

"Apparently someone over there thinks you're ripping them off" he continued.

He was sufficiently worried by the letter to meet with me as if I'm in trouble with the law. I find it amusing that Centrelink think I'm ripping them off because I'm ignoring them so they'll stop giving me money. Maybe they'll fine me for trying to stop getting money from them. It wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, I'll call them tomorrow to tell them what I've been trying to tell them all along, I'm in a new relationship, could they please move on, I have.

I didn't know but it seems the anti-Christ is among us. The end times are here!