My Prediction for the Win:

Jukebox Jury.

Trust me. I'm an expert.

I was at a school recently and as often happens I sat through an assembly. Schools enjoy piggy backing chapels with assemblies sometimes which means in the last two years I have seen a lot of merit awards handed out. In fact on a few occasions I've even handed out merit awards. I've shaken kids' hands and said "Well done" because I was the most auspicious person in the room. That was weird.

Anyway, that's not the point. On this day, after the assembly. a year nine class got held back. They were all asked to write a report on what had happened in an English lesson the day before. Apparently there had been some chair throwing or something. The teacher told the class they were expected to write a report on what happened and they were expected to name names.

That got me thinking about what I would do were I asked to write a report on the behaviour of my peers. Say we had a staff meeting and while my boss was out of the room a few of my staff mates threw some chairs around and set fire to a table. Then the head of our organisation called us in and asked us to write a report and name names. I don't know what I'd do. My first response would probably be to refuse, though I'm not sure why. I guess I've grown up with the notion that you don't dob in your mates. I also think I have a problem with adversarial authority. Like when a teacher sets themselves up against a class, or management set themselves up against employees, It gets to me and makes me want to rebel.

However were my boss to sit down with all the staff and have a conversation about who threw what chair and who lit what fire, and why it happened, and what message we might be trying to send management or each other, or society, by having small riots (ri-ettes, if you will), I would be much happier to talk about who did what. I respond well to relational leadership. I think that's why I haven't had any dreams about rebelling against my bosses at work. I have good bosses who do things within the context of relationship rather than enforcement. I do however have dreams about rebelling against teachers, and my managers at the cinema and the entertainment centre. In those places my compliance was expected because they were in-charge and I was their subordinate. It seems I'm not keen on being bossed but I am keen on being led. Good leaders lead through relationships built and respect earned. Bad bosses boss through relationships ignored and respect assumed.

So all this I guess is to say, I still don't know if I'd dob on my friends, but if I had a good boss (which I do) I probably wouldn't need to.

This leads me back to thinking about how you relate to teenagers. In general, leading teens is the same as leading adults, it's best in the context of built relationships and earned respect. In schools, it doesn't really work like that. The teachers are the bosses and the students are the workers, teachers often expect teenagers to obey because authority us inherent within the role. So when an adult comes along and asks for obedience and responsibility which is not expected but earned, young people are going to be much more likely to repsond positively.

None of this stuff is really new, but I think it's what I got thinking about while watching the chair throwing inquisition. It reminded me to not be lazy in my relationships with young people. My job is to lead not to boss.

I stuck the video I made with youth group up the other day.

If you haven't already seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure:

On Saturdays we have Community Brunch at our place. Come over if you want. 10am.

We've done it twice and they've turned into a long winded affairs. Lots of sitting around and eating and meeting new people. Last week brunch was scrambled eggs on toast followed by pancakes followed by yoghurt and fruit followed by bacon and eggs on toast. It was excellent and full belly making.

At around 2pm we ended up out in the front yard playing handball. It was great. We had a ref with official hand signals and everything. I'm gonna play for Australia I reckon. Maybe go pro and sell the TV rights I reckon.

It was pretty fun. Makes me excited for summer.

When we were away last weekend the kids were having a wonderful time singing along to Moves like Jagger. Jenny, one of the leaders, turned to me and said "I wonder if they actually know who Jagger is." So I told her to ask.

She turned around and asked bus of young teens, "In this song, who is Jagger?"

They all just stared at her for a while, there were a few murmured "dunno"s. Then one kid piped up "Someone who's got good moves?"

It was a pretty special moment.

It's Saturday. And for the first time in 21 days I haven't had any ministry activities to do. Very happy to rest.

I took the youth group away to Tumbarumba on the weekend. We went from Thursday to Sunday. It was good fun. Four leaders, nine kids, happy times. We weeded gardens, cleaned windows, run a kids club, a youth night, and a church service. We also shot a lot of video for the now annual Tumbarumba music video. It's gonna be even better than last year's.

We hired a bus which made things much fun. I got to drive the bus for the entire 1100kms, it made me feel very important.

Of the 12 or so hours I spent driving the bus, I only spent about a second of them driving the bus into a fence post. Unfortunately you can do a large amount of damage in a short amount of time. About $600 worth of damage it turns out.

I was a little bit concerned about the bus and the money when I did it. I was most concerned about telling the guy who we rented the bus off, because when we'd picked up the bus he'd spent a long time telling me to look after the bus and about how it was brand new. I did the crashing on Saturday and plucked up the courage to call him on Sunday. When I told the guy I told him I was sorry and he said "I'm sorry too, that was a new bus." Poor guy.

Still when I took the bus back, while he was upset as I was leaving he excitedly bonded with me over the fact that I had the same air conditioning in my car as in the bus. So I'm glad he cheered up in the end.

Despite the bus damage, I think it was a trip worth doing. The kids had a lot of fun, the leaders were excellent, and everyone got in and served. Fence posts can't cancel out that goodness.

This is good. You should watch it.

I went and saw Crazy Stupid Love the other day after work. I didn't really go in expecting much at all. I only remembered the bit from the trailer about the Ryan Gosling having photoshopped abs. That didn't really seem like much to base a judgment of a film on.

Turns out the film, is smart, funny and honest. The film is, funnily enough, all about love. It's about marriage, divorce, crushes, soul-mates, casual sex, sexting and family. In the opening scene of the film Cal (Steve Carell) finds out while out to dinner with his wife that she wants a divorce. In the car on the way home he is silent about the divorce, until he can't handle it any more so he jumps out of the car. It's a fitting image of a man who no longer works at wooing his wife and isn't willing to fight for her. Throughout the rest of the film he learns to fight for his wife. I heard Matt Chandler say something in a talk recently about how the Godly man never stop pursing his wife. I think it's a good image of God who never stops pursuing his church.

So the film had a lot of stuff I agreed with.

I found it interesting to note how much porn influenced the film. Having recently heard Melinda Tankard Reist talk about how pornified our society is, I definitely noticed it in the film. The film wasn't pornographic at all, but there were references made. The playboy of the film talked about how the internet has changed the landscape for sleeping with women, the mother of the film just assumed her son was looked at porn and it was the done thing, and one of the girls gave a guy who had a crush on him nude photos of herself which was meant to be a really sweet gesture. That wasn't one of the bits I agreed with. But I did find it interesting.

Aside from that, I liked the film a lot. I love a good marriage film. And I like funny films. So Crazy Stupid Love was a winner.

I'm doing a Bible Study on Homosexuality in Bible study tonight (Monday).

Would you be so kind as to let me know:

a) If you believe that a monogamous homosexual relationship is a valid lifestyle for a Christian
b) If you think that gay marriage should be allowed
and
c) Any biblical support you have for your position.

I understand you're probably all off doing long weekends, so don't stress. But if you feel like giving me some opinion, that'd be awesome.

Thanks friends, readers and friendly readers.

I've been at a conference today for work. It's a chaplains conference.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought I would have to do a lot of networking, which isn't really my strong suit. I hadn't put any thought into the sessions.

Turns out the sessions have been pretty good. Good for the head, hard on the heart, important for the soul.

The first keynote speaker we had (we have five keynote speakers, which could be a record for keynotes) was John Dickson speaking about humility. He said a lot of good stuff but what struck me most was something he didn't really talk much about but is something I've been thinking about and that's seeking criticism. I never go out of my way to have people tell me what I'm doing wrong. I never look to have anyone tell me of my sin. I just hope the people close to me are kind enough to tell me my faults, and I'm humble enough to listen.

I've been thinking maybe I need to figure out a way to listen to people criticisms of me, and to help people to feel safe to tell me where they think I have room for improvement. But until I figure out a way to do that, feel free to just tell me, or email me, or comment on my Facebook, and I'll try and humbly listen and change.

We had a talk about burn out and stress, which was nice, because I feel like I'm doing ok with that one.

Tonight we had a talk about the pornification of our culture and the sexulisation young girls from Melinda Tankard Reist. It was pretty horrid content but quite important. Very emotionally taxing. I feel like there's probably a whole other post in it, so I might leave it till I get to it.

In summary, this conference has been harder and easier than I expected. The networking has been pretty low key and easy. The sessions have been demanding, but good.

Maybe tomorrow will be easier.

I woke up this morning and was trying to work out what to have for breakfast. There was no milk. I didn't want just toast.

Then I found a can of spaghetti in my room. It was like manna from heaven except it was spaghetti from the floor.

I went downstairs to find a can opener. I couldn't find one. So I went to the shops to buy one. I bought some milk, some Coke and some Doritos. The essentials.

When I came home Johnny had returned from church and his home group was on their way over with a giant lunch feast, which I was most welcome to join. Breakfast provided, again.

I ate and it was good.

I still have a can of spaghetti, in case of a rainy day, the end of the world and/or another lack of milk. A milkocalypse if you will.

I think in terms of food, today I won.

I went to April's birthday party today. She turned thirty. It was fun.

A few hours in three teenage guys walked into the hall in an attempt to crash the party. They were quickly shown the door. However, the party must have looked like so much fun they kept trying to get back in.

It was pretty amusing. It seems to me that, no offence April, but, aside from a retirement village's Christmas party and perhaps a Mosman ladies' Tupperware party, a dry, 30th birthday party in the middle of the afternoon in East Lindfield is probably the least exciting party around to crash for a bunch of 15 year-old boys. Still what else is there to do in Lindfield to do on a rainy afternoon?

I really enjoyed this article. It is quite good at showing the absurdities of some current political correctness/free speech issues. I don't know who the guy who wrote it is. He's probably some right wing scary person who I'd disagree with on almost everything. However, I liked this article. I'm pretty on board with freedom of speech. Even if someone wants to say terrible things about my back hair, my faith or my family, I'll be sad, and hurt, but I don't think the government should tell us what we can and cannot say. And I don't think people should get in trouble from the law for the things they say which are offensive. I don't want people to say things that offend me or my friends but I want the right to say things which offend them.

So I say, let's all speak freely and offend liberally. Except perhaps politicians and the political correctness thought police, I think we can all agree those guys should shut up, they've said enough.

"On 9/11 I thought, For the most powerful, militarized nation in the world also to think of itself as an innocent victim is deadly. It was a rare prophetic moment for me, considering Presidents Bush and Obama have spent billions asking the military to rectify the crime of a small band of lawless individuals, destroying a couple of nations who had little to do with it, in the costliest, longest series of wars in the history of the United States. The silence of most Christians and the giddy enthusiasm of a few, as well as the ubiquity of flags and patriotic extravaganzas in allegedly evangelical churches, says to me that American Christians may look back on our response to 9/11 as our greatest Christological defeat. It was shattering to admit that we had lost the theological means to distinguish between the United States and the kingdom of God. The criminals who perpetrated 9/11 and the flag-waving boosters of our almost exclusively martial response were of one mind: that the non-violent way of Jesus is stupid. All of us preachers share the shame; when our people felt very vulnerable, they reached for the flag, not the Cross. September 11 has changed me. I’m going to preach as never before about Christ crucified as the answer to the question of what’s wrong with the world. I have also resolved to relentlessly reiterate from the pulpit that the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on their own terms by crucifying the Son of God.” - Bishop Will Willamon

From here.

We had a discussion at work the other day about why it is we say sorry to God for our sins, but then we thank God when we do something good. We take responsibility for the bad stuff we do and we say that God is responsible for the good things we do. It seems a little odd to me, either we're responsible for our actions or God is.

I know the correct answer to this, and I agree with it. But that doesn't mean I can't have an unorthodox thought every once in a while.

Hello from my new home in St Ives!

I'm so freakin' St Ives now, I'm changing my last name to Goldstein.

Johnny, Curt and I are moving in this weekend, though I'm the only one free enough to move in properly. Johnny and I are going to be doing most of our moving tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

I'm sitting in an empty lounge room. Well empty except for some empty Nandos and a cable modem. I've dealt with the big things first. Hello internets!

I also went shopping today and bought many things for the house none of us housemates have, like fridge, washing machine, vacuum and the all important 40" LCD TV. I'm not loaded we're sharing the buying. The only things we're missing now is the Xbox and some plugs for the sink. Oh and we might need chairs, but that's pretty minor compared to the need for the internet connected TV.

What's also cool about this house that is has a bar downstairs. I'm really excited about the possibilities of recreating famous bar scenes from films in there. I also plan to sell moonshine to the locals. It's going to be great.

It's pretty special to have somewhere to live now. I'm very thankful to my parents for letting me stay with them for so long after moving out of my last place. I'm very thankful to God that I'm moving in with some great guys and we have some good dreams for our home. Things like community, movie watching and household film making fun. Yeah.

Come visit some time.

"He whom God would use mightily, he wounds deeply." - Matt Chandler (misquoting Tozer and attributing it to Luther)

I was happy that the High Court told the Government they couldn't do offshore processing. If it drives them into the arms of the Libs so they can legalise more inhumain ways of dealing with asylum seekers, I'm not so pleased. If only the High Court was able to rule on the morality of the issue and not just the legality. I don't really what the High Court ruling on the morality of things. But just this once it would have been nice.

I may not have been blown away by John Piper during the conference, but I keep thinking about things he said. One of the biggest things has been working at asking God to give me the joy to the things I don't want to do but I'm going to do because they're the right thing to do. That wasn't one of his big things, but it's stuck with me.