Tonight all the people who are currently involved in the church plant went to visit our preferred location. We wandered around, had a chat and a pray, and then went to the local RSL. They had $5.50 chicken schnitzel (ripper). We chatted and decided we all liked the place. So we now have a location. And it's very close to an RSL with cheap schnitzel! It's very exciting.

Tonight we officially moved from being a exploratory group to a core team. First item on the agenda was when we're going to be meeting each fortnight. Second item on the agenda was to ask for money. I gave my first offering talk. I think I did pretty well. I feel like if we're gonna be a church it's best to set the culture early and I want money. I am a visionary.

Actually I just told people they should open a bank account and start putting aside money the church so we have start up money. I'm hoping at least for each of the pastors to get a new car as a start up bonus.

So now that I've talked all about money. Let me say, I am actually really excited. I love that we now have somewhere to go. I love the group of people who are planting. I loved having everyone together for the first time, and I love that it was in the place are (God-willing) planting. I'm excited to see people come to know Jesus. I'm daunted by the magnitude of the task ahead. I keen to see Jesus work.

Hooray for the Kingdom. I hope it comes a bit more through this church.

I tend to watch a lot of video online these days. Partly because it's part of my job, partly because I want to see what kind of stuff other people are making, mainly because the internet is chock full of video goodness. I decided ages ago that I wanted to start posting a video of the week. It may not be a video that I discovered this week, but it will be one that I want you to see.

This film hit Vimeo a few months ago and a few people told me to watch it. So I did. It's pretty beautiful. It's one of those special things that moves me in my gut like a great guitar solo, or a majestic piece of art. This is rather fantastic.

Watch it full screen.




1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth. - Psalm 19:1-6

New Years Eve was pretty great. I'd tell you all about it, but I made a video instead. This is it:

Christmas had all the usual things that were pretty excellent this year. Presents, family, friends, Jesus, roast potatoes. I could blog about these things, but I won't. I've decided I might blog about 5 things which were less usual, but still quite wonderful.

1. The King Parrot



We were having community brunch on Christmas Eve. It was full of Christmas cheer, which I think is like generic cheer but with Christmas biscuits thrown in. I was in the kitchen doing something domestic, when a king parrot came and landed on our kitchen door. He was red and green and loving Christmas. It felt like the wildlife were in on the joy too.

2. I Love Carol

Actually, I love carols. But there's nothing wrong with Carol, I'm sure.

After having developed a hatred of carols from my years of forced carol singing throughout primary school, it's taken me a long time to recover. However, slowly over that last few years my aversion has been wearing off, I have learnt to forgive the Three Kings, Royal David's City and the Harking of Angels. So that this year I positively loved carols. Partly because many of them have such fantastic words, but also because when done well they sound great. I went to the midnight service at St Stephen's, Belrose for a bit of a sing and celebrate, and the team there (they know who they are) did a great job. Helped me celebrate Jesus more.

3. Sleep

On Christmas evening between 6pm and 7pm I had a nap. It rocked.

4. Christmas Night Movie

Anmol, Daviandra and I went to the movies on Christmas night. We had a drink before hand in bar and then watched Meryl Streep play The Iron Lady likaboss. She was pretty awesome and the movie wasn't half bad either. If only she ahd an arc reactor around her heart and the ability to fire weapons from her jacket sleeves, it could have been the best movie of the year. Movies, good friends and beer. Best way to do Christmas night in my book.

5. Skype

On Boxing Day at Christmas with my Dad's side of the family we skyped Jo and Victor. I didn't get to talk to them long because they were by far the most popular people not in the room, but it was nice to see them. I'm looking forward to seeing them (and their offsprung) for real, but till then, speaking Star Trek style will do pretty good too.


And that is the less usual of another happy Christmas.

I love babies and I love Jesus.

Today is win.

Mil and Martin are currently around from Alice. On the weekend David was up from Melbourne. On Saturday we went up into the mountains with Anmol and hung out with Gem and Jem. These guys are some my old friends. They are people who I have grown up with and we hardly see each other. Every time we hang out I'm struck by how close I am to them all. I think I've mentioned before, they're the kind of friends where even though you may not see each other for months at a time, when you do get together you just pick up where you left off. It's special.

I was thinking about how, when you're a kid you just have friends, when you're a teenager you have a group of friends. You find an identity in your group. When your an adult your group disperses and you have many circles of friends and acquaintances. But if someone were to say to you "We're getting the old group together", it means something, it's not just a line from the movies.

Anyway, I love my old friends. I love the times we spend together. I love the spouses who have joined us of the last few years. One day I hope we all come together from around the world and move into a giant community of houses or houses of giant community and have vegetable stacks in the backyard and beer and stuff. And our kids can date each other.

That'd be special fun. I'm feeling nostalgic for the future.

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.

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.

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.

I ordered myself a giantly, nice computer on Friday. It's a MacBook Pro. 15" HD antiglare screen. 8GB of RAM. And wait, wait for it, Microsoft Office! That's right, I'm gonna do word art like a boss.

I moved out of my place in Artarmon. When my housemate came home and found me using his razor to shave my bum I knew it was all over.

That's not true.

I moved because my lovely friends Chez and Johnny invited me to move in with them and work at living intentionally as in a more community like way. We're not going to be a "Community House", not yet, just a friendly, welcoming house and we may work out way up to the title of Community House.

Also they want to live closer to my work.

So I moved out of my place on Friday and Saturday. Now I'm technically homeless again. But I'm living with my parents till we find a place to live. And my parents now have Bluray and wifi so it's a good place to live.

I'm looking forward to the new adventure. Chick peas, tea, community and all that. Johnny's a poet and Chez is a vegetarian. How Newtown. But we're too hipster for Newtown, we're too hipster for the inner-west. How Newtown.

Macquarie Park here we come!

Tonight I wrote a song with Matt for Soul Survivor. Then I chatted to him and Beck for a while. That was nice.

I came home. Everyone was asleep. It was 11:30pm. I watched an episode of The Wire.

Then I was hungry and I had one episode of The Wire left, ever. So I went to McDonald's, came home, and watched the episode. I'll write about the show later. The food hit the spot. I spilt some tomato sauce on my jeans.

Now it's 2:50am. And I'm probably going to go to bed.

And I'm happy. I can stay up late, watch TV and eat McDonald's whenever I want, because I'm a grown up and I'm on holidays.

Life is good.

It's almost 3am. That's because I've been watching The Wire.

Oh yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about.

This got me emotional.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

My sister Jo had her baby. We're all very relieved because a few of us were worried that there was no baby and she just made up the baby to cover-up her love of Pollo Campero's deep fried chicken. But it turns our her fatness was not all chicken, some of it was child.

Or in fact, it was all chicken and they've just stuck photos of a baby on Facebook while she goes to Pollo Campero rehab.

But I'm gonna trust that while my family is sometimes devious about things like this, they're not skilled enough to execute a conspiracy of such massive proportions without my help. So I believe there is a baby and his name is Sebastian. And this is the alleged nephew:



Photo credit: Chochy Morales (my sister in-law once removed or something)

He's very cute.

I picked up Hannah, my younger sister, from after school care today, and I was talking to her about how she's an auntie and I'm an uncle, and I couldn't quite get my head around that. I feel the weight of responsibility now to do the barbecue at Christmas and forget birthdays, uncles have a hard job.

If you notice Sebastian is looking more white than brown. Seeing as his father is a good looking Latino we were hoping for a lady killer mixed-race kid. Mixed race people are almost always hot (unless you do something dangerous like mix an Irish with a Kiwi). They tell me the baby will get darker soon. I hope so. I only allow hot people in my family. Lucky he's a baby, because babies are always cute. He has until he's three to become good looking or I'm voting him out of the family.

Anyway congratulations to Jo for having a baby and not just some chicken. Congratulations to Sebastian for being born, beautiful and a symbol of Australia and Guatemala's friendship and close military alliance. Congratulations to Victor for becoming a Dad and sitting on a couch and eating sandwiches during the labour.


Just so you know, I am actually very thankful to God for Sebastian. I don't care how un-Latino he looks... well I don't care much. And I'm very proud of my sister for having a baby. I wouldn't do it even if I could. I'm really looking forward to meeting him, and forgetting his birthday regularly. Well done, Jo, Victor and Sebastian. Praise God for all his many blessings including children and Pollo Campero!

Today I had a shoelace coming out of my shoe and dragging on the ground. I noticed it just as I was walking into the toilets at Hoyts to do a wee. I had been planning to use the urinal but had to change my plans because, had I gone to the wee wall, there's a high chance my shoelace would have fallen through the grate and into the urine flowing rapidly below. I re-adjusted my heading and went to a proper toilet instead.

It's because of quick thinking and ingenious problem solving like this that wars are won, nuclear meltdowns are averted and men don't go around smelling like urinals as often.

It's also a clear indication of why men have harder lives than women. Women don't have to contend with such dangers or make decisions of such magnitude on a daily basis.


Speaking of women having hard lives, my sister's due to have a baby today. How exciting. If the nurses know about anatomy then she's having a small man. May he grow up to have clean shoelaces and a peaceful life.

Remembered history says that David ran up to me on my first day of primary school and said "Will you be my friend?" and we've been friends ever since.

On Saturday I went to Melbourne see him get married to Andreana. It was, to be sure, a lovely wedding. If I'm honest I'll probably forget the vows, though I liked them more than most. I'll probably forget that I had to pretend to be a water pot, though I've never done that before, least of all in the middle of a wedding ceremony. I'll probably forget that there were people handing out food and drink before the ceremony or that the whole thing happened on soggy ground while the rain made empty threats to come. I'll forget the conversations I had before and after, I'm already forgetting them. I'll forget the jokes Howie and I made as MCs at the reception, and I'll forget Russell the manager of the bowling club who kept asking us questions about the wedding we didn't know, ("We're just the MCs!"). I'll forget that there were three different types of cake and that I forgot to bring a belt and a jacket. I'll forget that Anmol ate two cheeseburgers on our way home.

I'll forget most things about Saturday.

But then again, I've forgotten most of the things David and I have done together as friends. The few significant moments are eclipsed by the thousands of insignificant ones. But whatever the memories are, when David asked me to be his friend he changed our lives. Neither of us would be where we or who we are today, if it wasn't for that moment 23 years ago when David began something significant.

So while I will mostly forget the wedding, I probably won't forget that under a giant tree one February afternoon in 2011 in Melbourne, one of my oldest friends married one of his newest friends. They will profoundly change each other's lives. My prayer is that they help each other be the best David and Andreana they can be and they love each other in all the forgettable moments as well as the memorable ones.

For myself, I'm thankful that David is still beginning significant things and creating relationships that change lives.

I brought in the new year by defending the US against it's Russian invaders in Modern Warfare 2* (Thanks to Dingo and his Xbox). It was pretty fun.

I heard the 9pm fireworks in the city, but the midnight ones were lost in the noise of automatic gun fire.

As I hoped, I had a very good NYE.

What I am excited about is the annual New Years KFC and movie. That never lets me down. Bring is on!


*Yes, I know Black Ops is out gamers, but I haven't finished MW2 yet

It's New Year's Eve.

And where am I?

I'm at home.

And I'm happy.

No, really, I am.


I spent a lot of time trying to work out what to do this evening. I had a few options. Parties, gatherings, fireworks. The problem with New Years Eve is that it's always so full of expectation of having an excellent night. And sometimes it is excellent but sometimes it's a real disappointment. Usually though, it has to do with expectations. If things go better than you expect, your NYE rocks. If they don't, it doesn't. If you want a quiet one and it's not quiet enough, or it's too quiet, your NYE sucks. If you want an awesome night out at a party or on the harbour but your friends are less fun than you hoped or your friends are having heaps of fun but they are somewhere else, you're let down.

Tomorrow my house mates come home. I've had the house to myself the past few days and it's been great. I've done a lot of sitting around, watching DVDs, sleeping and playing Xbox. I figured, I can just do more of that tonight. And it'll probably be exactly what I expect. The company probably won't do anything surprising, and I really do love having the house to myself. Expectations won't let me down.

So that's what I'm doing. I've watched a DVD, eaten butter chicken, read my Bible and prayed. Now I'm blogging (obviously), I might read soon, watch a DVD, who knows. I know it all sounds old and dull but so far it's been fun. I'm on holidays, so I'm gonna do what I want, and this is great.

On Wednesday I was talking to Lesley about what she was doing and she said she might just stay home. At the time the idea sounded appalling. However, it grew on me. Not that I don't like going out. But I don't like being let down, and for a night so full of expectation as NYE, I'm going to expect nothing, do not much, and probably come out on top. On the other hand, the flat could burn down, I could have a terrible accident and have my arm amputated by the DVD player and then the New Year's Eve will be a let down. So far, however, it's going well. Thanks Lesley.

Introverts unite (alone)!