We've been working our way through 24. While Jack Bower annoys me to no end, I do like it when there is lots of shooting.

I've been reading a biography on Billy Graham at the moment. I'm enjoying it. I wanted to watch a video of Billy preaching, so I jumped on YouTube. YouTube was kind enough to give me a bunch of videos made by people declaiming that Billy Graham is going to hell because he believes in salvation apart for Jesus Christ (such as here and here).

They quote an interview Billy Graham gave to Robert Schuller where Graham was asked about the future of the Christian Church. Graham replied:

"Well, Christianity and being a true believer--you know, I think there's the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ. And I don't think that we're going to see a great sweeping revival, that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today, He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven."

When Schuller asks Graham to clarify he replies:

"I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they've tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived."

(I got the quotes from here)

Now people get entirely upset that Graham is saying that people can be saved apart from Jesus. I think perhaps that's a rather far leap to make considering that Graham spent the entirety of his ministry calling people to faith in Jesus Christ. He didn't call people to morality, to belief in God, any God, but to Jesus and only Jesus.

What Graham seems to be saying to me, is that ignorance of Christ doesn't necessarily mean that a person cannot be saved by Christ. I think this is part of what Paul talks about in the early chapters of Romans. First he says that creation testifies to the existence and character of God so that humanity cannot deny God's existence (Romans 1:20). Later he talks about how it is that Gentiles will be judged even though they do not have the law. Saying that they will be judged by their conscience apart from the law, and so also will be found guilty by their own consciences (Romans 2:14-15).

The whole thrust of Romans 1-5 is that righteousness comes not through obedience but through faith. Faith in Jesus. No one can be good enough for God, but a righteousness comes apart from the law and that is in Jesus. In chapter 4 Paul uses the example of Abraham who was saved not by works, but by faith. "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:3). "It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith." (Romans 4:13)

Abraham did not know Jesus Christ. He did know the God of Jesus Christ, but he did not know of Jesus the Man/God, born thousands of years later. He did not know that Jesus would die on the cross for his sins, nor did he know that Jesus would rise again. In fact no-one before Jesus came knew exactly how God was going to save them. But Abraham, along with others, believed God and it was credited to them as righteousness. They knew that righteousness cannot come through good behaviour, because everyone is sinful. But righteous must come through some other form. And they believed God to supply this righteousness, which he did in Jesus.

So if a person believes that they cannot be saved apart from the mercy of God, the God of creation, yet they have not heard of Jesus, could they not too believe on the mercy of the God they do know, and be saved? Could they not have faith that is credited to them as righteousness?

If it was good enough for Abraham surely it's good enough for the lost tribes who have not had a chance to be presented with the person of Jesus.

And what about the person who comes from the Muslim background who knows only a distorted view of Jesus? If they reject the false-Jesus can you blame them? If they believe in the mercy of God, but have not heard of the true Jesus, one who is God, the one who died and rose again, cannot their faith be credited to them as righteousness?

So perhaps I am going out on a theological limb here. But I think that people who have not heard of Jesus can still be saved by Jesus. And I think Billy Graham believes that too.

On the other hand those who have not heard of Jesus can still be judged by Jesus, if they fail to have faith in the mercy of God.

And those who have heard of the true Jesus, but have rejected the true Jesus cannot be saved by Jesus.

That's what I think. Jesus is the only way to salvation but knowledge of Jesus is not necessarily a pre-requisite.

I went to bed at 2am last night and woke up at 12:30pm. I haven't slept that late in years. I guess I was tireder than I thought.

Feeling pretty happy now though.

Australia Day it has been. The day to celebrate being Australian by eating barbecued stuff and dressing for a riot.

I never get all that moved by Australia Day. I mean I love Australia. There is no place I'd rather live. But patriotism is a little embarrassing. It's silly to pretend we live in the best country in the world. Because we don't. It's probably some Scandinavian country or Canada or something.

Then again, now that I think about it, maybe I should do a bit of self-congratulating on Australia Day. After all, if it wasn't for us Aussies we wouldn't have such a wonderfully large rock in the middle of our country to show tourists. And we wouldn't have the most beautiful beaches in the world. If it wasn't for the fact that I was born here, I doubt we'd have such a fantastic climate.

And I'll be damned, if there is another country in the world that knows the meanings of the words "mateship" and "fair-go" like we do. Plus tell me one other culture that understands how to have a good time like Australia. None. No-one really. We're the best.

Isn't it obvious how good we are? No other country has progressed as fantastically as we have in such a short time. In 1788 we started out as just a bunch of English criminals and soldiers, willing to behave like criminals and invade and massacre like soldiers. But now, we're rich, fat, and good at cricket and yet we still succeed in remaining true to our forefathers roots and use our military to deal with the natives. How good are we?

So I'm going to give myself a pat on the back because I am pretty good.


That said, I do love Australia. But probably like I love my car. It may not be the best there is and often it's a little bit embarrassing but it works for me and it warms my heart with familiarity.

So I enjoyed celebrating Australia today. I went and ate steak at a barbecue party of joy. And I ate Asian take away from Chef's Lucky Noodle (cooked by an Australian who looked like a Chinese) with my family while I drank that great Australian drink, Coke.

Happy Australia Day Australia. Sucked in rest of the world, you have to work on Monday. Which is just one more indicator that we are the best country in the world.

"Rambo taps into something I believe all men harbour inside, which is a sense of indignation and isolation that usually has to be resolved through physical endeavours but in the end there is no satisfaction because the price that is paid is too intense and destructive." - Sylvester Stallone

I read that quote and it got me thiking. Stallone sounds a bit like a pessimistic John Eldredge. Which is perhaps something to do with the purpose Rambo serves. He validates men's feelings of need for violence. Except when it all pans out the violence only ever leaves Rambo betrayed by the system that created him. (Actually I haven't watched Rambo 3 for a while. Maybe it ends differently in that one.)

I'm sure there are lots of men who identify with Rambo's indignation at the world, yet they can't find a worthy enemy to blow up. So they do it vicariously by watching movies, and they act out as best they can by abusing their photocopier and yelling at their kids. Neither of which are satisfying. But when has Rambo been satisfied either?

Rambo always pays a high price, yet he never seeks an alternative.

I guess that's where Eldredge and his cohorts comes in handy. Strength becomes more valuable than violence, character more important than power, and change more desired than destruction.

Stallone and Eldredge both recognise man's desire to blow stuff up. Eldredge just wants us do it well.

So it turns out that I've been given cross credit for the Theology subject, so I don't have to do it at all. Which does make my life easier. That's Godly provision for you.

I would say that's the best solution. But I was looking forward to a bit of theology. I guess I'll just have to wait till the Winter Intensive.

I just sat down to organise my enrollment in the Summer Intensive at College. It starts in a week and I only discovered this when looking at my diary for the first time this year a few days ago. I had no reason to look at my diary till then I knew what was on.

Anyway, it turns out enrollment for the subject closed on the 11th because there is 500 pages of pre-reading and an assessment to do. But far be it from me to let something as small as hard work get in the way of my education, I called the college and asked if they could let me enroll anyway. They're thinking about it, going to talk to people and figuring it out.

I'm in two minds as to whether I want them to say yes or not. If they say "Yes" I will have to go and read, and read, and read. And then write. And basically ruin my next week with theology.

If they say "No". I'm stuck having to find another time to do this class, and I'm not sure when it'll come back. Or I have to do it on my day off and find a new day off this year.

But I'll leave it up to other people to decide. I wonder what 500 pages I'm actually meant to read. Maybe they have the readings on audio and I can listen in the car. I doubt it.

We finished The West Wing tonight. All seven seasons, finished. Helen and Jon came over to join Mil and I for the final episode. We ate Thai beforehand and reminisced about the good times we'd had.

It's very sad. All my good friends are gone. Josh, Donna, Toby, CJ, Santos, Jed, Charlie. I will miss them all. It was nice to have Sam back for the end. Sam was special. I wish the show didn't end, but I guess they had to end sometime.

Sadly I'm never going to be the President, so I guess I'll never get to live my own West Wing. I doubt I'll even become the Australian PM. And that doesn't seem nearly as exciting. If I ever get rich though I might get a full size replica of the Oval Office made in my house and just pretend to order nuclear strikes on tiny countries and stuff. That'd be pretty fun.

Last night Mil, Martin, Matt and I went to our first Kung Fu class. I think we were all a little scared going in. Before we went in I kept turning to Matt and saying "I'm so glad you're with me." I was feeling a little intimidated.

We arrived and everyone was pretty friendly. We had to fill medical forms and were taught to bow-in when we step on to the training floor (I don't know what it's official name is). We were told we were welcoming the room. I'm not sure what that means but seeing as I'm not entirely sure who or what I'm bowing to until I figure it out I might bow and welcome Jesus to the room. I'm sure no one would mind if Jesus came to Kung Fu.

We were put through half an hour of exercises at the beginning. I discovered that rapidly punching a bag for a minute hurts a lot. As does trying to touch your toes when your toes rarely come anywhere near your hands.

After exercises, us noobs were taken to the side and taught the 9 weapons of kung fu. Now I know how to punch a person in the throat, poke them in the eyes, kick them in the goolies and break they're knee caps. Yep. I'm pretty lethal.

Then we went home. Next time we go they've promised to teach us how to defend ourselves against an attacker brandishing a pool noodle. Should be useful.

We're kinda a big deal.

Do you remember when you were a teenager and you used to sit down with people and say "Let's talk about something deep?" and you could never think of something deep to talk about. Usually when you did that, in my experience, it was all about just feeling good about yourself because you had the ability to think profound thoughts and say smart things.

But I'm not sure I ever managed to have anything impressive to say at all when I planned too.

And now for something completely different. I went to church tonight and talked to a heap of people. Sometimes church is a little overwhelming. You look around the room and know the issues of half the people in the room and you don't feel like you can help any of them. I wish I had magic cures.

Rach, who is home, reminded me that I'm turning 25 in a few weeks. I think that 25 would probably be officially adulthood. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

On the one hand I feel like 25 means I should have achieved something with my life. I should own some kind of substantial asset and be in some kind of large, respectable debt. Or I should be married. Or I should have a job with prospects for upward mobility.

Yet I'm no where near those things. I rent. Have no savings. I have no credit cards and I have no bank loans. I'm no where near having a girlfriend let alone getting married. I feel like I'm in the process of dismantling my career. My job won't lead to better pay. And there are no options of being promoted. And I have less of an idea about what I want to do with my life now than when I was twenty one.

Plus my room is still a mess. I still have Thomas the Tank Engine bedsheets and I don't even own a long-sleeved collared shirt.

But some of these things I'm pretty pleased with. I'll make it to twenty-five and my lack of achievements will comfort me. I've managed to get this far without becoming bored, maybe I'll make it through the rest of my life. I've managed to make it this far without taking myself too seriously, so maybe I'll make it further. I've managed to still like skate shoes, actions movies and stupid t-shirts. Maybe being an adult isn't too bad at all.

I've yet to decide at what point in my life I'll stop hoping to get famous.

Probably when I'm 80.

It's 10:30am on a Sunday and I'm not at church. Yeah. I'm not going till this evening. This is one of the benefits of post-camp time-in-lieu.

I'll probably eat steak and go to the movies today. Then I'll preach tonight. Lovely.

I'm back from camp. And the world doesn't seem much different. Except some dude in Melbourne had a big party and India are kicking Australia's butt. But I knew about the cricket a bit anyway, sneaking a look here and there during camp.

I might camp debrief tomorrow. Now I would like to sleep. I have a Church Planning Day tomorrow. I love planning churches (kinda, actually not really, planning isn't my thing, but it's important) but not the day after camp. No, the day after camp should be used for sleeping, eating, reading and going to the cinema. Oh well. Chances are I'll have an unavoidable kip during the prayer times anyway. I'll have to pray in the morning before I go to make up for all the prayer I'll accidentally snooze through.

Well, I'm off to bed. 7:30am get up. That's at least a one hour sleep in from the rest of the week. Yes!

I'm at Camp. Not right now. I'm at church now. I had to pop back to church to preach and be an official presence at the service. Now I'm going back to camp again.

I got all my talks done. Well, I have two illustrations to insert if I can find them. But pretty much, I'm done. This is good. Now I can just spend a week talking, rather than a week stressing.

Anyway, I'm off.

See you in a week.

I'm preparing for going on camp tomorrow. I'm speaking on the camp and silly me thought it'd be a good idea to write a whole new set of talks for this camp. No re-hash for me, I was going to do a five talk series on Identity in Christ from Romans.

This has meant that pretty much the past week has just been me typing. I had been thinking and working on these talks for a while, but the last minute always comes sooner than you think. So all I feel like I've done is type. By the end of this I will have written close to 20,000 words. I'm thinking I'll publish a small book, because I'll tell you what, everyone of those words is gold!

Oh summer, why have I not been there for you?

I'm going to take a day or two off when this camp is over. That'll be nice I think.

Alas, as it says in James we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves in making plans. And it looks like I won't be going to the US after all. Sadly monsoon season in Mexico means Ryan won't make it to the US. And I'm not really keen on another holiday overseas by my self. But that's ok, I'm still planning on going to the US in 2010 if the Lord wills it, so that will be fun. Disneyland, you'll just have to wait a little longer.

In other news, actually I have no other news. All I do these days is write talks and sermons. I'm in the middle of prime preaching season it seems. And yesterday I was silly enough to volunteer to do another mini-sermon on Wednesday morning. But I guess when you're the closest thing to clergy a church has (the Revs are either out of the country or attending funerals), you need to do it.

Tomorrow (today) I have off though. Hooray for Re Lax and his good friends Sleep In.

Today Ryan made our plans for our trip to the US this year. I'm very excited.

I'm going with my family to Guatemala to visit my sister. And then, if everything works out, Ryan is going to meet me in New York and we're going to spend a week and a half hanging out with George, Obama, Ronald, Bill Gates and fat people.

So far on the plans are to visit New York and look for zombies. Visit a few East Coasted friends. We might pop in on DC to say "Hello" to Jed, Josh, CJ, Santos, and the gang. I'll see if I can find Ainsley because she's the best.

Then we're off to LA to visit Disneyland, some studios, and a crazy church. We don't care what church just a substantially crazy one.

It's going to cool.

Of course Guatemala is exciting too. Mostly to see Jo and a bit because it's another country. But Guatemala isn't the land of the free and the home of Hollywood. So it's understand about why I'm dreaming about Starbucks and Malls and not donkeys and beans. (I had to think for a while there to write those last two things, shows how much I know about Guatemala, I should do some research. I wonder if they eat beans.)

So Disneyland and fatty boombahs here I come, eh!

We went and saw I Am Legend tonight. It was cool. I love deserted city movies. I'm not so much a fan of zombie movies, but this one actually made me like them more. Though the zombies were a bit silly in this film. In fact the second half of the film was a bit silly. I wanted to see more cool zombie killing tricks and stuff, but there wasn't. Oh well.

Still I had a good time I'm glad I went, it was worth watching.

Earlier in the day the house (minus Martin) went to look at a new house we could move into. Our landlady had hiked up our rent and is refusing to return our phone calls so we're looking for somewhere that's not falling to pieces and where we can be paying what it's worth. Anyway, Matt took us to see this awesome house near-by where every bedroom had a balcony, it was three levels, modern, spacious, and alarmed. It had power points, tv sockets and LAN connections everywhere. Plus it was close to shops and food. It was really cool.

Sadly it was about $230 a week more than we're paying now, and none of us are rich enough. Oh well. But it was nice to live the dream for 15 minutes.

"Man is a bird without wings, and a bird is a man without sorrows" - Louis de Bernières

Finally the Summer weather has arrived. It was starting to look like the sun-free summer. But now it has come and we went to the beach. It was a joyous occasion that made me happy to be Australian. Not that I swam a lot. I got a little lazy. But I did swim and then I sat. And I was happy.

There was very little dung at the wedding.

What is it with this time of life and weddings? Actually I know the answer to that, but damn there are a lot of weddings.

I went to another wedding today. My lovely friends Matt and Beck veiled and tuxed. I was on PowerPoint in the service which was scary, because I could stuff up and the whole church would look at me in judgement as they try and sing Amazing Grace to the wrong words. But it went ok.

The wedding was lovely. The Groom cried like a girl which was nice to see, although I worried about how the photos would look. You don't want to look all puffy. Especially if the Bride isn't.

The bridal party all got to sit at the front on the stage in a semi-circle instead of standing at the front for the ceremony. It was cool. Kinda like the Council of Elrond. Which made me want a wedding where there is a proper recreation of the Council of Elrond. That'd be awesome.

The reception was held a cool place in Terry Hills with lovely gardens and high roofs. I was amazed that there was such quality in Terrey Hills. It's like someone smuggled in some 5 star-class.

Tanya and I were the MCs which was good fun. I like having things to do at weddings and receptions because sometimes I run out of things to talk to people about and mingling scares me. So I was joyed to have a job. There was a Reception Coordinator named Paul who I liked very much. He was amazingly organised, kept telling us what a good job we were doing, and answered all our questions on how things should be done. If you ever want a reception in Terrey Hills get Paul because he is good.

Often people talk about how single people go to weddings and get depressed. And I've seen it happen. It's something about happy couples having their couple dreams come true that highlights the singleness of us bachelors and spinsters. But I have never really found weddings depress me. They bore me sometimes, but not depress. I think my eternal optimism just means that I plan my wedding. I dream about my Elvis minister and what kind of cool cars I'll get, and it's all kind of fun. I even wandered around the most romantic gardens in the world tonight, alone, and didn't get depressed. Of course it did occur to me that the hidden chandeliered Roman rotunda thing in the deserted garden would have been much more enjoyable if I could have pashed someone in it. But I think that's probably just the nature of pashing, it's much more fun with someone else (preferably a girl).

And that's what I think of weddings.

I'm now happily on holidays. I have a few short days to savour the taste of no work. And I'm going to savour them with plenty of DVDs, lying around and diligently ignoring the emails which I don't want to read. Yeehaa!

I'm constantly baffled by the concept of the present. How can one moment be so real only to instantly become the past, instantly unattainable, never to come back? How long is now? Time is constantly shifting, it never stops. It's like a conveyor belt running under your fingers, no sooner have you felt it than it's gone. You can't measure an instant yet it's all life is, instants.

It messes with my head.

That's all.

I bought their album on iTunes because it was cheap, I had iTunes gift cards, I had no idea who they were so if they turned out to be good, I'd be hip and trendy and interested in little known bands. Although maybe they're big. I heard they one the J Award.

Anyway, that album is rather boring. They're is some good music in there and one or two good song, but other than that, pretty dull. And the lead singer sounds like Tim Freedman and that annoys me. So I guess there goes my desires to be alternative and cool liking alternative bands. Still I like their name. It's a good one in the "The Somethings" set (eg The Clash, The Frames, The Streets, The Killers, The Smiths. The Wiggles). So it'll look good in my iPod Artists, as long as they don't get popular and everyone knows they're boring.

There's been a little bit of trailer joy over the past few days to help a boy geek out.

The Dark Knight brought out it's first proper trailer. You can see it here. It pretty much rocks. I can't wait. Batman Begins was awesome.

And a new teaser for Wall-E, Pixar's Summer 08 film came out. And that's pretty cool too. You can see it here.

So trailers have made my day a little.

This is why I love the Challenge version of Scrabulous:



Meanwhile, today is the 37th anniversary of when I invented the computer. Check it out.

Somebody thought of it before me, but it was a good idea.

Around midnight last night Ryan and I were watching A Scanner Darkly (which was good by the way) and Mil came rushing down stairs and out the front door in her pyjamas saying "Are you going to join me in making our presence felt?" or something like that. Mil was followed quickly out the door by Martin who was putting on a shirt and so Ryan and I got up and followed.

Turns out there was a man in the street fighting with his girlfriend. Mil and Martin could hear it from their room. Ryan and I didn't hear it as we were too busy watching an animated, drug-addicted Keanu Reeves. Apparently he smashed something and the woman said "I'm really scared of you right now" and so Mil and Martin got up to go and make sure the man knew we were there and we weren't going to let him punch her in the head or something.

So there we were on the street at midnight watching an angry man shout obscenities at his girlfriend and the stars. By the time we were there he'd walked down the street and the girl, after Mil asked her if she was alright, had decided to follow him. So I took the chance to check if it was one of my car windows that got smashed. It wasn't. Turns out it was someone's rear-view mirror.

Eventually the man walked away from the fight and came up the street shouting words that shouldn't be put on a youth minister's blog. As he walked past Martin he warned him to stop starring or there'd be more broken than a mirror if he wasn't careful. Lucky he didn't do anything or Martin would have broken him. And I would have danced around trying to figure out how to be helpful for sure. We would have made lethal combination.

Then we went inside and back to bed or our movies depending on what would we were doing before the fight.

As I watched the fight it renewed my desire to learn Kung Fu. Had something happened I would like to know I could do something to protect the weaker party. Plus Kung Fu is cool.

This morning I went for a run and discovered that it was my mirror that was broken. I hadn't seen it last night. So now I have no right side rear view mirror. Oh well. I'll just have to get it fixed. I hope that man doesn't get seven years bad luck. I hope he finds Jesus and learns to stop abusing his girlfriend. That'd be best.

Tabitha has solved the problem of global warming.

I didn't want to stick a new one up so soon, but seeing as you made the request, here it is.

Sometimes ministry comes at you with tough decisions with bad outcomes either way. It's times like that you wish there was neat a third option. But I guess I'm learning this year that messy problems generally have messy solutions. Which means that even if you manage to find what's right it's not always going to feel good.

I think the cross shows us that. I doubt you could find a messier, more unpleasant solution than that.

I'm a little embarrassed about that last post. It was late and I was filled with passion for an online DVD library. Things got out of hand.

Let's just pretend that never happened ok.

May I just say I'm really loving movies at the moment. And a lot of that is due to Quickflix. It's really cool. We signed up for $36.95 a month and they send us three DVDs to watch, we watch them, send them back, they send another three (or one or two depending how many we send back). And they do that as often as we like. Unlimited. The name is a little bit of a misnomer as it isn't really all that quick. There's a two day turn around on DVDs and my local video store has about 3 minute turn around, depending how fast it takes to walk from my door to the store and back, but still, this place has the range, and it's cheaper.

On Tuesday we watched The Phantom Menace because Mil and Martin haven't seen any of the Star Wars series. So we're educating them. It's pretty fun. It's like being around for a little bit of film history unfolding as we usher them into the culture and customs of a world a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away where many have been before them.

Then we watched Akira which was an awesome piece of Japanese animation. Rather strange, but cool. Guns, explosions, post-WWIII motorbike world. Yeah.

Tomorrow we're getting a few including Attack of the Clones and Rambo: First Blood Part II. I'm very excited.

I love Quickflix.

Actually, if you want a free trial for 30 days and to give us a free iPod shuffle, leave me a comment and I'll send you a referral and then we all get free stuff! I'd just add all my friends' emails but that's kinda just like spamming my friends and I'm not into that.

But you should try it because it's heaps fun.

Look at me, I'm being turned into a viral marketer. Damn. I'm part of the machine.

David and I were on the approach to the Harbour Bridge on Tuesday evening and things started to get a little slow. We looked up ahead and saw there was a truck lying on its side. There weren't any cars with flashing lights there, just a truck lying on its side blocking two lanes of traffic.

As we got a bit closer we saw there was a ladder on the side of the truck, which we thought was a little odd. On passing the truck we noticed it was a Police Rescue truck. I thought that was pretty funny. I don't think anyone was hurt, there was just a Police Rescue guy and a traffic man standing around looking rather annoyed.

I couldn't work out if a Police Rescue truck waiting to be rescued was ironic or not. I think it was.

I was thinking, as I lay on my couch watching the bonus features of Indiana Jones, that DVDs have changed my life. Perhaps not massively, but they have brought megaloads of joy to me.

As a film geek who loves anything to do with film making, having DVDs packed full of special features just pretty much makes my day. It brings me so much joy being able to watch all those "Making of" featurettes.

Every time we make a film we shoot a second camera just for making of footage because I love them so much. Not that we ever edit the footage.

One day I hope to know people who are making a film just so I can make a "making of" because I like them so much.

Not that I watch all the featurettes on every DVD. Some are boring as. When it's just people doing press junkets and talking about how good the film is with one or two shots on the set, I get bored.

When it's like the Extended Edition LOTR 2 hours of one documentary per film, I'm in heaven. Show me cameras, show me lights, show me clapper boards, you can even show me the catering truck and I'm happy.

Maybe one day I'll get to make my feature film. Or television series. Or both. One day...

Here's another Tabitha video for all you Tabitha lovers out there.

For those of you who don't like her, feel free just to ignore.

I got new wiper blades for my car today, so I was pretty stoked when it rained all the way home so I could test them out. "I can see clearly now the rain has come."

On Wednesday I applied, and was approved, to have the last week of December and the first week of January off. In staff meeting yesterday I came out having reduced my leave to just the last week of December and having committed to a three week sermon series from January 6th. How'd I manage that?

...and I voted Republican, I'd want Huckabee for my president.

Why didn't Kevin Rudd do something like this?

People's comments on the Tabitha videos keep bringing me joy.

Check them out.

So the day off was a wonderful day of manhood affirming (or is it feeding?) happiness.

I woke up kinda early for a day off. Mooched through the morning. Ended up at K-Mart trying to buy new wiper blades for my car. Because my current ones work well as rubber streamers, but not too good as water removal systems. They are quite festive though, good for Christmas.

Sadly the wiper blades didn't happen because I didn't know what size to by and my car and it's manual neglected to tell me. So I'll have to do research.

I went home, then made my way back to Broadway for lunch and a movie. I went to see Eastern Promises. It was rather violent, quite bleak, had interesting characters and I thought it was totally awesome. I guess movies about the Russian Mafia are cool. Movies with Viggo Mortensen are cool. Movies with Viggo in the Russian Mafia kicking butt are massively cool.

There was a rather brutal fight scene in a bath house where Viggo killed to men while totally naked. It was kinda like the nude fight scene in Borat except only one person was naked and it wasn't funny. I thought "Wow, first time I've seen that in a film."

I came home from the film feeling pumped (not about getting naked). So I made enquires about joining a Kung Fu class next year (our whole house might go, we'll be the Kung Fu Commie House) and went for a run. The run was a bit sad because I got dehydrated about the 4 km mark and had to walk for a while. But I felt good after.

Tonight a few of the men who happened to be around our house in the past 24 hours met at Broadway for steak, beer and a movie. We had the $5 steak at the Lansdowne Hotel. It was a good. $5 impresses me. I'll be back.

We went to see Beowulf in 3D. Which again, was a very cool movie. Lots of fighting and shouting and fighting. The animation aspect of it just made it cooler I think. It added to the mythic quality of the story. And it gave the film makers the ability to do much more spectacular stuff.

And funnily enough, what should I find, but scene where Beowulf fights Grendel totally naked. What are the odds? How many nude fight scenes can there be out there? (Don't answer that, I don't watch those kinds of movies.) And I manage to get two in one day. Still nude men killing things doesn't bother me too much. It's kinda primal and I'm not worried that I might be sinning by watching, so I just let it fit in with the story. Beowulf was rather amusing to see how they strategically covered up his bits. Eastern Promises didn't care at all. They just let it all hang out. I didn't really laugh as much.

Anyway, enough of the fictional nude men.

We finshed the night at the pub drinking a bit more beer and Coke, eating wedges and talking about girls.

Man I am.

Today is five years since I started regular blogging. That's pretty good.

Here's to another 5 years.

Tomorrow I was booked in to go to my second round of interviews to be ordained as a Deacon for the Anglicans here in Sydney. I was in a special stream of deaconing (or may be it's called a deaconate, pfft, silly church words) that ordained me to be a deacon but never to become a presbyter. Which means I'd be called Rev. Tom French, I could do weddings and funerals and get a house and car when I worked for the church. But I couldn't run a church, give communion and I couldn't forgive sins (pronounce the absolution), unless I did a further 4 years or so study.

I was in the running because I thought it might be helpful to my ministry. I wasn't much excited about being Reverend Tom. But I figured the extra spiritual superpowers might be good. I also liked the idea that I got a stamp of approval from the men in town if ever I needed to go work in another church.

I'd prayed about it and got nothing either way, so divine silence meant I just went with logic and logic said it'd be helpful.

That was about 2 years ago. I thought it'd all be over by now. End of next year at the latest but I'm only up to the second official round of interviews. Seeing as I was part of the first group going through, the guinea pigs of this new ordination scheme, things have been pretty slow.

Sometime over the course of the application process (an interview with an Archdeacon about your sins, a visit to a psychologist, a panel interview about your theology, a dinner with an Archbishop, a couple of forms and many months of hearing nothing) it came out that after ordination I was expected to serve in Sydney for 3 years. That's after my 2-3 years of ministry observation in my current job. Had I gone the presbyter route I could almost have been fully ordained before I'd made it to my three year tour of duty in the deaconing system.

All this extra time wasn't really making me excited about the process. And I didn't feel all that committed to serving in Sydney for three years. I feel committed to serving wherever God sends me, and I'm not to keen on saying "Here I am Lord, send me. But only somewhere south of Newcastle, north of Wollongong and east of the Blue Mountains.

Then I started having conversations with people and it dawned on me that getting ordained as an Anglican here in Sydney is good if you want to work in Sydney. It's not all that helpful if you want to work outside of Sydney. We don't really have a very good reputation outside of Sydney. Partly because Sydney Anglicans have historically been seen as rather aggressively conservative and arrogant. And partly because the strong evangelical nature of Sydney (which I love) doesn't gel with the strong liberal nature of most of the rest of Anglican Australia. Once again if God calls me outside of Sydney I don't want to make it harder to go. But God can work around obstacles like ordination.

Finally the more I thought about it the less comfortable I felt being called Reverend. It gives the implication that the bearer of the title is worthy of reverence. I don't want to be revered. I want Jesus to be revered. He can be Rev. Jesus Christ. I'll just be Tom. Many people told me it's not a big deal, but it has been for me. Pastor is fine, pastor is about the role rather than the nature of the title holder. Reverend is about how wonderful the person with the title is. And I'm not wonderful. The only wonder about me is the wonder that has come from Jesus.

Plus the more I prayed about it, the more uncomfortable I felt about the whole deal.

So on Friday I informed the people in town that I am withdrawing from candidacy for ordination. I'm out. No more Rev for me. Tomorrow I won't be going to any interviews. I can just sleep in, watch movies and eat Thai food. And that feels good in my soul.


That said I should just clear up I don't think other people would be doing the wrong thing to become deacons. Nor would they be wrong to serve God in ordained ministry here in Sydney. But my calling is too unclear for me to commit to that and my behaviour is too dodgy to be revered. So I'll just serve Jesus ordination free and see what happens.

When I was in College they beat into us the need for a day off. Being a rather lazy person, I've always felt that it's a brilliant idea. I only wish God created the world in 5 days and took two days off. Or even 4 days, because a three day weekend would be wonderful.

Of course I understand that days off are not about just having a day off, but having a sabbath rest, which is a little different. But let's leave that aside for now.

Anyway this last week was massive. I found I worked over 67 hours between last Monday and yesterday. I got got home late every night, went to bed after midnight every night and was getting up at 7 or before almost everyday. It really was a killer. I had zero time at home to just sit on a couch and relax.

Monday was Scripture Seminars at the local high school.

I spent all of Tuesday, which is normally my day off, working on Impact doing the video work. We were doing a live mix with three cameras. It was much fun. I enjoy live mixes. One day I even hope to be good at them.

Wednesday was returning video equipment, Christmas assemblies and leaders meetings.

Thursday I was at church insanely early only because I am mildly insane and worked for about 12 hours.

By the time I made it to Friday I was in an immensely bad mood. I had been working for 10 days straight, hadn't slept enough on any of them and not everything in my life was a rosy as I would have hoped. I was at a school doing a whole day thing on "Self-Esteem" (which I plan on blogging about later) and I pretty much spent most of the time wondering why I had committed to hanging out with teenagers for a day. It's not as if it's relevant to my job or anything.

But things improved. I realised that teenagers are relevant and the people I was hanging out with were good and I was an idiot. Still I found it difficult to stay awake and not pissed off. At lunch time I went to the shops with some random pastor and his random friend (I'm sure they don't feel random at all, probably feel like there is meaning and order in their lives, and I'm the random) and found a Coke. That was amazing. My whole day cleared up and I was happy, at the end of the day I was even sad to see my teenage friends leave.

So now, being on day 13 of my working week, I have been reminded that days off are vital to functioning well as a person and Coke has similar qualities of goodness.

Thank God for sabbaths, sugar and caffeine.

For all those of you who are wondering who the wondrous Chico Che is. This is him:

I'm off to a Baptism and pool party for Church and youth group. I like baptisms. Pool parties make me feel insecure. But I guess most people probably feel a little like that. Who's idea was it to go swimming anyway?

Mine. Darn.

So I'm preaching on 2 Samuel 6:1-23 next Sunday. That's the story where David dances in his undies "with all his might" before the Lord when the Ark of the Covenant returned to Jerusalem. He was pretty excited.

David's wife doesn't really like his dancing much and tells him of saying he embarrassed himself in front of the slave girls. David replies by saying "I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honour."

Often people seem to use this verse as a call to being more excited in the way we worship.

The question is, that I put to you good readers, does proper worship require a loss of dignity? Should we, like David, humiliate ourselves to adequately respond to God?

I got a missed call from Germany today. I only know one German in Germany and they've never run me in their life. I have no good friends. I wonder why a German would call me.

They didn't leave a message. This saddens me. Oh well.

While I'm yet to properly comment on the debate below I want to comment on a comment left a little further down. Perhaps because it's a little more personal. Plus blogging the response means I get to quote it better.

You seem to expect the government to be like a good church. Doing all those things a good christian should do.

But in essence the things the christian chruch should be doing we aren't, and the government is doing them for us.

I think a few people have talked about this. But my view is that we, as Christians do have a responsibility to love the poor, protect the innocent and seek justice. While the Churches should be doing lots of good stuff in the world, and they are (though they probably aren't anywhere near what Jesus has called us too), we need to be using all the resources we have available to effect change in this world. One of those ways is through politics. We live in a democracy and God has given us the gift of being able to use our vote and our voice to pursue the things of the Kingdom through means which are not specifically Christian. So I believe in the Church doing good stuff. I believe in the Government doing good stuff too. I care about getting Jesus' mission done with whoever is willing and able to do it.

That said there are things which I care about which are not the Churches' responsibility but that God does care about. And of the things I talked about in the post below (eg tax cuts, climate change policies, refugee policies and terrorism responses) many of them are solely in the hands of the Government to decide. It is not up to the Church to decide how we use our military (and I thank God because the Church with an army has historically been a very bad thing). It is not up the Church to decide how and who we tax, it is not up the Church to decide who lives in this country. These things I care about and these things are the issues of the Government, so I will vote accordingly.

You have stated the politicians aren't christians, aand so theres no point in reading a prayer - so if they are not Christians - why judge them by Christian Values.

Generally Christian Values are my values. I cannot vote as a non-Christian. I am not asked to vote as a non-Christian. I will vote according to my values. However I think that many of these issues are not "Christian" so much as simply moral. I am not voting for the person who prays the most, knows their Bible the best or believes in Jesus. I am voting for the people who will best, in my view, help Australians to love their neighbor.

I mean Mr Rudd loves his strip clubs. And has promised to fix all these things - but in essence isn't he lying? The bible says do not say that tommorrow you will do thi this and this. Instead say If God permits we will do this.

I think the point of what James is saying when he writes that (Jas 4:13-17) is that we must acknowledge our inability to affect the future outside of God's will. But you raise a good point on whether politicians sin when they promise things. The greater question is, do I sin when I make promises? The answer to that is yes. And I regularly make promises that are outside of my control. So there is a plank in my eye that I must deal with before I worry about Kevin Rudd's splinter of election promises.

The greens have no substance to policy. If they did run the country they are basically comunists.

I disagree. But as I said below, they're not going to run the country. When I voted Greens I did it knowing they wouldn't gain the seat I was voting in. I live in a safe Labor seat. If it had been iffy about whether or not Greens would win, I would have been a lot more hesitant to vote. I don't necessarily want the Greens running country. I do want them listened to.

So when you say lying cynical governemnt, by what values are you judging them by?

Mine. And what I can generally tell is values of most of Australia. When you say that you didn't know something when you did, that's a lie. When you say you didn't do something when you did. That's a lie. The Coalition seemed to regularly find themselves embroiled in scandals where it became clear they had lied to the Australian public (Children overboard and AWB being two that immediately come to mind, though I never completely got my head around the AWB thing).

Then again Kevin Rudd doesn't always seem as honest as I would hope. The whole Sunrise Dawn Service thing didn't turn out to good for his honesty, it just had much less an effect on the lives of other people.

Because I could say the same of you. You have never liked the liberals. You never even considered giving them a go. You looked at all the negatives about him, and are convinced he knows nothing and is a selfish up himself bastard.

And yet you have never met him in person

While I wonder what you are basing those statements on, I would reply that, I have never wanted to vote for the Liberals. But if you go through my blog you'll see that I haven't been whole heartedly, uncritically, abusing the Liberal Government. I commended them on their copyright laws and on their changes to refugee policy.

Contrary to thinking Howard "knows nothing and is a selfish up himself bastard", I think he is quite smart. I have worried about his pride. And I have commented that I think the election campaigns appeal to our selfish nature, but that comes from both sides.

However I have at times been harsher on John Howard than I should have. I have tried, especially on my blog from making personal insults and only commenting on his actions. But I am sure I have not always managed to keep to that ideal and that was wrong.

How would you feel if someone spoke to you like that? That your in youth ministry only for the money, and get paid a wage, while others in the community work for god for nothing and others starve? That you get your bennefits and perks whilst others live on the street?

That you only care about numbers and your church and being popular and bible bashing.

I would feel bad.

Its not true- but come on - lets be a bit more mature about it? Yes howrad is gone. But Rudd needs to be held accountable - he has promised to fix everyones problems.

I intend to find Rudd disappointing. If you go listen to my sermon where I talk about Kevin Rudd you'll see that even back in March I was expecting to be disappointed with Kevin because he is as flawed as the rest of us. I also intend to hold him accountable as all of Australia should. It is our job, as citizens to hold our leaders accountable so that they might best serve the interests of everyone.

I doubt he can. Time will tell - but greens support labor- they are more like a colation. I believe we need to get rid of the prefernce system.

Withought it, labor would not have won

I doubt Rudd will fix all our problems too. I have yet to decide what I think of the preference system.

The end.

Thank you for your comment Anonymous.

These are real ads from a time before political correctness. Awesome.

Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first
Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes - Aqualung

Still on the politics, I'm happy to see women deputies in both the Liberal and Labor parties. Hooray for the sisters! It'll be a good day when I don't even have to blog about how happy I am to see women in power.

So things are hotting up in the comments for "Tin Tin has a Win Win". Anonymous is doing his best to justify the Liberals past 11 years of Government. And so they should.

Anyway get in on the action. I love a good blog debate. As long as we all stay friends. If you voted Liberal, we need you, go join the debate, we the pinky-letfists are outnumbering Anonymous 4-to-1 at the moment. Anonymous needs back up, stat!

Play nice, type well.

I preached at a different church tonight. It was good to visit. Small and a little vibey but I enjoyed. I like new churches. Shame I don't hear new preachers when I go.

I preached a new sermon about Jesus being the High Priest. I did most of it without notes, which is new for me. Sometimes I go half a sermon without notes, but this was pretty much the whole thing. I had notes, but for some reason I got a little lost and decided to scrap them. It kinda feels like jumping out of a plane rather than waiting for it to land. Silly really, but invigorating. I'm not sure if it was any better. Or worse. Maybe a little less clear. But it seemed to have a little more passion. It's something I'd like to grow in.

It was good to see Kevin and Johnny's speeches. Good bye John. Kevin really is a nerd. Still I guess we'll never have a Prime Minister like Matt Santos. We're probably doomed to be led by the uncool forever.

Still I liked Kevin's speech. He made me happy to have him as Prime Minister. I'm looking forward to having a Prime Minister I like. Well at least, one I like more. I hope we get the old Rudd back. The one who arrived in 2006 not the one who looked like Howard in 2007.

Tonight is a night of happiness for me. Yay for a fresh leadership, new ideas, making sure the fair go doesn't go "out the back door" and nerds in power.

Now I better go and finish that sermon.

Kevin's in. This makes me happy.

The contest for Bennelong is enjoyable. I really hope Maxine comes out on top. To lose Howard would just make my day.

I'm enjoying watching this election unfold. It's like watching sport but the Grand Final happens once every three years and I care more.

Go Ruddy!

Tonight could be the last night I go to bed with John Howard as my Prime Minister. Oh I do hope so. I've prayed for him and all that. But by golly, I hope he and his lying, bribing, cynical Government* get kicked out tomorrow. I do love a good election, not that I've gotten to vote in any yet.

Of course the prospect of Rudd and friends getting in doesn't really fill me with joy. Not now that they're now only a bit left of right. Or at least only a little left of centre. Not that I really care about lefts and rights. I do care about tax cuts that appeal to our selfishness, climate change policies that sacrifice as little as possible, refugee policies that look much like the old ones, terrorism responses that support aggression and leaders that look just like their opponents to gain power rather than change.

Still I'm really in the mood for a Labor government at the moment. With plenty of little guys to keep 'em honest.

I'm thinking I'll probably vote Greens tomorrow. The Christian Democrats will tell me they're all communists, which may have convinced me in the 50s, but right now I think we should be fine. People in general will ask me if I want to do drugs. Which they do, whenever I say I'm thinking Greens. So I had a look at their drug policy and I like it. They're not into legalising drugs. They're into not punishing users, but rehabilitating users and punishing dealers, importers and producers. I like that.

Of course if you look at the Checklist of Christian Values the Greens fail in all but one category. It always makes me wonder though why "Christian Values" means things like prayer in Parliament, pornography and abortion. While I care about these things (well the latter two at least) there are plenty of other things to put on a "checklist of Christian values". Where is the tick-a-box on caring for the poor, marginalised and vulnerable? Where is the question about foreign aid? Where is the question about support for unjust wars? Where is the question about care for the alien, the orphan and the widow? It worries me that Christian lobbyists are so narrow viewed. So maybe the Greens don't win the Christian check-list. But I care a lot more about how we treat people and this world than what prayer our (mainly) non-Christian politicians pray before they start work each day serving this post-Christian nation. So Greens still get my vote.

Plus if anyone is worried, the Greens aren't going to get into power anyway. They may just hold a bit of sway. And we like sway.

So at this point, a few hours out from voting, this is where I stand.

But if you're of voting age you can vote for whoever you want. Just go vote. Voting is more important than who we vote for. Voting is a gift from God to play our part in choosing the people we think are best suiting for establishing God's values on earth. I care much more that you care than who you care about. This is good stuff.

Yippah for democracy!

I hope Mr Howard gets to retire tomorrow and have a happy retirement by the ocean somewhere. I mean that. I hope he's happy somewhere other than Parliament House.

*I know that might sound a little harsh but I that's how I feel and this is my blog so that's what I'm going to say. I'm not preaching, I'm blogging. If it worries you, vote for someone else.

This story of the Knox Captain who stood up and told off his cheating peers and their bullying parents is a good one. I wish I was Knox boy now for the first time ever in my life. I hope this guy becomes Prime Minister or something.

Some Wednesdays feel like the most unproductive days around. I usually spend most of the day in my office and I find it hard to concentrate for that long. Today however was most productive. And most not so.

I managed to organise Scripture Seminar stuff, do more Impact work, do sermon prep, edit a Bible Study, make some phone calls, teach scripture and more.

I also managed to research many planes on Wikipedia. Which was a joy. I do love planes. Especially fighter jets.

I'll have to put what I've learnt about planes into a sermon illustration and then it'll have been productive rather than distracting.

My sister, Jo, left today to go overseas for 14 months. She's off to Japan for a 24 hour Bill Murray/Scarlett Johansson experience. Then Mexico and seeing Central America. Then off to Washington, DC and finally settling in Guatemala to work with IJM (International Justice Mission) doing after-care with the people they get out of slavery. (I think I can say that, although maybe that's a secret. I hear they have a big of blog secrecy in the IJM thing.)

I must say, I'm pretty pleased with this. Not my sister leaving, cause I liked having her in Australia, but her decision to go work for an organisation like IJM. They're a group who have heard Jesus' call for justice and are aggressively pursuing it. She's got the skills to go help people in ways lots of us couldn't. And she's following a call that will be difficult, uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous. It's also the kinda thing she's been dreaming about doing for ages.

So I'm excited to see what she'll do. I'm proud of her and I'll boast about my sister, or at the very least what God has done in and through my sister. And I'll try and send her emails because she'll like that.

Tops marks for her I say.

The Exilic Prophesy exam went ok for those who are wondering. I think I'll pass. But I doubt I'll do any better than that. Thank God for NIV headings is all I can say.

The other day someone asked me about my poor effort at Bible College and if I should be trying harder. And I think I should. I agree. I'm going to be doing two theology subjects next year and I'm pumped for them. I love theology.

After the exam and my post exam relax I went to work. Tonight was a social with my year 6-8 small group. We went and saw Fred Claus which, in the tradition of most Christmas movies, was not very good.

After the movie we took the boys to Coles as we had some time to kill. On the way back up the car park the boys decided it'd be fun to run up the escalators the wrong way. This is quite an understandable urge, I do it on a semi-regular basis myself. This time I refrained as I was feeling a little lazy. Happily for me, when I reached the top there was a security guard who had nabbed three of the boys and was giving them quite a harranging for their most dangerous of activities. Apparently there is a high likelihood of death or at very least serious amputation when running up the down escalators.

When he let the boys go he told me I should dish out some apocalyptic judgement on the boys for their misdemeanour and the protection of his two-year-old daughter. I didn't quite get that connection.

Then when we left he followed us up to the carpark to find more of our boys and tell them off for another 10 minutes too. While he was doing that one of the parents arrived. That's a bad look, going to pick your son up from youth group and finding him and the youth minister all getting a lecture from an irate security guard. He told me to dish out my punishment then went to talk to the parent. Unfortunately I didn't really take it all that seriously and just pointed at the boys and told them to stop smiling and look like I was telling them off.

I know that's probably not the best behaviour but I wasn't feeling particularly angry for what really is an activity that a little bit of fun. Of course it is a bit dangerous too but so is climbing trees and soccer and rumbling and playing tip and pretty much any of the activities that young guys like to indulge in that doesn't involve a gaming console. My only real worry about about the boys going the wrong way on the escalator was the inconvenience to the other patrons.

In the end I told them to respect the security guards, they're doing their job, and say "Sorry" when you upset them. At least that's what I've learnt from my semi-regular occurrences of getting busted by security, police and other enforcers of the peace. And I think I told them not to do stuff that's illegal.

I'll tell you next time I go to that shopping centre I'm not going run up any escalators the wrong way, though it will be darn tempting.

I wonder what Jesus would have done?

I got bones beneath my skin, and mister...
There's a skeleton in every man's house
Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody
There's a dead man trying to get out - Counting Crows

I have my Exilic Prophesy exam tomorrow. I have to write about Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah and anyone else they decide is exilically inclined.

It's a worry. I remember a bit about Isaiah from that assessment I pulled out of darkened regions the other day. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel? I think I have forgotten whatever I was taught about them or I wasn't there because I was in Africa bringing the religion of the white man to the not-so-white men (that's the politically correct term isn't it?) I don't think I can even spell Jeremiah and Ezekiel without spell check.

Oh well. I only need to pass. Ps make degrees plus the pay-level is the same whatever your GPA and that's all I care about.

"If you have sin in your life and you bring it to your prophet friend he says 'Knock it off! Or you're going to hell!' That's a prophet.

You go to your priestly friend and they say 'Tell me about your childhood. How do you feel about this? Do you need a muffin? Here I'll rub your back. Can we meet again tomorrow? We should do this everyday... for eighteen years.' That's a priest.

Prophet: One minute counselling sessions 'Stop! Next.' I mean, that's it.

Priest: 'I knitted you a sweater, when you wear it, think about Jesus so you don't do that any more.' That's a priest."

Mark Driscoll on the difference between those of prophetic disposition and those of priestly disposition.

I know people will say "That's not what prophets and priests are like." But I took it out of context, so don't have a dig. I just thought it was funny.

Today wasn't really a day of joy. It wasn't anti-joy either. Although if joy is that deep way of being and knowledge of salvation, then I guess that today was a day of joy. I appreciated my salvation today. The sun was out so I appreciated it more. I know that may not sound connected. But sunlight is part of grace so is salvation. So sunlight reminds me of Jesus.

Gosh, I sound like I should live in the Blue Mountains.

I think I was going blog about my day.

I was stuck in traffic for about and hour and a half for some unknown reason. Everyone in Sydney decided to drive north across the Harbour Bridge this morning. And why not? It's a world icon and it's beautiful who wouldn't want to drive across it on a sunny Wednesday morning.

I got scripture in time but not having done what I needed to do.

I told my class that it was our second last lesson together and I felt sad. I really do like that class, they're the nicest scripture class I've ever had. If I was 11 we could have all been friends. Not that we're not friends now, but I wouldn't invite them to my birthday, their parents might think I was strange. Friends with your scripture teacher is a little different to friends with your peers.

I pushed buttons and read Bible stuff in my office and had salad for lunch.

Did mentoring with my mentor.

Did small group in my small group.

Now I'm home and happy to have Jo's iTunes music on my computer. Good for iTunes and their 5 authorised computers I say!

The end.

Today was booked in as the enthusiastic day of house cleaning. Emily booked us all in for some spring cleaning before spring ended. So today was my day.

I enthusiastically arrived on the scene to clean at about midday after an enthusiastic sleep in. Emily and I cleaned for about an hour before it was decided that we should break for lunch. So off to Thai Ryan, Emily and I went. The thai was good. We went to Doy Tao. They didn't have any Coke, which upset me a little.

When we got home from lunch it was back to frenzied cleaning for 20 minutes, and then we were done.

I'll tell you that's how all cleaning days should work. 80 minutes and a pile of thai food. I can't think of a better way to make the house nice.

Thank you very much to everyone who helped me with Sunday's sermon. I did use your ideas, you were very helpful. I enjoyed writing a sermon with all your help. It was like having an interactive sermon. Like when I preached there were 10 of us preaching it not just me. We make a good team.

If you want to know what the ten reasons I settled on you can have a listen. You can get it here: Ten Reasons Not to Become a Christian

Or subscribe to my preaching podcast by searching for Tom French in iTunes.

I'd type out the list but they work much better with the explanation and that's a lot of text to stick in.

I had a bit of fun with this sermon. Evangelistic sermons are always hard. Alter calls are particularly difficult. But I do them.

We had a bit of a response from this one, but I'm not sure if anyone become a Christian. But I preached and I pray I preached faithfully, so that's the best I can do. The rest is up to God.

Ryan knows how to press buttons better than me so it's fixed. Thanks be to God. And Ryan.

I think my iPod may have committed suicide. What am I going to do?

I did the sermon on 10 Reasons Not to Become a Christian. I'll post it sometime this week.

Mondays are funny days. Whenever I get home on a Monday I feel rather dead. Work isn't too bad. I generally have energy for that. But once I get home the adrenaline kicks out and I'm left feeling unimpressive. But then Tuesday comes and I like Tuesday. It is good to me.

I went to The House With No Steps today to watch House Idol because one of the people from church was performing in it. And I discovered that there are actually steps in The House With No Steps.

Scandal! I walked up a whole flight of them. Ten steps maybe. And they weren't even on a gentle incline. It was quite steep!

The whole place is built on a lie! I can't believe a charity would blatantly lie to the public like that. It'd be like Médecins Sans Frontières having doctors who wouldn't cross borders. It'd be an outrage.

I'm going to call Today/Tonight.

But, that said, I quite enjoyed the show. People with disabilities are always a joy to watch. And what they lacked in stage craft they made up for in personality. So I forgave them. I'd be a bit of a knob if I didn't.

Ty had a good idea of surveying his blog readers. So now I've stolen the idea.

So please click here to take my awesome online survey. I promise it'll be more fun than you could have thought possible.

Please ignore the advertising. And I'll stick up the results when I get around to it.

No doubt my HTML friends will abuse me for using such an ugly free survey site. But to them I say "Bah!"

My family and I are currently on holiday in Paradise (Suburb not after-life). It's joyous. I like my family.

I might blog again when I'm back.

Do not drop your phone in a glass of water. It is bad for the phone.

I always knew storing my mobile on the rim of my glass of water would get me in trouble one day.

I'm preaching at an evangelistic service in a week and a half. At this stage I'm thinking I want to make a list of at least 10 reasons why you wouldn't become a Christian. What are the reasons it's a bad idea to be a Christian?

So please dear blog readers, in the interests of the gospel, tell me, why shouldn't a person become a Christian?

I managed to spend a lot of money at the beginning of month this month, I'm not sure how. I got to about week two with almost nothing left. Since Saturday I think I've spent $17. That's pretty phenomenal for me. I usually spend about $20 a day, at least. But I guess I've learning to live simply. Or learning to scrounge.

It really just means I spend more time eating at home, and I spent more time playing Command and Conquer rather than going out. It's pretty fun. Ryan and I have been playing over the network. The games take and hour or two, and they're heaps fun. But Ryan has always won so far. I just try and stay alive for longer.

Oh and we watched First Blood tonight. I've decided to re-watch the Rambos because, well, they're cool. And Rambo IV is coming out soon, so I want to be in shape. He's pretty cool John Rambo. He just blows stuff up. Yeah!

Yesterday at work things were rather quiet and then my friend Graham turned up randomly after he had a meeting in the area, so we got to have a quick soda together. It was swell. I need more random drop-ins.

Oh and I did my tax return today. $604. That doesn't upset me too much.

Who are they to protest me? - John Rambo

As I promised yesterday, here is my preaching blunder from last night.

I don't know if anyone was as worried about this as I was. But I was pretty embarrassed. I was preaching about how it's better to go with God's plan rather than work against it. We can either live like Jonathan or we can live like Saul. The actual line in my manuscript was:

Better to accept it and make the most of it than spending our lives pretending we can avoid and outwit God. Better to be like Jonathan who ended up happy and looked after than like Saul who fought it and ended up dying by his own sword. God’s plan needs to be our plan.

And as soon as I'd said it I remembered that I had meant to look up what actually happened to Jonathan. But I hadn't. I forgot. I knew that David looked after Jonathan's family at times. But I didn't know what happened to Jonathan. I realised that I may have just lied to the congregation while preaching. That's bad. Very bad.

So I stopped and tried to fix it but I don't think I did a very good job. You can listen if you want.

Saul and Jonathan.mp3

What I have done is look up what actually happened to Jonathan. He died in the same battle that Saul died at. He was killed by the Philistines. But what is good is that he fought well and didn't kill himself. What is disappointing is that I wasn't supernaturally right.

Oh well. It's a little embarrassing. I guess it serves me right for forgetting to check that fact.

I'll post the full sermon on the preaching blog some time in the next few days.

This is post 3001 for my blog.

The last post was post 3000 (obviously) and what a magnificent post to have for such an auspicious occasion.

From news.com.au.

It's good to see there's someone doing something for the disabled.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding - facing defeat without Labor preferences - screamed louder, slamming the "grubby deal" that would deliver "drug shooting galleries in your street".

From today's SMH after Labor made a Senate preference deal with the Greens.

My eyes are sore. I'm sleepy.

I preached tonight and made rather a fool of myself. Which I will be sure to post the audio soon so you can all have a good laugh.

Yesterday before I sat down to write the sermon (I really did try to start early this time, it just didn't work again) Mil and I went to visit the neighbours for their Oktoberfest party. It was a rather scary thing to do seeing as we knew no-one except for the neighbours. But we did it, and we met a few friendlies.

When I arrived I was handed a beer, which I drank, slowly. As soon as I finished I was handed a cup of more beer. Which I drank too. I managed to make it through, but me being the lightweight that I am, came home, sat down to right the sermon, but it was all too hard. My eyes couldn't stay open. I had to have a sleep for an hour to sleep the Oktoberfest off. Only the could I rip into the sermon.

Can I just clear up for the sake of all those worried about my soul and integrity because of my drunken exploits, I was not drunk. Just sleepy. Alcohol can do that sometimes.

Between our dreams and actions lie this world. - Bruce Springsteen

After youth group last night I had a birthday party to attend in Darling Harbour, a salsa party. It was, I have to say, one of the scariest prospects I could think of. Having to dress up then stand in a room full of talented people salsaing their booties on the dance floor. Just getting dressed to go out is a scary prospect. Since Kenya it seems that I only own one collared shirt. So every time I rock up to a party I expect everyone to look at me and think "Tom's wearing his only collared shirt again." Which would be true. Happily only one person abused me for my shirt.

I wore a jacket (Ryan's) and put product in my hair. I felt most self-conscious.

Getting home from Youth Group then heading out into the city at 11pm is a bit of a novelty for me. I felt like one of those people who go clubbing late at night. I couldn't work out whether it made me feel young or grown up.

Anyway, I arrived at the place and my name was on the door so I got in for free. It's because I'm famous.

After getting inside I made a bee-line for my male, non-dancing friends, and set myself up with a beer and a leaning spot on the wall, hoping that I might be able to stay there all night.

Unfortunately Louise had just been to a salsa lesson before the party with many of the people in our crew. So she decided to teach me to salsa. I learnt to do the three moves she knew, and we were set. I was pretty much the Salsa King after that. We ripped it up on the dance floor for a good three songs. While everyone else was trying to impress everyone with their spins, and dips, and legs over the shoulder, we wowed the crowd with the simplicity and beauty of pure, unadulterated, basic salsa. It's like while everyone else wanted to be a fantastic light show, we were just sunlight. We give the salsa world life.

At one point Louise commanded me to go save one of our friends from an overly friendly man on the dance floor with the whole "Now I'm dancing with you" move. This would have been a wonderful idea, except that I wasn't sure I had the moves to pull off a complicated manoeuvre like that. It's like the man's job to save the girls from other men but you have to save them with your dancing skills. It's kinda like you're in a real like West Side Story. And in a salsa club you have to save them with your salsa skills. As I had only been a salsa practitioner for about 7 minutes I wasn't quite sure I was up Salsa Saviour status yet. So we sent Curt in, who valiantly pulled some moves and saved her. It was rather a blow to my masculinity. Not that Curt did it, but that I chickened out. However had we been in a youth ministry club, boy-oh-boy, no sleazy man would be safe from my moves. I'll have to go to salsa classes so I have some Latin girl-extraction moves up my collared shirt-sleeve for next time.

At 1:30am people decided to go home, so I left too. I had actually had a good time. So that was most definitely a plus. We wandered back to Town Hall where the Northern Beachesers left me for a bus, and I went looking for mine. I managed to catch the last bus home at 2:15. I didn't know there was a last bus home till then. I thought they ran all night. But now I know. Must be at Central Station by 2:15am.

And so I arrived home from my salsa spectacular a little bit late and I couldn't work out if it made me feel young or grown up. But I did feel thirsty, so I drank some water.

Some SMH photographer as done a "walking tour" of the street art in Sydney's Inner West and made it into a slide show. Really they've gone to Enmore Road and walked around a little and taken some photos. But happily the places they walked were all close to our house. I see lots of these artworks most days. So if you want to know what the art of our place looks like, here it is. I quite like it myself.

Just made myself some ultra garlicy pasta here at work only to discover someone had thrown out my cheese. It had months till it went off.

I'm very upset. Now I won't have the cheese smell on my breath to offset the garlic smell. I guess I won't be kissing anyone tonight.

So youth group today involved me getting my sunnies trodden on, my clothes covered in raw egg, and getting smashed in the nose by a big knot of rope (my teeth still hurt).

Curt kindly went home and got me some of his clothes for church. Now I smell like Curt. I haven't smelt this clean in years.

I got this email today:

Hi, my friend!

I have always dreamt of being a housewife. I think that it is the highest level of the comfort a woman can give to her man: Just imagine yourself coming home from work, and the supper is ready, the house is clean, kids are tidy and ready for school, and you can take your dearest family out for a picnic for weekends and also to the entertainment park. Or watch football with your son, while I will be enjoying just seeing two of you cheering for your favorite team. And all the neighbors will be saying: "it is a wonderful family" about us: I don't give promises which I can't prove, so I promise that when we like each other I will give to you all my love. You can share your thoughts with me at http://russianbrideonline.info/ and tell me that you with to continue our acquaintance.

Kiss-kiss

Marinka

I was most amused. She really does know exactly what I want in a woman. I can't think of anything more fulfilling in a relationship than someone who is there purely to make me happy. I would be hoping she has absolutely no personality at all. That would be best.

Last night for a youth group social we took the year 6-8 boys to Zone 3 the laser tag place. When we arrived there were about 20 boys aged about 9-10 running around. We were put in a game with them. The ten of us aged 11-13 and Curt and I (18 and 24) verses two teams of 9 and 10 year-olds. We walloped them.

While it's may seem like it shouldn't be fun, walking into a maze full of kids and shooting six of them then walking walking away unharmed really does feel pretty satisfying. Something like how Jason Bourne might feel if he actually enjoyed what he did.

It's much more fun than when I play my youth group and all the 16 year-olds wallop me.

Sadly I only got to play one game because I had another social to go to. But I always do worse in the second game so maybe it's better that I didn't stay.

Van Morrison now has his entire back catalogue on iTunes. I've been waiting for this for a while. Yeah!

I haven't said anything about the upcoming election yet. But I'm pretty excited. Although I'm getting nervous now. It's like when you spend ages waiting for a sporting match to start, sure that your team is going to win, and the when it begins you start to get nervous that maybe you were wrong.

I'm not a big fan of election campaigns. I get bored of everyone parading around and trying to bribe us. How rude of Howard to kick off the election campaign with a promise of $34 Billion dollars in tax cuts. How rude of we Australians that we're selfish enough to go for it.

Rudd has been impressing me less and less these past few weeks. His swing to the right (which has been inevitable) has been disappointing. He started so strong, and so different. Now he looks like John Howard but with a tad more compassion. But just a tad.

Labor's policy section of their website is a little light on the ground. And their climate change ideas, while ok, aren't really inspiring.

I would love it if Rudd had continued to own the campaign and Howard had to try and look like Rudd and Rudd got to set the agenda. But I fear it's going the other way.

Still I've got a lot more hope for a new Government on November 25 than I've had for a long time.

Yeehaa. Bring on the voting.

I noticed the other day that I often go through whole interactions with shop assistants and checkout people and I don't once make eye contact with them. I decided this is a little rude because it feels like I'm treating them like inferior service people who don't deserve my acknowledgment.

So I decided to start trying to make eye contact with all the people who serve me in shops and stuff. It's pretty confronting. It's like when you make eye contact you make a connection. It feels a little too intimate for a supermarket setting. I tried it with one guy and he wouldn't look at me. He looked everywhere but my eyes. He probably thought I was rather creepy seeing as I spent most of the time staring at his eyes. But still I guess it's a lot easier if we don't make eye contact with people. We don't have to care so much then.

But I'll keep trying and see if I get better at it. And hopefully I don't creep too many people out.

I've changed my running route this week and I discovered, as I explored a new route, that running while listening to a sermon is not very motivational. You may be inspired to live for Jesus, but it doesn't make you run any faster.

I just did this "Compare People" thing on Facebook. It's a bit silly because I keep having to skip questions, because I don't want to compare which of my friends have the hottest body, and which of my friends I'd rather sleep with.

But at the end of my time of comparing it gave me a read out of how I rank among my friends. This is what I got:



Judging by that I think it tells me that I'm going to be good father, but one who is a little insane with really bad fashion sense.

That sounds like many fathers to me. In fact I'm not sure you can be a good father without being daggy and a little bit crazy. But I could be wrong on that one.

The rest of the things it says about me? Well not much really. But I'm real flattered that I'm a better friend to one person than the other person I was compared with, though I'm not quite sure who that was. Probably Kevin Rudd or something.

Max Barry writes a good but rare blog. He has some good insights from the mind of a writer into the horror novelist who ate his girlfriend. It's quite well thought out and definitely worth a read.

It's past midnight on a Saturday night (Sunday Morning really) and I've just come in from hanging my dripping wet washing on the line because our washing machine has stopped pumping water. It's rather sad. Now it's kinda just a big tub with lights. It's also kinda sad that I spend my Saturday nights hanging out washing. Where are all the parties I used to go to?

But don't worry, now I'm off to bed! So that'll be fun!

I've been watching The West Wing a lot lately, and I always like it when politicians go and do what the President wants even though it's not what they want. The White House crew keep convincing people (and each other) with lines like "We serve the President of the United States of America!" Usually I like it when people stand up for what they believe in. But I like it more when they stand up for a higher cause even if it's hard for them.

One day I want people to ask me why I've done what I've done and I will say quietly "Because I serve the Lord of Heaven and Earth" and then music will swell, and the credits will appear but not before there is a final shot of me sitting in my office chair staring out my window with a melancholy but satisfied look on my face.

So I found a new function on my computer yesterday. It's an add-on to Adobe Audition called "Loopology".

I was so excited I remixed a sermon by Tony Campolo. I had heaps of fun. This is going to be the new dance-floor phenomena.

Wanna listen?

Get it here.

The original sermon is the 1997 Inauguration Day sermon he preached for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. You can get the full thing here, which is where I got it from.

I spent lots of my weekend writing a sermon. It was quite a hard one to write. I spent many hours writing, deleting, re-writing. It was tough. I found it hard to figure out what God was wanting to say.

I had to go to bed last night without a fully written sermon, so I spent most of today still working on it.

I finally finished it at about 4:30pm.

I got to church tonight and God did stuff, lots of people shared, and we sang, and the Spirit moved, and I didn't preach. No wonder I couldn't figure out what God wanted to say, he didn't have anything to say through me.

But still, now I've got a spare sermon. Sweet.

I bought a new toothbrush today. It was a cheap one without 360 degree, 24-hour, electronic cleaning. But my teeth still feel pretty clean so that's good.

I went out buy some dinner tonight and Enmore was full of bikies who had decided to hang at the local. They looked scarier than they were because none of them tried to kill me. I decided to look at a new cafe to see if they had good food and when I walked in this Greek lady said "You've come to buy food! Here's a menu. Eat in or take away?" She was so expectant that I was going to buy food that I felt like I had to (it may also have been partly due to the fact that she was rather attractive and attractive women have a way of forcing you to do things you don't want to, especially if they're older than you but that's a whole other story). So I ended up buying an over-priced burger on Turkish bread (do Greek people do Turkish bread?) which I didn't really enjoy (too much pesto and sundried tomato, who puts pesto on a burger?)

I made a mental note not to step into that cafe again lest the Greek (or maybe Turkish) siren of the eatery forces me to consume another pesto laden pseudo-burger. That would be bad.

This post didn't have much to do with toothbrushes.

I went out to a birthday dinner last night at Dee Why RSL. It's pretty posh for an RSL now. I couldn't find ugly carpet anywhere. I think that might be against RSL law.

Anwyay, I had myself a t-bone steak, and it was good. Then it was off to Max Brenner's for chocolate face stuffing. I got myself two Belgium waffles with melted chocolate, ice cream and strawberries. I thought about just having one waffle but I had just enough money for two so I saw it as a sign from God. I left feeling mighty stuffed.

This morning I woke up for my run still feeling stuffed. But I thought "I'll run anyway". Bad move. I felt like I was going to vomit the whole way. I had to sit down when I got back and just wait for the feeling to disappear.

Perhaps it was God's discipline for my gluttony.

Note for next time: No waffles before running.