I arrived at my ushering work on Monday evening thinking I was going to be working a concert from a rather famous Welsh singer with a hairy chest. As it happened I got my dates wrong and I found out that I was working a boxing match. I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I was much more interested in seeing the boxing than the hairy Welshman, on the other I was pretty sure the boxing fans would be harder to control than the singer's generally middle-aged, female fans.

As it turned out I was on the glass doors which meant I wasn't inside the arena to see the fight. I thought that would be ok until one of the other ushers said to me "Oh you get to turn away the Hell's Angels when they want to get in without a ticket."

This seemed not such a good plan.

Still, no Hell's Angel's turned up without a ticket. And everyone who came through my door was very friendly.

I think at least 50% of the people who came through my door were big, scary looking blokes, who looked like they could handle themselves in the event of an apocalyptic looting and random bashings riot rather well. Unless of course you need speed to handle yourself in such a riot, in which case these guys may have been a little slow. It's hard to run fast when your torso weighs the same as a large fridge.

I did enjoy letting these guys in, because they all smiled at me when they arrived and said "Thanks mate" when I let them in. I generally feel pretty good when I have about a thousand "mates" who could knock out a rhino with one punch. It makes you feel like if you get into trouble they'll be there for you. Though I'm pretty sure Aussie mateship doesn't extend that far except for really exceptional ushers.

Which is a shame because when trouble came I would have liked to have had my muscle bound mates around.

I was standing on the door telling people the usual info "Sorry, there are no pass outs, but if you want to smoke, there are smoking areas over there and down there."

I generally get into the argument about there being no pass-outs about 10 times a night despite the fact that there is a sign on every door at every point of entry saying "NO PASS OUTS". On Monday night I seemed to have it every 10 minutes, and everyone was a little more hostile about it. It may have been something to do with the copious amounts of beer and punching that was being enjoyed within the building.

Still everyone obeyed my "no pass outs" policy, except one.

This guy came up to me while he was on the phone and said he needed to leave.

I asked him if he needed to smoke, because we have smoking areas. He replied that he did but he also needed to do something else. I said that he couldn't leave because there are no pass outs.

"Are you telling me that I can't leave?" he asked.

"I'm saying you can't leave and come back in because there are no pass outs." I replied.

"What do you mean I can't leave and come back? I'm just going to be outside and then come back in. I'm going to be 5 minutes."

"Yeah, I'm sure you are, but I can't let you out and let back in, because we don't give pass outs. But if you need to smoke, there are smoking areas, and we have places to get food and drink inside. If you really need to get out you can go downstairs to information and see if they'll give you a pass out."

"I don't want go downstairs, I want to go out here."

"If you go out here, I can't let you back in."

"If I want to come back in, I'm coming back in." Then he comes closer to me and says "Are you trying to to make a fool of me in front of all these people? Is that what you you're trying to do? Are you trying to make me look bad in front of everyone?"

I looked around the empty foyer and really wanted to say "There's no one around. It's just you and me here." But I said "No, all I'm saying is that there aren't any pass outs, once you're in you're in, once you're out you're out. If you really need to leave you can go and try and get a pass out down stairs, they're your options."

"Do you want me to give you another option?" By this stage he was right up in my face. And I'm thinking "Damn, I'm about to get punched in the mouth" and I was pretty sure he could handle me quite well.

I said "You can leave but there are a whole lot of security and police here who will stop you from coming back in."

He looked at me for a bit then said "I need to go and then I'm coming back." And with that he walked outside.

I walked outside too, down the stairs to the smoking section outside my door, and said to the security guard "There's a guy who just left who is coming back, and he threatened me when I told him there were no pass outs." I pointed the guy out. "Can you keep an eye on him and stop him from coming back if he tries to come in."

The security guy looked at the guy and assured me he'd keep an eye on him. I went back inside and walked about 5 metres away from my door looking for some other security guards seeing as the one I talked to was manning his section alone and didn't have a radio. I figured it might be better to have more people seeing as they, very reasonably, tend to like to handle matters in groups.

While I was away from my door, the guy walked straight past the security guard, straight through my door and up to me and said "Thanks mate, I just really needed to sort some stuff out. I'm having some personal issues. Where can I smoke?"

I pointed him to the smoking section, knowing I'd lost. There was going to be no security or police to back me up, and I wasn't about to take this guy on, it's not my job, and I couldn't do it even if it was my job. I walked back to my door and the security guard was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me. He'd seen the guy go in. He looked up at me and said: "He can't go in."

Yeah well he did, thanks security man.

Still I think it was the best outcome. I'm not that keen to see people get thrown out or into fights, and I'm not that keen to get beaten up, because of a rule that seems to be made to reduce administrative hassle. Plus I got a new mate.

So in the end everyone won. I stayed intact, the security guard didn't have to do his job, and the bully got to make his phone call and sort out his personal issues. The only losers on the day were the pass-out rule and anyone else who may have upset my angry friend that night. I say we ended on top.

I've been on camp with the new job since Tuesday (it went well thanks), and I've come back and heard a rumour that 100,000 people have been killed in Haiti. I'd like to know more. I check SMH. There's nothing there but a few dodgy videos.

I can however find out about Lindsay Lohan's sex tape.

Does massive-scale tragedy get old that quickly these days?

I'm coming along real good, but I still can't do most of the things I should. - Counting Crows


It's a year today since I left my old job as Youth Minister and headed out of the Christian bubble to see what life was like on the other side.

My year of "non-Christian" work has come to an end, and tomorrow I will begin my entirely unsecular job.

With that in mind, these are some of the things I've learnt and been thinking about in the past 12 months.

Plans

The plan was the leave my job as Youth Minister, get work in a full time secular job, save money then go to the US for a year in 2010. That was my plan. But I knew going in that is was just my plan. Ringing in my mind was James 4:13-15:

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

I have certainly found it to be true.

I never got my full time work in a secular organisation. For most of the year I was technically unemployed. I got a small amount of work ushering at a concert venue, and for the majority of the year, that was it. It was secular, most of my colleagues (perhaps all) aren't Christian, nor do they seem that keen on Christianity. But it's a small job, one or two shifts a month on average.

I ended the year working 1-3 days a week with my friend John the Painter. John is a Baptist pastor who paints houses, one of the guys I spent much of the time working with was around my age and a very strong Christian, the other guy who paints with John is not a Christian, as far as I can tell, though he doesn't talk much. It wasn't really the great secular work I had planned.

I spent 7 months of the year collecting unemployment benefits. I had been wanting to avoid that fate, but it's a little difficult when no one will hire you. Perhaps Centrelink was my great secular experience.

As a result I won't make it to the US for a year, for a few months, maybe not at all in 2010. That plan has been a complete failure.

But I'm not upset. My plans are not God's plans. This year I have had to submit myself to God's plans, whether I have wanted to or not, and his plans are better.

Identity

Quitting my job as a Youth Minister, I knew I was going to have issues with identity. I talked about it at the end of 2008. I knew that I defined myself by my job. As much as I wanted to be defined by who I am in Jesus, it's easier to be defined by how you fill your days, especially when you're passionate about it.

So I knew that in 2009 I would have to learn what it meant to be something other than a Youth Minister.

And it was hard. It was hard to tell people, when asked, that I was unemployed. It was hard not to try and justify it. It was hard to not think they felt sorry for you, or thought you were a loser. It was hard not to think they were judging you.

Most of the time I tried to avoid having to say I was unemployed by listing everything I did. By the end of the year I'd say "I'm a student, an usher, a painter and I visit Centrelink twice a week."

So did I learn to find my identity in Jesus? A little. I learnt a little more that my value doesn't lie in what I do, but in who has saved me.

But I learnt more about who God has called me to be. I may have been a student, a Centrelink patron, an usher, and a brush hand. But all year I thought about ministry. I thought about preaching, and pastoring, and bringing the Bible to bear in people's lives. I'm passionate about serving Jesus in full-time ministry. That's what excites me. Stop me doing it for a year and all I want to do is get back into it. I haven't lost the passion, it's grown.

And that's good. Having spent a year being rejected for jobs because the only thing I know how to do is ministry, if ministry wasn't what I was wired for, I'd be a little stuffed. There is no turning back. My hand won't leave the plough, it's gaffa taped and nail gunned to the plough.

The Call

This year was the most significant year for me, in terms of life direction, since I was called into ministry in 2001. 2009 could end up being the most life shaping year of my life.

My year has effectively been a year of quietness, a year to reflect, a year to seek God's will for me. For the first six months I felt a call from God that had been in the back of my mind for a few years. As 2009 went on it became more and more clear, till I decided to make a decision while I was away in Guatemala and the United States. When I got back I knew for sure that God was calling me to plant a church.

For many of those of you who know me in real life, you already know about this, but some of you won't. But sometime in the next few years I will plant a church. Not by myself, God isn't calling me to go it alone. But God is calling me to church planting. I'm a little disappointed that church planting is the "in" thing at the moment. But I guess that's what God is doing at the moment. Whatever the case, I'm excited.

There's a lot more to say on the subject. Like answering the big question I get asked every time I tell someone I'm planting, "Why do we need more churches?" But for now I'll just say that I know what I'm doing for the rest of my life. Unless I'm completely mistaken, everything from here on in is heading for church planting.

Working for Jesus

When I was trying to figure out whether to leave my old job or not, I was on the bus on the way to meet my minister to tell him my final decision about whether to stay or go. I was doing my daily reading and it was this verse that made up my mind for me:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men - Col 3:23

It was then I felt God say I could make my own decision, but whatever I did I should do as one working for Jesus. I chose to leave because it made the most sense.

That decision being made it meant that every time I did something I needed to do it as one working for the Lord. Whoever my boss is or is not, my ultimate boss is Jesus, and everything I do I must do as if he was in charge.

So the question was, how do you be unemployed for Jesus? How do you apply for 10 jobs a fortnight for Jesus? How to you spend days and days with nothing you have to be doing for Jesus? How do you usher for Jesus? How do you check tickets for Jesus? How do you open doors for patrons for Jesus? How do you paint for Jesus? How get up at 5:30am for Jesus? How do you strip wallpaper for Jesus? How do you paint a fence for Jesus?

I can't say I always was as diligent as I should have been all year. I can't say I never wasted any time, or always applied for jobs to the best of my ability. But it was a good challenge to have.

2009 wasn't a year off. It was a year with the challenge to serve Jesus in everything I put my hand to. It was a year to learn that I can honour Jesus when I have no job or when I'm cleaning a wall or when I'm standing in an auditorium during a boring seminar, as much as I can honour Jesus when I'm preaching the gospel.

Wealth and Provision, Grace and Self-Sufficiency

I didn't earn much money this year. I've got a lot less money now than when I went in. I owe a lot more money that when I started the year. I spent probably a third of the year with $0 in my bank account.

I know that God provides. I know that God provides through money that comes via unexpected routes. He provides via Centrelink and unemployment benefits. He provides through friends and family who shout you meals and movie tickets and miscellaneous items. He provides through house mates who pay bills and don't break your legs when you can't pay them back straight away. He provides through eating Corn Thins for $1.96 rather than Thai food for $7.90. He provides through parents who give you money when you run out. He provides through friends who give you money when God tells them to. He provides through friends who lend you their car and who lend you money while cavorting overseas.

I know that God provides even when I'm probably about as dumb with money now as I was when I started the year.

And God's provision isn't always easy. It takes humility to accept help when you can't help yourself. It batters your pride to know that the only way you're paying your rent is because the Government is paying it for you.

It's hard to know that you can't do it on your own.

But that's what grace is about. You can't do it on your own. You can't provide for yourself. Grace and pride cannot live together.

Having a lack of funds, has taught me about spiritual poverty. Having friends and family provide for me when I can't provide for myself has taught me about my God who provides himself for me when I have only my sin to offer in return. Having to ask for help has taught me about what it really means to come to God and say to him, "I need you because I can't do this."

I have had a year what I have never gone without. I have been abundantly provided for. I'm so very thankful for my God who provides for all my needs. My daily bread and my eternal life. I have a good God.

Everything else, I probably can't or don't want to categorise. I've learnt so much more. It's been a big year. Any year where your sister gets married three times in one year is a big year. It's certainly been a big year for my family.

2009 was the year I left my church and job of 6 years. The year found a new church and a whole new bunch of friends. It was the year I had more free time, more jobs and more hours spent in the library than in the previous 7 years. It was the year I finally made it to the US properly. It was the year came close to crying almost once a week because I'm becoming a big sook.

And while it's been a pretty stress free year, in other ways I've been faced with things this year bigger and closer to home than any I had faced before. It's been a year when I've been angrier, more confused, more helpless than I ever have. I've learnt more about sin, my own and other peoples', than perhaps I ever have. And I've learnt more about forgiveness, both being forgiven and forgiving, than I have before.

It's been an excellent 12 months. I have seen God again this past year. Once more he has been faithful beyond all reason and expectation. I can't put into words the goodness I see in Jesus. I am so abundantly blessed. Whatever happens from here on in, whatever the next year holds for me, I know I go in to it with friends and family who are more wonderful than I could ever hope for and a God who loves me more than I could ever hope to understand.

I have two TV shows that I am much in love with at the moment:

Friday Night Lights



I was talking to some people from my old Church about this show the other night. I felt all original because I've "discovered" a TV show that no-one knows about. And then one of them said "Is that the show about teenagers and quarter-backs?" I was so disappointed, because it's been advertised all over Foxtel, I'm totally unoriginal.

Still, I can't let unoriginality stop me.

I also found out that it's a show for women.

I can't let that stop me either.

It's a good show. Well acted, well shot, good story, well written, rather believable. It's show about a Texan high school football team. The town is obsessed with football. The politics that surround it, and the pressure that is put on the players and coaches to win every game is phenomenal.

The football coach is kinda like a Jed Bartlett for teenagers. He keeps being inspiring and kind hearted, though he acts all tough. I want to be like the coach. I think he should be model for youth ministers every where. Plus he has a really good relationship with his wife.

I've been eating the show up, even though it's for women.

The Wire



I had been hanging out to watch this show for a while. Ryan had convinced me that it was meant to be excellent. I had been resisting him because when he said The Wire I thought of The Shield and that guy with the bald head doesn't look like someone I'd want to watch a TV show about. He looks too much like B-Grade School Principal. But, funnily enough The Shield is not The Wire so the small eyed, bald guy isn't in it.

What is in the show is excellent. The show is about a police task force investigating a drug dealing operation in Baltimore. The whole show is just focusing on this one case. I love that, while most shows deal with one case per episode, this one takes a whole season for one case and doesn't even wrap things up in that. It's like real police work, I'm guessing. But I'm not real police.

The show is rather depressing in it's depiction of the cops. Everyone is corrupt. Even the heroes are liable to break the rules to get the job done. People just want to clear cases and look good rather than actually do real police work.

The drug dealers on the other hand often have friendlier characters, until they shoot their cousin in the head or something.

It's the script, characters, acting, plot are all amazing. Plus it's about cops and robbers. I think this show could be the best television show ever made.

You really should watch it.

When I had my Quiet Time this morning, this is what I saw.



As you may have noticed, things at our place are a little disjointed.

I may have to do a little more work on my iPhone panoramic photography skills.

See it very large.

For those who are wondering, I decided to take the job.

For someone who is wary of commitment I just committed three years of my life in one day.

If I was to do it again, I'd slow the process down. I'd say something like "Can you give me the weekend to think about it?" But yesterday I talked to everyone I needed to talk to (including and foremost being Jesus).

The day before I had this verse in my quiet time:

"For lack of guidance a nation falls,
but many advisers make victory sure." - Prov 11:14

That kept running around my head and I didn't want Australia to fall because I didn't get guidance. So I talked to the people I hadn't already talked to, and now I think victory is sure.

Who knew taking a job could have such huge consequences?

Now I'm planning on how I'll spend the money. Grills, definitely, grills.

On Monday I got a phone call from a place I got interviewed at a few months ago saying they wanted me back in for another interview. They had initially told me they weren't going to employ me, but on Monday things had changed.

So this morning I went in for an interview.

This afternoon they rang me to tell me they were going to offer me the job. They want my answer ASAP.

That was very quick I haven't really had time to get my head around it all. It's a full time job working for a Christian organisation.

I'm in the process of talking to the people I need to talk to, to make sure it's all going to work.

Sometimes I dislike making quick decisions, though I reckon I'd like the job.

I seem to have found myself in Canberra, on holiday with my parents, older sister, her husband and his family. I wasn't planning on coming to Canberra but I found out last week that my painting boss is on holidays for the next two weeks, so I have forced leave. But you won't hear me complaining. A year of minimal employment has taught me the many skills necessary for enjoying free time. And I really enjoy free time.

Before we came on the holiday we had Jo and Victor's (Sister and Brother-in-Law's) Happy Party (that is the wedding that wasn't a wedding but just looked like a wedding). It was a very happy party. Hannah, my little sister, who named the Happy Party, was very happy. She loved being surrounded by so many people. And when it came time to dance to the killer play list that Victor and I made, she was conga lining all over the place with any one who took her fancy.

Of course, the Happy Party wasn't really for Hannah. It was for all the Australians who didn't make it to Guatemala for the two ceremonies there. It was a highly chaotic event with the ceremony once again moved indoors due to masses of rain. Although the rain was only the icing on the cake for an event that seemed destined to be delayed and diverted and every opportunity. Still these hiccups didn't really seem like problems, they just made the day all the more amusing and endearing.

I was happy to be there. In some ways I found the ceremony more meaningful six months in to the marriage. Perhaps because you know they know what marriage is now. Marriage vows can sometimes seem like simple idealism when you hear them from two people who have never been married before (as they will probably sound from me if I ever say them). But when you hear them from two people who know what it means to be married to each other, even just 6 months in, it seems to mean more. They've become a more practical reality and need to be a commitment made out of, and in the face of, experience. Perhaps we should have Happy Parties more regularly for experienced couples who now know what their vows mean in practice not just in theory.

I didn't have much of a role in this ceremony. I did, however get asked to pray. In continuation of my slide down the slippery slope of unbidden expressions of emotion, I felt choked up the whole prayer. The people I asked said they didn't notice, but I did. I knew that I was on the verge of having my voice crack at any time, that getting the words out without a quiver in my speech was hard going. The problem was that I love Jo and Victor, I love marriage, and I love Jesus, and I was praying about all three, it was a convergence to make a perfect storm of sentiment to turn me into a blubbering mass of love and emotion. But I held strong and resisted all urges to shed tears. I think my well honed image of insensitivity has been kept intact for just a little longer.

When the ceremony was done, it was a night of speeches, polite portions of food, and large helpings of dancing. It was a very enjoyable night even if I do like to avoid being in large crowds of people I may have to make small talk with.

In the morning we all gathered for a breakfast with the friends and family who had stayed in the area. It was a like a post-wedding gathering of the relationally elite. I was happy to have been invited.

From there my family (minus Hannah) and the Guatemalans all piled into the specially hired chicken bus, and headed off for Canberra. We stopped at a genuine Australian farm where we were treated to some genuine Australian drought, a genuine Australian tractor ride, and some genuine Australian annoyance at wild Kangaroos. However the Guatemalans were very happy to see kangaroos ("kan-gooo-roos") in the wild as was I. I'm not a farmer, therefore I like kangaroos, especially when they're alive.

Since being in Canberra (we've been here a day now) we've been to dinner, a tourist centre, the National Museum and the National Botanic Gardens. Tonight we filled up on Middle Eastern food, had a serendipitous rendezvous with Jess and her Mum, and went up Black Mountain to see the view (of which there was very little).

It's a good life.

My sister is getting married today...again. Three weddings for one girl in seven months. Does anyone else think that's just a little excessive? There are single women in the world who haven't even been married once. Share the love around, I say.

Still, at least there'll be food. Probably hippy food, but food none the less.

I wish Jo and Victor all the best, and may their marriage be three times as good as it otherwise would have been had they only been married once.


For those of you who don't get it, in Guatemala my sister married her husband in a civil ceremony, then they had a religious ceremony a week later, and today they're having an Australian one. It's actually perfectly reasonable when you think about it.

Warning: There may be a few minor spoilers

It's the first day of the year, which means it's time for my top and bottom ten movies of 2009. I only made it to the cinema 43 times this year. You can tell it was lean year, I'm 15 films down on last year. But it was a good year for movies. Getting the top 10 has been tough. It's certainly been a good year for film in my books.

This year I've decided to include any film that was on in an Australian cinema in 2009. That means that films like The Wrestler which was technically a 2008 release can be a 2009 movie because it was in Australian cinemas then. Alternatively films like The Hurt Locker haven't been released in Australia yet, but if it was, there's a good chance I've had seen it and it'd be on my top 10.

There are some movies which I haven't seen though I probably should have (Such as A Serious Man, Zombieland and An Education) so I can't include them.

Lastly, as before the worst films of the year take into account not just the quality of the film but the disappointment associated with the film. So it could be not a terrible movie, but it should have been brilliant (I'm looking at you McG and Michael Bay).

Anyway, here they are the top and bottom 10 for 2009:

Bottom 10

10. 12 Rounds

This movie was pretty dumb. But it was good fun. So it shouldn't really be in the bottom 10, I didn't have much else to put in.

9. Watchmen

Screwed up superheros is a good idea, but this was a mess: too long, the story was all over the place and confusing, the villain explained his diabolical plot at the end and there was a naked glowing man on screen half the movie.

8. Couple's Retreat

It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't very good.

7. Terminator Salvation

I have something against this movie because I have something against McG. Why didn't they get Christopher Nolan to direct this? Killer robots should be cool, but as 2009 has proven, they don't save a film. McG you take something which should be awesome, lose any sense of fun, and then make dumb things happen. Bring back James Cameron.

6. Knowing

What started off a bit intriguing, ended up being some kinda Christian thriller, where God saves the world using space ships and little kids as Adam and Eve. Not so cool.

5. GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I don't know if I had high hopes for this film, but I really wanted it to be great. Alas, it was just silly.

4. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

I was so bored.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay what have you done? You lured us in with giant robots fighting and then forced us to perve on teenage girls, racist charactered robots, incomprehensible plots, and just general stupidity. The fighting may have been cool, but this film was the biggest disappointment of the year.

2. New Moon

This would have been the worst film of the year if it wasn't for the giant, dancing penis in Bruno. When you need a giant dancing penis to beat you for the position of worst film of the year, you know you've made a bad film. Ella is dumb. Edward's an idiot. Jacob should put a shirt on. Stephanie Meyer needs to apologise to the world.

1. Brüno

Borat was inappropriate, but rather funny. This film was not funny, offensive, homophobic and dumb. It's like Cohen was just trying to be as offensive as possible. But offensiveness is only worthwhile if it's got a point. This seemed rather pointless. Let's make fun of gay people and celebrities who adopt babies, as if these are the two greatest evils in the world to poke fun at. Useless.

Oh and did I mention the giant dancing penis?


Top 10

Honourable Mentions: Drag Me to Hell, Funny People, Public Enemies, Red Cliff, The Hangover, Revolutionary Road


10. (500) Days of Summer

This film was smart, poignant, self-aware, funny, and well made. It was only really let down by its self-betrayal of an ending.

9. Observe and Report

This rather dark comedy was Paul Blart for grown ups. I'd rather be a grown up.

8. State of Play

A good old, political thriller about private security companies. I love it when journalists go investigating stuff especially when they're being chased by a creepy sniper dude.

7. Avatar

James Cameron has made something pretty amazing here. While the story is nothing all that ground breaking, this is can be easily overlooked because of the amazing beauty of the world they've created. The depth of imagination and the execution of the imagery is phenomenal. This is a game changer for 3D and CGI. Plus the battle at the end is pretty awesome.

6. Where the Wild Things Are

It's like the whole film just ached with the loneliness and impotence of childhood, a broken hallelujah for doing life together. And it all just looked so good. Spike Jonze kicks ass.

5. Up

Story is king. Pixar never fail.

4. Star Trek

It's Star Trek for non-nerds. J.J. Abrams going where many have gone before, but going better. This was a very cool movie. Good fun, good action, exciting, and just sci-fi enough to hurt your brain as you tried to figure out how that whole wormhole thing worked.

3. The Wrestler

This is a movie that stays with you. Mickey Rourke owned his sad, broke down wrestler. It was a thoughtful mediation on loss and identity. Perhaps poignant for me in the year I stopped being a Youth Minister.

2. Inglorious Basterds

Who hasn't wanted to machine gun Hitler in the face? Excellent.

1. District 9

Message. Aliens. Gore. Cool Guns. Action. Yeehaa! I loved all of this film. I want to watch it again and again. So much fun, yet it still managed to rebuke your inner-racist at the same time. Thank you South Africa for giving us cinematic brilliance.

If you try and comment you'll notice there's a whole new format for comments. It lets you add photos, link to your Google account or whatever, embed YouTube and all sorts of other stuff. It's a whole new era for interactivity that seems a bit overly engineered to me. It's Facebook/Twitterising my comments. I would have rather kept them old and boring, but Haloscan forced me to upgrade or get lost. So as you can see, I upgraded.

Still I do think it looks a little nicer.

I went and watched some fireworks down by the harbour last night with a bunch of Australians and Guatemalans. It was nice to be back watching the fireworks.

I didn't take any photos of the fireworks. But I did take a photo of Anmol, so that'll have to do.



Happy New Year

I finished listening to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies today. I've been listening to the audio book as I work.

I think this is the ideal way to read the classics. First you don't have to read them, second you get all the goodness of the classics, third you have zombies. What more could you want in your literature education?

For those of you who don't know the book, it's Pride and Prejudice the classic novel, with zombies inserted. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are both accomplished zombie hunters. And every now and again the zombies pop up in the book and a bit of zombie slaying goes on. But aside from that the plot and much of the original text is unchanged.

So it was good fun. I'm sure some people will feel that this makes a mockery of Austin and her work. But I'm inclined to feel like it's just a tribute. Or perhaps making something good even better. To be perfectly honest, I was more interested in how Darcy and Lizzy would get together and what would happen to Jane and Bingley then I was enjoying the zombie fights. But the zombie fights were cool. As were Lizzy's duel with ninjas. Sweet.

They're going to make a film of it with Natalie Portman. I hope they get Danny Boyle to direct it. He'd be awesome.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that Pride and Prejudice is a much better romance book to be reading than, say, Twilight. As far as I can tell (and I have read a bit of the original) it's funny, well written, and neither Lizzy nor Mr Darcy are perfect in any way. That's three things Twilight doesn't have.

But perhaps best of all is when you add the zombies, because there is little that can't be improved by the addition of zombies (except perhaps I am Legend).

You can tell it's a public holiday tomorrow, I went to the cinema tonight and it was full of Christians there for some post-Church filmic fun.

How did I know they were Christians? It was their Holy Spirit aura, their non-offensive hair cuts, and their "Two Salty" t-shirts. That, and I know 1 in every 10 Christians in Hornsby.

I do enjoy Christmas. It was good this year. I think I enjoy it more again now that I've moved past the stage of needing to get awesome presents. And I've moved past the stage of it needing to be the most exciting day of the year. These days Christmas is a good chance to hang out with friends and family and get a bit of loot on the side.

And it was a pretty good year for loot.

Perhaps the most exciting present this year was that I'm getting new shoes. New shoes shouldn't be that exciting, but this is my current daily foot wear:



So you can understand why I'm excited that I'll soon be trotting around in a new pair. Preferably shoes with magical powers.

I also got money, t-shirts, a cd, a subscription to Time magazine, and a bunch of DVDs (which I bought with the money I got).

But probably the highlight was getting to see a bunch of people I love.

Christmas Eve was dinner with the Fam, Grandpa, Valentina and Auntie Lys. Christmas Day we went to Cremorne Point for a picnic with a many people who aren't my blood family but but are some of my favourite people in the world. Boxing Day was in the Gong with all the cousins from Dad's side of the family. It's pretty special packing all these important people into three days of Christmas.

Perhaps it was most special though remembering that Jesus is with us. I know that's the sort of thing I should be saying, but it is special. God came to us, to live like us and with us. And not only that, he grew up to be someone amazing and to do something universe changing, all out of love. In my book that's gotta be worth celebrating by hanging out with the people you love and getting new shoes.



Photo evidence that Christmas is fun. (Thank you iPhone)

I've been thinking a little bit about how Christmas is often a time of year that many people get lonely, yet it's exactly the time of year that reminds us that God has not left us alone.

I was sitting on a roof today, painting, minding my own business, when I thought to myself, "What's the time?". I was hungry for lunch. I pulled out my phone and it was off. "Odd," I thought, "I had plenty of battery left." I pressed the power button. My phone vibrated, it was a text message from my friend Chris. It said "Are you free this afternoon? Please say yes".

Then the text message faded before my eyes. And with that, my trusty old Nokia was dead.

Totally dead.

Dead as Mozart.

I realised without a phone, life gets difficult to organise.

So I went up to the shops tonight to get a new phone. I was tossing up between a new contract or buying the cheapest crappy phone outright. I decided to go with whatever option would give me the most cash right then. I had presents to buy.

As it turns out I could have got a phone outright for $39. But I could get on a new plan and pay nothing right now. So I signed up to a $1400+, 24-month plan, to save $39 tonight. If that's not good economics, I don't know what is.

The phone I got is an iPhone. It's pretty depressing. I was hoping to avoid the iPhone, but it seems it's pull is unavoidable. Steve Jobs seduced me like a busty, adulterous, Jewess, calling to me in the twilight.

My main issue is that everyone has an iPhone. I want to be unique. I want a cool phone that no-one else has. I want my old, crappy phone back which could do nothing except make calls and text but had the retro cool of an old man on a school bus*.

But who am I kidding? I'm a slave to pragmatism. The iPhone was the cheapest, good phone option. At least, cheapest, good phone that didn't mean I'd have to learn a whole new way of using a phone. So now I have an iPhone, and you can all judge me because I'm a conformist, just like you. That's right, you, you're probably reading this on your iPhone right now.

Anyway, I am now enjoying playing with it. And really enjoying updating my contacts in Google and having them automatically updated on my phone, that's way cool. I'm sure I'll get over my depression soon if this Google-Apple marriage keeps the magic going.

However if I'm friends with you, and we have known each other for less than 12 years, or you've changed numbers in the past 12 years, chances are I don't have your phone number. Many phone numbers didn't make the jump from old, dead phone, to new, hip phone. So I'd love it if you could email me your phone number an I'll update you in Google, which will update my phone and I'll praise God for synchronisation.

Actually while you're at it, send me the number of any friends we have in common. Or any friends we should have in common. Or any busty, Jewesses you think I might like to meet.

Now I should go to bed. I have to wake up early in the morning and regret selling my soul to Optus once again.

*That's a fun, friendly, old man, not a creepy, dirty, old man. My phone was never creepy.

I did some Christmas shopping. Managed to buy myself John Mayer's new album. There are three people not getting Christmas presents now, but sometimes we all need to make sacrifices don't we? Bloody whingers.

I love John Mayer.

I'm just about to set fire to everything I see
I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe - Edge of Desire

I'm home from the camp of sailing goodness.

I'm not really much of sailor. I went sailing once as a young lad* and remember there was a bed on board the boat. And that's my entire sailing experience.

As you also know I was a little ill equipped for sailing adventures before leaving having no hat that attached to my clothes, no woollen jumper and no rashie. However Valentina did kindly offer me this hat, and I visited K-Mart before leaving for camp and bought myself a rashie which I intend on using approximately zero more times in my life.

I was also a little perplexed how I was going to get to camp as I had a wedding to go to on Saturday morning (which was lovely thank-you-very-much, but I missed lunch, damn it) meaning that I would miss the first few hours of camp, and all the lifts to camp.

But Ryan kindly drove me to camp so we could bond as the kilometres drifted past as we lazily made our way an hour up the Central Coast. Then he drove home alone. He's a good friend Ryan. As is Lesley who lent out her car again for the trip.

So I arrived at camp feeling happy to have solved a few of my issues and a little apprehensive as to what camp with a bunch of unknowns would be like and what my lack of sailing skills would do to my camp enjoyment.

But as it happens both turned out fine. The people on the camp were lovely, campers and leaders, and I didn't die while sailing once.

Admittedly I only sailed twice, and both were on the most stable boat of the fleet. I spent another day on the rescue boat filming for the camp video guy. It was a windy day so I just spent most of the time filming capsized boats and injured campers.

The second time I went sailing all the boats had a race around the lake. My boat was chock full with 11 people, competing with other boats who had around 5 or less people (except one which was the same as ours with 12 people although they were almost entirely year 7 kids who we all know about are about a 3rd of the bulk of a normal sized human). On my boat, Noah's Ark, there was Tom (the captain), Tom (the speaker) and 9 of the girls. It was like sailing with people smugglers. In an attempt to lighten our boat for the race we devised a cunning scheme, to throw the children overboard, and the speaker too, and then send our boat off to race with a lightweight crew off five.

So just before the race began, we slipped quietly into the water like Navy SEALs. Sadly the other people smuggler boat noticed and threw many of their children overboard too. Soon there were more bodies in the water than boats.

Still the plan seemed to be working. Noah's Ark was in second place for the first lap. Soon race officials turned up though and told us that we'd have to join our boat as it came around for the second and final lap due to safety requirements. When Noah's Ark came around all 6 of us who were in the water hauled ourselves back into the boat in less than a minute, Noah's Ark kept going and we managed to maintain second place. It was a magnificent piece of seamanship, a rapid boarding of which even Somalian pirates would be proud.

We ended up coming in second but being disqualified because we had dumped our crew. I'm told that in official racing rules a boat must finish a race with the same number of crew that it crosses the start line with. We finished with an extra six. Had the race officials not told us to join our boat I think we could have mounted a good argument for holding on to second place. But The Man doesn't like innovation and so we were kicked out because we broke convention.

If all sailing races involved jumping overboard on a 36°C day and just hanging around in the water, I reckon I could do the sailing gig. But sadly, I think most racing teams aren't looking for people to join their crew just to jump overboard at the start line.

Perhaps my favourite activity was helping people get out of the water into the rescue boat and Noah's Ark. I think I liked it because it was a role that made you feel a little like you were rescuing people. You'd either pull them up by monkey grip or by gabbing them by the strap on the back of their life jacket and hauling them into the boat. The latter option was the most preferable because it felt more like rescue work probably due to the utilitarian nature of the boat entry and it's reliance entirely on my hauling power. Seeing as I spent the rest of the time sitting on the boat being rather useless it was good to be needed a little bit.

Apart from all my aquatic adventures, the camp was still good fun. The campers were friendly and well behaved as were the leaders. My talks seemed to go well. References to my talks regularly popped up during other parts of the camp, so I at least knew that people were paying attention. One popular line was "I'm angry enough to die", though my particular favourite were the multiple references to my "lady friends", perhaps only because I feel it's important to propagate the myth that I'm a player.

Aside from that there were a number of people who indicated they wanted to become Christians, so you can't complain about that. (Well I'm sure many people could, but no good Evangelical can, and that's what I am.)

I did notice once again that relationship building in free time on camps is not in my skill set. Free time tends to mean that I go and read my book or have a sleep. I think it's the introvert in me coming out. Being faced with unstructured hanging out where you need to go and just relate to people you don't know all that well, kinda scares me. Books and sleeping on the other hand are personal favourites of mine.

All up, I did have a good camp. I used to dream about being a camp speaker, back in the old days. I used to think camp speaking was like the pinnacle of preaching, because you were good enough to get asked to do five talks in a row and you were a little bit of a celebrity to 50 young people for a week. Having achieved this particular, low-end dream, it's not really like that. But it is certainly a privilege, very enjoyable, and I love the chance to hang out with a whole bunch of excellent young people. Plus I love getting free food for a week.

I reckon I'll keep doing camps as long as I keep getting asked though I'm not sure if I'll sail again any time soon, though I'll practice my hauling skills just in case.

*I need to stop using the phrase "young lad" around teenagers because they think I'm talking about when I was younger and I had a rat's tail, a bum bag, short shorts, and Nike cap put badly on my head.

Photo by: Januz Leszczynski

I'm about to head out on a camp for a week. It's a sailing camp. I was waiting to get an email to tell me what I needed to bring. Turns out I got it two weeks ago. Oops. And now there are things I need which I don't have, like a rashy that goes to my elbows, and a woolen jumper, and a hat that attaches to my clothes. I don't even know what sort of hat attaches to clothes. A hat is clothes as far as I'm concerned, so I guess as long as I classify my hat as clothing it'll always be attached to my clothes.

Anyway, I need to sort this out. And go to a wedding. And go on camp. Sometimes my lack of preparation hinders my performance as a world class person.

Where's my PA?

So I worked on a video a little while ago for Soul Survivor to promote next year's Soul in the City. It's finally made to the Tube. And this is it:



This is one of three versions of the same video I made. The other two should be on the Soul Survivor Channel. They're pretty much the same but with Geldo saying different things in the middle, and a little bit of different footage over the top.

If you're wondering, I shot about a third of the footage, and I edited the video and made it look pretty (in youthy kinda way).

If this video doesn't go viral and get 30,000 people to Soul in the City, I don't know what will.

At Bible Study lately I've been running a series of studies on The Sermon on the Mount. I've been really enjoying it.

I love the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus just kicks arse. It's like he says, "You think you're good? Your good ain't good enough. I'll show you what good is." There's a lifetime of work just in the Beatitudes. If you take Jesus seriously and the Sermon on the Mount doesn't change your life then you probably don't take Jesus seriously.

Anyway, this week was on loving your enemies, last week was on this passage:

"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. - Matt 5:33-37

Before I prepared the study on this passage I didn't expect it to be that big a deal for me. I figured, "I'm pretty good at commitment. I do what I say I'm going to do." But alas my pride was misplaced.

As it turned out I went with the line of living with integrity. Letting your words be truthful. There are no layers of truth. You can't make something more truthful by swearing on the Bible, and less truthful by swearing on your shoe. Truth is truth is truth, and Jesus calls us to be people of truth all the time.

If I were to just give a cursory assessment of my life I'd reckon I was a pretty truthful guy. I never tell big lies. When I say things it's almost always truthful, or at least a part of it. And there-in lies the problem. While it's rare that I tell outright lies, I do regularly not tell people the whole truth. I don't want people to think badly of me. And I don't want to let people down. So when people ask me questions and I think they won't find the answer satisfactory I will regularly tell a version of the truth which I think is most palatable.

For instance say someone asks me to write an article for the the church bulletin (as would happen in the past) and I say "Yes". So I go away, think about it a little bit, open a word document, write two sentences, don't like them, can't think of anything else, and then move on to something else.

A few days later they need the article. So they say "Tom do you have the article ready for me?"

The truth is "No" or "No, I haven't written it yet."

But I say "No, but it's getting there. I've been writing it and thinking about it, I just need to get it properly finished. When do you need it by?"

So it's technically true. But I've given them a false impression and then distracted them by being really proactive and asking for a deadline. Hopefully they go away thinking "Gosh, Tom is a hard worker, and it he's really reliable, he'll get it done when I need it." When really they should be thinking "Tom is such a slacker."

And when they asked me to write the silly thing I should have asked for the deadline then so that I could just slack off till it's due because that's what I would have done anyway. And when they ask for it, I can say "No, but you don't need it till tomorrow do you?"

Sometimes I'll tell some misleading version of the truth to make me feel ok about not lying and them feel ok because I'm a good guy, when I really should just be saying "Sorry, I'm crap."

Anyway, I've been working hard since I did the Bible Study to tell the whole truth. I haven't succeeded all the time but I've been better at it. And I'm certainly aware that I'm crapper than I think I am.

Sorry.

I've been away at In the Chute a conference with The Geneva Push these past few days. It was good.

If you want to know what happened at the conference Mikey Lynch has blogged the whole thing. I shall not bother with the recap, because it all seems to be there and by the look of the time stamps it was all blogged live.

I think the idea was that we all did a lot of networking with other godly, young men. I met one guy who I had sustained conversation with. But show me a room full of people standing around talking, and I'm not going to network with anyone, the introvert will win every time.

Last night after the night session I was faced with exactly that. Then I remembered that there is a cinema just down the road from the conference centre. So with glee (the emotion not the show) in my step, I went down to the cinema to watch a film. Sadly I was twenty minutes late. So I just went for a walk and listened to Damien Rice, it was special.

Hermitting aside, I did enjoy the conference. It was led by good, godly men, and I was encouraged and equipped to build the kingdom. That's a pretty happy outcome.

On Sunday Lesley and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are.

I was rather excited about this movie. Mainly because I get excited about Spike Jonze. And I figured Spike Jonze making a film about wild things for kids. That's pretty good.

The film had been delayed for about a year I think. The rumour was that the film was too scary for kids so Warner Bros. wanted the film to be reworked. I don't know if that's true, but a scary kids movie is a good idea.

The thing was though, this isn't really a kid's film. While the book maybe for kids, this film is very grown up. The themes are grown up, the concepts are pretty grown up, the photography is pretty grown up and the direction is pretty grown up. There are often periods of silence. The humour is scarce and when it's there it's pretty adult. This is a kid's film for adults. The film seems to re-examine childhood to portray it not as this great adventure, but as a time of loneliness, rage and fear. A time characterised by the impotence of being small and ignored. The adventure that Max goes through is not really the great, escapist adventure of Mary Poppins or The Wizard of Oz, but a realisation that even when Max escapes, his fantasy world is even more dysfunctional than his real world. Even the utopia where he is king is invaded by insecurity. In both the book and the film the solution is not to escape the world, but to face the relationships that are hard, but are actually underpinned by love.

In the film Max, the main character, runs away from his home, where he feels ignored and unloved by his family, and escapes to world full of wild creatures. These creatures are full of life, dangerous, fun. Max first meets these big, hairy creatures when Carol (played by James Gandolfini from The Sopranos) is smashing up their houses in a rage after he is left by his girlfriend KW. Max barrels in and sides with Carol only to find that he nearly gets himself eaten for taking the wrong side. Only by lying and saying he's a king does he save his life. He then sets out to transform the group to make an ideal community for himself. But things don't work the way Max would like. The wild things are too dysfunctional, too controlled by jealousies and fear to create the community the Max dreams of and things fall apart.

The film is rather depressing in its bleak representation of community. It's a community with little love and what love there is is compromised by fear. The whole time, even when Max is at his happiest, there is the underlying tension that's bred by Max's lies and the danger of wild animals whose natural dispositions seem not towards creation but destruction.

This isn't really a kids film.

But I did like the film very much. I loved having giant, furry animals to tell an adult's story. I loved the design, the photography. The wild things looked flawless, the music was superb. And I liked that this was a film of hope. And a film about engagement. A film that pushes us to see that problems don't get solved by retreating from the world but entering into relationships. We can't build forts to keep the out people we don't like, we build homes where we live in a real pile, with all the messiness and connection that brings with it.

I'm off on a 3 Day Conference now. It should be full of conservative Bible teaching and good, manly, Christian bonding. I expect only to have this retreat of reformed orthodoxy broken when I pop back to Hornsby this evening to run Bible study on the Sermon on the Mount. Good times.

I spent the last few days at work ushering for a man who just happens to be the exiled leader of a small, oppressed country and a leader of a major world religion. I cannot say more than that just in case you figure out who it was.

Anyway this guy, who we'll call Willy, gave three days of lectures. 2 days were about his religion, and one day was about the future of the world. I was rather excited about seeing Willy because he's regarded as one of the great world leaders for peace and love. Like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr and the like. I was hoping to learn more about Willy's religion and perhaps get inspired a little to spread a bit more peace and love around.

Sadly, Willy was kinda dull. He was a cute, old man, who had an adorable laugh. But for the first two days he seemed to just sit on stage and waffle in his broken English about whatever came to mind. It wasn't offensive at all, but it was like going to visit a nice old man for tea with 5,000 other people. I don't think he'd prepared any thing to say, he just said stuff.

For three quarters of the time he spoke in his native language, doing commentary about commentaries on his faith. It was excruciatingly boring. I would race to open the door for patrons whenever they looked like they were going to leave the arena just to give me something to do.

While Willy was talking I looked around the arena at his devotees and 10% of them in the afternoon sessions would have been asleep, and 50% looked totally bored.

Today Willy gave a public lecture which was a bit more interesting because he spoke in English the whole time and answered questions from the audience. When he answered questions he'd answer it from the view point of a believer and a non-believer.

For instance he was asked "Why do good things happen to bad people?"

His answer was "From a theistic viewpoint, God knows. From a Buddhist view point, karma. From a non-believer's view point, it's a mystery. Next question."

It felt a little odd for me that he could be so flexible with truth. As far as I can tell it's totally impossible for all three viewpoints to be right at the same time. I reckon it's a little insulting to all viewpoints to present them as just as equally valid as each other. It seems rather patronising, like "Ok, you believe that, it's good for you, so good for you. You just find your answers and I'll find mine and we'll all be happy." Which is just totally dismissive as if your view doesn't matter at all. As a Christian, I'd rather Willy said "Christianity is wrong and my view point is right and this is why." Because then at lease he's engaging with the faith, rather than just dismissing it to the realm of harmless self-fulfilment.

Anyway Willy's main point in the end seemed to be "If possible, help others, and at the very least, harm no-one." Which is very nice. And if all Willie's followers stuck to that the world would be a nicer, or at very least, a much more harmless place.

When he said that people went "Mmm" and then stood up and gave Willy a standing ovation (it was also the end), as if Willy had just given some new, amazing wisdom. I can't help but think, if that's the best these people have heard, they need to do more reading. It sounds rather weak to me. "Do good, or at very least, don't be bad" sounds like Google's "Don't be evil." Maybe I'm being a little spoiled, but Jesus said much more radically world changing things that that, Gandhi did too. I reckon most of my friends and family have too.

It also surprised me that you can get 5,000 people to come and hear one of the least dynamic world leaders around. I reckon Willy was probably more boring to listen to than Rudd (though a lot cuter than Rudd, no one wants to pinch Rudd's cheeks). When a Christian speaker comes they have to be pretty good at communicating to draw a crowd of 5,000 people. But Christian speakers have to draw a crowd with their communication abilities, Willy I think draws a crowd with his office and the fact that many believe Willy is the reincarnation of the Willy before him, who is the Willy before him, and so on going back many Willies into the past. Willy gets love not because of anything he's done, but by an identity given to him without his choosing, the Christian speaker on the other hand gets love purely on the basis of the quality of their work. Ironic, perhaps?

Anyway, all that said, I'm happy to have seen Willy. I can't see him being a bad influence on the world. He's certainly spreading peace and love around, Like the lBeatle but with less drugs and swooning girls. And if he keeps putting people to sleep, that'll be good for their health too. He also has a great laugh. I'd be happy to have him as an adoptive Grandpa any day. Along with Gandalf. Then I could have three great Grandpas. That'd be pretty awesome.

After work today I headed over to the Matt and Beck's to visit their just-left-school Bible Study group, and then watch the boxing. I think really I was there to watch the boxing and the Bible Study was a support act. I tend to watch all the boxing I watch with Matt. I did enjoy seeing some of the guys from the old church again.

So after Bible Study Matt, Tim, Sam, Henry and I headed down to the Pub to watch the fight between Danny Green and Roy Jones Jnr.

We found a spot standing in the the doorway of the Sports Bar. It was pretty full.

As the fight started I got excited about seeing a good 12 rounds of boxing. I turned to Sam about a minute into the fight and said "They won't do anything much in the first round, they'll just feel each other out." Because I'm grown up and knowledgeable about things like boxing.

And then a minute later Green had won on a TKO. I was rather stunned. It was a amazing. I was expecting Jones to win and Green to put up a good fight. But Green just went in and demolished him. It was rather surreal. I felt a bit sorry for Jones.

We had been planning on going in to Acer to watch the fight. But as Matt said, it's a good thing we didn't. As good as it would have been to see that, I reckon you would have wanted the under card to have been pretty good make up for the short 2 minutes and 2 seconds of the title fight.

But I'm pretty happy I watched that fight. I like boxing.

I preached at my church again tonight. It was my second time preaching at my church. I was a little nervous about it because I feel like the second one is always harder than the first. Unless your first was a shocker.

See the first you give a heap of attention to. And so you generally do an ok job. But then if you do ok with your first, then you can be tempted to slip for number two, rest on knowledge that you're too awesome to stuff up. Or you've put all your good stuff into number one that number two is just looking for scraps.

It's like this with a band's second album or a TV show's second season. And I feel like it could be like that with preaching. My second sermons at my old churches were pretty dismal.

And in order to avoid that happening tonight I wanted to be working on tonight's sermon for a while before hand. In some ways I was, I was thinking about it well in advance. But I only got down to serious work on it about two weeks ago. Still two weeks is a lot longer than I was able to give sermons in the previous seven years.

But this week, when I looked at my week I realised I wasn't going to get any time to work on the thing let alone write it. My days and my nights were full. I worked most days last week. Friday I was working, then I had Youth Group. Saturday I was hanging out with Hannah and then worked ushering right through to 11:30pm. As I caught the train home last night I wrote out the outline of my sermon.

Today, I had a church meeting, and then five and a half free hours, between when that finished and when I preached. So I came home and typed hard, stopping only for some essential wedges and Coke. I finished with a printed sermon 9 minutes before church started.

I walked up to church thinking over everything I left out of the sermon, and everything I hadn't articulated clearly enough. I went over all the problems with the structure of the sermon. It's a normal process for me before I preach. Each time I preach I tell myself all the reasons why this one sucks.

Then I start to stress that I'll preach badly and people will think I'm a crap preacher.

Then I pray and say "God, use my words, good or bad for your glory. Make this about you not me." And then I still think the sermon is crap, but I have to keep remembering that it's ok if I look crap too. God can do what he wants.

Before I preached tonight I got moved by my inadequacy to be preaching and the enormity of the task of sharing God's word. I worked out a prayer to pray before I preached as a result. I reckon it was a good sounding prayer too. Then when I got up to pray, my mic started giving feedback and I forgot my beautifully crafted prayer, and just started thinking about where I could stand on the stage where I wouldn't feedback. I tried to regain the prayer, but I lost the moment a little. I was disappointed God wouldn't hear how elegantly I could articulate my inadequacy to preach his word. But I reckon he probably knows that already.

In the end I was happy with the sermon. I got thirsty, as I often do. I remembered my water this time but it was too far away. I need a stool with my water on it, like this. But that would look a little wanky.

Speaking of wanky, when it was time to preach tonight, I had to carry the lectern myself from the side of the stage to the middle. There was no one to carry it for me. Standards are slipping. If we were Hillsong there would be someone with the lectern ministry, and rightly so. Someone did it for me on a camp last year, and I think there were 25% more salvations because I was free to just focus on bringing the word, not carrying lecterns around.

What's actually embarrassing is that when I walked up on stage I thought to myself "No one has moved the lectern for me." No joke. Someone should punch me.

Anyway, I was happy with the sermon. I censored myself on the jokes about nudity and porn stars, which I think was the right choice. Although I reckon they would have been funny. For instance, which do think is funnier a monkey dressed as an astronaut or a monkey dressed as a porn star? Need I say more?

All up, I'm hoping God is using the sermon to change us and see him more clearly. However inadequate I am to preach with all my vanity, self-love and self-doubt, God is bigger. And despite who I am, I know his word will not return to him empty.

And that is my post-preach debrief. Until I podcast it, and then I'll debrief again on the preaching blog. But I'll probably mostly just talk about the content there. And I haven't really talked about that at all. I don't want to mix the content too much. You know, I can't deprive the cross-readership.

There is a tree over our washing line in which Rainbow Lorikeets are currently loving to sit and eat the flowers.

On Sunday Jenny brought in my clothes from off the line. This was the collection of clothes I discovered when I got home.



Freakin' birds.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Gem, Matt and I went and saw New Moon and it turned out to be even more terrible than the first movie, which is quite an achievement. While I spent much of the first film laughing, I spent much of this one saying "Oh my goodness" in exasperation at the poisonous trash that was defecating all over our eyes. Matt sat next to me and regularly said words which I shan't repeat on the blog, but it summed up my feelings better than the ones I could express to the limits of my Christian piety.

The acting was terrible, Edward still looks like a sad, cancer patient, and the writing was atrocious ("I love you, I can't live without you, you're my everything, I'm terrible for you, you're my breath, get away from me, but I actually really need you"). The only good bit of script was when Edward quoted a chunk of Shakespeare. It had a rather jarring effect finding such quality amongst such ugliness, kinda like finding a Rembrandt in a crack house.

I know I'm sounding rather harsh. But I can't find much to redeem this film. If you're a lady Jacob Black's abs are impressive and they might redeem the film a little (as they did for Lesley). There was a squeal in the cinema from many females when he took off his shirt for the first time. He spends almost the entire film with nothing but a pair of shorts on. His clothes get destroyed when he turns into a werewolf, but somehow he has an endless supply of jeans cut-offs at his disposal for when he goes back to human form. One imagines he spends all his time when not a werewolf at Wal Mart buying jeans then going home and cutting off the legs.

But apart from Jacob's conspicuous abs (which did little for me except make me feel inferior) this film is pretty useless. I don't think any of the character's are happy for any moment of the film. They're all depressed and spend the whole time moping about lost love. It makes for infuriating watching.

And then there are the messages. Which I think are probably the most horrendous bit of the film. Because I can cope with bad films if they aren't spreading terrible lies. This film is emotional porn at its worst.

There's the total dependence of Bella and Jacob on each other. They live and breath each other, and yet when they're together they just natter at each other (Bella: Turn me into a vampire, Edward: No, I won't, I love you and wouldn't do that to you, Bella: Turn me into a vampire, Edward: No, I won't... and so it goes). They are so co-dependant that when Edward thinks Bella has died he tries to kill himself, only to be saved by Bella as she proves to him that she's still alive. And this attempted suicide, sparkling in the sun, is seen as Edward's great romantic devotion to Bella. If a guy kills himself because he can't have his girlfriend any more, it's not romantic, it's totally unhealthy. Why do people want to hold up Bella and Edward's relationship as the epitome of true love? Teenage girls don't need any more encouragement to get into unhealthy relationships.

Romeo and Juliet is held up through out the film as this archetypal love story for Bella and Edward, as if Romeo and Juliet are the pinnacle of romance. They're not. The play isn't a romance, it's tragedy! Romeo and Juliet die! It wasn't as if Shakespeare wrote it to say "Hey kid's, be like this. Woo!"

If Edward was a vampire with any courage, when he found out Bella was dead, he wouldn't kill himself, at risk of sounding terribly clichéd, he'd decide to keep living with the pain, working at healing and making something good of his life, because that's what Bella would want. Except she probably wouldn't because Bella is one of the most selfish leading ladies in cinema since Scarlet O'Hara. She spends the whole film using and manipulating Jacob because it makes her feel better about Edward being gone and then using and manipulating Edward to make her feel good and turn her into a vampire.

If you want to get all Christian about it, then Bella and Edward are in the high priesthood for the idolatry of relationship. Surely Stephanie Mayer, the Mormon, can see that elevating anything other than God to that level of obsession in your life is going to be fundamentally destructive to the soul. We may not agree on who God is, but we should probably be able to agree that romance isn't God.

But perhaps the whole divine marriage thing of the Mormons, and the elevation of humanity to divinity in the after life is part of all this. So I could see how you could allow Bella and Edward's romance to be seen as some kind of representation of true humanity's realisation. After all it was the romance of father God and mother God who made the world and birthed us. But I digress.

Aside from Bella and Edward's mess, there's a scene in the film where Bella meets the fiancée of the head werewolf. She's had half her face ripped off by her fiancée in a snap fit of rage. And there she is, the first time we meet her, serving muffins to her man's equally dangerous friends. And when he comes home, they give each other a kiss and continue as if nothing is wrong. And this should be a cause for concern in the film. But it's not. No one thinks to mention that perhaps this girl should get out of the relationship. Their not even married and the guy has torn half her face off, and they just go on as if his fit of rage just comes with the territory of being engaged to a werewolf.

The only time the issue is addressed is when Jacob says he can't hang out with Bella any more because he might do the same to her. But then he hangs around anyway because he just can't stay away from her and he's selfish. And she keeps wanting him close anyway because he's her best friend. So we overlook the potential for incredible violence being perpetrated against these women if it's for the sake of relationship.

It's all just so terribly sick. And I think I react so strongly to it because it's so popular and so obsessed over by so many women and girls. It's just sending so many bad messages. If this is what girls are obsessing over, what will they take with them into their future relationships?

All that said though, I'm not going to go on a crusade to rid the world of Twilight. And if it gives us an opportunity to assess how healthy relationship should be done, then I'll take it. So maybe we should just look for those openings, to somehow point out that finding your Jacob or your Edward isn't actually going to be all it's cracked up to be and hopefully in turn, we can help people to see who might be better at protecting and selflessly loving these women who want good love so much.

Overheard in the Westfield Food Court on Saturday:

"...the Pope is the top guy, he runs the Catholic Church so he's obviously he's going to be Catholic."

I am currently toying with the idea of tweeting.

I do generally find Twitter dull. Or if someone has something good say, infuriatingly short.

I think I shall shoot for exceedingly dull. I wanna make it an art form.

I found out the other day that I am now officially a member of my new Baptist church. Hurrah! Now I can vote in the Christocracy (like a democracy, except Jesus votes through the real Christians and Satan votes through the fake ones and you see who wins).

Personally, I'm very excited to be a member. I had to be interviewed and everything. Although I never had to be dunked. I only got sprinkled as a child by the man in a dress, and they let me be a member anyway. These Baptists are soft, for which I am thankful. I think they might read out my name at the Church AGM on Sunday week. I'm sure I'll cry because it'll be very moving. I hope we all hold hands and sing "Welcome to the Family".

I'm wondering if I am still a member of the Anglican church? I think I might be. I think getting confirmed makes me an Anglican for life.

I'm hoping to maintain my Anglicanism. I want to be able to vote as an Anglican too. Not that voting means anything when you're an Anglican because the Anglican Church is a Autocracy. The Senior Minister just does whatever he wants but it's recommended he has Jesus as his senior advisor. Or Calvin if he's in Sydney. Or Elton John, if he/she is in the USA.

Anyway, I'm happy to now be officially a Baptist and an Anglican. I think I shall call myself a Banglican. I shall dance like a Baptist but drink like an Anglican, and everyone will just think I'm your typical Aussie bloke.

Banglicans, represent!

Over the past few days I've decided to make more use of my Google Reader. I have started to follow people and the blog posts they share, and I've started sharing blog posts that I like.

I think I like it because I read peoples blogs and think "Gosh, I wish I blogged that." Now with Google Reader I kinda can. Google tells me I have 5 people following my shared, but I wouldn't be surprised if I actually have none.

I'm slowly putting in you folk from Blog Feed so I can share your posts if I like them with all five of my avid followers.

Feel free to follow me if you want. I'm here or you can just search for thomaswench. That'll work too.

Now wasn't that exciting?

I spent this weekend in Tumbarumba with Soul in the Bush.

Soul in the Bush (I think technically it's meant to be SoulintheBush, but that's not that easy to read) is a ministry of Soul Survivor NSW/ACT where they send teams out to various country towns around NSW to serve the church there in whatever way the church wants.

So I was invited to join Beth, Tanya and James on a trip out to Tumbarumba to serve the church there. On Friday night we met 4 of the members of the Anglican church who were hosting us. They were most friendly and very happy to have us there.

On Saturday morning I was off to do some gardening pulling out weeds for an old lady with MS, then it was lunch with one of the families from Church. In the afternoon we helped run a kids afternoon, which was followed by a barbie for dinner and a youth night that night.

Sunday we ran half the church service, doing music, a testimony and giving the sermon. Then we drove home.

When I left home I had $14 in my bank account and $3 in my wallet so I wasn't entirely sure how it was all going work. When I got home I'd gotten to eat three meals a day, had all my accommodation paid for, and the petrol to get me there, and I only ended up scabbing one Coke off a team member during the whole trip. God's provision was generous and so were his people.

I did enjoy spending a few days with Beth, Tanya and James. We all stayed in a cabin together in the caravan park, so I feel like I got to have plenty of fun together. I enjoyed hanging out in the boys end of the cabin with James (the girls took the bedroom and because we're good Christians us boys didn't go in once). He was quite happy partake in poo jokes so I knew I had a good mission companion.

I also loved seeing the country folk and meeting a bunch of people who love God and love serving him in their community. They were so thankful to us for being there, I felt so blessed to be able to be a blessing.

When we ran the youth night we had some of the local hooligans turn up. They didn't feel like playing my wide game, they just wanted to look tough and throw water bombs. Then the local drug dealer turned up and they just wanted to impress him. Happily though, the hooligans and the drug dealer, and all the other youth, heard that God lavishes his love on them and thinks their valuable, so it was certainly worth having them along.

I prayed for a few guys who may never have been prayed for out loud before. They said I could do it and then giggled when I did but I still felt privileged to get to do it.

Running half the church service yesterday for Tumba Anglican meant that it became one of the longest church services in the world outside of Africa. We had a children's story, a testimony, communion, new music, old music, announcements and a sermon. It took us and hour and fifty minutes to get through the whole service. I did the sermon on Colossians 1:15-23, it was a rehash of an old one. While I love preaching new stuff, I also enjoy doing old stuff because you can pick your best sermons and do them better. And it takes about an hour or two to prepare rather than 15-20 hours. Still if I had to pick between old ones rehashed or new ones, I'd pick new ones.

Finally I did quite enjoy the road tripping. 'Cause road tripping is almost always fun, and it was fun this time.

I had a good weekend.

Today at my painting work I got given white painter pants. I'm very excited. I think I've finally made it.

I got this email from a job interview I went to a week ago to be a photographic assistant for Santa photos:

Hi Tom

Thanks for your email. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. As you saw we had a lot of applicants at this stage we have given the positions to some of the more experienced people. We enjoyed meeting you – good luck with your music.

Regards

I'm really glad they took the time to get to know me. I might write back and tell them the new album is coming along great.

There's a cricket in our dining room. It makes the whole room sound an awkward silence.

Warning: long and probably dull account of consumer woe ahead

I am a member of Audible.com. It's an audiobook website. They charge me $16-$20 a month (depending on the exchange rate) to download one audiobook a month.

Unfortunately I slowed down in my audiobook listening. It was because I bought a 22-hour history of the American Civil War, and I struggled to get through it, so I didn't buy new books till I finished that one. But I never finished it, and the credits just stacked up.

Anyway, being on the poorer side this year, I thought, I should cancel my membership, but every time I went to cancel my membership they'd say "If you cancel you'll lose all your credits." And I thought, "I paid for them, I don't want to lose them."

So I thought up a cunning plan. My debit card expired last month. So I decided to keep money out of my account around billing time last month, and then the credit card would expire, and I wouldn't have to keep buying credits, I wouldn't have to cancel my membership, and I could use my remaining credits to buy books, and then cancel.

Well the plan worked until money went into my account about a week after the billing day, and bam, they took it. "Fair enough" I thought, "I am still a member." But my card expired so they weren't going be doing that again.

Then I checked my bank account today, and they still took money out, with my expired card! I don't know how that's possible!

So I just went and bought 6 audiobooks with my credits, and they'll just sit there till I download them. Then I went to cancel my membership.

I clicked the tiny, hidden link "Cancel my membership". They asked why, I said I was too poor. Then on the next screen they said "We're sorry to see you go, please accept $20 credit from us to thank you for being a member." So I took it. I thought it was just a parting gift, and when I came back, I could use it if I wanted it. But no, turns out, when you click that you're opting out of cancelling your membership. Sneaky buggers. So I was still a member.

I went back to try and cancel my membership again, quite happy to sacrifice my $20 credit, and there was nothing to click anymore, it had changed to an international phone number to call to cancel my membership. Sneaky, sneaky buggers.

So now I have $20 credit, an expired debit card, 6 books waiting to be downloaded and a continuing membership to Audible.com.

I will sort things out one day, but first I should go get dressed.

I have to fill out a form for a good conservative, Christian organisation and one of the questions is "List your 5 most influential books, outside the Bible?"

I thought that was a good question, so I thought I'd answer it here:

1. Evangelical Truth - John Stott



I never knew what an evangelical was before I read this book. It was on my pre-reading list for Youthworks. It's the only non-compulsory pre-reading I've ever done I think.

Anyway I read this book about evangelicals and Stott described a Christian that was me. I loved the Jesus and fervently believed the Bible. After growing up in a rather liberal church, I had never know my brand of Christianity had a name, or that it was popular. But then I read this book and realised I was an evangelical. I suspect the feeling was somewhat similar to the feeling mutants get when they realise they're not alone and they get accepted into Professor X's academy. Someone had defined me and it felt good.

Ever since reading that book I've been excited about loving and believing the Bible, and excited that there are plenty of people out there who feel the same as me. And I think I've loved the Bible more, and teaching the Bible more, because I realised it's not so strange to love the Bible.

2. Making Movies - Sidney Lumet



This was given to me for Christmas one year by my sister. I think I was 14. Up until that point my obsession with film and television production was leading me to want to be an actor. But then I read this book and I realised that actors had to be in touch with their feelings, and that sounded terrible.

But directing on the other hand meant that you got to play with cameras, lights, lens, set design, story, acting, editing, everything really. The entire film production process was open to you. Directing was where it was at.

And the life that Lumet described, seemed like the best life ever. I love film making, and this whole book was about a whole life of film making. I wanted that.

And so I decided to be a film director on the strength of this book.

I subsequently discovered what a famous and fantastic director Sidney Lumet is. I think that could be my favourite non-fiction book ever.

3. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres



This is my favourite book ever.

I read this after Jo lent it to me. I don't know what I was expecting. Jo just said it was good.

It was amazing. And the film is has nothing on the book.

I do love love stories. But the love stories I love the most are the ones about the hardness of love, and the unfulfilled longings and messiness of love. And this book is all that.

De Berniares' style of mixing real life with mild fantasy, his wonderful use of words, his hyper-real characters, it all just makes me so happy.

Reading this book felt like magic the whole time I read it. It gave me that feeling in my gut I get when I hear an amazing guitar solo, or see a spectacular scene in a film. I don't quite now how to describe it, but it's like the happiness is too intense for just the usual outlets, it has to employ organs usually reserved for other functions to express how profound the joy is. It's like I feel heavier and lighter as the same time. It's pretty darn special.

I know I've quoted this before, but just the first line of this book fills me with joy:

"He took the old man over to the window, threw open its shutters, and an explosion of midday heat and light instantaneously threw the room into an effulgent dazzle, as though some importunate and unduly luminous angel had mistakenly picked that place for an epiphany."

I couldn't really quantify the influence this book has had on my life. But I know it's made me love words more and appreciate love more. The book has stayed with me, its story has become part of my story and every fiction book I read gets compared to this book.

4. The Trivialization of God - Donald McCullogh



I picked up this book for $5 at Koorong. I think I was 18. I got it because Mum had been lent it by one of her friends and I liked the front cover.

The whole book is about how big God is. God is not a god you can fit into your own schemes and agendas. He doesn't exist to support your cause. God is his own person, he rules the world, and he's terrifying in his magnificence and power.

This book taught me how scary and terrible God is. It made me appreciate what it means that a person would die to look into the face of God. God is not my buddy. He's a consuming fire.

I think my respect and awe of God grew ten-fold as a result of this book. And I better understood the grace shown to us in Jesus so that we can approach this magnificent and awesome God without being destroyed, this God whose amazing power is bent on love.

5. Don't Just Stand There, Pray Something - Ronald Dunn



I think I was in year 10 or 11 when I read this. It was also Jo's. I don't actually remember much about this book but it had two lasting effects on me. It made me pray more and it inspired me to have regular quiet times.

The book told me to have a daily quiet time and when I did it to systematically work my way through books of the Bible. So I did. Ever since reading that book I've been having daily (or almost daily) quiet times. And because of reading this book and working my way through books of the Bible I read the whole Bible. I reckon I've read the whole Bible a number of times now, and this book inspired me to do it. That's pretty influential I'd say.


And they are my five. 3 out of 5 of these books I got from my sister. That's pretty cool. Thanks Jo. You changed my life.

What are your five? Or if the Bible is not a most influential book in your life, what are your six?

I watched the first four episodes of Skins last night. I'd been thinking about watching the show for over a year, since some of the crew in my small group told me to watch it. They loved it.

I wasn't feeling overly excited about the show, I thought it might just be a depressing show about sex, drugs and teenagers, designed to shock and titillate rather than say anything worthwhile. I was prepared to not watch much.

But the show isn't half-bad. It's kinda like a naughties, TV series of Trainspotting but less depressing. Each episode focuses on one of the characters in the group. It's teenagers dealing with eating disorders, falling in love, dysfunctional families, making dumb decisions. Pretty typical teenage stuff, if not a bit heightened in frequency and density for television.

And while there is a lot of talk in the show about sex and drugs, they seem to be just aspects of the character's lives, rather than the focus of the stories, or just devices to get people to watch. The show doesn't feel exploitative or deliberately provocative at all.

What's really cool is that the show's writers have an average age of 21. So it's written by people who know what it's like to live the reality of these characters. The age of the writers does explain some of the humour and surreal characters that pop up through out the show. Every now and again it's gets a little HSC Drama. But it's never too much to be anything more than a mild distraction.

So I'm a fan. I'm not sure how quickly I'll work my way through the show but I reckon I'll at least get through the first season.

This shows why you should always pick up your Hornsby and Upper North Shore Advocate off your driveway quickly. After 5 weeks it becomes somewhat unreadable.

The other thing that happened at work was that I noticed that all the cleaners were wearing pants, nice shirts and waistcoats (or should they be called wastecoats, heh heh). I mentioned this to one of the other ushers and he agreed that the cleaners looked good. Better than us in fact. I want to wear a waistcoat.

When one of the cleaners walked past we told him he looked good in his fancy clothes.

I said "You're looking better than us, we should swap jobs."

As soon as I'd said it I felt bad because I realised that I was implying that because we were ushers we should look better than the cleaners. I don't really think there should be class distinctions between jobs, especially in the same work place.

So I tried to make up for my rudeness by telling the guy that he looked good. I hope he wasn't too offended.

I hope we ushers get waistcoats.

I worked yesterday ushering at a conference. It was a conference for sales people of a big brand, pyramid scheme. It wasn't all that interesting. Most of the talk was about how if you do the right thing in the company you can retire within a few years.

There was one person telling people how to be good at sales. He said most people were bad because they were worried about what other people thought of them. Like if I push my crappy product on you, you'll probably think I'm a tool. He didn't put it quite like that, but that was the implication. In fact the speakers often mentioned the fact that people tend to dislike the sales people of this brand. It was a source of pride that people dislike them. Kinda like when Christians get together and say "The world will hate us, but we have the truth. Rah rah rah!"

Anyway, the speaker was saying, to be a good sales person you have to not worry about what people think of you. People don't think about you as much as you think they do. He said "I want you to ask yourself, how many times today have you thought about your spouse? Your children? Your best friend? Your friends? Your neighbours? Your acquaintances? Not once. You haven't thought about them at all, because you're too busy thinking about yourself. And in fact they haven't thought about you because they're too busy thinking about themselves. People are essentially selfish. It's alright that's just how we are."

His application for this enlightening piece of information was that you should be as brash as you want in selling stuff, because no-body is thinking about you, so don't worry about what people think of you.

It was rather inspiring stuff.