LIFE'S TOUGHTEST QUESTIONS

How is your life going at the moment??

Are things great, good, mediocre, bad or terrible???

What sort of questions and issues are you struggling with right now??

Life can throw us lots of tricky questions, things that puzzle and perplex us and tie us up in knots. How do we find answers to these questions? Can we find answers to these questions?

This year, at Spring Celebration, our theme for the Saturday night Youth Event will be Life's Toughest Questions. Here, along with the opportunity for awesome worship with a great band and fun times with your friends as we play some games, you will also have the opportunity to ask a panel some the toughest questions you have thought of. There will be a box at Spring Celebration to drop questions into, there may even be opportunity to ask questions of the panel that night, but to be sure that you get a question in to be answered, respond to this post in the comments section. If we get a lot of questions, we may not be able to answer them all, but we will attempt to do our best. Questions can be about faith, relationships. the Bible, God, life circumstances, what ever you can think of. We may not have the answers yet, we may not have the answers later, but we will do our best to answer your questions.

So, what is the toughest question in your life at the moment??

It would be great to hear from you.

LIFE'S TOUGHTEST QUESTIONS (A)

Sooooo,

Firstly, apologies for not blogging for such a long time. Things have been pretty busy for quite a while now, and to be honest, blogging hasnt really been a priority for me for a little bit. But things should change soon. Stay tuned for new posts soon.

Also, stay tuned for a post concerning lifes toughest questions and the Spring Clebration Youth Event.

EASTER CAMP 2009

This years Easter Camp is called Reconstruct. During the camp we will explore Jesus' challenge to destroy the temple and his promise of raising it up three days later.

Reconstruct kicks off at 6 P.M. Good Friday night and will be full of action, fun and revelation until 1 P.M. Easter Monday when we head home.

Camp will cost $140.00 if you get your registration form and $50.00 deposit in before the 27/03/2009 and $160.00 if you enter your form after the 27/03/2009. In addition to this we have been able to organise a sliding discount of 20% increments for families sending more than one child (i.e. 2o% for child number 2, 40% for child number 3, 60% for child number 4, etc).

Forms are out this week, see your corps officer (minister) for one, fill it out, get your corps officer to sign it, and get the form and your deposit back to me at DHQ (P.O. Box 342 Ballarat VIC 3353) ASAP!!!

Hope to see you there!!!

Joel

WHO ARE WE? WHOSE ARE WE??

Have you seen the movie Gladiator, it surely has to rate as one of the epic movies of the century so far. After Maximus, played by Russel Crowe, leads his band of gladiators to victory in a huge battle at the colosseum before the emperor, he is asked by the emperor what his name is. At first he replies flatly; “I am gladiator.” After being pressed for a more accurate description of who he his, Maximus replies: “I am Maximus Decimus Meridus, commander of the armies of the north, general of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife and I will have my vengeance in this life or the next”

Maximus describes himself first by what he did, what his job was, then by who he served then by what he had lost and finally by what he was going to do.

I wonder, how would you define yourself?

Who do you tell people you are?

What in your life defines who you are?

It seems today that many people are facing a crisis of identity. It seems that sometimes we don’t exactly know who we are. You hear of people needing to take time off to find themselves, as if they have misplaced their identity somewhere.

What would happen to you if what you said defined who you are as a person changed or was taken away?

Would you still know who you are?

Have you seen the movie wanted? In Wanted, we are introduced to Wesley. Now, Wesley is a nice enough sort of bloke, he is working as an accounts manager at a large company, and to be honest, he could be a lot happier.

Wesley’s life is far from what he imagined it would be. His girlfriend is cheating on him with his best mate, his boss is a tyrant, he suffers from debilitating panic attacks that require constant medication to control and truth be told, there is actually very little anywhere that Wesley really cares about at all.

But one night everything changes.

While picking up a few things from the corner shop, Wesley meets Fox, a member of the Fraternity, a group of elite assassins, working undercover in the world around him. Fox introduces Wesley to Frost, the soft spoken, wise leader of the fraternity, who reveals to Wesley that his father, the man who abandoned he and his mother while he was still a baby, was also a member of the Fraternity.

That is, until he was killed just days previous to their encounter by a rogue assasin. Wesley is recruited into the Fraternity and begins his training in order to find the killer of his father.

Part of the training Wesley under goes, requires him to understand why he is where he is, and why he is doing what he is doing.

It is during one of his sessions of self-discovery that Wesley reaches his breaking point and cries out: “I don’t know who I am!!!”

It is here that Frost takes Wesley back to his room, and tells him that the room, was in fact, his father’s room. Frost tells Wesley: “Everything in this room, books, weapons, clothes, belonged to him, now they belong to you. Find a connection in this room Wesley. It may be the only way of finding out who you are.”

Wesley felt lost, he didn’t really know who or what he was. Wesley needed to discover who he was. And in order to know the who and what of his existence, it was important for him to find a connection to who his father was.

In the Bible we find another man, Paul, a man who had once hunted down and persecuted Christians until experiencing a radically life changing meeting with Jesus Christ Himself, writes and tells us: “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (1 Corinthians 8:5-6 New International Version)

Today, we can identify ourselves by so many different titles and labels. Who we are can get so wrapped up in what we wear, how we look or what we do, that when this is taken away from us we can sometimes lose our own sense of identity, we lose who we feel we are.

In this passage of the Bible Paul talks about how there are different gods and lords in heaven and on earth. I want to suggest that these gods and lords might be the things that we use to define who we are, the things that we have decided to let define the purpose of our lives.

The problem is, that false gods and false lords, idols, the identities we create for ourselves, like the identity Maximus the one time general, and now gladiator searching for vengeance, created, can never be relied upon to help us or define us when we need to truly know who we are.

When these false gods and lords, these temporary things that we use to determine our identity and purpose cease to do that, we are left searching for who we are, searching for the real God and the real Lord in whom our real identity and our real purpose for living is found.

In the bible Paul tells us that God is our Father, that everything has come from Him and that He is the purpose of our lives, and that Jesus Christ is our Lord, who makes all things possible, and is the reason we have life.

Just like Wesley needed to find a connection to his father in order to discover who he was, we need to find a connection to God the father to discover who we are. When we find that connection to God the Father we discover who it was that created us and whose image we were created in.

Upon discovering our Creator and that we have been created in His image, we are able to discover the purpose of our creation. If we bear the image of God as a result of our creation, then it stands to reason that our purpose can be found in the image of He who has created us.

We are told in the Bible that God is love. So, if God, our creator, loves us unconditionally, then surely part of our purpose is to love God unconditionally, and also to love others in the same unconditional way that God loves them.

If God, whose very image we are created in, cares passionately about the poor and the marginalised and the oppressed, then surely part of our purpose is to care passionately about those who are poor and marginalised and oppressed. If God wants to see the whole world reconciled not only to Himself, but to each other also, then surely part of our purpose is to make possible reconciliation between not only us and God, but between each other.

In fact, God has already made the reconciliation process between Him and us and others easier.

Through Jesus’ death and resurrection God began the process of reconciling the world to Him and to each other. It is through Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected that we find life, a life in abundance. If God gives us our source and purpose, then it is Jesus who makes it possible for us to live and fulfil our purpose abundantly.

Jesus’ teaching is so counter intuitive to all that the world tells us is logical. Who would ever believe that the best way to find out who we are is to abandon our search for self completely and search for God instead?

And the thing is, that no search for God ever goes unfulfilled. God has promised us that when we search for Him with all of our heart we will be able to find Him. Irrespective of who we are, what we are doing or the circumstances that we find our selves in, God has promised to reveal Himself to us when we look for Him with all of our effort.

When we stop trying to define who and what we are by what we own or do or look like and begin to define ourselves by whose we are and what His purpose is, then we can truly find ourselves and the meaning of our lives.

VENGANCE OR JUSTICE???

Ok, so I will admit that this isn't a very Christmassy sort of blog, but it is something that I have been thinking about for a while.

I was watching the news a month or so ago, and while I now can no longer remember the details about the article, I still clearly remember questioning whether or not the person being interviewed was seeking vengeance or justice.

As I thought about that I wondered how many times in my own life had I confused the short term feeling of me getting satisfaction from revenge with a desire to see justice prevail. I have heard other talk about how they want to see justice in a situation and questioned whether this was truly the case, or whether they were just looking for an opportunity to extract their pound of flesh from the person who they feel has wronged them

So, I guess my first question is what is the difference between justice and vengeance?

Justice can be defined as: The ideal of fairness, esp. with regard to the punishment of wrongdoing or punishment of a person who has wronged someone.*

Revenge is similar, it can be defined as: Any form of personal retaliatory action against an individual, institution, or group for some perceived harm or injustice. *

So you can see how it is easy to get confused between justice and revenge. When we indulge in revenge, we see ourselves as punishing the person who has offended us by causing some kind of perceived harm or injustice, and equalising the score, thus making things fair again.

But one question I have is; when we seek revenge, do we aim only to equalise things again, thus making it 'fair' or do we seek to 'one up' the person who we perceived to have wronged us, thus making our punishment 'un-fair'??!!!

So what do we do, how do we see justice served to all parties involved in a situation, and not seek revenge for perceived insults, harms or damages.

I think the best way to see justice served and not just revenge dealt is to ensure that an impartial third party first determines whether an injustice has in fact occurred and them to apportion the correct punishment that fits the severity of the affore mentioned injustice.

Isaiah 1:17 tells us: "Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." It seems to me that the instructions that follow the command describe what justice should look like. When we are just we stand up for those who are being walked over, who are at a disadvantage and are suffering.

The best judge of a perceived injustice is often someone else. One of the key words in this definition is 'perceived'. What we perceive to be a major injustice, may actually be rather minor when we look at the cold hard facts and remove all of the emotion around the issue. When we take something personally (and lets be honest, there are some things that are almost impossible not to take personally) we naturally want to dispense our own justice or revenge to assuage our hurt or anger at the perceived offense. This then can lead to the person we exact our revenge upon, on the basis of dispensing justice, to feel a perceived injustice and retaliate, seeking vengeance and/or justice on their own behalf. And so the cycle continues and even escalates. When we allow a third party to determine the damage done and the required compensation/punishment required to restore fairness, the personal nature of the situation is removed and hopefully all parties are treated with dignity and respect and the balance of fairness is achieved. In Zechariah 7:9 we are told; "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another." This helps us to remember to ensure that the punishment fits the offense and the we do not oppress the unjust oppressor unfairly and thus become oppressive and unjust ourselves.

Leviticus 19:18 tells us: "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." So the next time you feel as though you have been wronged or offended, ask someone impartial if what has happened to you is fair, and instead of seeking revenge to even the score, allow someone else, maybe even God, to sort it out.


Actually, when I think about it, we have all been unjustly treated...




Except in this instance this injustice has worked in our favour, unjustly requiring an innocent party to take punishment that they did not deserve.

Jesus died for us, He took the punishment that was rightfully ours. God has given us His grace as unjust as it is (not that I am complaining mind you). We don't deserve it, that's why its called grace, and that's why it's amazing!!


*Wiktionary

How God is better than Santa

The countdown is on, less than a month to go until Christmas. Christmas Carols are being sung, trees and decorations are going up, people are shopping for presents and that large jolly man in a red suit is visiting shopping centres and meeting children in the lead up to the big night when he will come around to deliver toys to all of the good boys and girls. As the song goes, “He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” The song also tells us that Santa is“Making a list and checking it twice, he’s going to find out who’s naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town.”

I wonder; how often do we confuse God with Santa Claus??

I mean, there are some aspects of God that sort of overlap with our understanding of Santa. For instance, we know that God knows our every move. In Psalm 139 David tells us of God: O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. While Santa may know when we are sleeping or awake, God knows far, far more about us, probably even more than we think we know about ourselves.

And while Santa may know when our behaviour has been good or bad, the psalm tells us that God even knows our thoughts, both the good ones, and the bad ones.

And like Santa God has a list. The bible tells us that the Book of Life contains the names of all of those who believe in and follow Jesus. Revelation tells us of those who choose to follow Jesus: “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.” God knows us, he knows all about us, he even records our names in the book of life when we chose to follow Jesus, but unlike Santa, God keeps no record of our wrongs. Unlike Santa’s workshop at the North Pole, there is no naughty list in heaven. When writing 1 Corinthians Paul spoke of the unconditional nature of love, and how true love keeps no record of wrongs. In Isaiah God tells us of Himself; "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”

And so while Santa may be able to tell us what we have done wrong and why we are on the naughty list, God neither keeps a naughty list nor does he remember what we might have done to qualify us for the naughty list.

On December 24th each year billions of children go to bed and lie awake for hours in anticipation of the arrival of the large jolly man in the red suit, Santa, who brings with him a red sack transported by 9 reindeer, one of which has an extraordinarily shiny nose. This red sack hopefully contains the toys that were on a list that was sent to Santa many weeks, even months before. The receipt of these presents is conditional on the quality and quantity of good things you have done over the past 12 months outweighing the quantity and lack of quality of the bad things you have done in the same 12 months. Lucky for us God is far more gracious.

The gifts we receive from God have very little to do with the quality or quantity of our good or bad deeds. In fact, irrespective of whether we even choose to acknowledge God’s existence he gives us gifts. Each and everyone of us have received the gift of life, we have the sun, and moon and the stars to look at, we receive the gift of the warmth of the sun and the refreshing of the rain, even if that one seems to be doled out a little unevenly at times. And before any of us were born God delivered His ultimate gift to a couple of young teenagers in a stable in a backwater of the Roman Empire and trusted them to nurture and care for it until it was ready to be shared with the entire world. Indeed, each Christmas we remember the arrival of the gift that is Jesus, the baby who grew into the man who would die in order for us to be restored into a right relationship with God. We received this gift long before we were even capable of distinguishing right from wrong, with God’s full knowledge that some of us will choose wrong. When we choose to follow Jesus we receive the gift of eternal life, a life spent in relationship with God. This gift surpasses anything that might be stuffed into a stocking hung by any chimney in the world with care.

So yes, God and Santa are similar. Not everyone believes in them, they both have lists, they both give presents and they both know what we are up to, but God surpasses Santa in every way. So this year, as you put up you tree, as you visit the large jolly man in the red suit and as you search for the perfect gifts to give your loved ones, may you remember that God loves you, that He has some amazing gifts to give you and that His love is not conditional on your goodness, but on His.

One Night Stands With Jesus

I tend to talk a lot of rubbish at times> Those who know me well would understand that at times I put my brain into neutral and just let whatever come into my head flow out my mouth.

I was almost having one of those moments yesterday. Although I was thinking about what I was saying, I was just going with the flow of the conversation when I may possibly have coined a new phrase. I was talking with a friend about evangelism and the different ways that people communicate the gospel to others. I was saying how important it is that we help people to be discipled and become disciples after they have made the initial choice to follow Jesus as their saviour.

As we talked about the pro's and con's of various evangelistic strategies, we started talking about how Christianity is meant to be a relationship with God and how the first commitment for some people in their relationship with God is about as far as things go. It was here I likened it to a one night stand.

I'm sure you know what a one night stand is, even if you have never had one, you may know someone who has or have at least seen it on T.V. One night stands are brief (usually lasting only one night - hence the name), are emotional but at the same time not exactly intimate, and rarely ever lead to a significant relationship. Like real life one night stands, after a one night stand with Jesus, there is the possibility that you may catch something that will change your life, but maybe you can see someone about that.

Our lives shouldn't just be a series of one night stands with Jesus, where we hook up with him at some big event when our emotions are running high, but then forget all about Him the next day. I think God wants to be closer to us than that. I think God desires to know us intimately ( Check out Psalm 139) and to spend quality time with us, even when we aren't in an emotionally hyped state, perhaps especially when we aren't in an emotionally hyped state. Have a look at Genesis 3, we can see here that God, is walking in the Garden of Eden, searching for Adam and Eve, wanting to spend time with them. God desires to be in relationship with us, not an emotional, yet un-intimate (possibly another new word) relationship, but the kind of relationship that grows closer and more intimate as you travel through life together, through the good times and the bad times.

What sort of relationship do you have with Jesus, is it emotional, physical, intimate, consistent or a combination of all of the above?

Bravely Going Where God Has Clearly Gone Before

One of the Ballarat radio stations have segments throughout the day where they play short segments of stand up comedians. Some of these are really quite funny, some are just funny and some are not. I remember hearing one comedian remark that they always found it interesting when they watched the original Star Trek that despite claiming to "Boldly go where no man has gone before" everywhere Kirk, Spock and the rest of them went, there always appeared to be men (and women) there already.

I remembered this point the other night as I was driving home listening to a podcast from one of my favourite authors and speakers, Erwin McManus at Mosaic. It was kind of a side point to his message, but Erwin was talking about how he thought it a bit odd for people to say that they are taking God to a place, because God is already in that place and is moving there already.

This got me thinking a bit.

It never ceases to amaze me how God has moved in my life. On the rarest occasion I am very aware of God directing me specifically in certain ways, ways that require me to make specific conscious decisions and changes. At other times, I am aware of God being active and involved in my life, but my response needs to be one of continued obedience, keeping on doing what I know God wants and being patient and allowing God to work the rest of it out. And then there are times where I look back and am amazed at how incredibly involved God has been in my life, even at times where I wasn't overly aware of it.

If in my own life God has been active without me being aware of it, how much more is he active in the world without many, many more being aware of it??!!

Christian theology talks about preceding or preveninent grace, the grace that God has prepared far in advance that allows us to enter into relationship with Him. Thomas Oden of Drew University defines prevenient grace as, "...the grace that begins to enable one to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the will the restored capacity to respond to grace, the person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification. (thanks to wikipedia)" So even before we choose to accept, believe or even acknowledge Gods existence, God is going before us and preparing the way for us to enter into a relationship with Him.
Throughout the book of Acts, we see many instances where God had prepared the ground for the apostles to reveal Him to others. I think of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, Peter with Cornelius and his household, the conversion of Saul who changed his name to Paul and how this Paul revealed to the Athenians the true God through a statue in their city dedicated to an unknown God.

I am without a doubt that God has prepared the way for us to share with others our faith and allow God to reveal Himself to them. And if God has gone before us, and is preparing the way, who are we to sit back and not go??

What could possibly stop us?

INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS

For those of you who have been following this blog over the last week or so, you would be aware that my last post, initially about bullying and the responsibility we have to care for others, not oppress them, sparked quite an interesting debate.

This debate, centred much around the divinity/deity of Jesus; as in, is Jesus God or was he just a human servant of God. I love a good discussion as much as the next bloke, so was happy to enter into the debate with this person for a while. As the debate went on though, it became apparent to me that neither of us were likely to change our minds, and so discussing it further would really prove to be of little value on this blog. I have since received an email from the blogger to which I will respond once I have some time.

This discussion got me thinking though. I thought of all of the places that I have had the opportunity to speak to people about matters of faith and God and religion. One I distinctly remember was while on holidays on the Gold Coast a couple of years ago. I was staying at a backpackers near the beach, and on my last night there a group of people that I had met while I was there had decided to go out to a night club and invited me. being a sociable sort of person and always up for a night out, I tagged along. At some stage during the night I found myself in a deep conversation about grace and God's forgiveness in the middle of the night club with one of the bloke I had met at the backpackers, it was an awesome privilege to be a part of that conversation!!

I have had long conversations with people in Pubs about what it means to talk with God and to hear His voice, and many other places you would not normally associate with talking about God. Although I have never had the conversation that nearly every pastor/minister/preacher seems to have had on a plane where they talk matters of God and faith, I hope that the conversations I have had with people have planted seeds in peoples lives that one day will bear fruit.

BULLYING

It may surprise some of you to know that I was never cool or popular in high school (then again, it may be no shock at all). In fact, in stark contrast to my current size and shape, in high school I was short, scrawny, and a bit awkward looking.

Looking back, it occurs to me that high school is not always the greatest place if you are a little different from the 'normal' of the school you attend. Clearly, I was not 'normal' in high school and as a result was the target of some quite significant bullying at times. As a result of this bullying I have developed a real compassion for others who are picked on and targeted for bullying in whatever form it may take.

As you might imagine, when I read the story about the Xavier College boy who was hospitalised after a muck up day rugbyesque game and how a friend of his claimed that he had been the target of systemic bullying at the school (read the article here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=651791). Later in the week I was shocked to read in the newspaper that children in prep class at primary school are reporting cases of being bullied.

Bullying should not be accepted as being a 'normal' part of growing up. Yes it happens, and yes, I am a much stronger person today because of the things I have experienced growing up, but this in no way makes it right or acceptable. As I read the bible I see a God who has a passion for those who are oppressed, harassed and bullied by the more powerful. I see God continually call His people to take a stand against the oppression and harassment of others and to promote a society where all are accepted and cared for.

In Amos we see the "Fat cows of Bashan" condemned for their oppression of the poor and the crushing of the needy, James 1:27 says: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God , the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NRSV)" The Message puts it this way: "Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world."

This week, I would encourage you to look out for those who are subjected to harassment or bullying and reach out to them with the grace and love that God has shown us.

EXPERIENCING GOD

Before I start, let me say that this is by no means a definitive answer on the above subject, just a collection of some of my thoughts on the subject, and I would be happy to hear your thoughts also.

Lately I have been travelling around Western Victoria a bit. As I have travelled around I have had the privilege of sharing with people about worshipping and meeting with God. Recently as I was travelling I was thinking about this concept of meeting with God and experiencing His presence.

After reading a few blogs I began thinking about how we have become such an experiential society. Everything from food to cars to toilet paper is marketed to us as an experience. We seek out experiences and consume them just as we would any other commodity. This led me to thinking about our experiences of intimacy with God.

Do we treat those times when we experience God's presence in some special tangible way as a consumable commodity?? What should our expectation of experiencing God's presence in a tangible way be??

I know that God is omnipresent, that he is in all places at all times, but I also believe that there are times when He makes Himself more present to us at other times. Think the regularity and depth of these times has more to do with us than it has to do with God though. I know that things like sin and disobedience make it harder to hear and experience God. I also know that we can consciously choose to reject God and avoid His presence also.

My real question is: As Christians, how often should we be seeking that tangible experience of God's presence, should we be some kind of Holy Spirit junkie continually seeking our next 'hit' of intimacy with God, or is it OK to go years or even decades without feeling the intimate presence of God in our lives???!!!

I heard a while ago that Mother Theresa stated that for the last 50 years of her life she had not experienced God's presence in a tangible way. digitaljournal.com discusses some of Mother Theresa's letters and says this in summary: "Mother Mary Teresa spent 17 years in Calcutta, teaching with a group of uncloistered Sisters, before traveling to Darjeeling in 1946, at the age of 36. During that trip, she believed that Christ spoke to her and called her to work with the sick, the poor, and the dying. Mother Teresa was able to recount conversations she had with Christ, and even recounted her visions of him. Based on her revelations to her Mother General, her confessor, and even the Pope, she was granted permission to begin her one-woman crusade. It was then that Mother Teresa felt Jesus leave her and stop speaking to her...

...According to her letters, Mother Teresa felt Christ did not communicate with her for the next ten years. It wasn't until after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, when Teresa prayed that God would give her some proof that he was "pleased with Society", that she felt the long years of darkness end. It was only to be for a brief time, no more than five weeks, before her period of spiritual darkness returned, and continued until her death on Sept. 5, 1997."

I think we all go through periods where we feel like God is distant or even absent. I know that even Jesus felt this way on the cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." But to go for 50 years without feeling a tangible presence of God or hearing His voice, what must that be like??!!!

And this brings me into conflict. How can I reconcile a woman who is seen as being so Christlike and spiritual, and yet seemingly devoid of any real experience of Christ Himself for half a century, and the promise that God has made to us that when we search for Him with all of our heart, that we will be able to find Him?

As I look at the bible I see God as an experiential God, not a god to be believed in but never intimately connected with. Isn't the whole point of our creation to be in relationship with Him??!! As I read through the Bible I see God 'turn up' in amazing way and unexpected places. I read stories of people having amazing, intimate encounters with the Creator of all things, of being rescued and delivered, of being given messages and signs. I see God as a God that reveals Himself to humanity, not just though creation, but in intimate, personal, tangible, ways!!!

Not that I am assuming that God will just turn up when and where we want Him to necessarily. I think that sometimes we need to persist in prayer before that moment when God arrives in some amazing tangible way. I am happy to be corrected in this, but I think it was Commissioner Samule Logan Brengle who recounted a story of a time when he was seeking God and after praying and fasting all day, still had not encountered God. It was not until well into the night, after much prayer, fasting and waiting on the Holy Spirit that God revealed himself in a tangible way which Brengle (I think) described it as "Fire, amazing Holy Fire." I think that sometimes we miss out on those moments of special intimacy with God because we bail out too early, because we cease to persist.

Sometimes we miss out on those moments with God because we refuse to listen to what God has already told us. William Booth said: "Before we go to our knees to receive the Baptism of Fire, let me beg of you to see to it that your souls are in harmony with the will and purpose of the Holy Spirit whom you seek."

Can you remember the last time you had an intimate personal, tangible experience of God's presence in you life?

I am keen to hear your thoughts on the matter, maybe this will stimulate some interesting discussion.

And let me know if I have misquoted Brengle.

What Will Your Headstone Say??

I was watchin T.V. the other night and while channel surfing came across a program that got me thinking. I cant remember what the program was, but it got me thinking about the different things you read on peoples headstones' epitaphs at the cemetery.

For example Spike Milligan's headstone is rumoured to read: "I told them I was ill". Others that I found after a short search with Google include: Karl Marx (founder of communism); "Workers of all lands unite. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." - Wyatt and Josephine Earp (Sherrif of Tombstone- cowboy era); "Nothing's so sacred as honour, and nothing's so loyal as love." Dean Martin (Actor Singer and member of the Rat Pack); "Everybody loves somebody sometime." Isaac Newton; "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was light." Benjamin Frankin; "The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more In a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author." Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier by W. H. Auden; "To save your world you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"

As you can see, some are amusing, some are clever and some are truly profound. Each epitaph says much about the person who lies beneath the stone and dirt. I particularly like the epitaph for the unknown soldier.

What sort of impact will you leave?

What will people say about you when you are gone?

What would you like your epitaph to say on your headstone?

A Hardened Heart

This is a copy of a sermon I shared a few weeks ago. It is a little long for a blog, but I thought it might be a good reminder to us to be a little more compassionate at times, I know I need reminding of that at times.



Before moving to Melbourne to go to the Training College, I worked as an Operating Theatre Technician at the Hobart Private Hospital. My job there was to set up operating theatres for different operations, assist the doctors and nurses to position patients for various operations, ensure that there was an adequate supply of things like Saline and other fluids given by I.V. drips kept warm, help get the patient off the operating table, clean up the mess and get the theatre set up for the next operation.

During this time I had the privilege to observe a number of operations at various degrees of proximity. The closest I got was about 30cm (1 foot) from the operative site as I held a patient in place while they inserted a pacemaker into their heart.

A heart has 4 chambers, the left and right ventricle, and the left and right atrium. The right atrium receives oxygen-depleted blood from the body via the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava and pumps it through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle receives oxygen-depleted blood from the right atrium and pumps it through the pulmonary valve into the lungs via the pulmonary artery.
Then the left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs via the pulmonary veins and pumps it through the mitral valve into the left ventricle.
The left ventricle then receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and pumps it through the aortic valve to the entire body via the aorta, including to the heart muscle itself through the coronary arteries.
That’s the way our heart works and why our heart beat is a lub lub sound.

What happens in some people though, is that one of the chambers fibrillates or flutters. When this happens the blood is not pumped around the body properly and the patient starts to get into some pretty serious trouble. To restore a normal or sinus rhythm to the heart something is needed to be done. The first preference is to use drugs like adrenalin to jolt the heart back into a normal rhythm, but in serious cases an electric current is needed to jolt the heart back into normal rhythm. That is why you see defibrillators used on people having a heart attack. A pace maker is like a mini defibrillator, it senses when the heart is getting out of rhythm, and it sends a little jolt into the heart to fix it, most of the time the patient will never know it happened.

As I read the bible I see how God often shocks people to get them to change their heart. In Exodus we see that the Pharaoh needed some serious shocking to change a very hard heart.

Pharaoh was holding the Hebrew people prisoner, and using them as slaves to complete his building projects. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and their terrible treatment they cried out to God to save them.

So God sends Moses, who lets be honest wouldn’t exactly be most people’s top choice (he had a speech impediment, he had killed an Egyptian slave master and was a shepherd, a less than prestigious occupation) to shock the pharaoh into a change of heart and bring freedom to the Hebrew people.

As a result of the pharaoh’s hardened heart and unwillingness to release the Hebrew people, God uses a series of plagues that cover Egypt to try and change the pharaoh’s heart.

Today we are looking at the plague of the Frogs. Now if ever there was a good reason to change your heart, a pile of stinking, rotting frogs has to be high on the list.

On of the most interesting things about the whole plagues of Egypt saga has to be the pharaoh’s response. Each time, after a plague was stopped the Bible tells us that the Pharaoh hardened his heart. Despite the shock of the plague, the pharaoh’s heart remained unchanged.

Three things struck my about the hardening of the pharaoh’s heart. The first was that he made a choice to harden his heart. The Second was that when the pharaoh hardened his heart, he ignored the warning signs around him. And finally the pharaohs heart need to be softened again before he would let the Hebrew people go.

I think it is interesting that the pharaoh chose to harden his heart. He had the choice to allow it to remain soft and release the Hebrew people, but instead after each plague the pharaoh hardened his heart a little more.

While sometimes circumstances around us force us to harden our hearts, I think more often the choices we make slowly harden our hearts, often without us ever really noticing it. At first maybe we just ignore the little things, but after a while as our hearts start to harden bigger and more significant things start to have less and less of an impact on us, until one day we become incapable of feeling much at all. If we are lucky we realise this lack of feeling, but the truth is that there may be times where we do not realise just how hard our hearts have become.

The hardening of a heart can be caused by one of two things; ignoring those around us, or ignoring God. And the truth be told, one usually leads to the other.

When we start ignoring those around us, we begin to switch off to their feelings, to their dreams, and to their needs, and we begin to see people as a commodity to be used and consumed and disposed of. Our hearts begin to dry out and become harder when qualities like compassion and kindness begin to evaporate

When this attitude starts creeping in it is often not long before we start ignoring God.

Rob Bell (the Nooma dude) says that the way we view the creation says a lot about the way we view the creator. When we start turning off to the issues of this world, we start turning off to God.

When we stop caring about others, we stop caring about what God cares about, and slowly this puts us in a position where we begin to block God out of our lives. As we block God out of our lives our hearts begin to harden. The more we choose block God out and ignore that which is important to Him, the harder it is for us to hear God. And as it becomes harder to hear God and communicate with Him, we begin to lose contact with what is important to Him and as our values shift, often ever so imperceptibly to us, our relationship with Him begins to suffer and as a result our relationship with His creations can begin to suffer also.

Take for example the Pharaoh. He cut himself off from God. The more he hardened his heart, the more he started to mistreat the Hebrew people. And the more he mistreated the Hebrew people, the more he cut himself off from God.

Another thing that indicated the hardness of the pharaoh’s heart was that he failed to notice the stink.

We see in 7 that the pharaoh’s magicians were able to use their secret arts to duplicate the plague of frogs that God had sent through Moses, but they could not eradicate the problem, only God could do that.

So Pharaoh begs Moses to get God to remove the plague, and Moses prays and the frogs die. Verse 14 tells us that because of the piles of rotting frogs the land stank. Somehow, even with the stench of rotting frogs all around him, the Pharaoh ignored the warning and hardened his heart once more, blocking God and the things God cares most about out of pharaoh’s concerns.

There are things going on in our world that truly stink. People are oppressed, heartbroken and suffering, and yet much of the world remains uncaring.

Is it possible, that as a group of people humanity has hardened our hearts toward the plight of others?

In failing to notice the stink caused by the rotting frogs, the pharaoh’s hardened heart failed to recognise anything other than the immediate situation at hand.

In the bible passage we see that the pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and asked them to pray for the plague to be removed, but never dealt with the reason for the plague (the enslavement of the Hebrew people).

When we harden our hearts, we become interested in only fixing the problem at hand, not finding the real cause and dealing with that.

Imagine for a moment a child comes to you complaining of a sore arm, in fact it is so sore that they are sobbing with the pain. If all we do is give them some Panadol and send them on their way again, we may have dealt with the immediate issue of the pain, but have not dealt with the thing that is causing the pain, that is the fracture in the bone of the arm. If the arm is broken, X-rays are needed and the correct treatment needs to be performed. By only masking the pain of the situation the arm will never properly heal and will only cause more pain and future problems.

So the pharaoh refused to deal with the real cause of the plagues, instead continuing in his enslavement and abuse of the Hebrew people. Pharaoh continued to refuse to allow the people to leave Egypt and worship God.

The pharaoh’s heart was so hard that no shock alone could correct it. Pharaohs heart needed to be shocked so hard that it had to be broken to be repaired in order to be capable of caring about what God cared about.

In fact it wasn’t until the final plague killed off the firstborn of every Egyptian, including the pharaoh’s own son, a huge shock I am sure, that the pharaoh’s heart was broken enough to allow the Hebrew people to leave.

It occurs to me that a hardened heart is much like an arthritic joint, it is stiff and inflexible.

Sometimes an arthritic joint can be soothed and softened by taking fish oil, maybe it just needed a bit of lubrication.

Other times arthritis requires physical or occupational therapy to loosen it up.

And other times, in the case of really stiff and inflexible joints, the arthritic joint needs replacing all together.

Sometimes I think our hearts become a little hardened and we just need to add a little lubrication to soften it by remembering the plight of others. When we are confronted face to face with hopelessness, and despair, the tears of those we are confronted with can lubricate our hardened hearts and soften them up.

Sometimes we need to undertake a little physical or occupational therapy by actually going out and doing something creative or practical for another person to soften our hardened hearts towards others.

When we do something for another person we begin to invest something of ourselves in them. When we begin to do something for God we begin to invest in Him and as we invest something of ourselves, we begin to make it a priority in our lives, and as things take priority in our lives our hearts begin to soften towards them.

In severe cases of hardened hearts, it may be necessary for God to break our hardened hearts and replace them with a new heart of His own creation in order for us to feel again.

While I worked at the hospital, one operation that was performed with amazing regularity was a hip replacement. I would say that we averaged about 2 a week most of the time, sometimes more.

In a hip replacement the arthritic joint is cut out and replaced by a substitute joint, made from a high strength ceramic or titanium body with synthetic coating created by another company.

This process involves some significant pain and discomfort for the patient in the short term, but the removal of the old joint and the institution of a new joint ultimately leads to more manoeuvrability and a far better quality of life.

When it becomes necessary for God to break our own hardened hearts and replace it with one of His own creating, we may have to endure some short-term pain and discomfort. It is not the most pleasant of things to be suddenly confronted with pain that we have left undealt with in our own lives, and the pain that others experience in their lives, but as we begin to heal and our hearts are softened once again, we find that we have an increased emotional mobility and the quality of our lives will improve.

What choices are you making? Are you choosing to open yourself up to God and those God cares about, or are you choosing to block them off.

Do you notice the stink around you? Can you see the warning signs that things may not be quite right?

How much do you think it would take to soften your heart? Is it already soft? Does it require some lubrication or physical or occupational therapy? Or will your heart need some major reconstructive surgery to be soft again?

When I hear people talking about heart issues, I think of King David in the Old Testament. He was described as a man after Gods own heart, I guess you could say that his heartbeat to the same rhythm as God’s.

David wasn’t perfect, he made some pretty major mistakes when he ignored the priorities of God’s heart and got out of synch, but God would shock him and he when David realised his heart was out of synch he again committed to make God’s priorities his priorities.

Most of the time David’s heart longed for the things God’s heart longed for. And that is the sort of heart I want, a heart that beats to the rhythm of God’s heart, I want to have a heart that longs for the things God longs for.

How is the rhythm of your heart today?

Is it beating in tune with God’s or does it need a little shocking to get back on the right track? Has God shocked you recently?

The Mercy Seat

Are you ever surprised by what you read in the Bible?

Often the biggest surprises are come from reading some of the least interesting bits of the bible. For example who would have thought that there was anything interesting about the ancestry of Jesus, yet upon closer inspection we find children produced from incest, a series of kings, the son of an adulterous relationship, a prostitute, and several non-Jewish ancestors (not something you would have bragged about in that culture).

While reading through one of the very detailed sections of Exodus recently, although I was searching for something else, I discovered this passage and it grabbed my attention:

Exodus 25: 17-22: 17Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. 18You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other; of one piece with the mercy seat you shall make the cherubim at its two ends. 20The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings. They shall face one to another; the faces of the cherubim shall be turned toward the mercy seat. 21You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you. 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.

Truth be told I very nearly skipped right over the passage.

It was the reference to the mercy seat that grabbed my attention. In The Salvation Army we often refer to the Mercy Seat as the pew looking thing at front of the hall. It is here that we call people to step forward to and pray at as a sign of their response to what God is calling them to do.

I don’t know if I was just mucking around and making too much noise with my mate Andrew that day in Junior Soldiers where this was explained to me, but I now have a new appreciation for what the Mercy Seat is.

To me this passage speaks of God coming to us, of how God meets with us somewhere special and shares some of himself with us.

The first thing that I notice is that the angels are facing toward the Mercy Seat and their wings are overshadowing the Mercy Seat as though they are watching over the proceedings that take place there and providing protection for those who approach it.

I also notice that the Mercy Seat covers the covenant that God made with the Israelites. I think of the covenants that I have made with God, as a Junior Soldier, a senior Soldier and most recently as an officer of The Salvation Army, they were all made at the Mercy Seat, in the very clear presence of God. This passage reminded me that every time I meet with God, I can renew the covenants that I have made with Him, and he will renew the covenants that He has made with me.

But what I love the most is the last verse in this passage: 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.

God speaks to us in a variety of ways and places, but there is something very special that happens when we kneel at the Mercy Seat and open ourselves up to God. One of the most significant moments in my Christian faith occurred because I knelt and opened myself fully to God. It changed my life and I have never been the same since. At the Mercy Seat, when we open ourselves up to God we clear away all of the clutter that seems to fill our life and we can hear God more clearly.

For the Israelites the Mercy Seat was in the most Holy of Holy places, accessible to only the very select few. Only this select few were able to meet with God like this. The good news is that after the crucifixion of Jesus, the heavy curtain that separated the masses from this Holy of Holy places was torn in two from top to bottom, allowing us all access to God and to hearing His commands for our lives.

This week, I encourage you to find your own Mercy Seat. It doesn’t have to be the one at the front of the church, it could be a quiet place outside in nature, or a place you set aside in your home to retreat to and meet with God, but I encourage you to open yourself up to God and listen to His voice in your life. You never know it may change your life forever!!!

Who Is God To You???

I've been reading this book lately called Divine Nobodies by Jim Palmer. I think it has become my new favourite book. Basically it is semi-autobiographical and recounts various stories from the authors life and shows how everyday people can impact and transform lives.

In one Chapter Jim talks about his traumatic childhood and the severe depression he suffered during and because of that. it is quite a provoking chapter and really forced me to consider a few things I had not really thought of before.

One thing that really stood out to me was when Jim started talking about how he pictured God. Jim spoke about how he slowly learned to see God in a different light, a shift from a condemning God who was waiting in judgement to deal with him, to a God who loved him deeply, who grieved over the pain and tragedy in Jim's life and wanted so deeply to show Jim His love.

This got me thinking, I wondered what my picture of God is.

I think that I have had different pictures or ideas of God's identity at different stages in my life. I guess at times I have seen God as some kind of Super-Santa, there to fulfil my every wish - just as long as I am a good boy. At other times I guess that I have seen God as a Judge balancing my life against a set of rules and regulations. And at other times I have seen God as the supreme Creator, loving merciful and faithful to His creations.

More and more now though, I am beginning to see God in a new light. I am beginning to understand that God cannot be pigeon-holed into one thing. Yes god gives blessings and gifts to us, yes God judges us, yes God created us, is merciful and loves us beyond anything we could comprehend. But I think God is much more than that.

As we approach Youth Event and look at the theme of Guess Who, maybe it is a good time to consider who we see God as. The bible presents God in so many ways, and I am sure God has more characteristics than we can fully comprehend at any one time. But maybe it would be good for us to examine who we think God is and then maybe take a bit of time to consider if this is who God really is??!!

I wonder if sometimes we get who God is a bit distorted by our own experiences and situations.

I would be interested to hear from you who God is to you?

What characteristics of God especially appeal to you?

Just a Little Bit at a Time

Over the last few weeks the bags under my eyes seem to have grown somewhat.

This has to do with a certain little bike race they run during July every year in France. You may have heard of it, The tour De France.

For 21 days or so the worlds best cyclists ride around France. On average they will cover 150 to 200 kilometres a day, day after day after day. Sure they get rest days; 2 of them in 21 days. and as if riding 200 kilometres in a day isn't bad enough, there are some stages of the race where not only do they cover 200 kilometres but they also have to climb up huge mountains, mountains that are over 1500 metres high!!!

On Wednesday night I stayed up until after 2:30 AM to watch one of the most famous mountain stages of the Tour De France. this stage had 3 mountain climbs in it with some down hill sections where riders reached speeds in excess of 80km/h!!! But this wasn't the bit that I was really looking forward to, I was hanging out for the last climb, the climb up the mountain known as L'Alp d'Huez. this climb is only 14 km long, but goes up a staggering 1650 metres in that 14km!!!!

As I watched this stage and cheered on Aussie cyclist Cadel Evans, I thought about how hard mentally is must be to climb a mountain like that.

Imagine standing at the bottom looking up at the road ahead, the 21 switchback turns, the steep gradient, the final destination, and realising how tired your legs are now and how much further you still have to go!!!

As I though about this I remembered an article I read about how elite cyclists overcome this psychological obstacle. According to the cyclist who wrote the article they very rarely look to the very top of the mountain, the look to the next check point ( a corner, a tree, a post, whatever marks a smaller distance) every so often, but mostly they focus on the 5 or so metres in front of their wheel. They just keep looking at the next 5 metres and then the next 5 metres after that, and then the next 5 metres after that and so on and so forth, looking up at the goal posts they have set along the way and occasionally glancing at the final destination.

As I thought about this I thought about my journey with God and realised that there were some similarities there with climbing a mountain.

I wonder if sometimes God gives us a view of the top, the final destination, but understands that if we were to focus on this to much we would psych ourselves out and give up. So instead God shows us goal posts, things to aim for that are closer and more achievable in shorter times, and then asks us to focus on the next little bit, and then the next little bit after that and so on until we reach the goal and then re-set for the next goal.

As I look back over my life I can see times where God has revealed big plans to me, but then has shown me ways to reach them. I can also see other times where I have just been focusing on the next step, and then the next step after that, and then having looked back have seen how far I have travelled and seen what God has done in my life.

I guess my prayer for you this week is that God will reveal the next step to you and lead you to it, that He will help you to cover the ground in front of you and that you will keep going.

The hill may seem steep and high and a long way off, but God will get you there if that is where he wants you to be. Your task at the moment is to be obedient and just keep moving.

Remember the destination is important, but how you make the journey there counts too.

I Know It's Been A While

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, things have been a little hectic here.

First of all, Kids Camp went off like a frog in a sock (note; it is inhumane to put a frog in a sock). By all accounts everyone had a great time and all went home completely exhausted. I will try to get some photo's up in the near future.

Second, the Leading Youth Scholarship Camp was great. We covered a whole range of different stuff, from what makes a good leader, to how we can become better leaders, to doing some things that will stretch us personally (like the high ropes course and jumping from the top of a power pole to a trapeze suspended in mid air in front of you!!).

Then I got back and had to get through the emails, mail and other stuff that had been piling up while I was away.

So now here I am, almost fully recovered from squeezing 2 camps into the same week, and ready to head off tho the next thing, officers fellowship.

Planning for Guess Who is coming along well. We will be joined by our T.Y, Capt. David Collinson for the event. Saturday night will be a great time of fun, with some giant games to play, people sized guess who, battleship and even trouble are on the cards!!!

Sunday will be a time of worship where we are going to explore more about who God is and who we are because of that!!!

Forms will be out very soon, see your corps officer for one.

Cost is $40, and age is high school +.

Hope to see you there.

Guess Who??!!

Have you aver played the game Guess Who?

For those who may not have, Guess Who is a game where you ask a series of questions to eliminate possibilites and identify the character on the card your opponent is holding.

Do you ever feel like you have to play this game for real?

Do you sometimes feel like you have to ask a million questions just to really find out who someone really is?

Have you ever felt like you have had to do this to work out who you really are?

Have you ever felt like you have had to do this to work out who God is?

I guess the reality is that God is so big and amazing that we will never be able to fully comprehend Him completely, but we can know who God is and grow to know him as well as we can understand this side of eternity.

Guess Who is the theme for this years Youth event. More details will be released over the next couple of weeks, but for now, book in the 23rd and 24th of August for Youth Event and stay tuned for more details.

Would The Real Leader Please Stand Up

This is a subject that I have been reading and thinking about a bit lately, I would be interested to hear what others think.

It seems that a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what leadership really is, and this is cool, I respect that, but I would like to share some of what I think leadership is about.

Some people ascribe to leadership as written, spoken, taught by people like Borden, Maxwell, and Hybels. Others prefer a view of leadership which seems to be at the opposite end of the scale to the teachings of people like John C. Maxwell, Bill Hybels and Paul Borden.

Personally I think I sit somewhere in between.

The reality is that everywhere in nature and society you will see one individual stand out above the rest and take on a role of leadership. We see it in pack animals with the Alpha male and female, we see it in social situations where one person takes the lead and coordinates with the others to achieve an outcome, we see it on the sporting field where one player is chosen as the team captain to encourage, motivate and direct the team. I think that anyone who denies that leadership is unnecessary or unnatural will struggle to support their supposition.

I think the real issue people have with leadership has a lot to do with what they have seen modelled to them. Of course, if people have been hurt by leaders then this will lead to a negative perception of leadership by them. In the same way, if you have had good models of leadership shown to you then your attitude and opinion of leadership will be much better.

So here is what I think makes a good leader, feel free to agree or disagree with me, let me know, I would be interested to hear what you think.

I truly believe that a leaders job is to seek the common purpose of a group and to co-ordinate, encourage, equip and resource those around them to move towards the goal. A good leader does not lead from the front, or the rear, or the middle, or from the top, or from the bottom. A good leader will lead from all of these positions at various times; sometimes leading the way and taking others with them, at other times empowering others to strive toward the vision, at other times holding the group up and together, and at other times allowing the group to take the lead for a time.

While a group may seek and decide upon a vision together I believe that it is the leaders job to keep this vision in focus and the group moving toward it. Occasionally it becomes the leaders job to say the hard words to some of those they are leading; while this is not something that either party is likely to particularly enjoy, it is necessary for both that this is done. For the one having the hard words spoken to them it is important for their growth and development, for the leader it is important that they do it for the well being of the team and the vision they are striving toward.

Leadership should never be about exerting power over others and seeking position for one's self, this style of leadership will always ultimately fail.

I don't believe that leaders are supposed to be some far off person out of range of those they lead. Good leaders need to be able to relate to the people they are leading. Leaders can only lead effectively if those they are leading are able to come to them and discuss questions, concerns, troubles and successes. But at the same time leaders need to be open about them selves, to a point. I believe that at some point, a leader being too open can affect the ability of the group to continue moving forward. People need to see that their leader is fallible and human, and has experienced much of what they are experiencing, but at the same time, a leader who is too open can lose the confidence of the group around them.

This may be an unpopular view, but I would like to suggest that not everyone is meant to be a leader. Have you heard the sayings "Too many cooks spoil the broth" or Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians"???

It is my experience that not everyone has the ability to be a leader, that is just the way it is. Many people will argue that leadership is not something that you are born with, but learn. I am not totally convinced that this is true. I think that leadership ability is something that comes naturally to some people, and while it can be taught, there are some who naturally will be better at it than others, just like in every area of life.

the reality is that leaders should be a minority. It is very hard to lead if no one is following, and if more than a small number are trying to lead, often in several different directions, the group, the goals and the vision will suffer.

Leadership is no picnic, it is hard, at times unpopular, incredibly demanding, and should not be lusted after. There is no shame in being a follower. Followers are vitally important, there is no condemnation, or shame, or lack of value in not being a leader.

My encouragement to you is this: If you feel called to be a leader, stop and think and pray about this. Leadership is incredibly rewarding at times, but it can be painful and unpleasant too. Decide if you are prepared to make the sometimes hard, and sometimes enormous sacrifices that a leader needs to make at times. If you are able to do this, then proceed, because it will be worth it in the end.

Get Smart

It's that time of year again. Kids camp is quickly approaching.

The theme for this year is Get Smart. Many of the readers of this blog will remember the original Get Smart, where Agent 86, Maxwell Smart was played by the comical Don Adams. But this camp really has very little to do with that.

While we have borrowed some of the terminology from Get Smart; the name, Kaos and Control, the Shoephone concept, the theme for this years Camp is really about Getting Smart about God!!

The camp is going to be a great time of fun for our young people, please encourage those you know to attend.

Cost will be $90.00 at the earlybird rate (forms and deposit must be received by the 10th of June) or $110.00 at the standard rate after then.

Stay tuned for more info and some thoughts about Getting Smart about God.