Testing, testing, 1-2-3

I gather that this is supposed to be a tool for communication, so let's see if it works.

This Sunday, prior to the big do at the Donalds' place, it would be good to meet at the church at 5pm to practise music for Christmas.

Please let me know if you can or can't come or whatever....

Regards,
Shar

Young Adults on 23rd November

On 23rd November instead of meeting at the church we will meet at Jennifer and Phillip's house.

-
Phil

survivor - Coolamatong 08

Canoeing Camp

Fri 26th - Sun 28th Sept
Coolamatong (lake Camp)

camping / canoeing / enjoying the serenity of the 90 miles Beach
and may even keep up with the Grand Final!

although accomodation is in tents ( big spacious 6 person) there is a dining hall with kitchen and good news for Niresh - there is a toilet blocks fully equiped for your comfort and civility...

Taize Service

Taize Service
Sunday 17th Aug
6pm
St Alban’s Anglican Church
55 Melrose Street (Cnr of Melrose & Mark Streets)
North Melbourne

meet at Church 5pm we'll travel together
for more info about Taize go to
http://www.taize.fr/

Tigger - spirituality

Eeyore, being an Anglican, was reluctant to attend Tigger's party. it's not just all the noise and excitement, but there won't be any wine. Eeyore drag his feet to Tigger's party, and sure enought, Tigger was full of bounce and excitement, too much for Eeyore liking, but he hung around. Eeyore thought / ask himself, how it is that Tigger could sustain all the excitement and show? but more so, he was concern that Tigger enthusiastic ramblings is but a balloon full of hellium gas. He want to remind Tigger that Jesus and the disciples spend most of their days among the margins, caring for the poor and needy, and fighting system and institution that manipulate the weak... but he thought he should just keep this thought to himself. when it got too much, didn't want to interupt the fun, Eeyore left. he likes Tigger, but wish that he calms down a little, and be a bit more civil... but Tigger will be Tigger he suppose...

a reflection on a visit to Life Christian Church

Taboo!

what does my faith look life?

I am worn out, tired of being on the road - I feel like a rust bucket... i join in the groan of the psalm
'Lord my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you. My heart's about to break; I'm a burned-out-case. Cataracts blind me to God and good... I'm on the edge of losing it - the pain in my gut keeps burning. I'm ready to tell my story of failure...' Psalm 38

waiting...

when i first encounter God (in praying that if he is real and if he could change me - then come and make me a new person) faith was very exciting. i was 18 or so, but felt like a child, having lots of conversations with God and involving in lots of adventures with other Christians - camps, missions... and had lots of challenges, that allow me to learn lots about myself and the gifts that i have...

then i became a teenage as it were... my conversations with God became of silent questioning, and didn't want to really associate with Christianity... things didn't make sense. being with friends, doing stupid things seems to fit in more than christian Sunday stuff... but this was when i felt most lonely, insecure, and guilt... even thought i was out all the time with friends... i felt quite lost and uncertain as to what my life was about...


then i met kids on the housing estates in Carlton. hanging out with a 9 year old boy, outside a pub where his dad was having a good time inside with a few ladies. Hearing two sisters only 8 and 10 years old, tell me stuff they get by being involved in activities with old men, while they help me put up poster around the estates. these kids and many others stirs me to scream out to God to act to do something, to come into the contexts of these kids lives... it was some time later that i stop screaming at God for the brokenness, that i realised that He does know the pain and hears the cry, and he does come and is present with people in their brokenness. he sent his people there. i was there. when i sat outside the front door reading to two girls locked up inside by the security door, cause their parents working, God is present.

these experience help me to rediscovered God, not in the external things, like church or worship and ministry... God chooses to dwell in the darkest places of my being, as he chooses to dwell among the broken and damage communities... and so it is in going to the inner place of my insecurity, my shame and guilt that I discovered a God who embraces me, and welcomes me, and gives me new beginnings...

Then he gave me Cate and Celia and Noah - to help me to receive love and to delight in Him, as i delight in my wife and kids.

Pope's speech - youth day Sydney 08

July 17, 2008 - 5:54PM

Dear Young People,

What a delight it is to greet you here at Barangaroo, on the shores of the magnificent Sydney harbour, with its famous bridge and Opera House. Many of you are local, from the outback or the dynamic multicultural communities of Australia cities. Others of you have come from the scattered islands of Oceania, and others still from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Some of you, indeed, have tome from as far as I have, Europe Wherever we are from, we are here at lost in Sydney. And together we stand in our world as God's family, disciples of Christ, empowered by his Spirit to be witnesses of his love aid truth for everyone!

I wish firstly to thank the Aboriginal Elders who welcomed me prior to my boarding the boat at Rose Bay. I am deeply moved to stand on your land, knowing the suffering and injustices it has borne, but aware to of the healing and hope that are now at work, rightly bringing pride to all Australian citizens. To the young indigenous - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders - and the Tokelauans, I express my thanks for your stirring welcome. Through you, I send heartfelt greetings to your peoples.

Cardinal Cardinal Rylko, Archbishop Wilson, I thankyou for your warm words of welcome. I know that your sentiments resonate in the hearts of the young gathered here this evening, and so I thank you all standing before me I see a vibrant image of the universal Church. The variety of nations and cultures from which you hail shows that indeed Christ's Good News is for everyone; it has reached the ends of the earth. Yet I know too that a good number of you are still seeking a spiritual homeland. Some of you, most welcome among us, are not Catholic or Christian. Others of you perhaps hover at the edge of parish and Church life. To you I wish to offer encouragement: step forward into Christ's loving embrace; recognize the Church as your home. No one need remain on the outside, for from the day of Pentecost the Church has been one and universal.

This evening I wish also to Include those who are not present among us. I am thinking especially of the sick or mentally ill, young people in prIson, those struggling on the margins of oar societies, and those who for whatever reason feel alienated from the Church. To them! say: Jesus is close to you! Feel his healing embrace, his compassion and mercy!

Almost two thousand years ago, the Apostles, gathered In the upper room together with Mary and some faithful women, were tilted with the Holy Spirit (cf Acts 1:14). At that extraordinary moment, which gave birth to the Church, the confusion and fear that had gripped Christ's dIsciples were transformed into a vigorous conviction and sense of purpose. They felt Impelled to speak of their encounter with the risen Jesus whom they had come to call affectionately, the Lord. In
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Memories and regrets of a former spoilt white brat

* Jacqui Bunting
* July 18, 2008
WAtoday.com.au

ON MAY 10, 1994, I was a 13-year-old brat accustomed to plonking my white arse on my whites-only toilet bowl at recess at my whites-only school in South Africa. I was oblivious to anything outside of my circle of friends, my latest "relationship", which had hit the 14-day milestone and was thus "fully serious", and the pursuit of driving my parents suicidal. That was the day Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, ending the country's era of racism, exploitation and terrorism of non-whites, known as apartheid. I wish I'd noticed.

All I recall is that one day our playground was a sea of pasty pales and the next we had a few caramel faces and braids scattered across the lawn. No one new entered our circle, not because we were racist (we told ourselves), but because we had nothing in common. After all, what did a white girl who lived in the biggest house on the best street in town (tended to by a domestic servant and a garden boy) have to discuss with Andile Somya, a black boy who walked 10 kilometres to school in thongs because his parents rightfully considered food more important than shoes?

My friend Stacey would screw her face up and ask, "Why does he smell? Doesn't he own deodorant?"

Our class sizes expanded from 30 to 40 and our teachers started to look frazzled as they struggled to cope with an influx of students whose education had, until then, been in shanty town schools made of corrugated iron. How dare Mrs Thomas, my English teacher, stop noticing the brilliance of my essays? One on "My European Holiday" was entirely overlooked. In the absence of attention I resorted to insolence, stomping into the house after a "rough day" and refusing to eat my laid-out lunch of tuna salad with croutons and freshly squeezed orange juice. "I want a hot dog!" I screamed at Jeanette, our African maid. Dressed in her uniform complete with apron and headscarf, she would sway her hips behind the ironing board as the radio sang songs of liberation. "She should count herself lucky," Mum would say, "She has the best madam in Port Elizabeth. I know she steals teabags, but I've never complained."
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Interview - Rick Warren

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICK WARREN (AUTHOR OF "A PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE")

Interview with Rick Warren , author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California .

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.

God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain."

But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal my wife or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better ...

God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.

Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.

Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.

Painful moments, TRUST GOD.

Every moment, THANK GOD

http://www.jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17175.htm

Kierkegaard's parable - Ducks

‘On Sunday morning, all the ducks got up, brushed their feathers, and waddled to church. After waddling down the church aisle and into their pews, they squatted. Shortly the duck minister waddled in and took his place behind the pulpit. He opened the duck Bible to the place where it spoke of God’s great gift to ducks - wings. “with wings,” said the duck preacher, “you ducks can fly. you can mount up like eagles and soar into the heavens. you can escape the confinement of pens and fences. you can know the euphoria of complete freedom. you must give thanks to God for so great a gift as wings.” All the ducks in the congregation agreed and shouted, “Amen!” and then - they all waddled home.’

taken from Tony Campolo We have met the enemy and they are PARTLY RIGHT p. 90-91

Keilor SUFM (Scripture Union Family Mission)

Keilor SUFM
30th June - 5th July

Join the team
meeting this Sunday 2:30pm BAC

•

your faith grows when you share it

You can make a difference for a child, a teenager or a family.

Learn new skills

Grow with leadership opportunities

Do urban mission from your own church context

Psalm 34

‘God keeps an eye on his friends,

His ears pick up every moan and groan.’ v.15

‘Is anyone crying for help? God is listening

Ready to rescue you.

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;

If you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath.

Disciples so often get into trouble;

Still, God is there every time.’ v.17-19