Can you believe its that time of year already?!

Today is the last day of college for the year. My first exam is in 11 days.

Getting ready for some pretty serious study over that time.

I have 4 exams all up and then 2nd year will be over! And (providing I pass exams) I will be half way through college! woot!

I would love your prayers over the next 3 weeks.

So… this post has caused somewhat of a stir today.

And to be honest it has been nice to be involved in what I feel has been a fairly gracious dialogue between 2 differing opinions.

That is, of course, until I discovered the reason for the stir. Someone has posted a link to the post on a discussion forum on this site and started a discussion of my ‘young idealism’ and how I must be one of the ‘Twenty somethings who just lap it up at seminary’. But all of that I’m ok with.

It’s this comment that saddens and infuriates me

I read her testimony…one of those “light from dark” experiences, and that can often cause someone to run to the extremes, in a desire to be completely sold out (been there, got the t-shirt…*wince, wince*)…

To the person who wrote that and the people who read it and think that its ok – I am happy to dialogue with people who disagree with my theology. I am happy for you to make snide remarks about it to your friends, in an effort to feel superior to me. But that you think its ok to take someone’s personal experience of the love and grace of Jesus and make fun of it, speaks volumes of your character.

Join our petition and say NO for kids….

‘…Publications once considered ’soft porn’, have become more and more explicit.  Now they are placed right in front of children at their eye level in milkbars, service stations and newsagents across the country!  Who decided all of a sudden that it is OK for children to be exposed to pornography?…’

Say No 4 Kids gives you the opportunity to speak out and help effect change to the display laws relating to pornography, so that children and young teens aren’t confronted with inappropriate, highly sexualised imagery as they go about their daily lives.

The authority responsible for the laws relating to pornographic material and their display is the Standing Committee of Attorneys General (SCAG) Censorship Ministers.  The SCAG Board is established by the Australian Federal Government, and consists of one representative from each State and Territory.

It is the aim of Say No 4 Kids to present our petition to SCAG in November 2009 when they come together for their Ministerial Conference to review the censorship laws.  With your help, we intend to inform SCAG that as guardians of the next generation, we want pornographic material removed from view and access of children and young teenagers.  If cigarettes can go back behind the counter, why not porn?

Please take a few minutes to look at our website and sign the online petition.  Forward it to your family and friends and/or print the hard copy version (please be sure to return completed petition to P.O. Box 707, Pakenham Victoria 3810, by the end of October).

Say No 4 Kids is not affiliated in any way with any political, religious or vested interest group.  We represent a diverse range of people concerned about the health and wellbeing of children and young teenagers.

Sign it here.

Over here Dave is attempting the big task of discussing male/female relationship, and particularly the role of men and women in the church, over a series of short posts.

In one of these posts he says

As complementarians we often speak about men and women being “Equal but Different”, indeed a large women-led organisation here has that name. Here’s the thing, though. The “different” part comes across negatively. “Equal” is good, but then we say “but” and so communicate to some that there’s a contrary, negative assertion coming.

But we believe that the distinct complementary roles that God has designed men and women to have are a good thing! So, my friend encourages me, we should speak of Equal AND Different. Both are good things and we should give no cause to understand otherwise.

Good discussion to have. I particularly enjoyed reading Honoria’s thoughts as she comments -

Well, I’m not sure if I like “Equal but Different” or “Equal and Different”. Feels like we are letting someone else set the agenda. The categories are a hangover from another debate, from a different context at another time.

(Maybe it’s just me and another friend at college, but) “Equal” suggests striving to be counted to be the same. Christianity isn’t about asserting yourself, but humbling yourself, being last, a servant. Emphasising “difference” is okay, but what do we gain from that? And it’s not exactly winsome, is it?

I quite like the connotations of “Complementarianism”, because it recognises the wholeness and “good-fit” of both genders, as given by God. It emphasises the harmony and reciprocity of the two genders. Each sex needs the other for fullness, for oneness.

There is MUCH to gain in thinking hard about how the genders God gives us is a gift, which enriches the church body. It’s sad and bland to press the *Blend* button on gender then say: there’s no difference. So what’s so good about the differences between genders and the fact that we have both genders in unity?

Later she very helpfully points of the need for both men and women to be thinking this issue through.

Welcome to the UN Petition for the Unborn Child and the Family! With your help we are going to present one million names to the UN this December asking Member States to begin interpreting the Universal Declaration as protecting the unborn child from abortion.

Please help and get all of your family and friends to help, too!

Sign it here.

I signed it. So did Dave. Here’s why.

My friend Mark on Nova.

The boys at The Pilgrims Podcast have rocked my world this afternoon.

Their latest episode is the beginning of a 4 or 5 week series on pastoral care. Their guests were Rev Allen Cook and Jan Corbett-Jones. Allen worked in parish ministry for many years, then as a Chaplain at Westmead Hospital and currently serves with the Anglican Retirement Villages.  Jan, a mother and grandmother, now works with Anglicare with pastoral care at the RPA.  Both Allen and Jan teach pastoral care as part of the Diploma course at Moore Theological College.

Seriously this has made me wish I had the chance to re-do about a billion conversations in my life – including some very recent ones.

Allen and Jan talk to Mark and Steve about the difference between Pastoral Care and counselling, why Pastoral Care is so important, what to say and not to say, and Jan tells us why Pastoral Care is bigger than evangelism.

Listen here.

I’m preparing a sermon at the moment for chick’s chapel next week. It’s on 1 Corinthians 8 which at first I wasn’t that excited about. But after some hard work over the last few days I am loving it! Despite it’s seemingly strange subject (Now concerning food offered to idols. vs1) I believe it has a lot of meaning for us and more implications than appear at first glance. Once I have preached it I’ll most likely post it on here.

As well as my new found love of 1 Corinthians 8 I have also reaslised how sad it is for me that I don’t get to preach regularly. I’m really enjoying the preparation phase and I always enjoy a chance to speak to a captive audience, so I’m looking forward to chapel. I’m hoping to get some useful feedback so I can keep improving this skill – it’s just a shame it will probably be a year until I get another go.

But such is life!

A few weeks ago I was chatting to a friend about my almost 2 years experience as a student minister – both at my previous and current church. One of the things that I was thinking about was that I’m often not sure who is supposed to be teaching me. Not at all meaning who teaches me the Bible and godly living, but who teaches me to do ministry? How to respond to issue that come with people I minister to? Who teaches me to think about boundaries and support networks? What to expect? In other words – who prepares me for the rest of my life??

Something that would fall into these categories somewhere is the ability to know the difference between caring about someone and trying to take responsibility for another person’s actions. This is something that I struggle with. Often if someone I know and love makes a decision I perceive to be unwise my reaction is one of two (or possibly both) things.
1. I will immediate start to blame myself, wondering how I let them down and what I could have done better/differently to change their decision
2. I see this as a personal rejection. Particularly if their decision is one that sees them turn from God, what I see is they have turned from me.
A result of this is that my world becomes about this thing, this decision. And it weights me down. I carry burdens that are not mine to carry. And eventually I crack!

So I have known for a little while that this is what I do but I have failed to really think it through clearly and learn how to react in a better and more godly way to things. But the last few weeks I have had a massive lesson in this, from an amazing teacher.

Two weeks ago at church our sermon was on Galatians 6:1 -10. It was a timely lesson in sharing burdens and carrying our own load. And even more importantly, not growing weary in doing good.

Tonight I read an article on the Resurgence blog. Here are some exerts  -

One of the most important skills every Christian, especially a ministry leader, must learn is the distinction between a concern and a responsibility. The younger the Christian or ministry leader, the more likely they are to lack the skill of discerning concerns and responsibilities. In my own pastoral ministry, failures in this area have contributed to extreme overwork and exhaustion.

* * * * *

Scripture, of course, says it perfectly. Galatians 6:2–5 admonishes us, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. . . . For each will have to bear his own load.”

At first glance, this Scripture passage seems contradictory but it is not. It says that everyone, by himself or herself alone, should carry whatever load God has placed in his or her backpack. It also says that Christians should take some burdens out of the backpacks of some people and put them in their own packs and carry them out of love. In the Greek, the difference is between the words “load” and “burden.”

* * * * *

Are you a Christian leader who is weighed down by all the loads you are carrying for others who need to carry their own load? How have you sinned by allowing concerns to become responsibilities and others’ loads to collectively become your burden?

(Read the whole thing here)

These have been timely lessons for me.

But I have also received an answer to my question of who is my teacher. Neither my minister nor Mark Driscoll prepared these lessons especially for me. But God did. He is my teacher and he will prepare me for the rest of life – and I’m so thankful!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth in to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though for now you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth that gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

These verse in 1 Peter 1 are among some of the most precious for me and I think they teach us a great deal about joy.

First – We find joy in things to come. It’s the eternal perspective again. The opening verses talk of a living hope, an inheritance kept in heaven for you and salvation to be revealed in the last days. It is in these things that we greatly rejoice! Even while we suffer now.

Second – Again… our sufferings are not worthless or pointless. It is by trials that our faith is not only refined but proven to be true. This is why we rejoice even in the midst of these trials.

Thirdly – The extent of the joy we have because of Jesus is endless. Inexpressible and Glorious! We are filled with this joy NOW, because we are receiving the salvation prophets spoke of (vs 10) and that angels long to look into to (vs 12).