Remembering a walk through the rain with my family today.

Its great to have that time….but you do get wet and a little cold…

But then, sitting in front of the heater, drinking a hot drink….

If it were not for the cold and wet, you would not appreciate the warmth as much.

Recently I watched a video and it made me mad.
It doesnt matter who the video was from.

In fact I drafted this post sometime ago and have left it sitting here so the video being shared has long gone.

The proposition made in the video was that when we worship, and the speaker was predominantly talking about worship in song during a church service, should be done without humour and emotion. His statement was that it should be all based on what our mind knows of God. Overt emotion and humour should be avoided.

Ironically of course he used humour, mostly sarcasm, to make his point. He also used emotion and body language as he was quite passionate about it.

Ironic really.

One would think a cursory read of the Psalms, using your mind, might push such maddening propositions to the back of the queue.

My wife has journeyed with me at Inglewood for the last 20 years. She calls it ‘our little baby’ which has grown up.

She has served in just about every area of the church life. In the midst of conflict and pain…she was there. With the stress of financial pressure, she was there. When the service was magnificent and the spirit soared…she was there.

As I agonise over decisions, as I made really difficult decisions, she has listened, counseled and spoke prophetically into my life. I have learnt to listen to her, yet make my own decisions. Sometimes we disagree, but always we have the best interests of the church at heart.

Sometimes the church can feel like a mistress, taking me away from family, from my wife, distracting and dividing us. But its in those moments I need to remind us, it is Jesus’ church, not mine, not hers, not ours. It is His responsibility, its just under our care at the moment.

What an incredible support she is. I often share with pastoral peers that you can fail in ministry, but failing in marriage is far worse. In fact the two are tied.  For a pastor, more than perhaps any other ‘career’, your marriage and its health is vital for the safe and effective outworking of your ministry. If your marriage fails, so has your ministry.

I thank God for a wife who is not only supportive of me in the Pastorate, but more than that, has the same vision for the church that I do.

Here is a fairly nondescript photo of me painting a window. Nothing earth shattering. However as I found myself doing this, I remember back about 15 years or so when I was last painting windows. At my old church building we had just invested in a data projector which cost us a fair bit of coin in those days, was about 1100 ansi-lumens (brightness) and was literally the size and weight of a decent suitcase. I needed to paint over some of the church windows that were throwing light onto the part of the stage the projector was focused on.

At the time no one really got why I was doing this. It almost seemed unnecessary. Until they saw the result that is. The picture was clearer, the words were easily read and we could show clips and movies. It was something I just needed to do, to get the result. People did not understand why we needed a data projector at all….until they saw the result.

As a church leader the reality is that sometimes you just need to get on and do something, because while people may not understand, with prayerful decisions, you just know it needs to be done. Painting a window is hardly earth shattering but it is an illustration.

This week I found myself again painting some windows to help shut out the light. Of course the three projectors we have in our new building are now much more sophisticated, although not much more expensive than they were back then! At 6500 Ansi-Lumen they are certainly a lot brighter! It just brought back to my mind a lesson I was learning, and the fact that sometimes as a leader you do need to just get on with it.

Love this new Video and music from Hillsong Young and Free.

Turn it up!!!

A number of people have seen me dressed up looking slightly ridiculous as Obi Wan Kenobi performing a wedding. While there have been some unkind remarks suggesting I may be more the old Alec Guiness character than the hipster Ewen McGregor model, overall reaction has been quizzical. Why on earth would a Baptist Pastor perform a wedding dressed in brown robes with matching blue Light Saber?
It is pretty simple really. It was a choice between a Star Wars character or Spiderman, and I don’t look good in tights!
At our church we run a Young Adult service with the mission of reaching students at ECU Mnt Lawley. We have had some success, and built some healthy relationships. Pastor Josh and his wife Marnel regularly host a bible study group. One of the attendees is a young man from Japan, Hiro. He has fallen in love with a student from China, Evony, and they love comics. In fact they are self confessed ‘nerds’. The idea of being married dressed in traditional wedding attire was never going to work for them. So they rather naively asked me if I could marry them, and could we all dress up.
Seeing around 100 students from ECU Mnt Lawley and WAAPA crammed into our half renovated children’s area for a comic-con wedding was on one hand spectacular, and on the other hilarious.
As Pastor Josh and I chatted after we reflected on what an amazing missional opportunity we had just had. Most of the students have never been in a church before, and found it hard to comprehend exactly what we were doing there. But they respectfully listened as I shared the scriptures and prayed for their friends.
I don’t know if dressing as Obi Wan Kenobi was what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote, ‘be all things to all people’ but I am assuming he would approve

A great quote from Peterson.

“Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.
And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. “I pray to GOD-my life a prayer-and wait for what he’ll say and do. My life’s on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society