Thank you Matt,
you make the bitterness of defeat, a little bit easier to swallow.
We have grown up as a side, and I really believe that next year could be ours.

“The Dockers were valiant and Sydney, on balance, the superior side. But for a moment in the third quarter, we scared the reigning premiers witless. The umpiring didn’t cost Fremantle the match, but unambiguously poor decisions gifted Sydney easy crucial goals and deprived the Dockers of momentum. The game was much, much closer than its six-goal margin.
The holding-the-ball rule is a crucifix too far. The Dockers had crept to within seven points when young defender Stephen Dodd fought for the ball with four Swans defenders. Umpire Stephen McBurney’s absurd misjudgment, that Dodd dragged the ball under, produced a crucial Swans goal and should cost McBurney a grand final berth.
If this sounds petty and bitter and biased, let me repeat: Sydney deserved its victory. The dragging rule is a disgrace almost whenever it is applied – penalising courage and effort and encouraging over-theatrical officiating – and the Swans copped some stiff decisions, too.”
Story

Another great Sunday.
Some old friends returned, nice to see Tony and Hanalie (Spelling?) Peck at church.

Eliot did a great rendition of “Consume me” an old song of DC Talk, and I spoke on spiritual disciplines, including fasting.

Amazing how God moved. I felt the need for their to be a response, so I asked some people to pray at the end for something that was really burdening them. Some people did, which was great.

Dockers go down and bow out of finals race.
If you had told me that we would participate in a prelim final after round 10, I would have definetley taken it.

Our best year yet, with improvement to come from 2007’s All Australian Ruckman, 2007 Brownlow medalist Brett Peake, and Paul Hasleby to return fully fit, the future looks bright for this bunch of Dockers.

Dockers, biggest winners out of 2007. Biggest losers, Geelong and St Kilda a close second.
What I mean is, based on pre season expectations, Freo have exceeded predictions, the Cats and Saints have really done worse than expected.

Dockers Prayer
Our Father who lives in Fremantle
Hallowed be thy game,
Thy purple comeThe game be won
At Telstra, as it is at Subi.
Give us this day your freakish goal
And forgive us our poor passes,
As we forgive those who give free kicks against us,
And lead us not into the pocket
But deliver us down the corridor.
For Finals are Kingdom,
The Power and the Glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen.

Walk across the room
Originally uploaded by dockermark35.

I am reading Bill Hybels book at the moment, “Just walk across the room”.

The basic premise is that if we want to share our faith, we just need to walk across the room and share it. Everyone is on a spiritual journey, and our task is to help them with that, not dominate it, force our opinion down their throat, just share our own faith.
Bill Hybels has changed, or at least my perception of him has changed. His approach and encouragement is to be relational, incarnational now than what we had demonstrated to us in his past endevours. Age has brought with it wisdom.
I believe that we still need something to bring people to, but we need to be with them in order to do that.

At my niece’s birthday the other day I struck up a conversation with one of my sisters neighbours. Turns out he was a vietnam vet and his best friend was a ‘sky pilot’ or navy chaplain. His friend stepped on a land mine and was killed. This guy opened up his heart and just shared it with me, a divine moment. Thank God I seized it and shared with him about some of my story. I had to go, but could not pass up the opportunity to take that next step. So I asked him if he was a reader. He said he was so I asked him if I could send him a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life”. He said yes and I have done that with a note to call me if he ever wants to.
Hopefully I will meet him again some time.

This is basically what Bill’s book is about.
Jesus offers people the “good life”. A life of purpose and meaning. We are here to share this. We dont have to lead them in the sinners prayer right then and there, we just have to do our little part, just walk across the room.

I’ll let you know more about the book as I read through it.

While working at home today I have spent about 2 hours on and off trying to get through to Tickmaster. They really need to do something about this.

If, and it is a big IF, the Dockers beat Sydney at Telstra Stadium this week I have registered for a Grand Final Ticket. You dont get a choice on what type you want, or the cost or the seating. But you are almost guaranteed a ticket.

Getting through was really hard, the phone was mostly busy, but even when you got through, it mostly just rang out.

Then when you did get through the menu was confusing because we have been told to press ONE, when in fact you actually needed to press TWO.

None the less, I have my pre-registration.

Come on you MIGHTY DOCKERS.
It would be great to have another chance at the Crows. I think West Coast probably have as much chance of beating them in Adelaide as we do of beating Sydney.

We have these facts in our favour
Sandilands is BIG, Jolly wont like that.
The Telsta Stadium is BIG, about the same size as Subi, The Swans wont like that.
The Dockers Confidence is BIG, the Swans wont like our risk taking.

webwayne3
Originally uploaded by dockermark35.

Wayne Field has a blog
Wayne is a good mate, and Pastor of Australind Baptist Church

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