Well Duff has been named.
Channel Ten News, that most reliable news service (cough cough) reckon that Medhurst wont be playing. We will see Gossage.

Good to see Paul in anyhow, a tall skilled quick running defender. Just what we need to skirt around an injured Gehrig who will hopefully keep his “bible basher’ comments to himself this weekend. (Don’t you just loooove the yellow St kilda Jumpers??)

Today was a day I designated to spend with the family. Anzac Day was not a holiday for me, I spent most it working on some things for church.

What a beautiful wonderful day.
Morning tea at Sturt Park, a beautiful playground filled park in Kalamunda.
Then a leisurely drive through the hills to Mundaring weir. On the way we stopped into a couple of places for some bush walking with the kids, as much as their little feet, and my shoulders, would allow.

Then onto Mundaring Weir where a whole heap of beautiful parrots decided to share our lunch with us. The two kids hand fed them some left over bread.
On the way home we stopped off at ‘Sticky Hands Lolly Shop’ which made for a pleasant and relatively quiet ride home!

Some of you from North Beach days might remember this bloke Dave Fallon
An old mate (not that he’s old, just haven’t seen him since the 80’s) now living in London, and a passionate Freo man, which automatically means he is a good bloke!
Check out his thoughtful and humorous blog.

Actually I want to add a little bit more thought to this post.
Reading through David’s blog reminded me that time does not stand still, even if we intersect various points in people’s lives. What I mean is this. Last time I remember David he was a humorous great guy, a good friend to spend some time with. But we were both about 12 or 13!
I remember riding our bokes home at about 9.30pm at night across Charles Riley oval, riding home from youth group.

The last time I remember seeing him was back in the early 80’s. Now as I am reading through his blog it is obvious he is an intelligent, well read person living a great life half way around the world. He has changed enormously, so my perception of him, while accurate for a time, is no longer relevant.

It is a reminder to me of how time really does move. What are we doing with our lives? While it is important to enjoy the pleasures of the day, it is also really important to me that I find significance in my life. Is this an ego thing? Or is it a God given desire?

Animals dont seem to care ‘two hoots’ about significance, all they care about it their next meal, and maybe reproducing. Maybe that is their quest for significance, reproduction. In fact I wonder if our quest for significance is somehow tied in with our spiritual dimension. Maybe God desires us to crave more than just the ‘base’. I suppose what I am arguing for is this.
Desiring significance in the spiritual part of our lives is not a sin. Desiring to be used of God for great things is not a sin.

The difficulty comes when the desire for self promotion is mixed in with the valid desire for spiritual significance.
But I dont want to be afraid of doing something ‘big’ for and with God, just because someone might tell me I am doing it for the purpose of building my own kingdom.

This quote interested me,

“Healthy things grow. Healthy churches grow. If a church isn’t growing, it isn’t healthy. This lack of health could be due to an overall unhealthiness caused by former or present hurts, that we as the leaders are not healthy and are holding the church back or by some other kind of past problems that exists in the church. Or the lack of health could come from a simple imbalance in the 5 purposes. “

Anzac Day has become, over the last 15 years or so, our Countries most spiritual day.
We go to services, at dawn, willingly. Men and women cry, children are taught spiritual lessons. We want to have a link with our past, remember those who have given their lives.

How is the church doing with being a part of this special day?
At Bedford we spent some time in prayer, remembering and thanking.
We have had veterans in our church in the past, but they have all gone now.
Now we have some widows.
Next year we will honour them and hear their story.

As Australia’s most spiritual day, somehow we need to connect with it, and be a greater part of it.

Took my son and half my wifes family to the game on Saturday night.
Enjoyed the free coke they were handing out after the game.
The game itself was not that great, but could have been worse.
A lacklustre first quarter cost us the game, with Freo well and truly outscoring Premiership fancies Adelaide in the second half.
Some very dubious decisions by the Green M & M men did not help either. What had Grover ever done to deserve that treatment?

Pavlich looks sick and out of sorts, Hasleby looked sore.
Medhurst was having a great game right up until when he was moved from the forward pocket. Why oh why Chris did you move him?

Mc Manus was best on ground in my opinion and Farmer was not far behind him.

Adelaide looked tall and strong and used the flood very well.
There are a stack of ‘if only’s’ to come out of the game, but that’s life.

Roll on the Saints, stranger things have happened and we might record out first win at Aurora.

Success as a Church Pastor?
What does that look like, what is it, is it something I want?

I have been thinking about this for sometime. The old arguments of being faithful get a little stale. So does the ‘if you have a big church’ you are succesful.
Some of my good friends are pastors of churches which run at about 300-400. Does this make them succesful Pastors? I dont think so, not if the church was running at that number when they came in.
Does a church which grows significantly in numbers under their leadership make them succesful? Not necesarily either. In fact I have seen in the past few years numerous Pastors see their churches grow significantly, but when a real analysis of the people coming in is made, it is obvious that their church is just doing church better. I am not hugely criticial of this because we should be doing church well, and we often settle for mediocricy and plain laziness. What does concern me is when we deliberatly foster a consumer mentality because it suits our aims of drawing in a big crowd.
We are not yet a church consuming society as may be the case in the US, where stories of people driving down the freeway looking for a church to attend on the Sunday, in much the same way as they look for a restaurant on Saturday night, are prevelant.

Obviously the real key to success is in spiritual fruit, and the foremost importance is mission, leading people to Christ.

Therefore as the key leader in any church, I believe the SP must have evangelism as his primary gifting and focus. Instead of this we have favoured those who are good chaplains and good politicians. The less fuss you make, the less waves you create, the longer you get to keep your job.

But even if Pastor makes evangelism his key focus, it can lead to issues as well, where a group of Pastors think it is okay to abuse and insult and hurt the congregation because of their own agendas.

Another group of people, normally not associated or responsible to anyone, think it is okay to critique and criticise while doing nothing in community. Being a part of a community is hard work, being responsible and accountable to people is hard work, putting up with each other is hard hard work. My heart aches when we stand on the sidelines doing nothing, being accountable to no on, yet feeling it is our God given right to pour brown stuff all over those who are trying.

My version of success is this, a group of people who are cared for spiritually, whose families are cared for, whose children are seen as a priority. Yet this same group of people is also cared about too much to leave them in comfort. Instead they needed to be resourced, trained and kept accountable to be missionaries in their own context.
This is in my view the hardest ministry there is, and maybe why so many good younger leaders are saying, ‘barleise’, I want out of the traditional church community type of ministry.
The problem may just well be that many of my contemporaries have also opted out, and instead focused on what is easier to do as a pastor, either giving up on the church community altogether, or focused on being a chaplain as their foremost responsibility.

What I am struggling with at the moment in my own ministry is what is the key? Specifically what is the key to seeing Aussie men come to Christ. I am talking normal Australian men. You see we have seen a number of women come to know Christ in 2005. But what about their husbands? I have this vision or God given thought, that when one of them makes a decison, and I believe I know who he is, when he finally makes his decision, this will unlock the rest of them. I know this sounds disjointed, but it is what I feel God is saying to me.