It was a good day in church today…good crowd in, some visitors….
We took some time out of our communion time to remember the bushfire victims, a minute silence.

We have also been raising money for the appeal, will total it up and let you know how we did it this week.

I shared the story about how Jesus responded to a natural, and a unnatural disaster in His day. He did not explain why it happened, but he did clarify to people that it was not because people were being judged, bad stuff does happen in our world….

Our worship leader reminded us to pray for those who were left behind, they are the ones suffering now, the initial shock is gone,and they are ones who have to go on with living, without the ones they loved and knew with them.

Someone who went through the Cyclone Tracy distaster said something profound to me today as well, “no one compares houses when they are all piled up together at the rubbish tip”.

One of my best mates has this on his church website…presumably to attract people to the service.

“We have air-con!”

That is so funny…so does the local pub mate..and other places!

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

You know who you are!!!

Remember Ra’ah? Well Wayne and I are going to ressurect it, in a new format, name etc….and possibly some new posters…stay tuned.

Very busy at the moment…
getting ready for our church agm….will post a highlights video shortly….
preparing church vision document….meeting with leaders…our church is a very exciting place to be at the moment.

also getting ready for the Angus Buchan conference, should be an awesome time…with close to 1300 men already registered, we are stoked…the worship time with that many guys will just be fantastic….praying that God chooses to reveal things to men, challenge and inspire them…
But with so many blokes coming, the pressure is on to make it good…pray for me, pray for Eliot as he leads the worship time, and pray for Angus and his team, that the Holy Spirit will empower, direct and give him discernment.

Had one of the best beers I have ever had today, snuck away from the office (should not have, no time to waste, but a good mate needed to chat…so down to Freo we went)….at the Little Creatures brewery…. a ‘bright ale’….straight from the tap…cold….absolutely superb.

This from Rowland Croucher….

“Where is the pressure coming from? The survey indicates that it is not the members or the church board. It is the ministers themselves. The pastors show a consistent inability to set reasonable limits on their workload. More than two out of three respondents say that they expect too much of themselves. A little over half say that they love what they do so much that they don’t know when to stop.
The typical pastor spends about 14 hours planning and attending meetings or services. Another 13 hours is invested in sermon preparation and teaching. Pastoral care and counseling take some nine hours. Six hours are spent in personal devotions and prayer. All types of administrative and budget tasks, advanced planning and the like absorb 13 hours.”

Source

Okay…the 2009 season is upon us…

After watching an experienced and determined Richmond defeat Freo by 3 points….and my third cup of coffee…I am ready for my 2009 predictions.
I got at least one right last year, Palmer did indeed pick up the Rising Star. Unfortunately most of the others were wrong after the Dockers suffered a pretty dissapointing season.
I was right about Hawthorn….they did well…and I was right about Woosha Wiperblades….he did say nothing, but was fawned over by 6peagle….
Unfortunately neither Freo nor the Saints gave the finals a shake….maybe this year…find our below.

1. Stephen Hill is a gun, better than Rich, and will win the Rising Star
2. Chris Mayne will develop into a more consistent player
3. Tarrant will repay the faith showed in him
4. Pavlich will start to dominate games with his mate Hasleby
5. Hawthorn wont maintain their form, and will dissapoint
6. Geelong will continue to fade
7. Port Adelaide will implode, and Mark Williams might face the sack
8. Richmond will dissapoint their fans, and yet Wallace will be re-signed
9. Port Adelaide will collect the spoon
10. North Melbourne will be the big riser
11. Freo will make the top four, but miss out on the big one
12.West Coast will still suck