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

I was chatting to my son the other day about Social Studies, or SOS as they call it now. I loved Social Studies and English. They were my best subjects. My son is an ace at maths and science, receiving the science award this year at school with an A+

When I was in high school the thought of recieving top of the class for anything was the last thing on my mind, I just needed to get through. I think the brains skipped a generation.

But my son was bemoaning the ‘uselessness’ of social studies and history. Who cares he said!
He wants to be an engineer, or computer science or scientist. Something in that field. I said to him, you know what son, no matter what field you go into, eventually you will have to deal with people. I shared how his uncle, who is doing very well for himself, started off as an engineer, dealing with maths and physics. But now he is in management. And management involves leadership. And leadership involves people.

Social studies and history are, in their best form, all about relationships, all about people. No matter what you choose to do in life, eventually it will be all about people…and relationships.

I consider myself a fairly discerning sort of person. However I need to be really careful.

Whenever you look at a situation you make certain assessments of it. Peoples motives, feelings and level of emotion. Why are they leaving? Why do they choose to leave your community, often with no communication at all. Not just why they are leaving, but even the fact they are leaving!

You can make all sorts of assumptions about them.

It is pretty clear that in our church culture we run from conflict. From someone being honest and frank at the risk of feelings being hurt. I think this is the reason we don’t do ‘exit interviews’ of people who leave. We also just don’t ask.

It is a hard practice to get into. But its a good one. You discover all sorts of misunderstandings, good reasons and some mud that sticks…and confronts you to change.

When I started out in pastoring I had very little training on conflict.
Yet as the first decade went on it was the most needed skill I needed.
In the early days I was characterised by running from conflict. Avoiding it. Being defined and constricted by it.
I have learnt that the pain of quickly dealt with conflict is far preferable to long drawn out conflict, which festers.

Understanding when you go into a conversation that there is heightened emotion, and at times ownership, helps. Also understanding that you can give yourself time also helps. Questions don’t need to be answered straight away. So to that end you must demonstrate that you will revisit and return to the subject once you have prayed and thought about the issue. This develops trust.

It truly is the key skill any Pastor, and leader needs. As wisdom and experience come, as well as ability to bring the conversation back to the issue, and away from personal attacks, conflict can actually become your friend. It can be a touchpoint for growth and change.

3 or 4 days a week I brush my daughters hair so she can have it tied up for school.
It is not something I ever really thought I would do.
The task takes about 5 minutes and meets with various levels of success. Greeted by either ‘great job dad’ or a deep sigh at a fathers incompetence with a scrunchie.

The day will come when my daughter will not need me to do her hair.
So for now, I enjoy the moment we have together.