This song by Hillsong Young and Free is my favourite off their excellent album.
In our new series at Inglewood Community Church I speak on singing a new song, and this song in particular.
Listen Here

Listen to Song Here

For it is by grace you have been saved, and this is not of yourself, it is a work of God.
Good people don’t get to heaven.
Forgiven people get to heaven.

How disarming is it when someone confesses their humanity to you. It takes away the pretense. They are being honest about the truth that they are just the same as you. Faulty, messed up, imperfect.

How great is it to have friends who know your faults. Have seen you at your worst, and yet still love and value you. See something in you.

One of my dreams is to have a church my kids would love to attend. Fun, meaningful and passionate.
A lot of that is to do with the creative heart of God, who is fresh, vibrant and new. We are told to ‘sing a new song to the Lord’. Not to be stale, religious, dry.
Watching the youth band practice last night gave me great hope we are heading in the right direction.

Three times I have booked flights with Jestar to have them completely change the time of flight.
There is nothing as a customer you can do about that.
But if you try to change your flight details they will charge you exhorbitant fees.
Their Facebook page is full of similar complaints.

I have flown Qantas and Virgin and never have this happen to me.

I have enjoyed many of Mark Driscolls sermons. There has been some solid Biblical truth in there. He is a master communicator and manages to keep your attention for an hour long message. Apparently he speaks off the cuff after having spent hours in study and prayer. I can believe it. He has also offered almost all his material available freely and online. Something I admire.

He is also a Pastor steeped in controversy. His manner can be abrasive, offensive and bordering on sexist. His view on women in ministry is not something I share.  You can read about all the controversy in various places which I will leave you to google yourself or for a summary… More Here

That controversy has culminated in his immediate stepping down from ministry which he outlines in this video.

I applaud some aspects of this and question others.

I think he shows grace and humility here, and genuine sorrow. His heart is clearly for the local church and for the mission of Christ. He recognises all this controversy detracts from this. He has also publicly fronted up and admitted fault, and apologised.

What concerns me is the nature of the process. He has started and outlined the process. He seems to be leading the process. Even if he has not, it is not clear who would be taking him through the process. A wiser approach may have been to have the elder or leader giving the statement, with Mark saying something towards the end.

It needs to be said that Pastor Mark has not resigned here. In fact his clear intention is that he will be back in the pulpit. Which in fact I don’t have a problem with. He has been immature, aggressive and insensitive. So have I at various stages of my pastoral ministry. I would like forgiveness and restoration, and I would like Driscoll to have that extended to him.

Mark Driscoll is not really my type of pastor. I love his use of great media and themes. I love his love of the Bible, I love his passion. I also love the fact that thousands of people have come to Christ through the church he leads. However there are definite rough and abrasive edges there which have needed refining.

My hope and prayer is that through this process he will gain wisdom, grace and forgiveness and be able to be even more effective as God refines Him, something I pray for myself as well.

“For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers,  as you still do”

This past weekend we put on our Mighty Mens Event in the Northwest at a cattle station about 30 k’s out of Roebourne.

Over 50 blokes, mostly Hi-Vis wearing tradies, turned up for a weekend of spiritual input and fellowship. We shared stories of how our faith became real in tragedy, hardship, uncertainty and difficulty.

I spoke about hearing from God on the Saturday morning and it went really well. Another highlight was hearing the testimonies and stories from all the various blokes who turned up. Some had lost their wives, some had moral failures, others had experienced uncertainty with economic hardship.

These men are ‘tough’ men but here camped next to the billabong, they opened up their hearts and heard from God and each other. One of the blokes, who works hard and long hours, said it was like 6 months of church packed into a weekend. Which for him was needed and a good thing.