How much faith do we need to exercise?
How big is a mustard seed?

Is faith able to be categorised into ‘desert faith’ and ‘promised land’ faith?

No matter what we think of the present state of the church, ambivalence, anger or love…we all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.
Somewhere in our faith journey, someone has shared Christ with us.
Somewhere in our faith and ministry journey, someone has supported us.

Most, if not all, para-church ministries, and alternate Churches…owe their heritage, story and perhaps even finance and resource…to those who have gone before.

Just a thought.

Probably my favourite band of all time, (yes they edge out U2), ‘Delirious’ wrote this song.
Jesus Culture do this version of it, not too bad either….

(Songs like this help me to bring my mind back to the holy…)

Far away in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, two prawns were swimming around in the sea – one called Justin and the other called Christian.

The prawns were constantly being harassed and threatened by sharks that patrolled the area.

Finally one day Justin said to Christian, “I’m bored and frustrated at being a prawn, I wish I was a shark, then I wouldn’t have any worries about being eaten…”

As Justin had his mind firmly on becoming a predator, a mysterious cod fish appears and says, “Your wish is granted”, and lo and behold, Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian immediately swam away, afraid of being eaten by his old buddy.

Time went on (as it invariably does…) and Justin found himself becoming bored and lonely as a shark. All his old buddies simply swam away whenever he came close to them. Justin didn’t realise that his new menacing appearance was the cause of his sad plight.

While out swimming alone one day he sees the mysterious cod again and can’t believe his luck. Justin figured that the fish could change him back into a prawn.

He begs the cod to change him back so, lo and behold, he is turned back into a prawn. With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes, Justin swam back to his friends and bought them all a cocktail. (The punch line does not involve a prawn cocktail – it’s much worse).

Looking around the gathering at the reef, he searched for his old buddy. “Where’s Christian?” he asked.

“He’s at home,distraught that his best friend changed sides to the enemy and became a shark”, came the reply. Eager to put things right again and end the mutual pain and torture, he set off to Christian’s house.

As he opened the coral gate the memories came flooding back. He banged on the door and shouted, “It’s me, Justin, your old friend, come out and see me again.

Christian replied “No way man, you’ll eat me. You’re a shark, the enemy and I’ll not be tricked. ” Justin cried back “No, I’m not. That was the old me. I’ve changed”

“I’ve found Cod, I’m a prawn again Christian”

Its fair to say my Mac Book is not treated with kid gloves, as the ‘Genius’ behind the counter said, ‘this one has had a fair workout’ as he wrote on the work form ‘numerous deep scratches”.

None the less it was a surprise when the video card cacked it, especially since my first MacBook Pro that I bought two years ago is still going strong. Thankfully it was still 7 days under warranty, and they would fix it for nothing. Its brilliant how every Apple Product has its own serial number, indicating date of purchase. No scrounging for receipts, just bring it in Mr Edwards and we will fix it for you. Try doing that with your generic PC.

The service was efficient at The Apple Store, although they took their time, despite there being numerous stuff. The place is just busy…..all the time. The systems they have in place are very good, and I waved my essential work tool goodbye. The guy on the counter said it might even be fixed that day, but certainly by the next one.

It wasn’t, and after the third day with no Photoshop or Final Cut, the work was piling up. Today I got a little more forceful on the phone, the fourth day without a Mac will do that to you. After some time of probing, we discovered that the microphone was gone as well, and they were waiting on parts. That would have been nice to know, at least I would have known. But to their credit, when it was fixed, they rang me.

Its shiny, its been cleaned, and everything seems to be working.

While the service was not better than I expected, or even what they had promised, the fact I have my computer back fully functioning, at no cost to me, is good. The service is better than any other computer shop, that is for sure.

POSTSCRIPT: NOT HAPPY JAN! After about 5 minutes of use, the MacBook has gone back to the same problem and I have had to take it into the Apple Store again…….aaaargh! Fix it the first time….please

POSTRSCIPT2: UNFORTUNATELY….the second processor (at a cost of over $700 to Apple) was replaced, and you guessed it….same problem. I took it in this morning, and explained, calmly, that this was third time I had brought it in. Another genius had a look, we had a long chat, and looked at when it crashed. It had crashed whenever I used a Adobe product…or watched flash videos. mmmmmm. He installed a fresh install of Lion for free. This seems to have fixed the problem, I am reinstalling CS Design Suite as I type. I really hope that is the fix. I also suspect it may not have needed $1400+ worth of repairs (at Apples cost) if we had done this at first, but I could be wrong.

Informational credit: www.nettoyersonmac.fr/meilleur-antivirus-mac/