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

I have not met a Senior Pastor yet who is worth his salt that does not get the whole ‘seating’ thing.
How…where…in what format a room is set up…is important!
We only have to look at God’s complicated instructions for His house of worship to know this.

At Inglewood we have been having real issues with seating….too many people, not enough room.
Okay….there is enough room if we are all squished in.
Last week, just as the service finished, I got up and gently encouraged/asked the folk if they could possibly get to church early…and sit down the front, I even said I would put lollies on the front two pews!

This week we moved all the musicians onto the stage, with just the leader and singers down on the level part. I debated whether to put them up high on the stage, but the crowd is still not large enough to have to do this, and I don’t like being up high looking over people, I like to look them straight in the eye, be on eye level with people. We may have to change this at some point.

Anyhoo…..I put some Fantails on the front two pews, and they did fill up. Because we had moved everyone foward, we had some space at the back…..at least until everyone came in. Then we were full again. Its amazing. We truly are experiencing sustained growth.

It felt full this morning, but not uncomfortably full…..whew! We needed to make space. I am believing that very soon we will need to make more space….there are new friends coming and staying every week.

ummmm…lets think about that for half a millisecond…..no.

Bad things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people.
The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Indiscriminate, awful fire, killing innocents…is not how God operates.

Why did it happen? Don’t know. Why did Soveriegn God not intervene? Don’t know.

It is amazing to see how people are helping, it shows the image of God within us when we reach out in love and mercy to those who are struck down. That is God at work.

Judgement will come, at the right time, in the right way, but the posturing of some, the attempt to claim it as some moral high ground victory seems to me to have much more in common with the pharisees of Jesus day, rather than Jesus Himself. In fact its wicked.

This is why you are fat

fascinating, chilling, interesting…..provoke one to prayer…

“We were all human beings united by a tragedy, equal in the face of suffering and walking the path of recovery together….”
(more)

…..has put some good thoughts together on a way to think through the whole ‘revisiting’ church issue.

“In our rush to reject the consultant paradigm, there is a real danger that we embrace the house of sand approach that the bartender represents. The truth of the matter is that Jesus has a lot to say about how people, and the world is living……”

The consultant and the bartender walked into a church….