Being a pastor means sometimes telling people what they don’t want to hear, but need to.
Straddling the very blurred line between coming off as a self righteous twat…and the other line of being a wobbling jelly fish desperatly seeking to osmosis itself into everyones good books.

Today I took a little step in the direction of the srt..hopefully it was not a step that was over balanced.

I questioned someone who was focused on the way something was being done, rather than focusing on the depth of meaning behind the ritual. Seriously….worship in its its many forms calls us to remember, worship and commune with Christ.

As someone who seeks to facilitate an environment where people can come and commune together, you dont always get it right.
Examples? Mispelt words, music thats either innapropriate or distracting rather than enhancing, a message which has an ‘off’ illustration, a neighbours lawnmower…things you can and should control, and things you cannot. If someone can be distracted, then they might be.

But as some point, mature Christians need to be told….focus on Christ.

Here is the countdown I have made up for our new series…..Fresh

Things have been really exciting at church lately.
We had another big crowd in today….ran out of seats up the back….thats exciting.
The worship team have been playing excellent music…and it has really been helped by a couple of great musicians sticking around. Eliot is doing a great job with them.

I kicked off our new series and tried some different creative elements….used a few pictures ala ‘Seth Godin’ style. That is used pictures to illustrate a point…bring emotion in. Used my little clicker to control it from the front. I have not used powerpoint for so long…its pretty old and lame. But today I used it in a fresh way. Just used pictures as illustrations…no text, to convey emotion and truth as much as anything else.
I also got one of the blokes from church who has made some significant changes and taken some risks in his work life to tell a three minute ‘vignette’ or testimony to illustrate a point.
We are talking about being fresh….and this morning I talked about how God is a creative God, how we are made in His image…and how one way to find refreshment in your work is to exersise your creative talents.
I think it went okay….

Then…later on in the day I took the two kids and our dog for a walk down Bayswater river….beautiful day…beautiful kids.

Then…my brother in law gave me a nice bottle of red for my birthday….

Chris Judd said something really significant during the week…particularly for a footballer. He said that ‘football’ is not real life.. Ha!! your right Chris.

Thanks God for a beautiful refreshing day, thanks for my wife, my kids, my church…and some beautiful provisions today.

To describe how I feel after the Dockers went down to Melbourne by one goal.

You think you have felt it all as a Freo supporter and member of long standing. Crumbs….we survived the ‘Drum’ years…..

but today they took it to a new level.
Up by 50 points against the bottom team in the competition after taking it right up to the best team last week……

I can’t handle much more of this.

After hearing all the stories about 60, 000 men attending the Angus Buchan crusade in South Africa, both from the web but also from my associate who attended….am excited about the crusade which will be happening in Perth.

Friday 27th February 2009 to Sunday 1st March 2009

There will be a web site up within the next couple of weeks with registration forms and information. Bedford Baptist’s childrens worker who is excellent on IT will be putting that together. We will also be helping out with the music/worship side of it as well…..
Suffice to say I will be involved in some of the planning, multi media and whatever else I am asked to do.

Its pretty exciting…and we are hoping for a great increase on 2008’s attendance of over 700 men…

Ha! Hypocrisy at its best.

Booing is part of the game….you get involved, you boo a bad decision….you cheer for your own players.

West Coast supporters….namely the WA media….had a red hot go at Freo supporters for booing Judd at a Western Derby….

Now they find themselves booing him…what will the excuse be.
By the way, I am finding a way to enjoy the Weagles misery, despite my own at Freo’s losses!

Doing some research on my message topic for this month….FRESH

this video is cool as…..a very creative and cheap device that transforms a $40 Wii controller into a whole heap more…