You Cannot Impact What You Do Not Engage

Just read a great article a friend of mine recommended. It's by Steve Gonzales "The Key to Engaging and Impacting Kids on the Fringe".

"You don't deserve to dream." I remember reading that message on the T-shirt of one of my boys as we prepared to leave for summer camp. He was just stepping on the bus as we headed to an urban outreach camp that I've been involved with for 10 years. The bearer of this remarkable statement was a young man I'd met and befriended at school. This camp was his introduction to "Christian" camping - or any camping, for that matter. You don't deserve to dream. What a statement!

Check out the rest of the article here.

So...do you like Stuff?

The weather on the Gold Coast is fantastic!!! It's a balmy 26C in my room as I type this, I was just outside hanging up some washing and putting the bins out and it's a beautiful day! The sun's shining, the freshly cut grass smells like summer and there's a cool breeze blowing. It's days like these that make me glad I don't live in Melbourne!

I watched Phantom of the Opera on DVD on the weekend. Didn't expect to like it at all, but I watched it anyway. Apart from the whole 'as if anyone has a singing conversation' thing, it was pretty good! The music was awesome and the movie was made really well. I'd recommend it to anyone who's into music, but bear in mind it is kind of long! I enjoyed it.

Was reading in Genesis on Saturday and came across this passage; Genesis 24:63
"One evening as he was taking a walk out in the fields, meditating..."
This is Isaac out in fields as his new wife Rebekah arrives by camel. So he just happens to be out in the fields, sees the travelling crew coming and he wanders out to meet them. What I found really cool though is what he was doing out there in the first place: meditating! That's my idea of spending time with God. I get really sick of people going on about 'quiet times' and spending hours reading and journalling etc. I'm not a sitting still kind of guy so I really don't like the idea of doing that for ages. But I love going for walks on my own, away from civilization, away from other people, away from noise and just spending time with God. Walking along down the beach or through the bush or somewhere in the middle of night when most people are asleep and just hanging out with God. Meditating on his Word, talking to him, listening to anything he might have to say to me, thinking about what's happening and where I'm going in my life. That's the ultimate quiet time for me, just me and God and no-one else. That's what Isaac was doing that afternoon in the field. On ya mate!

David said this in Psalm 119; "I honour and love your commands. I meditate on your principles." (vs 48) "I reflect at night on who you are, O Lord, and I obey your law because of this." (vs55)

Q.O.T.D.

I spent some time down at the beach this morning, just sitting in my car in the shade watching boats and jetskis go past and doing a bit of reading. I started reading Paul Hattaway's Back to Jerusalem which he wrote with three Chinese Church leaders. Speaking of the history of the Chinese church and the doubts of the missionaries in the early 1900's Paul says this:

"God, however, had other ideas. He would not allow the Chinese masses to languish in their sin and spiritual darkness while the glorious news of the victory of his beloved Son on the cross remained unheralded in the world's largest nation."

Powerful words! That's the Q.O.T.D. (Quote Of The Day)

Selahphonic

Over the last couple of days we've been blessed to have the guys from Melbourne band Selahphonic in town. Jamie Coyle from Youth Dimension started the band a couple of years ago and gathered together a few musicians who had the same vision: to record & perform a musical journey of the Gospel targeted at High School young people. Check out more here.

They played in Helensvale High on Thursday, Southport State High on Friday and came to our Youth Group on Friday night. Jamie on guitar and vocals, Matt Dickens on guitar and vocals and QLDer Nick Gibson on drums. Their message was fantastic and the way they presented it was fantastic! After the service they hung around with our Senior High youth and answered some of their 'hard questions'! From what I heard it was pretty full on!

Meanwhile the Junior High youth were off at a local park running around and bashing each other up...well sort of! We had pizza & games in the park.
What was really awesome for me was that a lady from church rang yesterday afternoon and asked me to make contact with a guy in year 9 who was thinking about coming to youth group. So I rang him and he was keen to come. He came along and was pretty quiet but I had a chance to chat with him because we went to grab the pizzas together. It's so encouraging when God tees up that kind of thing and all we have to do is make a phone call and put in a bit of effort. So often God is just waiting to partner with us!

Wherever You Are

I bought the new Third Day album Wherever You Are on Wednesday. It's excellent! It's a studio album and all the songs have a kind of hope, encouragement, reflection theme. The opening track Tunnel has been in my head for the past two days straight! I also love two songs in the middle of the album Communion and Carry My Cross. They're in Third Day's traditional rock style and the words are really powerful! Mac Powell's vocals are always amazing. I saw Third Day live in Januray this year at Sonfest 2005. It was one of the most exciting nights of my life! I was right in the middle of the mosh pit about 10 people back from the stage, it was a hot night so the security guards were spraying a hose in the air to cool everyone down. And the band were fantastic! I was blown away by how good they were live! It was a very polished performance but they still made it unique to our crowd. I wouldn't hesitate to see them play again, it was great!
I'm just listening to Carry My Cross from the album, a song from Jesus point of view. Check out the lyrics:

As long as I remember
I've been walking through the wilderness
Praying to the Father
And waiting for my time
I've come here with a mission
And soon I'll give my life for this world

I'm praying in the garden
And I'm looking for a miracle
I find the journey hard but
It's the reason I was born
Can this cup be passed on
Lord, I pray your will be done
in this world

So I'll carry my cross
And I'll carry the shame
To the end of the road
Through the struggle and pain
And I'll do it for love
No, it won't be in vain
Yes, I'll carry my cross
And I'll carry the shame

I feel like I'm alone here
And I'm treated like a criminal
The time has come for me now
Even though I've gone no wrong
Father, please forgive them
They know not what they've done
In this world

Three more days and I'll be coming back again
Three more days and I'll be coming back again

Copyright 2005 Consuming Fire Music

Forgiveness Part 2

We continued our studies on forgiveness the other night at small group. The studies, by the way, are from a book called Groups by Ortberg, Pederson & Poling. Some of the book is quite simple and not a whole lot of indepth bible study, but this stuff on forgiveness is really good. Insightful and challenging!
We looked at the parable of the Unforgiving Debtor in Matthew 18:23-35. The key in this is that we are that unforgiving debtor. We've had our sins forgiven by our gracious Lord, so when we don't pass on forgiveness to our fellow man for much lesser things we aren't acting as we should. The debtor in the parable clearly didn't understand the extent to which he had been forgiven, the fact that his debt had been cancelled hadn't impacted him. He hadn't changed his lifestyle as a result of being forgiven.
Similarly, the story of the woman and the alabaster jar of perfume in Luke 7:36-50 sends the same message. Someone commented the other night that this parable makes it sound like we should sin all the more, so that we can be forgiven for more, then we will love the Lord even more for his forgiveness! Romans 6:1-2 pretty much answers that one; that we shouldn't sin just so that grace can abound to us. The message of the parable is that for us to love Jesus all the more we should learn to understand the extent of our sin. Not our individual sins that we commit but our very nature and the fact that prior to our forgiveness we were even under the wrath of God, under his anger. (John 3:36) Simon the Pharisee didn't have as many visible sins as the woman in the story, but he was still under God's wrath if he didn't trust Jesus for his salvation.
What we can take from these parables is that we should take the time to understand the nature of sin, the nature of our disconnection from God prior to salvation. We should understand God's position towards us before we were saved. When we understand this, we will be so much more thankful to God for saving us through Christ. A hugely deep love for God will come as a result of knowing what he's done for you! And when we understand our own vast forgiveness we will be much more willing to forgive others for comparatively petty things.

Hurray for clean cars!

I finally got everything back into the old Laser. Gave it a good wash and now it's *almost* ready to sell! I've advertised it online, I just need to chuck a couple of things in it: Radio Cassette, 1 side mirror, and she'll be ready to rock and roll! She drives quite nicely, but I'm looking forward to getting into something a bit newer: a nice Honda Accord comes to mind :)

Saw 'Transporter 2' at the cinema this evening. It had good action but some parts were just ridiculously over the top. Not the worst movie I'd ever seen but I wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone.

More on the Chaplaincy stuff...

It’s Monday evening, I’m sitting out on the patio overlooking the canal and watching the lightening crackle out to the east. I can hear the water lapping at the shore, feel the warm breeze, hear the thunder in the distance and the muffled sounds of some kind of organised sport from the field a few blocks away. Nice!
I work at this house in Palm Beach every Monday night as a personal carer for 3 disabled adults. It’s a challenging job at times but the perks include the patio overlooking the canal!

As promised, here’s more about our church service last night. Gary Coleman was there from Sport & Leisure Ministries. He’s the chaplain for the Indy here on the coast and other motorsport events around the country. He had with him Hunter something-or-other from motorsport chaplaincy USA. Charlie Tonga from the NRL also shared his testimony.
Gary shared how it is our role as Christians to ‘be Christ’ to the people around us. To our friends, our neighbours, our work colleagues, our families… Every single person in the world is hurting inside without Jesus and they’re watching us Christians intently to see the difference that He makes in our lives. Not many people will sit down and listen to the Gospel, but they are watching and they can see the Gospel unfolding and at work in our lives.

This doesn’t undermine the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in drawing people to the truth, but it highlights the important role we have as followers of Christ in partnering with God. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23
“…I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel…”
A simple message, but it’s one we all need to hear over and over again to remind us and encourage us to reach out to the people around us, not but preaching to them but simply by being Jesus to them.

Gary said that if we don’t have non-Christians around us, we can’t fulfill our role as Christians. If we don’t have people who name us as their friends, we can’t live the Gospel to them. That’s challenging for me, I know there are some old friends I need to start reaching out to, some old friends I need to start modeling the Christ-life to.

Time to Spring Clean...

I've been busy all weekend cleaning my Ford Laser, getting it ready to sell. I took all the seats out, all the carpet, all everything. Then hosed it, scrubbed it, upholstery cleaned it, hosed it again, banged sand out of it, dried it then put it back in! Mammoth job, but I finally got it done! Now I just need to do a few more niggly little things to the car and she'll be ready to go! Stand by for further developments!

Also, had Gary Coleman - Aussie Motorsport Chaplain at church this evening to share after Indy here on the Gold Coast. Awesome message, will blog more this week when I've had some sleep!

Life Doesn't Start Tomorrow

Let me set the scene for you...the Israelites have been in slavery to the Egyptians for about 400 years. Along comes Moses & Aaron and God uses them to rescue the Israelites. God sends plagues on the Egyptians to make them let His people go. First was the plague of blood, turning all the water to blood. Then came the plague of frogs. Hundreds and thousands of frogs came up out of the river and invaded the land. They were absolutely everywhere and on absolutely everything...even the people!
So Pharaoh gets sick of it, he caves in, and that's where this passage picks up:

Exodus 8:8-10 NLT
Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and begged, "Plead with the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let the people go, so they can offer sacrifices to the Lord."
"You set the time!" Moses replied. "Tell me when you want me to pray for you, your officials, and your people. I will pray that you and your houses will be rid of the frogs. Then only the frogs in he Nile River will remain alive."
"Do it tomorrow," Pharaoh said.

Do it tomorrow? What the...?! Is this guy crazy? He's inundated, overwhelmed, covered in frogs...but he's willing to live with them for one more night? Pharaoh clearly didn't realise that life doesn't start tomorrow.

How often do we make that mistake? We're willing to keep on living our mediocre lives and we keep saying...I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll get right with God. Tomorrow I'll get serious about my faith. Tomorrow I'll be passionate and fired up for Jesus. Tomorrow I'll start telling my friends about the Hope I have in Christ. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Life doesn't start tomorrow! Why are we so much like Pharaoh and we're willing to put up with crap rather than sort things out today?! Life starts today!

Only the proud...

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Proverbs 16:18

The old saying, 'Pride comes before a Fall'. I was thinking about it this afternoon while chatting to my mate Dave and I thought...everybody falls, but it only really hurts the proud. We all fall, in the sense that we all experience trials and hard times and 'storms', but they don't affect the humble as much. Humble people aren'as concerened with themselves but moreso with other people around them and primarily God. So when they fall, it doesn't hurt as much. But for the proud, a fall hurts big time.

Moral of the story...don't be proud! But I guess that was the moral of the story all along.

Thanks Dave.

Blogging or Bogging?

So I'm in the office today, working hard and my friend Laura's at the next desk, also working hard. And one of our youth leaders, Rob comes knocking at the window...as he does! So we let him in and chatted for a bit and I was telling him about my new blog page. Telling him how much fun it is and what I've blogged and all about the blogosphere etc etc. Basically: that I'd done a 'blog'.

Now, I don't know what Rob was thinking...maybe he thought I said I'd done a bog! Maybe he hadn't had much sleep cos he turned to Laura and said, "Have you done a poo as well?"

Don't be scared of Rob's pic, he took that himself...trying to be tough! Rob is one of our year 8 boys' leaders. If you're the praying type...please pray for him cos he's going on an overseas trip next month to serve God!

If 'Sorry' Seems to be the Hardest Word...

So if sorry seems to be the hardest word...then 'i forgive you' must be the next hardest!

We had our youth leader's Bible study this evening on the topic of forgiveness. One of the passages we looked at was Luke 17:3 "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Wowser! 'If' he repents? I always thought that if someone sinned against you, you should forgive him anyway! But this is saying that you should forgive them ONLY if they repent. I was thinking as we discussed that this has gotta be in context of helping to bring them to repentance with God. The aim in any human relationship is reconciliation and the same with God. So if a believer sins against you, you hold out on forgiveness ONLY for the purpose of them identifying their sin and repenting and reconciling to God. Also, this is in line with Matthew 18 where it talks about the appropriate ways to approach a believer who has sinned. Confidentially, with a witness, etc.

So this has given me a bit of a different spin on forgiveness. As it also says in Matt 18; forgive them 70 times 7 'if they repent', I am willing to forgive over and over with the strength and grace of Jesus. But if they need to come to repentance for the sake of their relationship with God, maybe public forgiveness must be held back for that sake... Hmmmm, still working this one through! The Bible: always bringing out the pearlers!

Sword Wielding Western Australian

My mate Scott over in WA witnessed a bizarre event on the weekend! A man storming into a church service wielding a braveheart-style sword and starting to preach! The story had a sad twist in the end, thought-provoking stuff! Read more here.

Sausages on Tap

Just quickly this morning as I'm off to go do a BBQ brekkie at a local high school here on the Gold Coast. Organised by a few of the local church youth groups we get together, chip in, and put on a brekkie for the youth at the school every Wednesday.

It was my turn to bring the snags this week so I went to the butchers on Monday and was chatting to the guy there (they usually start asking questions when you buy 5kg!) Told him what I was up to and he ended up giving me a discount on the snags...and then gave me two dozen eggs as well!!! There still are some generous people in the world! Good on ya mate!

Professor Snook

I'm studying Certificate IV in Christian Ministry, only 6 weeks to go till the end! There's only 5 of us in the class but it's a good environment to learn because you can't get away with sleeping in class!

So anyway, our regular lecturer had something else on this morning and the course convenor was away so she asked me to lead the class! The content was already written so I just had to make sure I understoon it and lead the class through the work. The topic: Sanctification. Very exciting.

We had fun, it was a good short lesson and easy to grasp. My dad always told me that I should be a teacher so now I've fulfilled his wishes!

Sanctified: holy. Not anything that we do or any measure of our ability, works or personal spirituality but all about God setting us apart for His purposes. We as Christians are sanctified: set apart to God, by God and for God.

Call me Professor Snook.

Do you really believe?

So I've been having a bit of car trouble lately. I had an old Holden Ute. '82 Rodeo 4x4 Single Cab. Loved it, but it was time to move on. I needed more seats for youth group activities and I needed something cheaper to run. So I put it on the market and had a few bites. I then went out to the auctions and picked up a cheap '87 Ford Laser Ghia. I found out after buying it that it had done a head gasket so that's proved to be a bit difficult. I still had the ute at this time, quite confident in selling it. That didn't happen quite as I'd planned either... The gearbox got stuck in reverse one morning...and then after my mate fixed that for me...it happenend again 3 days later. BUT, God was working in mysterious ways because it was during this time that I sold it! I had more hassle getting the roadworthy certificate for it, and all this time I kept getting more and more frustrated! I was thinking...why is this happening, surely God can fix this for me! Surely God wants me to have a good, functioning car so that I can serve Him in it! It was driving me crazy, I was frustrated, annoyed, stressed and worried! So I'm driving to work last week on Monday, about a 30min drive and I'm arguing with God. I'm wondering why all this is happening, why as soon as it looks like everything's all sorted...something goes wrong again!
Then plain as day, God said to me..."Geoff, do you really believe what you're going to tell the youth on Friday night?" Hmmm! You see, that Friday I was speaking at Youth Group on giving your worries to God. Telling them that when their eyes are on Jesus, the storms in their lives don't matter as much. I know I believed it in the past but as I was preparing for this message, God had been preparing me for it as well! In my life at the time I was doubting the principle, I wasn't keeping my eyes on Jesus. I was holding onto the storm and worrying about it!

I learned my lesson. Thanks God! So I sold the ute, the Laser is at the mechanics getting fixed and a great friend loaned me his Callais while he is overseas this week. God had a plan, He knew what was going on the whole time!

As in a Mirror

So we had a worship/prayer night for our youth group the other nite. Started off with music led by the team and then moved into prayer & reflection stations. To reflect on God and to pray for our friends, our church, our city & our youth ministry. Admittedly, I was quite preoccupied that night. I had a couple of things on my mind and on my heart and I was finding it really difficult to release control of them to God. I was having trouble worshipping God freely because of these things weighing heavily. I was being disobedient to God because I wasn't committing them to Him. As I moved around the room one of the stations had a big mirror and the sign for the station read something along the lines of...

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." -2 Cor 3:18
Look in the mirror. Do you reflect God's glory?

As I read that last sentence my heart thumped. I didn't want to look in that mirror! I wasn't reflecting God's glory! How could I relfect the glory of God if I wasn't even able to release control of the things in my life and worship Him? I was scared, I didn't want to look in the mirror. I didn't want to see my reflection, the reflection of a sinner.

So I sat down, I avoided the mirror and I sat at the station with my head in my hands and I prayed. I finally released those things I was holding in my heart and I committed them to the Lord. I couldn't do anything to change them, I was just holding onto them and worrying about them. So I committed them to the Lord. I stopped being disobedient to what He was asking me to do. I submitted to His Lordship and I humbled myself. And I felt better.

But as I sat there I realised that regardless of how I felt that night. Regardless of any sin in my life or disbodience or resistance to God, I do reflect God's glory. My reflection in the mirror isn't a true representation of my reflecting God's glory. Colossians 3:3 reads: "For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God." When God looks at me, he doesn't see me and my sins. He sees me in Christ. He sees Jesus' holiness, and Jesus' glory. When God looks at me I reflect the glory of Christ. I reflect the glory of God! If you're a Christian, your life is hidden in Christ, you reflect the glory of God! Not from anything good we can do but entirely from God's gift to us: Jesus!

Wow! So I stood up and I looked in the mirror. And I saw Geoff, the sinner. But God didn't, he saw Geoff whose sins are forgiven. He saw the glory of Jesus Christ all over me! The 2 Corinthains passage from the mirror station said that the glory comes from the Lord. Not from us. It comes from God. Thankyou Jesus!

Me 

Welcome!

Hey.

This is me having a go at this whole blogging thing and seeing what happens. Please leave comments on anything I post. Cheers!

Snooky