Sunday Supper n Scrubs.

Lately after church on Sundays a small but growing (and hopefully still growing) group of us have been hanging after church, getting people to do munchie runs, and watching a couple of episodes of scrubs. I’ve really been enjoying it, as we can extend our usual social time after church, mix it up, muck around with youtube, and it’s open to anyone. I guessed we’ve experimented with al kinds of after church activities for cool social stuff to do. This week due to a lack of scrubs DVD a bunch of us went back to Whiteline, put on some music, talked sermon, ate food, and enjoyed listening to the ‘Clap on Clap off’ Stereo (nice work by Josh). It was a smaller group, a different vibe, but still a whole lot of fun.

And a few weeks ago a large group of us ended up at Ringwood Lake, playing on the playground, having chats around the lake, and burning boxes of matches for warmth, watching kids who think they are cool graffitiing. It was also a pretty nice time.

I still like Sunday Supper n Scrubs because it is more inclusive – people don’t need to wait for an invitation, you can continue to catch up with a bunch of different people or just sit back and enjoy JD go to war with the Janitor, Turk avoid offending Carla, Bob Kelso be self-centred, Elliot do something dumb, and Dr Cox try to be nasty but reveal somewhere inside, he is a nice loving guy.

State Youth Games

Is coming up! This Queens birthday weekend, the MASH army is once again invading Lardner Park. It’s gong to be our fifth year there, from our beginning as AJAX, to our current outfit name, MASH, and I hope our best yet. Well, maybe not out best points wise, but our best in other ways. The first year was miserable, I’ll pay that. We didn’t know what we were doing, we arrived in the dark and wet to find campsite on a slant and did our best to set up. We endured through that year, and came back better prepared. For year 2 we built a campsite almost bright enough at night to be seen from the highway (I’m not kidding) and we had an amazing year, with a big team, high scores and a top five (4th) finish. Year 3 and 4 we tried slightly different things – bigger numbers, more mixed sports allocations, more focus on teams and community than winning individual sports. And it’s all been good. This year, we’re looking at something new. Year 2 of MASH will see us take in a combined group of 6 churches, and once again, community is the focus. A team of us will be going down two days in advance to prepare the campsite, setting up an army outpost and taking a tilt at the prestigious ‘Spinning Cheese’ award, bringing along a team of parents and helpers as well.. Re-forming into two units, MASH Red and MASH Blue, we’re giving p the pursuit of outright points, and aiming to be a huge presence in the SYG community.

The General, and Colonels and Major that support are going to have their work cut out for them, but this year should be a real blast. If you’re not already going, talk to me – we always are happy to take on more conscripts

Lucky You – Drew Barrymore, Eric Bana, Curtis Hanson.

Yes, that’s right, Greg saw a date movie. Say what you will, but I took my beautiful girlfriend (actually, she took me because my care decided to eat itself) to see a romantic movie. Of course, luckily for me, it had a lot of card playing,, and even some golf in it. Phew.

Once I got over Eric Bana’s accent – (convincing, but still twinging of his old Ray Martin impersonations somehow) He actually portrayed a really great character, Huck Cheever – professional gambler and smooth talker. To see the way his gambling addiction played out was really quite amazing, and it was incredible enough to make me want to shout at his love interest “GIVE UP HE’S ONLY GOING TO ROB YOU AND BREAK YOUR HEART”. Drew Barrymore was in her “Julia Gulia” mode as the sweet, believe the best in everyone wide eyed beauty. And she’s good at it, too.

Yes, predictable plotline. Actually, not entirely. I didn’t think Huck was going to be quite as much of a mongrel to her as he was. I thought there wold e a petty fight over little differences, but the two things he did to her should have been enough o end any relationship. But she was kind hearted, understanding, and in the end she saw that he was willing to make changes, not just to win him back, but because he realised he needed to be a better person.

But that wasn’t why I enjoyed the movie – the card play! The didn’t only stick to Texas Holdem, either. The movie was set around the 2003 World Series of Poker, and we got to see a bunch of the different games that feature in a proper poker tournament. Guts, 7 Card Stud, 5 card draw, and something new to me, and quite interesting – Omaha Hold’em, a 9 card game. Heads up boys, we’ll be playing this tonight at the Pub. Plus, some great Cameo’s – Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negraunu, Johnny Chan. It was great to see the way some of the game play unfolded.

Who do we say God is?

This began in my reply to Tim on his blog and a few of the questions he asked. Actually, it began before that. It focused itself for me on two events last week. Actually getting yself motivated enough to read a Christian book again (Provocative Faith by Matt Turner) and a great converation in the early hours of last Sunday morning. The topic: Who is God to me?

Over the last year and a half in our church we have kept looking at the question "who do you say Jesus is?" but I think in all this different reflection & interperetation of Jesus, we haven;t spent nearly enough time looking at the Father & Holy Spirit aspects of God. After all, Jesus didn't come to the Earth to be worshipped, but to bring us closer to God. If we just focus on the Jesus side of God, the loving, understanding, human side, I think we lose out on a lot of what God is.

I've really been thinking that as Christians we need to temember that God of the New Testament is still God of the Old Testament. He's still jealous, angry, vengeful and feared, just as he is also understanding, loving, forgiving and comforting.

God didn't suddenly go "whoops, Ive stuffed up mankind, I better send my Son down to die and then become an easy way out for all people from now on...".
God knew in the beginning what he was going to do. Jesus was there in the beginning when god planned it. Jesus' coming was simply another step in the God's overarching plan to bring humankind to him. And just as there were many who didnt fear, worship and follow God in the old testament who he turned away, there will still be many who are turned away. Even Jesus didn't entirely preach a "it's ok, you can keep coming back to God" message. He overturned tables, he called people vipers, he said "Go away and sin NO MORE", he said "Away from me, I never knew you".

People will argue that God is forgiveness. I agree, but that is when the repentance is genuine. Is our repentance genuine when we continue to go and commit the same sins? Is our commitment honest when we can't be bothered following God's commandments? Is our faith true when we don't trust God with ALL of our lives, just the small bits we are willing to hand over?

Why don't Christians feel and hear the spirit any longer?

Why is our world so full of God's traditional signs of anger (drought, famine, disease, war, unrest) in a world turned away from God yet we continue to ignore these signs?

Praying for Rain.

In mid April, John Howard called for national prayer for rain. We were told that unless there was a certain amount of rain in the worst drought affected areas, like the Mallee, in the next ten days, then irrigation would have to be cut off. Many farming operations would be closed down, and the threat of us subsisting on canned or frozen fruit and veg motivated many to pray. Well, perhaps it was the fact that our county's leader was asking his people to pray - either way, many many Christians prayed

And the rain came down, too. We must of course admit that this is part of the traitional wet season in southern Australia. The last ten years though, we've been faced with a pretty severe drought. Yes, drought happens in Australia. It always has, and is part of our national identity

"I love a sunburnt country,
a land of sweeping plains,
of rugged mountain ranges,
of droughts and flooding rains"

http://www.imagesaustralia.com/mycountry.htm

This one has done some hugh harm to our agriculture and our water supplies aren't doing really well either. At some stage in the cycle of things, drought will ease. We should be encouraged - through March and april we have acheived average rain - not drought average, proper average.
So weather this was just the time for rain, or our prayers have made a difference, well God only knows.

Partly as a respone to John Howard's call, Tuesday was declared by some to be 'National Rain Day'.
National Rain Day founder John McCallum said it was not about praying for rain, but about visualising the rain itself. He said he was responding to Prime Minister John Howard's calls last month for Australians to pray for rain. "Just imagining the experience of rain, that attracts the rain," he said. "If we can get more than 1 per cent of Australians doing that then outcomes will be very positive."

Well I watched the news that night to see small groups of people gathering in the nation's capitals to 'positively think' for rain. They even brought yellow plastic raincoats and umbrellas, as they gathere, held hands and visualised the rain. If our prayers for rain really made a difference, we can't be sure. At least it rained then, as much as we needed and where we needed it. Since Tuesday - not a drop.

Taking the politics out of music?

I remember a time when music was a voice of free speech. When politics might be blackbarred at awards ceremonies, protest songs were always allowed. Now music has become so corporatised that musicians can’t make a meaningful statement without being threatened with legal action. Sure, they can sing about sex & drugs, but now there's no politics in Rock and Roll.

Powderfinger’s new song "Black tears" referred to the death of an indigenous Australian in custody, on Palm Island, in Queensland. This week, it’s been in the news because the Queensland Police Force were threatening to sue. Why though? Please, "an island watch-house bed" where "a black man's lying dead" isn't exactly specific, but it does make a point. Or did, until this week when Bernard Fanning, the lead singer announced that they would re-record the song with different lytics in place before the album is released.

Where would that have put the music produced by Bob Dylan, Midnight Oil, and even U2. Heck, even in the 'land of the free' Green day are still allowed to use mainstream media to make political statements. Surely the rights of Powderfinger to have free speech should be greater than the rights of a corrupt police force to only have nice things said about them. Sure, there hasn't yet been a conviction recorded in the case, but heck, is a conviction ever needed to put an aboriginal behind bars?

Personally i love songs with a point. Songs that give us lyrics that we can sing, and mean as we do it. Is this just one more step towards mass produced "Australian Idol" music in this country. Because the majority of the sanitised pop market is built on pointless songs. Please, don't take away music with integrity, passion and meaning.

Sunday, June 18 2006 St John’s Lutheran Church, Southbank

It was strange, walking through a shopping complex to reach a church, but on this night, that’s what I was doing. A web search for “7pm service” had shown me St Johns Lutheran church, nestled in the middle of Southbank. It was a wet night, and as I walked across the forecourt near the church, I was amazed at how beautiful it was. Sitting amongst corporate headquarters and millions of dollars of high priced shopping precinct was a traditional looking church, a round building with a 2 storey ceiling, a balcony around the edge housing the organ and extra seating overlooking the sanctuary.
I thought about Jesus, and the way he took his ministry with the poor, the prostitutes – the outsiders, and he took it to the temple, to the Pharisees, the tax collectors. This church was sitting here, and that night, quite literally, as a shining light amongst a world of greed. But also, amongst a collection of modern architecture, the forecourt leading up to the church still looked like a church. The new world versus the old.
Walking in, the place was packed, barely a spare seat, which I soon found out was because of a visiting school group from Concordia College in South Australia – they’d brought 3 choirs and a string orchestra group – but more about that later.
Somehow in my travels I seemed to keep finding myself in churches for Baptisms – which is great by me because I love getting to hear peoples stories. It was a person who had come to faith through St Johns involvement in Uni Campus ministries, and a great way to hear about the effectiveness of the church. It was also a communion service, and I was able to witness for my first time, a particular older church tradition, singing as the Eucharist is taken. It was very cool to be a part of, and the pastor made it clear that all who believed in Jesus were welcome to take part. The sermon was quite good, short and relevant, and the hymns sung were quite traditional.
But interspersed throughout the service, Concordia College had a hand in really making this visit an interesting experience. Two of the choirs performed gospel songs – as seems tradition these days for any gospel group, we had ‘Joyful, Joyful’ as rendered in Sister Act, and also a song called ‘He never failed me yet’. Both were uplifting, hand clapping foot stomping moments, a great experience of joy in worship to God that the whole congregation got into. And to conclude the service, the 16 piece string orchestra performed for us. The song was instantly recognisable to me – but not one I’d ever heard in church before – stairway to heaven, and gosh was it well played.

After the service I took a walk through the CBD to reflect – I’d been really amazed by the way this church had taken tradition and thrown in modernity. Their worship was a seamless mix of the two, giving respect to their past, but living in the now, and that seemed to fit perfectly with who they are and where they were located. I reflected in my own life that there are parts of my faith and my service that I should never let go of, and ways to do things that should stay the same – always – but that there should also be room to alter my ideas, and incorporate new ways of thinking about God.