righteousness or self-righteousness

2009-10-19T10:48:00.007+11:00

Danny Nalliah, Australia's poster child for all things right-wing and his group 'catch the fire ministries' held a prayer vigil on Mount Ainslie this past weekend to pray for Australia to be 'Saved' from all its heathenness and sin (apparently the bushfires and stuff are linked to our sinfulness). The prayer vigil was met by a group of protesters from various groups, gay rights activists, pro-choice, strippers, prostitutes, etc (you know the kind of people that extreme right-wingers see as the spawn of Satan, sinners and tax collectors).

Danny's prayer group was a direct result of signs of satanic rituals being held on the mountain, which was interpreted (possibly quite correctly) as a direct spiritual attack on Australian Politics. I have come from a quite right-wing upbringing, and whilst there are those who would probably see me as very left wing today, there are still things that I hold onto from my upbringing, and spiritual warfare is one of those things... I don't see demons behind everything, a la 'this present darkness' , but I cannot deny that there is some sort of otherworldly battle going on... some may call me naive, but that's OK, I'm comfortable with that.

What does bug me about this right-wing approach to the state of the world, is that it pins all the responsibility on evil spirits or on their human spawn (the anti-Danny protesters etc). In their view, our responsibility as good Christians is to live righteous lives and pray - then God will hear our voice and revival will come. They feel that through doing this and being vocal in the public arena they are doing their bit, they are being honorable to God. As I write this all I can think of is the pharisees that Jesus had to deal with... They too at a time when their nation was being oppressed (not by spiritual forces but Roman ones), saw that they needed to live more 'righteous' lives, to separate themselves and pray, calling all those around them to live a similar life, so that God would hear them and liberation (or in our language revival) would come.

This motivation in and of itself seems honorable, being righteous can never be a bad thing... but us being fallible human beings with big egos we often slip into self-righteousness. This clearly is the position that the pharisees were in. This is what Jesus battled, whilst at the same time hanging out and loving the sinners and tax collectors, those that that the pharisees saw as hell spawn.

Who did Jesus warn were in danger of the fires of hell??? - the pharisees or the sinners and tax collectors???

If you don't know the answer to this question I suggest you read the gospels - Jesus only every really referenced hell when he was talking about those who thought they were safe, but evidently were not - the self-righteous ones, the pharisees.

Interestingly the word righteousness and the word justice are synonymous in both the Old and New Testament. So really a person cannot truly be righteous unless he is fighting for justice, and who is it from a biblical perspective who needs justice? - the poor and oppressed, the marginalised... those that Jesus hung out with and loved, the sinners and tax collectors. Righteousness is not about being set apart and untouched by the world, it is about bringing our faith, our love and our support into a broken and hurting world, and in doing this, we will be truly set apart, because we are the only ones that are there caring for the unloved, risking our comfort, our time and our lives for the sake of others, the lost, the rejected, sinners, prostitutes, disabled, refugees, etc. etc... just like Jesus did (remember WWJD?).

I worry that we as Christians have done the same thing as the Pharisees, we see ourselves as righteous and set apart because we don't hang out with the sinners and tax collectors, but we are happy to condemn them (and possibly even demonise them if the situation suits). We sit in our churches and Christian schools and clubs and home groups and think we are saved and righteous. Outside the sinners and tax collectors continue to live their 'heathen' lives, and we pray, pray that the Lord would send revival and that the sinners would become saved and Australia would be won for Christ... but revival hasn't come. Contrary to Yonggi Cho's assertion, I don't think that prayer is the key to revival.

As I have stated before, Jesus had a different response, he saw the condition of the sinners and tax collectors and did not condemn them but rather lived with them, loved them and through them established his Kingdom. Interestingly if you look at true revivals in history (I'm not talking about the more unusual and dubious revivals of current times) they began amongst the sinners and tax collectors of their day... they began amongst the outcasts of society, those that were marginalised. They began as Christians stepped down from their ivory towers and began to live amongst, and minister to these people.

If we truly want to see Australia Changed for the Lord, then we can't sit back and pray for change, the whole time being self-righteous, waving our fingers in disapproval at the tax collectors and sinners. We need to get our hand's dirty, live amongst, show love to, and help those at the margins. Our faith is meant to be one of love not condemnation, I think we have forgotten that along the way somehow.

Forgive me Father - for I wear Nike

2009-06-25T16:52:00.002+10:00

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15)

In the world, but not of it… This phrase has been one that has haunted me throughout my life (especially my adolescence). I can still remember the preaching from the pulpit, or the lectures from my Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders. To be in the world but not of it, meant that you had to live up to a strict code of moral behaviours… No drinking, no swearing, no drugs, no rock music, no discos, no D&D, no Harry Potter, no Sex, no late nights, no parties…etc…etc. These sort of behaviours were supposed to make us some sort of beacon of hope in the darkness of the morally corrupt world, and the sinners were to be attracted to the light of Christ in you. Or at least those that were ready to see the errors of their ways would be attracted… clearly none of my friends were ready, they all thought I was a loon. As a result, more often than not I would fall back into the world to be with my friends and therefore stuff up any sort of witness that I could have had.

I think somehow, we have missed the point here, Jesus taught that the world would HATE us, not simply think that we were weak or out of date. DON’T GET ME WRONG, I think that many of these sort of ‘rules for Christian living’ are valid and should be practiced by Christians (but clearly as you can see from my above list I also think that often these rules can be manipulated for the sake of control rather than Christian character). But there seems to be some real problems if these ‘rules’ are presented as the way we stand separate from the world.

Firstly, the ‘rules’ are extremely judgemental, If you follow them you are good, if you don’t your bad. If you follow them you are ‘in’ (‘in’ the club, and therefore out of the world), if you don’t your ‘out’ (‘out’ of the word and therefore in the world). If you follow them you can feel very proud of yourself and self righteous (oh, wait… that’s a sin too isn’t it??), if you stuff up and break a rule you are condemned either by your peers/leaders or by your own self talk. In fact, as I write this I notice how close this attitude would seem to be to the actions of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned…

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former”. (Mat 23:23)

Secondly it all seems a bit cheap to me, a bit surface. It seems to be one of those Christian double standards, we are called to live a morally upright life, by following the highly visible and external ‘rules’, but we are not called to address the issues in our life that have to do with mercilessness and injustice. For the most part we are so busy living up to the rules and being a good witness that we have missed how the way we are living our lives is hurting others. We are the rich man, and Lazarus is at our gate. What is worse is that our sin is not simply ignoring Lazarus, it is being part of a system that is harming him!

These sorts of parables and Jesus words quoted above were what made the leaders of His day hate Him. It was this that caused Him to die on the cross. If we limit the purpose of Jesus’ time on earth to simply the atonement, we miss a lot of what he was about… yes he died for our sins, but the reason he hung on the cross is because he spoke out and lived a life that condemned the powers that be… his very life was pointing the finger at the evils of the system.

Think about it… He broke the Sabbath laws to heal a crippled, essentially worthless man. He became unclean when a menstruating woman touched him and he did not condemn her, but rather spoke with her and validated her in the sight of the crowd. He prevented the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, she sinned, and this was her due punishment, yet he stopped it happening. He upturned tables in the temple. Jesus lived a life that was in opposition to the system, and the system hated Him for it.

Anyway… All that to say, maybe it would be more effective to ask if we are in the System but not of the System … if we truly stand up against the system and live an alternative and Godly life following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, then the system will not simply think we are old fashioned or a bit wacky, it will truly hate us… and whether we like it or not, that is what Jesus has called us to!

Peter

PS. I know I have not really addressed the title of this blog post – unless you read between the lines a bit… I’ll get onto that confession another day

Journey towards the poor...

2009-06-18T16:14:00.001+10:00

I was recently asked what it was that started my journey in ministering to the poor and marginalised. As I thought about it my mind initially went to my introduction to UNOH, visiting and volunteering at Foodbank during my RDO every second Tuesday, or reading some fantastic books by Ash Barker, or even attending the Surrender conference and hearing Jackie Pullinger or Tony Campolo speak. But as I thought about it more, I realised that the Lord had introduced me to the need for ministry to the poor much earlier than I had originally thought.
It was many year earlier as I was just beginning to be introduced to the concept of Missions that I had the opportunity to visit a church plant in Sri Lanka. My home church at the time was a kind of parent church to the church in Sri Lanka, and was a major financial supporter of the church. I was asked to go and visit the church on an annual basis to touch base with them, check them out and let them know they were supported (I guess morally more than financially).

There are many things that today bother me about this scenario, and there were many things that were being done by both the Parent and Daughter church that I would struggle with today. But regardless of the fact that the Church in Sri Lanka relied on outside support to function and that the relationship was fairly imperialistic, the church was essentially reaching out to the poorest people in the city of Kandy, and the reality was that the structure of the church (with two paid full-time pastors) could not have functioned without outside support as the congregation barely had enough money to feed themselves let alone support any sort of church structure. The church was trying to model itself after the classic mega-church model of Australia and trying to emulate our worship, preaching styles and trappings. They were being influenced by the teachings of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland by video that some well meaning but direly misguided supporter was posting out to them on a monthly basis.

When I visited I was expected to preach every Sunday as the VIP western Pastor, and although I preach predominantly on how much this church had to offer the wider church and how they should not try to emulate the west but recognise their own forms of worship as pleasing to the Lord, I was obligated to hold an altar call and pray for each and every member of the congregation and see them ‘slain in the Spirit’. But besides the heavily colonial dynamic of the Sunday service it was on the day to day of church life that the true church amongst the poor could be seen.

It was in the nightly bible studies and prayer meetings that various members of the congregation came together to share a meal and simply fellowship, it was at these times that worship was casual and much more culturally relevant, and prayer and study were dialogical and passionate. The congregation were committed to visiting each other on a regular basis and helping each other out when things were difficult. As I reflect back on the church I realise how much they emulated the Church seen in Acts 4. The real inspiration to me was one of the paid pastors who lived on a bare minimum despite being given a very generous income from our church. The rest of his money was given to those in the church who were really struggling, the widows and the lame and he spent all his time visiting congregation members and being a real hands-on support to anyone who needed it.

Unfortunately my involvement with that church was cut short due to the other full time pastor being sent to study in Australia and having his head filled with grand visions of mega-churches, his decision was to no longer come under the cover of our church but to look for support from another bigger, more impressive Aussie mega church who said they would support them for six months after which time they would have to be self supporting. This concept at face value sounds great, however the reality of it was that when they asked how they could support themselves the suggestion was that they should stop trying to attract the poor in the community but should rather aim their church towards the middle class of Kandy. Needless to say the dream of a shiny rich mega church won out in the end for this pastor and they decided to follow that course.

I have not heard from that church since that time, I have no idea if they are still operating. I often think about the generous pastor and what he is doing with his life at the moment. Although I have a lot of sadness about the future of this congregation, I thank God for the experience of this church and the chance to see how a real church amongst the poor can function. This experience was truly foundational to my current vocation even if at the time I did not realise it… But then I guess most of our formation is done on a subconscious level through experiences like this.

I'm Back.... No Really I Mean This Time!!

2009-06-18T16:08:00.002+10:00

IT has been almost a year since I last blogged, It has been a tough time for me with a lot of soul searching on top of all the other stuff I do, But I am dedicated to continue Blogging again...

I have found it is an essential outlet for me... I guess it is the same thing as journaling for some, but this is more electronicy as well as more publicy...

So anyway here goes!!

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 4

2008-07-23T21:56:00.002+10:00

Materialism. - Matthew 6:19-24
The first half of Matthew six was a call for individuals not to use their religiosity to dominate those around them, in this section, Jesus is identifying another way that people can dominate others, and that is through the acquisition of wealth and material possessions. The dominating effects of storing up treasures are seen in a brutal reality in our own global context today;

The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. (Kazandjian, 2006: NP)

The western world’s hording of wealth has relegated the other 90% of the world to the status of slaves, forced to do backbreaking labor for little or no pay. The Kingdom community is called to stand against this injustice, sharing its wealth with those in need, both inside and outside the community and through doing this breaking their own slavery to mammon and storing up for themselves riches in heaven.

Don’t Worry – Anti-Materialism – Matthew 6:25-34
Worry is indicative of one’s dependence on mammon rather than God. “But how will we survive?” is the question that instantly pops to the mind when considering being free with material possessions, Jesus’ answer is both spiritual and practical. The spiritual aspect is one of trust, if they do what the Lord has required of them he will look after their needs (Mt 6:33). The practical aspect is that within the context of the Kingdom Community none will be in need as the wealth and possessions of the group are shared around, just like it was with the early church (Acts 2:44-47). This concept is a real source of liberation for the poor as their needs are met, however it is a real area of trust for the rich as they learn to let go of the security of their wealth and learn to rely on the security that God through the Kingdom Community has to offer.

The Shelter of the Community – Matthew 7:24-27
The final section of Jesus’ sermon is a parable about two men, one who builds his house on the rock of Jesus teaching and another who builds his house of the sand of his own desires and understandings. This parable is a beautifully poetic conclusion to Jesus’ teaching, and a great reflection of his heart for the poor. A house is a symbol of security, particularly for the poor, who often may not have a place of their own. Jesus’ parable shows that if a person holds to his teachings (remembering that it is all set within the context of the Kingdom Community) that they will have the security they need. The house is figurative, but it represents the care of the community in looking after the needs of the poor, which in many ways makes it literal, as the protection that the community offers is as good as (and will always include) a physical house for that person to reside in.

The foolish man however is the man who tries to build his own Kingdom without the support of the Kingdom Community. Because this person puts his own resources into the house it costs him a lot more than the shared resources of the community, however when the opposition comes this foolish, independent man is left crushed under the rubble of his own desires.

Conclusion.
Studying the Sermon on the Mount gives us an amazing insight into how the Lord wants to see his Kingdom operate. It is an in-depth guide to living as a Kingdom Community, in opposition to the values, systems and powers of the Status Quo. Probably the most remarkable aspect of this guide to the Kingdom however, is the importance that it puts on the care for and inclusion of the poor and marginalised both within its community and outside. Such a teaching truly is foolishness to the wise and attests to the compassion and majesty of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

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Kazandjian A. (2006) Pioneering Study Shows Richest Two Percent Own Half World Wealth. In United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research. Press Release: (http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-2006/) (18th March 2008)

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 3

2008-07-15T22:48:00.002+10:00

Subversive Weakness. – Matthew 5:33-48
Jesus, after dealing with the need for being true to your word, turns his attention to how to deal with those who use their positions of power to oppress the poor. Jesus uses three scenarios to highlight the need for passive resistance towards the community’s oppressors; they are the concept of turning the other cheek, giving your cloak as well as your tunic, and going the extra mile. These scenarios present two obvious courses of action, to fight back or to passively accept the abuse of power. Jesus however is suggesting a third course of action. Walter Wink suggests that turning the other cheek is a way to level the playing field against those who are oppressing you;

… [Jesus] is saying to them, “Refuse to accept this kind of treatment anymore. If they backhand you, turn the other cheek.” By turning the cheek, the servant makes it impossible for the master to use the backhand again: his nose is in the way. …The left cheek now offers a perfect target for a blow with the right fist; but only equals fought with fists …and the last thing the master wishes to do is establish the underling’s equality. This act of defiance renders the master incapable of asserting his dominance in the relationship. (Wink, 1998: 102)

This popular interpretation however ignores the text that follows. If we look at this example in conjunction with the other two examples (walking the extra mile and giving your cloak) and the dialogue about loving your neighbour, it is clear that these passages are not about establishing equality. Rather, in going further than demanded, these examples seem to highlight the oppressive actions of one’s enemies, bringing shame upon their actions and bringing the cultural values that would allow such behaviour into question. The values of the Kingdom do not espouse power or equality, but rather a subversive use of the weak and powerless to shame the structures of the status quo (1 Cor 1:18-31).

Actors for World Domination – Matthew 6:1-18
The first half of chapter six deals with three different religious practices; giving to the needy, prayer and fasting. In all three examples, the disciples are told not to be like the hypocrites, a term Jesus uses to describe the Pharisees. The term hypocrite actually originates from the Greek theatre, where the ‘hypokrites’ (ύπόκριτής) was an actor who played a part and often wore a mask. The references that Jesus gave, though probably somewhat hyperbolic, capture this metaphor beautifully, as the hypocrites seem to do these things only “to be honoured by men” (Carson, 1978: 57). The major problem with the hypocritical nature of these acts however, is not that they are an ego boost for the Pharisees. The sinister reality is that they used these acts to build up their standing within society.

Jesus was warning against this sort of ladder climbing within the Kingdom Community, those who had the finances to give alms, or the theological knowledge to pray impressive prayers, or the self control to fast should not use those ‘powers’ to build themselves up over the others in the community (the poor, the uneducated or the struggling addict). Such actions and motivations are about domination and stand in direct opposition to the values of the Kingdom Community.

Transformative Prayer – Matthew 6:9-13
Amongst all this talk of hypocrites is a passage often referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, though a more accurate name for in might be the Community’s prayer. For many this passage is purely a guideline for what we should pray for (that Jesus would return and establish his kingdom, that our needs would be met, that our sins would be forgiven, and that God would protect us from stumbling), but it is much more than that, it is a recognition that the light of the Kingdom is breaking through into a corrupt system;

…Every clause [of the Lord’s Prayer] resonates with Jesus’ announcement that God’s kingdom is breaking into the story of Israel and the world, opening up God’s long-promised new world and summoning people to share it. If this context is marginalized… the prayer loses its peculiar force and falls back into a generalized petition for things to improve, albeit still admittedly to God’s glory. (Wright,2001: NP)

Verse ten then is a call on the Lord to continue the transformative work in the world through the community, it is a refusal to see the present corruption as normal, but to see the will of God as the goal. Verse eleven is a call for the Lord to supply us with our daily bread, this is a call to have our needs met, but also a call to not become greedy or want more than we need.

Verse twelve is a recognition of the need to keep short accounts as the disciples live in community together (Mt 5:21-26). Verse thirteen calls for us not to be lead into temptation. This verse is a call for the disciples not to fall back into the rut of living a life that embraces the status quo, another temptation may be a tendency to look at the troubles around and fret that the darkness is winning.

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Carson, D. A. (1978) The Sermon on the Mount. An Evangelical exposition of Matthew 5-7. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Wink, W. (1998) The powers that be. New York: Doubleday Publishing.
Wright, N. T. (2001) The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer. In ntwrightpage.com.( http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Christian_Prayer.htm) (17th March 2008)

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 2

2008-07-01T11:06:00.003+10:00

The Beatitudes – a Kingdom Community. – Matthew 5:3-12
In studying the Sermon on the Mount, it is essential that we keep in mind that this passage is describing the way that a community within the Kingdom of Heaven should behave (herein referred to as a Kingdom Community as it is not the Kingdom of Heaven in its entirety, nor is it yet the church as the church was not established until after Christ’s assertion). Many suggest that the sermon is a guide for Christian ethics (Lloyd-Jones, ND: 33), but this is to set an impossible task before the individual believer. The result of this is the spiritualising of the passage and the reduction of it into a general guide to live by. The regrettably clichéd “…do to others what you would have them do to you...” (NIV, Mt 7:12) is a prime example of this, where the whole sermon is reduced to one line that mothers can tell their children to stop them arguing with their siblings.

But if the Sermon is seen as the framework of the Kingdom, then the impossible becomes possible. Within this understanding then, the beatitudes are seen as a description of who will be part of this new Kingdom Community. The first four beatitudes listed represent the poor who will be drawn into the community, the outcast of the society. It is within this setting that these outcasts will begin to find the promised blessings;

…these four beatitudes describe not personal qualities but oppressive situations of distress or bad fortune, which are honoured or esteemed because God’s reign reverses them. This reversal is under way in Jesus’ ministry but is not yet complete. The First four beatitudes critique the political, economic, social, religious and personal distress that results from the powerful elite who enrich their own position at the expense of the rest. (Carter, 2003: 131).

If we hold to this view, then the poor in spirit are literally the poor, rather than some spiritualised form of humble Christian. Carter suggest that the “spirit” in this passage refers to the spirit of the poor that has been crushed by economic injustice (2003: 131); likewise, those who mourn are those who have suffered at the hand of the corrupt and evil; The Meek are those who have no voice in society and so have no choice but to stand by passively as their situations are exploited; And finally, Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Bosch argues (1991: 71-73), are those who yearn for justice but do not receive it.

The use of the present tense “is” in the first and last beatitudes suggests that indeed the kingdom of heaven is not limited to an eschatological understanding, but rather, the kingdom is to reverse these sufferings both now and more fully in the future. This brings the beatitudes and indeed the entire Sermon on the Mount into a present reality rather than a spiritual set of moralities that we are to live by in order to attain entrance into heaven.

The final four beatitudes in a similar way represent those that are fighting for the rights of the poor within society. Therefore, those in the Kingdom Community should display mercy to all, especially the poor; their actions should show that they are pure in heart, not having any deceitfulness or malice; the peacemakers stand in direct contrast to the occupying forces of the day who forced their “peace” upon the people; persecution is a direct result of standing up against the dominant and oppressive kingdom of this age.

Societal Transformation – Matthew 5:13-16
The next section of the sermon talks about salt and light. Salt is a preserving agent as well as a flavour enhancer, light breaks through the darkness. Both elements are seen as agents of change within culture. The salt preserves the world from going off as well as supplying flavour, whilst the light breaks through the darkness of an oppressive system. These elements highlight the dialectic between the kingdom of heaven and the present age, but they operate on two different levels;

So Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence on the secular community, a negative influence by arresting its decay and a positive influence by bringing light into its darkness. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth, beauty and goodness. (Stott, 1978: 64-65)

The salt is the Kingdom Community’s ability to arrest the suffering and evil that is happening in the world. With this in mind, the eschatological excitement that many in today’s church display over the decay of this present age as a supposed sign of the imminent return of Christ actually stand in stark contrast to Jesus’ teaching here. It is not Jesus’ will that the world get worse and more people suffer due to greed, it is the Kingdom Communities role to arrest the decay of this age.The light then, is the missional reality of the Kingdom Community. When the world sees what this community is doing it will be drawn to it as a moth to a flame. For the marginalised of the world it will mean good news, however it will also bring with it persecution from the powers that control the status quo. This is why Christ teaches against hiding the light under a bowl (Mt 5:15). Hiding would keep the community safe from persecution (Mt 5:11-12), but keeping the blessing to themselves would mean that those in need of the ministry of the community would never receive it

Respecting Women - Matthew 5:27- 32
In talking about how the values of the Kingdom community fulfil and take seriously the law and the prophets, Jesus sneaks in an important lesson about one of the marginalised groups in society, women. Many see Jesus’ teaching on lust, adultery and divorce, as nothing more than dealing with sexual immorality and the sanctity of marriage (see for example Boice, 1972:134-141). However a deeper look into the passages will show that there is more to Jesus’ teachings;

While women are mentioned merely as an example, the example is significant because it involves a cultural criticism of the status of women. When the Gospel presents Jesus' discussion of divorce and adultery, the dignity of women (and perhaps even their rights) is clearly implied. Jesus says that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery in his heart. Clearly the entire discussion of the collected sayings is geared toward the relation of action and faith. But, at the same time, it undeniably insists that women are not to be regarded as objects to be discarded at will. (Kopas, 1990: 15)

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Boice, J. M. (1972) The Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Bosch, D. J(1991) Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Carter, W. (2003) Matthew and the margins. A socio-political and religious reading. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Kopas, J. (1990) Jesus and Women in Matthew. in Theology Today. 1990, University of Scranton. ( http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1990/v47-1-article2.htm#Kopas) (17th March 2008)

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (N.D.) Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Stott, J. R. W. (1978) The Bible speaks today. The Sermon on the Mount. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.

Essay on the Sermon on the Mount - Part 1

2008-06-21T21:43:00.005+10:00

This is an excerpt of an essay I wrote for bible college, it really changed the way I looked at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount when I wrote it, changing my view of it being a set of moral or spiritual rules to be followed by believers into a radical call to an alternative form of community.

Anyway here is part one...

sorry about the formal format of it all, but as I said it was an essay and I had to follow certain conventions...

Introduction.
The Sermon on the Mount is an amazing collection of teachings that demonstrate how Jesus expects his followers to live, it is however more than just a collection of moral codes by which we as individuals are called to live. It is the assertion of this essay, that the Sermon on the Mount is a call to live in a radical form of community. This call to community reflects Jesus’ heart for the poor in excitingly profound ways, and it is this aspect of Jesus’ teachings that this essay will focus on.

Defining Poor.
Before looking at Christ’s heart for the poor, it is important to define what is meant by the word “poor”. Ronald J. Sider argues that the predominant definition of the poor within the bible is “those who are economically impoverished due to calamity or exploitation” (1997: 42). This would include the widow and orphan (Jas 1:27), the ill such as a leper, the lame or blind (Lev 18:14), as well as the homeless or alien (Lev 18:33). However, it would seem that Jesus definition was wider and included many of the marginalised within society; His concern for women is clearly evident (Jn 4:5-42,Mt 9:20-22,Lk 7:11-15, 10:38-42), as well as his care for those who are ostracised by society like the tax collectors (Lk 19:1-10) and prostitutes (Mt:26:6-13).

A definition of the poor then, goes beyond a simple recognition of economic hardship. “The poor” refer to those who have been marginalised by society, whether that is due to financial impoverishment, physical or mental afflictions, social standing or gender.

Christ’s Heart.
Christ’s heart for the poor is an aspect of God’s character that is woven throughout the bible. It is a concept that is written into the very foundation and law of the people of Israel (see Lev 19:13-15, 19: 33, 25:8-55, Deut 24:19-22 etc.), yet time and time again, the people ignored the poor amongst them. In response, the Lord sent his prophets to address the people’s blindness. Through the prophets, God taught that the people’s religious observances were nothing but hollow ritual if they did not contain a response to the poor (see Is 58, Amos 4:1-5, Jer 22:16-17 etc.). It is in this tradition that Christ heart beats;

Jesus shares table fellowship with outcast public “sinners and tax collectors. His statements about the “poor” betray an obvious sympathy for the defenceless and place Jesus thoroughly within the prophetic tradition, which sided with the oppressed against the exploiters… These provocative associations of Jesus are not incidental to his ministry. The extension of compassion, loyalty, and friendship across well-defined boundaries of exclusion was a parable in action, a way of vividly communicating Jesus’ understanding of God and the quality of his rule. (Senior and Stuhlmueller, 1995: 147)

On the Mount. – Matthew 5:1--2
Stereotypically, when we think of the Sermon on the Mount, we think of Jesus standing on a small hill, orating on ethical living to the milling crowd around him. However, in verse one of chapter five we see that although there was a crowd around him, Jesus sat down on the mountainside and his disciples gathered around him. Sitting is not the posture one takes in addressing a large crowd. His position was rather that of a teacher addressing his disciples (France, 1985: 107). Although the crowd did listen in (see Mt 7:28), the “sermon” was predominantly addressed to his disciples, a band of people who had given up their own standing in society to follow this radical teacher named Jesus.

Jesus’ instructions on the mount were a call for those who had completely dedicated themselves to his teachings to seek the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth (Mt 6:10). This Kingdom was to stand in direct contrast to that of their age. By abandoning their livelihoods (Mk 1:14-20), the disciples had lowered their social status to that of the poor. Jesus’ teachings call for his followers to throw their lot in with the poor even further, joining with them in becoming an integral community that cares for one another and stands up against oppressive structures that will try to destroy them.

[The Disciples] have… left the people to join him. He has called each individual one. They have given up everything in response to his call… They have only him. Yes, and with him they have nothing in the world, nothing at all, but everything, everything with God. So far, he has found only a small community, but it is a great community he is looking for, when he looks at the people. (Bonhoeffer, 2001: 101)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonhoeffer, D. (2001) Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4. Discipleship. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
France, R. T. (1985) Tyndale New Testament commentaries – Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Senior, D. and Stuhlmueller, C. (1995) The Biblical foundation for mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Sider, R.J. (1997) Rich Christians in an age of hunger. (5th ed.). U.S.A: W Publishing Group.

I'm Ba-ack!!!

2008-06-20T13:24:00.002+10:00

No apologies this time, if anyone is still ever even looking at this thing, I'm impressed, it has been a long time since I last updated, but I'm back and wanting to simply share some info, thoughts, stories etc...

Anyway, in a little while I'll be starting by posting bits of an assignment I wrote for college... I'm hoping for some feedback if anyone is out there as my study opened up some interesting ideas and thoughts around the sermon on the mount....

stay tuned....

What is eaten in one week around the world...

2008-03-07T09:07:00.009+11:00

someone other than me deserves credit for this one, but who made it I do not know, sorry...

Italy: The Manzo family of SicilyFood expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Germany: The Melander family of BargteheideFood expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Mexico: The Casales family of CuernavacaFood expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Egypt: The Ahmed family of CairoFood expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53

Ecuador: The Ayme family of TingoFood expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey VillageFood e xpenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Healing

2008-02-29T06:33:00.001+11:00

Today I was talking with some friends about the issue of miraculous healing, and it has made me think about the issue a fair bit…
I have Cerebral Palsy, it is a disability that I was born with, and it affects the right side of my body. Throughout my childhood, this disability has resulted in me being ostracised from many of my peers; it meant that none of them wanted to play sports with me, many of them were repelled by a fear of the unknown, most thought it uncool to hang out with someone like me and some even went so far as to beat me up on a regular basis. These were the joys of having a disability in the era that I grew up in… Australian society was just coming to terms with having people with disabilities share the same space as them rather than being locked away, and I had parents who (thankfully) had the view that a disability was not something to stop a person being a productive member of society and so forced me into mainstream school and life.
The treatment that I received from my peers caused me to become very resentful and introverted, and out of these feelings of hurt and isolation the only thing I dreamt about was healing from my affliction. I went forward at church to every healing session that came along…
I believe that I have received healing, at least for the most part… I would say that this healing is about 90% complete, and I see it as a combination of the miraculous and hard work on behalf of myself and my mother who forced me to do hour upon hour of physio.
But complete healing to this day has not come, so I still “suffer” from cerebral palsy.
If you have ever done the faith healer circuit, then you would be aware of what sort of impact not being healed has on a person, from being told that you don’t have enough faith to be healed (and therefore by implication are not a real Christian), to being told that you have to receive the truth of your healing before the actual healing will occur (ie fool yourself into believing you have been healed)… That sort of thing can really screw with your mind and threaten your belief in God.
All of this comes out of some sort of misguided belief that as Christians we should all be perfect, that we should not be afflicted with physical disabilities, or health issues; just as we are spiritually transformed, so too should we be physically transformed, but I really don’t see that teaching present in the bible, sure there could be things misconstrued as God wanting us to be perfect (note here perfect is NOT a synonym for whole ), and yes there is a big focus on healing in the bible, but let’s have a bit of a look at that…
Firstly, Jesus, on his time here in the flesh did not heal every disabled person that he met… the pool of Bethesda is a prime example of this, so is his return to Galilee. However having said that we also know that not every healing He did is recorded in the bible either, there are many passages that said he healed many, even that he ‘healed all their sick.’ Having said that, if we do look at the healings that are present in the bible, I think that we can see that there is more going on in these occurrences than simply healing someone’s affliction. When Jesus (and indeed the Apostles) healed someone he did so to illustrate a point or to teach someone (often that person receiving the healing, but not always) a lesson.
You want an example? OK, how about Jesus going to heal Jairus’ Daughter, the crowd were excited, Jairus was powerful and important, imagine what this healing will do for the cause… But then a sick and outcast woman pushes through the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak and get healing. At this point Jesus could have just continued to press on, the woman had received her healing and Jairus was waiting for Him, but he stopped, affirmed the woman welcomed her into the Kingdom and taught everyone there that the poor and marginalised are just as important (if not more) in His Kingdom as the rich and powerful. To illustrate the point Jairus’ Daughter died while Jesus was delayed. Of course we know that Jesus raised her and everything was fine with her, but the focus of this passage is not the Jesus could raise the little girl from the dead, the focus is what Jesus did for the woman and at the same time taught the crowd.
If we hold to a theology of suffering (read James 1:1ff), which says that God uses the suffering in our lives to teach us and mould us, then we have to see that Physical Afflictions are in the same category, God wants us to learn from these things, and in many cases he will not remove this issue because it is a testament to his power (1 Cor 1:26-31). If a person can be accepting of his or her affliction, and continue to be a vessel of God, used by Him in powerful ways then that person receives wholeness within the economy of the Kingdom, perfection is not needed.
The bible says that if we have enough FAITH that we can pray for healing and we will receive it (James 5:15). FAITH is nothing more or less than a complete trust in God, a knowing of his will and ways. So if we have Faith then we will supposedly know what is appropriate to pray for and when. We need to look at what is whole or perfect within the context of the Kingdom, and the more we get to understanding the Kingdom, the more we realise that it’s logic and values are opposite or upside-down to the values and logic of the world.
It could almost be argued that Jesus wants you to be physically whole as much as he wants you to have that BMW… If you think that he wants you to be rich, then you have missed the point.

belated update - yet again...

2008-01-22T15:31:00.000+11:00

Ahhh, after all my resolve to get disciplined in preparation for my study next year it has yet again been over a month since my last blog entry.... I guess though it does say that I have been busy and have more important things on my plate.

Well, things have been going exceedingly well for us over the past month or so we have thrown ourselves in amongst the Muslim Burmese community here in Springvale intensely, and are enjoying the fruit of our hard work. We have really been accepted as part of their community, being invited to various family dinners, parties and religious celebrations and we have been able to return the favour too. The biggest highlight for us was Christmas day, where we ended up spending the day in the local park with over 150 Burmese friends, we were able to give out Christmas presents to all the children who were there as well as break open 2 massive Christmas pinatas, play tug of war, have running races and of course eat plenty of food (it was an interesting mix of traditional Christmas food, traditional Burmese food and the good old Aussie BBQ).

After the lunch in the park was finished our celebrations continued as many people came to visit us until about 10pm. And after that day, more relationships have been established and those that were already there have grown. In some ways it was with hesitation that we headed out on our two weeks holiday to Naomi's parents in the central coast (NSW), this time of year has afforded us so many amazing opportunities. But we were able to enjoy ourselves and when we returned the community was still here and they welcomed us back with open hands!

I will write again soon i promise, right now i need to go and cook some dinner...

peter

Re-thinking Christmas

2007-12-13T17:30:00.000+11:00

Naomi & I have been trying for a number of years now to do something different within our Christmas celebrations within our extended families. Last year, we purchased all our gifts from a fairtrade shop for our families with a budget of $5 per person, our families rolled their eye's and said that they would expect nothing less from us, but I suspect that they appreciated the sentiment none the less.

We also limited gifts for our children and ourselves at one gift each worth no more than $20... surprisingly they did not seem to mind at all, however with all the extra gifts they got along the way from others I think the intent of that was somehow lost...

It is difficult to make a stand about consumerism at christmas time, when those around you earnestly want to show their love for you through buying gifts, and certainly, we would not want to take that option away from them...

The problem is how to show our love to them without looking like a tightass (excuse the french), there have to be creative ways out there, we have tried to make gifts for our loved ones with varying degrees of success over the years, but even they can often get quite pricey as we buy the supplies we need to make the gifts and as a result our aim of a consumerism free christmas was lost...

If you have any ideas for us this year, please let us know as I personally am running out of ideas.

Anyway, here are a few thoughts on consumerism and christmas...

This is a website dedicated to a "buy-nothing-christmas". Well worth checking out.

And here are some thoughts by one of my favourite writers and revolutionaries shane claibourne

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up.

2007-12-07T07:24:00.000+11:00

I recently received a link from a friend of a godtube (Christian youtube rip off – I guess it’s more sanctified or something!) clip of a young African American woman reciting a Hip Hop style poem about peoples misconception of who is the real Jesus… the general thrust of the poem was that Jesus has become too easy to follow or too safe.

The reason that my friend sent me this clip was because he felt that my Jesus has become too safe too (or probably too pc). Now we are not talking about a buddy kind of Jesus like in a recent post by a myspace friend of mine who suggests amongst other things that HIS “Jesus” would have smoked the occasional pot… You come cross that kind of Jesus very often, the Jesus made in your own image kind of thing… He allows us to be more comfortable with ourselves rather than calling us to surrender and transformation.

My friend has always struggled with my view of Jesus. And the latest bent that he is on is one of exegesis… if we study the work properly and understand the context that Jesus was ministering in then we can get an accurate view of the real Jesus… now my friend has not done any of this work himself but has been relying on the work of important biblical scholars who have apparently arrived at the truth. He cannot accept that other respected biblical scholars have done the same thing and come up with very different images of Jesus. Even exegesis when push comes to shove revolves around opinion… especially when that exegesis begins to be applied (I think that’s call hermeneutic from memory).

The problem is that we all come to Jesus with preconceived ideas, sometimes those ideas are challenged and depending on how strongly those ideas are challenged our idea’s about him may change or we may defend our position all the more… and this could be viewed as either integrity, weakness, stubbornness, maturity, immaturity or compromise (again depending on your preconceived idea of who Jesus is). It is easy to see Jesus as a buddy, there is little challenge in this and little area for growth… we can say “I just follow the teachings of Jesus” and remove the sting from any opposing arguments. Unfortunatly we ignore the teachings of Jesus that tell us to take up our cross and surrender our lives. It is also very easy to have a legalistic Jesus, with him we can build firm guidelines of who is in and who is out, we can judge others (especially those who have the all permissive buddy Jesus), say we are following the teachings of Jesus, and feel very sanctified in the process… The problem with this view is that we end up with many enemies and the one teaching of Jesus that we can’t seem to understand is “Love your enemies”.

The problem is that we have a Jesus who likes to party like the buddy Jesus suggests, he hung out with tax collectors and sinners (to the chagrin of the legalists). But those who chose to follow him were called to a life of submission, transformation, pain, and hardship (sorry buddy Jesus). The true Jesus must lie somewhere in between or better yet as Brian McLaren likes to suggest somewhere ABOVE those two views, and finding Him there is no easy task. We have to remember that He hung out with the sinners and prostitutes and was accepted and loved by them, but that he never compromised his own values (the values of God himself as set out in the OT). Whether we like it or not, for this to happen we have to accept that He did not stand in judgement of these people, separating himself from them. In fact – the only people that Jesus does loose it at are the religious types, the legalists, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers OF THE LAW (the very law that he lived by like no other man has). We also have to accept that just about all of his disciples (depending on what tradition you come from) were martyred for their beliefs, as were many of the other followers of Jesus. The reason for this is that they were a challenge to the rule of the day they were bringing a teaching and way of life that was in opposition to that of Cesar and the Jewish leaders, they did not hole themselves up in a religious compound keeping themselves sanctified as the Essenes did – if this was the case they would have dwindled into obscurity (as the Essenes did) and Cesar would not have cared. Rather, they lived out their lives; they partied with the sinners and looked after their poor (not only their own!!). They stood by what they believed but were still accessible to those who they were called to share the gospel with. They loved their enemies and took up their cross and their numbers were added to DAILY!

It has been a long time...

2007-12-04T23:11:00.000+11:00

It has been a very long time since I have blogged, and the truth of the matter is that although I have been busy I have simply not wanted to blog. I have been worn out by it all, maintaining it and other websites, blogger, myspace etc… it is all a great waste of time, or so I thought until I realised how much I missed doing it all, I use my blogs as a journal, they are cathartic for me. I can’t say that everything I write here is correct or truth or that I won’t want to take my words back in a year’s time but I need to get this stuff out, I need to put it out there, I hope and pray for feedback, both positive and negative, these comments make me think, make me ponder and I hope make me grow. I do not even know if anyone is interested in what I write. Is anyone interested in what I value?... but that is the beauty of the blog, I guess it does not matter.

I am looking to continue my study next year, I will be working towards my masters after taking a short detour in a Grad Dip. In order to do this, and continue with the work I am doing here in Springvale, I will need to become disciplined, as a result I plan to use my blog as a training ground of this discipline, at least until I begin my studies (hopefully I’ll continue after this, even if it is less frequent). Not only will it train me to schedule my time, it will train me to write more and to think more – at least I hope it will!

Over the time that I have been away from my blog I have had many thoughts that would have been good to get down, so hopefully I can get these down before I forget them… anyway, I will see you all again really soon..

Peter

God's Timing

2007-10-15T07:18:00.000+10:00

What an amazingly busy time we have had since we have moved in here to Springvale. We were a bit worried at first, most of the Burmese that we work with are Muslim, and we moved in right at the start of Ramadan, this meant that our homework club grounded to a halt almost instantly. From what I understand, you do as little as you can get away with during Ramadan, as exerting yourself of course makes the fasting a lot more difficult (particularly if you can’t even drink water!). This also meant that there was not many of our usual local Burmese walking around the street, as they were mostly keeping indoors and quiet.

However, God’s timing in all of this seems to be perfect. Just when we were accepting that we had a quiet month ahead of us, the protests in Burma broke out, the protests and ensuing military crackdown, have left the Burmese refugees here with mixed feelings. On the up side, it has been nearly 20 years since there have been any large scale protests in Burma, and these protests were being lead by the Buddhist monks, a unique and amazing situation. The Buddhist monks are the one organization that was not able to be bought out by the junta, and indeed the junta itself recognizes itself as Buddhist, so when they were facing off the protesting monks, they were facing off their spiritual leaders. The other thing that was exciting about this situation is that the world was sitting up and taking notice. 19 years ago it was not until after the fact that the world found out that 3,000 peaceful protesters were slaughtered by the junta on the 8th of August. This time around, modern technology made it impossible to go by un-noticed. Thanks to the internet and cameras in mobile phones, an army of lay-journalists were able to blog the excitement and horrors of the protests for a week or so before the junta could effectively shut them down.

The negative side of this for our local Burmese community is of course that they are stuck here in Australia worrying about loved ones left in Burma, and in many cases reliving the memories of what they went through 19 years ago (many of the families are missing fathers or elder brothers because they were lost during this time.)

During this time we have been able to stand with our Burmese friends, visiting many of them, letting them know that we share in their misery (as much as we can being non-Burmese), supporting them wherever possible. We have also been able to stand with them in protest marches and rallies and through setting up a project team with some of the community leaders here in Springvale, the project team is dedicated to three aims of raising awareness of the Burmese plight, raising funds to help support families that have lost their main bread winner through death or imprisonment, and those political activists in Burma who are fighting foor their countries freedom (click here to learn more). We also aim to get involved in some political actin here, calling on our government to do all it can to put pressure on the Burmese Junta, and calling local companies that are involved in trade in Burma to cease their activities.

All of this activity has been very time consuming and exhausting, though exciting. However it has definitely galvanised our friendship and trust within the community here, so much so that this weekend, as our Burmese Muslim friends celebrated the end of Ramadan, we were invited to more of these celebrations than we could possibly attend. It was an honour to attend these celebrations, and a great time to meet up with many of the community who until now have been standing on the fringes. This time for them was probably very similar to our own Christmas or new years celebrations, where heaps of friends and family get together, eat copious amounts of food, laugh, play, and generally celebrate life.

Burma Update - the real death toll?

2007-10-02T06:55:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone, I recieved the following article in an e-mail from a friend, it came from the "Daily Mail" in the UKbut it had some good info and gives a good indication that the death toll is not as low as the official figures are showing (even if the numbers in this report are exagerated)... but then it would be hard to believe that the numbers were as low as they were showing us in any case...

Burma: Thousands dead in the massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

Last updated at 01:24am on 1st October 2007

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.
The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: 'Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.'
Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.
Hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle
Reports from other exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply ' disappeared' as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.
Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.
There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.
Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.
There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.
In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted yesterday.
A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.
Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. 'The Burma revolt is over,' she added.
'The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.
'Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear.'
Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.
'There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets,' she added. 'Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.
'People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned.'
The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned. At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.
The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: 'I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.
'They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.'
With his teenage son, he made his escape from Rangoon, leaving behind his wife and two other sons.
He had no fears for their safety because his brother is a powerful general who, he believes, will defend the family.
Mr Win's defection will raise a faint hope among tens of thousands of Burmese who have fled to villages along the Thai border.
They will feel others in the army may follow him and turn on their ageing leaders, Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye.

Fasting for Burma

2007-09-26T23:24:00.000+10:00

What an amazing and shocking week it has been for the people of Burma... if you have been living under a rock, since about the 19th, Burmese Buddhist Monks have been rising up in protest marches in the main cities of Burma, from what the news reports have been saying there have been up to 30,000 monks and nuns protesting and many other Burmese Civilians, numbers have apparently been over the 100,000 mark, this has been phenomenal for the nation and the cause on a global scale with all the media attention it has been getting...

However in the past 24ish hours the Military Junta has finally said enough is enough, they have enforced dusk till dawn curfews in an attempt to stem the protests, they have been bashing, imprisoning and in some cases killing these peaceful protesters. Rumor has it that the countries democratically elected leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken from her home where she has been under house arrest by the junta and been put back into prison.

This news has of course hit the Burmese refugees here in Springvale very hard, as a result, and to show that we are serious about our concerns for the plight of the Burmese, we have chosen to go on a fast and pray for the nation. Unlike the fasts mentioned by Jesus in the bible, we are not keeping this fast a secret, whilst the purpose of this fast is to come to the Lord in prayer, it is also to make a point and to take a stand... So I ask that you stand with us in prayer if not in fasting (also you can SIGN THIS PETITION).
My main prayers for this time will be...

that this bloodshed will mark the end of the Junta's rule
that no more lives will be lost
that the world will stand up, take notice and say ENOUGH!
for peace of mind for refugees in other countries separated from loved-ones.

I am in Despair...

2007-09-20T11:01:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone...

I am feeling a bit down at the moment, I have been going through a hard time with someone I considered as a really close friend at the moment, this friend of mine has decided to start attacking my beliefs and what I do and that sort of thing always hurts. When I joined UNOH we got a fair bit of this sort of thing from other friends, but this guy stood by us. Now my friend has caught onto a new type of teaching, one that stand opposed to what I do in many ways, one that is more focused on personal righteousness than living out the Gospel, I'm sure you know this type of thing... whilst both things are needed there is an unhealthy tendency to swing towards one or the other rather than keeping them both in tension...

Anyway, I take these things really badly and this has put me out a fair bit, it reminded me of something i wrote about 4 months ago when I was also going through a rough stage because of something that was affecting Naomi pretty badly... it was a cathartic exercise that I was going to keep to myself, but Naomi saw it and thought it was good so I thought maybe I would share it with you...

I am in despair…
When I see the condition of this world,
I am in despair…
When I see the Condition of this Church,
I am in despair…
When I see good people fall,
I am in despair…
When I see good people hurt,
I am in despair…
When I see the tear in my wife’s eye,
I am in despair…
When it seems Evil is winning over good,
I am in despair…
That the church sees the answer as offence rather than love,
I am in despair…
When His Kingdom seems to be slipping away,
I am in despair…
When I feel that my hands are tied,
I am in despair…
That the church keeps crucifying him day after day,
I am in despair…
That I keep crucifying Him also,
I am in despair…
At the darkness that is in me,
I am in despair…
That there is no clear way ahead,
I am in despair…
That introspection makes me feels selfish,

But I stand…
On the truth that He will never leave us,
But I stand…
On the truth that He will never forsake us,
But I stand…
Because the light has not died,
But I stand…
Because the hope has not died,
But I stand…
Because He is my life,
But I stand…
Because I am not alone,
But I stand…
Because I am loved,
But I stand…
Because I am called.

Springvale update

2007-09-15T10:37:00.000+10:00

Well, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks, it's not long now until we are back online at home and so will be able to write more regular updates, but to fill you in on what has happened over the last few weeks..

A few weeks ago we had an amazing working bee at our new home, we had approximately 20 volunteers come through from Swanson Street Church of Christ to help clean up, and they did an amazing job. The clean up was so effective that we were able to bring forward our moving date, which happened on the 5th and we had a small but dedicated team and we had all our furniture, boxes and junk moved in by the early afternoon. Since then, we have been working hard at getting settled in as well as cleaning up our old place (which was also done with a working bee of amazing UNOH workers and locals - thanks guys!), and getting familiar with our new neighbourhood.

The welcome we have received from the local UNOH workers and members of "Open Hands" church has been amazing - I think in the time that we have been moved in we have had dinner at our house once or maybe twice!

Springvale itself is a much different place to Noble Park, even though they are neighbouring suburbs Springvale is a much larger suburb and as many of you would know, very Asian in flavour, the town centre has the real hustle and bustle of an Asian city, and you could almost think that you were walking down a street in Bangkok... if you had a really vivid imagination.

Drugs, and everything that comes with them seem to be a much larger problem here, there are definite signs of drug use, we have already found a number of syringes in and around our front yard, there are discarded "chroming bags" along the sides of the alleyway behind our house, and probably the most disturbing of all for us was finding someone shooting up in our front yard. The main reason that this person was shooting up there was because we had an easily accessible source of fresh water in our driveway, and it is not uncommon to come home and find that the tap had been used. The scary thing about this encounter was the realisation of any fresh paraphernalia being left behind... fortunately this individual took his syringe with him, however there was a fair amount of blood left on one of the boxes that he was sitting on.

I was struck once again with the opposing forces of fear for my family and trusting in the Lord, I think that this is a struggle that all Christian parents go through... some respond to this fear by trying to pull their children out of any danger or negative influence... we have tried another response, a response that unfortunately means that we need to face this battle between fear and trust sometimes on a daily basis... I probably need to reflect of this topic a bit more at a later date... but having said this I did change the tap head in our front yard over to one of those ones with the removable handle, so hopefully this will reduce the really in-your-face encounters that we have.

It has been great to be so close to many of the Burmese that we have been getting to know, I have been privileged to be able to play some volley ball with some of them, and have had regular visits from one of our closer and more out going friends... As we get more settled in, the week to come will hopefully be more intentional with our visiting our Burmese friends and making new contacts, as well as familiarising ourselves with the exciting town centre and all its sights, sounds and smells.

We have moved!!

2007-09-08T12:15:00.000+10:00

Hi guys,
just a quick note to let you know that we have moved into our fantastic new home in springvale... I have a lot to blog about, but no time right now... I will get onto it soon but we are without internet or even home phone for 2 weeks, thanks to the wonderful response time of optus... We will continue to check e-mails and hopefully will have time to blog as well from the office, but don't hold your breath!!!
Peter

On the Move

2007-08-26T11:03:00.001+10:00

As we mentioned a while back, we have been looking to move to Springvale to focus on our work with the Burmese community more. Well, (y)our prayers have been answered, not only have we finally acquired a rental property in Springvale, it is THE property that we wanted!! This is a real strategic property that is at the gateway to a very large neighbourhood of Burmese friends and acquaintances, it is also just around the corner from the rest of the Springvale team, and will provide a great meeting space particularly during summer with it's huge back yard.

The house itself is a real dump, which we are kind of excited about in a weird sort of way, but it will need a lot of cleaning and handyman work (if you are interested in checking it out and helping out we are having a bit of a working bee there this Saturday from 10am - give me a call or e-mail and I'll fill you in with the details).

The move itself will happen in a few weeks and then things will really change for us as we begin to focus on our new neighbourhood and work out what we can do and where we will fit best.

Standing with the Burmese

2007-08-14T21:59:00.000+10:00

What a fully Burmese week we have just had. As I have mentioned before, Naomi & I are working on focusing on the Burmese community here in Melbourne more and more, and last week was a great taste of what that will hopefully look like.

Our week started with the Burmese homework club on Saturday morning, where we have at least 12 kids (probably more) to entertain with craft and conversational English, or as in my case, teaching year 10 level maths to a girl who has had virtually no formal education in her life! (fortunately she spent 3 years in Bangkok and as a result was able to learn a fair amount of English). It was a challenging yet enjoyable experience even if I did walk away from it with a massive headache. An exciting thing that happened at homework club too was that a friend of one of our volunteers donated 8 or so scientific calculators, which will come in very handy to these young students as often they cannot afford these themselves!!!

The next day we also went on an outing with about 40 of our Burmese friends to the Melbourne museum, where we got to view an aboriginal display and some other bits and pieces, It was a very moving display, focussing quite strongly on the stolen generation and other atrocities that we didn’t learn in Australian history at school. The day itself was absolutely fantastic, There is something about seeing such a large group of people ascending the escalators at parliament station together, for many of them it was the first time on an outing to the city. As always various Burmese families invited us to share their lunch with them and fortunately there was no (obvious) offal involved this time.

We also got the opportunity to spend a bit of time with one of our families that we have been making friends with, just hanging out talking about the differences in Australian and Burmese societies.

On Wednesday six of us (4 UNOH workers, 1 prospective UNOH worker and a Burmese friend) headed up to Canberra to protest the 19th anniversary of the atrocities that happened in Burma on the 8.8.88. The protest was held outside the Embassy of Myanmar (the military in Burma officially changed the countries name to Myanmar some time ago, but none of our Burmese friends recognise the change of name). We got to stand beside Burmese from Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, as we yelled slogans calling for a free Burma, UN intervention and the end of atrocities in that country. It was very moving to get to talk with these people and find out about their struggles, both back home in Burma and living here in Australia. The look of pure joy on our Burmese friends face as he yelled out slogans that would have got him instantly shot in his own country will not be forgotten quickly.

On Thursday, Naomi also got the opportunity to learn some authentic Burmese cooking with another neighbourhood friend, from what I understand it was a great time of connecting as women together (I wasn’t invited :( - though I did get to sample the curry :))…

So anyway, all that to say that things are starting to really pick up for us in this area and we are overjoyed and excited that God would use us in this very important ministry…

Sorry about the delay, here is an update...

2007-08-07T21:43:00.000+10:00

It has been a very long time since my last blog entry, things have been flat out for us here… so, let me update you on what has been happening. The last month or so have seen all the UNOH workers heading down to Melbourne for the Surrender 07 conference, which was an absolutely amazing time… probably the best that I have been to. Our main speakers at the conference were Shane Claibourne, Jackie Pullinger and Mike Frost. All three were in fine form, and it was of particular interest to me to hear Shane speak as I have been a big fan of his for some time now!! Mike Frost’s biblical exposition on some of Jesus’ more complex parables was amazing and probably a major highlight for most who attended. Probably the most exciting part of the conference however was to get to hang out with over 1000 like minded people who created an amazingly welcoming and loving atmosphere that was felt throughout the whole weekend.

There have been many meetings and decisions to be made over the last month as well, and amongst them, Naomi & I have chosen to take an invitation to move to Springvale and become more deeply involved in the Burmese community there. Naomi & I have fallen in love with the Burmese refugees that we have met over the last year and have a real heart for them and their plight, and while there are many Burmese in Springvale, there are very few in Noble Park, even though it is only one suburb over. As a result we have found ourselves travelling to Springvale to work amongst these people, and find ourselves quite at home with the team already working there. Because one of the main principles of working for UNOH is to live within the neighbourhood of those you are reaching out too, the time has come for us to make this move.

The move will mean a longer term commitment to the Springvale community, which will mean that we will not be getting to go over-seas to Thailand as soon as we wanted to, however we believe that the Lord has lead us in this direction. Our hope is to put a good 5 to 6 years minimum into the work in Springvale focussing more intently on the Burmese community, getting involved in advocacy and political work around the plight of the country as well as the more interpersonal work we are already doing. Our dream is that this time will prepare us for the possibility of working on the Thai-Burma border or in Burma itself in the future. All this we hold loosely and are open to God yet again changing our plans, it was hard to let go of the more immediate aim of working in the slums of Bangkok, however we believe that the Lord has called us to this course of action, and we are excited by the possibilities.

Hopefully the move will happen in the next month or so, please pray for us as we make this move and look for rental properties, good rentals are hard to come by in Springvale at the moment, and rent has gone up quite a bit in the past year. There is a particular property that we are looking at as the location seems ideal. It is at the mouth of a large neighbourhood of Burmese immigrants and many of them will walk past our door every day if we get the property. We were walking around that neighbourhood the other day and ran into three or four groups of Burmese that we already new form our homework club. The property also backs onto an alley way that leads to where the rest of the Springvale team live so it seems ideal. The property will not be available for another 3 weeks however, and the rental will be quite significantly more that what we are paying now, and as we are living on very limited support this is a step of faith in (hopefully) taking this property.

Women, The Church and Leadership

2007-07-23T21:24:00.000+10:00

This is a topic I have been thinking to write about for quite some time, but have never got around to...

For me in all truth the question is a bit of a waste of time, there are numerous accounts in the bible that suggest that women are aloud to teach and are equal to men and all that sort of stuff ... (see for example Gal 3:28)... But it seem to be a bit of a problem for a lot of the church, mainly due to 2 or 3 passages by the apostle Paul. I am one of those people that believe that if we are to look at the context that Paul was writing into that we can understand what he is saying a lot better, I know that many Christians out there see this as a cop out, but have you ever noticed how easy it is to put someone off side when you write them a letter or more often e-mail and they take it the wrong way, because they did not understand the spirit that you wrote it in? - well, context is the same sort of thing... anyway lets not get into a lesson on exegesis, lets just accept that I believe that women should be in leadership in the church.

After saying that, let me now say that a lot of the women who are in leadership in the church should not be in leadership (but then neither should many of the men). Jesus was a big teacher of the first being last, the last first and of servant leadership (washing feet etc.). The sort of leaders that Jesus wanted were leaders who were there for the good of others, not for their own glory or prestige. I believe that we should respect and honor those that the Lord has put in charge of leading the church, but if these leaders expect or demand such respect, I do not think that the Lord has truly put them in leadership...

In a world of women's liberation and a church that tries to suppress female leadership, the sort of women who make it to leadership positions (I talk in generalisations as there are many truly humble and anointed women leaders who I have met), are the sort of women that have had to fight tooth and nail to gain their position. They have had to assert themselves and prove themselves as being professional, great orators etc etc. These sort of women do not understand servant leadership and they certainly would not wash the feet of their congregation (after all that's servants work, and women are not servants!).

It is a shame that the church has put so much pressure on women, that many of those who have the will to stick to their beliefs are those who want to prove a point and therefore forfeit their right to be leaders in the church (according to the servant leadership model), but then if we use the same yard stick to measure male leadership, I'm sure that many of men would fail too...

The question should not be Male or Female, the question should be about motivation... Prestige or Servanthood!!

2007-07-16T09:34:00.000+10:00

www.avaaz.org

CHARGE!!!!.... What? Which way???

2007-07-15T22:18:00.000+10:00

Today, I went back to my old, old church, one that I left because of many reasons, but amongst the strongest was that I could not find a sense of purpose there. 5 or 6 years down the track, I have found purpose, and whilst praying one morning, I got struck with the need to go back to that church for a time, to get my attitude right with the church and to see that even if I disagree with the form, Christ is still at work in it. I am not going to go into the details of my visit, there is still a lot of work for God to do in my life before my attitude is right and I don’t want to ruin it by bitching here.

What I did want to blog about was a bit of a question that came out of today’s sermon. In the sort of church that I have belonged to for the past 5 or so years I probably could have bounced this idea around a bit with everyone, but I just didn’t feel right standing up and saying “ahhhh… excuse me….?”

The sermon in a round about way was sort of about being a warrior for God, and being part of an Army of God, it revolved around reading the bible and being prepared and fighting like your life depended on it (the female preacher told us that we were not allowed to fight like girls). Anyway, the question that came out of this was what are we an army for? Where or what is our battle ground, our front line? This question was never really touched on… There was talk about personal battles, like when you feel the devil attacking you personally (your self esteem or something) or your family (your teenage kid might be getting into sex, drugs or God forbid Rock and/or Roll)… but those are personal battles, and yes they are serious, and yes we need to fight them, and yes we need God’s help and the Word to deal with them. But I got this kind of picture in my mind of a person in an army walking along to battle, in full armour, kind of like how the Roman legions did, complaining about how rough the road ahead is. Complaining about how there was a log in the road ahead and how he had to climb over it, or the cliff he had to scale to get to the battle ground, and when he finally got to the battle ground saying “well that’s it I’m stuffed, I fought my battle getting here… you chaps can do the rest…”

I think that what the preacher today was suggesting was that we are an army, that we do have to fight together, that there is a battle to which we are all called to fight. But the battle was not named, and I don’t feel like the battle was ever really named in the years that I was there either, only the personal battles, and the threat of some nebulous future threat. I wonder, if the reason for this is because of the user friendly approach of so many western churches, the reality of what it means to be in this army, the reality of what the war is, or what we have to give up or go through to fight in this army is too confronting. Maybe if these people were asked to count the cost of going to war they would rather run and hide, it’s a lot easier to pump people up, to let them know that in Christ they are mighty warriors, to let them know how marvellous their armour is , than to start to train them in the art of warfare, of tactics, of knowing their enemy…

By this point you probably have noticed that I have not named the battle front either… the battle is to further the Kingdom of God (“thy Kingdom come…”) to make disciples of all nations (not converts, disciples)… to love your enemy (even the Muslim extremist terrorists?... surely not?)… to feed the hungry… in a nut shell to stand in direct opposition to the works of the enemy, it is a warfare of LOVE, but the enemy fights back with HATE, he is blood thirsty and vile and that is why we need the armour of God… that is why we need to be a unified army!!

We're Back!!!

2007-06-26T17:41:00.000+10:00

Hello everyone,

it has been a long time since my last post, we got robbed, and our modem went with everything else... The police tracked down one of our burglars, and amongst the stuff they had was our modem, so I am back online again....

We are still waiting for our insurance company to come through with a payment; these things seem to be extremely slow...

It is amazing the effects that this has had on my thinking. The robbery itself was of course a shock; it knocked the kids around a bit, though they bounced back pretty well. Fortunately for us, our robbers were quite considerate in the way they went through our property, there was no needless damage or vandalism, and even though they went through draws and stuff, the contents that they did not take were left behind in the draws neatly. I guess that Naomi and I sort of felt that burglary was probably par for the course in moving into this neighbourhood, so once the initial shock wore off, we got over it pretty quickly (the sense of invasion, violation, loss of security etc).

When your property is stolen like that, you are really forced to evaluate how attached you are to material possessions, how much you are a slave to the god of mammon. When we decided to join UNOH and leave the middle class rat race, to join a poor community and take a vow of poverty ourselves, I believe that we took a step in the right direction. There was a real sense that God had released us from the love of money, keeping up with the Joneses just did not seem to hold any importance for us. Looking at things from the other side of the fence, it seems that the love of money is prevalent in the western church… the consumerist mentality of church growth teachings fit hand in hand with the seeking of comfort and safety that characterises middle class society; as a result materialism is embraced or at best ignored within these churches.

Anyway, I have strayed from my point… after leaving my previous lifestyle, I often felt that we still had too many comforts, certainly once we moved our stuff into our small unit that we now call home, it did scream to us “Middle Class”. I felt that we had not gone far enough… actions speak louder than words (or in this case thoughts) however… and I never really did anything about it, so I guess to some extent I was still a slave to materialism. The robbery however proved to me how little attachment I did have to my possessions, as the actual loss of most my stuff has not really affected me (there were a few personal items that really hurt to loose, like my wedding ring).

The biggest problem in this line of thought however is that we had insurance, a wise move really, at least some would say that… however I know that some of my carefree attitude to the robbery was probably do to this, so at this stage of my life I don’t know how free I am from materialism. I am also faced with the problem of deciding what to replace that was stolen, due to the nature of insurance I will have to purchase new items that will make me look more prosperous than I did before. Some things are quite important to me to replace, like a new camera, others I don’t think I will replace if I have the choice, like the playstation (our lives are better without that). Still, I am haunted with the thoughts of what are the best things I can get with the payout… I am starting to understand what Jesus was really talking about when he mentioned the camel and the eye of the needle, and I am truly thankful that it is not through our power that this is possible, but that it is purely up to God to sort the issue of mammon out in each of our lives…

Peter

apologies

2007-05-22T21:53:00.000+10:00

hi guys - sorry I haven't been on of late, we got robbed a bit over a week back and so are running on a dial-up connection whilst things get sorted out - be back soon I promise

Why I Hate Eagles...

2007-05-03T08:20:00.000+10:00

"These are the birds you are to detest… the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture…” Leviticus 11:13

Ah, the eagle, that magnificent, powerful bird, mascot of the “most powerful” nation in the world. Interestingly enough it was also the mascot of arguably the most evil regime in the world. The Eagle has also been adopted by the church as a symbol. The symbol has predominantly been adopted thanks to the following verse:

But those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

I am always a bit perplexed at the adoption of the eagle as a symbol of Christianity. There are a number of references to eagles in the bible – 29 to be exact – however most of these verses refer to things like dietary restrictions, symbols of judgement and corrupt or ominous nations and characteristics of the creatures who worship god in Revelations… if we look at the bibles reference to eagles in a positive light, there really are only 3 or 4 verses. Yet it seems to me to be the third most popular Christian symbol (at least in the protestant tradition), right after the cross and the fish…

So, what difference does it make? Not a lot really, it is just an interesting observation… The lamb to me seems to be a much more accurate image of how God and the Bible view those that follow Christ, there are certainly more references to us being like sheep, especially when you take into consideration the references to shepherds. It is interesting that we more often than not neglect this fragile, vulnerable and stupid animal to represent us, and opt for the powerful, majestic, independent predator that is the eagle.

The church seems to seek after power, as do many of it’s members, church numbers seem to be the main focus for many, a good church or a blessed church is the church with thousands of people attending, and good or blessed Christian is the one who is financially prosperous. The biggest fear of the church in the west today is that we will fall out of the mainstream, we fear a society that is not Christian, as a result we try to get into politics or align ourselves with political parties. Unfortunately, more often than not this is aligning ourselves with the devil, or the next best thing.

My journey has caused me to strongly believe that the church is not meant to be in the mainstream, the mainstream leads to comfort and ego and laziness and mediocrity. It is those Christians in the margins that are truly powerful although they are often oppressed. Look at the growth of the church in China and other countries where the gospel is banned, in many of these countries the church is growing rapidly, but quietly, the congregations are kept small, running underground in homes, it is these people who are soaring like eagles, it is these people who are attesting to the power of the Lord, the real power that comes out of weakness.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27

We need to embrace our foolishness, our weakness – isn’t it foolish to follow a man who was killed on a cross? Isn’t it foolish to follow a man who tells us to loose our lives, to pick up our own crosses and follow him (to crucifixion, figuratively as well as literally), isn’t it foolish to love our enemy?

True Christianity can never survive in the wisdom and strength of the mainstream, Jesus’ teachings stand in direct opposition to it. The Kingdom of God, that the bible tells us will one day come, yet is already here, operates in contradiction, amongst other things it repays hate with love, and it calls us to freely give instead of building security through wealth. Look at the beatitudes, these values stand in direct opposition to the “Christian” society that we find ourselves in. And somehow, in some wonderfully paradoxical way, the Kingdom of the margins, that can never be mainstream, will one day be victorious.

I do not pretend to understand it, and I think that is part of the beauty of it all, we can only trust in our Lord and follow his ways, and he will look after the rest, we are not to be eagles, we are to be lambs, innocent, trusting, defenseless lambs…

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16

… yet we still have a mission, we are still warriors in the army of the Lord, however we are warriors of peace, this is yet another wonderful paradox of the kingdom… maybe I will explore this later…

Blasphemy Challenge

2007-04-30T10:16:00.000+10:00

Hi guys, as you are aware, I have been playing around a lot on myspace of late (in an attempt to get my head around it for UNOH promotional purposes - see shobie's myspace page... I did that! - but I did not come here to blow my own trumpet). While playing around on myspace I came across a group known as the Confession Campaign which is a direct response to another group known as the Blasphemy Challenge. The Blasphemy Challenge is a bunch of sceptics or rationalists convincing people to make videos and post them on myspace or youtube, renouncing the holy spirit in their lives. I am not quite sure of the rational behind it, to me it seems quite juvenile, but in the U.S. it has got a lot of attention and the church is up in arms about it.

The Church of course has responded, and the Confession Campaign is one such response, here is what they see their mission as...

We have one weapon, prayer that is aligned with the WORD OF GOD. This is how we'll fight off this challenge and whatever else Satan schemes with. Our goal needs to be to expose these fads, educate people about these fads, and to help the lost from falling for these frauds. This is our mission statement: 1. Confess Jesus with your mouth. 2. Confess Jesus with your lifestyle. 3. BE BOLD!!! Do you want a challenge? Then follow these 3 things. Make a video, we'll put it on this site, leave a comment, send pictures, confess Jesus at school, work, or the street, do whatever you feel challenges you... but BE BOLD

Now I strongly agree with the sentiment above - this is how I am trying to live out my life... the problem is that the only real outcome seems to be that people are making videos stating that they believe in the Holy Spirit and follow Christ. What it ends out as is a Tit-for-tat battle, and really, what good is that?

Yet again, I think that we have missed the point (I don't think that the confession campaign has missed it - I think those subscribing to it have). Yet again the church has circled its wagons, trying to defend itself against attack. I hate to tell you this guys, but a video stating that you believe in OR renounce the Holy Spirit is going to do nothing in the bigger scheme of things.

A friend of mine, Ash Barker once said something along the lines of "The world does not need more words, the world needs more words become flesh" which to me follows on from St Francis' famous quote of "everywhere you go preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words". The blasphemy Challenge in my opinion only exists because the church has lost it's way, has become a laughing stock & is viewed as hypocritical. If we actually stopped trying to defend ourselves and stepped out & lived the Gospel (and the Gospel is good news TO THE POOR! - the hurting, the lonely, the marginalised etc), then maybe the world would once again see that the church is a force of change for the good.

If they are going to persecute us - and the bible says they will, let them persecute us because we are doing the right thing and not because we are sitting back, getting fat, protecting ourselves and hurling judgement and condemnation onto the world.

The church in the west is once again being forced into the margins, we are no longer main stream! - we are getting back to where we were in the first 300 years of the church's history, a powerful time for Christians, a time of persecution, but also a time of witness (through action) and effectiveness. Lets pray that the church wakes up, sees the position it is in and starts to head out into the world to make a difference and does not become defensive and circle its wagons until it is finally taken over.

heartache and joy

2007-04-23T06:53:00.000+10:00

We are going through a particularly tough time at the moment. There has been a very large amount of heartache and pain in members of our extended family of late, I will not go into any details about it, as many of the people who read this blog are known by these family members and I have to give them the respect that they deserve. Needless to say that these situations are playing in the back of both Naomi & My heads as we continue on in our work here in Noble Park. It is difficult as we dedicate ourselves to our work to know that family members are suffering, and while if it is ever really needed we could go and be with the family, there is a sense of separation as we have dedicated to living and working in this community 24 hours 6 days a week. Our prayers and thoughts are with them all.

At the same time, we are facing heartache here in our community too, we have now been in the community long enough to experience the ravaging power of addiction, as two of our regular friends have lapsed into their addictions again and have ostracised themselves form the community. It is horrible to think that just a month or two earlier these two people were active participants in our community and now they have hidden themselves from any assistance and are suffering under the influences of their addictions. I am told however that more often than not these things are cyclical, and that these people will most likely be back, and the hope is that eventually, as we demonstrate the liberating power of Christ, the cycle will be broken.

Needless to say, these things make us feel like we are under attack, (and this is where the old Pentecostal theology comes back into play guys) and the only time that we get attacked seems to be when Satan feels under threat from our actions (I am not saying that these things are only happening because of us - that would be extremely egotistical, the universe is way too complex for that, but things do seem to align and occur at particular times, it is almost like there is some higher power at work). We will continue to do our work regardless, we will continue to stand in opposition of the work of the enemy, we will continue to see God's Kingdom come.

The reason for Satan's attack on our lives would have to be that like no time before in the year or so that we have been living in NP, Naomi and I feel really plugged into the community, we feel like we are really contributing and really digging deeper in the lives of those around us. We have become extremely involved in a group of Burmese immigrants, working along side their kids, teaching them English and helping with their homework, visiting these people and really building relationships. We have also started to build friendships with others in our community, including a Sri Lankan family with a son who suffers from the same disability that I myself do - cerebral palsy. Anyway, all this to say that we feel that we are really at home and in the flow here and we praise the Lord as a result!!

Please pray for our family and friends who are suffering.

Pray for our own peace of mind and strength.

Pray that we can continue to dig deeper into this community and these relationships, seeing real transformation occur.

Thank you...

Peter

Sacred/Secular Duality

2007-04-10T21:30:00.000+10:00

In playing around with myspace over the last few weeks, I have been confronted by a theme that I often think about and probably have blogged about in one form or another many times, and that is, what does it mean to be a Christian…

I came across one site of a guy professing to be a Christian. In his “about me” blurb, he mentioned that he believes in forgiving but not forgetting, and explained about how he has a 3 strikes and your out policy (as if this is a virtue), unless of course you do something really bad and then you are out on the first strike. I have read other myspace entries by Christian musicians explaining about why they don’t sing Christian songs, and whilst I understand the dilemma they are going through and understand what point they are trying to get at, there seems to be this duality going on in their lives, where they can separate the sacred from the secular within their own lives.

On the subject of Christian art, I agree, a Christian should not feel compelled to sing about Jesus, just like a painter should not feel compelled to paint the cross in their work, but if an artist is a Christian, doesn’t their artwork by default become Christian? The values sung about the feelings expressed, should be a reflection of that belief (and again I am not talking about veiled love songs that actually are dedicated to Jesus and not a girl/boy friend). In the same way, the work of an abstract artist who is a Christian, is imbued with the values of that persons relationship with Christ, even without Christian icons being present on the canvas, and even without anyone else understanding the value of the work…

My point by all of this was not to defend the work of a ‘non-religious’ Christian artist, but to challenge the separation of sacred and secular in our lives. I don’t think it can really be done. Again I am not saying that we need to fluff around acting religious, greeting everyone we see with a “Jesus Loves You” and calling everyone brother or sister, but if the values of the Gospel, the values of the Kingdom, are not present in our lives, then our lives are not given over to Him, and we need to reassess our values.

This kind of concept reminds me of the movie “The people versus Larry Flynt”, a biographical movie about a pornographic magazine editor. In this movie, Larry becomes a Christian at one point, and from the portrayal in the movie, it seemed to be a genuine conversion, but Larry tried to continue his magazine editing work whilst professing Christ (from memory he even tried to put Christian articles in his magazine). Anyway, the point was that something had to give in the scenario, and for Larry, he let go of his Christianity. Similarly, I had a friend who was involved in the drug trade (and other shifty dealings) who became a Christian and tried to balance the two, again he found it impossible and let go of Christ (the positive side of his story is that God has continued to pursue him and through business failures and marriage failures, this man is beginning to turn once again towards Christ). For myself, I used to work in a newsagency, every day I would sell Tatslotto tickets, now that I work in the context that I do, amongst those who are affected by gambling addictions I do not feel that a Christian should work within such a destructive industry.

But those examples are extremes, which make a point, we are faced with these sorts of decisions every day, and not only referring to big things like the industries we work in. We are to be challenged by day to day things, do we display forgiveness in our live (70 x 7 – and this is not literal), we should display morality in our choices of how we live our lives (do we support industries that cause harm to others, do we lie to get advancements in work, do we manipulate situations to our advantage), we should also display compassion (opening our eyes to the hurt that is in others and helping them wherever possible). We will never be perfect in these things, it is a continual learning curve, but if we don’t challenge ourselves in these things we will never change, if we continue to justify our actions, because it is the way of the world then we will never see His Kingdom come.

This morning as I did my reading I was challenged again by this passage; it is relevant and I think that all of us in this comfortable western existence that we are in need to keep it constantly in the back of our minds as we go about our day to day…

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)

Australian Poverty

2007-04-03T20:24:00.000+10:00

Poverty is a confusing word. Probably the first thing that comes to mind when we think of poverty is the starving children from African nations that we see on T.V. through World Vision (and other groups) ads. This is extreme poverty, the sort of thing that the Make Poverty History campaign is aiming to eradicate. Fortunately for those facing extreme poverty, this form of poverty is easily marketable; for those of us that have not been desensitised by the ads, the injustice and suffering of the sunken eyed, swollen bellied kids standing in the squalor of the slums they live in breaks our hearts.

Unfortunately, poverty affects many here at home too. It is not the same sort of poverty, and it is difficult to market, in fact many of the people facing poverty in Australia have been vilified in the minds of the general public. Thanks to people like Derryn Hinch and other similar talkback radio presenters, these people are labelled as dole bludgers or no hopers or other derogatory titles that just help in keeping these marginalised people in their place.

There is this financial measuring stick in Australia known as the Henderson Poverty Line. The HPL was developed in the 70’s as a guide for what it would take for individuals in Australia to cover their essential living costs. This figure takes into account whether a person is living as an individual or as part of a family of differing sizes and is adjusted every three months in relation to costs of living, inflation etc. Obviously, the HPL is the line that is used to say if a person is living in poverty or not; a person living on full Centrelink payments is living below the HPL. Having said that then, a person living on Centrelink cannot meet their day to day costs of living; this is probably done in the government’s infinite wisdom to encourage people to get a job, however, for many this is not possible.

For myself, I have gone through a stage in my life where I was classed as long term unemployed. I know how degrading it is to be in this situation, and I came from a privileged background… I had a stable and loving family, I had all my needs and most of my wants met as I grew up, I had a good education, yet I could not get a Job. Every fortnight as I filled out my jobseekers diary, I felt the humiliation. Every time I had to queue up and hand in the form I felt the same oppression as those around me.

The people who I meet and walk with every day all have different stories, some of them suffer from physical disabilities, some have had unstable childhoods, that resulted in them not getting a great education, many have fallen into the trap of addiction, many of them are mentally ill, and many come from third world countries where even if they were educated and employed back home (and few of them are), they find themselves without recognised skills here in Australia. Some more of these people have simply made bad choices, but what ties these people all together is that they are trapped within the welfare system; a system that is very hard to claw your way out of.

Few of these people will have the opportunity to work their way out of the welfare trap, some will try and fail time and time again, and others are doomed to be dependant on the welfare system for the rest of their lives with no support structures in place to help them out. Those stuck in the trap will continue to live in a situation where they don’t have enough money to meet their basic needs, for those facing addictions, the problem is only made worse, as they need to gain money to feed that habit and eat as well. Rehab, psychiatric, counselling and medical help is hard to come by, it is expensive or inadequate; free support is often stretched thin and as a result only basic care can be offered.

These people do not have the family support that many of us have, they often have been ostracised from their family, and have worn out any friendships they had. So they are alone, the only contact they have with people is with case workers or centrelink staff (where they are usually only a number or a commodity – I once heard of a centrelink manager referring to people who come through their doors as “STOCK!!!”). Our society in general looks down on those suffering with issues of poverty, if they recognise them at all, so there are very few supportive, healthy relationships that these people can create. These broken, hurting and lonely people can build friendships with others in similar situations, however this too can often lead to further hurt and hardship, and people can find themselves deeper in the trap of oppression, depression and degradation.

My aim in this blog entry was to try and make a case for poverty in Australia, it may not look the same as third world poverty, but it is still robbing people of a decent quality of life. Hopefully I have conveyed the hopelessness that these people face – this is not what God wants for any of his children, and it is something that we as Christians need to face. The Salvation Army estimate that 2.5 million Australians live in poverty, that is 12% of our population. According to a report by the Salvos, this is an increase of 400,000 over the last 3 years. There is a big job ahead of us, and we can no longer justify living for ourselves…

Quote of the moment

2007-03-31T12:36:00.000+10:00

I have to admit that I ripped this quote directly off a fellow unoh workers newsletter, but I'm sure he wont mind....

“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause.. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid… You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…You’re afraid that you will loose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticised or that you will loose your popularity, or you are afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot you, or bomb your house, so you refuse to take a stand. Well, you may go on to live until you are 90, but you’re as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit”

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
November 5th, 1968.

I Need Some Friends

2007-03-28T21:10:00.000+10:00

Hello everyone,

I have been playing around with myspace a bit of late, as everyone tells me it is soooo good and the wave of the future...

Personally I don't like it that much yet, but maybe it will grow on me...

anyway, I've got no mates - well actually I've got 3, but I need a few more...

if you are into myspace please visit my page and become a friend so I don't feel like such a looser...

http://www.myspace.com/dekkersjourney

thanks - Peter

analogy...much!

2007-03-23T17:25:00.000+11:00

I was at one of my favourite blog sites today and I saw this youtube video, I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you...

what do you think the fleas teach us about ourselves and the circus ... uh, I mean church???

Boys in da Hood

2007-03-18T20:17:00.000+11:00

One of the main ministries that we have found ourselves in here in Noble Park is amongst young boys. This is mostly out of organic growth, a direct result of having 3 boys ourselves. Most afternoons and weekends we have at least 2 extra kids hanging around our home, sometimes we will even have up to six extra kids hanging out, running up and down the driveway, riding bikes, rollerblading, playing on Playstation, board games or computer… it can sometimes be quite mad, and always very noisy…

We were confronted a night or two ago about the importance of this ministry, and has changed my view point on it, to view it as an actual ministry, rather than just a bunch of kids hanging around giving me a headache (yes… I am a grumpy old fart). Two nights ago we had a kid that often hangs around our place turn up with a gang of five or six early-pubescent friends to beat up on another kid who was hanging around our place that night for a sleepover…

As you may or may not be aware, Noble Park has a bit of a reputation for its gangs, they are a bit of a problem, and there are certain areas your average Joe Bloggs would not like to go at night. That night, we were confronted with the next generation of NP gang members, six 12-14 year olds, leaning up against our car, with the body language of the worst of the U.S. gangs, talking tough to Jake and his friend, that was until I came on the scene, then all of a sudden these kids seemed to have messed their pants (it is nice to have that sort of a presence in this sort of a situation, though it wont last long I’m sure…). The next day, this same boy who brought his gang to our house turned up, and was happy to play with his enemy again, in fun innocent kids games, there was a bit of tension to start with, but that quickly melted away, and soon these hardened gang-bangers that I saw the night before, were fun loving innocent kids, running around playing hide and seek.

We have the opportunity here to be at a cross-road of these children’s lives. We have the opportunity to impact their lives, to give them a safe haven to hang around in, where they can be kids, where they can have safe, innocent enjoyment, rather than hanging around on the streets, learning how to behave from those they inevitably will look up to, the real gangs out on our streets. These kids are at the point where they will be choosing the sort of life that they want to live, we pray and hope that the experience of seeing the life we live, of having input from our own children as well as ourselves, and the opportunity to speak a word of wisdom into their lives when the opportunity arises, will see these children start to take the correct choices. It would be naïve to believe that we would solve all of these kids problems and protect them from the dark path that many of them will choose in the future, but any impact we can have is better than none at all, any seed that we can sow, has to be better than allowing the field to remain barren.

Blood Diamond

2007-03-09T07:15:00.000+11:00

It was Naomi and my wedding anniversary on Monday - it has been thirteen years. We thought that we would celebrate our special day by going to a movie, you know, something romantic... something like BLOOD DIAMOND??????

Well, it was not exactly romantic, but it was the only movie worth seeing at the moment so even though we knew we were in for a heavy time we thought we would go see it anyway...

If you have not seen it, Blood Diamond is based in Sierra Leone during the civil war (it is officially at peace at the moment), following the story of a fisherman who is captured by the RUF and forced to work in a diamond mine where he finds and hides a massive pink diamond, the mine is attacked by the government troops, the fisherman "Solomon" is captured by the troops and put into prison where he meets "Archer" a diamond smuggler who wants to get his hands on the diamond and sell it to a UK diamond company (ripping off Solomon in the process). Meanwhile Solomons son Dia is captured by the RUF and trained to be a child soldier.

I won't go into any more details about the movie, however I have a few reflections to make...

We recently made the acquaintance of a family of 11 from Sierra Leone who just came to Australia (we were asked to help find them housing and clothing and other such things as they came out with next to nothing). The stories told by this family are very similar to what happened in the movie, however the real horrors of rape that they had to endure were not depicted in the movie (thankfully).

From what I understand the SL family were quite happy that the movie was released as it shows the plight of the people and raises awareness of what is going on in war torn countries. And I agree with that, a person who is sensitive to what is going on in the world will be shocked into a sense of urgency and desperation... unfortunately there is no real hope presented in the movie, even though it does have a happy Hollywood ending (I guess that is where the quote by Dave Andrews comes in - we can see change).

The most disturbing thing for me in this movie however was the audiences attitude. We had a young couple in the cinema with us who chatted through the whole movie, making excited noises at signs of violence, and walked out of the cinema as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile Naomi and I were shattered by the harsh reality of the movie. Is there really any advantage in making a movie like this if it is only viewed as entertainment? To see the horror that real life human beings have had to go through viewed as nothing more than another Lethal Weapon movie or something like that is really disturbing...

Anyway, this movie brings home the reality of many of the refugees that we work with here in Noble Park and Springvale, it explains the tendency of these refugees to hide away and keep to themselves, not participating in the wider community, not interacting and not learning English. It also highlights the ignorance of people who complain about immigrants entering Australia and behaving this way.

At one of the houses that we stayed in when we first moved into Noble Park, there was a young African child living there, this child would often have nightmares, waking and screaming in absolute terror. What had this child seen? How can we ignore the evil that is going on in the world, or reduce it to entertainment....

anyway that's about enough from me....

Peter

Quote from Dave Andrews

2007-03-09T06:57:00.000+11:00

Hi,

I am currently reading "Can You Hear the Heartbeat" by Dave Andrews of the Waiters Union, which is a great little book Andrews' personal reflections and lessons learnt. Sorry, it is not up on the side panel as books we are reading because it is an old book and out of print and I could not find a pic of it anywhere...

Anyway, this Quote stood out to me, it is probably not the most insightful or deep, it just really struck something in me when I read it...

We must grow into a new maturity. A maturity which neither rejects faith in the possibility of change nor ignores the facts that say change is impossible, which acknowledges the difference between dreams and realities; yet recognises the difference God can make in turning Utopian dreams for the community into practical reality. We must begin to live as if the impossible is possible, because unless we do, nothing will Change.

Peter

Master of the Slow Reveal

2007-02-28T18:23:00.000+11:00

I often struggle with the concept of salvation... what is it really? - have we relativised it in our western context to make it fit into our mediocre middle class lifestyles? Is it really just a simple decision that can be made when we walk to the front of a church, or does it go deeper? and if it does how deep... it is called the narrow path in scripture - the path seldom traveled- it must be harder than all that, but how hard? I pray it is not too hard, or if it is that Jesus will wake up his church in the west to realise their slumber before it is too late... or are we the 5 virgins without oil for our lamps? I hope and pray that we are not...

there is a classic bible verse that is splashed around in tracts and evangelistic crusades and stuff that says...

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:9)

That sounds very simple & that's probably why evangelists love it so much... but have you ever thought about the term "Jesus is Lord"? I think that this phrase is the key to it all. We have no concept today what the word Lord entails. Even if it is explained, there is nothing in our experience that we can really relate it to, and as a result I think we just ignore it's significance - using it as a simple placard, that sounds good.

When we think of the term Lord, I think we could probably think of something like a Master/slave relationship, where the slave is the property of the master, he has no rights, he lives to do the will of the Master. In medieval times there was the concept of a serf, that was the subject of their Lord, and owned by them, the serf lived on the Lord's land and farmed or toiled for basically enough to get by in a subsistence type lifestyle. They were very much regarded as sub-human...

Of course, following a loving God, our relationship to him will never be like that, but the concept of our rights to live our own life in relationship to our Lord & Master, must be remembered - WE HAVE NONE!!! ...

Does this mean that we are saved only when we learn to surrender our entire life over to his will????

I don't think so & I think that this is where the title of this blog entry comes in... God is the Master of the Slow Reveal... Think about it... what does the entire bible show us? It shows us that God had a plan, a plan that took thousands of years to come about and we have been waiting about 2000 years more to see its completion. Throughout the bible, we see the nature and person of God develop into the God of the New Testament, a God of love and forgiveness. I am not suggesting that God has changed over time, that would stand in direct opposition to what the scripture itself says. but what we do have is a God that took his time to reveal himself in his fullness... Why? maybe if he revealed himself in one hit (and lets face it he still hasn't revealed himself entirely), our brains would turn to mush, or we would run away and hide screaming "There's no place like home, there's no place like home" or something like that.

I think that our private walk with God works in very much the same way, it takes time for God to reveal himself to us, & it takes time for us to submit to him as Lord of our lives. This is why salvation (or Christianity if you prefer) is a journey, not a decision. We are constantly being called to go deeper, to surrender more... some times we go through cruisy times, but then He tightens the screws, and reminds us that He is there, if we don't respond to this call, to this challenge to step up and continue the journey, then he is not Lord of our lives, because if he is Lord, we have no right to say no...

Having said that, can we say that comfortable, Sunday Christianity is Christianity at all?
........ if we cruise around praying for car parks and not a whole lot more;
............. if we pray that the Lord returns soon but do not get out there and help
..............see his Kingdom come;
....................if we perceive that Jesus is there only to bless us and fulfill our needs;

can we really confess that Jesus is Lord??? And if you cannot confess that, then are you really saved???

Thankyou

2007-02-28T10:10:00.000+11:00

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to get this message done a couple of weeks ago, but I have not taken my wife's own advice about busy-ness and so have not had a chance...

I want to thank everyone out there, all our regular readers and supporters, the support we are getting is phenomenal, and really means a lot to us.

A few weeks ago we had a commissioning service at our sending church, it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, a lot of our new friends (both UNOH workers & community people) also turned up, as well as family. It was great to get the feeling of support from everyone, it is easy to feel alone when you are doing these things, especially when you are so busy working within the community that you don't have the time you would like to catch up with those outside who care about you.

Many of you who are family and friends will have received (or will soon) an invite to a special information afternoon we are holding, already from those invites, we are getting some great feedback from people, and again it lets us know that we are not alone, it is great to have such prayer and moral support behind us as we do the work we are doing.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, and don't hesitate to drop us a line (either on the blog here or over e-mail) if you would like to get together... we have started on our support raising, and if you would like to support us, and wanted to chat about it or wanted us to speak in your church or small group or something, don't hesitate to ask, we strongly believe that one of our callings in working in UNOH is to bring the message of Jesus' heart for the poor and marginalised to the wider Church body...

Anyway - thank you again, you are all really appreciated...

Peter

I am excited by what I am reading

2007-02-27T22:45:00.000+11:00

Hey everyone,

I know you don't hear from me much..........I don't get to the computer as often as Peter.

As part of my UNOH apprenticeship I am doing a full time course which will give me a certificate IV in Ministry at the end of this year. At the start of this course I was pretty anti the idea of studying, I am such a practical person and the idea of sitting in a classroom and reading endless books and then writing about it does not appeal to me..........

so yesterday I was struggling to get through all the reading and writing that I had to get done before tonight's class, and I tried to read the same thing about 4 times and realised I was reading the same paragraph over and over, when finally I really cleared my head and decided to make a go of it, and what I read blew me away. The reading was basically about the idea of Shalom......something I had heard before but didn't think about much. The usual English translation of shalom is peace.......but it was described as so much more in my reading.......it was described as "wholeness" or "completeness" and the text read as follows "in essence Shalom embraces Gods' desire to restore all things to the wholeness and harmony of relationship in which they were originally created"

This really excited me.......there was a lot more to the reading but I don't know if it's plagiarism if I keep copying bits into my blog........so anyway....if you wanna know more read : Living on purpose by Tom & Christine Sine.

I am again feeling very inspired by the idea of an all encompassing faith that is lived out in my whole life. Even living in the context I live in, I can sometimes forget that I am here because of God and because of my strong desire to live what I believe and to NOT have my faith and the rest of my life compartmentalised and separate. I am grateful that God reminds us of these things again and again.

Naomi

Riots & Stabbings & Murders.... OH MY!!!

2007-02-15T07:14:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone, forgive me for being so slack...

Things have really rev'ed up since the apprenticeship started 2 weeks ago - there has been a lot of training and meetings to get through to get us up to speed, and when those things happen, it seems that you need to play catch-up with everything else...

having said that, things are slowly starting to normalise... so hopefully I'll start to blog again soon.

I read a local newspaper yesterday that had a front page story about how Noble Park is in the grip of fear, after the riots, a local stabbing murder, and various other unrelated acts of violence... Now, I would not say that Noble Park is the safest, nicest place to live in the world - if it was there would be no need for the presence of a group like UNOH, but what purpose does an article like this serve?? There are enough people in this neighbourhood hiding behind massive security fences and roller shutters, people are already living in fear of the random attackers out there... I just wish that the newspapers would actually care to mention that in the vast majority of attacks and murders, there is some sort of a reason for it - the murder that happened a few days ago here was drug related, it was not just some random attacker breaking into someones house to murder them for the fun of it...

maybe our "entertainment" has a lot to answer for all of this as well, I have to admit, when it came out "silence of the lambs" was a bit of a hit with me, but as time has gone on, we have begun to swallow more and more crap that deals with death, rape, murder, so much so that they now serialise such things, with CSI, SVU, NCIS, Medium etc... they even advertise episodes of SVU dealing with paedophilia along the lines of "an episode no parent will want to miss..." WHAT IS THAT ABOUT!!!!!!! - have we gotten so thick in the head that feeding fears is now seen as educational, or at least being aware of what is going on in the world.

Little wonder community in general is dying out, little wonder people lock themselves up in their palace like prisons they call home, never having any sort of relationship with neighbours, and I guess, if we are to believe the increase of violence in the streets and unruly bands of teenagers causing terror in neighbourhoods this is the reason for that too...

here are some thoughts...

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. (1 Peter 3:13-15ish)

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:16-18)

There are plenty of other scriptures that deal with fear and how we should not be a slave to it, but I keep being told to keep my blog entries short, so I wont go into them all...

We as the Kingdom of God, are the answer to this problem, I am certain of it, but how can we solve this problem, when we are a slave to it ourselves???

a bit of a challenge from Naomi

2007-02-02T23:57:00.000+11:00

I know it's not often that you get to hear from me, and as usual it's bed time and I can't sleep due to a racing mind........so my hope is that once I unload onto the the blog, sleep will come for me!!!

So I recently had this thing on my mind about how everyone is always busy these days, and not just busy but obsessed with being busy, like it is some sort of status symol......."I am so busy that I didn't even get time to sit down for a meal this week" "What you think that's something, I am so busy I never sit down for a meal, I never even saw my husband this week" "what, you two have nothing on me, I haven't seen my family in a month, I don't ever get time to eat and I can't remember the last time I had a proper sit on the toilet"!!!!

OK.....so these three people don't really exist......but they may as well, we are all caught up in the competition and ego surrounding how busy we are. It's like if we aren't constantly doing something (even if it's really nothing, but we can present it to others as something) then we must be worthless, and we are so afraid that someone out there might actually find out the truth of it all, that we have to present ourselves as busy to keep hiding the truth.

I think (note, this is just my theory) that the reason for all of this feigned busyness, and need to fill our lives constantly is there for the sole reason that we don't want to really face what might be going on inside us...........if we are always full of stuff then we never have time to sit in Gods presence and wait , that's scary......imagine emptying your schedule and your mind for a little bit each day......and waiting on God, you might end up having to face fears that you pretend you don't have, you might have to be reminded of people you need to forgive, you might be confronted about the way you live your life and you might even find that without God at the centre of your existence you are nothing, worthless and scummy!!!!!!

My challenge is to stop saying you're busy all the time, do what you need to do and at some point in your day STOP, turn off the T.V, home and away is not that important.........put away the vacuum cleaner, put down that trashy novel (or that good novel) , get up a little earlier, spend a bit less time at the gym, actually take your lunch break at work and find somewhere quiet to spend some time in solitude............do what ever it takes to put an end to this infectious disease called busyness!!!!!!!

And just so you know, I am blogging this because it is an issue for me, of course I feel special and important when I can tell others how busy I am (we all do) so don't feel like I am pointing fingers and missing the plank in my own eye, I feel really challenged about this at the moment and want to share the challenge with others........please keep me accountable if you know me personally. And if you want to know more about where this all came from for me then read "Reaching Out" by "Henri Nouwen"

I would love to hear back, even if you hate my ideas and think I am the only person in the world who thinks this way!!!!!!!

Goodnight

Naomi

The Next Step Begins

2007-02-01T07:17:00.000+11:00

Well, as of today, Naomi & I are officially UNOH Apprentices!!!!

It has been a long time in coming, but finally it is here. For me, it has been a ten year (or probably more) journey since I first got my love for missions & wanted to enter the mission field. Back then , I was introduced to missions more or less accidentally, I was forced to choose an elective at bible college, the choice was between Missions & Creative Ministry, and as I am not really into drama or messianic dance or anything I chose Missions as the better of 2 evils. My perspective of Christianity and Theology was turned up-side-down during that course. So much so that I changed my course to be a missions based course. The following years saw my passion for mission grow and mature from a purely Evangelistic view to a more holistic view seeing the importance and value in social action.

During that time, Jesus was also working on Naomi. I had expected to go to the mission field straight after Bible College, but God had other plans, Naomi was not ready, and I had learnt through my experiences at BC the importance of a married couple being a team on the mission field. Too many men have dragged their wives onto the mission field, where their wives have learnt to resent them, and this often harms the work & ministry of the mission. I did not want this, so I had to wait.

I would like to say that I did not put any pressure on Naomi over this time, but I did put out my feelers every now and then. I guess Naomi was aware of this and felt that I was putting pressure on her, so much so that she would explode in anger towards me. Little did I know that this was because God was working on her and she was resisting it out of the fear of putting her trust completely in Him.

Finally the crunch came for Naomi at the Surrender conference in 05, and since then Naomi has been running towards missions and I have been holding on tight in an attempt to keep up. The last 7 months have been about us getting used to life in Noble Park, settling ourselves and our kids in here, getting to know the people in the community and Rainbow Church, but now the aim of all that waiting is here and we begin the apprenticeship...

Please continue to pray for us as we begin this time, that God will be with us, that we learn to balance our commitments of study and practice, and that we will get a lot out of this time and grow in the Lord & what he has in store for our lives

Transforming Lives

2007-01-22T10:02:00.000+11:00

The last few weeks have seen the loss of 2 valuable families to the Springvale Team as they head off to continue their UNOH work in Bangkok and Sydney. They will be missed, but they have important work to do in other parts, & God goes with them as they head out to make a difference...

With the loss of 2 couples from UNOH Melbourne, comes the inclusion of 4 new UNOH apprentices, of which Naomi & I are included, we will go through a year of training to become part of the team (before we go through another 2 years of training as novices but thats another story...).

It is an important work that needs to be done here... there are many lonely and hurting people here, it is amazing the divide that we make in society between rich and poor, a place like Noble Park seems to be ignored by most, until something like the Riots happen and then the commentary is on for young and old - well mostly old - as you listen to talk back radio about the the riots, and why they apparently happened... its never our fault (our being the wider community)... that's too hard a thought to deal with...

But transformation is happening here, it seems to be a slow process of 3 steps forward 2 steps back at times, and there are many questions that I have as a newby here that I know will be answered over the next year or so, but the rewards are obvious...

Recently I heard the testimony of a community member who had just been baptised. It was an amazing story... this person has had a very lonely life, particularly over the last however long... he had been looking for a place to belong, getting involved in various church and community groups, but never feeling a sense of belonging until coming to Rainbow. This person is old, and has many health issues and comes across quite ruff and gruff, but he is a person, and when you get along side him, you get to see an amazing man, and occasionally you get a smile out of him. He has an amazing smile, when he gives it, you are given a gift, and you know it really means something...

Anyway, this guy got baptised at rainbow a few weeks back, he has been involved with the wider church quite a bit, and has been baptised as an infant as well as later on in life to become accepted by another church. but this time he was baptised because he wanted to show that he belonged to God, & was involved in a group that was majorly important to his life. Baptism was not something he had to do to gain acceptance, it was something he chose to do to show that he was at home...

The difference in this man's life is obvious, even over the six months that we have lived here (I have know him for quite a bit longer than that but it is only over this time that I have been able to get involved in his life). This is one story that to me shows what UNOH is here for, what transformation is about - it is not about winning souls, or growing rainbow numbers, it is about giving value and purpose to a person who is lonely & often forgotten by the wide community.

To see UNOH reach out into the Mt Druit area in Sydney and grow larger in Bangkok, fills me with hope and a sense of purpose - God is seeing his Kingdom established on Earth, it is a slow hard process, but it is happening....

Noble Park Riots

2007-01-19T08:46:00.000+11:00

Some people have been getting a bit worried because they have not heard from us after the riots here in NP... this is just a quick one to let people know that the riots did not affect us or our immediate community in any real way - except that our favourite DVD store is closed down. The riots happened in quite a remote part of NP in relation to the town centre.

Thy Kingdom Come.... What's up with our Eschatology?

2007-01-12T09:07:00.000+11:00

I struggle with Eschatology, I struggle with all the different views, I struggle with the word itself (The study of the end times), and I have a feeling that most Christians do. It is so confusing, in my life I have probably been convinced that the end was coming 3 or 4 times, but you may have noticed, it has not happened yet. When I was a kid, the big bad was the USSR, now I think it is Iraq, or possibly North Korea, but most likely the USA... It all gets so confusing.

One thing I have learnt however is that the predominant view on eschatology is not a good thing, and to me it seems to hold elements that are contrary to the gospel and what Jesus called us to do in this world. If you have read any of the Left Behind series, then you already know the basic outline, it goes something like this...

The world is getting worse, it is getting more heathen, but don't worry, the good guys get raptured just before it gets too bad, and then the poo really does hit the fan. Without a Christian influence in the world, it becomes one big hedonistic orgy, of premarital sex, gay marriages, and abortions. And the anti-Christ will rule this world and see everyone damned to hell. Some will become Christians in this time, but they will have to endure the sin in the world, and the persecution they must face as the anti-Christ tries to eradicate them... finally Jesus will return, smite the wicked with his great big smiting stick and all will be good in the world - I think he creates a new earth, or we all go to heaven for a big party or something, I can't really remember.

What is the problem with this outlook? - well I guess to me it seems to encourage us NOT to act in the world for the good of mankind, not to try to stamp out evil, or see evangelism happen or anything, because the world is getting worse and the less we do the worserer it will become, meaning that Jesus will return quicker - YAY!!! This view is what seems to be encouraging Christians to establish their own little Christian compounds where Heathens dare not enter... our friends are all Christians, we send our kids to Christian schools, our charity goes to the church in the form of tithes, so the church can grow and offer us better resources, so we can have Christian cafes, and gyms, and dating services, and theme parks.

This sort of Eschatology has resulted in the Church circling its wagons and becoming defensive, protecting itself & hanging on till the rapture, meanwhile the Western Church is in decline, because we are seen as ineffective, irrelevant and scared. But this is just more evidence that the end is coming right? - well it is a sort of self fulfilling prophecy really, if the salt stays in the shaker or the light under a bowl then of course things are going to get worse...

Where does Jesus' call for us to go into all the world and make disciples come into it? where does His (and hopefully our) prayer that "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" come into effect, if we are not out there being the Kingdom (I often think that the Kingdom has been relegated to a post apocalyptic reality as well). Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is at hand, yet we are too afraid to reach out and grab that Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God has been instrumental in being salt to the world for hundreds of years, we have seen the eradication of slavery in many nations, education offered to many not just the wealthy, the abolition of child labour... etc, etc, what happened to the salt... Why has the Make Poverty History campaign (that had it's origins in a Christian initiative) been picked up by the secular world, while we sit around with egg on our face playing catch up or worse still denying it's importance...

I heard that this interpretation of the end times has only been around for less than 200 years and has been growing in popularity ever since, could it be partly to blame? Could an eschatology that calls us to protect ourselves rather than risk all for the sake of the Kingdom be responsible for the worsening of the world, rather than the anti-Christ?

Anyway, I don't have any real answers here, this is only a bit of an embryonic thought, I can't get into an argument about what view of eschatology I hold, because I just don't know, I just have my misgivings about this one, it seems to stand in opposition to so much of what the gospel teaches us...

what are your thoughts?

Judging books by their covers....

2007-01-10T21:56:00.000+11:00

The Truth Behind - LEFT BEHIND.

Retails at $9.95 - that is one expensive note book....

Note book - get it? - its got blank pages.... Ha, Ha, Ha .... I am so funny!!!! ;p

Half a body....

2007-01-09T16:40:00.000+11:00

Hello, we have just got back from 2 weeks holidays on the Mornington Peninsula. We had a great time of beaches, craft markets, and big breakfasts!! - ah well, off to Dietsville we go....

While we were on holidays, I decided to visit a local pentecostal church that I had heard about. I have a pentecostal background, though it has been about 4 years since I last stepped in one, so it was a bit of a flash back for me. I don't mind the Pentecostal Church, in fact, a lot of my theology and belief systems stem out of there in some form or fashion. Having said that, there is a lot of ugliness in the Pentecostal Church, just like there is in every other denominational stream... every church has its own errors or idols and this blog is not about bagging the Pente' tradition, these observations probably span across every denomination out there...

I went to the Church with a sense of optimism and openness, I have a tendency towards cynicism, a tendency that I am slowly learning to curb, but this day I was not feeling cynical at all. The church service formula was to be expected, the choice of choruses, stemming from Hillsong and other similar places was no surprise, the pastors attempt to stir up the congregation into spiritual fervor was something that I had not experienced for years, but again no surprises here, it was a Pentecostal church after all... The thing that struck me, time and time again, no matter how much I tried to shake it, was what could almost be described as a vision, especially if I wanted to get all Pentecostal on you all...

What I saw at this church was quite a graphic sight, it was the sight of half a body, a human body really cut right down the middle, one leg, one arm, half a head, one eye, one ear, half a nose... you get the idea...

It was a church that was really only interested in peoples souls, it was all about being saved, being born again to be more specific, this was the ultimate goal, and in many ways nothing else mattered. Prayer was also important, there were a number of prayer requests;

"This ladies grand daughter who is not born again is suicidal, lets pray for her..."
"This young man has been diagnosed bipolar, lets pray..."
"This young family are in financial trouble, lets us pray..."

Living in a community that cares so much for one another, that tries to meet the needs of anyone in need, at a physical level as well as a spiritual level, I saw this half body ignoring the fact that it was incomplete, that it was only half there, and as a result probably dead*. It was busy dressing itself up & applying makeup to its malformed, incomplete body. The pastor boasted about how they had seen over 100 souls come to the Lord, a boast that when looking around the congregation did not seem to add up. Obviously it was simply the decision that mattered, not ongoing growth and discipleship.

My heart ached, as I sat there, listening to the pastor all but predicting the rapture and return of Christ for 2007, I wondered about that suicidal girl, the bipolar man and the struggling family... would anyone come along side these people, would they help them out in the here and now???? or would they simply offer up a prayer and go on living their own lives.

I wondered about the 100 souls, where were the bodies attached to these souls, most of them were not in the church (not that church building attendance is at all what it is about - but certainly for these guys it was). How were these 100 souls traveling, were they being discipled, supported and loved, or had they simply been immunised against Christianity.

I sometimes worry that I have become too liberal in my social action based theology that I now live by, but I realise now that I have not, I still care for souls and want to see them enter the Kingdom, but I realise that these souls also have a body, and that the needs of the body need to be met also, without it, it is only half a gospel, a deformed gospel, a dead gospel, that leads inevitably to a half church, a half body deformed and dead.

There is a saying here at UNOH, that goes something along the lines of "the soul is not the price of our friendship" meaning that we do not only get into friendships with people to see a convert, but that we build a friendship because we see a need. Sure we care about these peoples souls and would like nothing more than to see them enter the Kingdom, but we are not only in their lives for that purpose, nor do we simply let them flounder around on their own if they do make the decision, going onto a new unsaved project... Jesus certainly demonstrated a concern for a persons physical and spiritual health, at times he only focused on the physical, just like at times he focused on the spiritual, but one thing can truly be said - he met the person at their need, he was not concerned with the sinners prayer, altar calls or baptism in the Spirit, and he called us to "Go and do likewise" Have we gone to far, have we taken Paul's teaching on the sinfulness of the flesh too far and fallen into some sort of gnosticism??

*I don't want to go that far, I don't know if is superstition in me that keeps me from being too harsh towards the church or if it is the Spirit, whichever it is, this church is not beyond fixing its problems and becoming whole, so I am not condemning it in calling it dead, it is simply the impression that I got.

Magic V's Religion

2006-12-25T21:53:00.000+11:00

Many, many, many years ago I wrote a paper at Bible College that dealt with the issue of syncretism and the western church. Syncretism, is that tendency of a people group that adopt Christianity to mesh their new found beliefs with those of their previous religious beliefs – resulting in a variety of Christian hybrid religions – some that you could say were essentially Christian, with a few errors – some you would have to say are so removed from any sort of Christian framework that they were no more Christian than the original peoples religion (Voodoo is probably a great example of this).

The question that I asked in my paper was; as western Christians, have we combined our Christianity with the beliefs of the west? & if so to what degree does it affect the salvational (I think I may have made that word up sorry) value of our religion? I kind of took the easy way out with my paper focusing primarily on the Word of Faith Movement (Kenneth Hagan, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, etc), saying that the Word of Faith Movement had lost the plot, and that their influence over the broader church was to its detriment. I still believe this, if there is a movement that can really get my blood boiling it is the WFM, Their teachings spring up all over the place in regular church circles, and millions of dollars are sent out of third world countries by well meaning but misguided poor Christians to help fund the ministry & lifestyle (and search for a more realistic toupee) of such people as Benny Hinn.

But as I think about it more, I start to feel that the WFM is not the cause but probably a symptom of a wider problem (surely it is a symptom that nurtures and feeds the disease but that is another story for another day). I think the key word here is magic. Magic means various things to us as westerners, from illusionists such as David Copperfield to the use of white or even black magic that seems to have become so in style over the last ten years or so. But taking it away from entertainment or the occult, on an anthropological level, magic could probably be defined as the manipulation of spirits through rights, rituals or offerings to the benefit of the practitioner. In contrast, religion probably could be defined as submission to the will of a higher being. Magic is about what self wants; Religion is about what God wants. As I think about it, Western Christianity is so much more about self than it is about God, and a good serious look at the shelves of any Christian bookshop would prove my point… We employ good Christian principles to get more wealth, health, dates, well behaved kids, etc. There are numerous self help books out there that somehow combine the secular pursuit of psychology with the Christian belief system. There are countless CD’s coming out where the importance seems to be more on how much they sound like the secular world or how cool they are rather than on actually worshiping God, or instilling Christian values.

Now I am not saying that self improvement is not a way of life for a Christian, because it is – the bible is clear on how we must live our lives and become more Christ like; God is very concerned about our lifestyles. But it seems to me that Jesus has become our little genie in a bottle, which we call on to answer our needs and see our wants met. We love the passages in the bible that speak about all things being possible, ask and it shall be given to you etc, etc, etc. We plaster them on our walls with cute pictures of kittens, or bunny wabbits. But we forget about (or trivialize) the passages that call us to forsake all for his sake – sell all, give it to the poor and follow me, pick up your cross and follow me, die to your self, those that wish to be the greatest amongst you must humble themselves and become as servants. Maybe it is because verses like these don’t go well with pictures of fluffy animals & eagles or maybe it is because this is not what we want to hear – it is too hard work – it cramps our lifestyles too much… it is submission of the will to Christ – it is religion…

What do you think? Have I gone too far again? Am I too cynical? Or do I have a point? – Please leave some feedback and let me know!

Peter

Oh and by the way, Merry Christmas!!

finally a second to blog

2006-12-20T07:41:00.000+11:00

well, what a week it has been, it is annoying that at the busy times when there is so much to write about there is never enough time to actually sit down and blog... the MEC went well, poor Sammy was quite unwell, so we sort of had to tag team the whole experience.

The best part for me was pretending to be homeless in Danenong, trying to find accommodation and other things for the night. It was quite a desperate situation - finding only one place in the whole of the city of Dandenong that was willing to help with accommodation, and they were focused on helping youth only, I got to experience judgmental reactions by supposedly loving Christians, as well as true care by other truly loving Christians (we visited a lot of churches in our search for accommodation). We got a great feed at cornerstone - a mission established by three Dandenong churches, got to visit the needle exchange program (there was an experience!! - I had to organise rehab for myself as part of the project!), and generally walk around Dandenong, being directed from one place to another looking for help...

Naomi and I had out psyc assessment on Monday, that was an interesting experience too (a good one) - we got to find out that we were not nuts, so we are a bit worried that UNOH will not want us anymore, because you probably need to be nuts to join them... but seriously, the psyc assessment was the final hurdle that we needed to jump to get into UNOH - so i guess now we are officially in!!!

the apprenticeship starts in February...

Peter

send Jonny an e-card!!!

2006-12-09T18:05:00.000+11:00

I was just visiting the make poverty history website and came across a great idea - sending jonny howard and your local member of parliament an e-card for christmas calling for more aid in the 2007 budget - its worth looking at and maybe sending one yourself - you never know, if enough of us do something.... well thats what MPH is all about isn't it!! - check it out here

Mission Exposure Course

2006-12-08T21:51:00.000+11:00

Well, it has begun, the mission exposure course...

this is a 9 day course running here through UNOH to introduce people to the idea of working amongst the poor and marginalised. It is one of those pre-requisites to joining UNOH that I talked about earlier - so even though we already live and work in the community, we are required to do the course...

having said that, I believe it will be a benificial and enjoyable time, there are about 12 people doing the course, including ourselves, and the other 10 people are farmed out to different unoh workers homes for the 9 days (you are expected to live in the community during the 9 days) - we have been fortunate enough to be included in one of the houses that will be hosting the course attendees, so we will be having a young married couple and their 8 month old daughter living with us.

Anyway, that is about all I have to say at this stage, We have to get prepared for our first big MEC activity toomorrow - going to the beach with the kids!!! - ahh, mission life is tough, but someone has to do it.

Peter

Walking the Streets of Noble Park

2006-12-07T07:21:00.000+11:00

Over the last few weeks, a change has happened to the way I view my work here in NP. Over the last 6 months of life here, my time has been about getting to know the community that revolves around the UNOH work and Rainbow church. It has been about getting to know the people, building relationships with those in the community, and seeing where I can help out... It has been a great time, a time of affirmation, a time of finding purpose in life.

But mission is not about maintenance, it is about going out (well strictly speaking being sent out - but I guess the important bit here is the word "OUT"). It is too easy to focus purely on maintenance, to get caught up on the busy work of keeping a church community running smoothly. It is so easy to continually look inward, and forget about looking out. This is the big error of the western church, in my opinion, it is the same error that the nation of Israel made, that in many ways resulted in the Kingdom being taken from them and given to others (I can't be bothered proving this right now - maybe some other time). But if the church is not looking out it is not doing its job. Likewise, if an individual Christian is not looking out he is not doing his job either. I could keep going on about this, discuss different models of church; centripetal verses centrifugal and really get stuck into the nitty gritty of it all - it actually is a topic I am very passionate about...

But the point is, that even with my passion, I got sucked into an inward focused mindset (centripetal - sucked in - its a pun! -get it? - geeze I'm a nerd!!). And God has begun doing a job on me, shifting my focus back outwards, back onto the wider community of Noble Park. I have begun to purposefully walk the streets of this community, firstly in the morning I go for a prayer walk, visit all of the major community centers within walking distance, praying and seeking God as I go along - there is not much ministry going on here, as there are not that many people out and about at 6am, but this is laying the ground work on a spiritual level, and allowing God to increase my passion for this neighborhood. I also intentionally walk places as much as possible to get to know the people out and about. Time permitting (and I feel I need to make a conscious effort to make more time for this) I will also go for a walk around the community at times that people are more likely to be around, becoming more familiar with the people and places of NP, and looking to build entry level relationships with the people I meet.

Judging books by their Covers

2006-12-06T16:25:00.000+11:00

Well, this one is probably a bit more than judging a book by its cover, to me, my old mate Benny has always had a bit of a slimy reputation - I always thought it quite apropriate that Benny Hinn & Benny Hill only had one letter seperating their names (ok so it is 2 letters but they are the same letter)

Is it strange that every time I think of Benny Hinn that Hill's old theme music "yakety sax" plays in my mind???

Anyway... there is only really one thought that comes to mind when I see the cover of this book...

"I HOPE HE WASHED HIS HANDS AFTERWARDS!!!"

Interview Update

2006-12-06T15:57:00.000+11:00

Hello everyone...

It has been a few days now since the interview - and I thought I should write a quick blog to say how it went.

The interview was really a catch up to see how we went with the past six months of our life here in Noble Park, more than an interview to prove that we have what it takes to join UNOH. I guess our participation in the community has already done that for us.

The official word is not out yet, there is still one more stage that we need to go through in the name of consistancy (everyone else has had to do it) - once that is done I can let you know offically - however, things are looking very posative.

Thankyou for your prayers and thoughts over the last few weeks (and months)

Peter

More than a bottle of water

2006-12-04T16:35:00.000+11:00

I popped into the bakery next to coles today to grab a pie for lunch, and noticed a group of maybe 5 Aboriginal guys/girls hanging around front of the supermarket entrance, these guys are usually around a bit.......sometimes asking people for money, and sometimes just hanging. While I was in the bakery paying for my pie, one of the girls came in with an empty coke bottle and asked the girls behind the counter if they could fill it with water for her, the bakery girls looked at each other and said "no, we don't do water" I kinda thought that sucked, so I raced home (we live very close by) grabbed the biggest empty bottle I had, filled it with water and went back to give it to them. As I gave it to them, I saw their faces.......it was just a bottle of water, no big deal.........but they looked at me, and I felt some tears begin to leak out as I realised I was encountering Jesus
If you don't beleive me, read Matthew 25 v 31-46.

You might be reading this and be thinking, easy for you, you live in a poor suburb filled with needy people, it's easy to find a need and respond to it. But, I could have just as easily walked right past without even noticing, just like we all have at times and all will in the future, it doesn't matter what suburb you live in, if you open yourself up to the idea allowing God to open your eyes, ears and hearts to what is happening where you are, then you too will have the opportunity to find Jesus in the face of a stranger.

Naomi

Quote of the Weak

2006-12-01T09:25:00.000+11:00

OK, so it has been well over a week since my last quote - but look again at the title it does not say weEk it says weAk...

For everyone, there are certain verses in the bible that really speak to them, verses that encapsulate how they view or live their lives - or probably more accurately how they strive to view or live their lives...

This passage is one of those for me - I can relate to the thorn in my side analogy very well, and so strive to live out the attitude that Paul espouses...

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

1 day to go - then we jump!!

2006-12-01T07:38:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone.

Tomorrow is the big day, when we get to find out if we have made it into UNOH or not!!

at around 11.30 we will be in a meeting with 3 UNOH members and a board member, where we will discuss what we have learned and accomplished over the past 6 months after moving into Noble Park!!

We have had some good time to reflect this week, and we have been seeking feedback from members of the community here and UNOH workers, and it has been a good and uplifting process... so we go into the interview with a certain level of confidence.

Having said that we are still quite nervous, not that we won't make it through (though I guess there is a small amount of that), but more that tomorrow seals our fate as far as this chapter of our lives is concerned. Whatever happens, we have taken a huge, irreversable step into the unknown. Relying on God to see us through is always an exciting experience, but also always a nervous one - you lose all control, and just have to trust - I can imagine that the experience is probably similar to sky diving - where you jump off the relative security of a plane - freefall for a while relying on the parachute on your back to open and deliver you safely to the solid ground below. I imagine that if I was going to go skydiving tomorrow instead of going to an interview - my guts would probably feel the same as they do now anyway... heaps of excitement, a fair amount of fear, restless, happiness, faith... a whole bunch of emotions...

Can't Sleep......it's 12:44 AM

2006-11-23T00:45:00.000+11:00

Hey all,
Naomi here for a change...........for some reason God always seems to knock on my door at the most inconvenient times.........like right now, it's nearly 1:00 am and I desperately need sleep, but God has just hit me with something and all I can do is think on it and the more I think, the more urgent it becomes!!!!!! I think he wants me to blog it, then he will let me get to sleep!!!!!!

So here goes,
Many of you know, and some of you don't that ten years ago Pete and I lost a baby, I was around 23 weeks pregnant and my waters broke early, I was rushed to hospital and after many painful hours of the doctors trying to stop the bleeding and all that stuff, they decided the only thing to save my live was an emergency cesarian which resulted in our little boy Caleb only surviving for 36 hours.

About 1 & 1/2 years ago when I thought I was totally over the pain of it all and had well and truly moved on with my life, God gave me an amazing vision of my three healthy boys in one hand, and my tiny fragile baby in the other......at this point I burst into tears and said why God Why?? God then put his hand on my shoulder and said "Naomi, you don't need to know why, you just need to trust me" this was one of those life changing moments where Gods presence in all of my life was so clear and undeniable that I could do nothing but worship his awesomeness!!!!!

Anyway, I guess I thought that was book closed, healing done, move on with life...........until today...............today my husband shared with me that an older gentleman in our community has shared with him the story of his first baby being still- born, in the same hospital we had Caleb (of course many, many years earlier) this man has shared with Pete the pain he still has, and when I heard that I burst into tears, I just feel so sad that this man still has pain after so long, when we have experienced healing. So when I tried to get to sleep about an hour ago, I couldn't get this man out of my head, I tried praying for him............and I am sure that's great, but I realised that God wants this broken, hurting man to experience the same healing that Pete and I have experienced.........This healing that God offers is for everyone, not just a select few. I don't know how, but Pete is becoming quite involved in this guys life and I am sure God knows where it is all going.

Anyway, last thought to do with this stuff...........I am so excited by the idea that God is the master of the slow reveal!!!! imagine if ten years ago I lost my baby, then God healed my hurt and it all happened fast................ instead, when I thought the book was totally closed on it, God showed me even more, and has given me even more compassion for those that are hurting and pained...............wow, he is a mighty God!!!!!!!

Anyway..........Peter wants to sleep (the computer is in the bedroom, and I woke him up)

Hopefully I can sleep now,

Thanks for reading

Naomi

Don't Judge a book by It's cover? - Yeah Right!!

2006-11-22T17:21:00.000+11:00

I know that the saying Goes "Don't Judge a book by Its cover, but sometimes there really is no choice but to...

Take Australia's own Col Stringer, well actually he is a yank by birth he just loves trying to prove his Aussie-ness by writing books about Australia's Christian Heritage and stuff ...

His Yankee-ness really does come out in his newest book as he leans against his Humvee - in his classic king-gee pose - sunnies and all, suggesting that that is what it is to be a man!!??!!

Well as I said I will never read this book so I cannot judge it by its content - only by its cover - but I think I will never measure up to this sort of manhood - maybe I should change my name...

From Peter (Peta?)

Date Change

2006-11-22T17:17:00.000+11:00

Hi, Just a quick one here...

The date of our interview has changed from friday morning to Saturday morning (2nd Dec) from 8.30ish to 12ish...

Please don't forget to pray!

Peter

Legalism, Freedom & Sobriety

2006-11-19T11:20:00.000+11:00

Most of our regular readers will know when I do my prattle that I don't always make sense, and this post may be the same. I use this space as a place to get out thoughts that I have running around in my head & as such they are not always completely formed, or linear, so bear with me, humour me, and most important give me feedback to let me know how I am going...

Anyway, onto my post...

I want to preface my post with this scripture...

1 Corinthians 10:23-33
"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake— the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

When I mention to people that our joining UNOH will mean amongst other things a vow to sobriety, I get lots of strange looks. I find myself quickly adding the explanation "it is not a theological belief that Christians should not drink, it is just that we are working alongside many alcoholics & so it would not be appropriate..."

Even after saying that, many Christians say that they could not give up alcohol like that, (in fact from what I hear this issue is a real problem for many would be UNOH members, and causes them not to join!).
This whole issue really makes you think though doesn't it? I don't believe that the bible says it is wrong to drink. Obviously the proof texts of the water into wine miracle and the last supper proves that Jesus was not against it. Having said that, I do believe that the bible teaches that alcohol is dangerous (especially getting drunk) and that it probably is better that we steer clear of it. (the bible has a number of these issues - it could even easily be argued that bigamy falls into this category!!)

We in the church (probably particularly in Australia though I think the Poms are probably there with us too) have decided that that we don't want to be seen as sticks in the mud, so we have a drink or 2 with our mates to show that Christianity is not all about rules and regulations, but that we too can be cool... this sort of fits into the "If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience." part of the verse above. It's all about cultural relevance, not ostracising ourselves from community for the sake of the gospel.

The UNOH vow of sobriety probably fits into the next section of this passage, where it is all about not being a stumbling block & stuff like that. So both expressions really are valid and have their Justification in scripture.

It is all about what Christ has called you to; Right?

But the next question is do we only drink so that we don't look like prudes, or do we drink because we enjoy it? Do we drink when we are at a Christian part where there are no "heathens?" (I use that word to have a stab - I would never use that word in a serious context myself) - and lets face it most of our "Christian" parties are like that... do we over indulge at these parties? Do we have a quiet drink at home alone? How much do we drink? How often?...

Have we just used "cultural relevance" and freedom in Christ as an excuse to indulge? - if we are not willing to give up the Christian "Right" to drink for the sake of reaching out and helping those who are drowning in their alcoholism, have we just negated the whole argument that it is ok to drink??? It could almost be argued that our freedom to drink has become a legalism in it's own right.

We are so caught up in showing the world that we are like them (in the name of being IN the world but not OF it), we are so caught up in being relevant and Cool, that our attempts at cultural relevance have gotten in the way of our obedience to Christ. I even feel like I need to justify the “Uncoolness” of a vow of sobriety to my Christian friends!!! This is where the first part of the above scripture comes in...

"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

When it comes down to it we may have FREEDOM in Christ, but we don't really have any RIGHTS in Christ. We are called to obedience. We should not be looking for the loopholes that allow us to enjoy life, we should be looking for the opportunity to surrender our life:

...Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:38-39)

There probably are many other examples of this sort of behaviour in the church today - certainly the poverty V's riches argument is one of them, and the degradation of true worship for the sake of the seeker sensitive mega church could also be argued as another one... What do you think? - can you think of others - it probably is a very fine line, we can easily fall into either a legalism mindset or a rights mindset - but let me know what you think...

Christmas gift idea!!!

2006-11-16T11:39:00.000+11:00

OMG ('G' stands for Goodness - I am a good Christian boy I am!)...

check out this link: http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/

dont forget to look at the product information page to see all the merchandise they have to offer.

And visit the salvation page to give your heart to the Lord (its as easy as A.B.C!!).

Peter

The Date is set...

2006-11-15T17:45:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone,

The date is set for our interview with UNOH - it's December 1st.

This is the date when we find out if our six months here in Noble Park have paid off or not, we find out if we have proven that we have what it takes to be UNOH apprentices.

Pray for us - PLEEEAAASE!!!!

(P.S. You may have noticed that I have updated the look of the blog - I hope you enjoy!....)

Faith - Why all the confusion????

2006-11-15T14:42:00.000+11:00

Maybe it is just the result of growing up in a Charis-pente church, but I have always struggled with the issue of faith. It seems, if I believe everything that I have been taught over the years, to be a very complex issue... what is faith??? If we believe the "Word of Faith" teachers (I use that term lightly) such as Hinn or Copeland then faith is a substance that you acquire, it can only be activated by your words, and if you don't have it, you are not a real Christian. The WofF guys even suggest that God has faith, and put that faith into action when He created the world.

I am not suggesting that the Charis-pente outlook on faith is quite so extreme, though I am sure in some churches it is, but there is still this real mysterious, ethereal quality to faith that no one can really quite explain. I can remember sitting through sermons and even courses on the subject, looking through the usual verses to try and get a handle on it all. On many occasion, I even went through my exhaustive concordance pulling out all the verses on faith, just to get a handle on it.

We are taught that we can heal & be healed by faith, that we can tell trees to uproot themselves, and move mountains and walk on water, and be bitten by poisonous snakes (well, you don't need faith for that, but you do need it to survive) and all sorts of stuff... yet Jesus says that you only need faith the size of a mustard seed to do it all!!!!

So what exactly is this stuff called faith & where do you get it? It must be pretty valuable, even more valuable than gold, or white truffles !!

well, when it comes down to it, the answer is quite simple...

lets turn to a dictionary for a definition - not a highfalutin theological dictionary, just a normal everyday English dictionary...

The Online Cambridge Dictionary says:
Faith (TRUST) noun [U]
great trust or confidence in something or someone:

Pretty complex huh?? Therefore, it could be said that in our context, faith is nothing more than trusting in the Lord.

Faith is trusting in the Lord!!!!
...... - Easy!!!
......... - I can do that!!!
.............- Mountain get up and move!!!
............... - Dang, didn't work!!!

Great trust or confidence... Hmmm, I guess that is what it comes down to; do I really have Great trust or confidence in the Lord??? Peter had great trust in the Lord when he stepped out of the boat onto the water - for a second or two - then the reality of what he was doing sunk in, and so did he...

The Apostles saw healings and miracles happen through their work, why? because they knew what Jesus required, he modeled it to them, they dropped everything they had to follow him, they put their security, future, and life on the line. They learnt to rely on the Lord to meet all their needs, they became like the lilies of the field. They trusted in the Lord for everything.

Maybe this is what we are missing, maybe we are controlling too much of our own lives, not trusting the Lord, watering down what Jesus taught to fit into how we want to live our lives, how every rational person would want to live their lives. Maybe we are more like the rich young ruler than we realise - living a good Christian life, following all the rules, doing the right things. But when Jesus challenges us, calls us out of our comfort zone into complete trust in him, we walk away. It is easy for us to do, we are not faced with the Son of God in the flesh asking us to give up our security, so we can rationalise it, spiritualize the 'sell everything & give it to the poor', and go on living our good Christian life.

Maybe if we could truly surrender ourselves to God, truly trust in him then we would see our faith grow from the infinitesimal little atom that it is now, slowly grow into a small little mustard seed, maybe by that time we would not be telling mountains to move to prove our power in the Lord, maybe by that time we would be praying and acting against spiritual and institutional mountains that are oppressing people to prove that we work for a God who cares for the downtrodden, the insignificant & the poor... makes you think doesn't it?

yay, a new monitor!!!!

2006-11-14T18:15:00.000+11:00

Yay- Finally we have a new monitor - the other one was slowly giving out - the header to this blog (the on that says Dekker's Journey) looked the same colour as the background of the blog on our own monitor - hopefully now I can fix this us - if ever I get a few minutes spare... yeah like that will happen!!!!

Burmese Outing 2 - Electric Boogaloo

2006-11-13T10:12:00.000+11:00

Well, there really were no flash dance related activities on our second Burmese outing, it just sounds like such a great title for a sequel I had to resurrect it...

Our outing this time around was to have a bit of a tour of the wonderful city of Me!bourne (the advertising is obviously getting to me!) . We had about 50 Burmese coming along on our trip with us again this time round - so obviously these guys enjoy our company, and we just toured around the city walking down southbank; seeing the buskers (with mixed reactions from our Burmese friends) hanging out by the crystal clear waters of the Yarra River, having a delicious lunch of Burmese curry, jam packed full of tripe and liver and other stuff I could not identify! (yum yum! - my missions training is really paying off!). We also took a tour around the city on the Melbourne circle tram to see all the sights.

It was a great day of building relationships with these people, Jacob made a bit of a friendship with a 12 year old boy named Cubby, and Sam as usual was adopted straight away and was being looked after and fed all day long (which did pose a bit of a problem when it came to the offal curry!).

People were quite eager to pose for photos with members of the team as well as getting group photos with the Melbourne skyline behind them. It was great when we arrived back at springvale station to have everyone thank us for a fun day out and shake our hands - I think we are really making inroads into this community.

Peter

Just an Observation

2006-11-03T09:21:00.000+11:00

I was in a group of men the other day at a course I am attending through UNOH, when the facilitator of the group asked an interesting ice breaker question. It went something along the lines of this - what do you think of old people, and at what age is a person considered old ?

The responses to both these questions were pretty much the same. Fortunately there was no comments on geriatric driving skills, or whining about young people today. Everyone generally said they had respect for old people, that they had lessons they could teach us if only we listened etc.

The interesting part came when people answered how old old was - everyone answered "You are only as old as you feel" or something along those lines. I don't know if its just me, or do those 2 answers seem to contradict each other. Obviously if we have respect for old people then getting old must be an ok thing to do - but we don't want to admit we are getting old & that's where comments like "your only as old as you feel" come from. So we still have a fear of getting old or want to avoid it.

Is this fear due to our mortality, or do we truly see old people as a nuisance or having no value?

If its due to our mortality then, that is a fear that as Christians we need to get over - because our mortality is not really a problem in the greater scheme of things.

If it is because we see old people as having no value then no amount of trite P.C. answers is going to cover up how we really feel and we will never learn from our elders, the mistakes and successes of the past!!!

It makes you wonder about P.C attitudes... Are they just a way of covering up our true feelings, to make sure we fit in with the rest of society and don't offend anyone? Are we lying when we sprout all the various trite answers people expect of us? Does this sort of issue stop us, as Christians, being a voice in the wilderness? (obviously at this point I am thinking beyond the old age issue...)

There are some really great views on life that would be regarded as P.C. but there are some really damaging P.C. outlooks as well - in fact sometimes the same P.C issue can have a positive or negative aspect to it depending on what definition you give it (like religious tolerance)..

But if we are running around covering up our true feelings in the name of political correctness, have we not become hypocrites or possibly impotent -

as Christians as we called to be sunshine & lollypops?

never offending,
never resisting,
never standing up for what is right?

Is this a misguided view of God's love?

But having said that...

When do we stand up?
When do we turn over the tables?
When can we be a voice?

The prophets of the Old Testament were regarded as nutters by the people of Israel - often hated and persecuted sometimes ever killed - have we missed the point in being able to fit into society, in being loved by society, in having a live and let live mentality???

We need your vote!!!!!!

2006-10-31T17:36:00.000+11:00

Hi all,
This is just a quick post and I need everyones opinion on something........that's right you can't just read this time.............I need responses......

ok...........every Thursday night our church has a community dinner, in the past we have all brought a plate every week, but recently the church split into 4 cooking groups, so each group caters for everyone once a month (thus giving us three Thursdays off from cooking)

Peter and I are lucky enough to be hosting a cooking group at our place and we need a name...........we are now down to two choices

We are trying to decide between................

Cheap as chips

the dodgy dinners

Sp pleeeeeaaaase, if you have never left a comment before, now is the time to start...........you don't have to leave your name............just your opinion on this very important matter............

Love to you all

Naomi............

Little Miss Sunshine

2006-10-30T10:12:00.000+11:00

We went and saw "Little Miss Sunshine" at the movies last night, this was the first chance I have got to go and see a movie in a Looooong time, and I thought "ah crap - a chick flick" (not that I am adverse to many movies classified by many as chick flicks - but with a title like that - come on!)...

How wrong I was!!! - this had to be one of the better movies I have seen in a long time - possibly not a top 5 entry, but definitely in the top 10 to 20. This movie rated 'R' in the U.S. but only 'M' here at home was a dark comedy about a very broken family taking a road trip to get the youngest member of the family "Olive" to the "little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant... The family include a drug snorting grandfather, an unsuccessful motivational speaker father, a suicidal, homosexual uncle, a worn out - trying to keep everything together - mother, a Nietzsche reading brother who has taken a vow of silence, and Olive, a glasses wearing, slightly chubby 7 year old girl, who does not fit into the usual mould of a U.S beauty pageant kid...

Anyway, without getting into a complete write up of the movie, if you think that the above line up of characters sound a bit depressing for you, and you can't tolerate the most versatile word in the English language (F**K), then I recommend you DON'T see this movie. But if you like a movie that explores the darker side of the human existence (think American Beauty) and somehow has a great laugh at the same time I highly recommend this movie...

Welcome Sisi

2006-10-26T16:17:00.000+10:00

Hi, this happend a while ago now, but we have invited my sister Sisi to live with us. It is a bit weird having a teenage girl living with us - considering that all our kids are boys, however I am adjusting to it, and Naomi is very happy to have someone around she can be girly with...

Anyway sisi is a very talented girl in many ways, particularly in writing poetry and photography - in fact this is one of her pics that just caught my imagination so I thought I would put it in our blog:

I will also add one or 2 of her poems at some stage, because some of them are really good once you get past the teenage angst & darkness...

Anyway, it is great to have her around and she is proving to be a great asset to stuff that is going on around here...

Learning lessons

2006-10-24T14:42:00.000+10:00

I think sometimes we can be a bit elitist when we move into a ministry position, particularly missions based ones. We do have this mindset so caricatured by so many Hollywood movies of the all knowing Man of God, here to save the savage, uneducated heathens. I'm not suggesting that our view of things is this extreme, however, we can still come to our mission field thinking that we have the answers. No matter how much we loathe the idea of being typecast into this sort of missionary, I think that we still have that outlook buried deep in our psyche somewhere.

For myself, I struggle with the terms mission or missionary, when I apply them to myself (or many others who are doing the same sort of thing around the world), just like I struggle with the term Christian when applying it to myself. In a theoretical sense these terms are fine, but I don't like taking them on myself because of the stigma attached. The sigma suggests arrogance, it holds values of colonialism, brashness, stubbornness, pride, greed, arrogance etc. We have to admit that this caricature does not hold up well against what the bible calls a Christian to be (as opposed to the caricature of a Christian, which is another matter all together),certainly they are values that I do not hold to or are trying to eradicate from my life (stubbornness is a big problem for me).

But having said all of that I feel I probably did come to this new ministry with a sense of arrogance. Not blatant "I am the centre of the Universe" type arrogance, but I did have some element of arrogance, I thought that I would come in, I would befriend people, I would make a difference in their lives, I would be doing a good work!!

The reality has been quite different however - I should have remembered my days back in Sri-Lanka, when I was too wet behind the ears to have this sort of opinion of myself. The stuff that I learnt there was amazing. Above all, in Sri Lanka I learnt the truth behind a God who has a bias towards the poor and marginalised (though it took me quite a few years to be able to articulate this lesson), I learnt the glory of worship done in church through a cheap casio and beaten up old acoustic guitar, I saw the love in genuine community as people of humble standing in life supported and cared for one another. Coming to Noble Park however I didn't think that I would be learning such lessons. I don't know why I felt this way, it was probably because the move was not such a major cultural change, I kind of felt that these people were still aussies; even if they did come from different socio-economic backgrounds and in some cases different countries to me, I thought that we would still hold a similar world view.

But that is not the case, sure these people are a bit rough around the edges and have a long way to go in their own journeys with the Lord (as we all do), but the Lord has instilled in them some amazing truths, stuff that people from richer middle class backgrounds are missing, and often yearning for.

One of the most precious values that they have here, is the willingness to take people as they are. There is no need to keep up false appearances here. Sure there are arguments, gossip and people hurting each other just like in other Christian communities, (though they are more up front than in most other communities that I have been in - but that is probably a good thing too). All the people here have failed or are imperfect or broken in some way. They cannot hide this side of who they are, so they don't even try, I wont say there are no masks, because I know there are, however, the masks are different. These people are not trying to live up to some clonesque concept of what a perfect Christian living in victory should be. Nor are they expecting me to live up to this sort of value.

For me, I have become more comfortable in my disability in this community that I ever had in my life. For those of you who don't know me too well, I suffer from a mild form of cerebral palsy that affects the right side of my body. The Lord has done some amazing things in my life in regards to my disability, but the fact remains that he has not completely removed it from my life (I have seen improvement, I would say I am at least 90% better than when I was a child). This sort of disability is looked down on in the middle class church and society as a whole. For many Christians it is a sign of a lack of faith, or God's judgment, or sin in your life or some other horrible thing like that. As a result I can tell my testimony of the Lords healing in my life, and celebrate in the fact that He has helped me forgive those who teased me through my childhood, I can even say that I believe that the Lord has kept the disability in my life as a reminder of his authority & power as well as to keep me humble (and I strongly do believe these things), and everyone will be touched and praise the Lord with me.

But I still needed to hide the fact that I have a disability otherwise the illusion comes crashing down, all of a sudden it is not so worthy a story to praise the Lord for. So I have to hide, I don't dance, I don't play sports, because these things make it obvious that I am not quite right. But here, in this community I am surrounded by others that are not quite right, and in many ways some of them are less right that I am. Now, I find myself free to kick a ball around, I find myself free to dance with my wife. Friends in the community are calling me to play in a cricket competition with them, even though they know I am not the best sportsman in the world, in fact, I think they actually enjoy that fact. Unfortunately I cannot make it to the competition due to other commitments, but my friends rib me about it, and I enjoy it. I don't have to hide. I can be me.

Thanks Lord!

Peter

Throwing our kids in the bin...

2006-10-13T19:06:00.000+10:00

This has been an interesting week for me, one of those weeks that you end up hearing those sorts of things that people only mean to be heard behind your back. We never thought that our decision to follow the path we have chosen would be popular, and in many ways we were surprised by some of the places we got support from, and equally surprised by where we got some of our negative feedback from.

One of the negative comments that I came across this week went something like "UNOH expects people to throw their kids in the bin!", suggesting that when we chose to follow this path, we did so without regard for our children, and that our children will suffer as a result of what we are doing.

When I first heard this I laughed, NOTHING could be further from the truth!!! Our Children have flourished in the environment that they are in.

When Naomi felt the call towards UNOH a little over a year ago, she denied the call due to her having children. Just as those thoughts where going through her head (it was during an altar call) the preacher mentioned that there was someone in the congregation struggling to come forward due to the fact that she had children and she felt that she could not drag her children onto the mission field. The preacher said that if God was calling us to the field He would have taken our children into consideration, and that we would be robbing our children of what God has in store if we did not follow him.

Having taken the plunge (and I know that I have mentioned this a number of times) I cannot deny that this is the truth... If all our plans to join UNOH fell apart today and we found ourselves stuck in Noble Park I would have to say that God's hand was in it, and His Blessing was upon us, the changes that living here have made in all our children through school, friendships and getting to spend more time with both their parents is amazing. But it goes beyond that, our children are part of our ministry, we really are a team. Our children open doors for us in this community that we would otherwise be struggling to open. Jacob has an understanding of this, and a real sense of adventure and excitement over it. Sam & Luke don't really get it yet, but their natural enthusiasm and friendliness are priceless.

Jesus said:
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

The word hate here was not meant to be taken literally - that would be too freaky and would be in direct opposition to our loving God's character - rather it is hyperbole to say that all else must come second to a true disciple of Jesus. If we let anything get in the way of God's purpose for our lives then we cannot say that Jesus is Lord of our lives, whatever it is that is stopping us is the real lord - and unfortunately with children there seems to be an unspoken acceptance in the church for that sort of idolatry - makes you wonder about the motivation behind such groups as Family First doesn't it? It sounds like an admirable value but is it really biblical when taken to its logical extent.

In fact, this concept of having anything in the way of you truly following Jesus (& truly having Him as Lord of your life), puts a whole new serious spin onto one of our most watered down scriptures too...

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

Well that's about all I really have to say on that topic, I think I need to ponder in a bit more...

Hmmmm... (the sound of me pondering)

Peter

Finally an Update

2006-10-01T17:09:00.000+10:00

Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned... it has been over 2 weeks since my last blog entry..

We have just gotten to the end of the school holidays, and what a mad time it has been... Mad, but Fun! Between women's retreats, men's retreats, Family retreats, extra kids for the holidays, A Burmese outing to Phillip Island & a huge grand final party, we have not had much time to think, let alone blog...

We were privileged to get the use of a house in the middle of farmland in Pakenham over the school holidays, first off the women of Noble Park got a chance to get away for 3 days, there was lots of eating and girlie talk (which is about all women do when they get together) . After this our family got to go away for a couple of days with a couple of the boys from the neighbourhood. The boys kept themselves entertained quite well, and so Naomi & I got some real relaxation time and got to watch a few DVDs along the way!
Once that was done, The guys got a chance to go for a couple of days, We got to spend a bit of time in bible study, but mostly it was about kicking a footy (yes Steve even me!) playing basketball and fishing.

We also got to spend the day up there this past Saturday for the grand Final (yes Steve I even watched a lot of it!). There was a massive crowd of us and we had a BBQ and played on the Trilampoline (spelt this way on purpose - its a Simpsons thing) - well it was probably more like wrestling...

Then today we got the privilege of taking around 40 Burmese immigrants on a day trip to the giant worm and Phillip Island, this was a great opportunity for these people to have a day out and see a side of Australia that they have probably not seen yet, they got to feed some kangaroos, pat a wombat & koala, play on the beach (even try to drink some sea water) and see some awesome sights it was a great day and a great opportunity to connect even though they all had little or no English.

So, now we are exhausted, and are looking forward to the kids going back to school so that life can get back to the usual hectic rush (as opposed to the madder than ever hectic rush of the last 2 weeks)...

Peter

Kids, Kids everywhere

2006-09-12T17:40:00.000+10:00

I sit here watching out my window, my front yard is filled with kids (ok so there's 7 of them) They are sitting on the front fence...........just hanging out. I am filled with absolute joy and excitement at this picture I see before me. There's something awesome going on here, and it's so unreal to see that our kids can be a part of the life we have chosen.
About a week ago someone from the community approached me about the idea of a few of us starting a kids club in the community (something I had already been thinking about anyway) so to see it happening naturally and organically is super cool.

I have this funny feeling, that when we think we should start a new project or ministry.......the best thing to do is wait for a bit and see if it's already starting to happen.........if it's supposed to fit, then the threads will already be there.

That's just my take on the whole thing anyway, you might think something different!!!!!!

Naomi

Slave to Porn...

2006-09-11T09:26:00.000+10:00

Ah, Pornography, sometimes I think it is the only reason that the internet was created...

I do not know what the official figures are on men who use Porn, but I know that the figures are high... Knowing a thing or two about computers I am often asked to help people fix up their computers, in doing this it is not uncommon to come across computers that are full of those tell tale signs of frequent Porn usage. This is the sort of stuff that does not turn up on your computer through the inevitable porn spam that we all suffer from, or accidentally clicking onto a porn site, this is the sort of stuff that comes from a habitual user. Let me tell you without naming names, that the vast majority of computers that I have worked on have this stuff, and many of them cannot blame it on their teenage sons (because they don't have any!). There are those that I have worked on (too few unfortunately) that have no sign of Porn on them, and they belong to people that I really do hold in high regard, these people have real integrity throughout their lives.

There has even been a time or 2 when I have had to help out a minister too, and the tell tale signs are there as well - even those we see as holy or ordained suffer from this hidden & dangerously addictive problem.

And Yes, I struggle with porn too, I have the good fortune of having a wife (a forgiving wife) who caught me out. This brought the subject to a head for me & we were able to begin to deal with the situation... Too often this problem is hidden and not talked about - I'm not suggesting you need to go to your wives and fess up guys, trust me it will hurt them real bad, real, real bad. But maybe there is another guy who you can ask to hold you accountable, maybe if we stop hiding this stuff, we can start to deal with it, and become real men of integrity.

It is an addiction, a harmful, dreadful addiction, it may not see you dead in a gutter like drugs will, or kill your liver like alcohol, but it will destroy your life, destroy your family & destroy your sex life too (not to mention the harm it does to those caught in the industry - don't believe the lies that these women create to protect themselves, or the BS spun by groups like the Eros foundation). Although I had to deal with the up front consequences of porn through being sprung, it still had a hold on me, my head would still turn when I walked past THAT section of a newsagency. Though I would pull my gaze away from it straight away, I knew that the demon of lust still had a hold on me. But God has challenged me about it quite recently and I think that finally the demon's talons are released from me (I use the term 'demon' figuratively, though the Pentecostal in me still thinks there may be some deeper truth to this!). I came face to face with the destructive power of porn the other day when I visited a lonely old guy from the neighborhood - I will not go into any more details than that, but It shocked me into reality, then I came across this video clip (please guys share it around I think its message is very important...)

I came across it at a great site called www.xxxchurch.com* that deals with this whole issue of Christian guys and the problem of porn - it even has some great resources on it like an accountability program that allows you to select a friend to keep you accountable - every time you visit a bad site, this software sends an e-mail to your friend to let him know, talk about vulnerability, but to have the guts to use something like that...

Anyway guys, we need to face up to this problem, stop being ashamed and do something about it - it is harming us, our wives, our families, the poor girls stuck in the industry, and society as a whole - lets be men of integrity, lets be men who stand out from the lusts of our culture, lets stop harming the innocent and putting money into the hands of men who stand in direct opposition to the Kingdom of God!

*There was a guy who was wearing a t-shirt at the Surrender conference that said "Jesus loves porn stars" with the web address under it - this piqued my interest so I had to check it out... Here I was thinking it was about Jesus loving even sinners like Porn Stars. I thought maybe it would be a site dedicated to sticking it to the conservative self-righteous Christians out there , but it ended up pointing the finger back at me!!!

Irresistible Revolution

2006-09-07T11:29:00.000+10:00

I have just finished reading Shane Claiborne's book "The Irresistible Revolution" and I must say the book blew me away. In a largely biographical fashion, Claiborne, goes about explaining the theology behind "Living as an Ordinary Radical." Shane reveals his story of being called to live with the poor and homeless in Philadelphia, his experiences working alongside Mother Teresa, and standing with Iraqi Christians in Iraq as his government bombed their home. Throughout these amazing and touching stories, Shane holds onto humility stressing that he has not done anything out of the ordinary, that he has simply taken Jesus' words seriously. Something that me all can do; unfortunately the Church has fallen asleep so those like Shane are seen as radicals. However he argues that they are, ordinary radicals, ordinary Christians with nothing more to offer than their lives, living out the radical, counter cultural teachings of our Saviour.

This book is essential reading for anyone who is looking for more out of their Christian walk than pew warming, and anyone who is starting to hear the cries of the poor, and see that the bible has an answer.

There are heaps of web links in this book, and I will be spending a bit of time surfing, I'll pass on any of the good links that I visit...

Peter

Surrender 06 cont'd...

2006-08-30T14:26:00.000+10:00

Hi again.

Surrender 06 was an amazing time for us. It was at S05 that the final crunch came for Naomi and I in our decision to follow the Lord into the call he had on our lives. So in many ways S06 was an anniversary for us (even though it was a couple of weeks later than last year). S05 was a highly emotional time - particularly for Naomi who finally surrendered the battle she was waging against her call to Missions. The year that followed was mad, going through the discernment process with UNOH, visiting Bangkok, telling all our friends & work mates, moving into Noble Park , settling in etc.

For me, attending S06 was like the end of the first leg of our journey, a time to reflect on how our life has changed, and how much God has been with us and blessed us over this leg of the race. Sure there were great speakers and a lot to be thought about and pondered, but just being able to be a volunteer at the conference, working alongside all the UNOH & Rainbow guys, being a team, feeling welcome was what really stuck out to me.

We really have been accepted as part of the community by now, I was able to have a chat with a couple of people over the weekend who were paying me a compliment over a message I shared at Rainbow, and saying that I was obviously a great preacher. I was saying that I did not want to be a great preacher and am very nervous speaking in public like that, that I was much better at doing teaching on a one-on-one or small group basis. These friends then said to me that it was silly for me to be nervous talking in front of the Rainbow Church crowd, as they were all friends. That conversation has had a big impact on me, not that I am proud to be a great speaker or anything( because I am not!), but that I am accepted as a friend by these 2 and everyone else at Rainbow. Social situations are not my favorite things, and to think that despite my social retardation, I have fitted in and am accepted has really done a lot for me, and my confidence in my call to work in NP.

Surrender 06

2006-08-27T07:38:00.000+10:00

We are in the middle of the anual UNOH conference - "Surrender 06". The name of the conference comes out of a conviction to take seriously "surrendering to Jesus" It has speakers like Tony Campolo, Ash barker, John Smith, Darryl Gardiner etc... great, inspiring, challenging stuff - but alas - naomi is angry at me for blogging right now - we don't have time, so any more reflections will have to wait for another day!!! - see ya

Quote of the Week:

2006-08-21T14:34:00.000+10:00

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:8-9

Lilies of the field

2006-08-21T13:36:00.000+10:00

Recently, in my morning devotions I was reading Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I think all of Jesus' teachings present a real challenge to us if we take them for what they really say, versus what we have reduced them to. However, if we were to take the Sermon on the Mount literally as a guide on how to live a Christian life, what an amazing challenge that would be! Suddenly Counter Cultural would mean a bit more than wearing Diesel brand t-shirts with Che Guevara's image on them, or sporting 'Make Poverty History' armbands.

Especially when we read Matt 6:19-34, This is the passage that covers storing up treasures on earth and then goes onto the passage about the Lilies on the field. We cannot reduce this passage down to simply having mastery over our money (cannot serve both God & Mammon v24) and then deliver a tithe message. Nor can we simply reduce it to a message about Faith, saying that if we trust the Lord he will look after us. If we are true to the message here (remember last weeks quote of the week?), then are called to so much more, this passage stands in direct contrast to the lives that we in the west are living!

The first part tells us not to store up treasures on Earth, but to store up treasures in Heaven. Yet we live in a society and church that promotes the building of our own little Kingdoms; our own homes, investments, 2 cars, plasma TV's, a wardrobe full of clothes, (dare I say, a Fancy, Flashy new church building?). Whilst all around us there are images of people starving to death - we cannot fain ignorance about it, it is forced in our face by organizations like World Vision every day (and rightly so!!). The Early Church Held that if a child starved to death, and a Christian has extra food, then that Christian is guilty of MURDER. My God, how many have I murdered!?! Yet we can calm this guilt, all we need to do is tithe to a church that does great work in the third world, and maybe sponsor a child through world vision for "less than a cup of coffee a day" - if we have done that, we have done our bit right? Not if we are to take Jesus' message seriously. We call this sort of thing sacrifice - giving to the needy, but if it does not hurt, how can it be sacrifice? Sacrifice is pain, sacrifice is death! - remember "The Passion of the Christ?"

If this is all we are called to do, then why would Jesus tell us not to worry about our food and clothing, if we are still living in our own little Kingdoms of luxury, we don't need to trust in the Lord to supply our needs! Clearly Jesus is calling for more than just a tokenistic response. The early church sold their possessions, shared out of their wealth, so that none would have need (Acts 4:32) If we take God's words seriously, if we give sacrificially, then we have to trust in the Lord, then we really do need to pray "give us today our daily bread". Suddenly that line of the Lord's prayer makes more sense... We cannot view it simply as asking God for more. In fact if you read the above quote of the week, you will see where this line out of the Lords Prayer actually originates...

In building our little kingdoms here on earth, I fear that we have missed the point of it all, we are no longer working for the kingdom of God, we are working for the kingdom of self. The kingdom of God is at hand, but we can't grab hold of it, because our hands are full of our own possessions...

Sorry about the delay

2006-08-21T13:28:00.000+10:00

It has been well over a week since we have last updated our blog - if there are any regular readers out there? (I ask this question as besides Andy, we don't get any feedback, and we like to think that this space will become a conversation rather than a monologue!) - we apologize for the delay - there have been illnesses and other issues stopping us - hopefully however we will be connected to the net in 2 days and then we can keep updated more regularly (by e-mail as well!) - woo hoo!!!!

Quote for the Week...

2006-08-10T11:33:00.000+10:00

The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.

Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (2002)

The Gift of Coffee Making

2006-08-10T10:49:00.000+10:00

I still remember growing up in a Pentecostal/charismatic type church the quest we went on to find our spiritual gifts - the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy (or is that the gift of manipulation? - I get those two confused sometimes!), the gift of speaking in tongues, etc. etc.

They were all great gifts to have and be proud of, I can still remember walking around with pride comparing the gift God gave me to others gifts:- "you've got the gift of speaking in tongues huh? - well I'VE got the gift of interpretation of tongues!!". And then there were those who just didn't seem to get it, who could not find their spiritual gift - these people were told that not all spiritual gifts were of the miraculous type, some had the gift of hospitality or something like that (Of course us truly sanctified & spiritual people knew that that was just a cop-out)

Many years on I have finally let go of trying to impress other Christians, by my spirituality - we really missed the point if that is all the gifts of the spirit are used for. I still believe in those miraculous gifts of the spirit and respect those who use them (not their cheap imitation). But one that I have learnt to respect above many of them of late is - the gift of HOSPITALITY.

Yesterday was an interesting day for me. As the guys here in the community get to know me and get to be more comfortable with me (I think it is easier and more natural for women) , I have begun to get visitors at our door, just after a coffee and a chat, many of the guys here are very lonely and just need somewhere to feel like they are valued. Yesterday I had a couple of such visitors. The first was a great old guy from a "home for the broken" around the corner from us. He just dropped in for a coffee and a biscuit, and to say 'hi' - we sat for a while and I tried to have a conversation with him, I asked him any questions I could think of (you can't ask this guy what he does for a living, or where he is planning his next holiday), and more often than not I would get an answer that had no connection to the question. However he did say along the way that he was feeling anxious, and when he left he thanked me for all my help and left.

The same night I had a visit from another neighbor, who was crying, drunk and reeked of both alcohol and B.O. This neighbor is a great guy, witty and always ready to crack a joke or laugh raucously about the smallest thing. He had just heard the news that a family member had died. We talked we prayed, we drank coffee, we sat in silence, we even laughed by the end of it, and again this friend left feeling at least somewhat better, and that he had someone to talk to, that he had value.

I am not mentioning these things to say - Look at all the really great things that I am doing, I'm mentioning them to ask the question - why do we look for the grand gestures that we can do for the Kingdom - the great healings - the great mission trips - the great amounts of money to do great works in His name, when all it takes is a $3 jar of Nescafe*, and a willingness to open your door to those who need to feel loved!

* Nescafe have not sponsored this blog entry in any way - in fact I'd prefer you did not buy Nescafe coffee - but rather another coffee brand - given Nestle's history in third world countries! - want to know more? Go to www.globalexchange.org

Some Praise & Prayer Points...

2006-08-08T13:35:00.000+10:00

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick catch up from Naomi,
The big move on Saturday went extremely well, we are so grateful to all the wonderful people from Foothills who pitched in and helped us out............it was a great way to end our time in such an awesome community.

I thought some of you might like to hear some prayer & praise points........you don't have to pray for us..........but if you want to......

I would like to praise God for

The wonderful acceptance that we have been shown in our new community.........I was imagining sitting around and being bored for the first little while......boy was I wrong.

The fantastic way our kids have settled into our new way of life, new school e.t.c........in fact, they are not just settled, they are thriving!!!!!!!!

Teaching C.R.E in a new school is going very well, I have had extremely positive responses from various members of staff, and am beginning to become familiar with some children and families in the school.

Please Pray For

Me in particular to find some time for rest and to be able to fit more time with God into my crazy schedule..........It would be nice if people stopped commenting on the dark rings around my eyes

I am running Ladies group for the first time tomorrow (i'm a little nervous)

So few of the kids at Noble Park attend C.R.E, please pray that more kids would want to attend

Peter is beginning to form friendships with a few of the Men in the area, please pray that he would naturally form some meaningful friendships, many of the men around here are lonely and often have no where to go....it's good to be able to offer our place as a drop in for them.

We still don't have our names on the lease where we are living...........the Estate agent thinks it will be fine but is taking her time to sort it out with the owner, I am finding it hard to unpack boxes because in the back of my mind I am thinking "what if I have to repack soon" It would be really great to have that one sorted out.

That I would be able to follow God's leading with making some good connections in the school community

That's all I can think of now, Peter probably has more.......but he's not here so it's up to me.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this.................

Love from Naomi

Quote for the Week...

2006-08-02T14:06:00.000+10:00

Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. But the one who has love, courage, and wisdom moves the world.

- Ammon Hennacy (Catholic Activist, 1893-1970)

Finally, we are moving in!!!

2006-08-02T13:29:00.000+10:00

Well, 5 weeks in and we are finally getting to the stage where we can move our belongings to Nobel Park!!!! - yay!!! - that will mean that we will be able to sleep in our own beds, sit on our own couches get food out of our own fridge... Sorry it is all wearing a bit thin for me - it will be great to finally just relax and call a place home again.

Out side of that, things are going great and continue to get better. I know we go on about it a lot, but Sammy is just doing wonders, and we can not say anything other than it is a miracle and a real example of God rewarding the faithful actions of his followers.

Naomi was called in to the school by one of the aids to discuss sammys progress, going in with fear, she soon found out that the aid wanted nothing more than to assure Naomi over how well Sammy was doing. The aid showed her Sams work and the work that he is doing is not at all modified (something that we were asking the other school to do for ages) and he is doing extremely well at it too - his work is on display with the other kids work in his classroom (again something that didn't happen at the other school) he is participating in class discussions and being relevant to the topic. In fact they are implementing a number of strategies that we have been crying out for the other school to try for months in not over a year off the bat, and things could not be better - NP Primary got the reports from his other school and were preparing for an absolute monster to join their school - however they have had nothing but an angel for more than a month now!!! - this is not simply because Sammy has decided to change either (though he did try his best to start with) this is because this school seems to understand the ins & outs of Autism and they treat Sammy with dignity! - PRAISE THE LORD - is all I can say - it certainly does not fit into earthly logic or wisdom that a move from Ferntree gully to Noble Park would work so well for an Autistic child! Tomorrow night he even gets to be involved in the school production (again - surprise, surprise - not in he other school) - he is a cowboy in a dance revolving around the village peoples YMCA.

Luke is also in the production as a cat in a dance to "What's new Pussy Cat" and Jake gets the lead in Rocky Horror Picture Shows "Time Warp" - he assures me he is not wearing fishnets and stillettos though!!! - once I have my computer back on the net I'll try to post a picture.

On news about Naomi & I, it looks like I have been given the role of looking after the food distribution at the Food Bank here on a Tuesday morning as well as a number of other responsibilities that are just beginning to form around me at the moment. It is hard to describe what a day consists of here - though a lot of it has to do with relating to people, having visitors, making very lonely people feel loved etc, so it is very hard to put down our roles in neat boxes. Naomi is currently hosting a women's group back at home, so I have been kicked out and therefore am catching up with things here at Cafe Salvo - the new local hang out, where if you want to meet a local, have a great coffee or jump on the net its the place to be - a bit like cheers, without the alcohol or woody!

Anyway - I have run out of things to say as a general catch up - I'll post again soon, especially once I am on line again but until then - see you later.

Peter

Finally..........a word from Naomi

2006-07-25T13:34:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
Sorry it has taken me so long to leave a post..........Peter has had to literally bring me to the computer to get it done!!!!!!!!

I just want to let everyone know that things are going really great here, I am really enjoying getting to know my new neighbourhood, and enjoying spending heaps of time with people here.

I taught my first C.R.E class at Noble Park Primary yesterday, it felt really good and natural to get back into teaching......I missed it for the few weeks that I wasn't doing it.

I would have to say that one of the nicest bits about moving is the brilliant way that Sammy has settled into his new school.....we are at week 4 now, and he has been brilliant. The school has assured me that they love having him there, he is doing all his school work and behaving the way he should be.........he is even going to be a cowboy in the school production next week!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess God really does know what he's doing!!!!!! Moving the kids, and particulary Sam, was a huge faith step for us, and one I struggled to trust God on.......so it has been an amazing experience to see it all work out so well.

Anyway..........I promise I will will make a bigger effort with getting on line in future......

Thanks for reading, and we'd love to hear back from you

Naomi

Orthodoxy/Orthopraxy

2006-07-19T12:12:00.000+10:00

I have just finished reading an article by Brian McLaren on “truth” and the Christian faith. It brought out some interesting thoughts that I have been mulling over this morning. He used the illustration of Jane Goodall and the way she researched chimpanzees, comparing her work to the work of a standard research scientist, McLaren noted that Goodall attributed personal names and character traits to the chimps rather than giving them maybe serial numbers etc… (only humans have personality traits scientifically speaking). After a while Goodall developed some sort of an interpersonal relationship to her subject matter and her research was more than simple detached observation. Had Goodall had the correct scientific training she would have known that this sort of relationship with her subject matter would have been seen as against the rules of serious scientific study.

What has this got to do with the Christian faith? Simply this: Modernity has taught us that serious study of the scripture has to be done from a scientific stand point (exegesis, exposition, etc) we have our theologies aund understandings of the virgin birth, the trinity, the deity of Jesus, and unless we believe these things we cannot be a Christian. Whilst I agree that these scientific and formulaic aspects of the faith are needed. The problem is that if we believe that that is what Christianity is about then me don’t really have a relationship with the living God, we only really believe the right things – and lets face it, even Satan believes in God. We cannot boil Christianity down to a list of beliefs or truths; that leads to dryness or “Crusty Christianity”. Bible college dried me out, made it impossible for me to have a relationship with God. This is an experience faced by many, it is not that bible college is wrong or evil or anything, it is just that when you are faced with so many facts, truths, formulas and approaches, the relationship side of things starts to suffer (unless of course you consciously seek this relationship). We seem to put the value on our faith that says the more educated or enlightened we are the better our Christian walk will be. If our Orthodoxy (right belief) is correct then our Orthopraxy (right practice) will follow. But it seems to me that pursuing that Orthodoxy dries out our love for the Lord – makes it just facts, just beliefs, and kills off the relationship. There has to be a better way… maybe if discipleship focuses more on Orthopraxy, walking along side an established Christian, seeing what the Christian journey is about, then the Orthodoxy will be learnt along the way, in small, manageable, natural doses. Maybe if we train new Christians to hear from the Lord, to understand his heartbeat, to understand what the Kingdom is about, what the Gospel is about (here’s a hint guys, its not a bunch of beliefs – it’s good news to the poor). Maybe the rest will be picked up along the way.

The truth is that when we get to judgement day, we are not going to be given an exam, we aren’t going to be judged on our view of the Trinity or Eschatology, we are going to be judged on what we did, and didn’t do (Matthew 25:31-46). This is not about salvation through works, it is about salvation through a heart in tune with the heart of our saviour. Its about seeing what breaks the heart of God, and doing something about it, picking up your cross, dieing to self, surrendering all.

We do need to have orthodoxy behind all of this, but I believe that our orthodoxy will look quite different if we balance it with orthopraxy.

If you feel that you are stuck in Crusty Christianity, here is a challenge for you; in your quiet times, study only the Gospels. for several months, read through them, get to know who Jesus was at grass roots, don’t try to analyse him through your belief systems or the rest of scripture, but just take him at his word (and his action). Once you have a real grip on who he is then go back to the rest of the scripture and see how differently your understanding of the writing of Paul and others will be.

How can we call ourselves Christians (followers of Christ) if we don’t have an intimate understanding of our founder and what he stood for?

I hope this all makes sense, I sometimes hesitate to put down in writing thoughts like this, they can be too embryonic, and sometimes not make sense, or come across the wrong way…

Peter

Goodbye Koorong - the next step taken!

2006-07-17T12:09:00.000+10:00

Well, that’s it, another monumental step taken. On Friday I did my last shift as an “Assistant Customer Service Manager” at Koorong. Goodbye fulltime work! I am not sure how happy I am about that… There certainly was a large amount of sadness in saying goodbye to many friends who I have made over the years, I will still be working there as a casual for some time, but that will mean that for the most part I will be working at nights, so I wont get to see many of the full-time workers or many of the regular customers that I have made friendships with.

There is also a certain amount of fear accompanying a move like this – in one sense I have given up a lot of financial security, I no longer have a set income and will have to rely on casual shifts at Koorong, and any other casual work I can pick up to survive. Certainly, we are cutting back on our standard of living, getting rid of the second car – working hard to eliminate as much debt as possible, curbing impulse spending etc, but it will still be hard!

Then there is a great deal of excitement! – I have taken another step on our journey – we are progressing! I am now free to pursue getting involved in the work of UNOH & Rainbow Church, and familiarizing myself with the neighborhood that will be home for at least a year and a half!

Already, the sense of involvement and belonging is beginning to set in, just through involvement in Rainbow and the food bank on Tuesdays. Of course Naomi’s involvement over the last 2 weeks, getting to know people, has helped immensely too, her natural ability to attract people is a real advantage. And in many ways we already feel accepted.

We are now living in a 3 bedroom unit with 4 other adults and a baby. Last night was our first night, though most of them had moved out for the night. Mondays in general are used as a sort of Sabbath for the UNOH workers. As much as possible, they try and get out of the neighborhood, to rest and relax for the day. We are looking forward to getting to know those we are staying with, as we did with Ileana, Gavin, Mohammad & Tejaan (sorry, I don’t know how to spell his name), over the last 2 weeks.

People look on our current housing situation like it is a burden for us, but in truth, while it may not be ideal, there are many advantages to this situation, and as a result we are really enjoying it all, and using the opportunity to learn as much about UNOH and those we will be working beside as possible.

I have probably gone on enough for now – hopefully I will have time to post again soon, life is beginning to settle into some sort of a routine. Hopefully I’ll be able to get Naomi to post again soon too – it has been ages.

Peter.

P.S. Please post a comment, just to let us know that you are reading this, and that it is not a waste of time.

P.P.S. What do you think of the new header?

First 4 Days...

2006-07-06T19:34:00.000+10:00

Hi,

Well, we are well and truly living in Noble Park now, if not settled into our own home. Staying with Gavin & Ileana is great, they are great hosts and have made us feel very welcome.

The boys have settled into school great, Jake said that people here are more friendly than they are in their old school, and Sam has done great so far, Naomi has not been called into the school for him, and the school is making a real effort to try not to fall into a pattern like that - we are really positive and hopeful. Sammy said to Naomi today that he was feeling very happy, that is the first time in his life that he has ever said anything like that. Luke seems to be cruising through as he does, he already has many friends, but still can't remember his teachers name!!

Naomi has been out and about meeting the people associated with UNOH and having coffees down at Cafe Salvo. She is loving it too and making me jealous that I am still at work. Only 5 more work days until I say goodbye to full-time employment! - Wow that's a weird feeling!!

I'll try to get Naomi to make an entry soon, it has been ages since she has done an entry and she probably has better reflections than me at this point in time as she is already starting to do the work.

Anyway, that is it for me for now...

Well, This is it!

2006-07-03T07:25:00.000+10:00

Trivia Question: What are the first four words in the Blues Brothers Movie?
Hint: They are hidden in the title somewhere…

She caught the Katy, and left me a mule to ride
She caught the Katy, and left me a mule to ride
My baby caught the Katy, left me a mule to ride
The train pulled out, and I swung on behind
I'm crazy 'bout her, that hard headed woman of mine…

Ahhh – reminiscing….

Anyway, back to reality… We have done it!!! – we spent our first night in Noble Park!

As yet we have not got a place to live (though we were offered one) so to make sure the kids can start this term in their new school, we are staying at a couples house In NP. These guys have a lot to do with UNOH, though they are not actual members.
The 3 boys are sleeping in 1 room together and Naomi & I get to share the most uncomfortable fold out sofa bed I think I have ever slept on.

Anyway, that is for a week, after that we move to another place that will eventually become our home. At the moment there is a couple with a baby and a single lady living there. They are moving out to find places further out in NP, but they want us to live in this place as it is a great location to have a UNOH worker living in… it may take anywhere up to 5 or 6 weeks before the place is empty, but that’s fine. All this time living with people gives us a really great introduction to UNOH and how it all works!

Well, That’s about all I have to say for now, I am at work typing this out – I still have 2 weeks of Koorong before I go to casual employment, living off baked beans & trusting in the Lord! – Yay!! – (read Yay with the slight note of insecurity that went through my head as I typed it)

Anyway please pray for us as we settle in, as well as for my sister who got some pretty bad news the other day– but more on that when details become available.

Peter

"It's a Revolution Baby!"

2006-06-27T15:05:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,

I recently read a book by George Barna entitles ‘Revolution’. What an amazing book considering Barna’s history – from statistician writing books about church growth, to statistician writing a book about a movement that his statistics have missed – a book about a trend of Christians who have abandoned the church to seek a true spiritual walk – he calls this the revolution – a word that he himself sees as being overused and watered down over the last few years. Anyway the book is an interesting read although quite short and probably overpriced… anyway at the end of the book he writes “The Affirmation of a Revolutionary” which I found quite inspiring, so here it is:

I am a Revolutionary in the service of God Almighty. My life is not my own; I exist as a free person but have voluntarily become a slave to God. My role on earth is to live as a Revolutionary, committed to love, holiness, and advancing God’s Kingdom. My life is not about me and my natural desires; it is all about knowing, loving, and serving God with all my heart, mind, strength, and soul. Therefore, I acknowledge the following:

I am a sinner, broken by my disobedience but restored by Jesus Christ in order to participate in good works that please God. I am not perfect; but Jesus Christ makes me righteous in God’s eyes, and the Holy Spirit leads me toward greater holiness.
God created me for His purpose. My desire as a Revolutionary is to fulfill those ends, and those ends alone. When I get out of bed each day, I do so for one purpose: to love, obey, and serve God and His people.
Every breath I take is a declaration of war against Satan and a commitment to opposing him.
God does not need me to fight, but He invites me to allow Him to fight through me. It is my privilege to serve Him in that manner. I anticipate and will gladly endure various hardships as I serve God; for this is the price of participation in winning the spiritual war.
I do not need to save the world; Jesus Christ has already done that. I cannot transform the world, but I can allow God to use me to transform some part of it.
My commitment to the Revolution of faith is sealed by my complete surrender to God’s ways and His will. I will gratefully do what He asks of me simply because He loves me enough to ask. I gain my security, success, and significance through my surrender to Him.
I am not called to attend or join a church, I am called to be the Church.
Worship is not an event I attend or process I observe; it is the lifestyle I lead.
I do not give away 10 percent of my resources. I surrender 100 percent.
God has given me natural abilities and supernatural abilities, all intended to advance His Kingdom. I will deploy those abilities for that purpose.
The proof of my status as a Revolutionary is the love I show to God and people.
There is strength in relationships; I am bound at a heart and soul level to other Revolutionaries, and I will bless believers whenever I have the chance.
To achieve victory in the spiritual war in which we are immersed, there is nothing I must accomplish; I must simply follow Christ with everything I have.
There is no greater calling than to know and serve God.
The world is desperately seeking meaning and purpose. I will respond to that need with the Good News and meaningful service.
Absolute moral and spiritual truth exists, is knowable, and is intended for my life; it is accessible through the Bible.
I want nothing more than to hear God say to me, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.”

Thank You, Lord God, for loving me, for saving me, for refining me, for blessing me, and for including me in the work of Your Kingdom. My life is Yours to use as You please. I Love you.

Homesick for the future!?!

2006-06-20T21:09:00.000+10:00

It was my mothers 60th birthday last Thursday, and to celebrate, we headed out to a Thai restaurant in Blackburn South. What an experience! – the smells, the tastes, they brought us back to Thailand.

One of the Waitresses was actually on holidays from Thailand and heard that we had just come back from there – teaching English. Not surprisingly she assumed straight away that we were Christians. We had a little bit of a conversation with her, and had fun for the rest of the night.

The amazing thing was that both Naomi and I were struck with this sense of – um – what could only be described as homesickness – not that we can call Thailand our home or anything – we only spent 3 weeks there – but our hearts truly are already there – and God willing, in a year and a half we will be there…

A whole year and a half – I am really feeling impatient, but then I guess patience is meant to be a character trait of a follower of Jesus. And who knows what the Lord has in store for us between now and then – for all I know Thailand isn’t even in God’s plans for us…

Pray for us – that the Lord will be with us, we are still searching for a rental property in Noble Park, the struggle is mainly due to not many houses being available in the smallish geographic area we have set ourselves. We have not had many houses that we could apply for in the time that we have been looking – but we continue to look – next weekend there are hopefully another handful of likely candidates, but we will see.

By Their Lemons shall you know them…

2006-06-03T17:46:00.000+10:00

3 years ago you probably would not have found me talking about symbolism and things like that, but then 3 years ago you would not have found me talking about many spiritual things at all.

Spiritually, I think I was almost dead at that time, having gone through an eight year desert experience after Bible College & struggling with the mega church mentality where I worshiped. I was at the point where I nearly turned my back on the whole Christianity thing…

At the same time I did some pruning under the expert guidance of Don Burke; we had a dismal lemon tree out the back, that was diseased, and essentially growing no fruit. One Saturday Night, Don said the only way to deal with this problem was to ruthlessly cut back the lemon tree, so much so that only the trunk and major branches were still intact… remove all signs of life from the tree and just let it do its thing…

So we did.

For the next year it looked like someone had stuck a stick in the dirt, as our tree sat there to all the world dead…

Finally, miraculously, some shoots started to appear…

& the kids hacked them off with a stick …

But the lemon tree was not deterred, and a year later the shoots started to grow again… until it had lush foliage… A few months ago we noticed some flowers and finally little green fruit.

Today it is covered in bright yellow lemons, & we now get to enjoy the sweet lemony goodness of the fruit.

Ok, so maybe the whole spiritual fruit analogy thing does not work well with lemons – maybe if it was apples or oranges the story could have worked a lot better, but then the story would not have been true – however it is interesting how much of a symbol the lemon tree has been to Naomi and myself of our spiritual journey over the last 3 years. At the point in our life where we are ready to move on to follow Gods call, our lemon tree is as healthy and fruitful as it has ever been.

I know that when Jesus talked about fruit, he was talking about outward signs of a true spirituality, & I don’t know, maybe I have those… I guess that’s not up to me to decide.

However, I feel the fruit in my own life, the result of His love and patience, it is not the result of anything I did, I was near dead & he pruned me back… to the world I looked like a dry stick, but his tough love and nurture have seen new life spring up in me. There have been things that have hacked off this new life – attacks and trials, but he has persisted with me… And that is why I must follow where he leads, I owe him everything, & I thank him for allowing me to be used by him.

Ironically, when we move out, my parents are planning on doing an extension that will result in the death of our tree, but we will not let that affect my little analogy.

Peter

It's not as easy as it seems

2006-06-01T13:12:00.000+10:00

We just found out that we didn't get the unit we applied for, and here I was thinking we were a normal respectable family, lots of stability, extremely reliable..........why wouldn't we get the first place we applied for??? There's nothing wrong with us!!!!!

Getting a big fat no, put me in a position of having to question my worthyness as a person, I feel pretty worthy most of the time. But the more I have been thinking and praying about it, the more I have come to see that God doesn't want us to be worthy on our own merit, our worthyness should come through him.

One other thing struck me too, here we are saying we want to live in solidarity with the people on the fringes and those struggling with lifes ups and downs - well I bet they don't get the first place they apply for either...........infact, I know it is really hard for some of these people to find a place to live. And here I am expecting it to be easy for me because I'm me!!!!!!!
Thanks God for bursting my bubble again.......and again........and again,

I know this is something I need to trust God in, he has called us to Noble park, he has been with us every step of the way with this journey, and it's time for me to let go of my need to control and plan it all and let God in.

Naomi

Finding a new home...

2006-05-31T20:08:00.000+10:00

Hello again everyone (anyone??) - long time no blog.

Yesterday was a bit of a mile stone kind of a day for me - we looked at and applied for our first rental property in Noble Park! - talk about your mixed feelings. The place that we looked at was a town house type unit that is ideally located to other UNOH members - with one living in the same block of units and another group living directly across the road. It is a smallish 3 bedroom type place... a bit rough around the edges, but then we have lived in worse.

Driving home from Noble Park to Ferntree Gully I realised how much I am going to miss this place, we have really made a home here - and some valued friends, but then Jesus never said that following him was supposed to be easy!...

On the other hand there is a real sense of excitement and anticipation for both Naomi and myself in looking forward to the move.

Anyway, we will let you know how things went with this place as soon as we know - if things go according to plan we will be moving in around 2 weeks!