Month: <span>June 2005</span>

Published June 8, 2005 by

Slowing

I’m realising as I went back just before to put up backlogged stuff that tiredness seriously affects writing style. Saying thus, I think I am getting sick and have been awake purely due to caffeine today. Letting words flow well, or playing round to get stuff sounding ‘good’ has simply been low on the priority list. Journal has resulted in head dump of what went on in the day. Be it emotionally loaded, thought inspired or whatever, I frankly couldn’t care less.

Last day of semester. If only I was not working tomorrow and friday… ah that would be nice :
Good day. Apart from not being entirely with it. Actually no. Strange kind of detached me. Last day and I’d assume I’d desperately want to socialise as I wont be seeing people for 5 or so weeks, but no. I think I would have been completely content to be alone all day outside somewhere in the middle of nowhere… and that thought can be left there.

It was fun though. Did our oral presentation first, as Jess was feeling sick and wanted to go home. Went alright. “What is Success?”… went better than some of the others, wasn’t as good as some of the others. Middle of the range. Enjoyable one some of the guys did on ‘why they are women’ (Tilla saying to me, “poor boys, they’re so naive” :P). Some of the girls did a ‘why they are men’…. as Jess put it, rather ‘left wing’. Enjoyed the one on ‘choices’ and Tracey’s groups’ one on ‘depression’.

BBQ lunch put on by Rowan, Jacqui, Marko and Tilla. Hamburgers (best kind of BBQ).
Rowan was doing promo video/still stuff for YITS 2006. Some crazy group stuff of us singing, laughing being stupid etc… Apparently going to end up on the website.
As are I guess lots of the photos taken in the past few days. Many by me. Rowan shoved camera at me this week (… he didn’t know how desperate I am to get a camera at the moment haha 🙂 has been nice, kind of) SLR digital. Some good ones (photos), lots of bad ones 😛 got it taken off me lots.

…half of the yits people’s obsession with the game ‘dodo’. Which I wont explain here. But involving saying dodo until your breath runs out. Being grabbed by a group of people and held to the ground. Looks alright. But yeh, maybe not. Have watched so far. Being no big physical contact person… hating being slammed to the floor for no exceptional reason, not exactly my idea of fun.

Was rather antisocial today. Didn’t mind. Crash and burn time of the year, I think I shutdown a day too soon. Will hopefully be alive enough for work conference this weekend.

Prominent thing today. Funny how ‘hugs’ comes up, how I get the idea and I think I put forward that I don’t like them. Which yes there are times (most of them) I don’t, as mm. can find them as invading personal space. And people understand that, which is great; but other times, it would nice, very nice.
Or to or sit and be quiet with someone comfortably. Thats what I missed today. What I wanted.

Extension for Personal Creed. Thankful for sanity’s sake. Stress levels dropped hugely. Was getting photos off Rowan, but I left my usb stick there, so will probably have to wait until camp. Ah well. Scanned a few off Katie the other day. May put them somewhere. www.yearintheson.org will/should soonish be updated, no doubt with new stuff.

I need a holiday… more so, time, to read, to write, to pray, to think. To stop.

General YITS

Published June 7, 2005 by

World Without the Crap (abridged)

Tired. But oh what a good Tuesday. Goodbye tedious Tuesday forever – maybe.

Facinating Evangelism class. Best described – as I cannot be bothered completely reviewing, through some quotes I picked up. Minorly amusing looking at them because they tell little of the class. (on another note, this is what Tom wrote about Hyper Reality re: that class. How convienient!) continuing…

“Human beings are (have become) human doings” – Darren

“We are middleclass with upperclass taste.” – Mark Sayers

“There was a boxer who had a plan, then he got hit” – Mark S quoting someone

and instead of a a wwjd type thing > heaven = wwtc i.e. “World without the crap”

Much more from that class. Jesus mistaken as a gardener actually having a point > his (God’s) continuation of the Genesis project, perfect environment for humans.

So much stuff God. Strange how Evang. was the class in all of YITS that I was dreading the most – for some screwed up, naive reason and I ended up really enjoying and getting heaps out of it. This is your world, where your heart is (though I don’t know why), and ours should lie. In people. Help me God to invest in others and to do my bit to ‘grow’ the kingdom of God. Be my voice, in my words, my lifestyle, my relationships.

Old Testament test went well. Very glad that class is over.

Afternoon break, so much fun.
Photos – taking and being stupid. Laughing my guts out at what Jo said.

Accountability was good. Do regret one thing. Got talking to Katie about Laura (sister) and John (probably future brother-in-law). Talk moved to long distant relationships. Anyway, K trying to grasp how it would possibly work, which is very understandable. In my inability to find words, placed it somewhat flippantly back to being used to moving around lots (call it ‘brushing it off’ if you will). Which, yeah is true. But I could have persisted a little more and tried to explain better – in so doing, may have shared a bit more about what it is like. That it’s crap to have to do friendships that way. And to have treated her, I guess with a bit more…. hmm respect.

….more that I’m leaving unsaid. The God conversation aspect that doesn’t need to be public.

Christianity General Relationships YITS

Published June 6, 2005 by

Words (unabrided)

…actually typing this into here on the 8th but for backlog/record. I’ll date it the date I wrote it.

It is good God to enjoy you. I love seeing you drop things into place, showing where the next bit of the puzzle goes. Teaching me. Understanding how to get through to me. A fraction of surprise when in Creative Living Warwick starts talking about getting into the Bible as a spiritual discipline. There were given various hints and I intend to go back over them because there was some good stuff there, as yet I haven’t employed a particular pattern – but then that hasn’t ever seemed to work, it’s when it (reading) gets stale and tedious. The important thing being to sit down and actually get into the word in the first place. Which I have restarted and should have never stopped.

Anyway, Warwick was praying/asking us to think about which (spiritual discipline) was highlighted to us – that was pretty clear. Then in the middle of him praying I get the idea to look at Psalm 12. Figured I may as well. Ps 12:6 “And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.
I was thinking about God’s word… so yeah, is important when for instance you lack the words to pray. Really God’s words are there in your face. Why not read? Then I read that verse and it jumped out to me, clear cut reminder.

Tonight read Colossians 1:24-29. Colossians – where I re-started Bible reading for no apparent reason. Anyway, (part of) Paul’s commission is to, “present to you the word of God in it’s fullness.”

God you are remarkable, the little things so easy to brush over when you know the general gist of the chapter or book. Small reminders of how you are working and playing out a sincre reality in my life. Thank you.

General

Published June 5, 2005 by

Fool

8:03pm – Bec finds modern creed in the front of her notes. ARGH!!!

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Dear reader,
Do comment once in awhile.

General YITS

Published June 5, 2005 by

New day

Desparity… exaggeration. Tomorrow is a new day.

Church was good… no further descriptive words. After announcement and none of the expected someone get up to protest, things went on normally, a better normal (which happens every now and then). Amanda did a good job leading. Lots of focus on Jesus – sermon included (funny that for a church). It was what was needed. My mind returned to what I read last night…

Colossians 1:21-23
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Anyway, sat or rather participated with a somewhat better attitude than yesterday’s. Enough to say I even enjoyed myself – or rather, God. God reminding me of various stuff, thoughts in my head. Sense somewhat of community. Surprise surprise. Older guy… Ian Broadley (had to ask Nathania his name afterwards) started talking to us quite out of nowhere… mainly about workloads, YITS, uni etc… he asked about the Solomons, or rather the integration into the ‘Australian Way of Life’…. funny that 🙂 haven’t been asked that in a long while.

I got my act together this afternoon. Emailed Rowan for an extension for the Personal Creed. Hopefully my reasons are vaild enough. Wrote the Evangelism essay – which wasn’t as hard, once I worked out what the topic was talking about… Study for Doctrine test tonight and tomorrow morning over Subway… save the oral presentation for our long 40min Monday breaks x2. Must bring computer. Is it enough to suggest things are a little more under control.
🙂 for God.

I actually found the PE essay kind of interesting. What of more I’d like to do, when feasible. The topic being: Incarnational Mission relating to evangelism. Hopefully okay for a cram session maybe didn’t include enough practical examples. Read it if you like.

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Introduction

Incarnational Mission plays a key role in evangelism. John 1:14 (NIV), tells that, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” As Christians we are called to imitate the life of Jesus and by incorporating this action of the incarnate God into the act of mission, resulting in the concept of Incarnational Mission. This can be more clearly defined as, “The immersion in the life of Jesus rooted and growing in a particular context.” (Taylor, 2004) Simply put, Incarnational mission brings the concept of mission i.e. evangelism into the environment where it is most effective, amongst people in their typical culture.

Incarnational Mission

Mark Norridge states that, “Marshall McLuhan has famously said: “The medium is the message”, implying that the means of communicating the message contains a message itself. If this is indeed the case, then our efforts to communicate God’s love to God’s world can take no higher form than that which God Himself employed.” (Norridge, 2004)

The ‘means’ taking the form of anything from; overseas missionary work, by which the ‘missionary’ is called to, temporarily adopt or understand another culture (Hesselgrave, 1982: 131) to the implementation of activities undertaken by many emerging or organic churches in getting involved in their community and employing a lifestyle both Christian and culture specific.

By intentionally immersing yourself within a culture, be it modern, postmodern, western, international or other, you seek to meet the people on their level. Paul explains this well through his letter to the church at Corinth, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:20-22 for full text see appendix) By seeking common ground, you can be effective salt and light (Matt 5:13) where there is a genuine need in a culture that will respond far better in their apathy to ‘Christ coming to them’, than the passive act of waiting for the outside world to come to our churches.

Living out a lifestyle of this kind has implications for those involved, “Lifestyle and words go together. People notice that there is something different about us. They may put that down to our simply being nice people and Christians don’t have a monopoly on being nice! Unless we tell them why we’re different how will they know?” (Pollard, 1999: 77) So, despite Incarnational mission being, ‘to go out’ to the world in culturally appropriate ways, there needs to be words behind our motive so as to be able to adequately explain “why Christ”, and to be secure in the balance of being ‘in the world but not of the world.’ (Rom 12:2)

However, “The picture Jesus paints for his disciples is to live life with one hand clasped in the hand of God and the other reaching out to serve the needs of others.” (Posterski, 1989: 148) (Mrk 10:42-45) there are numerous examples of this both through once off youth/congregational attempts and those that seek to live Incarnational Mission daily. Be it to visit the same café a given morning of the week and seek to build relationships with the workers and other regulars, or the more drastic step of living in an unfamiliar culture and learning the ways of another.

Relationship is by far the most effective means of reaching others. Words are by no means the most effective way of communicating. Others will respond when they are both comfortable in a situation – this usually means a familiar environment, and have reached a point where they can trust the person they are listening too. A force fed measure of ‘Bible bashing’ will only make the individual on the other end resistant and will undoubtedly result in offence of an unwanted belief being shoved down their throat. By presenting a familiar lifestyle and not segregating through boundaries of foreign activity, the incarnational missionary has a far more effective means by which to live and share the truth.

Conclusion

By incorporating lifestyle into evangelistic approach, employing incarnational mission, we start placing the onus back on ourselves as Christians. Instead of our passive means of making church attractive to the world we create a situation that has relevance to outsiders. “It’s not the church that has a mission; the mission has a church.” (Morris, 1994) and as part of this church we are called to be the salt and light of Matthew 15, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus by becoming involved in the world we are called to disciple.

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Christianity Church General Life YITS