Published May 24, 2008 by

Changes

I haven’t mentioned them previously due to either uncertainty or confidentiality but there have been some pretty significant changes going on.

In two weeks Geoff finishes up where he’s worked for the last three years for a new job – closer to what he originally wanted to do with IT. It’s been a slow and interesting haul working out what was happening and if he/we’d actually head down that route.

And last night Geoff and I let the youth kids know that we’d be finishing up at the end of this term. This too has been a long and interesting journey. Because to be utterly honest we don’t want to be finishing up.

I’m really not sure about the whole often held idea that God has a set plan laid out for our lives, but regardless I think this is what we need to be doing, and we’ve kind of been told. We have no idea what’s next. In some way it’s a part of establishing what it means to be a Christian and not to be a part of such an obvious ‘ministry’ (Gosh I’m starting to really hate that word). It’s a sucky thing to be leaving youth behind, it will be interesting to see what’s ahead, but for now, I’d rather be back hanging out with 14 year olds. What lies ahead for the youth at YVV is also in question, please be praying for that, there’s no smackingly clear direction or person.

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Christianity Church God plans youth

Published May 24, 2008 by

Read it before

Oh the profundity.

I have realised, or rather decided that sometimes I read too many theological books and not enough of the Bible. I think I do this a lot, not just in this particular. I get so wrapped up in the extremities that I kind of leave out the true guts.

Today I read some of Acts, Fetus and Agrippa and Paul and I could see it. I hope the reason I liked it so much wasn’t only because I hadn’t heard it in a long time.

With only a few exceptions I steer clear from reading books over if I can remember them. There is an element of the forgetting that allows some of the excitement to creep back in and enough for me to revel in the satisfaction of an ending. The same for movies.

Yes the Bible’s a reasonably big book, the copy of the Pijin Bible that I got to hold today is a really big book. There’s a lot in there.

That big lot of book gets beautifully shoved around and sliced down to Sunday-school edible bites and somehow the rest of it wanders off. Then there’s the bits I ignore and the same that are taken up gleefully by others as the one and only.

I think we treat the Bible as a bit of a pick and mix package. I used to (and sometimes still do) open at random to see what kind of answer/encouragement/ephiphany ensues. What crap.

I’d like to learn the Bible again as a story. It is one after all. Who the hell cheats and reads the middle of the novel without giving the honor of reading the rest.

I don’t think that we always need to start from Genesis and read through to Revelation, but it’s a sad old day when we steal our Psalm of choice and ignore the rest.

It feels like I’m a 14 year old learning this over again. Perhaps a random verse now and then is better than nothing but I’m really not so sure.

But then hey, I haven’t even really been doing the one verse thing, so who am I to talk. I love it, but it’s so terribly difficult.

Oh to blow all my spoon fed understanding out the window and to be able to think free from preconceptions. I am jealous of people who come from no church background and get to read the Bible with an open mind.

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