Category: <span>Christianity</span>

Published November 19, 2006 by

A short rant on swearing

fingerA short rant on swearing

I am not a fan of swearing and I am not advocating it, as a general rule I don’t swear, but annoys the cack out of me when Christians get legalistic about it.

It took some ‘missionary sheltered kid’ getting used to certain friends ‘flipping the bird’ regularly at each other – at the risk of sounding well, I don’t know what, it is purely in jest/for fun and really hurts absolutely no one.

It amused me when my parents adopted the rare ‘crap’ into their repertoire. I use ‘crap’ now and then, I don’t particularly like it when I do but it’s not really the point (and ‘crap’ is pretty tame really).

This is the point: it angers me when someone in a semi-leadership position pulls an appropriately used emphatic ‘swear’ word out of what someone has written and makes an issue of it. AND When Christians make a bigger deal out of someone dropping in an unwanted word than they do about Christians being apathetic about unwanted people (as just one fractionally cliched but very real example).

Some words offensive 30 years ago now are commonplace terms. Where can you cross the line and extend the language and take liberties? Like it or not, English – a pathetically complicated language to start with, is evolving, or… devolving. Quoting Shakespeare is now a far less effective way to put across a point, although much more beautiful.

“You taught me language, and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language!“ – William Shakespeare

Comprendo?

Christianity General Words

Published November 16, 2006 by

A Newspaper

bec sideTwo pieces of information first:

I’ve talked about Terry’s Tucker before, but in case you’ve forgotten, Church runs a free meal on Wednesday nights. They get about 80-120 people each week and it’s quite a community event.

Also on Wednesday nights, (but later on) we have our young adults homegroup generally followed by a trip to McDonalds to finish off our socialising and grab a coffee or similar.

So, last night we finished a look at John 8-9, spent some time encouraging our first two guinea pigs (Mick and Iz) and headed up to Maccas. Geoff and I somehow managed to get there a bit before everyone else, so we’d gotten something and sat down and had the paper out for the quiz. The front cover of the Macca’s courtesy paper was pretty ripped up. An old guy with three decent bags and a sleeping bag type roll was sitting opposite us. Suddenly he was over at our table and saying something and shoving the same paper (but a non ripped copy) at us and not letting us not take it. It was hard to understand him but I worked out that he was mumbling a, ‘thank you for all you do and this is the least I can give back’. I worked out straight up that he was one of the Terry’s guys. I don’t think Geoff really heard him properly, but it blew me away.

I haven’t helped that much at Terry’s, sure I’ve done one cooking week and helped Narelle out with the kids a few times, but that guy knew we were from Vineyard and wow, that feeling of being part of something that’s actually serving people effectively.

So the immediate reaction was nice, positive, humbling even. I was thinking more about it later. The old guy, who was clearly homeless gave us a paper. A paper we already had, sure it was a little nicer than ours but it didn’t belong to him, it belonged to McDonalds, he did nothing to get it except come into the store and pick it up – yet I still felt profoundly honored.

You can look at God and us and the rare occasions when we remember that we don’t really ‘own’ anything and certainly don’t deserve anything and feel pretty insignificant and dare I say insecure about offering anything at all to God. We get this idea in our heads that we can only really do so much and our thanks falls far short. Clearly we’re a human, we’ve got nothing on Him, he really doesn’t need help, what we can give is so so minimal compared to what he’s given us and as much responsibility as we may claim to have in say tithing/giving, the money really isn’t ours to start with.

It’s probably an obvious parallel, the whole incident was another small look for me into understanding worship. It was a pretty solid way to be reminded just how important it is to thank God, however we show that… and that although it sometimes seem thoroughly insignificant there’s actually a fair bit more to it than we understand.

Christianity Church General

Published November 9, 2006 by

The Happy Prince

read “Once upon a time in the town square there was a meaningful statue called the happy prince. An artist who was flying away from the onset of confusion alighted to rest on the shoulder of the happy prince. The statue spoke to the artist: ‘There are many bewildered people in this town – strip away my meaning and take it to them.’

So the artist began to strip away the meaningful features and take them to the people. ‘You must hurry,’ said the happy prince, ‘Or you will be caught up in the growing confusion.’ But the artist continued fearlessly until all that was left of the happy prince was his naked heart.

The townspeople did not understand hearts very well and were angered and embarrassed by the sight of it. And the artist fell down too exhausted to continue his flight to simplicity. The town council ordered the heart to be removed and replaced with something which could be understood. But nothing could alter the onset of confusion and meaninglessness. Nothing except a sense of mystery, which nurtured the artist and the exiled heart of the happy prince.” – Michael Leunig (The Happy Prince from Wild Figments)

john 12:1-8

-John 12:1-8

Books Christianity General Life Words

Published November 6, 2006 by

Not as Unwise

girlAn interesting thread over on Gush caught my eye last night. There has been a good change up lately of discussions, this is no exception. It is also disturbingly relevant.

James posted the following,

“Do you ever get the feeling like your so lazy that your wasting your life away? I do all the time! And its that time that you can’t get back. I meet new and interesting people that have done so much with their time, been so effective with the management and way they live that they ooze with awesomeness. I find that compared to these influential people, i pretty much suck at life. Has anyone else felt that way? That they manage to meet people who seem to be do so much, budget really well and achieve all they set their mind too? What are your suggestions and what do you do that makes you feel like your achieving and doing something with your time? Or are you like me, and manage to do little, achieve little and ultimately just stand in awe of those that do.”

I gave a 12:30am kind of response, but it has been something that I’ve been thinking about for some time.

I was reflecting on this year on the train ride home from my last exam and have realised just how much of it I haven’t used well. I am very certain that the moment I semi-consciously worked out I wasn’t going to be sticking out the course that I worked to the minimum of achieving relatively decent marks but not really caring about the actual content. Oh I’m sure there were moments of inspiration but I didn’t explore areas of interest simultaneously.

When. When. When.

It is somewhat difficult to quantify how your relationship with God is going. There is no hope in anything that I’ve learnt as much as I did last year. I was prepared for that, no surprise at all really. It’s been slow – there’s no point denying it. It’s not bad as such but I haven’t probably grown in understanding or as a person as much as I would’ve liked or even set as a good consistent standard.

Lazy. Slack. “Busy”.

This year has been positive in so many ways. It’s bought it’s own challenges but it has been an easier year. I’m not sure if it’s fair on myself to even say I ‘needed a break’ as last year was an immensely rewarding but ugly hack, but it hasn’t served as something effective.

I have every intention (and refuse to hang out with me or something if I don’t) to get away for a few days during this holiday and explore a bit more about what perhaps God wants from me this coming year and just lining up a bit more structure and fluidity into how I’m living.

I am grateful to RobbertyBob for pointing out some kind of Biblical place of where to start.

Examining my life is something I would like to do (and probably we should all do) on a fairly regular basis.

Ephesians 5:15-16 (imitating God and living a life of love)
“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

Christianity General Life

Published November 6, 2006 by

A Tree

treeI was reading from John 15 this morning about the ‘Vine and the Branches’. I have underlined in my Bible the section about remaining in God’s love (v9-11) and my eye strayed further down to where it talks about bearing fruit.

The past few time’s I’ve gone on to Gush there have been a few posts that have to some degree made my blood boil. They are not flat wrong. I am simply hesitant about the way in which they were posted (which you have to be on the look out for as a mod – and I’d probably do regardless). I so far haven’t gone about addressing them, nor am sure if it is my place to do so. Perhaps it is too much to assume a person can change if you point out a few things. I certainly haven’t gone there yet – which has been a lesson learnt over the time I’ve been involved ie: leave it when you’re tired and frustrated because it doesn’t ever end well.

Something we seem to come across a lot in Gush or even in talking about Christianity is the question, ‘does it bear good fruit?’. A funny little analogy which I presume likens us to some kind of tree. If it appears to ‘bear good fruit’ then it’s usually fine and right and dare I say it, of God.

Reading it reminded me of how we so quickly grasp at a truth that works well for a large variety of issues and don’t take the time to actually head back to look at it in it’s fullness.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.” -John 15:16-17

We can bear fruit all we like. We can approve of something that has instant ramifications, an instant, ‘this is good’ justification by looking at what’s coming of it. But what about the longer term consequences?
Does the fruit last?

You can see much more from hindsight. I enjoy and even take a bit of pride in that I find it relatively simple to see the majority of possible problems that can arise from something, but it’s probably not the very first thing I’d look at – the long term. Regardless of who we are, some of it is unconscious and some of has got to be listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying.

We can charge into our ‘crusade for the greater good of the people’ and thoroughly disregard what real implications the apparently instant fruit we see may result in.

I find it interesting that I came into this considering how I am (still yet undecided) going to deal with what this person has put forward, in that I don’t think it will bear great long term instruction and now find the finger pointing a little back at myself.

It’s got to work both ways. You cannot avoid confrontation where it is appropriate, but you do need to decide when to just let things be.

Christianity General Ministry