In the Beginning!
Jan 1, 2010 Blog
If you had’ve told me 12 months ago that i would one day be sitting on a balcony in North Croydon, Victoria about to start a new job as a youth leader at a church in a place i’ve never heard of….well….i would have kicked you right in the shins and told you to stop blaspheming (seriously…right in the shins)….and yet…within 6 months i find myself doing just that. Sometimes you just have to say “What the?”
It’s been just over a week since we left everything in Bundaberg…house//job//car//lives//church//friends //family//networks//comfort and while my selfish nature looks back to times of comfort my spirit leaps forward with anticipation and excitement for the coming year. We believe more than anything that this is the direction God is calling us and can’t wait to get to know our new family at Eastside Church. I almost feel like an adopted child waiting eagerly to meet his new family!!
So what have we learned already? Well we arrived at 6pm tonight to find that there is no power for 3 days, it’s a humbling experience to go back to basics and notice how much we take for granted. No power for lights//phone chargers//cooking//fridge… Makes you truly count your blessings.
I’m looking forward to an amazing year at Eastside and can’t wait to unpack what God has already lined up an predestined for us. Look out Melbourne in twenty10!
Be Blessed
Would you tell me?
Aug 19, 2009 Blog
So last week i was away at a 4 day intensive as part of my Masters in Leadership degree im currently undertaking through Alphacrucis College. What a week!! I only have a finite amount of brain space and memory so as i was learning more about Identifying and Developing leaders i was pretty much pushing out all other beautiful memories at the same time..i had to come home and go through my photo album from my wedding day so i could remember what it was like….but then i lost all of the information from the first day of my intensive…oh well!
Not sure why i was going down that road now…
Oh yeah…One of the cool things about the intensives, is lunchtime (how intelligent do i sound right now). Every day we were exposed to a gourmet food substance of some sort…mostly the food was green…not in a moldy kind of way…but a…ummmm…healthy kind?? So i get home from one of my intensives and i walk through the whole hotel…speak to the guy at reception to tell him i didnt get my breakfast i ordered and finally head back to my room to relax. Its always an awkward feeling when you look in the mirror and see what i saw. A giant piece of that “healthy stuff” stuck right between my front teeth…but it was night time….and i ate that food at lunch time??? I had gone through half a day with green food in my teeth and nobody said a word!! Argh!!!!!
What’s the moral to this story you ask? Friend’s tell people if there is something going on that isn’t normal. If there is something going on in a friends life that isn’t right are you willing to tell them? It may risk embarrassing the person in front of you, but you can save them from humiliation in front of other people. Have you surrounded yourself with people who are willing to challenge you when it comes to the way you live or are they happy to have you walking around with ‘food in your teeth’? Don’t be the person who points out food in everyone else’s teeth to other people because chances are there is some in yours too! Develop relationships that are focused on honesty, transparency and accountability. It might hurt to be told sometimes, but in the long run it will save you from utter humiliation!
Please tell me if i have food in my teeth!
SH
A Jesus Pool Party!
Aug 7, 2009 Blog
It took everything inside me this morning to get out of bed to read and spend time in the word. I am not a morning person, but i am challenged and committed that the first portion of my day belongs to God. Im weird! As i was lying in bed, my brain was arguing with my heart- my spirit was at war with my flesh- and my eyes were fighting to stay open- nonetheless, i made it to my feet, made myself a cup of English Breakfast and dived in head first- Man am i glad i did!
This morning i was reading through John 5:1-9 (NIV) and God brought the passage alive! Here are some of the key thoughts:
1. Wounded people attract wounded people- 1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed
2. Time is no limit for Jesus- 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
3. The people we spend time with set the atmosphere for our life- 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time
4. Do you want to get well? ‘Well’ means a dramatic transformation in your life- he asked him, “Do you want to get well?
5. No more excuses- 7″Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred
6. Who will help you into the pool? Who is with you?- 7While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
7. Jesus needs only to speak- 8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
Is Hitler in Hell?
Aug 6, 2009 Blog
Good Question?
So i was watching a snippet from a video on YouTube this afternoon by Erwin McManus on Hell. It was fascinating and frustrating to read through the comments people had made about the video and the topic of hell. As i was reading through the comments i came across a line from a person that caught my eye in amongst a bunch of other stuff. Now i know this person may not have meant it this way, but the way it came across was very confronting for me. The person was commenting about how God isn’t just for sending people to Hell etc (not going down that track at the moment), then they made a comment “not even Hitler deserves Hell”. From what i was reading, my initial response was that ‘the person who was writing this is just assuming that Hitler is in Hell’. The truth is, for many people, this statement doesn’t sound out of place at all. I mean, imagine the worst person you can think of? Could you imagine them in Heaven after what they have done?
This post isn’t about Hell itself, but rather that statement. See there are two major pitfalls that we can fall into when we start to assume whether somebody is in Heaven or Hell. I have been asked a number of times by people close to a person who has died whether or not that person is in Heaven or Hell. Here are the pitfalls:
1. When we assume a person is in Heaven or Hell, we make ourselves God- 37“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven- Luke 6:37 (NIV)
It is God who judges, not us. We have no place to say whether or not a person is in Heaven or Hell. When we elevate ourselves to the position of God- we become judge, and when we become judge, we too will be judged. That is a scary place to be in. Often when we fall into this pitfall because we base out judgements on what we have seen or heard, and again that is a scary place to be in because while “man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” 1 Sam 16:7 (NIV).
2. When we assume a person is in Heaven or Hell, we question God’s mercy- There is no one righteous, not even one- Romans 3:10 (NIV)
The second pitfall we can be ensnared by is to limit God’s mercy. The truth is, there is nobody righteous but God. When we begin to limit who it is that God is able to forgive, we begin to put sin in categories. Usually those categories are based on where we are at. ‘Well anybody who is worse than me, isn’t as righteous as me’. Sin is Sin- a murderer is no less deserving of God’s grace than a liar. That person sitting in your church who has recently got out of jail or struggling with an addiction, is no less deserving to be coming into the presence of God as a child of the King than the rich business person on the other side or even the pastor!
My prayer is that i would never be a person who assumes that God’s grace and mercy is not enough to cover every person. The truth of it all is that none of us are deserving of his love and that is why Romans 5:8 is so remarkable “8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. How amazing that God’s grace is enough even for a guy like me.
Apologies for people reading this who thought i was going to tell you whether Hitler is in Hell. That is not for me to say!
SH