Say "Thank You"

I am admit saying thanks to God is something I often forget.

Way back when on the 31st of May I blogged about 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18. Which is ...

16Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances,
for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Back then I focused on verse 16: Be joyful always. Well Dim's sermon on Sunday night mentioned that passage and got me thinking again but now I'm thinking about verse 17: pray continually.

In my mind praying continually is praying about everything, my reactions and thoughts as well as my struggles. And I definitely should be praying and thanking God when my prayers are answered. (Whether they're answered as I want them to be or not.) But most of the time I forget.

An example of this happened the other day. Two people I care about have been having a hard time at work and nothing seems to be going right for them. One of them came in to our office and told us some really bad news. We sat there feeling helpless and hoping we could magically think of a solution for them. It looked like all their hard work was wasted.

So what did I do? I prayed, the best (and only) thing I knew to do. (This in itself is pretty good because I often turn to God last when I feel like I have no control but I've been growing into going to God first.) I prayed a 'God please help them, we're feeling helpless but I want things to go better for them after all the stuff they've worked through recently' prayer.

About 1 1/2 - 2 hours later good news came through and things had worked themselves out. Actually God had working things out! But did I think of thanking Him? Not until at least a day later. At least I remembered but really in this case is better late than never?

So, challenge to myself for the next couple of weeks (yes, another one): Pray continually, about everything. I'm going to work towards this by having 'prayer triggers'. Traffic lights: I will pray when I'm stopped at a red traffic light (and when I go through a green one?). Make more of an effort to pray first thing in the morning when I'm incoherent (I'm not a morning person!) and last thing before bed. Redouble my efforts to say grace before a meal instead of forgetting when I'm not eating with my family. Hmm... what other ones? Any suggestions? I'll think of some more an add them.

So, praying continually. Especially prayers of thanks. Here goes!

Heavenly Father ...

Performing?

This morning I received the e-newsletter from www.worshiptogether.com and it had a link to an article written by Tim Hughes on the Attitude of the Worshipper.

I've talked about what I see as worship before and this article ties in to that a bit. It talks about our attitudes during 'worship' (being the singing and dancing and praising during a church service in this context). This is something else I'm mindful of.

I'm a member of the taskgroup that plans our monthly 'youth services'. Those Sunday afternoons/evening I'm running around doing 101 things. If people want to speak to me about something, that is not the time to do it! In the business of getting things done I often find myself worried about how things are going and what needs to be done during the service and not focusing on God's message.

We have a devotional/prayer time beforehand and a run through of the service. During that time and in that time I often pray about the service being for God and not a performance that we're in. In that moment I'm completely genuine and I really want that. But then as soon as that's time is over that resolution is forgotten.

I played the keyboard for the most recent service. That's not something I do unless the band is absolutely desperate because no one else is available. This is because I self-taught myself a fair bit of how to play the piano and I don't have the finesse that other people have. Mostly I play at home for me (and God). So I felt a lot of pressure last service to 'perform' so I don't think my heart was very focused on God during that time.

So, that is (another) challenge for me to think about.

Something's Happening

I got this email yesterday and thought it was worth sharing.

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
Australians speaking out www.makepovertyhistory.com.au

Dear Kim

Thanks for your campaigning efforts. To all who hit the streets for campaigning events in the lead-up to the UN World Summit in New York, who wore a white band, who wrote to their MP or the Prime Minister... our combined actions have made an impact! The PM has just announced that Australia's aid budget will increase to $4 billion by 2010 (from its current level of about $2.5 billion. This will lift our aid budget from 28c in every $100 of national wealth today to around 36c in every $100 of national wealth by 2010. Your support, and that of thousands of other Australians, helped create this change.

Please take the opportunity to thank the PM for this very positive step...
... but remind him that it is only the first step. The UN World Summit urged rich countries like Australia to further increase aid spending towards the target of 70c in every $100 of national wealth in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Australia can build on this planned increase, and go on to do even more.

We also need to ensure that this new aid money is focused on tackling poverty. In Asia and the Pacific, 418 million people lack sustainable access to safe drinking water and over 1 billion do not have basic sanitation. This aid increase will allow Australia to commit more funds to MDG priorities such as water and sanitation, health and education. If this is done, it will have an enormous impact in our region, in lives saved, improved health, and transformed communities.

Here are some actions you can take that will build on the gains we have already made:
1. Give your white band to a friend or stranger and get another one for yourself
2. Write a letter to the editor or call talkback radio to express support for the increase in aid and encourage our PM to do more
3. Plan to wear your white band on December 10, when the World Trade Organisation meets in Hong Kong, and call for trade justice
4. Buy some fairly traded tea, coffee or chocolate from Oxfam, People For Fair Trade or Tradewinds
5. Forward this email to someone else so they can add their voice to the call to Make Poverty History

In further news from the UN World Summit:
For the first time, leaders accepted that they have a collective duty to prevent genocide, war crimes and mass human rights abuses like those that occurred in Rwanda, Sudan and the Balkans.
Sadly, no new action was taken towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and halving global poverty by 2015. Further steps to increase poverty-focused aid, cancel debt and achieve trade justice are needed.

I kinda cheated in copying this here but I think it's important that people know the effects of their actions. If we didn't know about this step then it would be easy to think nothing is happening and that all the effort and prayers that people have been contributing are not doing anything. Every little bit helps but there's still a way to go, so lets keep acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.

Uncluttered Faith: Christianity in 25 words or less

What is your simplest most basic definition of Christianity? Whenever I try and explain to someone (or myself) the most important 'can't do without' facts of my beliefs I always feel like I've included too much or too little.

Can the vital information of Christianity be conveyed in 25 words or less and people understand that and be interested in that?

I'm reading Mark: Eyewitness by Ellen Gunderson Traylor at the moment. What does this have to do with the basics of Christianity? Well, the book is based around the life of the gospel writer Mark. (At least I assume it's that Mark - I haven't read that far yet!) As it's fiction I'm obviously reading it bearing in mind that it's an interpretation of Jesus' death and the early church and not strictly true. But there have been a couple of excerpts that have made me think.

The first one is the 'birth of the new church' just after the evening of the first Pentecost. The disciples and other followers of Jesus are celebrating and full of hope for the future and their message.

It was an infant faith, not catechized, not dogmatized or even sealed in its own Scripture. Believers, full of childlike spontaneity, were speaking a very simple gospel from newborn hearts.
Largely because it was so uncluttered, their message would catch on quickly, spreading like fire ... Unsullied by confusion, preconception, or prejudice, it was, for now, spoken with one spirit, though told by many tongues. [Page 157.]

I'm not suggesting that dogma and scripture etc. are bad but I often find things very cluttered. I think that's why I identified with this passage. In trying to take it back to basics I struggle to remove some of this clutter because it all seems so important to me. So how do I get back to the basics? What are the absolute basics?

Another passage that make me think twice is this one:

"This is a glorious - the birth of Christ's church!" Peter declared
... "Church...," he marveled. It was a Greek word, implying an 'assembly' or 'body of citizens' a term [his father] had often used of senators and provincial delegates when they gathered ...

How has the changed for us today? When I say church I can mean any number of things and I don't think I've heard the word used in a context that wasn't a religious one. I talk of my congregation as 'church'. The building where we gather, the denomination we are part of and Christianity in general are all things that I've called 'the church' at one time or another.

So if you have 25 words to explain 'Christianity' and what you believe what would you say? If you have another 25 words to explain 'Church' what would you say?

I can explain both these terms to myself and others, and discuss them but to define them in only 25 words? And include the inspiring, wonderful, loving aspects to my beliefs, not just the 'Christianity is the following of Jesus Christ' dry definition.

Squirming in my pew

You know that feeling when the speaker is talking straight to you and you get it. It makes sense, it inspires and it is exactly what you needed to hear?
And then there's that feeling when the speaker is talking straight to you and you would rather not get it. It makes sense but it makes you ashamed and embarrassed and it's exactly what you needed to hear?

fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you want to look at it) that happened to me yesterday.

Farmers preached on forgiveness and if he'd preached that sermon three weeks ago I wouldn't be speaking to him today! (Maybe that's a good thing?!) It was too 'not what I wanted to hear but what I needed to hear'. I didn't want to hear about forgiveness because in these last three weeks I've been challenged to forgive someone and accept that I was in the wrong and need/ed forgiveness from a friend.

Late last year one of my closest friends and I had a falling out. We were pretty close. We saw each other most days in the week, including a fortnightly Accountability and Prayer Time (AAPT) together. Then she made a decision that hurt me and therefore I was angry and tried to push her out of my life.

(Incidentally isn't it interesting how hurt can be mistaken for or can become anger?)

I was hurt and I was scared she would hurt me again and because that was my motivation I was pretty mean. I saw myself as just trying to keep her out of my life and protect myself but I was actually being pretty horrible.

Slowly but surely I began to realise what I was feeling and that, if nothing else, I did need to talk to her, sort it out and ask for forgiveness. Bit by bit it snuck up on me until I couldn't tell myself that I didn't need to deal with it anymore. So about 3 weeks ago we met together, talked about how we were feeling and worked things out.

At that point I thought it was pretty settled. We both knew where we stood and where we were going from that point. However Farmer's sermon on Sunday made me reassess that. I was sitting in the pew listening, noting down the 'important bits' and squirming. It didn't sit well with me. During that sermon and since then I've been asking myself if I'd really put things aside if I'm still angry at times? If I still have to shake the thoughts of 'being wronged' from my head, have I really reconciled what I need to?

I don't expect to forget what had happened and that everything would go back to how it was. I don't want it to go back to how it used to be. I'm a different person now (as, I'm sure, she is). But I did expect to be able to stop dwelling on it and to have a feeling of 'inner peace'.

So all that comes from me. While I still need to work on and maintain the relationship with my friend the majority of it are issues I need to work through. I need to forgive her decision. By that I'm not saying whether it was a good or bad decision for her just that I need to come to peace with that decision. I also need to forgive myself for the hurt I caused her (and as was pointed out to me today, the other people that on occasions got caught in the cross fire). Now I realise how hurtful I was I find that harder to do. I'll work it out though, with a lot of prayer.

So, prayer would be appreciated for this next step and insight on how to forgive when you're still hurting. (Yes, that fateful decision last year still hurts at times.) Or insight in how to forgive in any case!

In a conversation today I was recommended this website by Farmers. (Thanks!) He used a quote from Rev. Dr. Douglas K. Showalter that's found on this site in his sermon. I haven't really been able to spend a lot of time on it yet but from what I have seen (and heard) there is some interesting insight there.

Thanks for reading this - it's pretty heavy going but very good for me to think through and write out here.

You know the really funny thing about God getting the message through? I had to sit through this same sermon twice on Sunday because I attended both morning services. If the first time was enough the second was! :)

You are Beautiful

I was reminded that I hadn't talked about my weekend. It was a great weekend and a thought provoking one so I thought I would make the effort to write something about it.

What made it so great was "Y". An event held at a church Glen Waverley. Running Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights and Saturday afternoon it was free and open to youth from everywhere. At Y were Soulframe a favourite band of mine from Queensland and Julian Hamilton a fantastic speaker from Ireland who I have heard at two NCYC conferences, 2001 and 2003. So I went along to Friday and Sunday nights' activities.

Friday night was good but I felt old. At the tender age of 21 that's a big strange! It was a 'teeny bopper' event for kids from the local high schools. "Jules" and Soulframe had been to the local school to promote the event and those kids had all come on Friday night. Despite feeling old and like youth group leaders who were missing their youth the message was not restricted to under 18s :-) Both "Jules" and Soulframe spoke/sang about God's love and how amazing and accepting that is.

Saturday I went shopping for a Father's Day present for my dad and very successfully resisted the temptation to buy anything more. Then in the evening I went to see Wedding Crashers with Meredith. We had fun and a good catch up. Nothing deep to report there it was just good to 'make time' for someone I hadn't really seen in awhile.

Sunday night I was back at Y again. This time we had more of a service or 'worship' time (knowing how much I hate limiting the term worship to church services) as opposed to the more concert like atmosphere on Friday night. The format was the same and the songs were very similar but the feeling was different and the people were different - more youth groups with some older youth there too.

Soulframe played basically the same songs on each night. T.O.S. (i.e. The Other Side), I Will Walk 500 Miles (by the Proclaimers), a hymn (How Great Thou Art and I Exalt Thee on Sunday and I can't remember which one on Friday night), Tonight and of course Beautiful, Mary and OK (three of their more popular songs).

The songs are part of what made it special for me. They were meaningful and special to my friends who were in a Bible Study with Soulframe and now they have become special for me too. OK is more of a fun one. It has a good message which we used in reference to the whole mountain-top experience of a conference like NCYC.

I wont come down
Because there's strength in what I've found
And the world may pass away
Coz I know
It's gonna be OK

Except we changed it to I will come down. They changed it - not us. To say that the high of NCYC wont always last. Anyway that songs has daggy actions that apparently some girls made up at one of their gigs. It's just a fun thing and gets everyone forgetting their dignity and how they're trying to be cool. And watching them being an idiot is great (as well as being an idiot yourself!). Kinda similar to Paul Colman's All U Need actions. Also OK is very catchy so it becomes stuck in your head for a week or so afterwards!

Mary is written watching the crucifixion of Christ from his mother's eyes. It's a sad reflective song. The guys play it while a clip from The Passion is playing. It makes such a amazing effect singing this sad song and actually seeing this horrible thing that we've heard so much about. Strangely it's still beautiful. It makes me feel loved in that God would do that and go through that for me.

The third song is Beautiful. I know Dim really connected with this at NCYC and since I've been listening to it and hearing it live it's really starting to be special to me too. It seems to me to be written for teenage girls but still applicable to for anyone. It's talks about how you are beautiful because you were loved and created by the Creator. Not because you wear the right things have the right make-up on or the latest hairstyle. This is something I need to remind myself of because I tend to care too much about what others think of me. I get a lot of my value from people thinking good things of me which has gotten me into some unhealthy places. Fortunately I'm a lot better at self-worth than I was a couple of years ago but the fact that I am beautiful despite carring a few too many kilos etc. etc. etc. That's something I need to remember everyday and think everyone needs to feel that about themselves too.

So, after Y we (that is the Image group for 18s-25s from my church) went to Airstream and had some nice pizzas. Then we went back to the church. A few people went home but 4 of us went to the Pancake parlor and had dessert and a good talk until 12:30. Getting up the next morning wasn't fun but discussing a myriad of subjects over pancakes was great.

Here are some lyric from Beautiful for you to think about:

you feel your hands are tied
with the binds of the marketing machine
you feel so immature and naive everyday
and everybody's saying
it's just the way things are done around here
and if you don't like it you'll just have to change

but you feel like
you still need 'time to play'
to forget the adult world where they wont say
be yourself
be beautiful

I wanna go
with the soul
with the colour of innocence
just to be
beautiful

you wanted to find you heart in this
to be yourself and express
to say what you want to say, and dress how you wanna dress
but everybody's saying that
you've got to show just a little more skin
if you wanna catch their eye and be feminine

but you feel like
you want room to breathe
to forget the exploitation where they can't see
to be yourself
is beautiful

I wanna go
with the soul
with the colour of innocence
just to be
beautiful

for the sake of being beautiful

not to sell or gain
not to manipulate
just to be
beautiful

you wanted to show your heart in this
and it's beautiful

Disclaimer: The lyrics I've quoted are from two songs by Soulframe, Ok and Beautiful.

Adulthood?

This is my twenty-first post! *And the crowd goes wild!* (If there was a crowd to go wild.)

So what does 21 posts mean in the world of blogging? Is it some kind of blogging adulthood? Do I now get a key to blogdom? Is it just another milestone for me? Like when I was excited that I had ten blogs? Or does it just mean I have wasted a lot of hours on this site?! How many questions can I ask in a row before enough is enough?

Well, it definitely doesn't mean I've wasted too much time on this site because I have enjoyed 'meeting' some new people and reading their viewpoints and it's got me thinking things through.

It's been a good chance for me to think about why I believe what I do. This is a challenge I think everyone should take up whether they are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist whatever. If we don't assess what we believe in and understand why we believe it then what are we putting our faith and trust into? Asses things, think about them. Do they work for you? What do other people have to say? Their views are valid opinions, can we learn from them? Do we agree with them? Why/why not?

I used to hate that "why/why not" at the end of questions in school (primary school). It was too much extra thought! But I have since seen the value of investigating and exploring the questions we're asked. Thankfully I realized this a awhile ago and have had fun with that especially here on my blog.

I hope some of the things I've said have got you thinking and that you have and will continue to enjoy these trains of thought.

You know what I think 21 posts mean? ... Absolutely nothing! :-)

Young Christian v "Grey" Christian

There was a congregational meeting at my church last night. Cue big groan and rolling of eyes.

I hate congregational meetings. I know, I know. I shouldn't use 'hate'. "You don't hate the person you hate the action." It's not a positive emotion. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." (As Yoda would say.) But when I come out of a congregational meeting in which a 'contentious issue' has been discussed and people have argued back and forth I am so frustrated. And it's not just being a sore loser because last night the motion I was supporting was passed and I'm still feeling frustrated. In my time as a confirmed member of the church (baptized etc. however you determine official membership) there have been two major issues that have sparked this kind of meeting. The second of which was last night. So, realistically we're very lucky that in 6 or so years there has only been two issues and the second one at least was reconciled very quickly. However these two (now infamous issues) at some stages began to get bitchy.

It makes me angry. What got people riled up what that at the ‘really breaking it down crux of the issue’ it began with money. Yes, as a church we need to look after our finances as much as anyone. But why is it the people are so passionate only about money. And why do these meetings degenerate? I was furious at some of the things being said. And how they were said.

We were sitting there acting like politicians in Questions Time. Clapping good points and not quite trying to 'beat' the person before. Okay, we weren't as bad as that but I still ask: "Where is God's love in that?"

No, everyone doesn't always have to agree. Last night we weren't really in the position to say "you have your opinion, I'll have mine" because we needed to make a decision. And it started to become 'us verses them' or 'young verses old'. Or as they put it "grey haired". J That's a lot of what frustrated me and continues to do that. I've been told to come to congregational meetings so that 'we' can get something through that's a youth thing. Like the data projector. A kind of 'we need to band together to beat "the oldies"' attitude. I think it's wrong.

We have mentor programs matching older members with younger members of the congregation. We talk about understanding across the generations but when it comes to matters like this all of that is out the window. Unfortunately I include myself in this as I fall into that trap all too often.

How do we stop that division and become one multi-aged group? How do we disagree in a church meeting environment and still maintain our Christian “love thy neighbour” attitude?

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering"