my Blue trike Life

walkabout, on a journey to a greater destination

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

with my big brother

a week in Ulladulla
i don't think i could ask for more
one big house
my brother and a friend
a lake view
right on our door step
the beach 10 minutes away
a kayak
a dinghy and motor
if heaven weren't so great
this could almost be it
i mean hey three christian brothers
God is certainly living in us
so He is here
and one of the greatest things
to be able to sit outside
as the sun goes down over the lake
and talk with my brother Lee
about God and what He is doing
in both of our lives and churches
i will always be so greatful to God for that
cause i suppose sometimes we can take
that kind of thing for granted
having your family know God
i love my brother dearly
and when i think of the pain
the hard times i have been through
with my big brother
i will never forget the day
he came home and announced
i have given my life to God
the joy that was in the house that day
and continues each time as i see him grow
is something too great to explain
so i consider my time with him
as precious

Monday, February 14, 2005

and so August it is

so the latest on me and what i am planning on doing
in the kinda near future
like next year
i emailed the people at YWAM Brisbane
and they sent me an email about all the stuff
that they do on the DTS
and answered my question
on when the Sports DTS in 2006 would be
and so August it is
my goal is to save the money needed
to pay for my studies there and
at least most of my 3 month
overseas outreach
also i want to buy a cheap laptop before i go
so i can blog of course
and email
and put photos on
from the digital camera
i hope to get
oh and i found out that
aussie students can get youth allowance
while doing a DTS
so that is an added bonus too

we should live with and love them

in response to Digger's comment on integrity and incarnational mission
i think it's where it comes down to
whether we are gonna really love people
or just trying to get one on the score board
someone in my incarnational group at liquid asked the question
if hypathetically you could somehow know
that the people you are trying to reach
would never follow Jesus
would you continue to live with and love them
or would you move on
i would agree with his answer that
we should live with and love them
our attitude should be for us to be Jesus to them
not to get them to become like us

Thursday, February 10, 2005

a taste of liquid

culture
social justice
sprirituality
a taste of liquid
in a nut shell
not quite knowing
exactly what to expect
five Ballaratians
Tab, Christop, lil Tab, Haydn and myself
ventured down to Melbourne's nothern suburb of Preston
in the evening we were joined by Trav as Haydn departed
so in the first session we had
i felt a bit out of it to say the least
see while i am consider myself to be a smart person
i am not an academic type
and don't have a great vocabulary
big words just go straight over my head
and so did the first session
thankfully at the end of that session
one of the oraganisers got up and mentioned
that this might be a problem
this kind of freed up those who were a bit intimidated maybe
like me
to pull up people using big words and get them explained
so in the next session
the workshops
which topic did i choose
incarnation
big word
good thing it was one big word i knew how to explain
pretty well anyways
we talked about how incarnation
is like how Jesus being God
became a man on this earth
and how for us
incarnation is about going into other people's worlds
and being like one of them
in order that God may reveal himself through us
that the opposite of incarnation would be to say
you come out of your world and into ours
but Jesus prayed for our protection
as we are in the world
(john 17:15)
it is kinda all about how christians
if we were doing overseas mission
would change the way we dress and behave
in order to fit in with and relate to
what ever culture you are in
so the cross cultural mission idea
needs to be also used in our native land
especially since the christian church
has created its own culture
that is very distant to any other culture
that someone in the "real world"
may be apart of
we brought up the question many times
in the incarnation workshop
of how far is too far
like when have you crossed the line of
doing something Jesus wouldn't have
how do you make sure you are
still being Jesus to them
because Jesus may have been accused of being a drunk
but he never was and said not to be
(luke 7:34 luke 21:34)
i don't know if we ever really answered this question
we didn't end up with enough time to talk about it either
the last thing we talked about with incarnation
was the question
is can everyone be incarnational in some way
i spoke up and said yes
becasue i see that God has all gifted us
with passions
with interests
with abilities
and what ever else
that we can use to be incarnational
in some form of a culture community
like God made me a bit of an athlete
and the ability to play sports
i have a passion for football
and i can relate to the people in that community
one of my friends likes model airplanes
he can relate to those in the model airplane club
i don't know much about them
the people or the planes but he does
one of my best friends Kelly
she is really good at craft
and does craft stuff
and makes jewerly from beads
she build relationships with other people
who are into bead jewerly
and craft
being Jesus to them in whatever ways she can
i belive we all have something
and some of us even have the ability
to incarnate into a totally different culture
one that you may know nothing of
like if i were to go and join
in a Muslim community

during dinner
pizza that was delivered
Tab, Christop and I
had a good chat with a guy we knew about
but didn't really know well
we invited him
well Christop did
with our agreement
to come eat dinner where we were sitting
he asked us some good questions
that definantly came from wisdom
and prayer
and we needed it
thanks man

after dinner
there were people telling their stories
of their experiments with church
church planting
incarnation
social justice
creating christian community
and emerging churches

that was just awesome
there is this couple
who are incarnating
into a new age community
very cool!
they rock!
that's risky
that's taking love to those the people

the other bit that was great was talking afterwards
meeting Digger and others
chatting with them
oh and the blogger list we put up
well Christop put it up and stuff
i just said we should have somewhere to write them
and Christop got to action
lostsa bloggers yay!

"the mighty aussies"

Scott ChipperfieldBenni McCarthy

it wasn't a convinsive start for the Aussies
with a good goal from South African Benni McCarthy
coming in the first 15 minutes
the Aussies playing South Africa
in their homeland in Durban
would have thought they had the game
at the half time interval
but the Aussies came back fighting
as all great Aussies do
creating chances
and then finally
Scotty Chipperfield
with a strike from outside the penalty area
put Australia back in the game
in the 71st minute
and with a loud shout i rose from my bean bag
socceroos beanie on my head
pumping my fist in the air
i love this game
i love this country
and although i don't love getting up at 4:45 am
to be ready for the start
it is always worth it
and to hear the FC Porto star
Benni McCarthy call our team
"the mighty Aussies"
i think we could get used to that
end score 1-1
i will post about my day at
a taste of liquid
after my nap
cause i only got 4 hours sleep
and cause i can

Sunday, February 06, 2005

into those hard and dark places


i was a bit upset last night
over a few things
sat in my blue beanbag
just thinking about stuff
for about an hour or so
i eventually got up and had some dinner
then i decided as i was alone at home
to watch a movie
from my housemate Jame's collection
i chose Lord Of The Rings - The Return of the King
on christmas day i had a discussion
with my older brother and younger sister
about wether the series of movies
from a "christian" perspective
were "good" or not
meaning whether we were
giving satan a way into our minds
(generally a bad thing if u are a christian)
or not
my brother with the argument
"everything has a good or bad spirit behind it"
decided that they were bad
he has never seen any of them i am pretty sure
and was against them from the beginning
my lil siter agreed with him that they were "bad"
(she had watched one or two)
mainly due to the elves and wizards
and other creatures in the movie who
use some sort of supernatural power
normally with this i would tend to agree
many movies with characters like this
i will not watch or may watch once only
or will not watch certain parts
while the evil characters in The Lord Of The Rings
are quite spirit like as well as beast like
i some how seem to be able to watch these movies
and not feel like i am going against "my" convictions
in fact after watching The Return of the King last night
i was filled with hope not despair
peace and not anger
know i know it is a parable for anything
but to me
The Lord Of The Rings is a story of hope
that one of the least of this world
would be able to accomplish the greatest task ever
this story gives me hope
that through all of the hardest times
if i keep perseveering
i will be able to accomplish God's task for me
and that the church
through all of the bad and hard times
will complete its task
but we need to work together
and we need to be following Jesus
into those hard and dark places

Thursday, February 03, 2005

personality2

i did two different tests
the one below is the one i did first
and is a shorter jung test
this one is a longer jung and enneagram test

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.
Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com




Enneagram Test Results
Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||| 73%
Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||| 53%
Type 3 Image Awareness |||||||||||||| 53%
Type 4 Sensitivity |||||| 26%
Type 5 Detachment |||| 20%
Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||||| 66%
Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||||||| 66%
Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||||||| 63%
Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||| 53%
Your main type is 1
Your variant is social
Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

personality

i am always a bit cautios
of how acurate these tests are
but they are pretty close

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.
Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs)

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

my new mission field

Futsalroos
well this year
i am gonna get into futsal
which is five-a-side version of football
normally played inside on a basketball sized court
i used to be really involved in football
played from when i was knee high till i was 16yrs old
i was pretty good too
but my church life kinda got in the way of all that
this marginalised community in Australia is my new target
my new mission field
God gave me the ability
the heritage
and the passion
now i gotta go use it for him
thats really serving God
and thats where i want to be
thats partly why i want to go do the Sports DTS
i would love to plant a missional church community
either as or in a football club
depending on how that would work
i think i'd love to coach a junior side
as well as play in a senior side
what club and where
i dunno that yet
definantly something i will get into post YWAM though

i work at Safeway

so what about last year?
well my third year in Ballarat
i decided to go study I.T. at TAFE
i was back in the real world
with real people
i made friends with a guy called Ash
although he didn't talk much
and we had limited time
we both actually did work in class
and didn't end up with much time to chat before and after
so we became friends
but it was kinda just an at TAFE thing
there were two other guys
Adam and Josh
i used to hang out with and talk to them a little
mainly between classes
i really found it hard to connect with these guys
and they're social life and mine were pretty different
i hung out with my christian friends
being "good" christians
and they went out clubbing with theirs friends
or sitting at home sinking a few beers
passing the time away
i dunno how to change that
oh and i no longer go to TAFE so lost connection thier too
but the other new thing that happened last year
i got a job!!!
i work at Safeway
and so now i have friends
there are two main ones Matt and Cam (girl Cam)
we all work dairy on the weekend
am yet to really do anything outside of work with them
but Matty did come around a week and a bit ago now
he bought my old mobile off me
the good thing about work is that in the culture there
there is a little time to chat when working
and then there is our hour long lunch break
lunch is a great time to get to know them
and so i am working on those friendships at the moment
looking for opportunities to catch people outside of work hours