Weekend of Goo

For a weekend in which I thought I would struggle for things to do, I certainly wasnt bored. Thanks to God and friends there was plenty to do.
Friday night after work I had the usual JBS action. After JBS I went over to Matt's house and we played a little Warcraft 3. Pretty cool game. I like real time strategies and this one was a good one. We played for a little while but I was aware I needed to be at the Oxford to see Pak's band 'Waik' play at 11. Got there and found another band playing. I quickly realised that the advertised time of 11 was a bit optimistic. The band came on at 11:50. Still though, there was a good chance to chat with Paul, Jon, Eltham, Doug, Kester and Sim who had all decided to come too. The band came on and they played well I thought. I'm not into metal as much as the other guys but still quite enjoyed. Also, Jon and I ran into Cath Speed who was out with some mates.
Helped Pak pack has drum kit away... (bad grammar) and got home somewhere in the order of 2:00.
Saturday was also suprising with stacks to do. Sandy invited me around for lunch and we talked about my future ministry stuff. It was quite like a Club 5 interview if you know what I mean. It was great to just hang out with him and his girls (Karen was at the Equip conference). I want to be a dad!
From Sandy's I went to Steve Balson's house. We played around with a drum machine he had just bought. It was pretty cool with lots of funky tunes it could play. You could program it to play all the drum bits for a song and then Steve would play along with it. Pretty cool.
After that I went to Mark and Genno's house. The last I had heard sport had been cancelled for winter and since Genno was keen to hang out I came over and we played backgammon. It was good to learn. She won the 3 games we played. However the second and third games were won because she got heaps of doubles in the dying rounds. I found out later that some people actually played sport. I am still unsure as to whether it is cancelled or not.
Went home and got ready for 'Unified' which was on that night. It was quite good with some encouraging talks by Richard Chin and good singing and stuff. There werent really that many people there but hopefully there will be more at the next one which is in November.
Kester rang me at the end of that to say that he had finished work and to see if I was keen to do something. I went over to his house and we played Kenshin (I think that's what it is called) and Bond whilst enjoying a couple of beers Kester had bought which came from somewhere strange (I forget where).
I got home and watched the first half of the FA Cup. Great game but was fairly tired by then (dont know why!) and so went to bed.
Sunday was good as well. Had Caesars with Jon and Tim at Towradgi beach in the sun. Had some prayer time and good hanging out. Cleaned some of the house when I got home. I still need to set aside some serious time to cleaning it properly.
JBS was ok. We looked at 1 Tim 4 this week. Church was also good with a good sermon by Rob on Isiah 44-47 (ish). It was kind of wierd sitting in the pew not having to do anything. It was the first week in ages and was thouroughly appreciated. Sat next to a new guy James who had also seen the new Star Wars so there was plenty to talk about.
Need to prepare for bible study on Tuesday and a JBS talk on Friday. Prayers for organisation and fruitful work would be appreciated!

Doormats and the Deity

I wrote this in the first couple of weeks this year. Since a few things have been raised, especially on Matt's blog, I thought I would post this and see what people thought. It is my first effort at writing something and some kind of editing could be appropriate. I thought it was ok though, since I am an engineer and I wrote it in about 2 hours.

Doormats and the Deity – A comparison of Christ’s humility and ours.
Philippians 2: 1-4.

Recently, the assistant minister of my church and I have been discussing the topic of Christ’s example of humility from Philippians 2. In our meeting up I realised that I previously had almost glazed over the first 4 verses of the chapter in excitement of getting to what Jesus has done.
Upon closer inspection, we can see that this passage is full of application. A proper understanding of Christ’s example of humility provides great benefits for us in our mandate of imitating Christ. Once we begin to put others above ourselves, we will start to have a great impact on our brothers and sisters around us, while also furthering our understanding of the great sacrifice that Christ has made for us.

1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

Are you united with Christ? Are you comforted by his love? Do you have fellowship with the Spirit? Joy or Compassion? (Paul knows that the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’) Then be to others as Christ has to you. We are called to have the mind of Christ, being one in spirit and purpose. What is our purpose? Think about what you do. Do your actions reflect this command? Is that seen to you as one in Spirit and purpose?
I have found that commonly at this point that we can fall into the trap of being double-minded. Our spirit and purpose do not have the required ‘oneness’ that is called for. We want to be as Christ has been to us, however, the sinful nature creeps in with it’s selfish desires removing our focus from others and placing it on ourselves.
Selfishness (putting your needs above the needs of others) is the opposite of humility (putting other’s needs above your own) and is warned against in a number of other places in the bible as well as in the next few verses.

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

It is important to note here that considering others better than yourself is not related to inherent worth. We are all equal in Christ and it would be contradictory to say that you should see others as better in God’s sight than yourself.
It is saying that we need to consider others needs better than ours. We are to consider others not in our estimation of them, but in our caring for them, putting their needs above our own. What are people’s needs? Think about what are the needs of those around you. Are those needs being met? How can you meet those needs?
We are also called to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Loving in tenderness and compassion will mean that we will be looking for others above ourselves. This is how Christ’s humility expressed itself.
Seeking the good of others is the cure for selfish ambition and vain conceit. We cannot do the two at the same time. Such a man is a double minded man, neither hot nor cold.

The risk of becoming a doormat
It is also important to note that this does not mean that you are to put the wants of others above your needs. For some of us there is a temptation to do what other people ask of us regardless of the cost for us. We can easily think that this is what Christ wants us to and so we can find ourselves at the mercy of people who don’t understand our needs (or their wants for that matter). An important concept in life comes in here. The concept of boundaries. We need to understand what our needs are and make sure that we don’t kill ourselves trying to satisfy the needs of others. Needs that may actually only be wants. See vs. 4. We should look to others interests, as well as our own. We have interests too and they are important.
I think it is easy for us to want the acceptance of the people we esteem. We seem to so desire the approval and attention of certain people. Often these are the ‘popular’ people, who’s friendship can somehow make us feel accepted and wanted. Often though, these people are not the people we should be spending all of our energy on. They are often quite self sufficient (hence the attraction), or have quite a few people looking after them already. It is likely that there are others who need us far more.
Our sinful nature can tempt us to lay down everything to be trampled underfoot just so we can get the favour of those we so esteem. This is not good. Not only are we not really looking for our own needs, I don’t really think we are looking for the popular people’s needs either.
In contrast, apart from straight out doing what we are supposed to, spending your time and effort on people who really need it is extremely rewarding. The people you do this with feel loved, they are encouraged, and they, in turn, appreciate your efforts far more than people who receive heaps of encouragement on a daily basis. The body of Christ is built up and that is a great thing.

So, as you go about your week, who will you be thinking about? Will you think of how to impress someone. Or, will you think of someone who might be a little left out or under cared for, and invite them over for dinner or even just call them up for a chat. It’s the little things like that, that people notice and are thankful for.

As Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 25, verse 40. 40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

The Phantom Attack of the Sith

Wednesday night (techincally Thursday morning) was the premiere of the last of the Star Wars prequel series: "Revenge of the Sith".
The day started pretty standard with work till 5 ish. At 7:30 Kester and Tim came over and we watched episode 2: Attack of the Clones. When this finished we went into town and waited in line. Overall, the lining up was ok. We were waiting for about an hour before they opened the doors. While we waited we noticed that hardly anyone had dressed up. There were a few jedi but not much apart from that. The stand out dress up was Vader. Someone went all out for a Vader costume, complete with full helmet and flourescent light red lightsaber. Pretty well done.
The movie was awesome. Of course, I wont go into detail, just to say that it was really well done and quite dark.
Had to drive Sim home since he lent has car to Amanda. Unfortunate he was on the other direction. Home and in bed by 3:00 ish. Fortunately, I had arranged to take Thursday off as annual leave. Slept in until about 12. Mmmm, so needed. Checked out the xbox demos Kester had leant me, cleaned up the house a little and did some washing up. Went to the gym and cursed the fact that it was a week since I had previously gone. I am a bit sore today.
Not much else to say. This weekend looks quiet. Going to see Pak play in 'Waik' at the Oxford tonight at 11. Apart from that I guess I will let The Force, ahem, I mean God, guide me.... :)

The Weekend Away

This weekend just gone was our 7PM congregation's weekend away. It was a great weekend with fun and shannanigans for all, including a damaged ankle for Shaggy. :(
Friday night got home from work at 5:30, packed my bag and car and headed off to the church carpark where we all met before going down to Foo's Golden Inn for some Chinese dinner goodness. After that we piled into cars and drove down to the Kaloona conference centre in Nowra.
When we got there, we were met with the bad news that the previously mentioned sleep in and late breakfast was not going to be possible due to fixed meal times at the conference centre. With this in mind, I chose to go to bed at around 12:15. However, Eltham soon came in and we chatted for 45 mins or so, then Matt and Josh came in and, suprise suprise, Josh was up for a conversation. I am not sure how long we talked but I seem to think 2:30 was an expected sleep time.
Next day was really good with a few people coming down for the day and 2 great talks from Sandy. The main focus of the talks was evangelism. The 4 talks were on the topics of: Pray (for our non-christian friends and family, for opportunities and that we would take them), Love (really love people, dont see them as 'targets' or things like that. Get involved in their lives and love them like Jesus loved the 'tax collectors and sinners'), Share (share the good news of Jesus death and Resurrection with them as opportunities come up for the time is short), Invite (invite them along to church events and evangelistic services etc.).
Free time was cool with some ultimate frisbee being played. It was a good game with good involvement by all. After that stopped, I joined the volleyball game that was going on, it was fun with Sandy playing it up and smashing the ball down in my face in a DOMINATING type way. Lots of fun. Played a little red butt with the guys and found out later that Shaggy had damaged himself during the game. After that a few of us went for a walk down along the river. Apart from not looking where I was going and stepping in a cow pat it was pretty enjoyable...
After dinner we had the standard 'compulsary fun' that goes along with camps of this nature. We played 'capture the flag' which was kind of like tip but with objectives and so on. It didnt go for too long either so we were able to have a game of 'Settlers' afterwards. Finished off the night by sitting with Johnny and chatting whilst also reading the article in 'The Australian' about Peter Jensen. It was a hatchet job and was pretty harsh. However, I couldnt help but laugh out loud when I read lines like "He is too busy saving souls instead of looking after people's real needs".
Sunday was also good with the 3rd and 4th talks by Sandy. Sunday lunch and then home time. Drove Mark and Genno home and then went home myself for about an hour before having to go back to church for JBS. Shaggy was in emergancy waiting to get his foot looked at so I had the boys to myself. We went down to the EQ and got Squishies because Tim remembered the memory verse. The study was on 'Overseers and Deacons' from 1 Timothy but I was having trouble applying it to the kids so they were pretty restless.
Church was good but by this time I was ultra tired and had to leave pretty early after it finished. Rob did the first talk in our series on Isiah. He overviewed the first 39 chapters about God's warnings to the Jews saying if they do not repent they will be punished. They did not repent and were taken into exile for 70 years. However, God brought them back and let them start again and that is kind of where Chapter 40 came in. The sermon was good but, like I said, I was tired. Thankfully, during most of the service I was round the corner behind the drum kit so no one could see me yawning.
Now I'm at work and in desperate need of sleep. I have a day of checking drawings today which is pretty dull but I did get to go on an excursion to site this morning which was fairly interesting.
All in all, not bad...

Status Report

Hmmm, what to say... It's Friday morning, the church weekend away is this weekend, and I'm procrastinating.
What has been happening lately? Well, in one way, not much (as in nothing's changed) and in another, plenty of stuff because God has blessed me with quite a full and enjoyable life.
Last week was the week of exercise. Monday - Gym, Tuesday - Rowing and push/sit ups at home (I bought a rowing machine off ebay a while ago), Wednesday - Run/Walk and push/sit ups. Thursday - Gym, Friday - Youth group (counts as exercise - all that running around with the kids), Saturday - Gym. Sunday was the appropriately named day of rest.
Friday night after JBS I cant remember what I did. Saturday night some of us went to Chilli's for dinner and then went back to my house to watch 'Cypher' which was good (seen it before but still good). Sunday night I led the service and it seemed to go quite well. The passage spoken on was the "If a man is going to build a tower, will he first not extimate the cost?" part of Luke. It also talked about the salt losing it's saltiness and I used some salt as a prop. The sermon was quite challenging and helpful for us to think about counting the cost.
This week, Monday (monday's are pretty busy these days) I went to work, then straight to Dan Pym's house to meet up one-to-one, then straight to TEAM for the bible study leading training. Then, instead of the usual gym, we had organised some nerdy role-playing at Kester's house. Got home about 11 and was insanely tired.
Tuesday was pretty standard with the third study in Revelation. We just finished the letters to the churches and are now getting on to the more 'interesting' parts. Booted everyone out early and tried to get some sleep. Slept like a rock.
Wednesday went to the uni-movies that night and we saw 'Robots' (pretty damn funny!) and 'Titan AE' which I hadnt seen in ages and found as good as ever.
Last night I went to the pub for 45 minutes with Cath and the dudes. I had a lemon lime and bitters which was about a hundred times better than the last one I had there. Went to the gym after and got home and went to bed. Mmmm sleep.
This weekend is the evening service 'getaway'. It should be good. I think a particularly good point is that we get to SLEEP IN!! this year. Breakfast is served sometime around 9:30 or so. Which is fantastic. Hopefully I wont get so tired this year.
Also, my housemate Dave went and bought a ticket for himself and I for the 12:01AM premiere or Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. So, that's pretty cool. I have also got Thurday of next week off to recover after the late night.
Stu

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Having a bad day?

As much as these sound plausible, I have my doubts!

Having a bad day? Just remember, it could be worse.....
1. The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdezoil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheersand applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.
2. A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her with an axe leaving her mentally retarded.
3. A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked himwith a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places.Until that moment he had been happily listening to his Walkman.
4. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn Germany. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.
And finally.......
5. Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. Your day's not so bad, is it.........................

Actions speak louder than words

Werent there more people in our group?.......
As I recall it, about 2 years ago, our group (by group I mean the people who do stuff on Saturday night) was much larger and the majority of the people within it were single.
Since then, as people have been 'getting together' as it were, attendance has dropped off and all of a sudden the only time you see certain people is at church on Sunday night.
Now I understand that people are busy and so on, but it seems like most single busy people still make it out and the busy 'going out with someone' or married people do not.
I know this post is generalising, but I am observing on what I think is generally going on.
What sort of message does this send to the single people? Well, the actions are saying that I will hang out with you guys while I am single, but as soon as a better offer comes along, well I'm giiiiooooonnnneeeee. By people's actions they are saying that being with someone is a preferred situation to be in.
So many times I have had a friend who I hung out with heaps. As soon as they got a girlfriend though, all of a sudden I never saw them any more. They always had time for me before, but all of a sudden I just wasnt a priority. Their actions were saying that they were happy to hang out with me while they were single, however once a 'better offer' came up, I had to go and look for some new friends.
This situation is unfortunate. From the bible we know that both singleness and marriage are equally valuable in God's sight. However, from the way Christian people (myself included - dont get me wrong, I am not thinking in any way that I am different) behave, singleness is an inferior life style. As much as people SAY that it is great to be single, their actions are often saying something different.
Last night at after supper supper the response to 'What's so good about being single?' was unanimously that you can do what you want. Unfortunately, when all your friends are spending time with their significant others, knowing that you just clocked up your 60th hour on a particular xbox game doesnt get you rejoicing that you are 'doing what you want'. Gee, let me think... play xbox, or hang out with some cool Christian girl... it's not exactly a hard decision.
Now this being said, credit where credit is due. People like Johnny and Morwenna, Mark and Geno, and Kester and Cath seem to be making genuine efforts to hang out with the remnants of the group.
But with many other people (not just at church I mean), it seems like the instant they get together with someone they just spend all of their time with each other. When you ask what so-and-so is up to tonight, often the reply is "They are over (insert boy/girlfriend's name)'s house". While they were so happy to hang out with everyone before, all of a sudden they are a ghost.
To be honest, I dont know if I would be any different. With this in mind I guess I would try to hang out with (insert future girlfriends name here) at other times and try to keep Saturday night open to still hang out with the dudes, but until I would be in that situation I cant say.
Sure this might all be hard in the light of reality, but what message do you send the single people you know?

This certainly isnt all there is to say on the topic and I understand that I have painted a fairly one-sided view of the subject, but then, that's what the 'comments' section of blogs are for arent they?

Owww, the pain

My mouth hurts. Alot!
I woke up on Wednesday morning with the right side of my mouth aching. Up the back, you know, where those dreaded 'wisdom' teeth dwell. As the pain continued to get worse, I went to the chemist and got some Nurofen Plus. They do the trick in cutting the pain level down to a dull throbbing pain, instead of a distracting one that makes me feel sick.
I have since had a look in my mouth and found that my gums on the offending side are about 5 times as big as they usually are and I am afraid of some kind of infection. Thus, another trip to the chemist provided me with some Strepsils to hopefully cut down any chance of infected mouth stuff.
Food is consumed in the left side of the mouth at the moment.
Why have I not gone to the dentist? You may ask. Well, the thing with dentists is that they cost money, lots of money. Since i am lacking in such stuff at the moment I will have to grin and bear it (like the pun!) for the moment.
For the moment, as long as i keep taking the pain killers I seem to be able to deal. However, if it gets to a 'Pain killers dont work and we will have to amputate your jaw if you dont do something' type scenario, I will attempt to borrow the money from my parents.
See how we go.
Prayers would be good too!
Stu

And then there were 10 (or 9 for the moment)

Bible study is going well.
We are now up to 10 members. However, with Morgan in Broken Hill for this school term, we are at 9. Who is in the study? You may ask.
The members are as follows: Dave, Eltham, Josh, Matt, Ross, Clint, Doug, Morgan, Jon and I.
I think it is a great group with quite a varied understanding of the bible. We are doing Revelation at the moment and are halfway through the letters to the churches. Quite good. Much of the discussion involves "How are we like the Church in....". The letters to the churches are good in that there is not a massive amount of symbolism (compared to later on) and they are hard hitting and provoke thought in the individual.
TEAM (Training in Evangelism and Ministry) is also going quite well with my turn to lead this week just gone. The passage was Colossians 2:6-23. I thought I went ok, but I had prepared enough questions for an hour and a half study, not a half hour study so we had to chop it short.
The key verse that we looked at was verses 6+7: "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Mmmm, bible goodness.....
Tonight we are up to Episode 1 in our watching (in release order) of the Star Wars movies. Although many people dislike episode 1, I think that it has good points and some parts of some stories are less good than others. That being said, I DEFINITELY still think Lucas could have done without Jarr Jarr binks. However, he seemed to think he needed a C3Po equivalent in the new movies (Good old formulaic attempts at success).
Well, i think it is time to go home.
Later.

The happenings and goings on...

It has been a great weekend and I think I need to fill you in on what has been going on.
Friday was my work's golf day. Although I had to get out of bed an hour earlier I was met at the golf course by a gucci breakfast of egg toast with a bit of bacon on the top. On top of this, the company also provided what could only be described as a trailer of drinks, for the occasion. We tee'd off and I quickly remembered that golf isnt really my game. Thankfully though, I wasnt alone and we had quite a few fun laughs going round the course playing a variant called 'ambrose' where everyone in the team hits from the best ball. A couple of guys were driving round in a cart with an esky, occasionally going back to the trailer to keep the troops liquid levels up. I dont think I have ever seen someone down a VB tinny at 7:30 in the morning before. But there is a first for everything!
After the golf there was BBQ lunch and prizes for certain things. Our group came last but that meant I got this cool golf umbrella for my trouble. I havent had an umbrella for ages and so it was very useful.
After a late night the night before, a early start, a day in the sun, stomach full of food I was ready for some sleep. I dropped the clubs I had borrowed from Sim (http://ximno.blogspot.com/) (Thanks!) back at bob and went home for a sleep. After about an hour or so, it was time to go to JBS (junior bible study - essentially youth group that I lead if you didnt know). It was back on for the first week after the school holidays and was pretty good. The kids were a bit restless during the bible study but I think the message was clear. We talked about on the road to Emmaus, how the disciples responded to Jesus and the importance of his Ressurection.
After JBS Speedy and I went to bob and hung out for a bit. They had bought off ebay one of those 'turn your TV into a projector' things and were mucking around trying to get it to work. It was pretty interesting. Essentially it is just a couple of lenses that need to be put in a box (self made) with the TV. They ended up projecting it onto the roof and we watched bits of some crap movie lying on the floor. After that we watched the first episode of 'Lost' in Simon's room. Not bad really. Need to get the whole series.
Saturday was good too. Matt's party was going to see "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" at lunchtime. The movie was quite well done with good use of current tech. I recommend a watch if you get the chance. After that we went to Matt's house, hung out and ate some food. All good. Josh and Eltham had a interesting (but fairly pointless) discussion on infant baptism and whether adult baptism requires water etc. etc. It made for interesting listening.
Saturday night was pretty quiet but quite enjoyable. Tim Speed, Mark and Genno and I went to food world and then to Tim's house for 'Red Dragon' and 'Baseketball'. We had stopped off on the way to Woollies and got some Gucci choc chip icecream to enjoy during the movie.
Sunday was good with lunch at Caesars with Tim and Jon and prep for TEAM bible study leading in the afternoon. Church was fantastic in my opinion. Sandy's sermon was great. He talked about 'Consumer Christians' (people who go to church to see what they can get out of it as opposed to being a servant). The drumming of course was fantastic (someone needs to sign that guy! :) ). After Supper Supper (ASS) was in the hall and the Baptist Church dudes joined us and that was heaps good too. Got to talk with a few people I hadnt seen in a while and it was overall a great night.
Thanks, once again, to God.