tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138688282024-03-14T12:32:15.811+13:00Kiwi Chroniclesmissionary musings from new zealandKiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.comBlogger332125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-2026794825618025452014-08-08T17:57:00.001+12:002014-08-08T17:57:33.510+12:00Preaching When you know it'll hurt…<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What to do when the text before you will wound the people who will sit and stand to listen to you? You know it will provoke pain in those of tender consciences...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Guest posting over at Kiwimade preaching blog. <a href="http://kiwimadepreaching.com/2014/08/preaching-when-you-know-itll-hurt-andy-shudall/" target="_blank">Click here to read the full post.</a></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-75197109084994266292014-06-09T11:31:00.001+12:002014-06-09T12:02:38.588+12:00Born Again for good...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Buzzfeed, Upworthy and Facebook combine to parade a myriad of videos and articles for my perusal each day. I click very few. I click even fewer of the "This [person] did [this] and you will be [shocked/appalled/moved] by what happened next..." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A week of so ago I began to see the graphic below A LOT on my Facebook timeline. Friends who do, have and haven't attended church posting this repeatedly. It intrigued me enough to read it and it's had me thinking since.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/why-i-miss-being-a-born-again-christian" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-05/enhanced/webdr02/21/10/original-8330-1400682625-13.jpg" height="310" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"I spent my teen and college years deep in a conservative Bible bubble.<br />Here’s how abandoning my beliefs became the best thing I might always regret." <br /><i>Click the pic to read the article.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story is not mine - in fact mine is the opposite. I arrived at university having grown up in a traditional church community. It was formal - church, school, family life revolved around the patterns of faith and church calendar. It was overarching - the narratives of church and faith were definitive in the ways in which I saw the world, my family and myself. It was meaningful - I believed it - but it didn't make for transformation, joy or more of life. Inevitably it was cultural and powerful but faith didn't 'deliver'. Christianity appeared to be about rite, ritual and religion. The Bible was somewhat esoteric and elusive - a guide but not an authority, something to be consulted for wisdom and for comfort. It had great stories but they had little to do with me (except for a primary school quiz - I got 100% and I got through to the final only to flounder on the details of much more secular Children's TV and General knowledge).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 17 - not in the "conservative Bible bubble" of the writer's immersive conversion, but in the structure of the traditional religious rites and rituals I'd grown to love and loathe with equal measure, I was confronted with Jesus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was no hype, no great music, no soft lighting, no altar call, no compelling community who'd 'love me as I was'. I didn't need my life topping off or smoothing out. I was confronted by the truth that Jesus' death is presented as paying for sin. My sin. So that forgiveness would not be a desperate hope after death but a hopeful and transforming certainty in the now, for all - for people like me. I couldn't have described what happened that Wednesday early afternoon as being 'born again'. It wasn't within my frame of reference then. Nevertheless, that's what happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't have the words to talk about what had happened - I'd moved from religious observance to a real relationship with God in Jesus. I'd been shifted, the world now slightly at odds with how I understood it to be. I was being re-oriented in understanding, ambition, moral-framework and in inward desire. Before I'd wanted to be OK - now I wanted to know God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It wasn't until two years later when talking with a 'born again' family that I spoke of my experience at 17. "You're a Christian," they said, "a born again Christian". They terrified me at first, but they were right and I knew it. I began to read the Bible with new eyes - it was no longer a guide but the context in which I heard God speak, FELT God speak, into my life with a painful and liberating clarity. Still, there was much I did not understand nor like. I put those passages aside, "the God who I know, who wants me to be happy, would not be like that" I reasoned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It wasn't long after that I entered into university to study practical and systematic theology, biblical studies and church history. There my fuzzy thinking over the Bible came into much sharper focus. I wanted, really wanted, to find that the 'holes' and 'contradictions' would allow me to act and believe as I wanted whilst retaining that the God I liked was a bit better than me, but not really demanding morally or ethically: except on the rich and the evil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Biblical Studies faculty were largely liberal in their approach, some aggressively so. My first New Testament lecturer complained that normally we would have had a term's worth of teaching with the Old Testament department to '"soften you up" but he had to teach us Luke/Acts because he was leaving in January. It was hardcore liberalism - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigraphic" target="_blank">pseudepigraphic</a> writing throughout the New Testament calling into question the historic verifiability of any and all of the core of Christian faith. The Bible was socio-politically intriguing and illuminating but had no place as an authoritative revelation of God's self. It was essentially, they said, as <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener" target="_blank">Jessica Misener</a> said in the article that provoked this blog post,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span>the Bible was a flawed, messy, deeply <i>human</i> book — and that in treating it as an unimpeachable guidebook for life in the 21st century, many conservative Christians were basing their entire worldviews on a text that, in my opinion, wasn’t that much different from any other historical collection of letters and stories. I was forced to confront the fact that I’d converted into a pre-fab worldview: one hatched largely in recent American history from Jonathan Edwards and the theology of the Great Awakening, and one that “family values” politics has buoyed through modern decades..."</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This threw me into the scholarly works of the Academy. I wanted to understand, to mine and explore - to be given the permission to ditch what I did not like and love a God I could comprehend. That's where the problem arose. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bible didn't (doesn't!) present itself in those terms. The more I delved into the treasure trove of Biblical Studies the more I saw a great problem that needed solving. The presuppositions of the scholars were flawed, they began with the conviction that the Bible was not what it presented itself to be - that it was a series of texts that were co-created by numerous people with the intent to deceive and control, and this conspiracy of manipulation extended across times and nations and cultures and on to the very people who lived and died having met Jesus himself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unlike Jessica Misener - all of my research and work led me to a deepening conviction that the deeply flawed human element was not in the writers of the Bible (though, admittedly they were deeply flawed people) but rather in the scholars who were writing about the Bible itself. The humanity of the Bible comes through deeply and richly - flaws of authors and subjects are not hidden, in truth they are focussed on, highlighted and vaunted. Textual tensions aren't obliterated and smoothed over time, they are preserved and held plain. Truth is wrapped in frailty and proclaimed in the face of it's folly to human psychosocial theory and philosophical objection. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twenty-five years on I'm all the more convinced of the truthfulness of the Bible and it's reliability. I've studied it in newly post-apartheid Africa and discussed the power and tensions of the little letter of Philemon with those appalled at the possibility of a slave sent back to 'his master' as a Christian brother, I've taught it's truth to thousands in big gatherings and shared it's truth over the table with friends, family and strangers. I've seen it blow apart misgivings of hardened atheists, comfort prisoners, break the hard hearts of the polite and heal the hearts of the abused. I've been there when men and women from different cultures and language groups, from the lightest to the darkest of skin, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the marginalised and the elite, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in poverty and in comfort have all sought that gift of being born-again. The fresh start. The new beginning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesus becomes more real, more clearly in focus, each day I read the Bible. I've led mission teams, I've seen the thin smiles from passers by, I know the words to all kinds of songs and have also done some things that, in hindsight, make me BURN with embarrassment. BUT I am born again for good. Because that's the thing about birth - it isn't undone, it can't be expunged from the record: it's permanent and effects change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In truth, and this is somewhat painful to admit, there have been times since coming to know newness of life in Jesus (27 years) that I've wanted to walk away - because it felt too tiring, too hard, too difficult to hold on to, too painful, too... too... too... inconvenient. However, it wasn't about a phase - it is about eternal truth and eternal life. It's not something I can or will ever 'grow out of'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesus spoke to a crowd about how he was the bread come from heaven that would and does bring eternal life. Thousands crowded around him in the hope of physical food, of good times and easy living. He spoke truth to them in ways that offended them at their core. They walked away in their droves...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="text John-6-60"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">60 </span>On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’</span><span class="text John-6-61" id="en-NIVUK-26319"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">61 </span>Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, <span class="woj">‘Does this offend you?</span> </span><span class="text John-6-62" id="en-NIVUK-26320"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">62 </span><span class="woj">Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!</span> </span><span class="text John-6-63" id="en-NIVUK-26321"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">63 </span><span class="woj">The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you – they are full of the Spirit</span><span class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIVUK-26321e" title="See footnote e">e</a>]"></span><span class="woj"> and life.</span></span><span class="text John-6-64" id="en-NIVUK-26322"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">64 </span><span class="woj">Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’</span> For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. </span><span class="text John-6-65" id="en-NIVUK-26323"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">65 </span>He went on to say, <span class="woj">‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.’</span></span><span class="text John-6-66" id="en-NIVUK-26324"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">66 </span>From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.</span><b><span class="text John-6-67" id="en-NIVUK-26325"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">67 </span><span class="woj">‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’</span> Jesus asked the Twelve.</span><span class="text John-6-68" id="en-NIVUK-26326"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">68 </span>Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. </span><span class="text John-6-69" id="en-NIVUK-26327"><span class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;">69 </span>We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.’</span></b></span></blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6&version=NIVUK" target="_blank">John's Gospel Chapter 6 </a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is why I'm born again for good - Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. Every time my heart and head have been tempted to walk away I'm compelled by this - and it feels like the draw of family, of home, of love. I'm born again. That's all there is too it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jessica Misener says toward the end of her article on buzzfeed,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span>A large reason I converted to the faith as a teen was because I felt a weird void in my life, like something was missing that no relationship, amount of money, or enviable career could fill. The Christian message was packaged and sold to me as the only thing that could fill that void. And for six years, I let it."</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jessica, if you are reading this and you get this far, you were sold short. Jesus isn't just the better part of a filler in life - He is life itself. Come back - not to the religion bit, I grew up with that and I know what you're saying. Come back and find Him on His terms. That longing you felt, that wave of the 'ineffable" - that's homesickness for a friend you hung around with for a while but never really committed to. Hanging around with Jesus' friends will leave you with that whiff of Him. But that didn't make you born again. Only He himself can do that. I'm not doubting that you were genuine in your six year experience, you're just not describing Jesus as I know Him to be. I'm born again for good, I wish you were too.</span><br />
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-57325927674286130522013-12-11T12:58:00.000+13:002016-12-11T18:18:57.033+13:00Story, Myth, Imagination and Meaning at Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's there every Christmas, but this year he seems more present and popular.<br />
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<i>I was maybe 6 years old. Each year I'd seen the primary school Christmas presentation in church. I loved the Little Drummer Boy. This nameless child who appeared out of nowhere, in his amazing costume, with his own song and solo entrance. I knew my turn would come to play a part: inn-keeper, Herod, wise man, star, sheep, shepherd, lowing cattle, Angel or Joseph but I wanted, more than any other part, to play the Little Drummer Boy.</i><br />
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His presence in the story is myth - and not an ancient one. The song "The Carol of the Drum" was written in 1941 by <span id="goog_769075232"></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Kennicott_Davis"><span id="goog_769075242"></span>Katherine Da<span id="goog_769075239"></span><span id="goog_769075240"></span>vis<span id="goog_769075243"></span></a><span id="goog_769075233"></span> based on a Czech carol and made popular when released by the Trapp Family Singers (YES the real people who the "Sound of Music" was based on). <br />
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<i>Miss McShane, Headmistress and woman who filled me with terror, asked in the school assembly, "who'd like to be the Little Drummer Boy?" My hand shot up, reaching for the very heights of heaven, I wanted it to be the highest, pushing my left arm under my right armpit in the hope that it would go even higher. "pick me, pick me" I whispered and wished. For the first time I tried to meet her gaze, hoping she would notice me, like me, pick me, for the role.</i><br />
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The song imagines a boy whose only virtue is that he comes playing the drums and does so for Jesus. "I am a poor boy too... I'll play my drum for him... then he smiled at me... me and my drum". It is a tour de force of sentiment and imagination.<br />
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<i>Miss McShane's gaze skipped over the gathered throng of hopeful faces. Mine was the only hand, I wanted to be him more than I could express, my hand waved desperately - I wanted to be him and no-one else did and I didn't care. To my relief and joy I was picked. I was the Little Drummer Boy.<span id="goog_769075236"></span><span id="goog_769075237"></span><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_769075234"></span><span id="goog_769075235"></span><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/"></a></i><br />
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The sentimentality I can leave behind but the idea of a myth that expresses something real about Christmas is quite important. <a href="http://osr.org/christmas/20-famous-christmas-stories/" target="_blank">There are lots of them</a> - some do better than others at capturing grace and meaning at the heart of the Christmas narrative. Myth is most powerful when it functions as the vehicle of truth - The Little Drummer Boy is a great vehicle (even if the song is overly sentimental).<br />
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<i>My red tunic was on, my red and gold hat with a gold and royal blue trim was fixed to my head with a bobby pin. I carried the drum, like the one Christmas nutcracker soldiers carry, and had my drumsticks in hand. The music started - I'd practised for weeks. If there had been anyone else interested in the part I'm pretty sure I would have been sacked. I had no natural sense of rhythm or feel for the drums. People continued to sing as I walked stiffly toward Mary (played by a girl I had a childhood crush on for years ahead) and Joseph (strangely I have no idea who played him) and their plastic child wrapped in tea towels in the orange box manger.</i><br />
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The myth of the Drummer Boy comes out of our wish to identify ourselves in the story. Where would we be - you see he is each of us: we can't do anything fit for the King - not even the King in the manger and certainly not the King on the cross. We come to Him as we are - doing our best, seeking relationship, trusting, hoping, wondering: surrendered. "This is all I have".<br />
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<i>I was bursting with pride and anxiety at the same time. I can't remember finishing that walk down that church aisle. I can't remember taking off the hat, putting down the drum, disrobing at the end. In so many ways I'm still that kid, still hoping to be picked, still walking toward Jesus. Still convinced I have nothing to give fit for the child who has come to save. Still wanting to play for Him and see Jesus smile at me.</i><br />
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I'm The Little Drummer Boy, that's what I'm going to tell people this Christmas - if and when I hear the song. I'm the kid who knows he has more to gain that to give. I'm the one who knows that although that story of a kid with a drum getting Mary to nod her head in time with his beats is not reality, not history, it explains something deep and resonant and personal. I need to find myself in the stable and at the manger because there, in history, that day, thousands of miles away a baby was born and He is God Among Us, come to save from our sin and come to bring eternal life.<br />
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<i>I am a poor boy too... pa rum pa pa pum... I'll play my drum for you... pa rum pa pa pum... I'll play my best for you.... </i><i>pa rum pa pa pum...</i><i> then he smiled at me.... pa rum pa pa pum... me and my drum</i><br />
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Have a great Christmas, I hope you find yourself in wonder and joy caught up in the drama and reality and joy of the true story of the God who has loved you and given Himself for you: in a manger and on the cross, through to the empty grave and waits at the edge of history to judge and to save.<br />
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Happy Christmas.<br />
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0New Zealand-40.900557 174.88597100000004-65.234714 133.57737750000004 -16.566399999999998 -143.80543549999993tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-86716180668950945482013-11-12T16:26:00.000+13:002013-11-15T14:17:38.437+13:00Looking for heroes...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Ines, Gwen, Ken, Nigel, Murray, Lucy, Marcus, Leonie, Kim, Jim, Krish, Jane, Lisa, Derek, Chris, Andrew, Jackie, Jenny, Andrew, Janice, Elaine, Steve, Steve, Catherine, Pete, Emma, Richard, Paul, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Karl, David, David, Nigel, </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year marks my 20th in student ministry. I began thinking I was taking a year out to invest in others and be developed myself. I didn't know then that it was to be a career choice. I'm not sure I would have taken the same path had I known that then, but two decades on I'm glad I did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Nick, Maggie, Phil, Phil, Jon, Chris, Naomi, John, Rosie, Roy, Alexis, Laurence, David, Mary, Tom, Vanessa, Caroline, Dawn, Jonathan, Chris, Emma, Steve, Tim, Matt, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bryony, Peter, Emma, James, Pete, Kadri, Horva, </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The names framing this writing are of those whom I've worked alongside and who have come alongside me over the years. God has given me amazing opportunities to serve all over the world in encouraging others to love Jesus with full-hearted service and joy: students, staff, family, friends and supporters have all become heroes to me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Inga, John, Ruben, Tim, Catherine, Rosie, James, Tim, John, Rhodri, Jodi, Sam, Judith, Nigel, Hannah, Mark, </span></span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sarah, Fiona, Maxine, Rob, Travis, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Andy, Simon, Wenonah, Sam, Elizabeth, Rick, Emily, Dave, Steve, Tim, Anna, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They've made me want to love Jesus more and increased my sense of privilege in serving: in quiet moments of students giving their lives to Jesus for the first time, in daring acts of faithfulness, through times of heart-breaking loss and trial, by undeserved outpourings of generosity, in tear-soaked surrendering of ambitions and hopes, in the wonder of discovery in the Bible, by determined plodding through dutiful service, in laughter and shared victories, in the stillness of prayer and raucous songs of worship, by words of encouragement and words of rebuke. These are my heroes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Rachel, Ankur, Mark, Gill, James, Andrew, Roger, Fiona, Berndt, Richard, Ben, Andy, Ruth, Kenny, Deon, Aliyah, Andy, Emma, Edita, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Jurga, Anna, Zoë, Nick, Tom, Phil, Sam, John, Rosemary, Jonny, Steph, Maurice, Rosie, Jo, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm looking for more heroes - in this next generation of students there are those who will live for Jesus in the workplaces and homes and churches and campuses for the next 2 decades. I'm looking for those who will stand with me and stand after me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Dave, Tim, Gareth, Linda, Jude, Alice, Jess, Rob, Claire, Sarah, Ruth, Keith, Helen, Ken, Troy, Dan, Jordan, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Martin, Stuart, Phil, Mwombeki, Tom, Daniel, Alex, Rodney, Helen, Pete, Ros, Daniel, Heather, Dawn, Kay, Val, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next two years are critical - I'm praying that the work here in Auckland will grow: 6 staff, 9 Ministry interns, 12 volunteer staff and 800 students. I'm looking for heroes, by faith and in prayer. I'm looking for men and women to join in this work.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Mark, Christina, Janice, Elliot, Nancy, Sarah, Simon, Jono, Rah, Mike, Erin, Terri, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Stevie, Richard, Karen, Allan, Sue, Lyndon, Miriam, Tom, Liesl, Alison, Anna, Jeff, Pete, Tom, Tim, Scott, Blake, Paul, Barby, Karen, Chris, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm looking for people who will pray - 150 more people to pray on a regular basis. I'm looking for people who will partner with us in prayer, asking God to further His work here in New Zealand. I'm looking for poeple who'll pray - will you be one? You can get my monthly updates by signing up here: </span><a href="http://goo.gl/9vl5zC">http://goo.gl/9vl5zC</a><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Andrew, Mark, Renee, Jeff, Jane, Gillian, Sueanne, Gina, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Nathan, Phil, Simon, Jenni, BeeTing, Mack, Becky, Andy, Karl, Heather, Gary, Michael, Karen, Amanda, Arthur, Robyn, Shane, Shelly, Angela, Ian, Erin, Steve, Jane, Ann, Philip, Josh, Kaitlyn, Craig, </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm looking for people who will give - 200 people who will give $200 (or the equivalent = £100 or USD$170) as a one off gift OR will give $20 (or £20) per month for the next 24 months. I'm looking for heroes who will give sacrificially to see the future of the work provided for. Will you be one of those who give? <a href="mailto:Andy@tscf.org.nz" target="_blank">Email me </a>to find out more.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Annaliese, Bruce, Nicky, Grant, </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sam, Martin, Emma, Tanya, Godfrey, Luisa, Rose, Darlcy, Stu, Meredith, Jarod,Nigel, Robyn, Brian, Louise, Neil, Michelle, Amos, Steve, Simon, Ben, Cathy, Richard, Aisea, Joel, Efeso, Adam, Geoff, Ruth, Travis, Brad, Ben, Sam...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm looking for people who will come and join the work as staff. The opportunities are huge and there is more than enough work for a lot more people. Are you one of those people? The work isn't easy, it requires patience, persistence, confidence in the gospel, a love for student-aged people, a willingness to live sacrificially, teach patiently, live humbly and serve faithfully. Are you called to this work? <a href="mailto:Andy@tscf.org.nz" target="_blank">Email me</a> if you'd like to find out more.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Will you join the crowd of heroes? Pray? Give? Come join the team?</span></span>
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-76818709206234979122013-07-23T13:36:00.000+12:002013-07-23T14:11:09.425+12:00A Prayer for a Future King<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/lemmiwinks91/baby-hand" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="308" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NmXsRG1fjMM/Ue3WSmGb3qI/AAAAAAAAJhA/eJb1R6h-r14/s320/lemmiwinks91_baby-hand.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art used with permission (c) <a href="http://lemmiwinks91.newgrounds.com/" target="_blank">Lemiwinks91</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="goog_109917201"></span><span id="goog_109917202"></span><br />
Oh God, this child born new to this world<br />
is unremarkably frail,<br />
Fingers, toes, arms and face,<br />
all unaccustomed to exposure.<br />
<br />
These, as yet inarticulate hands and arms,<br />
will enact law and give reward.<br />
This natal face will adorn high art,<br />
global currencies and angry protest placards.<br />
His feet will tread the pathways of power<br />
and corridors of influence.<br />
<br />
He is born to reign over nations, stand before peoples,<br />
His voice will resound over all the earth.<br />
His name and face will be known to billions,<br />
his life etched in history.<br />
<br />
May the comforts of his raising give rise to humility.<br />
May the privileges of his family give depth to gratitude.<br />
May the pressures of his status give clarity to thought.<br />
May the scrutiny of his life give birth to integrity.<br />
<br />
He will reign a few short years,<br />
And as he has been born so will he pass:<br />
frail as any born of woman, rich or poor.<br />
<br />
May the considered testimony of his life,<br />
As prince and king, be that he has lived it under the peace, rule and grace<br />
Of the King that once was born and suffered death<br />
But lives and reigns on high above all other kings.<br />
<br />
May the verdict on his story be that history<br />
Of a life lived in the fullness of forgiveness,<br />
the surety of hope, the steadfastness of certainty,<br />
Born in knowing You: Endless King of Eternal Life.<br />
<br />
May he learn from you, King of all kingdoms,<br />
May he rest in you, Lord over his lording,<br />
May he seek you, Wisdom in his ministering,<br />
May he love you, Love in flesh abiding.<br />
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Text (c) Andy Shudall 2013. No use permitted without prior agreement.</span></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-90696031032784348112013-04-30T14:27:00.000+12:002013-04-30T18:15:43.381+12:00In defense of Islam?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=muslim&newwindow=1&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=GPR-UennNMKGkAXyqIHQCA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1415&bih=951#imgrc=g-0yb8bQRMYylM%3A%3Bo9bk60nO74rgeM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcathnews.co.nz%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F03%252Fsonny.jpeg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcathnews.co.nz%252F2012%252F03%252F16%252Fsonny-bill-stays-mum-on-murrays-muslim-moment%252F%3B460%3B276" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="371" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5B3fYqn0Emg/UX71wVLIxKI/AAAAAAAAJNk/HMUPH62RgaA/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.30.20+AM.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A screen capture of Google Image search for Muslim - which image comes to your mind?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday in my twitter stream I saw this...</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3yKXNC2994M/UX73mpAPgtI/AAAAAAAAJN0/62MNmrYBZos/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.42.25+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3yKXNC2994M/UX73mpAPgtI/AAAAAAAAJN0/62MNmrYBZos/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.42.25+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not sure what it was about this particular tweet but I felt provoked. Islam is a diverse religion, with many different aspects and forms to it. As I read this tweet I thought of my muslim friends - people who have shown unbelievable kindness toward me and my family - and I responded.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9zghUY-NsQo/UX74m1WTwmI/AAAAAAAAJOA/LXJS1RKS1Ns/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.47.38+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9zghUY-NsQo/UX74m1WTwmI/AAAAAAAAJOA/LXJS1RKS1Ns/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.47.38+AM.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">140 characters - brevity wins over subtlety and something humanising is lost - A number of other responses followed:</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HvCO3ZjzzbM/UX7551917zI/AAAAAAAAJOQ/chqGKodD2Ic/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.49.06+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HvCO3ZjzzbM/UX7551917zI/AAAAAAAAJOQ/chqGKodD2Ic/s200/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.49.06+AM.png" width="200" /> </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-klCdd2A0WfQ/UX77HcuM2PI/AAAAAAAAJPc/Nox524dGJuI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.56.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-klCdd2A0WfQ/UX77HcuM2PI/AAAAAAAAJPc/Nox524dGJuI/s200/Screen+Shot+2013-04-30+at+10.56.39+AM.png" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It took me by surprise. Am I defending Islam? Am I naive? Am I a jackass? Why is an internet troll-ster defending me, using an argument I don't agree with?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think what provoked me more than anything is that the people who were characterising muslims as having a 'primary goal' of beheading people and of being murderous and questioned my knowledge, intelligence, naivety are people who are believers in Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What struck me as wrong is the 'alienification' (I just made the word up) of muslims - 'they' become a murderous mob, 'they' are waiting to kill me - not simply on the streets of Helmand but around my corner and in my neighbourhood. 'They' are the enemy and the sooner we are rid of them the better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I can't reconcile that with the truth of and about Jesus. If these are murderous men and women then they need the gospel as much but with more urgency than everyone else. If they are evil in their intent then they are a ripe harvest field for the gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I lived in a muslim majority area of the UK during late 2001 - a house nearby was raided by police and the occupants were taken away in the early hours of the morning. Women in Hijab were so common a sight I thought it extraordinary on a day when I didn't see the formal and full dress code. My muslim neighbours never failed or faltered to show us kindness, warmth and friendship - to such an extremity that we became like extended family to them and they to us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would be naive to imagine that all muslims are like my neighbours - but it is foolish to argue that they are they only 'good' ones out there or that all the time they showed love toward us they were thinking "how can I best decapitate this family?". You see, 'they', muslims, are real people. Real people are incredibly complex. Real people defy stereotypes, caricatures and polemic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a world where tweeting and status updates enable us to frame arguments in neat packages, where we are instantly able to attack people we've never met and reduce discussion to argument, complexity can take a backseat and eventually be silenced and ignored. We do that to our peril. We do that to the loss of the gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The issue that I think Daniel was touching on in the first tweet that sparked the discussion was one that I DO think brings up an important question. In many democracies where muslims are in a minority there is a muslim voice calling for the validity of their perspective and beliefs to be honoured and recognised - for freedom to exercise their religious practice without fear or intimidation. Rightly so. The irony is that those same rights are vigorously denied to faith minority groups within muslim majority countries or nations ruled by Sharia law. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the record - I'm a Christian, not a muslim, I believe that the unique and eternal revelation of God in Jesus is particularly and exclusively true. I therefore believe that any system of belief which modifies or denies that Jesus is God in flesh (born of a virgin, lived a sinless life in order to die as the perfect sacrifice and rise from death the vindicated Saviour of all, ascending into Heaven as the Sovereign King to return one day as the Ultimate Judge and Saviour) is deficient and inherently untrue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But also for the record - I don't believe that this assertion about Jesus, <i>my relationship with God through Jesus</i>, demands me to hate people, denigrate a race, deny rights to individuals or characterise any other religious grouping on the actions of a few or even the many. I'm not defending Islam - but I am defending the right of people to be muslim and to do so without fear or intimidation. I would hope that friends in muslim nations would do so for me, equally, but even if that were not true - it wouldn't change my voice or perspective on what is the right thing to do.</span></div>
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<span class="text Luke-10-25"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">25 </sup>Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.<sup class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NRSV-25381j" title="See footnote j">j</a>]"></sup> “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” </span><span class="text Luke-10-26" id="en-NRSV-25382"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">26 </sup>He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” </span><span class="text Luke-10-27" id="en-NRSV-25383"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">27 </sup>He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” </span><span class="text Luke-10-28" id="en-NRSV-25384"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">28 </sup>And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”</span><span class="text Luke-10-29" id="en-NRSV-25385"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">29 </sup>But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” </span><span class="text Luke-10-30" id="en-NRSV-25386"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">30 </sup>Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. </span><span class="text Luke-10-31" id="en-NRSV-25387"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">31 </sup>Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. </span><span class="text Luke-10-32" id="en-NRSV-25388"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">32 </sup>So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. </span><span class="text Luke-10-33" id="en-NRSV-25389"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">33 </sup>But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. </span><span class="text Luke-10-34" id="en-NRSV-25390"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">34 </sup>He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. </span><span class="text Luke-10-35" id="en-NRSV-25391"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">35 </sup>The next day he took out two denarii,<sup class="footnote" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NRSV-25391k" title="See footnote k">k</a>]"></sup> gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ </span><span class="text Luke-10-36" id="en-NRSV-25392"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">36 </sup>Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” </span><span class="text Luke-10-37" id="en-NRSV-25393"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">37 </sup>He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”</span><br />
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<span class="text Luke-10-37" id="en-NRSV-25393"><b>Luke's Gospel 10:25-26 (English Standard Version)</b></span></div>
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-50614487882447568412013-04-23T18:18:00.001+12:002013-04-23T19:11:27.147+12:00Jesus wears a Fijian DressMy reflections at the end of a day in Fiji recently... we had visited an old folks home as part of the South Pacific Regional Conference Mission Taster (SPaRC+2).<br />
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Today I washed Jesus windows, brushed his floor, rolled Roti for his dinner and washed the lunch dishes that he and his friends has used. They were messy eaters, but they had had a good lunch.<br />
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Before all of that though He himself showed up. Imagine my surprise when his English was spoken with a joyful Fijian accent. He'd also borrowed one of Auntie Mila's dresses, brushed his hair to look like hers and moved just like her as he walked across the room.<br />
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And then he prayed - he asked the Father to bless these people, and as He spoke about how these elderly men and women who had lived lives full of hardship had been abandoned by the families who should have loved them, hot tears ran down Auntie Mila's cheeks (Jesus had borrowed her face, as well as her dress and voice and hairstyle). There Jesus poured out love in prayer in the form of Auntie Mila.<br />
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One the elderly women smiled and turned to Dalcy and said - "She come here most every day, that Mila". And Jesus stood praying in tearful, heartbroken, love. I realised he had put me there this day to stand in the place of the sons and grandsons who would never come - not for long but for a day. For Auntie Mila - she prayed, full of Jesus, full of love - for she has been called to be a daughter with 80 moms and dads and to serve them as Jesus calls her to do.<br />
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I saw Jesus today - he wore a Fijian woman's dress and cried big prayerful tears for the elderly and frail. He turned up unexpectedly and I am once again changed in meeting him. I wept as he cried for I had been unwilling to come at first, but now I had seen him and knew. So I washed his dishes and his windows, I stooped to sweep his floor, I rolled roti for his friends to eat. The melody and words of "Here I am to worship" echoed through my head, and worship moved my soapy hands and foolish heart to service and to joy. <br />
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-3894249553292076422013-04-02T17:32:00.001+13:002013-04-02T17:32:23.680+13:00CelebrationIt is hot and sticky - the sun is beating down, humidity is high. I'm in Fiji. The women in the mission centre are preparing dinner - roti, rice and beef curry. The team comes from all across the South Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu. The nationalities extend even beyond that - Indonesia, USA, English, Scottish... No one is in a majority - all are on a level playing field. Music plays "You are my hope, hope like no other... hope like no other... reaches to me... From the fullness of your love... you lift me up."<br />
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This is what the death and resurrection of the Jesus has done. He breaks the power of culture to divide and our diversity becomes a point of enjoying his unifying grace. Once we were not a people but now we are one people in Christ Jesus. It extends beyond just working together toward a common goal - we work as one because He has made us actually united us.<br />
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The last 6 weeks have given me pause to reflect and to learn more deeply the truths that the good news about Jesus makes real.<br />
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This is the last of my "Live Life" posts. We are called to celebrate, to enjoy and rejoice. To see and know and hold with gratitude the grace of God make evident in our lives. <br />
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I can think of no better place to celebrate the lessons of these last few weeks in this company, in this context and with these people. In celebrating in this community I see proclaimed all of the hope that we anticipated through the season of lent: Jesus once dead, now Risen King, ruling as The Lord of lords and The King of all kings, over all peoples. This groups proclaims that One Day every language group and ethnicity will cry out "Jesus is Lord" to the glory of God the Father.<br />
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That is Life well lived - eternal life. Life worth celebrating. A life of celebration. <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ea5pv65gaOM/UVpfU4sU07I/AAAAAAAAJKM/OiXUJH8SQ4c/s640/blogger-image--174770725.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ea5pv65gaOM/UVpfU4sU07I/AAAAAAAAJKM/OiXUJH8SQ4c/s640/blogger-image--174770725.jpg" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-69078899012476551322013-03-27T14:56:00.002+13:002013-03-27T14:56:54.286+13:00Reflection | noitcelfeR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"So," said Dumbledore, slipping off the desk to sit on the floor with Harry, "you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"I didn't know it was called that, Sir." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"But I expect you've realized by now what it does." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"It -- well -- it shows me my family --" </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"And it showed your friend Ron himself as head boy." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"How did you know --."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"I don't need a cloak to become invisible," said Dumbledore gently.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all." Harry shook his head.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Harry thought. Then he said slowly, "It shows us what we want... whatever we want..." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reflection is not reality but helps us to understand it better. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking back over the last 5 weeks of Live Life I see myself and the world better in reflection. Most importantly, I think I know God better.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fasting I saw the power of appetite - to drive us to or away from God. We have been created with a hunger for Him - for the Life that he gives. Life in Him fuels a hunger for truth, beauty, justice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>God grant me an insatiable hunger for You and Your Glory, an unquenchable thirst for Life.</i></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In praying I was humbled and exalted - reminded of our need for Our Father's provision and encouraged that He is at work renewing this creation for the New Creation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>God, My Father, Your Name is Holy and Your will is Life. Pour out each day that which we need to live justly, righteously and truthfully - give us peace and courage in fleeing compromise and evil, as we pursue You.</i></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In giving I saw the joy of being gifted and in giving away that which has been given to us we can discover the limitless capacity for increased joy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>God, You who did not spare Your Son, in giving us eternal life - grant us the grace to give that which is most precious to us to the building of your Kingdom - may our heads, hearts, hands and feet but exhausted in our living for you and replenished that we might give more.</i></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In thankfulness I better understood the grace of God at work in our lives, in our world. Gratitude opens our eyes and hearts to the grace of God made freely available to us in good times and in sorrow. Giving thanks transforms struggle into victory, loss into gain and sorrow into joy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>God of all Joy and Comfort, instill in me a heart of thankfulness and a song of praise. Thank you for the power of your presence and the hope of the gospel.</i></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In serving I've seen the importance of my heritage - of how God's Son, the Master of All, did not come to be served but to serve and in doing so become the ransom for many. In serving others we walk in His ways and proclaim His truth, until He comes again to bring us to eternal rest and service.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>God, who loved and served Your enemies through the cross, teach me to serve friend and foe: stranger, brother, sister. Let my heart and eyes be so full of You that I care not for my own position and service, but would serve you as the least and the lowliest or the loftiest and the largest position, without love for my own comfort or reputation</b></i>.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I look back, I look forward,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and ask my desires be caught up in Him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As He lay down His head in death,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and stood again all Life and Light -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I look to death and life in Him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And though I walk</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">through dark valleys of shade</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and bright days of hot sun</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I pray my life reflect only His Image</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His Love, His Truth, His Ways:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not as illusion,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but in illustration,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of His Beauty.</span></div>
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-64001948627563508452013-03-20T00:00:00.000+13:002013-03-20T00:00:10.160+13:00First ServiceMy paternal grandmother was a servant - literally, like Downton, in service. My grandfathers both knew the long days of service - one a fireman, the other a manual labourer. My maternal grandmother served in kitchens. My own parents both worked in manual service - my father worked in the same factory for over 40 years, my mother as well as domestic duties at home served in sewing pools, labouring in a factory, caring for old people in a retirement home and finally found real joy in serving parish priests as their housekeeper.<br />
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Service is in my blood and my own working experience. Early employment was as a kitchen hand and then a waiter. I loved serving others in the kitchen and front of house. In truth. today. I am rarely more happy than cooking and serving good food to friends and family.<br />
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Loyalty, faithfulness. stickability, perserverence, graft, generosity and manners all come to me from my working class heritage of service. They are a great treasure.<br />
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I truly learned to serve, however, not as a result of family memory but in coming to know Jesus.<br />
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"have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8 NIV)</blockquote>
Jesus defines humility and scores out the parameters of service.<br />
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For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. (Luke 22:27 NIV)</blockquote>
The Lord of the Universe compares Himself to a waiter, a servant, and says this is the reason he came: to serve.<br />
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We live in time where we flirt with celebrity as the model of success - celebrity chefs, singers, dancers, policemen... the list goes on and on.<br />
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Jesus defies that as the model of success - he lives and dies in obscurity, a servant - but in His serving He makes it possible to call us brothers and sisters without hint of shame.<br />
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In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:10, 11 NIV)</blockquote>
Therefore you and I, if we call Jesus brother, are to have no self-aggrandising delusions of what service will bring us - no petty ambitions at celebrity. Service is hard work, it is not 'done' in a single act but is lived in a lifetime of choices.<br />
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Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. (Psalm 84:10 NIV)</blockquote>
To truly live life in Jesus is to serve Him first and foremost and to do so through serving all men and women before we help ourselves. We are to look to Him as our model of success - not cheap and petty celebrity status. It leads to transformation if not fame. It leads to life itself.<br />
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-19228418213512683852013-03-08T13:36:00.001+13:002013-03-20T00:01:41.461+13:00GratefulGratitude is the hallmark of real intimacy. It is the chosen response of those who see the potential for growth. It is the daily practice of people who describe themselves as happy.<br />
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Gratitude is the gateway to joy.<br />
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This week in the World Vision/IFES Live Life challenge the call is to express gratitude. To write to someone for whom you are grateful. It is simply not possible to pick one - my gratitude spills over for the hundreds of people that have encouraged me, corrected me, loved me, endured with me, taught me to laugh at myself, put up with my rubbish, shown me hope, reminded me of truth...<br />
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A quick survery of my photo's leads me to say thanks to Ted, Pete, Andrew, Gwen, Ines, Ken, Hope, Kristin, Kyle, Steve, Ken, Ben, Matt, Dawn, Jonathan, Shelagh, Jim, Fiona, Richard, Nigel, Ailsa, the 1993 Relay Crew, Elliot, Dru, Sam, Jude and Ben, Andy, Adam, Jordan, My mum, kids, nephews and nieces and my family. These are just some of the people to whom I owe a depth of gratitude (even in these few there are so many who have been left out I hardly feel able to hit publish on this post)<br />
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<span id="goog_172288189"></span><span id="goog_172288190"></span>But gratitude expressed is always partial - inadequate - because I am grateful to God for the gift of life in Jesus and for the amazing people he has put in my life. Thankful for those who give so that we can keep on going on in ministry, thankful for those who pray to grow the work, thankful for Him calling me into this work.<br />
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Thank You, seems so poorly put. It is however all I have.<br />
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Thank you.<div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-23211145988753388622013-03-01T09:46:00.001+13:002013-03-05T15:27:36.816+13:00It's Only Words?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://worldvisionacts.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/production/image/512eaba7449aef001300007c/large_Give-ChallengeImage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://worldvisionacts.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/production/image/512eaba7449aef001300007c/large_Give-ChallengeImage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Words are my thing. Spoken and written, I value words. But we are conflicted about the power and the value of words.<br />
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"Talk is cheap."<br />
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My gifts are wrapped around words - talking with people, communicating to others: speaking, preaching, writing. My passion is for The Word in other's lives.<br />
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So let me give you five sets of words that are extremely expensive.<br />
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<b>I love you.</b><br />
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Vast reservoirs of ink have been emptied in expressions of love. Love has often been diluted in the effort. Words that truly speak love cost the speaker much more than a bunch of flowers, a moment of emotion or an act of extravagance. Truly spoken and written these words are more costly than gold and more robust than diamonds; "I love you" gives voice to a life of service, the other more in focus than the self. Living and loving is choosing to really live life.</blockquote>
<b>Thank you.</b><br />
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Gratitude moves individuals into community, transforms tension into growth and transitions lack into abundance. Thankfulness requires mindfulness, choosing to see the context and the circumstances from a perspective of gain even when they are the most trying and difficult. Expressing thanks, finding grounds to be thankful, can be at great cost and therefore great gain. It is one of the things our elders teach us first - "say Thank You" - but familiarity should not lead us to contempt in this case. Gratitude for those around you, for the difficult relationships and circumstances, for the lessons learned in the hardest times, yields a harvest of joy that defines life at it's fullest.</blockquote>
<b>Help me to understand.</b><br />
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Surrendering the right to be understood by others and inviting them to share their understanding is an expensive use of words. Using words to elicit depth from others can be painful, time consuming, wounding and freeing. It is the choice of community, of service, to invite others to speak before we are heard (or maybe without the condition of being heard at all). Seeking to understand, more than to be understood, is the spark that ignites the fire of friendship and intimacy. It is risky and requires commitment, but in it life is enhanced and deepened.</blockquote>
<b>I'm sorry.</b><br />
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that repentance is the most acute form of pain people can experience. Sorry really is the hardest word. Sorry accepts responsibility, takes initiative, embodies action and opens possibility where opportunities were restricted through wrongdoing. Apologising is painful and full of risk: it places us in a position of powerlessness to the other; yet it empowers us in facing and accepting our frailty, weakness, responsibility and agency. You can not truly live until you have said "I'm sorry".</blockquote>
<b>You're doing a great job.</b><br />
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To see the other, to note their ability and to do so appreciatively, is costly. One friend in particular has taught me this lesson, at one point he surrendered his position and security to open up a possibility for me. I've had the opportunity to reciprocate that risk for others. Encouragement, taking the opportunity to say what's good in a situation and in a person, is an expensive investment. It draws us into deeper engagement and costs us self protection. It enhances the lives of those around us, affirming our place in life.</blockquote>
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As you live life this week - take the risk and invest some costly words into the lives of others as you serve them, as you serve God in Christ Jesus.<div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-42810576063525113502013-02-22T21:04:00.003+13:002013-02-22T21:33:40.324+13:00Watch and Pray<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.45982120116241276" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being hungry has fed my appetite for prayer. Feeling hungry has made me more aware of my need for something more than food. My rumbling stomach has caused me to ache more for God's power and presence, it has reinforced that I am not the centre of the universe and my need, my real need, is for Jesus.</span><br /><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus draws aside to find solace in His Father's company, he removes distraction and silences the clutter. He gathers to the Father in the quiet of the early day and the late night. He teaches on prayer and He practices what He preaches. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He commends Mary, sister to Lazarus and Martha, for taking time to sit at his feet (Luke 10:38-42) and in the next passage is asked to teach the disciples to pray - they have watched him and wanted to pray like him. Jesus rebukes those whose prayers are full of themselves and their own importance, empty words from hearts too full of pride, too self-satisfied, to really know their need or what is needed in prayer. (Matthew 6:5,7-8; Luke 18:9-14). </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus teaches them to pray, and we are no less in need of the lesson in our fast paced,crowded, technology laden lives; we can be full of words and knowledge; fat with our own importance and malnourished in prayer. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Father <span style="font-weight: normal;">- </span></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The songs we sing in church are so full of "I"s it is hard to see the first lesson in the prayer of Jesus. OUR Father - individualism is banished from the throne room of God. Those who first listened did not need individualism driven from their heads but it is a plague in the churches of the rich Minority World. We come to God, our uniqueness not diminished, but He is not MY Father but OUR Father - We each stand in the company of the faithful: hoping in Him, trusting His Word, knowing His Sovereignty and loving His Name.</span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just as we hear challenge where the first century Jews did not, they felt the scandal of intimacy where we don't. To call God Father - there is no Psalm that begins so boldly; no prayer in the Old Testament so familiar; no utterance so clearly confident before God that, were it unjustified, would be blasphemous. Jesus changes the parameters where men and women call on God. A new era begins.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in Heaven - <span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9 ESV)</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God does not reside in our heads, as though we imagined Him into being. He does not live in our hearts, what we feel does not define or limit Him. He does not abide in the intricacies of nature, He is not bound to tree and rock, waves or even sun, moon and stars. He is not tied to the unseen forces of the natural world, wind and tide and gravity disappear in the scale of His majesty and might, power and awe. He is the God of Heaven - who spoke all things into place and sustains all through His powerful Word. He is no petty deity, no imagined idol, no do-good demigod - we address Him in His power and Preeminence. Jesus introduces this scandalous intimacy with the Almighty God and elevates the human condition, echoes of Eden's first days can be heard and the light of Eternal reality lights these words. We address the God of Heaven as Father - this is life as it should have been all along, and one day will be, without end.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your Name is Holy - <span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moses stood before a bush bright with fire but it was not being consumed by the flames (Exodus 3-4). God called him to draw near "take off your shoes for where you stand is holy". In the course of the conversation Moses asks for the Name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He requests to know how he might speak of and to the God who created the heavens and the earth and now was revealing Himself to an 80 year old shepherd in the middle of the desert. God answers, "I Am". </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A child is born to a virgin, His name is not chosen by the mother or the father but given by God through angelic messenger. He shall be known as Jesus - the name means "I Am saves". This frail bundle of flesh is God-with-us, who live the perfect life, without spot of sin or stain of transgression, he will die for us and live again and offer life and purity to all who hope in Him.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus spoke of the Spirit that He and the Father would send to all who trust by faith - The Paraclete (Jn 14:16, 15:26, 16:7) - helper, advocate, alongside presence, friend - just like Jesus but not Him.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Such is Gods Name that it cannot be cheapened in trivial oaths, thrown around like the </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">brand-name</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> of a cheap consumerist idol or invoked for protection where there is no relationship.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">God's Name is above all others, because He is the One who owns it all. And this is where we need to watch and pray... to pray with hunger and desire, love and devotion, wit and wisdom.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your kingdom come, Your will be done here on earth as it is in Heaven, </span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Give us today our daily bread</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">, </span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us, </span></b><b><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil -</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God's agenda does not stop short of revolution. God's will is that hunger is undone, sin's sway broken, life lived in unhindered relationship, wrongdoing undone and evil left isolated in the purity and wholeness of life knowing God. We sometimes hear the prayer as though 'your kingdom come...' is somehow not linked to the rest of the prayer. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are to watch and pray and be ready to become the agents of answered prayer. Our prayers are not to be cheap, stolen quick words with Heaven's King, pleading for our convenience and ease, wishes and changes centred on self. We cry out to Him and He acts in Sovereign Grace - calling people to feed the hungry, reconcile broken relationships, oppose the patterns of enslaving temptation and undo the works of the Evil One.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prayer is the hungry cries of those possessed by better vision - insight that stems from knowing God as Father, Brother and Friend, born of the understanding that there are riches that do not reside in cash and gold but in serving God,proclaiming Jesus Christ and ministering the Spirit's comfort to the least and the lowly, the broken and the downcast, the rich and the powerful, the wealthy and the 'worthy'.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prayer is not endless babbling, impressive words and a wholesome AMEN.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">It is the broken and contrite heart of men and women from all walks of life, all stages and positions of socio-economic structures, turning to God and seeking change - inwardly and outwardly until the day when we watch and praise as God's Kingdom is finally fully realised in history, we must watch and pray and hunger and thirst and act and serve.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Will you watch and pray, as Jesus taught us?</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-77517230597512151362013-02-13T19:33:00.000+13:002013-02-14T20:47:19.660+13:00Fast and Slow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm choosing to Live Life, life to its fullest - I'm going fast in order to go slow, or rather I'm going to fast which will mean living at a slower pace.</div>
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There is a choice for me - to live simpler, eat simpler.</div>
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Live Life is a global challenge, a global call, to take 40 days ahead of Easter and to live more deliberately. World Vision have issued a global challenge and I'm one person among a host of others, in 60 countries who've responded to the call. This season of preparation for the most significant Christian celebration in the year is going to be my most deliberate one for many years.</div>
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My choice is to fast from complexity where I can, to live more simply - ironically to slow down as I fast.</div>
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<li>No food between meals.</li>
<li>One simple portion of main meals (no dipping in the pot for more).</li>
<li>No recreational iphone/ipad in the company of others.</li>
<li>No taking calls or texting while talking to other people.</li>
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Fasting is a normal part of Christian living - but it hasn't been a massive part of my personal discipline on a regular basis for a long time. For the next 6 weeks, it will be.<br />
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For me fasting seems to be about curbing appetites in order to be more mindful or our frailty and God's steadfastness. As I write I'm aware of the chocolate and snacks I'll forgo, the seconds and the sweets, but really my appetite should be for more of God, more of Life in all it's fullness - the life that Jesus spoke about.<br />
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I have no doubt there will be moments of frailty, petty and ridiculous frailty, in the weeks ahead. I'm sharing this journey for my own good and your encouragement. I'll blog at least weekly and I'll try to keep away from self-pity (I'm giving that up too).<br />
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Why not join in, choose your own fast and LIVE LIFE?<br />
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more details of how to accept the challenge click <a href="http://www.worldvisionyouth.org/challenges/live-life-getting-started" target="_blank">HERE</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-58941346473120474872013-02-05T10:32:00.002+13:002013-02-05T10:32:38.804+13:00Weighting glory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In good stories - old and new - characters pursue a quest of some sort. Their journeys are perilous, there are often injuries and sometimes people lose their lives in pursuing their goal. The journey is ennobled by the suffering, their goal's glory made more weighty by the cost of getting there - indeed the weight of their goal is measured by the willingness to suffer for it. From "The Hobbit" to "Saving Private Ryan" we love the patient and determined suffering of the travellers as they seek their treasure.</div>
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Right now I have friends who are suffering 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' - battling public and private wars, dealing with illness, facing disappointments and setbacks, helping children who are struggling, caring for parents who are ailing, some are dealing with their own imminent death.</div>
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<b>Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13 ESV)</b><br />
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It is not that in Christ somehow suffering is negated but that it is placed into the context of a larger, grander narrative. This does not diminish suffering, it is all too real. Yet in the walk toward the glory and the hope of knowing God in Christ without hindrance at the New Creation, pain is not the final word or reality. We know that we are accompanied by The Hero of the Great Story: His wounds and suffering are greater, deeper, more significant and lasting than our own. He knows our suffering, it is His own, and He speaks of life whenever death is close at hand. We are in His fellowship, we are His team, His family: he leads and knows the best paths, even though they might lead us into some peril, He will deliver us to our destination. Every bad day, every broken moment, every struggle will make that day all the sweeter and we will understand only at the end of the journey the need to go through the pathways where he led.<br />
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It's not just my friends who need to know and hold onto this: me too. If you're the praying sort, pray that my hope will be fully set on the grace that will come in knowing Jesus when He delivers us to the great Homecoming.<br />
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-28237238111056066502013-01-10T18:17:00.000+13:002013-01-10T18:19:16.212+13:00Shame facedI've been thinking about shame.<br />
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Shame is a gossamer cloak that smothers hope and extinguishes joy. It descends on us when we feel inadequate, embarrassed and exposed. Shame clings to us like stale body odour. It is pervasive to human experience across cultures and times. It can be expressed in despair, anger, self harm and self destruction. We seek to hide our shame through drowning it in drink, losing it in experience or covering it with food. Shame is all about who and what we are (or aren't); guilt is about what we have done.<br />
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There are no real redeeming factors to shame.<br />
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Yet shame is used to motivate men and women from earliest our earliest days: 'what will people think of you?', 'if you had tried harder', 'if you were different then maybe'. Shame is used as a whip in chivvying along the lazy, bucking up the foolish and quietening the rowdy. Shame is used to ensure compliance and restrict rebellion.<br />
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<a href="http://www.brenebrown.com/" target="_blank">Brene Brown</a> in her well written book, <a href="http://www.brenebrown.com/books/" target="_blank">Daring Greatly</a>, shamelessly exposes shame's hiding places in our relationships, workplaces and lives. I've found it a profoundly helpful book - two things in particular struck me whilst reading it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Joy and Shame cannot coexist in the same heart for very long - one will kill the other.</li>
</ul>
<br /><ul>
<li>Shame is powerful, but Joy is triumphant over it - gratitude gives birth to joy which puts shame in it's place.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Brown doesn't explicitly write from a Christian perspective*, but her research observations and findings find a happy (even joyful) corollary in Christian theology. Forgiveness brings gratitude, gratitude joy, joy hope and hope does not disappoint - even in the face of the struggle with sin and shame.<br />
<br />
My thinking about shame has brought me great joy. Joy in Jesus who took my shame, that I might know His grace.<br />
<br />
*I struggled to know how to phrase this sentence: Brene Brown attends church, and writes about church without apology, occasionally includes crude words in her writing and is not writing to commend Christ or make theological points, per se. However, I find it hard to understand how her reflections could come from outside of a Christian worldview. The reason for struggling with the sentence is that I don't want to make a comment one way or another about Brene's faith but felt my words may well be perceived to do so, they don't.<div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-19791233965369699762012-09-28T12:44:00.002+12:002012-09-28T13:16:05.468+12:00Vulnerability<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px;">Last week I cried in a work meeting. Not dignified, controlled tears but undignified and uncontrolled. Tiredness lifted a veil off sadness, anger and disappointment. My voice wavered and I felt weak and broken.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px;">I'm not ashamed to cry in public, I've shed tears from podiums and pulpits in front of tens, hundreds and thousands. Being moved by truth doesn't bother me; feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable obviously does. </span>Vulnerability - experiencing the possibility of harm in any given situation - feels like a failure: it feels like weakness.<br />
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); color: #3f3f3f; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PG_bnHWseBI/UGTnOXEgj6I/AAAAAAAAIYQ/juB-WyI8_Qo/s1600/419006_10151050269507727_1830154173_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PG_bnHWseBI/UGTnOXEgj6I/AAAAAAAAIYQ/juB-WyI8_Qo/s200/419006_10151050269507727_1830154173_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">wiping sweat away</span></i></b><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">on a VERY hot day HONEST</span></i></b></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The day was not my finest but good things have emerged in the light of it.<br />
<br />
I have done a good bit of thinking about vulnerability and weakness, strength and growth, since last week. One of the things I often use to fuel my thought processes, apart from seeking silence, is good input and I went searching. I found two talks from TED below (they're 20 minutes each - watch them if you have time, they are fascinating - <i>expletive warning: there is mild swearing in these talks, once or twice, don't watch them if that will bother you</i>).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Vulnerability is the gateway to creativity"</i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Vulnerability is not weakness... it fuels our daily lives...</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>...It is our most accurate measurement of courage:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>it is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Vulnerability has been a great spur to education this week: I've learned a lot about my motivations and perspectives, where I've felt strong inappropriately and where I need to innovate, grow and change.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Yesterday, I read an interview (<a href="http://www.e-n.org.uk/6028-A-battle-I-face.htm" target="_blank">click here to read it</a>) with a pastor in the UK, Vaughan Roberts, who in the interview reveals a level of vulnerability about the battles he lives with as a Christian. I didn't read that interview and think 'how embarrassing for him'. I thought, 'excellently done' - his vulnerability, his opening out an area of struggle, declares the hope and the confidence he has found in Jesus and affirms it for us all.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm vulnerable too, in all sorts of ways. So are you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
When we try to deny our vulnerability we damage ourselves and those around us, we close off avenues of relationship, we reduce our capacity to learn, we step back from creative dynamic. We give in to shame and experience ourselves as a little less human; a little less alive. If you refuse vulnerability, you refuse the offer of transformation that comes in knowing God through Jesus Christ.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="chapter-1" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span class="text 2Cor-4-6" id="en-NIVUK-28866"><b>For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span>made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.</b></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<b><span class="text 2Cor-4-7" id="en-NIVUK-28867">But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. </span><span class="text 2Cor-4-8" id="en-NIVUK-28868">We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; </span><span class="text 2Cor-4-9" id="en-NIVUK-28869">persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. </span><span class="text 2Cor-4-10" id="en-NIVUK-28870">We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. </span><span class="text 2Cor-4-11" id="en-NIVUK-28871">For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.</span></b><span class="text 2Cor-4-12" id="en-NIVUK-28872"><b><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.</b> <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20corinthians%204&version=NIVUK" target="_blank">2 Corinthians 4:2-12</a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-90961111419569054882012-07-25T15:22:00.001+12:002012-07-25T15:33:52.193+12:00the breath of life<p><a title="Hongi (c)Mike Hudson - click picture for more information" href="http://www.seriocomic.com/photos/hongi" target="_blank"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="hongi" border="0" alt="hongi" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-o59ZUwd_ZZ0/UA9mejsLEbI/AAAAAAAAIWU/DfNOu_5G6-o/hongi%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="519" height="347" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="1">image ‘Hongi’ © Mike Hudson, used with permission – click the picture for more information or to purchase</font></p> <p align="center">“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” </p> <p align="right">Gen 2:7 (ESV)</p> <p align="center">“Tihei Mauri Ora!” (Maori - I sneeze, it is the breathe of life)</p> <p align="left">Maori tradition speaks of the god Tane breathing life into the woman formed from the ground. She awakes with a sneeze – the breath of life.</p> <p align="left">This is Maori Language Week in New Zealand. Language is powerful: shaping and echoing culture, forming and constraining thought. Sharing the breath of life is a formal, normal and intimate greeting – the Hongi.</p> <p align="left">At first it seems all about proximity of forehead and nose tip (touching), of lip and chin (not touching). The head, for Maori iwi, is sacred – the breaking of the tapu in the sharing of breath draws strangers into friendship, unifying the once estranged.</p> <p align="left">It can be an awkward business – especially when the other will not relax, exhale or breathe in. Badly done, like a limp handshake, it leaves people excluded, ungreeted and creeped out. </p> <p align="left">Done well, it is welcoming, affirming and empowering – when your faces have been well pressed, when breath has been truly shared: barriers are broken down, community is formed and the possibility of familial friendship affirmed, deepened, open.</p> <blockquote> <p align="left">I recall as a young child strolling down the street clutching the hand of my grandfather when we chanced upon an old friend that he hadn't seen in a while. <br />Eyes smiling in recognition, the two men drew close arm extended as if to shake hands. The gesture only drew them closer and then forehead to forehead, nose touching nose, with a hand on each others' shoulder, they embraced, not a word exchanged. Yet within the silence, a volume of words was spoken. <br />The longer the two men held the position, the higher the esteem was shown. Then as their feelings deepened, tears of regret and sorrow would flow as they remember unshared moments stolen by time that has slipped them by… <br /><em><strong>Raiatea Tahana-Reese </strong></em><a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/life/hongi-traditional-greeting-maori-19064.html" target="_blank"><em><strong>Epoch Times</strong></em></a></p> </blockquote> <p align="left">Of all cultural practices – of waiata and kai, kawa and tikanga – this one speaks to me of the power of and the call to community; it also speaks of theology.</p> <p align="left">The Bible speaks of God drawing close to the one formed of dust, made in His image, and breathing in life through Adam’s nostrils. With this breath comes life, understanding, language, imagination, dignity and agency. In short – humanity is breathed into life.</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-O8mHbaQ26sc/UA9mhHMdxTI/AAAAAAAAIWc/w_EmJ149Crc/s1600-h/The-Creation-of-Adam-Michelangelo-631%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="The-Creation-of-Adam-Michelangelo-631" border="0" alt="The-Creation-of-Adam-Michelangelo-631" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-urf6N3Sq8-M/UA9mirIwz-I/AAAAAAAAIWk/RH-yR4rvP1s/The-Creation-of-Adam-Michelangelo-631_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="338" height="160" /></a></p> <p align="left">Michelangelo's masterpiece frames the western imagination somewhat. God bringing life through touch – but this is not the Biblical account. Maybe, in Maori language week, the Hongi should cause us to reframe our imagination and inform our theology, anchored deeper in the Biblical account.</p> <p>In the Hongi we see the Trinity: The Father greets the World in reconciling condescension, he offers His face and, through Ihu Karaiti (the word for nose – ihu is the same as Jesus Name; Ihu), meets the world to share the Breath of Life, the Wairua Tapu/Holy Spirit.</p> <p>Next time we meet I’ll happily Hongi rather than shake hands, tip head back and raise eyebrows, fist bump, shoulder hug, full on hug or just say hi – I won’t force it on you, but if we do Hongi don’t hold back, press in, breathe deep and remember the theological force and power of the sharing of the breath of life.</p> <p align="center"><strong>Oha atu tetahi ki tetahi, hei te kihi tapu ano</strong>.</p> <p align="center">Romans 16:16a</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-28951694239904956632012-07-24T11:11:00.001+12:002012-07-24T11:17:08.356+12:00Hot Stuff on a Monday<p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-WFy9aPpQ6ok/UA3aDqzMyeI/AAAAAAAAIVw/wXW9_YYdQi4/s1600-h/hot%252520milo%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="hot milo" border="0" alt="hot milo" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-x02HjQUaQSI/UA3aEQK0xyI/AAAAAAAAIV4/3qQNXO_pgGI/hot%252520milo_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="244" /></a></p> <p>As I drove to campus I confessed that I didn’t want to be going – it was a bit of a miserable day, I knew the music would be too loud for conversation, it always is at the orientation events, and I knew I had other things I could be doing.</p> <p>I confessed my self-centeredness and unwillingness to go, to serve, to love – in short, my lack of desire to do all that God has called me to do. A deep sigh within, ‘help me to see this is not about me or my work, but to serve and love and give and grow the work you are doing.’</p> <p>The band started up, loud rap and bass and degrading words.  I don’t mean they were harsh words, at times I can see the force that foul words can bring into music – expressing emotion and shock appropriately, if not in an uplifting way. These words degraded – objectified women, trivialised sex and ridiculed virginity. I’m no moral campaigner; still, I wondered why a students’ association would book a band who would feed in such awfulness. The crowd whooped, cheered and danced: loving it all – dancing to degradation.</p> <p>A man stood not too far from the stall.  ‘<em>Here we go</em>’ I thought, ‘<em>time to serve.’ </em>The milo we were to be serving was now ready.</p> <p>“Would you like a cup of hot milo?” I shouted over the music. </p> <p>“Yeah sure, thanks”, he responded, he may have spoken – but I read his lips: his voice wasn’t carrying over the music.</p> <p>“Is this your first day on campus?” i bellowed, bowing my head in closer to him, hoping to hear his answer.</p> <p>“Yeah, just started a new course.” he yelled back</p> <p>“How’s it going?” fighting to make myself heard over the bass</p> <p>“This is going great,” pointing about him, “but don’t ask about my life – it’s a mess” the music suddenly dropped as he spoke, he almost told the whole crowd about it.</p> <p>Over the next 10 minutes, striving against loud music, we did chat about his life – the mess. I spoke about Jesus, God-in-the-mess offering life in and through and beyond the mess: offering forgiveness and hope.  The details emerged. He’s right – it’s a mess; but not a mess too large for God to change. There is no life too messy for God to turn around.</p> <p>Shouting at one another, over a hot drink, in a crowded campus, under a barrage of filthy lyrics and very loud music – this man was being spoken to by God. He lives near me, as we spoke of campus groups I also invited him along to an <a href="http://www.alpha.org.nz/" target="_blank">Alpha</a> course at church that night.  “I’ll think about it,” he shouted.</p> <p>He came to the course and God continues to do His work: a messy life being messed with by God’s healing grace. There will be messier days ahead.</p> <p>I closed my eyes, falling asleep at the end of the day, giving thanks to God that in my mess, His grace is seen – in forgiveness readily given because of Jesus, in being willing to use a man like me, in His strength seeping through my weakness. </p> <p>It’s been this way for two and a half decades: the perfect gospel leaking out through my imperfect life.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-36137321388126597452012-07-19T10:31:00.001+12:002012-07-19T10:31:50.073+12:00Awakening at 24000 feetSuddenly I stop reading, aware of my heart aching - clarity dawning that I'd not turned in prayer today. Not feeling guilty - but feeling hungry and thirsty; starved and parched. <br />
<br />
It's only 8:30 but I've been awake three hours - up, dressed and out, in the car, to the airport, into the lounge, into the shower, washing, re-dressing, breakfast, newspaper, coffee - good coffee - email, boarding call, texting to warn of the fog delay, reading, more coffee, more food, reading about writing and then snapping awake and realising.<br />
<br />
"God I feel a bit lost, Father..." even in the inner landscape of my heart and mind I could not find the words. I swap apps on the iPad, the bible filling my screen. Eyes closed, "I don't know where to go, where to read." A powerful moment of confessing powerlessness: silent, still. <br />
<br />
I'd read John Kirwan's interview in the New Zealand Herald, his favourite Italian phrase? "essera tranquillo" - be tranquil.<br />
<br />
I'm drawn to Psalm 15 - not recalling it's content but sensing its aptness for the moment.<br />
<br />
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?<br />
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?<br />
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right<br />
and speaks truth in his heart;<br />
who does not slander with his tongue<br />
and does no evil to his neighbour,<br />
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;<br />
in whose eyes a vile person is despised,<br />
but who honors those who fear the Lord;<br />
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;<br />
who does not put out his money at interest<br />
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.<br />
He who does these things shall never be moved. (Psalm 15:1-5 ESV)<br />
<br />
I feel gently cut in two: exposed but loved.<br />
<br />
God breathes on me at 24000 feet. It is warm and sweet, rejuvenating and confronting: comforting and disconcerting in equal measure. In this moment I see with searing clarity - I do not measure up: this is not me. The last two days stacked with evidential record against me: every line of the psalm a bar to me. In thought and word and deed - I am excluded, for I am not anywhere but on the wrong side of the list: outside of the borders of this exacting entry requirement.<br />
<br />
Deep sighs within, interpreted by Him who is the First Voice.<br />
<br />
But still I'm set free as I read these words because I know the Author. I know that earnestly meant and powerfully true across times and cultures these words are bar, boundary and invitation. <br />
<br />
God's Word speaks of Jesus: the only holy human whose hands and heart and tongue are pure and clean. A soul so lean of sin that He is the Man who is the Holy Hill: come, he beckons, with scarred hands and side and feet: tread where I have trod and enter safely in - this is your home. With Him in sight I come where I dare not go uninvited, where I should not fairly go because I am so unfair.<br />
<br />
Here on this plane, sailing over mountains and seas and people, sitting in a moderately uncomfortable seat I am renewed and reminded of eternal life, grace and forgiveness and sent into the day - not out of His presence but in it: carrying the Holy Hill with me to serve and worship and live.<div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a1e2LzheMyQ/UAc5Ut61-5I/AAAAAAAAIVU/qdQrKdXyFig/s640/blogger-image--1982306327.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a1e2LzheMyQ/UAc5Ut61-5I/AAAAAAAAIVU/qdQrKdXyFig/s640/blogger-image--1982306327.jpg" /></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-3009475397049691942012-05-28T15:11:00.001+12:002012-05-28T15:11:23.297+12:00Not So Secret Identity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"You're intelligent..." I smiled, glad of the complement and that a good friend recognises my genius, "...compassionate..." again I smiled, nodding this time in acknowledgement of their insight "...and you have an anger problem, which is why you're like the Hulk from the Avengers."<br />
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I laughed. It's true. One of the the lines from the film that made me laugh out loud, "That's my secret, I'm always angry." It resonated with me, a lot.<br />
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Anger isn't far beneath the surface for me, for all sorts of reasons.<br />
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I get angry at injustices - small and big, raging full on anger. The news of the weekend - another massacre in Syria, another aquittal for a rich man in the face of huge evidence against him, another politician misusing power, another unveiling of child porn... It is enough to drive me into raging despair. Anger like this is good because it motivates me to be clear sighted and clear headed: demands that I do not accept the unacceptable.<br />
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I get angry at foolishness - poor decisions that impact lots of people, thoughtless action that leaves others disenfranchised and marginalised, selfishness that leaves others on the edge of relationships stunned and hurt, the waste of money and resources that disregards the lack of resources of others. Anger like this leaves me vulnerable to judgementalism and self-righteousness.<br />
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I get angry when I'm challenged - both just and unjust challenges provoke me and leave me with a choice. How must I respond?<br />
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I get angry when tired, pushed too hard, inconvenienced and overlooked.<br />
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The New Testament is clear - anger is no virtue and is dangerous ground on which to make decisions, base relationships and live life. There is room made for it but not much:<br />
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<b>"Be angry but do not sin" </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">Eph 4:26</span></blockquote>
So how do I 'deal' with my anger:<br />
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1. Vent not, want not. Venting anger doesn't often help - it feeds the flames rage with fresh oxygen and intensifies the feelings. I look to express rather than to vent: examining and exploring what has got me angry.<br />
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2. Wait and ponder. In not venting, neither do I stew - but I do give time to think and reflect on why I'm angry: is it good, bad or ugly (or most often - just complex). Why am I angry? Is a great question to ask myself and I try not to let it begin with 'because they...' but with 'because I...'<br />
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3. Repent in haste, respond at leisure. I have to be quick to apologise - not at a surface level (a 'sorry' that is not sorrowful is worse than the initial injury) - if I've spoken out of turn, I try not to justify it but to acknowledge it, see the injury and learn from the moment. Sin is part of the pattern of the human heart that the grace of God is working on in me: I learn much about the greatness of my saviour in the confronting of my sin.<br />
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4. Look back in humour - again, not to belittle the moment, but if I were to hold on to sorrow for every time I stepped out of line in this area: let's just say a lifetime would not be long enough to dig me out of that particular hole. I need to learn to laugh at the ridiculousness of my own studpidity and sin - that way, I'll probably learn to see the lighter side of other's darkness too.<br />
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5. Pursue honesty in friendship - confronting other people well is an investment into better relationships. Not the faux honesty of 'assertiveness training' which is all about getting what our selfish hearts want but being honest in ways that invite people into deeper friendship - being honest about being angry can open doors into vulnerability in me as well as others. It's a little bit like learning to swim at the deep end of the swimming pool - it might not be ideal, but it is pretty effective.<br />
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What are the big issues for you? How do you deal with them?<div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-49530587334126628662012-05-15T14:37:00.000+12:002012-05-15T14:37:11.975+12:00Dirty Growth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of my time was spent with a team from the church we attend here in Auckland. As we visited friends in Vanuatu the guys gave time and energy in doing odd jobs around a camp site. They came to snorkel, sightsee and serve. They got their hands dirty and reopened a shower block that had been closed, waterproofed a container so it could be used to store books and resources again, built and painted a wee tuck shop that opens the possibility of raising some revenue for the camp, repaired leaky pipes, installed a water tank, shared life with one another and those on site and enjoyed the beauty of Vanuatu.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some time was spent with local preachers; church pastors and elders. We shared meals, talks, dreams for Vanuatu, hopes for God's church and encouraged one another in how to train the next generation of men and women who will share God's work. One of the leaders said of the women she works with - "they said they would no longer come to my 'preachers club' because they never 'preach'. So I changed the name of the club to 'better ways of handling God's Word' and now they come and use the Bible in their family devotions, also many of their husbands are now coming along too." From the pulpit to the dinner table God's Word is making an impact.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A little time was spent with the students studying in Port Vila; over dinner before the Friday night gathering and in the meeting itself. Their joy and enthusiasm, their sense of fun and their hopes for the future are clear as they chat - as is their diversity, vulnerability and the work of God among them. One of the students said over dinner "Before I studied the Bible with CF it was like a book with a random collection of moralistic stories, but now I see that it is very powerful as God speaks" another student responded "yes, we look for the answers and solutions to problems but they are all there in the Bible, people now face the same kinds of questions they people did from 2000 years ago". In the meeting there was lots of laughter and a real earnest longing to know God better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of the above realities are 'neat and tidy' all of them presented real vulnerabilities, difficult circumstances and, in different ways, require men and women to get their hands dirty. Growth does not come in prepackaged. convenience focussed, bundles. Growth comes in hard work, faithful and creative labouring and the willingness to plunge our hands deep into the work of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not rocket science, in our western obsession with safety, strategic goals, measurable progress and defined areas of work focus we are too often concerned for self above a passion for growth: therefore we limit the scope and depth of growth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I heard someone today say that the future belongs to those who are willing to get their hands dirty. The future belongs to Jesus, however, His word is full of metaphors that demand dirty hands: farming, labouring, building, sowing, shepherding, harvesting...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If my Saviours hands are scarred and dirty - should mine be any different, no matter what he calls me to?</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-33877291139699294512012-04-30T11:03:00.001+12:002012-04-30T11:03:12.712+12:00The silent killer – a virus for our times<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-14WrNTBOjHM/T53IqO8tyKI/AAAAAAAAH9g/tCsVqalxz7U/s1600-h/Photoshop_T_Virus_017201_%25255B10%25255D.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Photoshop_T_Virus_017201_" border="0" alt="Photoshop_T_Virus_017201_" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-li9P1p2VnII/T53IrUDS9_I/AAAAAAAAH9k/c9r6aSybWRA/Photoshop_T_Virus_017201__thumb%25255B7%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="231" height="189" /></a></p> <p>I’m infected.  There have been signs for a while that should have aided a self diagnosis but it was only yesterday as I heard a fellow sufferer speak about her own symptoms that it all became painfully clear.</p> <p>“a sense of entitlement is a virus that eats away at us.” She said it plainly and all of a sudden everything fell into place.</p> <p> </p> <p>I’m infected.</p> <p>I think I should have more, be more – that at 42 I deserve more than I have. I feel entitled, owed: those around me are indebted to me and need to cut me more more slack, afford me more respect and show deference to my opinions, wants and needs.  </p> <p>I feel like God owes me: comfort, time, better housing, more generous holidays, sunshine on days off, money for my wants as well as my needs, children who are unquestioningly obedient, a spouse who is unfalteringly patient, cars that sail through traffic, health that doesn’t deteriorate, coffee that’s always good, people to serve me without error or inconvenience, days without loneliness, cake without calories, success without effort… the list goes on and on and on.</p> <p>I’ve harboured and cultured this virus – I’ve warmed it with self-pity, fed it the pure proteins of consumerism and sheltered it in the dark humidity of self-interest.  The infection is bad and has a real grip.</p> <p>As I listened to the speaker at church yesterday, an ordinary woman who has served for many years in a war torn country, talking about the infection of the entitlement virus – the diagnosis and the treatment were clear.</p> <ul> <li>I am owed nothing – everything I have is an amazing gift. Gratitude, not grumbling, is the first line of attack: gratitude for life and the honour of knowing God in Jesus Christ – each day is a gift.  </li> <li>Humility paralyses the virus – God is God, I am not: this is His world not mine, I serve Him not Him me, and this world does not function as He designed it; inconvenience and hard work are just part of life, remembering this keeps the symptoms of the virus in check.</li> <li>Changing the intellectual and spiritual environment starves the virus and renders it ineffectual. Feeding myself with the truth of God’s Word, choosing to serve among His people and both love and be loved in the great imperfections of life are the antibodies which course through a system and prevent the virus from thriving: the light of the gospel prevents it feeding and spreading.</li> <li>Being loved in Christ Jesus, kills the virus off. God has given us His Son and now, nothing good is withheld when it is good for us. I am owed nothing but, owned in Christ, I have laid hold of an inheritance which means I am rich beyond the wildest and truest hopes of humanity.</li> <!--EndFragment--></ul> <p>Today I feel a little freer of the symptoms of the virus which could prove deadly.  I’ll keep taking the medicine and antiviral therapies until the end of my days – then, I shall be truly free.</p> <p>What about you? How infected are you?</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-14446733198665054332011-12-20T12:46:00.001+13:002011-12-20T12:46:25.442+13:00Frail Flesh<p> </p> <p align="center">My song is love unknown, <br />My Saviour’s love to me; <br />Love to the loveless shown, <br />That they might lovely be. <br />O who am I, that for my sake <br />My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?</p> <p align="right"><a href="http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/m/y/mysongis.htm" target="_blank"><font size="1">Samuel Crossman</font></a></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XQUI-u8C9iY/Tu_MvoosCXI/AAAAAAAAG-A/trqDZaie8oM/s1600-h/1280px-Crying_newborn%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="1280px-Crying_newborn" border="0" alt="1280px-Crying_newborn" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-2R6B6hweuRE/Tu_MwsYWwlI/AAAAAAAAG-I/DJqRB2En5_E/1280px-Crying_newborn_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="240" height="160" /></a></p> <p align="left">Jesus was born into a time of economic, political, social and religious tension.  The <a href="http://www.xenos.org/classes/chronc.htm" target="_blank">Roman census</a> which displaced Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem is about tax revenue and may well have been the spark that ignited civil unrest (taxation and protest have long been closely aligned).  Herod ‘the Great’ responded viciously to any hint of rivalry, dispatching forces to murder infants and toddlers who could be the prophesied Davidic King/Messiah.  Religious authorities were revelling in the rebuild of the Jerusalem Temple, funded by the half-Jewish Roman puppet king that Herod was.  The world was in upheaval.</p> <p align="left">Jesus was born into this messed up, volatile, tense and fractious context.  On a night of banal regularity, a young woman gave birth to her first child. She was remarkable only in that her story echoed those of so many others.  Poverty, risk, desperation and isolation accompanied the birth of her son, her husband the only help at hand that we know about.  His hands, so used to carving wood, put to the unfamiliar tasks of birthing.</p> <p align="left">This child born without a halo, lacking the symphonic soundtrack, at risk of infection, starvation, hypothermia… the normal risks of birth in a non-medicalised environment. This child is so ordinary: mucus wiped away, his body dried, his umbilical cord cut, fed at the breast, placenta delivered.  He would be placed out of harms way – to sleep off the rigours of birth as mother and father cope with the clear up.</p> <p align="left">Off in the hills above the town shepherds are visited by angelic beings and are told what no one would know, if it were not for Heaven being unable to hold its secret silent.  Off in the distance pagan magicians follow a star they have divined heralds the coming of a Jewish King who would see to the rise and fall of many nations.  In the northern hills of Galillee, Elizabeth, an elderly woman cradles her own miracle 9 month old son, and wonders when the news of her kinswoman’s delivery would come; when the news of the Deliverer would reach their village.</p> <p align="left">This frail child, lain in an animal feeding trough, is the Bread of Heaven come down to bring eternal life, the Light of the World come to reveal the way, truth and life, the One and Only Son of God.  His frail flesh will grow and is headed for the cross, the grave and then to reign as the Lord of Life defeating Death for all eternity.  There in that child, God has not simply come to be among us – but has come to be one of us, to be with us, that we might come to know Him.</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-MYpi1y-J55c/Tu_MyEB3a1I/AAAAAAAAG-Q/rzeSZW77HC0/s1600-h/black-friday%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="black-friday" border="0" alt="black-friday" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-rtOq58RP60k/Tu_MztuyurI/AAAAAAAAG-U/I2FHkIhRplY/black-friday_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="137" height="162" /></a></p> <p align="left">Two thousand years on, we gather in malls and spend money we do not have, eat food we do not need, buy clothes that will not wear out before we weary of them, celebrate an old man dressed in red, lie to our children, lie to each other and talk of the spirit of Christmas. All the time Christ is reduced to a plastic figure at the base of trees: ignored, marginalised and paid scant regard as we march on into selfish consumption.</p> <p align="left">How fitting a reminder of our need for Him still.</p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="3">O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; <br />Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today. <br />We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; <br />O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!</font></strong></p> <p align="left"><strong><font size="3"></font></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="3">Have a great Christmas:</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="3">don’t allow the celebration</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="3">to hide Christ from your heart.</font></strong></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">_____________________________________________________________
www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868828.post-44835629017005279472011-08-11T17:27:00.003+12:002011-08-14T14:49:33.918+12:00Global Home Here #wa2011I sat in my room on the last day of the World Assembly and wrote this:<br />
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<i>Bus loads have left, the buzz is gone. Hearts and heads are set toward home. Those hearts and heads are pretty full as we head back into our respective areas of ministry. Some are staying - flights to some parts of Africa and Asia are not as frequent as to the major population hubs in the world.</i></blockquote>
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It is now over a week since I left Krakow, most of us are now home. I know at least one delegate will still be walking, patiently, through tough terrain and in dangerous circumstances. He will be walking for a number of days yet - avoiding the authorities that will imprison, torture and kill him if they understand the work he is actually doing. Others have returned to the comforts of consumer driven societies, others to the chaos of countries torn by civil unrest and political turmoil. I've returned to New Zealand, caught up in the excitement of the approaching Rugby World Cup. This is my second full day back 'at the desk'. <br />
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I'm missing friends from around the world; aching for the excitement of World Assembly - for cameraderie, for fellowship, for hearing different languages, for the power and presence of a multicultural people united under the Lordship of Jesus. But IFES World Assembly was akin to the Transfiguration of Jesus - a glimpse of something to come but not a place to set up home. Like the transfiguration that glimpse of glory is to empower us in ministry and send us into the campuses, contexts and churches of the world. We gathered only to go; to return.<br />
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Some of the things that stand out from this IFES World Assembly for me:<br />
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<b>The use of the expressive arts</b><br />
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Often it is said with real truth, that evangelicals are boring. We are - at least en masse. However it was a relief and a powerful challenge to our straighlaced tendancies (to be soberminded is no bad thing, but to be dull is a terrible curse) that the drama and music at this IFES World Assembly were powerful and relevant, contributing to our engagement with and preparedness for Scripture, and opening our hearts and minds to the claims and glory of Jesus. <b><i>Without this element we would have worshipped with less full hearts and engaged with duller minds.</i></b></blockquote>
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<b>The power of visual media</b><br />
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Tim Pieska produced some amazing videography during the assembly - others too contributed to photographic and videographic presentations during the assembly. These images didn't simply provide eye-candy to amuse and distract, but they moved hearts and engaged minds. These were more than video summaries they were presentations of Gospel truth: and powerfully so. The week was emotionally charged and I found myself in tears listening to scripture read and preached, wetfaced in conversation and in prayer but too in watching and being ministered to by these visual presentations of truth. <b><i>Without this element we would have lacked a language to express the truths we were learning and being called to.</i></b></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/27095970">World Assembly 2011 Daily Impression - 30/07</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/ifes">IFES World</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</span></div>
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<b>The opportunity provided by social media</b><br />
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This blog received over 1000 visits from 240 cities in 57 nations during the 10 days of World Assembly. Twitter traffic from our gathering reached around the world in multiple languages. This is the most globally connected IFES World Assembly that there has ever been. Several nations were unable to have representatives at World Assembly because of Visa issues, others just weren't able to make it because of numbers or finance. Social Media both enabled greater engagement in the auditorium for those present but also opened the opportunity for men and women around the world to read, see and hear what happened. The IFES media page will contain increasing amounts of audio and video from the assembly. <a href="http://www.ifesworld.org/media">http://www.ifesworld.org/media</a> SO the opportunity continues. <b><i>Without this element the World Assembly would have been parochial, irrelevant and disingenuous in a world where we can communicate across the globe as easily as we can with our next-door neighbour.</i></b></blockquote>
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<b>The engagement with ideas and ideals</b><br />
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We talked about the nature and character of gospel ministry, examined prejudices and challenges, explored new media, gave students the platform for the day and opened up the thorny issues around social engagement and gospel proclamation. We explored the claims of Christ's Lordship over our lives, the universities in which we are serving Him and the universe in which we live. I heard people discussing the socio-political impact of the gospel as well as exploring the personal implications of the call to repent of sin. I had conversations about architecture, scripture, culture, academic integrity, social media (of course), marriage, death, singleness, cross-cultural communication, sexuality, the love of God, sociology, integrity in leadership, international commerce, dealing with disappointment, parenthood, dealing with persecution, speaking in tongues, the importance of student leadership, art, beauty, tattoos, graduate ministry.... the list goes on and on. Every and anything was up for open, direct and Christ-centred discussion. The length, depth and breadth of discussion encapuslated the absolute clarity of the call to engage with all of life with the whole Gospel. <i><b>Without this element we would have been shallow in fellowship and restricted in our focus.</b></i></blockquote>
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<b>The close bonds of fellowship in service</b><br />
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Conferences are easy places to forge friendships but sitting at table with many men and women who had been friends for many years I was struck by how important these friendships are in encouraging and sustaining gospel ministry. I was especially struck as I spoke with good friends who are serving around the world - years and thousands of miles had stretched between our meetings and yet our fellowship renewed my love of Christ, reminded me of His call on my life and lifted my heart as well as broke it a little. Add to this new friendships, which surprised me as God used them to challenge me afresh and call me anew. It was a delight too to see the students of the Polish IFES movement, ChSA, serve the delegates as a team of friends. <b><i>Without this element the World Assembly would have just been a business meeting, as it was it turned out to be a family gathering.</i></b></blockquote>
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<b>The importance of student leadership in student ministry</b><br />
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This World Assembly had the largest number of students in attendance (both sheer numbers and as a percentage) than ever before. IFES is a fellowship of student ministries - student lead, student focused and student powered. I was taken aback that we also appointed the first two student representatives onto the IFES International Executive Committee. I was also taken aback to hear that some present were not entirely encouraged by student involvement. The TSCF students (Josh, Michael and Charlotte) were told more than once that World Assembly is really a "staff gathering". Students started the work of IFES, students and recent graduates began to staff the work as a means of resourcing students and the work has most often been founded on courageous men and women, short in years but great in faith, who have acted faithfully and joyfully in the face of adversity. Ramez Attalah spoke on the student day of World Assembly about the important lessons he learned in success and failure as a student. A testimony that rings true in my own life: a testimony and vision that drove and called me to the work of IFES in the UK and now here in NZ and will keep me in the work as long as the Lord allows. When IFES student ministry loses it's focus on student leadership it becomes an organisation concerned with effectiveness and numbers and loses sight of the power of risk and the hope of transformation. <b><i>Without the element of student leadership World Assembly would have become an exercise in strategy whilst losing sight of the most strategic opening God has placed before us: students reaching students in the student world.</i></b> </blockquote>
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www.kiwichronicles.blogspot.com - go on, you know you want to</div>KiwiChronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01181628720872803742noreply@blogger.com3