Prayer Request - Moving House!

Thank you to all the readers of this blog! We hope to post more thoughts regularly in future.

For now, please keep us in your prayers as we undertake the relatively stressful time of moving house (I was told recently that it's one of the top things which stress people the most - I can understand why!). Pray for a smooth transition and for the safe travel of our belongings. Pray also for our cat, whom we're concerned about the most, for his adjustment to the new place and that he won't get lost with the new surroundings.

Thank you and we'll be back soon :)

2007 Men’s Training Event, Mt Tambourine – ‘The Perfect Man’

Whilst the format of this years Men’s Training Event (MTE) was slightly altered from previous years (instead of a workshop we just had talks all weekend), this was certainly another year for many challenges to reflect upon.

Keith Birchley, from the University of Queensland’s ‘Evangelical Students’, took three talks on the book of James. Phil Campbell, from Mitchelton Presbyterian, gave two talks from the book of Judges. Both speakers had different speaking styles, but both hit me square between the eyes with their biblical teaching.

Of the many lessons drawn from James, these were some of the highlights:

• in regards to the trials of this life: God is more concerned with me response to trials rather than the change of circumstances
• When it comes to my ‘Trial Processing Programme’ whilst I’d like to think that I have a relatively realistic outlook, I can’t help but also realise that I’m slightly naïve when it comes to trials (with respect to [wrt] the gravity of some trials)
• WRT contemplating our fear of God as our ‘cosmic Father’ – those we love the most are the ones we fear offending
• WRT the utterly consistent goodness of God – my consistency needs to flow from God’s consistency: this is called integrity
• WRT Godly wisdom – wisdom is more walk than talk – intelligent ideas might be right, they might be sharp, but without godly discernment it is bound to be earthly, unspiritual and ultimately demonic (!)
• WRT to Godly peace – it’s usually what’s going on internally which creates what’s going on externally.
• And to finish, something seemingly random but very well related - Thomas Cranmer’s Anthropology: What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

Highlights from the two Judges talks were:

• WRT Judges 4-5: whilst these passages are sometimes used to justify the position that women should be ordained as ministers, etc (cf the fact that Deborah was a prophetess and leader over Israel), we should quickly note that the bigger issue within Judges 4-5 is the lack of real men to be leaders
• Campbell insightfully pointed out that Judges 5 contains no references to the ‘men’ in the battle won by Israel, instead the focus of the song is on the women – a very back handed reference to the state of Israel’s men at the time
• WRT Judges 9-11: we see a man, Jephthah who was willing to sacrifice everything in order to get what he wanted. As Campbell preached on this section my mind wandered to how Erwin McManus used portions of this part of scripture in his book ‘The Barbarian Way’. As I continued to listen to Campbell expound on the text he mentioned that the NIV translation says, ‘A group of adventurers gathered around [Jephthah]’ (Judges 11:3). Campbell wasn’t sure why the NIV had translated it this way since the original wording, a literal translation, would have read something more like, ‘a group of empty men gathered around…’ In this way McManus’ use of this portion of scripture as a founding principle for his book is taken incredibly out of context and poorly explained.
• Pointing to Jesus: in reflection upon the two talks Campbell made some insightful connections to Jesus Christ. In Judges 4-5 the problem was a lack of real men. Jesus is the real man (as ironically declared in John 19:5) who in spite of the fear (compared to Barak in Judges 4) stood firm. And compared to Jephthah, who would sacrifice anything to get what he wanted (and tragically ending with the sacrifice of his one and only daughter), Jesus was a man who would sacrifice himself in order to give what we needed.

But aside from the great talks was also another chance to just get away with some guys and grow in our fellowship and encouragement of one another. Please keep praying for next year’s MTE and for many more ‘real men’ to head up the mountain again.

Myself up on stage getting interviewed - thanks Chi for the panoramic pic!

BLT Plus wrap up

I can not remember the last conference I attended when I left feeling completed exhausted. In fact, I don’t ever recall leaving any conference exhausted! This is probably because I’ve usually had ok sleep on the first night, but for BLT Plus this year I didn’t manage to catch much at all.

The feelings of exhaustion carried throughout the Saturday of the conference. That said, part of the tiredness was also the 5am wake up call to see the sunrise with Billy – but that was worth it! Sunday morning’s sunrise was washed out grey apparently.

But onto the important stuff – the talks and the fellowship. BLT Plus crept upon us quite quickly considering the busy weeks beforehand. By the time we hit the camp site I wasn’t expecting big things. So it was both pleasant and a challenge to hear Peter Lin speak from various passages throughout the weekend concerning the Holy Spirit. Some of the key things I learnt throughout the weekend include:

• According to scripture the Spirit’s role is to help us understand and point us to Jesus Christ
• Considering that the Spirit’s role is so Christ-centred, any talk of people ‘hearing a message from the Spirit’ needs to be checked against what scripture says – if the ‘revelation’ has nothing to do with the Christ then it is most likely not from the Spirit
• Not only this, but suggesting that you received a new revelation from the Spirit is also manipulative: it is to say that I received a special revelation and you did not

Throughout this time I was thinking back to when one of my friends said that she had some ‘prophets’ come to their church, lay hands on people and tell them things like, “You will be a Dentist in the future…” etc. The thought of it sat rather uncomfortably with me for a while, but now I understand that the Spirit’s main role. So at least I am now equipped to know what to say next time (that is not to say that I am now going to head out and proclaim to my charismatic friends that they are wrong, but with this greater understanding of the Spirit’s role there at least can be some correction).

So as per usual the talks from BLT Plus were highly challenging, thought provoking and solidly grounded.

But a new concept was trialled for this BLT Plus. In previous years workshops had been run to help train and equip people in various areas of ministry. This year the workshops were scrapped in favour of ‘Manuscript Discovery’ sessions which aimed to train and give confidence to people in understanding scripture. The main reason we did this was to underpin the doctrine of the ‘perspicuity of scripture’. As reformed evangelicals we believe that scripture, as God has given to us today, is clear enough for the every day person to read and understand. We do not require the assistance of a ‘Pope’ figure to give meaning and interpretation. The Holy Spirit plus time can allow us to understand the bible on its own.

So when you’re confronted with something like this:

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged."

With a bit of time and the Holy Spirit’s help, you can figure out the meaning on your own. But because we didn’t have all the time in the world over the weekend, we had small groups put together to slog through this particular passage (and more) and to encourage each other as we ‘discovered’ scripture for ourselves. There were very exciting moments during my group when you could see their faces and minds clicking over the train of thought within the passage. Understanding not only the passage itself, but that they could do this on their own also.

In all, another great weekend away. But enough from me, here are some more photos :P

Sunrise

My attempt at an arty shot - thanks Wong for participating :)

Breaking through the clouds

Heading back to the campsite for breakfast!

Shipwreck on beach

Just a tick over 100 people again this year from 9 different churches. It's growing each year - and hopefully we'll see even more next year!