New Wheel (covers)

It seems like quop is not the only one having to replace some things on his car. On my drive to Grunt (the St Lucia men's ministry) I lost one of the wheel covers (specifically the front driver's side). I remember being in stop-start traffic along Coronation Drive when all of a sudden I heard this crunching sound - like somebody rear-ended someone else. It sounded so close to my car that I actually wound the window down to pop my head out and do a quick visual inspection along my side. There appeared to be nothing wrong until I parked at St Lucia and realised what had happened.

So this afternoon I went to Super Cheap Auto and bought 4 replacement covers. You can see the difference in aesthetics in the comparison below.

So if you see our car on Sunday and it looks slightly different to what you remember, it's because we've gotten new car wheel covers :)

SALT Library!

Last week we kicked off SALT's library! With a relatively generous church budget allocated to SALT this year we have been steadily raiding Koorong and Word bookstores during their sales to stock up on various books. Here's a list of some of what you may find in our reading list:

• the Manga Bible (Genesis & Exodus) - this has proved very popular with both the guys and girls!
• The Case for Christ/Faith/Creator youth & student editions by Lee Strobel
• Jesus Among Other Gods youth edition by Ravi Zacharias
• A Hell of a Life/Hanging In There/Sneaking Suspicion - great books for teens by John Dickson
• More than a Carpenter/Beyond Belief to Convictions - excellent apologetic's books by Josh McDowell
• I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris
• and a great little series of 'The Little Black/Pink Book' on various issues for teens

Pray with us that we'll continue to build up the library with solid resources and pray that the teens would find encouragement, growth and conviction of the truth of Christianity/Jesus through these resources!

My love/non-love relationship with SALT

I wonder if it's natural for me to feel a sense of dread week in and week out in the lead-up to SALT (SAint Lucia Teens). I'm not sure it should be.

Tonight was a great reminder of how buzzing and exciting youth ministry can be. I led one of the teens through the prayer of repentance! How small minded I am, how inadequate is my love for the teens that I minister to, and how great is the awesomeness of God!

Pray with me that this young teen would grow into a much more godly man than I am.

YF Camp reflections

Last weekend we held our annual YF Camp. Tonight was the related 'YF Camp Reflections' in which everyone who went to camp got together one last time to share what they had reflected upon during the week after camp.

Lots of people turned up tonight which was incredibly encouraging. Plenty of the first timers as well. I led a largish group through the reflections and was able to share my own thoughts.

This year's camp wasn't the greatest one. Previous camps have had a better feel and better fellowship, however the lessons I learnt this weekend were quite profound compared with previous years.

Our guest speaker's talks from the book of Jonah were excellent. I learnt more about the technique of preaching from listening in, but the greatest thing I was reminded of last weekend was to remember that God is always bigger than the box we put Him in.

Now, this should come as no surprise really. However I realised that I have put God in a box. It's a box with the labels of 'theology' and 'got this figured out' plastered all over it. And I honestly believe it to be a very big box as well. But the surprising message of which I have been mulling over the past few days has been that even though I believe my box is very big, God is still much bigger than that. His ways are far beyond my ability to fully comprehend and I'm thankful that He condescends to my level and communicates His will to me through His word. I have so much to learn and so much more to be thankful for that I must continue to ponder and be in awe of God's greatness.

What a privilege it is to have God reveal Himself in His Son. I pray that I'll be able to encourage you (and vice versa) to keep pondering the vastness and depth of God's greatness.

YF Camp 2008

Small man, big fish, even BIGGER God!

This is probably the furthest campsite we've been to for YF Camp - I'd have to do a whereis comparison between the Somerset site and this years site at Lennox Heads. Both were roughly a 2 hour drive, but this year's drive felt longer.

Anyway, it was another good weekend of great talks and fellowship. The campsite was good, skit night was as brilliant as ever, and the talks were spot on. The fellowship this year felt a little disjointed, but that seems to happen every so often.

For those of you who missed out, here's some of the fun. Turn up your speakers ;)