The lovely but obviously misguided pastor at a church down the peninsula has asked me to “share my story” next Sunday.  I’m just hoping I can do it with a straight face!   Anybody who knows me can tell you that I am probably last on their list of  people they would ever expect to see anywhere near a pulpit.  But there you are, there I am and for some strange reason I agreed to grace *giggle* the congregation with my presence.

Now I just have to think of something witty, interesting and poignant to say.  Yeah, right.  Maybe I should have the ushers hand out apology notes at the door.

For once I have got to the end of the year and I’m totally proud of my achievements.  I feel like I’ve really made a difference to other people this year.

Some highlights:

• Finding Vive Cafe – volunteering there has left me speechless, amazed and sometimes on the verge of tears.  Like yesterday, when somebody brought along a pile of games and toys with wrapping paper for the guests.  It was raining when everybody was leaving, and as I was walking a father out with an umbrella to shield his box of goodies he said to me “I can’t believe this.  We didn’t know how we were going to get presents for our kids.  This is amazing.  It makes such a difference.”
• Doing home visitations with Wellsprings.  A lady I visit said something to me the other day that I had no reply to – “While I was in hospital before [I met you] I sometimes felt like I did not want to live.  Now when sleep can’t come I think of you and your family and I want to live.  When I was in hospital I thought of you and I wanted to live.”  Despite leaving me feeling extremely weird, it made me think that what I’m doing is making a difference.
• Finding a calmer self inside me when sometimes I want to scream and lash out.
• Meeting a heap of new people who make me feel like our presence on this earth is not just an accident, but that our (and my) purpose is for something great.

There’s lots more, those are just a few things.  My life is so full.  I am so blessed.  The Lord is my shepherd and I have everything I need.

I pray the same for you.

See, I knew when I posted an “I have nothing left to say” post something would come to me!

I thought I’d write quickly about an evening I had on Thursday.

I found an interesting blog post written by Neal Taylor of Hand To The Plough.  I have been throwing around the idea of helping out in a soup kitchen for ages, but haven’t found anything that is both local to me (Eastern suburbs of Melbourne) and that captures me.  Vive Cafe is different.  It is about 20 minutes from my house and just down the road from where I lived for a few years.  It does the idea of soup kitchen differently.  Check out this article from the local newspaper to get a bit of a feel for what it’s all about.  When I first read that article I thought “yeah, sure – a sense of community, yada yada yada.”  Anybody who has read my blog before knows I am always immediately cynical  :-D

Anyway, so I sent off an email and got a very prompt response telling me that no experience is needed, just a willing heart, and to turn up on Thursday if I liked.  So on Thursday I took my youngest daughter (aged eight) and went along, expecting perhaps to help out but mostly just to sit on the sidelines and watch the “real” volunteers do their stuff.

I walked through the door ten minutes early to a surprisingly half-full dining room.  It seems people are so eager to get there they front up rather punctually!  The colour and warmth of the room were immediately apparent, and as I walked through the door the glow pulled me in.  I went to find somebody in charge, who smiled welcomingly, asked if I wanted to help and doled out aprons.  Feeling rather inexperienced I carefully passed out garlic bread and delicious-smelling minestrone.  My daughter had a fantastic time playing waitress – clearing tables and handing out plates with gusto.  I was amazed when I saw the people in the kitchen carefully ladling soup into the pristine white bowls.  Any slopped bits were carefully wiped away from the edges as they would be in any decent restaurant.  The meals were plated with love and care.

After the entrees were cleared away we began serving mains of fettuccine bolognese and salad.  While I was thinking “Hey, I’m getting the hang of this!” I was asked kindly by a vision-impaired lady if I could help her eat.  I checked with the lady in charge if that was OK (not wanting to step on anybody’s toes) and then returned and tried my best to feed her pasta without spilling too much down her front.  While she was eating we talked.  It seems she (in her wheelchair) and her friend take a train and then a bus to get to Vive every week.

But why would somebody go to all that trouble for a simple meal?  I found the answer all around me.  The laughter and conversation I could hear around the tables.  The hugs and pats on the back among the guests.  The wide, welcoming smiles of the volunteers.  It’s a place I want to be too.

What I found most striking was there is no “soup kitchen” atmosphere there.  Nobody has to line up, bowl in hand, for soup or bread to be doled out.  Instead people are served.  Really served.  You get the feeling if a volunteer was asked to stand on her head because it would make the evening more enjoyable for a guest she probably would.  A young man with a guitar played live music in the background – not twee, churchy music, but Coldplay and U2 and other music people actually like listening to.

By the time the chocolate mousse was passed around I was feeling completely at home.  Community in this place is a reality, not just a buzzword or a dream.  And how often do you get this kind of community among a bunch of marginalised and ostracised people?

It really is something special.

And on top of that, it is by far the best use of a church fellowship hall I have ever seen.  And I have been in a lot.

In the words of a certain overacting Terminator-come-Governor, I’ll be back.

So I’m considering letting go of this space for now since it’s becoming such a bleak and quiet place instead of the hive of activity it once was.  This is through no fault of anybody – people are always going to run out of things to say when my posts are so few and far between!

So what do you think?  Does anybody still read and visit here to even reply?

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research has come up with a report about the people who attend Megachurches.

One thing that stood out to me was the reasons people initially attended the churches:

1. The worship style

2. The senior pastor

3. The church’s reputation

The reasons people continued to attend?

1. The senior pastor

2. The worship style

3. The church’s reputation

I find that quite scary.  What a burden to lay on the senior pastor for one thing.  What a sad list of reasons for another.  And where is Jesus in all this?  I didn’t hear one mention…

McDonalds has near achieved world domination using these concepts.  It strikes me as a problem, though, when followers of Jesus use those same values.

OK, this isn’t new.  But I’ve been reading a novel over the past couple of weeks by Francine Rivers, called And the Shofar Blew.  It’s a fantastic novelisation of the slow change that a pastor goes through from on-fire young man to CEO of an empire.  So much of it is very true, both in my own experience and the experiences of good friends.

Then I read this today from the Sydney Morning Herald:

SYDNEY, London, Kiev, Paris, Cape Town, Stockholm, Moscow … and now Brisbane.

The languid Queensland capital has become the latest stop in Brian and Bobbie Houston’s odyssey to franchise their pentecostal Hillsong Church around the world.

Mr Houston has resigned as president of the Australian Christian Churches, a position he held for 12 years, to focus on the “multisite” expansion of Hillsong. And that, coupled with the controversial move interstate, has prompted speculation that Hillsong is ramping up its domestic network of churches, ready to pounce on churches struggling amid the global financial crisis.

Garden City Christian Church on Brisbane’s southside will be renamed Hillsong Brisbane Campus and the Houstons installed as senior pastors there on May 24, after 79 per cent of Garden City members voted in favour of the takeover.

An information document circulated before the vote said the Houstons had chosen to move into Brisbane because “it is a fast growing area with great potential for the Gospel”.

….

Garden City’s senior pastor for eight years, Bruce Hills, was forced out before the arrival of the Houstons. Garden City Christian Church announced Mr Hills’s resignation in December, amid criticism that the church was not growing enough. Yet in an address to a Christian conference at Easter, Mr Hills revealed he had a nervous breakdown last September. “Emotionally I just imploded,” he said.

When he returned from eight weeks’ leave, Garden City Christian Church elders told him: “We’d rather have more of a CEO leader than you. We’d like you to resign.”

Describing it as “the deepest, darkest experience I’ve ever been through”, Mr Hills said he was “really angry about what these people had done”.

You can read the full article here.

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’ve become far too cynical.  But doesn’t this ring some alarm bells in anybody? What is wrong with our churches when this is normal and seen as a healthy move into the future?

AUGUST 16, 2000

LAKE OF FIRE, HELL–Eternally tormented soul Brent Woodson, who is currently being pressed between white-hot slabs of iron, expressed “profound regret” Monday that he had laughed at the Jack Chick anti-homosexuality tract Doom Town, handed to him by a street evangelist moments before he was fatally struck by a bus. “I guess I shouldn’t have cracked up at the cartoon drawing of gay guys as burly, hairy bikers with lipstick and pompadours,” said Woodson, his charred entrails spilling out onto the rocky floor of the Netherworld while barb-toothed demons gnawed at his extremities. “I’m not laughing now, that’s for sure. That Jack Chick guy is no kook.”

Source: The Onion

(Anybody who wants to red the Chick tract in question click here - but don’t bill me for the counselling you’ll need to undergo afterwards)

Thank you all for another amazing year.  I have appreciated your input into my life immeasurably.  You have become friends, family, community and I am so grateful for that.

Now who brought the champagne?

Yesterday we attended a local inter-church Stations of the Cross at a small football ground.  Walking around to each station, singing a capella and pausing to reflect on each part of Jesus’ journey was an important time for us.  Although I’ve never been brought up with liturgy as part of my church experience I really enjoyed the time of reflection.  It was one of those times that gave me “new eyes to see” in a way, without music blaring or slick preachers or any kind of professionalism it felt like pilgrims walking together, worshipping together and spending time in prayer together.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Easter knowing full well why we are doing so, and I think both my girls now understand that it’s not about the chocolate.  We will be attending an Easter Party with some families from our church community too, following some traditions from around the world and exchanging blessings from one family to another.  I’m really looking forward to having time to stop and reflect again rather than rushing through our Easter day with eggs and gifts and meals and easter cakes and more meals.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but it leaves out an important part – the worship.

After all, that’s what we’re here for.

To all those celebrating the Risen Christ tomorrow I pray blessings on your and your families.

Jesus is alive!

Here are the lyrics, or you could go watch it on Youtube.

Lord unchain my hands
Let me sing inside the crowded trams
Let me dance among the traffic jams
We’re going to sleep on the St Kilda sands

Lord unbind my feet
Let me mingle with the good people we meet
Water rising up into the street
Unbind my feet

‘The apparition of these faces in  the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough
Ezra Pound found the formula
Our houses are rectangular
But life is curved not angular
So when things start to strangular
Remember rain still falls on the halls of power
New babies being born every hour
And the eagle keeps watch on the old clock tower
Over me…

Lord unchain my hands
Let me sing inside the crowded trams
Let me dance among the traffic jams
We’re going to sleep on the St Kilda sands

Lord unbind my feet
Let me mingle with the good people we meet
Water rising up into the street
Unbind my feet

On the train I refrain from sitting with head and shoulders bowed
They told me time is of the essence, no wandering allowed
But then I saw a pretty girl whose features stood out in the crowd
Went ten minutes past my stop waiting for her to look around
I’m just another clown kicking around in Melbourne town
Cooling out, relaxing watching the world go round
So if you ever have the time and you want to go drink some wine
I’d rather greet you with a smile than greet you with a frown…

Lord unchain my hands
Let me sing inside the crowded trams
Let me dance among the traffic jams
We’re going to sleep on the St Kilda sands

Lord unbind my feet
Let me mingle with the good people we meet
Water rising up into the street
Unbind my feet

This song has so much of my cry in it.  Why are my hands chained and my feet bound?  What is it that makes me pause instead of sing and be “sensible” instead of dance?  I want to mingle with the people I meet and greet them with a smile and be free to share life with them.  I want to dance among the traffic jams rather than scream in frustration when things are going wrong.

Lord, unbind my feet.  Help me free myself to sing and dance and live and love and worship.

In case you were wondering where I’d got to, we’re going with our little family to Phillip Island, which is a  little island sitting off the bottom of Victoria.  Not Tasmania, that one you can see on world maps – a teeny weeny one with penguins and koalas and beautiful beaches and stuff.

Looking forward to it!  Now I must go finish washing and start packing…

When women marry and have kids we tend put ourselves last so much – get our kids rugged up but forget to take our jacket on the way out the door, buy new clothing for everybody else while walking around in our old jeans, take the smaller portion, the bigger responsibility, and when we’re offered help we say “Oh, that’s OK, I’m fine” while simultaneously making a meal for somebody we deem more in need than ourselves.  OK, I know that’s a generalisation – the same as “women like shoes” (I don’t!) – but there really are a lot of us who do that.

I used to think it was a bad thing, and it can be when it goes too far and we forget about our actual needs and become doormats for the world, but some of it I think is part of who we are and how we’re made up.

Jesus showed these “feminine” traits so much, these aspects of the feminine side of God.  He showed grace rather than vengeance and peace rather than swords – in fact, he almost never showed his outward “masculine” strength.  But most of all he showed the first as the last and lifted up the last to be first.  It works exactly the same with us.  The phrase “If Mum isn’t happy, nobody’s happy” is very true.  The one who forgets her jacket and shivers through the kids sport practice is the one who also holds things together.  The one who cries for her children is the same woman who will show unbelievable strength when fighting for the justice of another.  There is no weakness in her.  I believe it’s God’s way of showing us, every day through normal life, this basis of the Kingdom of God.

The Old Testament women were the same.  Look at Ruth, Miriam, Rahab, Esther and so many others.  They changed their worlds and many of them created the lineage of Christ, they showed absolute strength and determination and fought for justice.  And yet they never once picked up a sword to do it.

The last shall be first and the first shall be last.

We are blessed to be the evidence of that, and our inherent strength is what allows us to be so.

And one last word in honour of International Womens Day:

Other Synchrobloggers are:

Julie Clawson – The God Who Sees
Alan Knox – Thankful for the women who served God
AJ Schwanz - Women’s work
Bethany Stedman - Shiphrah and Puah
Bob Carlton – Barbie as Icon
Christine Sine – Celebrating International Womens Day
Dan Brennan - Mary Magdalene
Deb – Deborah
Ellen Haroutunian - Out from under the veil
Eugene Cho - Lydia
Happy - Abigail
Helen - Esther, a woman of great courage and wisdom
Jan Edmiston – The unnamed concubine
Jessica Schafer - Bathsheba
Kate – Inspiration from Esther’s courage
Kathy Escobar – We Can’t Just Stand By
Krista – Serving God
Lainie Petersen – The unnamed concubine
Laura – What I Know About Women in the Bible
Liz Dyer - Mary and Martha
Lyn Hallewell – Women who walked with God
Makeesha – Empowering women
Mark Baker-Wright - Telling stories
Michelle Van Loon – The Story of a Woman With a One-Track Mind
Mike Clawson – Cultural norms in the early church
Minnowspeaks – Celebrating Women
Miz Melly - The woman at the well
Pam Hogeweide - Teenage girls changing the world
Robin M. - Eve
Sensuous Wife – A Single Mom in the Bible
Shawna Atteberry – The Daughter of Mary Magdalene
Sonja Andrews – Aunt Jemima
Steve Hayes – St. Theodora the Iconodule
Susan Barnes - Tamar, Ruth, and Mary
Teresa - The women Paul didn’t hate

I thought it was an explosion at first – much more likely around here.  Apparently it was a 4.7 about 70 – 80km from here – would have been about 3.5 by the time it got to us.  Nothing serious, just gave me a jump and made some pictures swing a bit on the walls.  Just wondering what’s happening when we get record-breaking floods in Queensland, record-breaking fires in Victoria and now an earthquake.

Weird.

I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I’m getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady

Out from under your beds
C’mon ye people
Stand up for your love

That one line, the imagery of helping God across the road like a little old lady, made me stop and think.  How much do we water down a powerful and strong God to fit into our own circumstances and life?  How much do we negate his power by our attitudes and actions?

His love isn’t just some little thing – it has the power to turn the world on its head, to set people free of the chains around their lives, to make our lives some small reflection of himself.

Yet because of our own inadequacies, fear and doubt we make it less than it is.  There is nothing wrong with the fear and doubt, but there is everything wrong with it controlling us.  We help love across the road instead of just letting it be as it is, and we hide under our beds.  I’m squashed in there myself.  Lord, help me to stand up, and to understand what love really is.  And to do it.

Hay guys Ceiling Cat doeznt like us makin favrits. If a cat comes an haz liek a cookie an other cat only has veggiez Dont sayz to cookie cat “Hay ur ma favrit lol” and to veggie cat liek “U haz veggie soz I don’t like u.” That means u is judgin an thatz bad k?

Ceiling Cat totally sed cats with no cheezburger on urth haz lots of cheezburgers in ceiling if they luv Ceiling Cat. But u iz mean to cat wit no cheezburger. Cats wit cheezburger and cookie is the onez who are liek mean to u. Thay dont like Ceiling Cat and so they iz the bad ones k?

If u luvz other kitteh as much as u luvz urself, thats good. But if u iz like “I like this kitteh moar than that kitteh” u iz breakin’ the ruls. Even if u iz like good most of teh times, but one time is like “oh noes, I brake a rule” then itz like u brake all the rulz. Ceiling Cat sed “Dont liek hurt each other k” but also “Dont take each otherz cookie k”. So if u iz liek “Im in ur kitchn takn ur cookiez” but doesnt hurt other kitteh, uz is still brakin’ rulz.

So do wat tha ruls say cos Ceiling Cat will b rly hard on cat who haz been mean to other kitteh. Luv winz.

Its no use if cat is liek “Hay Ceiling Cat I believe u is in mah ceiling” but cat dusnt do good things. Kittehs belief iznt gonna halp. Srsly. If ur friend is teh hungriez and u is like “I want you to eat” but iz not giving him a cheezburger, u r useless. So liek thinking Ceiling Cat iz in ceiling is useless if u r not halping other kittehs.

- James 2:1-17, LOLCat Bible Translation

In this video, dripping with the intellectual wit and understanding he is famous for, BroJustin (formerly Lucaslabrador) tells us these gems:

“After divorcing his wife, after her adultery [Heather's note: brought on by the fact that he got "soundly saved" and turned into a mini-Lucaslabrador] got himself another girlfriend.  Nice girl.  Church girl.  And this church girl, attractive, pleasant enough, you know, suitable, marriage material perhaps you could say, this soundly saved young man took this girl to a meeting of a few people I know, who are also soundly saved, to Bible studies.  And she immediately started kicking up and there was a problem.  Not in the meetings, you understand.  She was too clever for that.  The friends who go to this group said there’s no way she’s saved.  She’s just a church girl.  And our friends told me that this soundly born again chap is now saying there’s a distance between them because she didn’t like his friends, i.e. this soundly saved, real christian group…  This young man and this group have prayed that this young woman would disappear and leave this young man alone because she is not born again, and under no circumstances are you to ever marry someone who is not of the same spirit.”

Fantastic.  Way to break up a marriage in the name of God!  They may just as easily have said “She doesn’t like us because we question her salvation and believe her to be tantamount to a man-grabbing whore, so <i>obviously</i> she doesn’t have the spirit of God in her”.  With friends like these…  Geez.

“Unsaved church girls are absolutely everywhere, and they are desperate to get their hands on a genuinely saved man, and because the spirit that is within them will destroy you if you marry her.”

Oh, absolutely.  They have their talons out ready to devour “genuinely saved men”.  Honestly, if the man is anything like old Lucaslabrador any normal woman would run a mile!  Especially if he has “friends” (term used loosely) like those above.

“I am totally against interracial marriage.”  

Of course he is.  Want to hear his full and total justification of this?

“It looks wrong, it is wrong, it feels wrong, and everybody knows it’s wrong.”

Yep, there goes that logic and sound reasoning again.  Amazing, isn’t it?  The guy should apply to Mensa.

I have been getting so wasted on Jesus lately.  It’s so awesome.  Even as I’m trying to type, I can barely keep

my eyes open.  Some people ask what being drunk in the Spirit is all about.  Some call it “toking the Ghost”, “Mainlining Jesus”, “Taking a ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ tab”.  But that may not be your language.  If you have come from a drug culture you would understand when someone says that God will peace you out better than marijuana, that Jesus is better than ecstasy.  But you may not understand, if you didn’t come from a drug culture.  So, from one who has never drank or done drugs at any point in my life (unless you count when I was 5 years old and my neighbour offered me a drink of his strange pop), let me try to explain it.

When I behold Jesus in his glory, the radiance of it penetrates me, and I fall into myself, meeting the Spirit on the way down, who overwhelms me with his love, joy, and peace in a most exquisite way.  It shakes me to my core and makes me feel like I can fly (to heaven).  It is a most intense peace, a radical love, and a most joyous reveletion.

If that sounds intense and a little crazy.  It is!!  Ecstasy is to become so focused on something to the exclusion of all other things.  Ecstasy is supposed to be the regular state of man; to, as the song says, “Turn our eyes upon Jesus and the things of this world will grow strangely dim”.

You know what, it’s just too hard to explain it You have to experience it.  So here is your homework, give yourself at least 30 minutes to enjoy the ecstasy of God and keep asking God “I want to know the ecstasy of your love.” over and over again.  Get stirred up, and then suddenly stop (after a few minutes) and let God fill you.  repeat until thoroughly drunk

Exercise 2: Focused concentration until the bathroom floor rises to your occasion.

Find a bathroom with tile floors and subdued fluorescent lighting.
The bathroom tiles one half inch by on half inch are preferable.
The tiles with the speckles are preferable.
Find an empty stall and sit on the toilet.
Sit so you are comfortable.
Stare at the floor in front of you through the bottom edge of the closed stall door.
Stare until columns of tiles oscillate rapidly back and forth, chaotically at first, but more rhythmically in passing.
Move your eyes towards your feet to perceive rows of tiles moving against the columns.
Observe the speckled patters for insights as to the flux of images now ready to be accepted upon your retina.

Despite what you hear on the media, not a single one of the major fires are even contained, let alone controlled.  They have a few days respite to backburn and try to build some containment lines before the heat and wind picks up again on the weekend.

Prayer is still needed.  It’s not over until every one of those major fires is controlled.  It could take weeks.  Until then, communities will still be in danger and any twist of the wind could be disastrous.

The current official death toll is 181, but people are saying it will definitely rise to well over 200 and possibly up to 300.  They believe one in five Marysville residents died – at least 100 people, but they are still searching for bodies in that area.

Talk of arson is very high in the news.  They think that perhaps the Marysville fire was deliberately lit, along with others.

The photograph is one taken near where I used to live in North East Victoria, and in the area of the Beechworth fire where several of my family members still live.  It’s scary seeing the hills on fire like that.