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I wrote a post a month or so back about my thoughts on what church is, and what I’m thinking about how it can be done differently… lots of thoughts still going on in my head.

But toward the end, I wrote a bit about Soma Church, a new church starting up in the Ryde area of Sydney that has similar ideas to what’s in my head – they love Jesus and think he’s the best thing to happen to this world, and church is cool, but they realise that “church” isn’t for everyone… so they’re trying to mix that up. It’s gonna be an awesome journey for them.

Like I wrote, I’m not feeling led to go and join them. But I am very, very keen to watch what goes on, and see how I can be inspired within my community in and around Thornleigh. And I’m also very much looking forward to seeing how two guys with computers and a guitar make the music – very different to what you would normally expect in “church”. You should check out an insight into a recent rehearsal of theirs.

Anyway, they’ve finally secured themselves a venue in the Macquarie Centre for a Sunday arvo. It all kicks off on the 20th September at 3pm. Check out their website to see what they’re on about, and if you’re up for it, come and check it out. I certainly can’t wait for it. :)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about church – why we “do church” the way we do, how to do it differently, how to involve more people… and why you’d want to change all those things.

It’s stemmed from a bit of a selfish place – I find sitting through sermons so hard sometimes. 40 minutes of listening isn’t good for a boy with a very short attention span, let alone 40 minutes of listening and trying to get something out of it. I think actually do my best learning by discussing within small groups of people – times like that really stimulate my mind and challenge my thinking. And so I’ve been wanting to push those typical boundaries of how we do church – wanting to incorporate more of that discussion and have more of a non-submissive Sunday evening.

I guess it’s about making church less of a place of consumption – you come, take what you like,

But in all this, I haven’t actually felt out of place at the place I currently go to church (tcbc) – I still feel very much at home there. I guess that’s cos, like I mentioned above, church is way much more to me than the set program each Sunday evening – it’s those conversations with the people I love, and those very intelligent conversations that make me hunger to learn more about the character of God. And music is a huge part of how I meet with God personally – so that very loud, very tight band-created musical moments (whether I’m a part of them or not) are pretty powerful things between me and God.

It’s definitely going to be an ongoing thought process. In all the changes last year and moving away from Toongabbie to Westleigh/Thornleigh, I’m discovering a new side to my growth as a follower of God, and a new side to my desire to chase and uncover more about God’s character. And it’s very cool.

In amongst all this thinking, I’ve spent this evening reading about Soma Church. It’s a church plant from an existing church in North Ryde that’s kicking off in early September, and their desire is seek to change the culture around “how” Christians do church: “for instance, the style of music we sing to, how we do our preaching, when and how often we meet, and so forth.” Very cool to read about, and I’m going to be very interested in following their journey closely.

The other cool bit about following them closely will be seeing them change the idea behind “church music” and reshaping that as well. I’ve been following their thoughts on twitter, as well as on a specific blog for their music. As a bonus, I’m discovering that a a few friends are involved in it all!

Like I wrote above, I feel very much a part of my family within tcbc, so I’m pretty sure God wants me to be there and isn’t suggesting that I move away from there… but with everything that I’ve just written about, I feel like I’ll find a great deal of enjoyment in seeing these guys reshape how they do church.

Either that or it’ll stir up more things inside my mind. :)

It’s Wednesday morning, and yet it feels like it should be Friday. It’s been a very intense two days.

Monday was always going to be tough coming back to work after the few days off last week – I knew a lot was going on around the place and that there’d be a fair bit waiting for me. I spent a good 4 hours with a project manager at the end of the day trying to sift through a network rollout that was beginning to go a bit pear-shaped.

And it was at the end of that meeting that everything turned bad – one site of this 5 site network wasn’t able to get DSL to it at all. And that site just happened to be the head office. Without connectivity there, the whole network was pointless. Essentially, it was all my fault – I’d ordered the feasibility test, but completely overlooked the bit where it said “not available at this address”. Big oops.

So after having a pretty horrid Monday evening wondering what the next day would hold, and what the implications would be, and worst of all, breaking the news to the customer… yesterday turned out to not be so bad. There is an alternate technology I can use (which runs on fibre)… but the downside is that it costs more. Because the customer has already signed the contract, I’ve had to put some big work into getting some heavy pricing discounts to hopefully rectify my huge stuff up.

I’m not out of the woods yet – I haven’t broken any of this to my customer yet. And I’m still waiting to see if I get my pricing discounts approved. And then there’s the whole bit about changing orders in the system and sending grumpy techs back out to the site to do completely different work now.

The intensity of work in the last couple of months has just been huge… something I don’t think I’ve experienced in my job for quite a few years. Hopefully it’ll smooth out a bit as this new fin year settles in.

What was cool though, was heading to work, feeling very unsettled and anxious about what was awaiting me, and have Desert Song running through my head constantly – and I hadn’t even listened to it recently or anything. It was just one of those very clear God moments (not that God isn’t doing little things like that all the time, but this was just one moment that I noticed quite clearly). It was pretty comforting.

This is my prayer in the desert,
When all that’s within me feels dry.
This is my prayer in my hunger and need,
My God is the God who provides.

This is my prayer in the harvest,
When favor and providence flow.
I know I’m filled to be emptied again,
The seed I’ve received I will sow.

And I will bring praise, I will bring praise!
No weapon formed against me shall remain.
I will rejoice, I will declare,
God is my victory and He is here.

All of my life, in every season,
You are still God.
I have a reason to sing,
I have a reason to worship.

Such brilliant lyrics. It’s so important to bring praise to God even when things are crap in our lives, and not fall into the habit of saying how awesome He is only when we’re having a great time. And that last bit: All of my life, I have a reason to worship – heck yes I do! No matter what’s going on, I have a reason to worship, cos God loves me and has saved me. And no matter what crap comes my way in life, that will never change, and He will always be there.

This evening I headed off to church, knowing that it was going to be the start of a new DVD based series. Kinda went in with almost no pre-conceptions, which was good. And it was the start of something pretty cool I reckon – the content was good, but I’ll get to that in a second. James used it as a chance to remark that sometimes church is just a consumer product – we sit there and listen, and don’t have much involvement usually. So this week was a chance to change that, and for us to watch some DVD clips, chat with the people we were sitting with, and then share some ideas with everyone.

And in a few weeks, a vision of mine will hopefully see reality, where we have “church” by still spending some time singing and stuff, but then sitting round some tables and listening to a talk of some description (if it’s going to be happening in a few weeks, it’ll presumably be DVD clips), and then spending time chatting – perhaps about the “sermon”, perhaps about your week, perhaps about other stuff that revolves around God, perhaps not. The whole idea was to have that post-church chatting time as a sort-of part of the service, to encourage that fellowship. The idea gained life in a kind of selfish way: I learn best by talking with others, and often really struggle to take away something from listening to a sermon for 30-40 minutes. But I would hope that others would be able to gain something from it too. And it will be very exciting to see a vision come to life.

As for this week and the content, it was all based around consumerism. It was a DVD series called The Trouble With Paris (and it has a website here). Excitedly, it was an Australian made and produced series! This first episode got us thinking about hyper-reality, and how we live in this false sense of reality. It also talked briefly about the emotion behind our purchase of products, and a bold statement that advertising has almost become an unspoken religion. Very true though.

There was absolutely nothing to bring it all back to God in this week’s series. A little annoying, I thought. But I am very keen to see this series through and be a part of it right through the 4 weeks.

I’m very aware of my consumerism. In reality, I have a lot of money, and I really like spending it. I know that I really have to keep myself in check about the reasons of why I buy things – the emotion behind it, or the appearance. And the reason I want to keep myself in check is that I have made the decision to make God #1 in my life, and I don’t want to let my consumerism take over – I don’t want to live my life for the things I buy, or the car I drive, or the house I own (no matter how awesome my house and street are!).

So I’m very much looking forward to being further challenged about my consumer life and living it as a follower of Jesus.

Had a great chat with some friends last night, pondering life as a Christian, and what it means to have the Holy Spirit inside you. And it made me think of these lyrics today…

Please allow me to introduce me:
Half of me slave, the other half free.
Righteous and sinful, both at the same time.
Iniquity and purity fill up the same mind.
And out of the same mouth, the holy and profane:
I curse all my brothers, then I bless Christ’s name.
I hang in the balance, but still I’m secure.
I’m leaning towards evil, but striving to be pure.

I stand between the saint and sinner,
Chasing after holiness,
Close enough to grasp,
But still it’s just beyond my reach…

Who I am is in between,
What I wanna be and what I am.

[In Between - The O.C. Supertones]

I’ve been feeling increasingly flawed by God’s choice of grace upon my life.

Things like putting every little detail in place so that we could buy a more perfect house than we could have ever expected. He caused it to happen so that our settlement date was the exact same date as the day our lease ends for rental. He even caused it so that we will be able to more than comfortably afford the mortgage.

Can you see why I can’t help but be humbled by it all?

Who am I?
That the Lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.

Why me God? Why should you choose me on your team?
Can you use even me?

I know You gave the world Your only Son,
For us to know Your name,
To live within the Saviour’s love.
He took my place,
Knowing He’d be crucified,
And You loved, You loved a people undeserving!

Having a hope in my heart that my life is in the hands of the creator of this Earth is pretty amazing. Just so there’s no confusion, they’re the same hands that have measured the oceans with his cupped hands, and also the same hands that have marked off the stars with a handspan. It’s in Isaiah 40; it’s pretty cool.

The only reason I’m so blessed as to have my life in such awesome hands is all because of this weekend.

On my own, I’m not good enough to know God. I stuff up; I’m selfish; I’m evil… all these things that a perfect God hates. But cos He didn’t want all of us to be separated from Him, He sent Jesus into the world, to be born as and to live as a normal human being, to then carry all the things that I’ve ever done wrong, now and into the future, on his shoulders, and to be punished for it… instead of me.

So humbling.

Christ didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
[Romans 5:6-11 - The Message]

Everyone else seems to be doing some reminiscing as 2009 begins… I started writing a big post thinking about each month, and linking to some posts throughout the year… but after doing it for January and then trying to start February, I decided it was too hard :)

But 2008 will easily go down as one of the most memorable of my life. Let me list why:

• Met and started going out with Debbie
• Had 3 weeks off work in a row (longest since I started working full time), and did two Kedrons in a month
• Proposed to Debbie and began planning our wedding
• Worked out that God had decided it was time for me to leave Toongabbie Baptist Church after 9 years
• Realised it was time to leave the House of Bach after 2 and a half years living there
• Moved away from Toongabbie for the first time in nearly 20 years, and moved into Normanhurst
• Had my last night as a member of Toongabbie Bapts, and became a part of Thornleigh Community Baptist Church
• Became an uncle… sort of :)

So there you go… many, many huge things happened for me last year. But this year is going to be equally amazing as I begin it by getting married and beginning the journey of being a husband. I’m looking forward to what God has planned for us in ‘09!

And this will most likely be the last post before I get back from my honeymoon. To all my friends who will be there on Saturday, looking forward to seeing you all!

See you on the other side… when I’ll be a husband!

Oh Holy Night is easily my favourite Christmas carol. Musically, it’s incredible – fun to play, strange and minor chord progressions, 6/8 timing, obscure phrasing – it has everything. It makes me smile when I hear it; particularly the ‘refrain’ section – if you get a powerful drummer to really emphasise that section, it’s awesome.

The music is great and all… but check out the words. I know it’ll be hard to read it without singing in your head, but really take the time to read and hear exactly what Christmas is about. (I’ve taken out a couple of lines to just make it flow better as you read.)

Oh holy night; the stars are brightly shining.
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Hear the angels’ voices!
Oh night divine, when Christ was born.

The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials, [He's] born to be our friend.
He knows our need; to our weakness is no stranger.
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name!

Christ is the Lord! Oh praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.

Incredible. To think that a God could see the beautiful baby in this poem, know that it was His child, love him so dearly, and still be willing to sacrifice that life to save every one of us… Our minds can’t even comprehend such sacrifice!

I celebrate the day that you were born to die, so I could one day pray for you to save my life.

My prayer is that this Christmas you would understand what Jesus’ birth was all about; that you understand just what this baby would become, and what he would go through; and that you take the time to get to know this loving and caring God. He’s a friend of mine, and He’s a good friend to have, let me tell you.

So as you’ll know, there was the first property – Bellamy – that we applied for 3 weeks ago. And we just kept hearing nothing back about it. In the end we decided to move on and begin looking at other places last weekend. And that’s when we found this other property (don’t have a name for it) in Normanhurst, on Pennant Hills Rd. We applied for this also.

Just giving you the background so everyone is up to speed.

So this morning at about 9:30am, I get a call from the real estate agent who was looking after Bellamy. And as if it was scripted, she offered me the house. Thankfully, she saw the funny side of the situation too, and we shared a bit of a laugh. I said that I was hopefully waiting on another call, and so I’d get back to her within 24 hours, which she was ok about. I rang Debbie who thought I was joking. It actually took quite a bit of effort from me to convince her that I was serious! But we shared some more laughing together too.

But then, just two hours later, the wonderful Matthew at LJ Hooker gave me a call with the best news – that we’d been offered the place in Normanhurst that we wanted more. And all I could do after getting off the phone to him was to just laugh at God’s sense of humour in giving us both properties in less than two hours after waiting 3 weeks.

He was definitely teaching us patience – no doubt about that – but I wonder if He was enjoying being a little big cheeky as he set up both offers too… :)

But it is so very awesome to know that we now have a lovely house to live in. It’s so relaxing. The lease begins and we move in next Thursday (13th)… so I will take photos and give you all a virtual tour then.

edit: and yes, as Jenny said, it was a bargin. A good $50 pw less than most other places around Pennant Hills, Thornleigh… and way way cheaper than anything else in Normanhurst. Super!

What a Saturday that was. There was moments of stress and emotion mixed in amongst it, but overall, it was an incredibly tops day. Let me break it down for you…

The morning was spent with the boys in my bridal party as we headed off in search of suits to wear. We headed to Kelly Country in Granville, and before too long, we’d found a suit that everyone liked and the measuring began. In less than 45 minutes, we were all done and on our way to Parra Westfields for some Oporto breakfast :)

The rest of the day was a combination of rental hunting, and furniture hunting.

The furniture hunting was the best bit: Debbie found and bought a 7 piece dining table & chairs set at a garage sale type thing at Thornleigh Bapts in the morning, so we headed there for her to show me the awesome $60 purchase. While we were there, we found a large coffee table for $10. Such awesome finds! Later on in the arvo, we visited one of Debbie’s colleagues who’d offered us an old couch of hers that was almost destined for council cleanup. We got there not quite knowing what to expect in an “old” couch… but it was very modern, reasonably clean, matched our dining chairs in colour almost perfectly… and was free. Praise God! This is on top of already having a microwave and fridge for free, and a washing machine and dryer for $100.

Rental hunting was a bit stressful, as it has become in the last couple of weeks. But we headed to a house in Normanhurst, not holding out huge amounts of hope for it – it was on Pennant Hills Rd. But on arrival, we found a pretty nice looking place, nicely set back and down low from the road. And once the real estate agent turned up, inside was just gorgeous. The kitchen is beautifully retro (bright yellow!), rooms are big and comfy… it’s cool. And apparently they’re having a lot of trouble finding a tennant – the agent, who was a really nice guy to boot, said that he reckons just being on Pennant Hills Rd scares people off.

After being scared about not hearing back from the other place for 3 weeks, we asked how long he thought it’d take to hear back about it. And he was quick to say, “oh, if you get your application in on Monday, I think we’ll have an answer on Tuesday for sure.” Praise God again. Don’t know if we’ll get the place or not, but it would be cool… and the timing seems to be all smooth and everything’s just dropping into place really. But who knows what God’s up to :)

I’m now hanging out at the Wisdom For Women event at church. Have played guitar, and am playing again shortly. Then it will be off for a drive over to Thornleigh to collect the tables and stash them in Debbie’s incredibly generous parent’s garage. Hopefully only for a week and a half…

Tonight was the first real sit down chat pre-marriage counselling stuff. Debbie and I had done some preparation stuff, where we’d done a little survey and answered about 100 questions to see how we agreed or disagreed on certain things. And so tonight was kinda evaluating that, but a lot of it was just sitting chatting about God, marriage and just stuff in general. It was cool. I’m enjoying getting to know Neil, the senior pastor at Thornleigh Bapts.

I don’t think I’ve blogged about it… but now that it’s set in our minds, and it’s been discussed with relevant people for a while, I think it’s safe to write it here; Debbie and I have chosen to make Thornleigh Bapts our church home once we’re married. It’s something we’d been thinking about for quite a few months, and definitely something that took many months to decide, with a lot of chatting to God, and chatting with each other. It’s been a cool journey to get to that decision; a bit scary, but cool. Sorry to my close friends if you weren’t aware of that and this is how you’re finding out! I didn’t want that.

I will miss Toongabbie Bapts. I wrote a big email to the pastors last week, and just kinda sat back and realised how much I’ve grown in the 9 or so years I’ve been there – and it’s incredible. Before I started going there, I played the piano pretty simplistically – I knew the notes and could do some very basic sight reading. Now I am much more confident in my musicianship all round and play guitar, bass and sing too. None of those I did before Toonie. And I really think it’s all down to the encouragement of the people there. And God of course :)

Anyway, this post didn’t start out with the intention of being a trip down amnesia lane, so I won’t continue it.

But I do know that I’m looking forward to the journey ahead. I’m going to be moving soon, out of Toongabbie – the suburb and community that’s been my home since the late 1980s. I’m changing churches. I will be getting married. What a huge journey I’m up for in 2009! How awesome it will be… I’m so excited about it all!

I do know that there are those moments of being scared, and I do know that I will miss the House of Bach, and Toonie Bapts, a lot. But I do know that God has got a new stage of my life journey all laid out, and it’s gonna be a cool ride to be on and see what He has for me to do.

It seems people don’t like the new theme. That’s cool. I listen to the readers. So it will go soon. Possibly not til I get back to Sydney, but we’ll see. Cheers for the comments.

Today was amazingly busy. It was the super adventures day of the trip…

We headed into the main shopping centre here in HB. Debbie was looking for some summery dresses, and I kinda needed some more shorts – can’t wear jeans all summer. A visit to the Rivers outlet store and then to Colorado solved that. I had a Jamaica Blue coffee in there too, and it was yum.

Following that, it was out to Burrum Heads – a beautiful little town about half an hour north of Hervey Bay. It’s slightly inland, and sits on the edge of a river, just down from the heads. Amazingly clear water, and pretty spectacular views at the main park. We fetched some fish and chips (which were very, very tasty) and sat by the water and ate.

[photo]

And then we went for a swim too. It was pretty cold, but tops.

From there, it was time to head all the way back down to Hervey Bay, and all the way through Hervey Bay to the otherside where the Marina is. After getting an ice cream from Baskin Robins, it was time to board a ferry and head across to Fraser Island for my most looked forward to evening of the week.

The ferry ride was beautiful. It was cool, but not freezing. We arrived with time to spare before dinner, and so we sat in a cute little hut near the jetty and watched the sunset over drinks. Very, very amazing. After that, we walked about 5 minutes up the roads of the resort, with a huge canopy of trees above us, and into the restaurant for dinner. It was a European themed buffet apparently – but I couldn’t really work out the European bit. All there was that was really European was a yummy antipasto selection. Everything else was pretty much standard buffet food. But it was good.

And then it was time to head back to the mainland. Before coming back home here, we headed down to the beach near my Aunt & Uncle’s place and just sat on the steps, listening to the waves, talking to God, and just enjoying the week that’s been.

God has truly blessed us with such an amazing time this week. I am so very relaxed, happy and even more looking forward to being married :)

One more day til the big drive back home…

I battled the pricing approval geniuses at work today.

To backtrack a tad… Friday’s big meeting to get me some good pricing for a customer to win a huge deal was not what I expected – I went in expecting either a yes or a no. I got a maybe. Annoying. Basically, everyone on the forum was supportive and thought it was a good deal and that we needed to get moving on it. Problem was, no one there had the delegation to say yes. It was quite a unique opportunity and there weren’t really any precedents, so perhaps they were all just a bit scared. It just needed someone to take a step out and go, “yeah, let’s just do it.” Frustrating somewhat. So that left me with an even shorter deadline and with different people to talk to.

I spoke to the customer and found out that I kinda had a little bit more time, but time was still was very, very short. So this morning I filled in some forms, sent them through to some pricing guys who were going to help me get what I wanted. And we back-and-forthed a bit during the day when we got rejected, trying to find more info and a way to work things from a different angle to get what we wanted, without straight-out lying to get what we wanted. There may have been slight exaggerations about some things…

But the good thing is that as of tonight, I’m still not out of the game – the customer has given me til the end of tomorrow, and I’ve told the pricing guys that deadline and I didn’t hear from them in the last couple of hours… which may be positive and mean that it’s just gone somewhere to get sign-off now that it looks like it could make our company some money. (And by that I mean, “look the way they want it to look.”)

Oh it’s so fun to work for such a huge organisation with so many different approvals that are needed, and you don’t know who to get it from til you’ve consulted your handbook and found out which astrological period we’re in, and whether or not the planets are all aligned…

edit: got the approvals today! That’s part 1 done. Now I just have to sit back and wait for the Government to accept my customer’s proposal and everyone will be happy. It’s gonna be a nervous two weeks.

I began listening to a talk on the differences between Catholicism and Protestant beliefs on the way home from Debbie’s tonight. Deano preached it a couple of months ago while I was at Kedron, and so I missed it. But I got myself a copy on Sunday and thought it would be interesting to listen to… and it has been thus far. But my drive home is only a bit over half an hour, and apparently I’m only about halfway through the talk – perhaps I’m glad I’m listening to it in the car now and not on that Sunday evening ;) hehe.

Looking forward to hearing the rest of it though. Perhaps I will blog some thoughts about it later.

Sunday evening was a bit of an event.

I had enjoyed the morning/arvo just hanging out at home with Steve & B2, watching the V8s from Phillip Island, which I felt like I hadn’t done in a long time. And then it was time to head down to church for band practice. I was on keys, which again was something I hadn’t felt like I’d done in ages!

Practice started well – it was a pretty relaxed affair. Mitch, Chensee, b and I were playing and it was a little different cos we’d had to do some last minute instrument switching… but it was going pretty well. And then at about 5, we took a break so b could head downstairs to get some extra sheet music… and the power went off! There was a storm brewing, but it didn’t seem that bad! But enough to kill the power somewhere.

B walked back in and said, “Well, I think this is a good outcome!” Puzzled, I asked why, and he said something along the lines of, “Cos now we can just sing and praise God without worrying about sound or anything.”

So cool.

And that we did. I ducked home and got my acoustic and joined Chensee and b in the cool acoustic stools, Mitch found some brushes to play the drums with, we picked four completely different songs, and away we went!

I loved it. (Aside from the rumble of the generators out the front for some lights, which I didn’t think were necessary.) The brushes on the drumkit matched the acoustic guitars really well, and I think the four of us had a tops time just singing and praising God without worrying about volumes or effects or anything. And we even made up a cool rhythm for Jesus, Lover Of My Soul at the last minute too, which was fun. And I hope people in the congregation were able to praise God and enjoy it too.

B joked at the start of the service with the congregation that this was the beginning of the once a month acoustic church. I don’t think I’d at all have a problem with that.

This started out as a comment on Tom’s blog, but became quite long. So I have given it its own post.

Referring to Tom’s post about Mike Guglielmucci.

For those of you who haven’t been following the story, Mike Guglielmucci was a Youth Pastor for Planetshakers. He has recently admitted to faking having cancer. He had been pretending to have cancer since September 2006.

… I guess watching him on Today Tonight made me feel sad because he must be feeling terrible. I am sure he loves Jesus, otherwise he had no reason to admit his sin. And now he’s getting a battering in the press, thousands of people are upset with him, he’s let his wife, family, parents and church down. I can’t imagine that the relief for admitting this makes up for what he’s copping now as a result. It would have been easier for him to not tell anyone what was going on.

His Dad said in a statement to his church: “I can’t begin to tell you how much this is hurting us on the inside. A few weeks ago Mike had a dream of Jesus on the cross looking down on him saying, ‘the truth will set you free’ and so he decided to confess and bring everything out into the open.”

Read the rest of what Tom wrote. But what I began to write as a comment on his site was that I definitely agree with what he said.

First up, this is why I don’t watch Today Tonight or ACA. They just get it so very, very horribly wrong. And I get so very angry and passionate as a result. So it’s probably just best I don’t watch them at all :)

But back to the main point… in God’s eyes, yes, Mike Guglielmucci has sinned. But he is no less loved by God than you or me or anyone else on this earth. It’s only us who put labels on how serious a sin is. God hurts very deeply whether we swear, have a lustful thought in our mind, or whether we murder someone.

So who the heck are Today Tonight, or any other media source, to judge him? Are they perfect? It hink what makes me most angry is the way some people are acting very high and mighty; very arrogant really. Their actions give the impression that they think they’re better people that Mike, and that they would never possibly do anything as evil as that.

But every second they have their back’s turned on Christ, they are being just as evil.

Most importantly, Mike Guglielmucci has confessed that what he did was wrong. And so therfore he is forgiven by God. [edit: bad theology James - regardless of whether he confessed it to the world, if he has asked God for forgiveness, he has it.] Do we claim to know better than the one who created us? Are we choosing to say to God, “Hey God, I know better than you, and I reckon we should judge this guy a bit more before we let him off the hook.”

No. We need to forgive. Just as our Father has forgiven us.

Oh how my heart hurts for those who don’t understand the love, the freedom, the peace that Christ has shown and gives us.

We are at least 2 months away from finding somewhere for us to live after we get married (where I’ll live first, and then Debbie move in after), and we already have a fridge, a microwave and a dining table set – all for free, and all from people willing to hold onto them for at least 2 months until we get our place.

So cool :)

I’m really enjoying the new Relient K album. The first 13 tracks are all original, and they have a very ‘country’ feel to them. Still quite punky at times, but the country flavour makes it very different indeed. The rest of the tracks are all b-sides and acoustic versions. Quite cool as well. But I am greatly enjoying the new sounds.

Yesterday was quite the busy, but awesome day…

Got up nice and early and headed to Hornsby station to leave my car. I jumped on a train and found Sammy at Beecroft station and we headed into the city. The Aroma Festival was on in the rocks. It’s apparently for lovers of coffee, chocolate, tea and spice – but all we cared about was the coffee. We started with some turkish coffee, but that was a big mistake. We tried some awesome 100% fair-trade and organic Republica coffee, which was pretty brilliant. But the peak of the day came a few moments later when we had a perfect latte from my friends at Velluto Nero. It’s quite possibly the closest thing to coffee perfection that I’ve tasted, and perhaps will ever taste. I will definitely miss that place with not working in the city anymore. After having some Danes Gourmet Coffee to finish it off, we headed back to Wynyard and back on a train to Hornsby… Just slightly buzzing.

edit: Forgot to add here in the middle that I had lunch at Cathy Bell’s place. Hang time with Thornleigh people was quite fun :) It was a pity that I could only stay for a couple of hours… but it was still a great time. I got in trouble for not including that.

I headed back down to Toonie for band practice. I found out about half an hour before practice was due to start that there was no drummer. It was a bit frustrating to hear… but surprisingly, it didn’t actually get me down too much. I told all the musos straight up, and just suggested that we focus on working each song acoustically, and just really listen to each other. The first run-through was very rough, but once we worked out an order, and then decided how each song would be done, it sounded tops for the final run-through. It was a challenge and a half, and I was definitely feeling exhausted by the end of the service… but it was a great experience. And importantly, it was a great time to sing cool songs to God :)

And then it was dinner time at Hogs Breath! Debbie was visiting, so she came with all of us Toonie people. And it was a really fun night out hanging with those guys. We had some good times reminiscing about old House of Bach days, and all-night LAN parties and Bathurst challenges on the Xbox. Ahh good times :) But then it was time for James to go home and clean his room. It looks good now though!

Monday has gone fairly quickly. I’m loving the fact that I woke up at 7:30 this morning, left the house at 8, and was still early to work. Love it.

wondering if a certain young twittering telstra working man might be interested in a lovely lady friend he is yet to meet
07:43 PM December 24, 2007

Wondering if James likes friendly, fun, musical, primary school teaching, 24 yr old females
10:36 PM December 24, 2007

In answer to the second question: yes. :)

On the 1st January 2008, I met an amazing woman. And I felt amazingly blessed when I realised that she loved me, and that there was something pretty special between us from very early on.

On June 21st, I asked Debbie to marry me. And she said yes :)

The last 5 months and 21 days have been some of the most amazing in my life. Through my relationship with Debbie, I have grown so much closer to God, and started to really learn what it is to rely on God, His strength, and His timing.

And friends, having God at the centre of your relationship is so awesome. It’s one of those things that you realise is just so good that you never want to be so stupid as to do without it.

But about today; here’s the story:

Today was an adventure that was part of Debbie’s birthday present. She didn’t know where we were going, or what we were doing.

We headed up to the Blue Mountains. I took Debbie up to Mt York, just near Mt Victoria. There’s an amazing lookout there that we’d visited before. We had some morning tea there, including cheese and biscuits, and even prawns, and some Maison too. But after sitting outside in the 7 degree temperatures for a little while, we got back in the car to finish our Maison.

We headed down to Blackheath, and out to Perry’s Lookdown, which has some quite amazing views. And Micky did well on the very rough and pothole-filled dirt road out to the lookdown. Then it was lunchtime, and so back into the centre of Blackheath for lunch at an amazing Italian restaurant. We were lucky enough to be the only people in the place for most of the time, and had a table right in front of the open fire. Really awesome food. Definitely on the list of places to go back to.

Then it was afternoon tea time. So off to Leura! We went to Everglades historic gardens. I hadn’t been there before, but it’s quite an amazing place. There was a wedding happening just off to the side in one of the gardens (ironic?), but we headed into the house that is there and had a nice hot chocolate and coffee before going for a wander in the gardens.

After a short walk, we found this small natural pool with a waterfall coming down into it. It was quite amazing and very tranquil. And everything just fell into place, and before I knew it, I had proposed to Debbie, and she’d excitedly said yes :)

It was quite funny… cos we were pretty quick to get out of there, and all excited about calling parents and family, and then messaging all our friends. So our trip back down the mountains felt very quick, because we were on the phone almost the whole way down, and then reading lots of messages too. 

It’s all been quite a blur, but an exciting blur :)