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. :)

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. :)

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.

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.

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]

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!

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]

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!

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.

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!