Merry Christmas , Happy New Year & sorry for the gap

Hi, I have to apologise that it has been so long between posts. Life has been a little hectic as we try to enjoy Christmas and the New Year, pack everything up, say goodbyes, finish assignments, deal with centrelink and get all the last minute things done for our move to College. I cant actually believe that it is now only 16 days until we move into Royal Parade.
How is everything going to get done, will I be able to cope with classes and the studies, will the family cope with living with so many other people in the one building, is God really calling me ... with all my failings and inadequacies ... no I must be mistaken, I must have heard wrong .... I cant possibly be His chosen representative to the people ... no I cant do this, what skills do I have for this task, and what about all the mistakes I have made ...
Through all these questions and doubts I keep being reassured by God that it is not by my strength or my power, but it is through the grace of God, that He indeed has called me and that He indeed will provide for me and my family. All we have to do is keep trusting and have the courage to do the things God asks of us.
I know life wont be easy and I am positive that College will stretch and test me, (actually I will be dissapointed if it doesnt !) but I am also very sure of Gods call on our lives and His promise that He will go before us and lead the way.
There have been countless times when we have really struggled to see how we could get some things done, or how we could raise the necessary funds, but time and again we have been amazed at the provisions of God and the generosity of our many friends. Some people have really gone above and beyond in their support of us both financially and spiritually. The prayers and support of these people have helped us to keep focussed and not let small distractions and discouragements move us off the course that God has planned for us. For that we are enormously grateful !
I have blogged before about encouragement but I just want to encourage everyone one more time to go out of your way to be an encourager, to speak positively into the lives of those around you, to be the loving neighbour that God wants us to be. It has been those that have encouraged me that have played a huge part in me being three weeks away from entering Training College.
So as we start the New Year I would encourage you to do three things : Encourage others, Trust God and instead of reading leadership manuals or how to guides look to Jesus for the best model of leadership the world has ever seen - Servant Leadership, and lastly find people you can talk to openly and will be honest with you and let them know what is happening in your life. It really helps to have people that can listen and advise.
God Bless and have a great New Year in 2009 - The year we finally get to Royal Parade.

Life's Tough ...... Allow God

It is that crazy time of the year again, when every group you belong to in any way is having a Christmas break up, the Stores are having Midnight sales for the latest and greatest presents, people are getting frazzled and exhausted, and everyone seems to be having "a silly season". Is this what Christmas is really meant to be like ?

As I was doing my preparation for the final Singing Company and the devotions I would bring I started to think about what Christmas was like for Joseph and Mary. We all complain about our lives and how tough this is or that is, lets quickly look at their lives that very first Christmas. They had to leave all their family behind and travel by Donkey to Bethlehem, now I am not sure about you but if I was pregnant and just about to give birth a long donkey ride would not be high on my list of must do things! When they finally got to Bethlehem there were no rooms available, they ended up staying in a stable, not with a beautiful cot for Baby Jesus but an animals food trough lined with hay. Even think a few months earlier when Joseph was told that Mary was to have a baby, he knew it wasnt his and they werent even married ... I would suggest life wasnt great, things were tough !

But this is where the story of this first Christmas should give us encouragement and challenge, Mary and Joseph didnt run and hide because life was too tough, they had enough faith in God (a vision of an angel would have probably helped a bit !) to allow Him to use the situations they found themselves in. And through this the greatest Man to ever live on earth was born !! God took extremely tough circumstances and used them to change the world forever, what can he do with your life and mine.

You see for those of you that dont know me, God has already done some of this with me. My life was close to rock bottom, I didnt think things could get much worse. I was in trouble with the law, in huge debt, in mourning for my father, had broken the trust of all my closest family and friends, the list could go on ..... but then God took over my life. The day I started to have a real relationship with this very same baby Jesus my life changed forever !! Has life been easy since ... NO !! Have times been tough ... ABSOLUTELY !! Has God been able to use these times to develop me and to use me to help others ... YES !! This little baby born in Betlehem long ago has completely transformed my life, and He is wanting to do the same for you.

So this Christmas if life is tough or just doesnt make sense I pray that you will seek the baby Jesus and allow him to start to mould you into the person you were created to be. And remember that God never stops loving you and is desperate to welcome you home !! God Bless each of you and may Christmas be special to you for all the right reasons this year.

Friendship

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend." - Charles Caleb Colton

Obviously with us making the move to College next year we have had to start saying good bye to people that we have built friendships with and spent time with here at Warrnambool, this is never an easy process because both Susan and I (especially Susan !) make strong bonds and build deep friendships. On the other side of the coin we have a number of strong friendships in Melbourne that are excited because we are moving back closer to them again, for every negative there is a positive.
This has made me sit and reflect on what it really means to be a friend, a true friend, a person you can trust no matter what is happening around. There have been a number of stages in my life when I have found out just who my really good friends are,the ones who still care and love you when all others are walking away. I am very fortunate to have some incredible people in my life who have supported and loved me through the good and bad, a great wife and extremely loving family but also some very strong friends.
You see anyone can be a fair weather friend but it takes courage, strength, commitment, faith and love to be a friend when things are not good, when the road is tough, when you might have to get hurt to help. The best part of these friends is I can rely on them not just to support me but also to hold me accountable and to tell me off when I have stepped out of line, I dont want my friends to all be yes people who are always telling me how good I am, I want them to love me enough to tell me the truth and then help me through the repairs needed.
Jesus called each of us to be friends to our neighbours, not just the ones who life is easy for but everyone. I want you to quickly think about something ... if life was falling apart for any of your friends would you be the person they turned to, would they be able to rely on you to support them and get them through that dark hour. On the flip side if your life was seemingly falling apart who would you call, have you developed friendships that would allow you to express your feelings to a friend and to be able to rely on them to help you ?
I would hope that my friends would know that I will always be there for them, that no matter what has happened they can rely on me to stay thick, and to see them through the storms.
I pray that if you dont have any strong friends or havent ever allowed yourself to be vulnerable in front of your friends that you find someone in life that you can depend on, that you can allow to see your inner pain, that will keep you accountable but in a loving,caring way, and that will be the loving neighbour that Jesus called us each to be.
Thankyou to all my friends for your support and love, and remember that I am always there for you no matter what time or what day.
God Bless.

Ambassadors of Holiness 2009

We received confirmation this week that we have been accepted to enter Training College next year as part of the Ambassadors of Holiness session. This is great news for us and we are really looking forward to the challenges that now lie ahead of us. We have felt a very strong calling from God, and truly believe that Training College is where He wants us to be next year.
Obviously we are sad to be leaving a number of very close friends here at Warrnambool, and are very grateful for the opportunirties we have had here. There are a number of people here that will remain our close friends for the rest of our lives. However God calls us to leave our comfortable surroundings and step out in faith and trust Him, so that is what we will do.
We are excited but also slightly scared, intimidated, nervous, anxious etc. about what lies ahead of us, and if we will be able to cope. The good thing is that a number of times over the last six or so years we have really had to question Gods call on our lives, and each time we have been reminded again and encouraged to be faithful to that call. So with a sense of nervous anticipation we pray "Bring It On God, where you lead I will follow !"
We would like to thank our families and friends for their love and support, and would ask that you keep us in your prayers as we continue on this incredible journey with God. May God richly bless you each and I look forward to catching up with some of you in the not so distant future.

Global Leadership Summit 2008

I had the real priviledge of attending the 2008 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit at the Kardinia Christian Church this past Friday and Saturday, what a wonderful opportunity this was to listen to some of the worlds top speakers. It was a DVD cast ( so in other words we were watching the conference that was recorded at Willow Creek weeks before, shown in Geelong with a live Worship Band and a facilitator) this took a little bit of getting used to, but after a while you found yourself so focussed on the speakers you forgot about the fact it was prerecorded.

All the speakers were very good and impacted you in many different ways, but the two that really impacted me from a personal perspective were Craig Groeschel and the final session by Bill Hybels. Craig Groeschel spoke about IT and how we find IT and keep IT, now I can hear you asking what is IT.... in Craigs words DONT KNOW.... well how do you get IT.... DONT KNOW ..... how do you keep IT.... DONT KNOW. You see IT is that feeling, warmth, that thing you just sense some places have. IT makes you want to come back and find out more. IT makes you a person in society that people want to be around and want to know what IT is that is different about you. Craig has written a book by the title of "IT" and if you are interested I would recommend you read it. But the thing that stood out to me about what he had to say was when he stated that he had got to the stage where he was so busy doing everything expected of him that he had become a full time minister and a part time follower of God. He had lost IT by doing good , honorable things, by getting so busy that he didnt spend as much time with God and seeking Gods continual direction for his life.
The final session by Bill Hybels was about Mother Teresa and how she had received a very clear calling from God for her life, yet other people still stood in the way of her following that call. But Mother Teresa never lost sight of that call and kept pushing her superiors to allow her to follow it, and eventually they relented and allowed her to go where God had been calling her to. But things still werent easy for her and we can learn a lot from her level of faith and commitment. In her personal journal she wrote about not being able to feel Gods presence with her at that time and feeling alone and yet then wrote "I want to love you Lord more than anyone has ever loved you before". Even at a time when she couldnt feel the presence of God with her she was expressing a desire to love God more !
I pray that I will have that same strength of faith to stay true to the calling God has placed on my life and when times are hard and I am not as close to God as I could be that I would seek to love Him more than I ever have before. One final quote from the conference " Do you have the courage to pray Bring It On Lord ? " I hope that we all have that courage today and then have the courage to follow when God answers.

The Militant Church

I have been having some discussions with friends recently about whether in todays society it is good to have a military style hierachal system for The Salvation Army, this has been a time of interesting debate but has made me take stock of what I believe about the future of The Salvation Army. I actually love the idea of us being a Militant Church, and I know some of you will disagree but let me give you details as to why I believe this.

We need to have a lot of things in common with the Military if we are going to win the War against Sin. Firstly just like the Military we need to have a single focus - we need to know what we are fighting against and what we are trying to win. This should be very easy but unfortunately gets blurred at times, we are fighting to change the world one life at a time so that God's will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Part of this is we need to know how to use the weapons we have at our disposal - the spiritual weapons that God has given us, we each have differnet weapons and when used together this forms an array of weapons that make Satan shake in his boots.

We need to be keen to get on the Battlefield and fight the enemy, but we also need to have a clear battle plan and have done our homework. The best soldiers know exactly what their role is and where they fit into the overall structure, this is true of the church as well. A military would not survive without its medics, cooks, mechanics etc. likewise a church needs people doing the behind the scenes jobs.

Next we need to be able to adapt quickly to the circumstances we are in, and be persistent, if one plan fails dont dwell on it but keep moving forward looking to the next plan. Just like a good soldier a Salvationist must be never off duty but always ready for the call to battle at a moments notice. There is great camraderie in the military and everyone watches each others backs, what do you think we should be doing as a church ?

Finally a good soldier is willing to give their all for the cause, to die to achieve the goal. Are you willing to lay your life on the line for God ?

I believe we should be a Militant Church existing for the sole purpose of rescuing people from the darkness in which they find themselves ! Are you willing to fight with me ? I've got your back will you watch mine ?

Zara is 10 !

It is hard to believe but my gorgeous little princess Zara is 10. She had a great day yesterday as we celebrated her birthday, and it was great to see her laughing and enjoying everything. Zara has a really infectious personality and when she is happy she is an absolute delight to be in the company of.
I think of all the family Zara has been the one that the move to Warrnambool has caused the most stress and heartache too, she is a really good friend who develops really deep, strong friendships and I think she really struggled having to leave her friends and family and start again. Zara is a very affectionate daughter and has a really soft, wonderful heart and is a really caring, loving young girl.
As parents Susan and I could not be prouder of her and the way she is developing and we look forward to watching and sharing with her as she continues to grow into a beautiful young woman.
Zara I am so proud to call you my daughter and hope you have a great year ahead and all your dreams come true. Thanks for just being you, continue to laugh, love and dream. We will do everything in our powers to make sure you can live out those dreams.
As you grow physically may you also grow spiritually, rely on God He will always be there for you.
I Love you Zara and cant wait to see your development in the coming months.