My Blog Address is MOVING!

Hi guys - if you're interested, my blog address has now changed. I've discovered the creative possibilities at the wordpress blog portal!

You can find JUBILEE MAN at http://www.jubileeman.wordpress.com . Could you change you links on your sites over to this address? Ta!

Look forward to seeing you there. AP

Where I Am

You may be wondering where I am at the moment with blogging. Well, I've actually taken up the offer of 'a blog a day in the month of May' from a good friend.

I created a new blog for this (temporary!) at http://www.tuipiri.wordpress.com . If you want to you can see my pretty average bloggin skills at work!

See you in June, AP

Wait on The Lord

Recently at Mittagong Anglican Church we had a Moore College mission come for a week.

On the second Sunday of the mission, immediately before the last service of the day at 6pm, one of the students came up to me and said that he had been praying with a group before the previous service when he felt God give him 'a word' for me.

He said this usually wasn't his thing. I said to him in a sigh of exhaustion, 'Is it bad?' He said 'No!' and then quoted these verses from the Bible:

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31

I found this greatly encouraging just a few seconds before I led the last service of the mission. It had been terribly exhausting over the week and I had felt beforehand as if I had no physical or emotional strength left to keep it all together. God was gracious and kind to remind me of that verse.

About 10 days later I was reading through Satisfy Your Soul by Bruce Demarest when I was stopped in my tracks by this passage from the book:

Have you ever wondered what it means to 'wait on the Lord'? I suggest that it is akin to practising the presence of God. Isaiah declares, 'Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. they will fly high on wings like eagles. they will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint' (Isaiah 40:31).

So I have been really thinking hard and praying to 'wait on the Lord'. Since the mission finished I have still not recovered. I feel enormously exhausted still even 10 days later, especially emotionally.

New strength from God awaits.

Christian Spirituality - a Context

Theological correctness alone is no balm for the wounds of our frail and sinful humanity...We cannot nourish the mind but neglect the heart....good theology is not enough. There is the serious danger of the emergence of an arid evangelical rationalism.

We can think of spirituality as the internalisation of our faith. It means allowing our faith to saturate every aspect of our lives, infecting and affecting our thinking, feeling and living....the way in which Christian individuals and groups deepen their experience of God.

From Alister Mcgrath, 'Loving God with Heart and Mind', in A McGrath and T George (eds), For All the Saints: Evangelical Theology and Christian Spirituality, Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

Sensing life.

Isn't this a beautiful scene. The rich colours, the depth.

The 12 Stones

Hi, nice to talk to you again. It's been too long.

I've learnt a lot from God since we last were together (always grateful to God for that). Can I share some?

1) In 1 Samuel 3 is the story of when God first spoke to Samuel the prophet (and Israel itself again, after God's previous long absence from speaking during the time of Eli the prophet). Samuel hears God, and then at the end of 1 Samuel 3 the narrative says,

And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground (1 Samuel 3:19).

That last phrase - and let none of his words fall to the ground - God really hit me with that. I've been praying for that for myself, the ministry team here, and the Moore College mission team that's been at Mittagong this week. How awful that the words I speak could fall to the ground. May God keep them all off it.

2) The 12 stones - from Joshua 4:2-20 - placed by Joshua as a way of remembering God - ultimately that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever (Joshua 4:24). Again, hit me between the eyes and made me take the picture above.

3) I've been entranced by the idea of Christian spiritual formation. What a horrible phrase. It's otherwise known as Christian spirituality or Christian formation. Again, these are all horrible names. Basically it's just the idea of daily Christian living. Living in Christ in his fullness and what that looks like.

So, I've been reading Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, Bruce Demarest, Eugene Peterson and Marva Dawn. May I strongly recommend any of these writers. Check them on Google books. I think it's what's been missing from my Christian life and education: simply what Christian living looks like and thinks like and acts like.

Jesus as KING as well as SAVIOUR is what I hope to pass on to others in my preaching and speaking. May God continue the transformation.

Mittagong Lace

Listen to the Postman

Neil Postman, that is.

I've been meaning to read his book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", which gives a critique of media and television and their extensive negative influences on our society.

In the meantime, I've read a key Neil Postman idea from the pen of Marva Dawn (probably my very favourite author along with J I Packer) - an idea called the Low Information-Action Ratio (LIAR).

[Quote from Marva Dawn, Preludes to Discovery, in 'The Unnecessary Pastor', p38]

This Low Information Action Ratio (LIAR) is caused by our society's plethora of contextless information. The result of our bombardment with too much data is paralysis - we are not able to, or become not willing to, act on what we hear and see. In fact, television has trained us NOT to act on what we learn. thus, the ratio of action to the amount of information received spirals continually lower...it makes LIARS of us to read the scriptures and not act on God's commands, to hear sermons and not put them into practice.

Jubilee Man's 100th Post

For Jubilee Man's 100th post, I've been tagged and am required to admit six quirky things about myself!

The rules of the meme are these:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.

5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Here goes.

1. The person who tagged me is my lovely wife. You can find her here: http://www.loveasunnyday.blogspot.com/

2. Well, I've posted the rules of the tag above!

3. This is the meat of the tag. Six non-important quirks or habits about yourself. So, without further ado:

a) I flick my toes a lot. So much so that I wear holes out at the front of socks pretty quickly.

b) I go to bed usually between 12am-1am every night and get up at 6-6.30am.

c) I clean my study every Monday morning because there is so much paper around.

d) I am frequently frustrated at not having enough time to read books.

e) I read the Between Two Worlds blog (see link on my list) every morning.

f) I usually have to have a window open in the room where I am or else I feel claustrophobic - especially if someone else is in the room!!! I like fresh air and not someone else's!