A precious gift

This year I've been really blessed to teach 4, sometimes 5 beautiful girls every Sunday morning at my church. We call it sunday school, but in essence it's more of a basic bible study. I love watching them learn, even on the days when the best part of the lesson is consumed with them telling me about their pets/friends/holidays/the gadget they want/ the school social they're going to/the baby brother they dream of and on it goes. I love it because it makes me more a part of their life then just a teacher.

Meryn has been in sunday school forever and loves clothes, lame jokes, netball and babies. Lauren has only started coming this year and will tell a story anytime she gets the opportunity, laughs really loud, has had at least half a dozen nicknames and pays out our other leader like there's no tomorrow. Jessie is an academic to the bone, is competitive and quiet and Izzy is another Sunday school veteran, used to knowing all the answers but beginning to ask more difficult questions, plays every musical instrument known to man and loves long distance running.

Over the last couple of weeks the girls haven't been coming as often as they usually do. It eats my heart to watch the service start without any one of them.

Today Izzy's dad told me their family was moving churches. It really struck a chord. Not because she was moving, I'd rather she be wherever her family was, and not because I feel my leadership would trumpt anyone else's but because our church is a family, and when someone leaves it's hard to say goodbye.
It really reminded me too of the importance of prayer. I am still connected to Izzy as a sister and will meet her again, but until then we are still connected as we pray for one another here on earth. On top of that I realised how much there is to pray for in a single ministry.
PRAY they'll come
PRAY they'll listen
PRAY I speak the truth
PRAY it impacts their thinking
PRAY their actions and mine might change

Thank God sanctification is not by our own means!
I hope Izzy will learn that wherever she is.

The exact opposite of the truth is "the probable." Truth does not consist of an approximation. That which lies nearest to the truth is not, if you please, closest to the truth. No, this is the most dangerous delusion of all, the most dangerous simply because it lies so near to the truth without being the truth.

I've worked out how you can comment!

Sorry guys, I know some of you have tried to comment and had some trouble, I had to change some settings internally, my bad.

You can now comment by pressing comment and selecting Name/URL. I'm guessing you don't need any instruction on what to put in the name slot, but in the URL you need to put a website URL. You can put in your myspace, other blogs, facebook page or any random website like biblegateway.com or youtube.com. It just has to end in .com or .net it doesn't actually show the website URL, so have fun with it!!

It would be great to hear from you. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

:) Liz

A Big Problem

My mum is not a very profound person. A trained bookeeper she is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get, everything in small neat, labelled boxes, accounted for and ready for use kind of person. My dad, on the other hand, is a concept machine. He loves testing the water, testing the boundaries, abstract thinking and seeing things from different points of view.

I've gotta admit, they make a pretty good team, and its fairly rare for them not to come up with decent advice. Earlier this year I received a pearl from my mother that came completely from left field- If all your problems are to do with money then you're not doing too bad. It struck a chord with me, of course she was right?! How many people in the world were in situations beyond the limitations of mastercard. People with terminal illness, broken families, serious addictions and mental illness, parents who'd lost children, victims of rape and sexual assault... there were many many worse things it seemed then debt.

My dad had a different take. Generous soul that he is, he told me I'd always be indebted to my parents and I should just get used to it. I'm guessing you can imagine which view was more readily accepted. But as the year winds on, I'm finding there to be more truth in the latter. Not because of the nature of debt itself- unfortunately time has shown that a large percentage of us will owe money to someone at some point in our lives. It's virtually unavoidable. The real problem is the the way we see this money.
Last year I was working partime, studying full time for the second half of the year, earning between 250 and 300 dollars a week. With 120 of that as rent a good 130-180 was my 'dispensable' income, that was food, transport, phone and extras. It was freaking tough, but I did it because my parents weren't Christian and I couldn't justify spending my time with God essentially at their expense. Admittadely God was exceptionally kind to me during this time, often I would receive tips from working at the restaurant that helped me pick up some slack.
For the first part of this year I worked full time earning 500 dollars a week, taking out about 170 a week for rents and bills that let 330 as my dispensable income. You've have thought with the extra 200 dollars a week I could've saved for something useful, and in many respects I did, funding the best part of my 21st and repaying some of the debt to my parents, as well as a setting 1200 aside for an insurance claim (my fault) and giving some to the church. But on the whole I enjoyed a period in my life when I didn't have to check the balance to see how much I could afford to spend on groceries.
I got used to security with my money. I found ways to enjoy it. This was not altogether a bad thing, but now, as I begin another semester at uni and face another period requiring discipline with my spending I am afraid and upset. I find it hard to rely on God's provision of grace and instead consider how I will repay the rest of the debt to my parents, my insurance registration in November, as well as go without comforts I have grown used to. True, if all our problems are money related we aren't doing too bad, but if all our fears are money related, if all our worries are money-related, if our decisions are determined by money ( and I am facing the decision of whether or not I can survive on 150 a week again!) then we aren't doing too good. In fact, we have a big problem, because it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
When my father told me I was to be indebted to my parents for the rest of my life, I failed to recognise how 'indebted' I am constantly to my heavenly Father. I failed to realise that if I could 'get used to it' he longs to provide for me even more abundantly then my earthly dad. That mightn't always mean smooth sailing, it mightn't even always mean monetary provision, but I can never be separated from him, and he promises to work for the good of me, as a chosen daughter of his.
Better then that the debt that I owe to him has already been paid.

Some thoughts on the ordination of gay leaders in the American Episcopal Church

I often feel like sitting in the Sydney Christian bubble is a very safe place to be. I find great comfort in the accountibility measures set in place by the different denominational hierarachies, by solid uni ministry, by beach mission, outreach to schools and even the Christian music scene. I love that we know not all the books at Koorong are foolproof guides to Christian living. I love most of all that we are challenged to think critically from scripture.
Unfortunately I also believe that in this sheltered environment we are being equipped for a ministry, in whatever shape and form that takes, to our less certain world. The truth is that in many places, scripture no longer justifies actions, particulalrly those of the church and it's members, as wholistically as it should. The American church's stance on gay ordination is a perfect example of how humans so often want to pick and choose their own beliefs.

Here's some excerpts from a recent news article (From the Amercian Chronicle, Aug 22nd) on the matter...

COLUMBIA The leader of South Carolina's largest Lutheran denomination said he believes congregations will be able to abide in faith with Friday's decision by the church's Worldwide Assembly to embrace the ordination of sexually active gay clergy who are in committed, monogamous relationships.

Amid impassioned pleas and prayers on both sides of the issue, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America became the latest mainstream Protestant denomination to move toward greater inclusion of gays and lesbians in the hierarchy of the church.

Bishop Herman R. Yoos III, elected last year as head of the South Carolina Synod, acknowledged that most South Carolina congregations would oppose the call of a gay pastor and would not "lift up" a homosexual candidate for the ministry.
But he denied opponents' charges that Friday's actions will split the denomination.
"Every congregation would be free to decide what to do," he said.

"I think if we look hard at it and live into it, I believe most of the churches in South Carolina will come around to it. It won't be an instantaneous thing." But he added, "I think there are deeply faithful, committed people who will say, 'Maybe this isn't what I wanted, but I'll be able to work through this.'"

It's a huge wake-up call to how I shift through scripture! Do I allow it to penetrate all my thoughts and actions? How simple it is to build structures that from the inside can look like they honor the claims of scripture but in essence are doing all they can to run from it's teaching. The other mistake I feel that is made in this issue deals with another problem, limiting scripture to purely its 1st century context and hence denying the omniscience (all knowing quality) of God. while context plays a huge role in how we understand scripture, it is important to understand what pertained specifically to the first Christians and what should also affect our own lives.

John Shelby Spong (the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey 1991) in his book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (pg8) states this:

There are certain other places where homosexuality is condemned. Both the Torah and St Paul can be cited. However, the question of biblical authority arises anew, when scientific data, which the fifth and sixth century BCE authors of the Torah and St Paul could not have imagined, throws a new light on the origin and cause of homosexuality. Such data available today suggest that homosexual orientation is not a matter of choice but of ontology; that is, it is the being of the inidividual, not the doing.

Thoughts?

Dear God please change me, just not in any way I'll notice...

Isn't it the way! I don't know how many times I've recognised a change in the way I behave and then grieved the old habit! Dear Lord, please help me to dress more modestly brings about frustrations of looking frumpy, changes to my language has me feeling like I can't articulate myself (an out and out lie if ever there was one!), showing love to people at church I find difficult to be around makes me feel isolated and unengaged, using my money differently has me imagining what I could spend it on if only...

It's dumb hey! I'm a big fan of the theory that changing your behaviour can change your attitude, so long as you're consistent enough to make it through the initial phase, and pray that God can change your heart. We are of course, not promised that at all, it could be a struggle for us our whole lives, but I find God in his great mercy and desire for us to live in a godly manner usually blesses my experience.

I think the other thing that short-circuits our generation from implementing change is our instantaneous culture...if you understand the concept of twitter you'll know what I'm talking about. Gone are the days of progressive development, like it or not, we are used to getting what we want 10 seconds ago. Thus the concept of perservering through change is difficult for us to comprehend. Our attention span just isn't long enough.

It is however, what God wants for us, to align our will with his own, and that involves change. I'm still trying to work out both what I want and what God would want my character to look like tangibly, but I find it interesting to imagine myself as more temperate, humble or gentle. What would you like to see more of in yourself? If you could be described in a single word, what would you want it to be?

Hi?

Sometimes I get really frustrated that there's a whole congregation in my church I have very little contact with- the eldery congregation. What an absolutely precious group of people they are, often having lived as a Christian longer then I've been alive, with a mirrade of stories about God's grace, mercy, provision and teaching and yet because we're at opposite ends of a Sunday we never meet. I hope soon I will do more then just feel a longing to meet with them.

I'm sorry, I've never been to church, but can I have a lolly?

So I was sitting outside the Con today on our uni mission table (with a rather large packet of starburst chews grinning menacingly at me...) when a guy from my old history tute approached the table and asked, 'Sorry I've never been to church, but can I have a lolly?' To which I responded of course and tried to nonchalantly slip him an invitation to our thurs afternoon meeting...
But the irony of what he said really struck me as he was leaving- didn't he realise we were TARGETING people who didn't go to church? Like, what's the point of hunting down Christians to discuss whether all religions are the same, they've already made up their minds, right?
To us it's perfectly simple, but for other people I suppose the idea of someone who isn't Christian attending a Christian group meeting is a bit of a rarity.
It highlighted for me how important relational evangelism is, how people benefit from seeing your life in action. It also encouraged me to continue working at mission at the Con, because depite the fact that my friend lived in the largest city in one of the wealthiest, best informed and most accepting countries in the world, he had never been to church.

What would you have said to him?

For all you OT nerds...

I'm really appreciating the inundation of OT law teaching around in Syd at the moment. As cumbersome as it can be is as amazing as it is when it all makes sense. I've looked at Acts recently for my sunday school girls and found this amazing perspective on Pentecost.

The day called "Pentecost" is named after the Greek word pentekostos, which means "fiftieth." It is the only Old Testament festival that is determined by counting. On the day after the Sabbath after Passover, the ancient Israelites were to select a sheaf of the first grain that had been harvested in the spring. This grain then became an offering, and the priest waved it "before the Lord" (Leviticus 23:11-12).Pentecost was to be observed in ancient Israel on the fiftieth day "from" this Sunday (verse 15). (The Hebrew means "from" in the sense of "beginning with.") That meant seven weeks elapsed between the day of the first grain offering and the beginning of Pentecost. That’s why Pentecost was sometimes called the Feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15; Numbers 28:26; Deuteronomy 16:9-12).The grain harvest was gathered after the token of the first gleaning of the grain was given as an offering. Since the counting of Pentecost was tied to this event and it came at the end of the spring grain harvest, Pentecost was sometimes called the Feast of the Harvest and Day of First Fruits (Exodus 23:16; Numbers 28:26).Judaism came to regard Pentecost as the anniversary of the giving of the law and the old covenant at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20–24). It is not surprising, then, that Pentecost would have a symbolic meaning for the church. It was the day when God once again manifested himself in a unique way, signaling a new relationship between God and his people. As E. William Neil summarizes it:Pentecost had also come to signify for Jews the commemoration of the giving of the Law at Sinai fifty days after the Exodus Passover. For Luke this, too, would be seen as having a Christian fulfilment in the giving of the Spirit fifty days after the Christian Exodus Passover, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. (The Acts of the Apostles, The New Century Bible Commentary, page 72)The Spirit coming in human minds was a kind of "second giving of the law;" the Spirit replaced the law as the guide for God's people. It was, in Paul’s expression, "the law of the spirit of life," which came through the new righteousness that is in Christ (Romans 8:1-2).

Could you get any Moore Anglican?

I would say that a Moore College degree is a sign you're a true Anglican, like sitting up the back, being afraid to raise your hands in 'worship', knowing the Nicene creed backwards and keeping a stash of two ways to live handouts in your handbag. (It's an accepted fact that all good godly women bought a bigger handbag to fit the Essential Jesus booklets this year, but that's another story for another day...)

But my question is, what qualifies someone to teach? There is frequently lay teaching at my church at the moment, from great, respectable, godly men of varying ages and none of them have been to Moore. Conversely I've also been in the situation where I felt someone untrained was taking on a role beyond himself.

Is it just a matter of check listing off 1 Tim 3? Should untrained people be double-checked by someone at least more experienced? What about church planters and rural churches? Does the importance of spreading the gospel in its simplicity over-rule the fact that teaching further down the track isn't as spot on? Are these people considered 'false teachers'?...

1Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer,[a] he desires a noble task. 2Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. [1 Tim 3:1-7]

10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. [1 Cor 3:10-15]

Singleness and Marriage

It's a big one, many questions, many opinions. 1 Cor 7, Paul's account on marriage and singleness is probably the most quoted on the topic, and yet even then the nuts and bolts of it are difficult to tie down.
*Is marriage just an answer to man's sinful desires? Why then was there perfect marriage in the garden and why does Christ depict Himself as a bridegroom to the church? (Rev 21: 9-10)

*Why does Paul speak of people 'controlling themselves' as 'better' then marriage?

*Are circumstances different if someone has been married before and is now widowed?

*What is it to burn with passion, and as convoluded as it sounds does that include attraction? Should people who feel committed to singleness pack it in if they continue to be attracted to people, or 'learn to control their wills?'

*What about people who burn with passion but God chooses for them not to be married, isn't that the very reason it was made?

36If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. 37But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. 38So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better.[b]
39A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. 40In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God. [1 Cor 7:36-40]

All thoughts gratefully received...

I swear I don't know anything about yoga...

...and yet I mention meditations, and 19 of them?

As much as I enjoy the enigma, the real inspiration is by far more beautiful...

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer are the words of David in Psalm 19:14, and a real challenge to my own life, both personal and public.

What I would really love this blog to be is a place where we can discuss different 'meditations' that crop up at different times and stages of our Christian walk. It's essentially an open slather; whatever you want it to be. I know I've had great conversations at different times with many of you (that were undoubtably pleasing to God!)and could think of nothing better then consolidating all the knowledge God has given us to throw around things we've been challenged by, that have made us think or built our understanding of Him.

I hope that God would guard my words and meditations, as well as your own, that we might all bring glory to him. I hope that through learning more about Him, our bodies would be renewed and transformed more and more into His likeness. I pray that together we could discuss the hard stuff, sincerely seeking answers that will allow us to serve God more effectively in our lives.

I don't want this space to be my own. I would love you to comment. Please, don't be shy, let's think hard together.

:)