Bundy Photo Challenge

I just wanted to take a moment of your time to tell you about a regular Photo comp I take part in. It is called the “Bundy Photo Challenge” and it is open to anyone who wants to enter. Whatever level you are at, please join the experience. It is good fun and it will encourage your photography skills to grow

Steve Jobs:Dead

Steve Jobs was possibly one of, if not the most significant person to ever walk into the technology industry, and as I am sure most of you are aware,

Three differences between church and secular leadership Part 2

Here is part two of my observations, my objective here is simply to provoke thought and consideration, I welcome any comments and hope this post might give you a slightly different perspective.

2:Every decision is important

Decisions are important in every organization, they can destroy or build up, make or lose money, have you promoted or fired. Whatever job you happen to have, think of the worst decision

Three Differences between Spiritual and Secular Leadership Part1

Recently I participated in a conversation about leadership, from secular and religious perspectives (With a certain Zebra). Amid this exchange of ideas, it occurred to me that there are three main differences between these two institutions, of course there are many others, but in application there are three primary areas that I have identified.

If you are not in direct or official leadership I still encourage you to read, If you are a leader but not a Christian, I urge you to read also, as a different perspective can enrich your own outlook on the topic. If you are a Christian it will hopefully help you understand your leaders, perhaps preparing you for leadership in your own sphere of influence and finally, for those who are already effective leaders, your comments are more than welcome. So without further ado here is part one of this Three part series.

Oslo Tragedy

Anders Behring Breivik a name  unknown to the world, just this weekend, became an global headline.

Anders is responsible for the deaths of  over 90 people after he bombed a central area of the Oslo CBD(killing 7), then proceded to gain access to an island where a summer youth camp was being held. Here he shot and killed at least 84 people.

This is truly a dark event, one that will not soon be forgotten (I will indeed be keeping all involved in my thoughts and prayers), but after this atrocity was perpetrated what was he

Writing Sermons

I wrote this just over a week ago, before speaking at the Hinkler Family Camp… Hoping to get some time to share about that with you as well… But for now… Some musings on the preparations.

I never cease to be amazed by the process of preparing and preaching a message. It seems to be broken into five distinct sections.

Phase 1: The inspiration

First is the initial idea. You have a flash of inspiration where the Holy Spirit impresses you with a topic or passage to preach on. This is always an exciting point. And I usually feel like this is about to be the greatest sermon of my life, I feel that way about each new possibility.

So… We are still here.

As most of you have likely noticed, we are still here… There was no rapture event last night as was predicted. Earth is still spinning as usual… For you and I at least that may be true… But guess what? Over 50,000 people were faced with their eternity overnight. For them it was a very real occurrence.

Though I firmly believe that Jesus will return to take his people home, we are clearly told in Matthew 24:36;

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

So if no one knows, I am going to take that to mean that “no one knows” that is why I take all these predictions with a grain of salt. In fact I am staunchly against them for several reasons.

Firstly, it directly contradicts the Bible.
Secondly, when these people are shown to be either crazy or liars it reflects badly upon all Christians and ultimately upon God himself.
Thirdly and finally, it has a tendency to remove our urgency of preparation.

What I mean by that is simply the fact we become complacent because we perceive Jesus’ return to be afar off, but our sense of urgency should not be tied to the second coming. There are two important points our urgency should be tied to…

The first is wrapped up in the first statistic I shared, over the last 8 hours, statistically, over 50,000 people have died. We will be looking at the same kind of numbers for the next 8 hours as well, and eventually you and I will be personally taking part in that statistic (lest of course we are translated). Far or near, our eternity is sealed at the time of death (or at the close of probation for those alive at the end of time) at that point there are no second chances, so one must be sure what their wagon is hooked to before we get there

The second is the fact that who we are is a composite of our past decisions if we reject the idea of accepting salvation, or even delay it, we form a synthetic, predisposition to unbelief, and if one persists in this, an individual may not even be capable of making such a decision the next time it is presented, thus the urgency we should feel.

CS Lewis, an amazing mind put it this way… “Taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heavenly creature or into a hellish creature” we should not delay to make changes we are convicted of, as we risk our own capability to change.

The second coming of Jesus is sure, and I cannot wait for it, but I welcome you all to join me in planning your life as if it were a decade away and prepare your soul as if it were tomorrow.

The Mordecai Theory: Living Behind Enemy Lines

I am scheduling this to post  as I begin my sermon tomorrow (11am, May 7, 2011). Rather than copying all my notes, to make it more useful if anyone wants the material this post will be somewhat of a synopsis of the sermon and the full transcript you will find available as a pdf download.

In this Sermon I have drawn four secrets for “living behind enemy lines”(Earth during the great controversy) and getting out alive, right out of the book of Esther.

• Wait Diligently – Do not grow weary doing good – Galatians 6:9/Esther2:21 – 23
• Do not compromise – Never go against your convictions – Hebrews 10:26/Esther 3:1 – 6
• Let the Spirit use You – Do the bidding of the Holy Spirit – Esther 4:12
• Leave it with God – Let Him fight your battles – Exodus 14:14/Esther 7:5 – 10

Having established these good examples for us to follow. It is then important for us to look to Jesus because of the strong parallels between the story of Esther and the Great Controversy itself. Really this is not the Mordecai Theory at all. It is, in fact the Jesus Reality. Mordecai was a type of Christ, the whole story blesses us not only with a Microcosm of the great controversy but the Living example set for us by Jesus, which was pointed to by the life of Mordecai.

To know more… download the 8 page version: The Mordecai Theory

He is Risen.

Bzzzzzzt. My phone vibrates just before the alarm begins it’s upbeat daily recital, I almost reflexively jump out of bed to still it’s tones before waking the rest of the house. It is Easter sunday, 5:00am. I get ready as fast as I can, grab my camera bag, jump in the Hilux and head for the beach, trying to beat the sunrise to ensure some worthwhile photo opportunities.

As I drive in on the deserted streets I started to think of scripture… John 20:1

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb.”

This was the same time of day and the conclusion that was drawn then is the same one I draw today, “He is not here, HE IS RISEN!” on this profound statement, the Christian faith is founded. It is some of the best evidence for the faith that I and many others hold dear.

How is that so one may ask? Simple. It is the biggest question any sceptic must answer. If they say that Jesus was not resurrected then they create a problem for their own argument because you then have to fill a supernatural, resurrection sized, void in history. There is no other logical explanation for what was at that time an all but disbanded sect of Judaism to go from being a persecuted handful of people in a backwater province of the Roman empire, who’s leader was just murdered, to the predominant religious persuasion of that same empire in just a few hundred years. There has been no movement before or since which has had such a dramatic effect on human history.

The factual, bodily resurrection of Christ is the only thing that even makes vague sense as a motive for the early christians to evangelize the world, and they did exactly that.

There is so much excellent evidence for the resurrection, believer or not I recommend you look into it.

I hope the message is as real to you today as it was to Mary then.

iPad 2 – The purchase

Just a short post to tell you something you may have expexted…

After much anticipation, the iPad2 was released into the Australian wild minutes ago, as I do not have an apple store near me, I chose to online ordering method, reserving my iPod 16 hours ahead of those who are as we speak, lining up out front of apple stores all over the continent… the only catch… and it is a sizable one… I now discover the shipping time estimate is 2-3 weeks… oh well, all I can do is hope they overestimated their lead time.

For those interested in what flavour I secured, I ordered the;