I don't have much to say at the moment but I thought I would share this:

I just had an afternoon snack of some chilled dates from Libya.

So there.

Scott

Three posts in 3 days.

I must be trying to avoid something. Proctastination is a great inspiration.

Don't skipt the last 2 posts if you just arrived - I enjoyed them both. But also don't miss out on checking out this link

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/ultimate+showdown/#start

Ever wondered what would happen if all the superheroes fought each other in the ultimate show down?

Well, now you know.

Scott

The greatest adventure story ever told

It's a big call for the title of a book, "The greatest adventure story ever told", and I must admit, I was skeptical. But if you've got some spare cash, you'd be hard pushed for a more mind bending adventure. It might be a boy thing, but I'm pretty sure this will bake your noodle either way.

Shackelton started off to cross the Antartic - but before he even landed, his boat (The Endurance) got caught in an ice flow and over a period of a week or 2 the most modern and expensive ice going vessel of 1914 was crushed into pieces no bigger than your dining room table.

Thus began a 2 year (that's right, 2 year!) trek of survival. They spend most of it camped out on an ice pack drifting slowely towards a deserted island (no palm trees and coconuts here though - just a frozen lump of rock) from where they could launch their row boats for the 650 mile journey across the worst sea in the world to another lump of rock where there was a whaling station.

For 2 years they ate penguin and seal blubber, were almost never dry, spent 3 months in south pole winter (24 hrs of darkness) all got frostbite, had to kill and eat their sleigh dogs . . . the list goes on. But instead of re writing the book here, I'll let you go read it yourself.

It taught me 2 things.

1. The burden of command. For those of us who have people under their charge it can be a weighty load to bear. Most of us aren't trying to keep 27 others alive on an iceberg, but to be a leader is like being a parent, you worry that your best might not be good enough.

2. You can always push harder, go further, last longer. I now believe that we usually fail because we give up, not because all is lost.

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts.”
Churchill

Wortelgat 2006

Just got back from another great camp. It's our fav. spot with some of my fav. kids.
It is very photogenic, esp when it comes to QT's. Also had lots of first timers on camp who all clicked really well. We are tired but thanking God for another great weekend.

The only trouble was the bus. We got the campsite late, bouncing down a dirt road in the country. We went down the wrong path, ended up in a neighbours farm, and when we tried to reverse out got bogged! So at 9:15pm we unpacked the puss, got cars to shuttle the luggage, and Leights lead the kids on a night hike to the cape site. Then a tractor came and pulled the bus out. We ate dinner at 10pm and then all crashed.

Then on the way home on sunday, our bus had to stop 5 times becuase it was getting air in the fuel line. The bus driver 'knew' how to fix it, but is repair work was a bit scarey (he threw out one of the fuel filters!) We made it home an hour and a half late.

But ingoring the buses, or maybe because of them, it was a pretty memorable time.

Pray for me as I do it all again this coming weekend with the juniors . . . .

Scott

For a top thought on something serious, check out Monday the 18th on my brothers blog.

http://www.tubemantravels.blogspot.com/

Just go and spend the cash

Two nights ago I found a recipe for home made humus.

I love humus and it was a easy recipe so I thought I would give it a shot.

It looked like the real deal but . . . it tasted like dog food.
No really, if you don't respect the chick pea it becomes evil.

Bad humus

Scott

Legend!

On Sunday, my brother from another mother, ran his first full marathon (42km!)

This is a picture of him finishing whith his 'coach' (and soon to be father in law) the enegmatic Trevor. Coming in in just over 4 hours is a awesome feat (see the clock) and brother, you have spured me on to bigger and better things . . .


Scott

Hell in 6 hours

I had to get my car new second hand registered. Pretty simple right?

Yup.

I left home positive and up beat. I was in control, or so I thought. 6 hours and 14 min later I arrived back home again - mission comlete. But it took me 6 hours and 14 min to finally hold my weary sword arm high and let out the loud 'yarp' of victory.

Here are a few flashbacks to my 'adventure'

• Discovering that the traffic department don't accept passports as legit ID. Airports do, banks do, police do, but not the high and mighty traffic dept.

• Needing to pick up a form to take somehwere else, only to discover that need to fill out a preemptive form so that they can give me the actual form I really need. And to do this preemptive form, I need 2 passport photo's. Which I didn't have.

• Trying to withdraw R150 from the ATM only to hit the wrong button and withdraw R1000

• Driving out to some crazy place a long way from home and missing the turn off on the freeway and then get stuck in construction traffic as I'm heading off in the wrong direction.

That was my day. It was hard. It was painful. But now I have my new car in my name. But it wasn't easy. Damm, it wasn't easy.

Scott

The 'A' word

Last night was bible study and we gave Eph 5 a shot. Paul doesn't give you much room to move in the first 21 verses so there was not too much room to hide.

But we did end with a discussion by way of application with a word or two about accountability. Here are some of our thoughts, we were just flying a kite, but see what you think.

I think that in our Christian circles the word 'accountability' has gone the way of 'rebuke'. It has been overused and abused and no one really knows what it means anymore or even if they like what they think it might mean.

In our inevitable way, we have taken something very relationally driven and jammed it into a structure. In doing so we might have broken it. We realised that it is very hard to manufacture 'accountability' if it doesn't grow naturally out of friendship. You would hope that your group of friends is a soft place to land, and that in that kind of place, people can keep you walking the path with the kind of checks and balances that friends have.

So we decided not to pair up with accountability partners, but instead, work a little harder on the firednships in our Bible study and get them to 'do the work' that we have become so used to farming out to 'proffessional accoutnability friends'.

What sort of characteristics will these friendships have to make this work?

Well, we thought that we need to be gentle, but not soft with each other.
Compassionate, but not careless.

We also thought that rather than being a 'Mr Fix it' for each other, we should be more like guide dogs. Walking the road hand in hand. (Yes, know dog's don't have hands.)

Those are some of our thoughts from last night.

Got any more to add?

Scott

Ninja's

Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying.


I'd cough up and give him points for creativety



Scott

The call

What's the most amazing kind of emergency phone call you could get?

How about:

"Scott, we have a girl done where at the office who has just gone into labour and needs a lift to the hospital!"

Well, this morning, that's what I got when I answered the phone.
I buzzed Hayley to come over with me and we met a girl who lives in the block of flats opposite us who was, sure enough, just going into labour. The father was long gone and she was new in town with next to no friends. So she came to church.

In the end I took Ben, and Hayley took our new friend to the hospital. What struck me was that she was remarkably calm and even withdrawn. Sadly, when Hayley was chatting to her in the car it came out that she may of felt guilty or embarressed. Or maybe but just a very private person. Either way, she didn't even want Hayley to go in with her, not even to carry her bags.

But nevertheless, in a few days time we will pop over to flat 207 and meet the little one. I'll let you know how it goes!

Scott

If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day
John Archibald Wheeler

Precision

Meet Chris and Di. I don't have a picture of them so you'll have to use your imagination.

They work in a fancy building in the city with an uninterrupted view of Table Mt. Di is a power dresser, but Chris is happy to get around in a fairly ordinary suit. They are both very nice and very smart.

Chris and Di are tax consultants. My Dad and I went to see them last week to work out how we could loose the least amount of money between Sydney and Cape Town. It was a productive meeting (for R1250 per hr you would want it to be) and they even threw in a free pot of nicely brewed coffee (free, if you ignore the R1250 per hr)

But what impressed me with Chris and Di was their precision. As soon as we started taking shop, they were in the zone. They took notes, made flow diagrams and quized us on even the little points. They were ultra careful with the words they used, never wasting them, but picking just the right ones from their tax vocab, to ensure they conveyed exactly what they meant.

I liked Chris and Di, and it croswsed my mind that they would make good preachers. Maybe you are not burnt by this, but lately I have heard preachers say stuff like,
" . . . so God's wisdom is Jesus, it's the gospel, it's our salvation!"



Well, which one is it?

A good clear message is like a snipers bullet, not random machine gun fire.

I'm not asking for uptight theological nitpicking, but a clear train of thought where the words are chosen becuase they have a punch, a specific meaning, and not just because they sound Christian.
Putting together a sermon like this is a lot harder, but far more satisfying and effective.
What do you reckon?

Scott

[I write this blog as someone who needs big work on this too. Just so you know]

Men's Day

Last week in South Africa we celebrated Women's Day.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love women. In fact my best friend is a women ;)
Having a day to remember their part of the struggle is great.

But contrary to popular belief, everyday is not men's day. And even if we did have a day for us, most of us are so confused about what this would mean that I don't actually think we would know how to celebrate it anyway.

So, into the void speaks the wisdom of Fight Club.

"I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived --

an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables; or they're slaves

with white collars. Advertisements have them chasing cars and clothes,

working jobs they hate so they can buy shit they don't need. We are

the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no

great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The

great depression is our lives. We were raised by television to believe

that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't.

And we're learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed-off."

Scott

I prayed to accept Jesus as Lord

There was a great gospel event a few weeks ago at the revival centre at Linfield. They even pulled Nathan Tasker to sing up a storm.

At the end of the evening, many people responded.

Apparently though, so did I.

Just so you get the flavour of the 'in joke' by my loyal yokefellows back in Aust., this isn't the first time in the last 10 years I have 'prayed the prayer' . . .

The best gag's are the ones that last for decades . . .

I've got Bible Study tonight on Eph Ch 1v15-23
Thought I might try and straighten my thoughts out here . . .

It’s a prayer that is packed full of big ideas.

Essentially, Paul is asking something for his Ephesians buddies. He wants them to ‘know God better’. Not that they might find extra secrets, but rather that they can plumb the depths of what they already have (1:1-14). We might say he wants them to ‘get’ something. Not ‘get’ as in receive, but ‘get’ as in he wants the penny to drop (v17).

(It’s worth keeping in mind that the Christians in Ephesus lived with the statue and temple of Diana towering over their city, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Paul has some serious convincing to do if he is to give them assurance that they haven’t backed the wrong horse! Which is why he repeats in v17 and 18 ‘so that you may know’. He wants them to see that their Christian assurance comes from their knowledge of God. Good lesson for us too!)

He wants them to know with their whole person (the eyes of their heart) their hope (v18) and God’s power (v19) In fact, he spends the rest of the passage fleshing out this idea of what it will mean for them to ‘get’ God’s power.

We know this power of course. We have seen it in action. It was the power that we saw when God raised Jesus from the dead (v20) and the same power that God used to give Jesus all authority to rule over everything for all time (v21).

Now the thing that should bake our noodle is that this power is for us! (v19) Because in v22-23 we read that God gave Jesus this power with a purpose – that he might rule over everything for the church! We probably would have expected to read that this great power was for the glory of Christ, but no! His power is manifest in the church so that it will be a neon sign flashing like crazy, drawing the world to God and his people (Ch 3:10)

I'm pretty excited by all this, but still wanting the pieces to fall into place.

What does it mean to be possessed by the power of God?
Is it meant to elevate our view of church? In what way?
Will it affect the way we do church? How?
How will this ‘knowledge of God’ change the way to think about yourself?

Scott

Are you happy?

I'm speaking at Westerford CU today, kind of a spur of the moment invite. They are looking at the fruit of the Spirit and asked me to talk about the difference between happiness and joy.

Huh?

Considering I'm giving the talk in 3 hours, it's way to late for my blog brothers and sisters to help, but let me tell you what I've got so far.

Happiness is FEELING good about life
Joy is KNOWING your life IS good.

Don't get me wrong, happiness is good, really good. But it is unpredictable (is what makes you happy now the same thing that made you happy when you were 15?), really circumstantial (and so to a big extend out of your control) and usually only lasts a short time.

And that's why people spend their whole life try to chase happiness, because it DOESN'T satisfy. It's like trying to nail jelly to a wall. I reckon in the evolution of stuff, when happiness grows up, it wants to become joy.

Joy is knowing who you are and where your going. It's knowing your forgiven, accepted and heaven bound. These facts of life might bring you hardship, but you will still have a peace, calmness, contentment, satisfaction that happiness alone can't deliver.

Happiness is just joy with amnesia, trying to drown out the uncertainty with sound and fury.

Where do you fall.? Happy, or joyful? Or both? (or neither?)

Scott

I love Cape Town. I really do.
But at times it starts to scare me.

I heard yesterday that in the last month 53 police men and women have been killed in the line of duty.

My question for the non Ct'ers is: If 53 policemen were killed in your country in the last month, what would the response be?

Scott

We are one, but we are many

My brothers blog has gently rebuked me. In two ways.
1. It has been used to share some great thoughts.
2. It shows that he is having great thoughts.

Lately this blog has been suffering a little decay, achieving neither of the above. But, good things are on the go. I've been spending a lot of time in Ephesians, a book I've never really gotten into because, I know this sounds childish, everyone one else was always into it. Well, now I can see what all the fuss is about. As great things hit me, I will blog them. (Not in any specific order or importance or chronology).

Jump to Eph 4:1-16
Paul tells us to keep the unity that we have in God's Spirit. Feeble attempts to create unity miss the point that he makes in verse 4. Christians are already one in the faith, and the togetherness of our body (the church) should reflect the one God, one Spirit, one faith we share. But at the same time God is the Father of many, who is over many and through many and in many. Unity with diversity, not uniformity.

In v11 we read that God spreads around the the teaching gifts so that the diversity of the body might prepare people for works of service, which in turn, build up the oneness of the body. How's that for tidy! So God gives these gifts to make the many 'one' in the church as they are alreay one in the Spirit. Or to spin it around, the gifts of v11 are there to make those who are one in the Lord become one in the church.

Cool!

Thoughts:
1. Can someone help me with how v 11 becomes v12. In other words, how does teaching the gospel result in works of service? When I teach the Bible I don't see crowds of people flocking to serve. am I doing it wrong?! (Let's take as a given that God's spirit works to convict people etc. I'm wondering about the mechanics of that conenction, humanly speaking.)

2. How does your church plug into peoples diversity and use those different gifts to build up the body? An good ideas?

Scott

Back

I'm back and to be honest I'm struggling to leave the holiday behind. So I'm going to try and drag the lingering memories into the week and see how that works for me. Staff meeting today was cancelled, so that helped a lot.

We all know that a holiday is more than just the sum of it's parts, but here are some of the parts that made it great . . .

• We had the one spot in Betty's Bay which had heaps of trees (I like trees)

• The house we were at was unreal! Verandah all the way around, a stream running by the house, fireplace in the main bedroom, beatuful garden and view of the mountian from the kitchen window (and all the other windows too). Very 'House and Garden'

• Found a great pie shop.

• Lots of chocolate and red wine.

• Numerus trips to the Harold Porter National park with walks up to the waterfall

• The discovery that Ash collects the BBC History magazine - I devoured about 20 of them.

And lots more, but I don't want to boast.

Scott

Bye

I'll be taking a break until the 10th of July.

Catch all you crazy cats then

Scott