He also made me fast...

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure. -Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire)

Yesterday I ran a distance of 6K's for the first time ever, beating my previous distance record by about 1.5K. Although it certainly wasn't fast, nor that impressive as distance running goes, it made me remember that God makes us all for a purpose. He's given me the ability to run, and for too long I squandered his gift by getting fat and lazy. But if it gives him pleasure to make me able to run, then I'm going to keep running.

It happens tomorrow!

I have my tickets for opening night.

I'm glad I don't live in the U.S.A.

Philosophical question

What is the graver crime: stealing 10 dollars from a blind beggar's cup, or stealing 10,000 dollars from a billionaire?

No matter how much money you may personally have, you certainly won't want to bet it on* Tasmanian road safety now that I am off my P plates as of today.



*Winner of the Anna Coren Segue of the Week award.

Run-down

Well it's already almost the end of the week. What a bummer. Normally people would be looking forward to the weekend, but for me I don't think it will really feel all that different from the week.

Yeah, sorry, it seems that I'm feeling a bit run-down at the moment. It's been a heck of a week, with it's good and bad points.

We had state camp on the weekend, which was pretty good. The age range was 15-22, so I ended up feeling so much older than just about anyone else there. It seems like the age limit pushed out everyone who I used to hang around with, and there were only 5-6 people actually in that 22 range. I'd say the majority of guys there were 17-19, which was good but makes mingling that little bit harder.

I was supposed to be co-leading a small group, but my co-leader was sick and couldn't make it, so I ended up with the only small group that had one leader. Most groups had a guy/girl combination, but I was left leading a mixed group by myself, which was interesting. Although in the end it actually worked out quite well - the intro night was a bit quiet, but in the first group study they started opening up, and by the second group study they were actually talking and arguing with each other, which was great. When I finally started looking forward to the final study, it got canceled due to time restraints, a great disappointment. So I felt very happy about that.

It managed to rain for most of the weekend, but the group games did go ahead on the Sunday. I was in charge of a checkpoint so didn't really get to see the other games, but from what I saw the guys had quite a bit of fun. My checkpoint involved people standing in a line from the dam to a bucket and using a sponge to fill up the bucket with water from the dam. The highlight was watching Shaun jump into the dam to retrieve the sponge that had been dropped in, clothes and all. Good times.

The final piece of fun was some joker (I know who you are!) deciding to play "Paradise City" very loudly just after 2am Sunday morning. This meant I went into Sunday with about 4 hours of sleep, which is where everything started going downhill.

Sunday night I had service leading, and everything was going fine until I managed to totally stuff up the closing. I had a nice little closing written down, but decided instead to go more personal and quote the lyrics to a song that I have used as a prayer. But once I got up there I completely forgot the words, stumbled over them, and completely made a fool of myself. Yes, it doesn't seem quite so embarrassing writing it here, but at the time it put me into a deep blue funk for the rest of the evening.

Things didn't improve when I started feeling sick on Monday. I took Tuesday off, and missed out on 2o3. I had to get up at 4am on Wednesday morning to take Ness to the airport, and started feeling much better, so returned to work. That evening I started feeling worse than before, but still had to go pick her up from the airport. By the time I got to bed last night (11pm) I was feeling really crappola, and still do. I'm feeling very much over today.

So right now, I really need sleep. But I'm still soldiering on. Have an interesting post that I want to share here, so will do so when I'm feeling a bit healthier.

Went wedding suit shopping yesterday...

Jesus or Judgment?

The other day I was browsing through news.com.au and reading the blog posts in response to an article titled "Australia a nation losing its faith". It was an article about how the 2006 census has revealed that more and more people are straying away from religion.

The comments can be found here: http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,21976369-2,00.html

One comment in particular stood out for me...

Christians have failed to attract people to the church as in Australia it is led be the extreme right. The catholic church never ex communicated Hitler, the SS was started in a Catholic church, and now it is lead by someone who was in the Hitler youth well after the war finished. Further I cannot stand the Church's attack on people who are gay and lesbian, and Jews and anything they disagree on. The Church line is simple, if you are not with us, you are evil. They then go on to attack anyone who does not follow them. There are many good people who are not Christians and do not want Christians telling them what to do in there life.

Although it might be easy to dismiss the posting out of hand, for me it brought up some interesting things to think about. Chief among them is something that has been bugging me for quite a while: when a non-Christian comes to Church, what do they get - Jesus, or judgment?

Judgment is definitely a part of God's ultimately plan for humanity. God is definitely about punishing sin and rebellion. After all, God is perfect in all things, including justice. This means that no sins will go unpunished.

And yet is it the Church's responsibility to be God's "justice machine" in the world?

1. Internal accountability

In a sense we are meant to keep each other accountable, as explained in Galatians 6:1-2:

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

In this way we should gently remind those who are going astray to look toward Christ for redemption (after first making sure that there is nothing in our life that we need to look at, of course!). However, I know that I personally can feel that some people in church miss the word 'gently' - it's incredible sometimes how whispers can spread about the unmarried girl getting pregnant, or even the old people who we avoid talking in front of about going shopping on a Sunday lest we get slapped down.

The other week our growth group watched a film together called "Saved!" The film - a critical look at the pentecostal church culture in the U.S.", in part deals with the trials of a young Christian who becomes pregnant to her boyfriend. Alone and afraid, she feels like there are no Christians in whom she can confide due to their judgmentalism, and instead reaches out to non-Christians for support, people who don't judge her and show understanding.

It made me wonder - how would a young woman coming along to our church feel to find out she has become pregnant? It doesn't just have to apply to pregnancy either - what about the young boy caught stealing from the offering bag, or the middle-aged man who had an affair?

Yes, we have to deal with the consequences of our sins. But wouldn't it be awesome if these people could come to church knowing that they can confess these problems and receive guidance and support? I feel if I were any of the above people I would want to keep my sins hidden from Church people, just because I know that I would have to deal with the judgment and criticism that would come.

Even wearing my Demon Hunter t-shirt to church has been enough to get some dirty looks shot at me from people who believe that I am "violating God's holy place" or some such.

2. External attitude

If I feel uncomfortable by the reactions of Church-goers, as a Christian and a part of that Church, how much worse must it feel to be a non-Christian and face that kind of judgmental attitude?

I am not being exclusive here: I fall into the very same trap. It's very easy for me to look at someone who doesn't have their life all together and think "Well, it's their sin that got them there." Or I look at a rich person and think "Well they're so self-centred and don't give their money away, therefore they're a terrible person."

Why? Well I think it's because we fail to remember that without God's grace, we are exactly the same as them. There are many Christians who struggle through life, does that mean that it is the consequence of their sins? Maybe. Or it could be that they aren't getting the support that they need from their church community.

As for being rich and self-centred... well, I'm afraid that I am rich and self-centred too. I certainly have more money than I need to survive, plus a house to live in. And yet I still find the need to go out and buy a DVD or a new phone for myself. Just because I don't give away millions of dollars doesn't make me any better.

And yet the way that I can act towards sinners sometimes, it's no wonder that they don't feel any desire to come along to Church. I forget Romans 14:11-13

It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "

So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.

It's not up to me to judge other people. It's up to me to show Christ's love to them, and indeed to all people in the world. I have to realise that without God's grace, I am no different from Joe Atheist on the streets. For too long, I think, church has been a place of judgment rather than Jesus. And yet, if we were about pointing people to Jesus, wouldn't Church be a far more attractive place?

Endnote: I know that people are going to say "You can't go light on the judgment parts of the Bible in order to pull people in!" But I'm not suggesting such behaviour at all. I'm looking at the attitude that we are Christians display toward each other - are we about accepting each other as sinners in needs of God's grace, or are we a 'holiness clique' where all members must meet certain criteria?