SALTT 2008

SALTT 08 for the uninitiated is South Africa Leadership training time. And where I have been for the last 2 days and will be till friday. Here have gathered 3000 + church leaders from all over africa and from many nations of the world. It's a time for us to be envisioned and to see the bigger picture of what God is up to. And god is up to big things indeed. IN sleepy Warrnambool we at risk of thinking way to small of limiting god to the boundaries and city limits.Oh! Please can we continue to think bigger. Not just numbers although they are often a representation of something else but to know our "God is large and is in charge"

Have a great day.

Richard.

Expanding my tent

Isaiah tells us to expand the tent and increase the place of our habitation. and In being in SOuth Africa and visiting with the Bible College staff I have been so impacted with the need for us at home to grow and expand in every area of life. I feel like an intellectual pigmy here and wish I had payed more attention at school! the level of thought process I usually entertain seems grossly inadequate for what lies ahead for us in Australia.
Preoccupation with entertainment, trivia and the like whilst enjoyable actually can hold such little value for us in terms of growth and fulfillment in life. if we continue to stay at this level in our paradigm we will remain small and insignificant.

Have a great day.

Richard.

African Hospitality.

I've now woken up to my first african sunrise although I am yet to see much of Africa. I've been welcomed so warmly by the people here and it is humbling to know how in the kingdom of God we do genuinely have a family all over the world. Last night we had a Briar...BBQ we call it, and sat and began to get to know each other. The couple I am staying with are so welcoming and trusting to leave me in their beautiful home to get over jet Lag and to adjust to new time zones. I'll write more later but what a blessing to come and experience this place.

Have a great day
Richard

Flying out

Don't you love airports, it's the classic rush to stop scenario. everyone power walking their way to then sit and nod off or talk about what lies ahead. Then there's the posers who look so business like trying to make meaning in their life by being (in their own eyes) important and with ruffled brow so forthright and studious. I think you should have to attend the airport in your Pyjamas, that would put everyone on the level and probably make us all more comfortable. (unless pyjamas for you is your birthday suit!).
Is there any meaning in business? any purpose in chasing dollars around the world. It's great to know our sense of purpose and meaning is tied to eternal purposes and that we don't have to impress people to be of value.

time to go and catch my plane....better power walk to the gate, with a stern look on my face so people think I'm important.

Have a great day.
Richard.

South Africa trip

On Tuesday I leave on an adventure to South Africa. this is the first international trip I have done since 1999, which was before Sept 11. To say I'm a lttle stressed is an understatement but the stress is not related to planes dropping out of the sky.
I've always believed that God orders our steps and God's plans for us have a way of unfolding, not according to our expectations, but according to His.
As I've become older, without even knowing it, I've become set in my ways, just a little bit comfortable with how I go about my daily life. So the stress is more about the challenge of adjustment than it is about the trip it's self.
Whilst in South Africa I will be staying with people I don't know, in unfamilar culture with unfamilar surroundings. I'll be having to get to know people and face all the fears that go along with baring your soul to strangers. coupled with this will be not being in my home with the family that accepts me warts and all, where I can be lazy and stupid or angry and forgiven.

What must life have been like for the apostles in acts, where they travelled untold distances and to places where they were rarely welcomed with open arms? We often assume it was the travel itself that was difficult, but I'm starting to see that there were incredible internal struggles going on as well, as they adjusted to the nomadic existence and lived a life away from a loving and secure home. How great their trust in God became as a result, how much deeper were Paul's words of love in his letters because of this lifestyle?
Here's me struggling to cope and yet I'll travel in luxury, be welcomed with love, be cared for by brothers in Christ.
Still I hope the depth of my soul increases and that God reaches inside of me and changes my heart as a result. When I get home my hope is; I will love and live differently and I will have an increased capacity to understand God's heart for the people of the world, the people He so desperately loves.

Have a great day
Richard

Temptation

I read this today and thought it quite profound.

Christ--the Only Complete Realist
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German Army by fighting it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yield to temptation, is the only man who knows to the full what temptation means-the only complete realist (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).


I'm not saying I am the person represented as being either good or bad although at times I have been both. more it challenges my view of strength and how strong I think I am. I used to think that in modern times men are weak because we don't fight in wars or have to make a life out of the dirt. But in the light of the bombardment of selfish temptation we face every day Strength has become even more crucial at an internal level. worth thinking about.

have a great day Richard.

Kids

We've just enjoyed watching our amazing daughter act and sing in the school production, (that's her front and centre in the photo playing Rosie in bye bye Birdie ) it made me realise how grown up she has become, and with her turning 16 next week and getting a learners permit I can't help thinking how my little girl is now a woman. What a great responsibility we have as parents to shape the lives of our kids and to be active in their lives with out being controlling. (although control early on is a good thing). I'm so glad to have a friendship with her, as well as being her dad. There are times where now she helps me see what lies ahead with eyes that look forward, rather than the ever increasing backward view we take as life speeds by and we find ourselves on the wrong side of 40. I don't mind getting older as long as I can see with young eyes and still share the hopes and dreams of my kids, to believe with them and for them for the future, to see them discover for themselves that God can be trusted and that he rewards those who dilligently seek Him.

Have a great day.

Rich.

A new song of Worship

We had an amazing worship/prayer meeting last night where we let loose and gave God the meeting rather than going on and on about what we wanted from God. This got me thinking. When we pray we tend not to use the old "prayer book" type of praying, where essentially we read our prayers from a written text. It now seems crazy that we would ever have done this, although back in my methodist roots, I did pray the odd written prayer. Now, we just tell God what is in our hearts and respond to what He is speaking into us. It's more like a conversation with God.
Why then when we worship do we sing songs written by someone a world away? Don't get me wrong, sometimes a particular song expresses exactly how I feel at a given moment, but usually I sing along with everyone else, struggling to change how I feel to line up with what I'm singing.
I must admit this is sometimes a good thing because I'm feeling C*#p and really know that I need to get my attitude straight. But sometimes, and last night was a case in point, it's far better to express our hearts directly alowing God to put a new song in our hearts to sing something that has never been sung before. JD once said; "there are Millions of songs still waiting to be written." We just need to start throwing away the 'songbooks' (or even overheads) of old and writting down the intimate moments, the "now" moments and enjoy the intimacy of love that worship was intended to be.

Have a great day.

Rich.

Mornings

Mornings are always interesting. there is that sense of excitement as a new day lies ahead and that all the stresses and crisis that happened yesterday is somehow put to bed and forgotten. I've always been one of those people who tries to do the dirty jobs at night, clean the kitchen or pay some bills. then I know that I can start fresh. there's nothing worse than getting up and facing the aftermath of laziness from the previous day. I'm not obsessive about this but I do try to do at least one task at night to ease the burden of facing it in the morning. With 4 kids I can always count on there being a new crisis of some kind anyhow.

Welcome

Hi guys

Welcome to my Blog. I've never done this before so who knows where it will end. I will endevour to add info and snippets of my mind and the ramblings of my thoughts to the site as they come to mind. feel free to visit from time to time and look through the window to my soul and see what is there.
Rich