Relationship with God
Seeing the world from God's perspective
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Everything is not O.K.
Everything is not ok in my country. The latest mental health statistics indicate that 32.4% of Males aged between 16 and 24 have had symptoms of a mental health disorder in the last 12 months (2023). For young women, that number is 45.5%[1]. Before the COVID pandemic, loneliness was described “both as an ‘epidemic’ and one of the most pressing public health concerns in Australia.” [2]In 2021, more than 1 in 4 women aged 18–24 agreed with the statement ‘I often feel very lonely’ in 2021, an increase from less than 1 in 5 in 2015.[3] It’s not only my country. America is setting new records every year for teenage depression,…
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A healthy church doesn’t fit into business as usual… it sets an agenda that changes every aspect of life.
A healthy mid-life crisis?
In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
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A different Kingdom
It was a sombre yet inspiring journey as I put together the video of my dad’s life and tried to find ways for his voice to be heard at his funeral. There was one little grab from 1988 where Dad says, “I believe our country is like a grub in an old cocoon, and things are not going to change until you who say that Christ is your King act as though you’re part of a different kingdom.” Those words still reverberate and have meaning today, and I had them in my head as I prepared to unpack Matthew 21. It’s much easier to have Jesus as a mascot, as…
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One but not the same
G’day, I have taken this week off to begin writing a new book about what it actually means to live in one-but-not-the-same community. I have learned from my last couple of books that they take a lot longer to write and involve the help of many more people than you might imagine. So I have a question… Can you give me a hand over the coming weeks? I will post bits and pieces and I would love your feedback. I expect that what I post will change a fair bit before it makes it into the book. The working title for the book is ONE: but not the same Below…
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Our thoughts and our actions are not the main game…the story we believe we are living in… that is the most important thing…
When I saw the Toyota commercial I had to write something. This Christmas, lets not settle for the imitation.
Healthy churches welcome Sojourners. Unhealthy churches have either too many or too few.
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The four steps on the path to a whole life
Are you on the path to whole life? I am so grateful that Jesus wants to give us life. That’s the heart of what Jesus says when he says in John 10:10, “I’ve come that they might have life, and have it to the full.” Don’t you love that? Jesus has come, that you may have life, and have it to the full. It is possible to call yourself a Christian and not be stepping into that whole life that Jesus calls you to. Jesus Himself says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of…
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Your problem is that belief changes everything.
Have you ever thought that you were acting against your own beliefs? You weren’t As Dallas Willard says: “We always live up to our beliefs, or down to them as the case may be. Nothing else is possible. It’s the nature of belief. It’s the nature of belief.” This is not a new idea. Jesus himself pointed out that your behaviour comes from your heart (the core of who you are or your beliefs): Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good…
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Let’s get real
Our goal as a church is that every week each of our people are taking a next step in their relationship with God, a next step in their relationship with others, and a next step in taking responsibility for themselves. We want to be a church of next steps. I called this article “Let’s get real” because if we really want to be a church like that, we actually have to be real. We don’t want to be a church where we play religious games or put on a religious act. Our Western world has tended towards a consumer model of church, which is church that is defined by the…
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Is sex before marriage ok?
Lately I have come across the idea that the bible doesn’t clearly say that sex before marriage is wrong. It’s amazing how many different people seem to have come across the same argument to do with the King James Bible and the translation of the word fornication. When I saw this TikTok video pop up on my feed I realised that I have not publicly addressed this question and that I probably need to. To start with I will respond to the specifics things that @revbrandanrobertson says in the video and then will point you to a few verses that, from my study, give a fairly clear framework. Brendan starts…
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Why do we commemorate the execution of this one man?
On Good Friday every year, my family join millions of others around the world at church to remember an event, that according to all normal historical precedents should not be remembered. Why do we commemorate the execution of this one man? His death was not extraordinary. Hundreds of thousands of people were crucified, and even a handful of would-be Messiahs met their end in this barbaric way. In all cases but one, however, the end of the would-be messiah meant the end of any following they might have had. Their names are largely forgotten. We don’t remember them. Why do we remember Jesus? There is no real doubt that the events…
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A healthy mid-life crisis?
I think I’m having a Mid-life crisis… in a good way. Brene Brown tells me that “Mid-life is the first point in your life when you can play the movie to the end. She is right. My little crisis has been precipitated by the Christmas holidays that we had been looking forward to throughout 2020. We watched borders close and open, and close and open, hoping that our daughter Maddi, and son Daniel, would be able to make it home. They did. For the very first time the family dinner table was surrounded by adults after our youngest, Sophie, turned 18 in the middle of the year. It was encouraging…
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There is a good chance that the majority of people who call themselves Christians don’t understand the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
I know that God has a plan for my life, however I also know that my understanding of that plan is extremely limited
As I engage with where I have come from, I find that I can relax a bit about where I am going.
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The foundational question of your life
The most important question you will ever ask is “What is the foundational story by which I live my life”? Most of us move through the ups and downs of life assuming that our thoughts are based solely on the reality we are experiencing. We are wrong. The Spanish poet and philosopher, Antonio Machado, put is finger on the challenge all of us face when he wrote, “Under all that we think lives all we believe, like the ultimate veil of our spirits.” Machado, Antonio. “Juan De Mairena: Epigrams, Maxims, Memoranda and Memoirs of an Apocryphyl Professor.” page 75 Before you have them, your thoughts have been shaped by your…
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I know that God has a plan for my life, however I also know that my understanding of that plan is extremely limited
Freedom from the lies that keep us in locked in a small, self centred and broken world.
I used to say that annual leave was not biblical… Until I realized how wrong I was.
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Faith is the key to your willpower.
It seems to me the role of faith in the formation of willpower and emotional health is one of the strongest arguments against Atheism. Paul was right when he wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:24: "It is by faith you stand firm."
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What is a Christian?
Like our personal stories, I believe we should subject our bigger stories to a reality test. The truer they are the better we should be able to function in the complex reality of the world. Ultimately I believe in Christianity because I believe it makes the most sense of the world I live in and also makes the most sense of my subjective experience of my own life. As C.S. Lewis wrote: I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
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Have you ever wondered why Christmas provokes such strong feelings for so many people?
Christmas is both the most wonderful, and also the most dreadful time of the year. At the very same time that many people are counting the sleeps till the big day, other people are looking for strategies to minimise the pain. The same moment of the year that produces so many happy memories, is also the time of the year where families are most likely to fall apart.
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Healthy churches welcome Sojourners. Unhealthy churches have either too many or too few.
As we develop a more nuanced view of the different people we engage with as a church we will come to understand the vital role that Sojourners have amongst us.
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Christmas morning introduced a completely new narrative
The first Christmas morning introduced a completely new narrative. Evil wasn’t going to be defeated by a tough guy but by a baby born into poverty in the tiny rural town of Bethlehem. For four hundred years people had been waiting for the tough guy. They knew what was needed to finally defeat the oppression. It is little wonder that many of them missed the importance of the little baby.
