Here is reasonable video featuring some of Bono's quotes
(God tube)

Watch the replay of Stengleins bump against Richmond this week. It is at least as bad, if not worse than the one Johnson went for four weeks in the pre season.

Lets see.....my bet, Stenglein will get off completely.

It is here!
Came up a lot quicker than last year.
This year our speakers are Wayne Alcorn and Keith Farmer.
Leading worship will be Eliot Vlatko with some help from Andy James Court.

This is a wonderful time of refreshment and renewal for everyone involved, even me and Malcolm Rule who do a lot of the legwork and organising, politics (yes!) and trying to keep everyone involved and invigorated.

It is being held at the Mandurah Atrium who do great food, and lets face it, if you don't have to do the dishes afterwards, its always better.

I really believe in Pastors, I believe they hold the key to change our culture and society more than anyone else. This is because they lead the churches. For good or for bad, thats what we do. And the church is the place Christ has chosen to work through. We are the chosen people, and Pastors are to lead. This is why I support them, even when they dissapoint, have different theology and practices to me. Even when I have no idea why they are in the ministry, or what they could possibly do that would be effective. I still support them. Someone has to.......

The truth is that so often I will ignore the positive stuff, even if it is well and truly in the majority, and deal with, agonise over the one person who is critical, even if I hardly know them.

Perry Noble has a great heartfelt post and he says this,

" wish that wasn’t me. I really do wish I could let that stuff slide…but I can’t because I have dedicated my life to what we are doing…and I sincerely believe it is the right thing.
SO…because of this I have spent an unhealthy amount of time over the past year or so trying to defend what we are doing here…and in doing so I believe I have managed to convince exactly zero detractors. I have allowed the enemy to distract me and get me so unfocused–and it has done this church AND the Kingdom no good at all."

Nobles Post

h/t lowercase

Checking back through my esnips site, which is where I store all my messages in audio format.
Most messages get about 10-12 unique downloads/listens. The figure shown on the website is often not accurate, you have to do a bit of digging to get the right amount.

Well anyway....my Good Friday message has been downloaded over 80 times. Thats extraordinary for me..... Hope people liked it and got something out of it.

Pavlich has declared at a local Footy function that he would be staying on at the Dockers in 2008. He has also stated that, unlike Chris Judd, he is willing to sign a new contract before the end of the year. During the pre-season Matthew took ten weeks to decide whether to accept the club's offer of the Captaincy.
Negotiations are only in the infancy stage, but all the signs are looking postive.

Shaun McManus will be playing his 200th game this Sunday.
He is the type of player that supporters love. There is nothing left when Shaun plays, he gives it all. One thing I have noticed this year is how he really wants to win. You may think that is an unusual thing to say, because don't all players want to win? Yes, but it appears to me that when things get tough, and a game looks like slipping from Freo's grasp, Shaun's workrate goes up another notch. Maybe this is why when Freo loses a game, Shaun comes up as one of the better players.

He has lots of experience in losing sides, having been club captain during the disasterous Drum years. He faced up to the scathing sports reporters week after week.

Now, he is starting to have some success. Despite our poor start to the season, we are getting some good players back, have had our first win, and there is every reason to think we might justify our pre season premiership aspirations.
Would there be anything better for a Freo fan that seeing Shaun jump up on the stage and help lift up that cup?
The cheer for him if he recieved a premiership medallion would be the loudest of all, except perhaps Parker, who would recieve equal appreciation.

One of my favourite players, and a trule genuine and nice guy.
One of the many reasons Freo supporters love their team.

Listen to the latest message

Latest Files

Its all in your mind (Second of three)

We were really blessed this week to have Quentin interview Marj and Billy. These two ladies both had different experiences of the war.

Marj (Lady on left) was as a 12 year old shipped off to Canada with other children. However this was not before she remembers the frightening reality of bunkers and war sirens, and bombs falling near her town.

Billy (Lady in middle) was married only a short time, and they had their first child, before her husband was shipped off for five years to places such as New Guinea.


You can hear the interview or download it. The volume is not great, so turn it up.

This year, they reckon if your doing well with tipping, you know nothing about football, so....


Mark Edwards 20

bek ingram 19
Dave Quinn 19
ozcanadian 19
Andrew Canion 19
Saintgaz 19
Paula Boardman 19
LittleTid 18
jaggunn 17
Rodney Olsen 16

Good win on Sunday....

Great, really really good to see Hasleby back to his best
Shaun Mc Manus best on ground in my view.
Luke Webster should never get dropped

Pav and Taz working really well together

I had a really interesting conversation with a good mate over a sloppy greasy hamburger at Hungry Jacks. (Actually I had the hamburger, he had a relatively healthy chicken salad roll or something)

We were talking about the EC and he made this comment, "you know there are slack inward looking people and leaders in all forms of church, whether they are EC, or other forms"
His point was we should not criticise the movents or forms of church, so much as challenge everyone to mission, no matter how they do it.

I thought that was a great point.

However all I would say is this, if you are leaving the less radical forms of church in order to be missional, because you have had enough of churches who just grow through transfer growth, then make sure you are being missional, and measure that in some way, so you know you are not just talking about it.

The same could be said to me and others in my position. If you are going to try and facilitate a church being transformed and 'renovated', then make sure mission stays your focus, and when you actually start to have an attractive church, don't be happy with just attracting other Christians.

Dockerland.com are pushing for April 29th to be Eagles deregistration day. The Management of the WC have been asked to come to AFL headquaters on that date to explain the shocking culture at the reigning premiers. Many of us believe the time has come, the call to action is here.....de register them!!! All their assests can be redistributed, and Freo can have Chris Judd.
You can read about their commmunity minded efforts here

Grumpiness thrown in free!

If you own a business maybe you could take some advice from a consumer....

If you sell a $2.99 cotton reel, why not smile and help a husband who has no idea about such things? The same customer might be in the market for an overloker in a few months. But rest assured if you are really grumpy and unhelpful over the small item, he probably wont ask you for the large one.

I am leading a graveside ceremony today for some parents who lost twins at 20 weeks. They have been trying for over 5 years. Both are now approaching the old side of 35.

What do you say in such circumstances? Why is life so hard sometimes, and why is it so hard for really good people, who would make great great loving parents? Then others find it really easy to have kids, and maybe, are not such great parents.

Life is not fair sometimes, and it always leads to us questioning God at some point. Why God?

Spent most of this morning celebrating my daughters third birthday.
Then had some family back tonight to continue the celeration, I cooked up a beautiful tasty lemon pepper chicken with 'Mark special' roast potatoes, cinnamon and brown sugar roast pumpkin and some chocolate cake for dessert. My brother in law bought round some 'James Boag', which quite frankly is superb.

As I tucked my beautiful little 3 year old daughter into bed we took the time to pray together and thank God for her, and today. I explained to her and my son that birthdays are more than just celebrating another year. They are how we celebrate the persons life. What an incredible privilege God has given me, and how thankful I am.

Thanks to the three people who have basically suggested I pull my head in in regards to the EC over the last week, and then tonight, the Selwood issue. All three had good points.
I have had over 100 unique hits today, so this blog is public, and I appreciate fair calls.
Therefore I have pulled a couple of posts.

Which is not to say that I am being compliant, if you knew me, you would know I have struggled with that in the past, but am pretty blunt and straight most times.

For the record in my view.....

In regard to Des and Selwood. Des was reckless in reacting the way he did, and is incredibly fortunate to get off a six week suspension, incredibly fortunate.
I am not convinced Selwood did not say what he was accused of but we will never know, and likely is that there was truth and misunderstanding on both parts. Either way its unfortunate that a players daughter was drawn into it.

Josh Carr is a niggly annoying player, and admitted he had struck Stenglein, but even West Coast Radio (6pr) are saying Chick did not tell the truth
There is a serious problem with the culture at WC, and it annoys me that the media here in the West give them a free ride.

Please feel free to express your own opinion here.

"We have to consider whether we are just going around and around–like a religious merry- go-round. Are we simply holding on to the painted mane of the painted horse, repeating a trip of very insignificant circles to a pleasing musical accompaniment?

AW Tozer

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

I don't really have any idea how it works, but Seth seems to think its a good idea as it is meant to get more traffic to your site.

Squiddo Lens

By the way, Seth is one of those people who you really only need to mention his first name. If you don't know who Seth is......sigh.

First message in my three part series on "Its all in your mind" Used some graphics and ideas from Life Church, but the message is mostly all mine. Use Philippians 2.5 as key verse.

Luke 16
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
3"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
5"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
6" 'Eight hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
7"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
" 'A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
8"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Chris Connolly commenting on the Eagles midfield,

"They are in outstanding form, but you must not underestimate the rest of the guys in the midfield too - they have got a great chemistry," Connolly said.

"We succeed - not by crossing the sea, but by seeing the cross."

If you missed the channel ten sports news, they featured "Jordo". A passionate Dockers supporter, soon you will be able to buy her cd.


check it out here or here.

Instead of a normal Easter Sunday Message, I got one of my friends to interview me.
It was based around some interviews I have been looking at, in particular one featuring Rick Warren and an atheist, Sam Harris. The interview asks some questions that an atheist or agnostic might ask.
It is not long, and I think it is good, hope you enjoy it. If you want to download it and give it to someone, you can click on the link. If you want to just listen for yourself, press play.

Its only a short one, but seemed to work out well, I talk about how we came to have the beautiful and moving song, "Were you there". Our choir sung this on Friday, and there was more than one teary eye.

0 wins from 2 games.
Umpiring was the worst I have seen for some time, numerous crowd frees to Essendon, how Pavlich did not get at least two more with Fletcher all over him like a cheap suit.

And having these players out from our 9 game winning stretch last year did not help.
Wizz, Michael Johnson, Steven Dodd, Heath Black, Justin Longmuir, Cookie, Schammer and Brett Peake.

Derby next week, might be our worst start to the year under Chris Connolly.

This past weekend has been without doubt the best Easter our church has had while I have been there.
After the great crowd on Friday, I was half expecting a less full crowd, but it was great today. Now don't get me wrong all you emerging guys, I don't think its about getting a big crowd in anymore than you do.
But what I do want to say is this. The majority of the visitors we had, and there were stacks, came because of relationships formed over many years, through ministries our church had done.
It has been hard work, but like Christmas time, Easter has been a time of fruit for our church. Some folk who never come to church came on Friday with no intention of coming on Sunday, but came none the less. You might think, so what, they came to church. But in fact we believe that they are putting themself into the position of hearing the gospel being clearly presented and also seeing that Christians love each other and others.
Another great story was the lady who came after one of our members sms'ered this morning. She rocked up and loved the service.
Why wouldn't she?
The choir was beautiful and moving, the music was great and well led, the multi media, the kids item, and everything was really purposeful, emotive and relevant.
We are just so grateful as to how God has changed our church and is growing it.

After church on Friday, people hanged around for ages, chatting, making friends and eating hot cross buns. Sunday was the same, only we ate chocolate cakes!.

This is what it is all about.

I did something really different for the message, I got a friend to 'interview' me as though he was an athiest, and he asked some pretty confronting questions. I used some of the material from the Rick Warren and Sam Harris interview. Harris is an athiest and author. I also used a J Johns interview which you can watch on U Tube. I think it was really good, and answered some questions. One of the key points I tried to get across is that all religions are not the same, you can't pick and choose because they are fundamentally different.
I also made the point that Jesus' assertion that He is the Way the Truth and the Life forces us to make a decision about Him. Either He is a liar, lunatic or Lord. If we dont make a decison about Jesus, one might be made for us!!

Soon you will be able to listen to the interview on line.

WARREN: We both stand in a relationship of faith. You have faith that there is no God. In 1974, I spent the better part of a year living in Japan, and I studied all the world religions. All of the religions basically point toward truth. Buddha made this famous statement at the end of his life: "I'm still searching for the truth." Muhammad said, "I am a prophet of the truth." The Veda says, "Truth is elusive, it's like a butterfly, you've got to search for it." Then Jesus Christ comes along and says, "I am the truth." All of a sudden, that forces a decision.

HARRIS: Many, many other prophets and gurus have said that.

WARREN: Here's the difference. Jesus says, "I am the only way to God. I am the way to the Father." He is either lying or he's not.

Woh, just finished it, here is the first paragraph.... Based it around the old Negro Spiritual, "Where you there?"

For the last 7 or 8 weeks or so our worship team and community choir have been led by a choir master, a young and very talented man Matthew.
One of the things Matthew said to us as we started to learn that song, "Were you there",
he said something very interesting. He said to us, as a choir what I want you to do is think about what the original writer of the song was thinking about when he wrote that song. The reason he wanted us to do that was because he wanted us to have emotion in our voices, to really sing the song from the heart if you like.
And I thought that was really profound. What was the writer of that song thinking about when he wrote it?
Well as far as I can tell, the original writer is unknown, it comes from a deep vein of folk writing known as negro spirituals. These were written by the negro slaves in the deep south of America during the time when Slavery in that part of the world was rife. Though the slaves were not allowed to read the Scriptures, they learned Bible stories at the church on the plantation along with the white folks. The Sunday morning routine included Sunday school, singing hymns, Bible reading, and the sermon -- where the preacher told them to obey the Misses and the Master.
On Monday of course they were forced back out onto the fields to pick cotton, fruit, to perform manual labour. All this to keep their lazy and rich masters in comfort. The slaves developed coping mechanisms, and many of them wrote songs, haunting melodies, rich with emotion, and deeply moving. They were songs of hope and anticipation. Some people called them the sorrow songs - eventually, they would come to be known as spirituals. They were the soul-cry of the black slave, longing for freedom. They were born in the fields, among the hoed rows of cotton and tobacco.
Most of the time they had their start in the fervent heat of a backwoods religious meeting. Slaves gathered secretly to encourage one another and to cry out to God for freedom. This activity was against the law, and they knew that a severe beating or even death could face them if they were caught. But the joy and peace that they received from heaven in these meetings made it worth the risk they faced here on earth. The atmosphere in midst of the woods was always charged with emotion. As they mourned their wretched existence, songs would develop spontaneously -- psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. In time, these melodies were memorized and passed along from plantation to plantation. The slaves were told by many of the white preachers that they were less than human, but.......

I have dismissed the abheration of round one from my mind, reminding myself that last year we suffered at the hands of Geelong in the middle of the year, and then won 9 in a row, storming into the finals.

This week we are up against the revitalised Essendon at our bogey ground, the dome.
But.....

We have Tarrant and Solomon, who are both Dome experts.
Matthew Carr is back, Pavlich was cleared.

Despite the hype, Essendon are carp, and Matthew Lloyd has admitted as much.
Its time we stamped our authority on this competition from the start of the season.
We need to win anywhere, against any side at any time to win the premiership.

In other news, Reivoldt is still out for this week, and despite the abheration of last week, it looks like being Bali for the boys from St Kilda in September.

RICK WARREN:

You will not admit that it is your experience that makes you an atheist, not rationality.

(Speaking to Sam Harris)

Sent out a lot of publicity, hoping for a good crowd,
preparing a lot of material, hoping to do something creative for the Sunday morning message.\


stay tuned, will be great!

Being a temple of the Holy Spirit, and how we can actually stop God...woh.

Quenching the Holy Spirit

Being filled by the Spirit, what does that mean?
Week Two

The two reasons people say no to your idea

"It's been done before"
"It's never been done before"

Even though neither one is truthful, accurate or useful, you need to be prepared for both.

Cited

Sigh......


disapointing loss, game we should have won, up by 40 points at half time.
No excuses. Already been paid out by people I know, and I lot I dont really know, fair enough too.....

Then to make it worse, Weagles pinch one against the Swannies.
It was not that good a victory though, one point, after having been considerably in front at half time, they should never had let the Swannettes get that close. And the bias nature of the football press, calling it one of the greatest victories of all time, what a joke, great escape of all time, Eagles lucky to stumble over the line more like it........Yes I am a bitter man :)