Sumich comes out and says, in typical non-descript West Coast style, that Mark Harvey is not showing any respect to the Eagles....that in fact he has no respect for the toast. (and why he respect that bunch of 'win at all cost' arrogant criminals??)


But thats not what is funny. Hearing 'vein in kneck throbbing' Woosha backpedal and deny these comments on channel Eagle and 6pweagle was truly amusing.
Woosha is the master at saying nothing, while talking. Seeing him try to deal with Sumich's sly spray was a lesson in political speak......

Sunday after Easter.....expect a little let down, but it did not happen. We had a great time together....but God is doing some things within our church community at the moment.....can't say too much....but seeing Him at work in people's lives.

Sometimes you just want to sit back and not touch it, or change it, in case you mess it up.

Hawthorn are a good side, and with Crawford and others back soon, they will only get better.
They kicked a goal in the first minute of the second, third and fourth quarter....
Grover did really well on Buddy Franklin, but Franklin still played well and had an effective game.
The three new players were exceptional.
Rhys Palmer is a gun player...a dead set gun. Seriously, he will play every game this year if he does not get injured.
Ibbotson was great, one tackle which forced a turnover...well I got up on my feet and cheered.
Chris Mayne....well he has great player written all over him. A number of times tonight he forced turnovers....by just attacking the player and the ball.

Yes it was sad we lost, but what I did like about Freo tonight was that they never gave up.
A second term lead ended up being insurmountable, but you know, up until the last few minutes...they kept coming at the Hawks...a resolve which will hold them in good stead.

Other notable things....
Sandilands is starting to fulfill his potential...played well tonight.
Roger Hayden...who is one of my favourites, was responsible for too many clangers.

Jeff Farmer continued his vein of unselfish play, and went through the midfield a lot tonight.
Bell, Pavlich, J Carr all played well.

Don't you love being sick? I hate it
I was looking forward to getting into work on Tuesday, and discussing and thanking God for a great Easter, and all that that entails for us as a church with follow up and such.
But my body had different plans and I was up all night......with bad stomach cramps and other undesirable things...

Doctor says it is not related to appendix, just lucky I guess.....

Some worrying signs for the Dockers today.
Pavlich was out of sorts...and thats okay, but it was compounded by the fact that the team seemed to have an innane need to kick to Pav, even when he was surrounded by three Pie players. We have to learn that with so many good forward players, we dont have to be Pav-centric. In fact as the game was being lost in the middle, Pav went into the centre, and while it was not so much Pav's influence in the middle, so much as players going long to McPharlin which helped us.

In the end there were to many passengers, players who are good, not putting in the required four quarter effort. I thought with the Pies cramping up during the third, we were in with a real chance during the fourth, but it was not to be. The Pies enthusiasm and young energetic players keep the ball down in their half.

Just a word on Mark Johnson.....sigh. I watched him during the practice match and was less than impressed with his effort and speed. Today...sigh. I really hope Harvey does not persist with him at the expense of Palmer, and Warnock.

Great to see Bell, McManus, Hayden and Sandilands play well.

We had a 'good' service today.
A reflective time, with space for thinking and meditating.
Jim did an awesome rendition of "There is a Green Hill" with Eliot playing the tune "House of the Rising Sun".....Jim is a senior man, and not in the best of health, but he sung this so well, a real moving moment.

We remembered Jesus together during communion, and I painted the picture of our spiritual heritage...coming as it does from the Israelite people. In particular I spoke about the Last Supper, and how Jesus transformed the Passover into what we now call communion. I bought a big loaf of flat bread, and a bottle of wine....and shared this

Passover is the oldest and most important religious festival in Judaism, commemorating God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and his creation of the Israelite people. This feast was what Jesus and His disciples were celebrating during the last supper.
It was on that fateful night when Judas betrayed Jesus, that after Judas had left the room, Jesus transformed Passover into what we celebrate today, communion.
Communion today is very special as we realize that our spiritual heritage goes right back to the people of Israel, to that time that God rescued his people from slavery….today we celebrate communion on good Friday.
The primary symbol of Passover is the matzo, a flat, unleavened "bread" which recalls the hurriedly-baked bread that the Israelites ate after their hasty departure from Egypt.
The leader would have prepared the bread in three parts….he took the second part of the bread and broke it, saying that it represented the pain and affliction of the people.
When Jesus had the last Passover with his disciples, he took the second piece of bread and said this is my body, broken for you…Jesus took upon Himself the pain and affliction of his people.
Let us take this bread and eat it and remember the pain and affliction Christ took on Himself for us.
(Families help children)
At the Passover there were four cups of wine.
Freedom, Deliverance, Redemption, and Thanksgiving
The third cup represented the redemption of Gods people who would come through the promised Messiah.
It was during the third cup that Jesus held the cup up and said, this is my blood shed for you….He is the Messiah the Israelites were looking for, He is our Messiah, our Saviour…the one we are looking forward to seeing again…which is why we say that we celebrate this until He comes…
(explain grape juice, family friendly, please help your children)

Afterwards my wife had prepared a stack of hot cross buns with butter...it was nice to relfect with people afterwards and to remember what this day is all about, the most important day in our Christian calender.

Here are a couple of snippets from my message I am going to give on Easter Sunday.

The reason we cant, or dont, show the Passion movie in church, particularly when children are in the service, is because it is so graphic in its accurate portayal of what happened to Christ on Good Friday. It was such an awful, injust and dehumanising event to be crucified, and Jesus suffered at the hands of people who hated Him. The Bible says He was scarred, ripped raw, bleeding for our transgressions.
Now the point is, why did He suffer so much? Well the standard Sunday School answer is that He suffered so much because of us, for our sins.
What we have to come to grips with is the fact that the Cross was so awful, because it demonstrates the awfulness of our sin. It demonstrates so clearly that our rebellion against God is something which is truly abhorent. To deny God is the most awful thing....and the awful things which happened to Christ demonstrates this.

(next I speak about Kevin Rudd's apology and how it is a illustration of how Christ, in effect, said sorry to God for us, Christ took responsibility for our sin)

Each one of us is responsible for what we do with God, it is up to us, we have free will, in how we respond to God

The above terms have bought about 120 hits to my site today.....
If you want the Good Friday and Easter Sunday Videos I have made, go to my Blip TV site (link on sidebar), go to archives...then click on file you want, go to files, right click on the link. If I could work out how to post the direct link here, I would!

(Edit...please now go to this link where you can now view and download what I have done)

Here is the video I have made up for Sunday.
I have used a lot of stuff from a video I had, but changed it greatly for my context.

Here is a video I have made up for our Good Friday Service. The music and some of the video have come from Reel Worship. You can download their copy there. If you want a good copy of this, go to my BlipTV site (Link on sidebar)

Regular readers of this blog might remember severe abdominal pains which I suffered over 12 months ago which meant a forced stay in
RP Hospital for 3 or 4 days. They never really did know the cause at the time.
Well yesterday was the culmination of this particular journey when I had my appendix removed.
Apparently it was pretty inflamed and in my surgeons words, "definitely the cause of the pain". This was a real suprise to me because the last month has been pretty pain free.......The past two days has not been. It hurts....at the moment I am sitting comfortably with my laptop, but if I stand up, or need to go to the you know what....mmmmm....it hurts.
I asked my doctor pre-op if I could play volleyball this coming Monday night, he laughed, and I can tell why.
But he has told me that my recovery has gone really well, despite the appendix being a 'difficult one to extract'........

Can't complain though, the food at St John of God's Murdoch was pretty filling, and any weight I lost through having my appendix removed, has been put back on!!!

Reading through the last few verses of John 19 today. In it the writer tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
Joseph is described as a 'secret' disciple of Jesus. He feared the Jewish leaders, yet knew Jesus was the Messiah.

Nicodemus was the man who had come to Jesus at night and came to the realisation that he needed to be born again.

How interesting that while Jesus was alive, both these men believed in Him, yet did not have the courage to come out and say it.
Now, at this point in the story, that Jesus is dead, both these fearful blokes come and take the body, sacrificing their money, time and risking the wrath of both the Jewish leaders and Roman ones, and ensure Jesus has a good and proper burial.

Maybe this was their 'chronos' moment. By that I mean the time when they were destined to serve Jesus. For much of their life they had been afraid to do so, now when things are at their bleakest, these two men act courageously and mercifully, perhaps even hopefully.

This is an an encouragement to anyone who has ever been fearful of standing up for what is right and good, your in good company. Maybe your 'chronos' time is yet to come, the time destined for you when God will have something for you to do, and you will do it.

Watching on old episode of friends tonight.
The one where Phoebe is pregnant and craving meat.
Joey, being the good guy he is, tries to salve her vegetarian conscience by saying that he will decrease his normal intake of meat to offset her taking it up.

If there is anyone out there who needs me to eat less vegetables, to salve their conscience about upset brussel sprouts or screaming carrots, let me know.

If anyone wants to know why my six year old son keeps asking me for more hungarian salami....well the tree does not fall far from the apple tree!!

If anyone out there wants me to give up meat.....naaaah.




Hat tip picture

My father was a huge Perth Demons fan, maybe their success in the late 70's attracted him. It was a passion he rediscovered in the last years of his life, and he could often be found on a Saturday afternoon watching the Demons being beaten convincingly by some better resourced WAFL side. I followed his lead momentarily as a 8 year old, until the lure of the South Fremantle Bulldogs and the exploits of Stephen Michael grabbed my attention. I don't think you choose a team, I think a team chooses you.

How would you feel if your team was taken from you? This is the emotions that the thousands of Fitzroy fans felt on September 1, 1996.

Full Points describes it thus, "On Sunday 1 September 1996 a group of players representing the Fitzroy Football Club took the field for the last time. The fact that the venue for the match was Subiaco Oval in Perth was both significant and, in a perverse way, appropriate ; the Australian Football League, which, within the space of a mere decade, had moved from being a suburban to a national competition, had no further use for financially non-viable propositions like Fitzroy. "

This game was against the new kid on the block, Fremantle, who within a few years would establish themself as a financial powerhouse, having the fastest growing membership of any side. They are now an incredibly well supported club having full corporate sponsorship, thanks in no small part to the man crdited with their financial revival, club CEO, Cameron Schwab.

The game itself was a pretty one sided affair, with Fitzroy losing, despite winning the last quarter by 2 points. The game was held on September 1, 1996, at Subiaco Oval. Fitzroy lost by 86 points and the final scores were Fitzroy 10.11 71 v Fremantle 24.13 157
What was significant, in my mind at least, was the respect shown by the Fremantle Football Club. They put on a presentation both before and after the game and due respect was shown to the once proud club. Many Fitroy supporters travelled across the Nullaboar for the game, and they were vocal in their appreciation of the acknowledgment given.

Dale Kickett played for Fremantle that day, which is significant as he had also played for Fitzroy.

But He is not as concerned about your happiness.
This is the Urban Legend I am dealing with this Sunday....
Here is a snippet....

The Christian urban legend we are going to deal with this morning is that God wants you to be happy, and this is personal for me because our Church slogan is enjoy the good life. But enjoyment is quite different to happiness.

Happiness is a fleeting moment, joy is something that can be enjoyed despite the circumstances we find ourselves in. Paul writes in Philippians chapter 4, rejoice, again I say rejoice, all the time. Happiness is a fleeting feeling based on an experience or set of circumstances. Happiness comes about when you win lotto, or you are eating a nice slice of pizza, that’s fleeting pleasure which your body pays for at a latter stage, right….joy, enjoyment is something quite different.

Everytime I think about what our church is doing, really doing, I think....goodness we are out of our comfort zone.
For a church our size, we are doing far more than what could be expected, what is 'normal'.
Two full time pastors, one part time childrens worker.
Very succesful outreach programs......more starting in 2nd term.

Don't get me wrong, its not me thats doing this....its our people.
They are giving, serving, involved and motivated......such good people.
While some come and go, as is to be expected, I am just aware of the journey we have begun as a church together. I wonder who we will be ministering with at the end?

This year we may very well have no building, no temporary facilities, and nowhere to go permanently.

It is a massive task we are taking on. As the real decision time comes closer, it is more than a little daunting. We are going to have to grab far more than you could expect, and work like crazy...

But do I want a boring safe life? No....never have.
In the next few months.....it will be far from that.

Okay....today is Labour Day...so what? I was talking to my wife today about what today means. Maybe the government should put a explanation in the paper or something. After doing some research, because I think its important to know why we are having a public holiday, the succint answer came from Wikipedia.

"Labour Day is an annual holiday celebrated all over the
world that resulted from efforts of the labour union movement, to
celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers.

The celebration of Labour Day has its origins in the eight hour day movement,
which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight
hours for rest. On 21 April 1856 Stonemasons and building
workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and
marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight
hour day. Their direct action protest was a success, and they are noted as the
first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight hour day with no loss
of pay, which subsequently inspired the celebration of Labour Day and by May Day."

So there you go, relax today in peace....

Do you want to be known as a cheese deliverer or a giant killer.

This is the title of the brief talk I am going to give Sunday night at our FYG (Friday Youth Group) camp.......

The media is prone to exageration when it comes to monikers given to players. Some young pup who works at the team store is called, "a star player in the making". A curly headed player who has been in the game for just over 12 months is nicknamed, "Mr Football".

There is one player who scarcely rated a mention in the dispatches of most media outlets, and deliberately kept away from any attention. His preferred hair colour is brown, and most of the players on his team were a little startled when they heard him speak, a little bit like a dog that you didn't think could bark, and suddenly it growls at you.

However he played 238 games for the one club, defeated players twice his size, and was rarely disgraced, in a side that was often beaten. His preferred position was full back, but towards the end of his career he played on various opponents in the back line. In an team with more options, Parker would have been a small defender. His task would have been to chase after forwards or even mid-sized attackers in the opposition; to run the ball out of defence and get it to those who kick goals from time to time. But Fremantle did not have that luxury, and Shane was up against the best forwards for most of his career. He was a great defender, but part of Freo folklore is the frustration fans felt when Shane was given the kicking out duties, something which it has to be said was at best, frustrating to watch.

For his entire career he only kicked 11 goals, but the tenth one was a beauty. It came in round 16, 2005 when his opponent was Brendan Fevola, a player the media like to dub a 'star player'. Fremantle were playing Carlton at the MCG on a sunny day. Brendad was playing full forward and Shane Parker full back You would expect the full forward to outscore the fullback, right? Well not in the nexus that is Fremantle. On this day, when Fremantle defeated the Blues by 35 points, Fremantle's full back outscored his much fancied opponent, all because of one beautiful running goal, when everything came together for the man those who admired him dubbed, "The Twig of Integrity".