The Double-Edge Sword of Friendships

So to begin with, friendships are incredibly important to me. Some may say too important (actually ive begun saying that but thats a whole other story). Friends are pretty incredible most of the time, a good friend will do almost anything for you- which ive really appreciated lately with my lack of license.

But more than that, friends are a source of accountability, stability, a shoulder to cry on(hypothetically of course, men dont cry), a person to share fun times together, an encouragement, an example in godliness, a brother to grow in christ with.

Im extremely lucky to have some particularly good and close friends. Jono, Dan, Adrian and Dale being the ones that come to mind, but there's many others who i know love and care for me as a christian brother (and i hope they know i love them in return)

Friends can also suck but. Sin gets in the way of everything really, my sin, their sin. So friends can easily be a source of stumbling, competitiveness, hurtfulness, anger and confusion (see above list of friends to apply equally here)

I cant wait for a time when the bad stuff is all gone, when relationships between everyone will be pure and awesome- coz even though it seems like im blaming my friends for the nasty stuff. The reality is that nine times out of ten, its my sin which causes the pain. Which is all the more reason why my friends are special- and why im continually amazed at Gods provision that i still can call them friends.

Lastly, ive recently experienced the restoration of an old friendship from my Uni days. Its one of lifes most rewarding things to happen i reckon- having the past being swept away between friends to allow a friendship to re-start. its sorta like a mini version of Gods grace.

Love it.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME ANGRY!!!!

I'm not really prone to getting angry easily.......actually thats a lie. I am. But two things this week have made me angry in a different way. The anger comes from somewhere else. Its a sad anger.

#1. Abortion: Abortion sucks, ive always beleived that but it wasn't until i saw a video from http://www.abort73.com/ that ive realised the pure horror of it. check it out. please.

#2. The Westboro Baptist Church in US. Heath Ledgers death was sad (i found it surprisingly sad, more so than i normally would other celebrities for some reason). The WBC announced they were going to picket line his funeral, which they have now downgraded to picket lining his memorial services in the US. It sickens me that people act so rudely and tactlessly in the name of christianity. see article from news.com

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23100793-5001021,00.html

so sorry if i'm in a bad mood when you see me next. Its because of these two things.

Can Sin cause christian growth?

ok so obviously the answer to my question is no. But let me explain my thought process behind this so to speak:

This may seem arrogant or perhaps even naive to say, but i beleive i have had and do have relationships where the other person is someone who has grown up with significantly less sin than me. That is, they have been able to act out less frequently on their sinful nature and have sinned in much less grotesque ways (from a wordly point of view).

But I want to acknowledge that it is my most grotesque and horrible sins that i have done that i now look to to strengthen me in my faith. This is because i can look back on what i have done and go "far out, Jesus has taken that on himself and God has forgiven me for that!!!"

Is this wrong to do? What do these other people look to (well Jesus obviously)?? It must be something because they are all by far more mature christians than me and more strong in their faith. Am i truly strengthened by looking back in this way or is there something more profoundly deep to find than God's grace and forgiveness?

Whatever the case, it is clear that is not sin that creates growth, but rather this grace and forgiveness found in Jesus.

slightly confused and slightly over-exaggerating

Gods heart reflected through our heart?

Ive just started reading a book called "wild at heart" by John Eldridge. The purpose of the book at this stage is to encourage christian men to be more like, well....men. Which is a great premise to write a book i reckon in today's society of feminism, de-masculinity of lead male roles in media, emo's and those post emo people who don't have a name that i'm aware- look very similar to emo's- but are definately not emo's.

Eldridge writes with some fairly large flaws: He makes sweeping statements of society based on his singular experience with his sons, he makes basic arguments with language one would only use to make far more profound points, and he downplays the sovereignty of God.

But what has got me thinking is that one his major justifications that men should "act wild", become men and be "dangerous" and "risky" is that if we as men look inside our hearts we will find this is where our hearts want to go. We should (Eldridge says), trust what our hearts desires are and act on them. He further explains that this is because we are made in the likeness of God and so if our hearts are telling us to act aggressive, become wild and live dangerously, then it is because that is the nature of God and we will be therefore reflecting this.

Now my immediate problem to his argument is that our hearts are sinful and so his basic formula will undoubtedly fail as a man looks into his heart and finds lust, inappropriateness, rudeness, coldness, distain and arrogance just as much (if not more) as godliness.

But Eldridge's point remains to some degree i think. We are built to some measure in God's likeness, we have the spirit working with us helping us discern things, and we grow in maturity as we grow older in relationship with God.

So my question is: How do we know when our heart is being godly?

The two straight forward answers are that we are helped by the spirit (as ive already said), and that we are able to compare our hearts with God's word.

But with this help, do our hearts ever reach a level by where they become a worthy source of discernment? Can our hearts ever become a stand alone source of wisdom?

I think the answer is no. But I'll spend some more time reflecting.

Ps- how funny is the king kong vs aslan pic??? I was searching for aslan to connect with the whole wild lion thing but i found this and couldn't resist.

The search for realism- marred by radar

ok so im a nerd. And im going to indulge myself in a bit of nerd talk.

Radar on shoot em up games?? I dont get it.

Everything else involved with the evolution of computer games is about making our experience as real as possible (except of course story lines/characters etc.) . The graphics, the sound, the voices, the shadows that our man makes as he walks along the ground, the rippling of the water, the blood spurting from our dead enemies, the individual bullets immaculately detailed (freeze the next halo 3 game mid fire and you'll see what i mean, its incredible)

And yet somehow the concept of being able to determine where your enemies are is appealling? Rather than ruin the fun and suspense of the game, gamers think this is a necessary feature which can't be lived without!!!

Thats all i wanted to say.

Confessions of an ignorant Hillsong disliker

I dont know much about hillsong... But i've always held them in distain.

I've never heard a sermon from them or any pastor from there... But I tell people who will listen that their doctrine is poor.

I've never had much to do with anyone from there, nor have I visited their site... but I assume that their culture is dangerous and "flashy"

And then I decided to take a cursory glance and found this

and I was moderately surprised.

I still don't know much about hillsong, but I'm going to acknowledge that openly and not make assumptions.

Is it possible to overcrowd a church's eventlife?

I recently read some of Rick Warrens Purpose Driven Church. In one of the chapters (Turning Members into Ministers), he talks about a potential pitfall of christian life being too full of "meetings". His driving point as i understood it was to point out that having too many comittees, meetings, trainings and conferencing can often hinder actual ministries occurring. Rather than talking about doing ministries- just go out and do them. This i think is an valid point and I've been wondering lately if our church has begun to fall into this trap a little. I have two examples to illustrate:

1. a friend of mine (well actually a couple) has expressed a keeness to start up a group that works in the local soup kitchen etc. I asked him what was stopping him from doing it and he basically said that there is no time in the week that will fit into more than two peoples schedule. In effect, Monday is out of action because it is now unofficially labelled (funnily enough) as "meeting night"-different ministries in church use monday night as a night for bi-weekly/monthly/term/sporadic meetings. Tuesday night is labelled as a "bible study night", as is wednesday, thursday is theoretically free although i think because of that perception it becomes filled with events quickly, friday is churn(primary age night group) and youth group, saturday is well.... saturday and sunday is well... sunday.

2. Another friend has been reflecting on enthusing people into evangelism. He is convinced that one of the most effective ways to evangelise is simply by having realationships with non-christians (agreed!). He wants to get people out in the community, involved with non-christians in sports, events, clubs and the like. However his frustration lies simply that no one has the time. In fact, thursday nights and saturdays, a lot of people are involved in sports in a church team. Having a church team can be an effective form of evangelism if there a few non-christians in the team, but i think it often becomes part of creating a christian- safety bubble around our entire lives.

I've heard recently that there are two formats of evangelism- "bringing people into christian culture" and "going out into non-christian culture" (these are paraphrased). My worry is that our schedules are so filled with events and meetings that we could possiblly bring non-christians into (this often doesn't happen), that we have no time to go out and meet the people to actually invite to these events!

Imagine saying this to a neghbour who you barely know:

"Im sorry, i can't come to your BBQ dinner tonight, my church has a dialogue meeting, perhaps you would like to come to that?"

Where does the balance lie between church meetings, events, comittees, christian social events and free time to say to your neighbour "sounds great, should I bring a salad?"

Where is the room to say "lets start up a group to visit the elderly down the road, wednesday should be fine"?