Shift >>>

Youthstreet: Becoming the youth God wants us to be! (Michael Hands)

Tonight Mike preached up a storm speaking out of 1 Tim 4:12 "Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." He issued a call that we are to be different. We are to live in such a way thatwe are somehow different to those who are not followers of Jesus. That the transformation Jesus has done in us, shines through, so that we're the ones who don't drink at parties when everyone else is getting drunk, that we're the ones who refuse to start gossip and bag-out othes, that we're the ones who respect and listen to our parents or teachers. So why not take a listen and let God challenge you to live out the transformation that God is doing in your heart!

Mike Hands - Youthstreet

How to mobilise Young Adults for Mission

The end of November 2011 saw the conclusion of the Governments unprecedented and inspirational initiative to contribute one dollar for every other one dollar raised to the relief work being done by a variety of welfare agencies on the Horn of Africa. This meant that countries presently in famine such as Somalia, Ethiopia and The Sudan have been provided by our government twice the aid possible than if the general public were just to offer support.

It was out of this concept that a friend of mine, Crystal, approached me with an idea 'what if we were able to do something that raised some money for those who people who are starving to death?' She spoke to a few others, including Ryan, which lead to a series of brainstorms that resulted in a brilliant and creative idea.

The idea was to put on a free BBQ in a public space, down the beach, with a high volume of passers-by, and use that outlet to tell the story of the Somalian Famine, make people aware of the facts , history and implications of the situation and then both encourage and enable people, if they chose, to contribute to the governments dollar for dollar scheme.

It was a Saturday morning when we set up base camp: tables, chairs, shade covers, our BBQ and drinks eskys, music, signage and flyers, all ready to go down the beach at Burleigh. The $4$ Somalia initiative was in full swing. We spent a good portion of the day cooking, chatting, informing, playing and hanging out. Many of those who are part of our young adult community came down to help and hang out. By the end of the day we had given away 300 sausages in bread and collected a grand total of... $2,234.60, which the government consequently matched, making the sum total of our efforts that day: $4,469.20.

It was amazing to be involved in such an exciting initiative and reflecting on it these are some of the learning's:

• A simple idea can have a huge impact.
• Offering free stuff disarms people and encourages their generosity. If we'd of sold each sausage for $3.00 (which would have been expensive) we would have not raised half of what we did.
• Always get council approval, it actually saved us being shut down.
• The power of the story is what moves people.
• A small group of people joining together can make a huge difference.
• These ideas allow people not of faith to be exposed to and involved in God's unfolding story.
• An event like this has lots of different moving pieces, which allows a wide variety of people to become involved.
• People want to be involved in changing the world, but often they prefer others to make it possible for them to be involved, but not responsible.
• Making a big sign for the event was cool, but misinterpreted by some as the cost of a sausage, not the cause we were standing for.
• It's important that location and timing compliment the idea you are trying to execute.

So why share all of this, so long after the event? Firstly I think it's important to reflect, but mostly because if you are asking, How do I create a social justice initiative? How do i respond to poverty? How do I make a difference in the world? Or you're throwing around ideas of what Young Adult mission initiatives could look like, then you may be helped by reading this.

So after hearing our story, be encouraged: come up with a simple idea, don't be afraid to try new things, ask the right people to help you, and go for it! That's what one of our young adults did and the results were incredible!

Conquering Conformity: part 3 (Moses, Yahweh and the Egyptian gods)

Moses went on behalf of Yahweh, (the Jewish and Christian) God, to demand from Pharaoh that he let the Israelites be free from the oppression of the Egyptians. What we think is a simple abolitionist strategy, is actually the set up for a clash of the titans. As God Almighty goes head to head with the Egyptian gods. The Egyptian gods are represented in the ten plagues and we see God tear them apart piece by piece. If your wondering how this takes place, how the Egyptian gods are represented in the plagues, how the ten plagues align themselves with the Egyptian gods, and what on earth that has to say to us, then have a listen or read from the links below.

listen here: Conquering Conformity _ The Story of moses _ Wk3

Read the manuscript here: Download 0609 - 12two - Moses 3

 

Conquering Conformity: part 2 (Moses - Stu Leo)

This week at 12two (our Young Adult community) we tacked the second part of the Jews escape from Egypt, looking at the call of Moses, the excuses he offered and the triumph God began in and through his life. Have a listen in to Stu Leo as he walks us through the next few chapters: 

Conquering Conformity _ The Story of Moses _ Wk2

Conquering Conformity: part 1 (Moses - Stu Cameron)

This week at 12two (our Young Adult community) we kicked off our new series exploring the life of Moses - the great leader and patriarch of Christian and Jewish faith.  It was on Stu Cameron (Lead Pastor) to set up the story by unpacking Exodus 1 and 2.  Listen in here: Download Conquering Conformity _ The Story of Moses _ Wk1

 

Where do I rank in the entire world?

Yesterday I stumbled upon Alexa, that's not a chick in case you were wondering, but a website that tracks stats on your blog. What I found was quite funny, as Alexa keeps track of your world blog rating! Alexa tracks through 125 different countries and over 30 million blogs, and is able to provide a score of how much your blog is visited/read in comparison to every other site it tracks. What's my current world ranking I hear you think, I thought you would never ask. My current world ranking is:

19,296,775

Yes you are correct if you are thinking 19 million! 24 hours ago my ranking was 19,318,490, that is a drop (which is good) of 21,715 places! Amazing times!! My goal by the end of 2012 is to see it dropped by 1 million places! I also discovered what my blog is worth in monetary terms:

£239.99 which is $362.55

I have no idea how they work this out, what it means or even why I am posting it... Perhaps because it's just very strange!

The top two search results leading people to my blog are:

1	bear grylls christian	16.61%
2	taking something for granted	14.92%

What is interesting is Wikipedia's equivalent search success on question one is 29.5%, so I'm definitely playing with the big boys when it comes to Bear Grylls! So having shared all of that, thanks for reading the thoughts on my blog, I hope you have felt encouraged and challenged.

The art of disappointment

To feel disappointed is an act of love and honour, but only because that act of love and honour has not been reciprocated. We should note up front that sometimes it cannot be, meaning that occasionally disappointment is an inevitable conclusion! Have you ever wrestled with disappointment? Of course you have, it's part of what it means to relate to others.

I wanted to offer some thoughts on how to handle disappointment, so you feel more empowered when it occurs. Jesus said, whilst giving instruction to his crew on where to go and what to do, (in Luke 9:5) "If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." As I sat with this I realised a couple of things:

Disappointment originates from denial, rejection even. When we are denied something: a shared value; an expectation; a relationship; an opportunity, etc. the result is we become disappointed. That's what happened to these followers, they were to be denied acceptance, and hence they were disappointed.

But the advice is to 'shake the dust off'. This means that you should not continue to bear the values, influences, or impact that disappointment has on you. As they left the town they were told to shake the dust off their sandals, to finish and leave in that town the denial they had experienced, not to carry it into future towns thinking the same would occur there.

In doing such a thing, you are making a statement about those who have disappointed you, or as teh Scripture says are creating testimony against them. In shaking the dust off, leaving the disappointment in the town, they were actually saying that the character and influence exhibited is not that which I wish to align myself with. This is a key thought when it comes to moving past our disappointments!

We only become disappointed when we care about something or someone, if you don't care, then disappointment cannot occur, so the fact you are disappointed is a good sign of your character and heart. The disciples wen to the town to tell them about the Kingdom of God, they only did this because they cared, which is why Jesus wanted to offer them a technique for dealing with the inevitable disappointment that comes when you choose to love.

My final thought springs from the inevitable question all of this leads to: Can disappointment bear any fruit? My answer is if not to compel another to change, then no. Disappointment can only gain traction and become something positive when the person disappointing you chooses to care more about you than themselves. Often we disappoint others by mistake, so when confronted about it we are keen to resolve the matter to reinstate care. The people in the town, had no desire or care for the disciples to belong there, and hence Jesus instruction, walk away from that issue, and their influecne on this subject, and shake the dust off. If you find yourself wondering 'should I go and speak to the person who has disappointed me?' The answer to that question is in whether or not you think they will care more about you than themselves or their current situation. If you don't think they will, then shake the dust off.

The Story of Stuff as it relates to faith (God and consumerism)

Tonight we watched a movie called the Story of Stuff, a short movie about the way consumerism has so powerfully dominated our lives and culture, and how blind we have been to it. The movie is featured below for you to watch now! It takes 20 minutes to watch and will not be a waste of your time. In that 20 minutes you will have your eyes opened up to the fact that we are consuming stuff at an unsustainable rate, and the affects of which are not only destroying this planet but destroying people’s lives, including our own!

In the movie you will hear a quote by Victor Lebow who says… “Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

To say it in theological terms, our identity and reason for existence, our purpose as human beings has become about stuff. We judge our value based on stuff. If you’ve got or wear, or use the right stuff you are a valuable person to others, Ie. You’re cool. If you’ve got the wrong stuff you’re not cool. If you have the right stuff, others will find you more attractive and that in turn will feed your reason for living.

Now Annie will unpack all of this, but what struck me as I first watched it was the very powerful question of 'What affect is consumerism having on our faith?' Because if everything that Annie says is true, then the implications for out faith are huge!

Let me just throw a few ideas at you…

It means our faith becomes a consumable commodity, which we discard when something better comes along.

It means our faith is there to serve us, not save us, so the way we live can easily fail to be informed by our faith.

It means we can come to church and to worship, to get something from it, rather than offer God something through it.

It means hearing the tough words of Jesus as he speaks to our behavior is an optional extra we can simply deny.

It means that we can publicly claim Christianity when it might be cool, but deny Christ and what he calls us to when it might not be.

It means we might go on mission trips because it’s a cool adventure into the unknown and it appeases my conscience, rather than going to show people they are important and valuable also.

Now you hear that potentially uncomfortable list of assertions and all of a sudden we each realize how consumer driven we have become! How easy it is to be the object of our faith, and not God. So watch the movie and we’ll chat some more…

 

Some questions that may help in your digestion of that are:

Thinking Theologically: From what you heard and saw in the movie what concerns do you think God would have about the consumerist cycle we are in and why?

“Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” Do you think that what Victor Lebow’s proposed has come to pass? What’s the evidence of this?

What are the implications of this for us as we try to live obediently to what God calls us to?

What thing (small or large) can you/we do to contribute more to the new system, and less to the linear system? 

So where should you start if you seriously want to change things? Have a look at some of the following resources that may inform and equip you in new and interesting ways:

Here is the script that captures everything that Annie shared in the video. Story of Stuff script: http://dev.storyofstuff.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/annie_leonard_footnoted_script.pdf

7 resources to find out about the lives of your stuff!!!! http://www.storyofstuff.org/2011/06/16/7-rescources-for-finding-out-about-the-secret-lives-of-your-stuff/

You can check out these two blogs that offer some different ideas, philosophies and approaches to this whole issue: 

http://zenhabits.net/

http://mnmal.org/

The Story of Stuff ideas for changing things: http://www.storyofstuff.org/category/community/good-stuff/

I have found Kurt Williams blog to be very clear and informative: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/

If you are after further Bible study material on the Story of Stuff movie take a peek here: http://www.storyofstuff.org/2011/02/24/faith-based-program-for-christian-teens/

There is also this website called http://www.betterworldshopper.org. It will tell you, from years of research which companies can be trusted and which companies can’t be trusted when it comes to issues of Human rights, Social justice, the environment, animal protection and community involvement. You can also view the contents of the accompanying book on Amazon. As well as download the iPhone app of the same name. Only drawback is it is an American and I am yet to find an Australian equivalent.

I hope this theological peak (reflection) at the Story of Stuff has stirred some interesting and challenging thought that you might develop further in your own lives.

Do you have value and behaviour alignment?

If you were asked to write down your values now, what would you list? Maybe you should do it? What do you stand for? What do you want others to know you for?

Would things like honesty, passion, humility, loyalty, trustworthiness, integrity, wisdom, generosity, compassion, justice, assertiveness, commitment make it to your list?

Now a value, is only a value if you can see it consistently in your life! This thought occurred to me and then struck fear into me when I was given the task of identifying my values. 

If I claimed to be generous that meant I needed to be generous with everything I had.

If I claimed loyalty to be a value, was I loyal to my friends all the time or did I pick and choose?

If I wanted to put honesty on the list, was I always honest with everyone all of the time?

If I wrote down justice, was I always a campaigner for this and therefore lived a just life, or was it more for certain causes that suited me or drove me nuts at the time?

What I realised is that it is so easy to brag about what values I think I have, whilst simultaneously contradicting everything I stand for, or I think I stand for just with the way I live my life. If I am like this, if you are like this then we are destined for relational disaster. First of all you loose yourself, because you do not know who you actually are. Secondly you loose intimacy in close relationships because your close friends see you are living a lie and stop trusting you. And thirdly you deny Christ. Because if Christ is the truth then you are not aligning yourself with Him.

So maybe a value check is in order for us all, if we are adamant about truly following Jesus!

Naivety Scene 3: What is God calling you to? (incl. interview with Tarme & Ian Johnson)

Instead of looking at the Nativity Scene as we approach Christmas Day we thought it would be more of a challenge to examine the Naivety Scene. What things are we naive to?

Naivety is the lacking of wisdom, knowledge and experience. And this week, the third in the series, we looked at how we are naive to the things God calls us to. It is so easy for the calling we seek from God to be more self glorifying than God glorifying. We need to ensure that as we follow God's leading, we remaing obedient to what the prophet Micah tells us to do, to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

We were also really excited to interview Tarme and Ian Johnson on their expereicen, past and future, on teh Mercy Ship. Have a listen in for an amazing testimony.

You can listen to the third and final message in the series here.