Wellington Boots

Farewell Wellington

2011-06-03T17:13:00.002+12:00

On the 2nd January we drove up to the Mount Victoria lookout.

The following day we caught the ferry from Wellington to Picton; bidding farewell to my old home, our temporary home, and heading for our new home in Dunedin.

We were both struck by how beautiful the ferry route into Picton is.

Flowers Part 1

2011-06-03T16:56:00.004+12:00

From a visit we made to the Wellington Botanical Gardens before we left for Dunedin

Flowers Part 2

2011-06-03T16:31:00.003+12:00

Flowers Part 3

2011-06-03T16:30:00.001+12:00

Flowers Part 4

2011-06-03T16:30:00.000+12:00

Burning with the right fuel

2011-05-30T13:49:00.004+12:00

I have been learning a fair bit about wood stoves this year; being in a slightly colder part of NZ the stove in our home is a very important in warming our house. I had some assumptions about what would burn well and what would not burn well and I was wrong. I assumed that bark that came with the wood we purchased would make great kindling. It did not; it burnt for a bit and then just smoked. A possible future method for smoking food, but not so good for starting a fire.

Something I continue to forget and relearn is how Christian ministry has to be fueled with with good fuel if you want it to last well and not fizzle out. In my head I know that if I let my work be fueled by my own experience, training or energy then I am going to fizzle out, let alone the groups I work with. The fuel that it needs is a daily experience of how the gospel of Jesus is good news for both the found -particularly myself!- and the lost (2 Peter 1:3-9), a daily reminder that it is about service rather than exerting power (Luke 22:24-27), and a daily reminder that rather than it being our work it is God's work and we work under and with Him in it (Matthew 28:18-20).

The story so far

2010-11-30T13:58:00.032+13:00

Now we are officially back in New Zealand, it is time for the "On Tour" part of this blog to be removed.

We had a couple of days rest in Auckland before flying down to our new, if temporary, home in Wellington.

We had a couple busy first few weeks during which we bought a car (and a new bed) and had the chance for Jen to get to see more of Wellington.

The following week we went on a road trip up the North Island to Rotorua (roughly translates as place of two lakes), we had the chance to stop along the way and invest in some warmer clothes for Jen and do some sight-seeing.

We stayed in a house on lake Rotoiti (translates as 'little lake,' which is the smaller of the two bodies of water that Rotorua is named after) where we had a week being led through an intensive debriefing program that helped us begin the process of reflecting on the events that had led to us moving to New Zealand, and some of the challenges and opportunities we might face. As part of our time there we even did some impromptu team building when we rowed out on the lake in a boat; Jen also went kayaking later in the week (she is the little dot in the second picture), which I think was a little easier as there wasn't the same complications of balancing out our combined weight.

On the trip back we got to do yet more sightseeing, including the magnificent Huka falls (check how small the people are in the top left corner of the first picture!).

The day after we got back from Rotorua, it was time to move into our temporary (for the next few months) home! It was a fairly manic day of running around Wellington collecting all my old belongings from the various places they had been stored and getting them to our new home in Island Bay. After several months of waiting we got to open our wedding gifts! We had so much fun opening it all! In the weeks that followed we also spent time on Trademe (the NZ equivalent of ebay) spending the money that we had been given as wedding gifts on furniture for our soon-to-be-longer-term home. We are very blessed by the generosity of those who gave, thank you!

A re-occuring theme of our first few weeks has been seals; we went for a walk round the coast near our new home and there were still seals in for the winter. We then went to visit the creation care study program in Kaikoura and there were a great number of seals there (some of whom were not pleased to see us, giving us the occasional bark, snarl or baring of teeth)

One thing that I've particularly enjoyed is returning to New Zealand's cafe culture; good coffee, good price = happy me!

We also got to observe the Wellington fireworks display on Guy Fawkes night (I have no idea why New Zealand marks this day as no one else apart from England does, but it is strangely comforting that they do). We also observed Thanksgiving with a dinner that included many of the traditional North American foods associated with the holiday; above is a picture of Jen's pumpkin pie, which was awesome, which also has a little bit of New Zealand in it with the koru that she drew in the middle.

A koru is probably a good image with which to close this blog post, in that for the Maori one of the things it signifies is a new life. Our new life here together has begun; there have already been many challenges but there has also been much that is encouraging. We are grateful to God for his leading and guiding us here, and for the support and encouragement of His people.

One of the things I like about New Zealand...

2010-11-01T13:28:00.000+13:00

... is that things are not taken too seriously. On a recent trip up the North Island Jen and I stopped for dinner in the town of Bulls. As you can see from the picture above, Bulls is a place that has embraced the perhaps more amusing possibilities that come with the name. Like many other character traits the tendency not to take things too seriously can be frustrating sometimes, but considering how I often tend to take things too seriously, places like Bulls give me a helpful and fun reminder to relax a little.

Upon Reflection - Part 4

2010-09-18T15:43:00.010+12:00

And so we come to the final installment. This one will be the shortest in that the main topics are summing up and returning to New Zealand, and the reason it will be short is that there is only so much that is known at present. So part of this will be reflection, part will be looking ahead.

Looking back as I have been doing, there is so much to be thankful for but though the things to be thankful for far outweigh the things that have been hard, they cannot remove sadness and regret of the things that have been hard. But at the same time the things that are hard teach us new things, and often these new things make us stronger. So with some distance even the hard things begin to become causes for thanksgiving.

It was a sobering thought when last week we realized that we had spent more of our married life on the road than we had in one place. Both Jen and I are feeling weary of traveling; we have both traveled extensively before but traveling without a definite and specific home in mind (knowing we are going to New Zealand is one thing, but not having an address and home is different) has been difficult for us both. But it has also been great to spend time with so many people around the U.K. and U.S., renew friendships, and get to know each other's families better.

The priority for the next few months is discerning where in particular God is calling us to in New Zealand; there are a couple of different options for me with TSCF, so we will visit a few places, look at work options for Jen as well as wider church and community type stuff. We are both very much looking forward to setting up our new home together and getting settled into a new community. We had some good news this week in that there is a potential home for us for the next few months where we can unpack and settle while we figure a few more things out; this news has been a real encouragement to us both.

One of the lines from a song at church this morning was "Your grace is enough." We are both mindful and thankful of how God has sustained us and been preparing the way for us as we wound our way towards New Zealand: there was no charge for Jen's work visa and her application for residency has been accepted but is on hold until we meet their requirement of being married for a year; border crossings that could have been complicated (driving across the US border in a borrowed car full of our Canadian possessions and me with just a tourist visa for the U.S.) were smooth; we have both been healthy the majority of the time; we have both felt generally blessed as we have traveled.

So with heavy but hopeful hearts it is time to take the longest flight of our travels so far. Our thanks to those who have celebrated with us, hosted us, fed us, cared for us and generally loved us. To those in the Northern hemisphere, bye for now, we will miss you. Those in the Southern, here we come. Next stop New Zealand.

Upon Reflection - Part 3

2010-09-15T10:33:00.028+12:00

On to part three, and this time it's going to take a more visual approach.

One of our favourite things has been taking people on tours of the Vancouver region and introducing the local wildlife. It's amazing the difference between how we approach familiar and foreign animals; from my perspective I thought raccoons were really cute, but most North Americans are afraid of catching rabies from them, but they are far too cute to carry rabies!

I had the chance to have a brief prayer retreat on Galiano Island as well as a class on Living in Creation that was taught on the island. Prayer retreats were a new thing for me, but I have come to see the value of a change of context and a more contemplative setting in helping me focus and have a more attentive prayer life. The class on living in creation was one of the most difficult but also most helpful classes that I took (and if you'd asked me 18 months ago I would not have listed it as class that I would have considered taking, another example of how God has re-directed what I thought should be priorities). Perhaps one of the most helpful aspects of the class was that it was taught from the experience and in the home of a couple who really practiced what they taught.

Over Christmas and new year we had the chance to visit the capitols of both our home countries.

In February we got to visit Jen's family and friends in California (courtesy of an extended study break due to the winter Olympics being hosted in Vancouver).

In May we graduated with our Graduate Diplomas in Christian Studies.

For our honeymoon we drove up to the corner of British Columbia to Golden, where we stayed in a beautiful cottage by a river, with great views if the surrounding mountains. Golden is in the midst of three national parks, so while there we managed to visit both Yoho and Banff.

We had fun with both of our families, and I celebrated my birthday for the first time on American Independence day in the USA; I was all set to enjoy the firework display only we got there to find out that Sacramento, for some bizarre reason, had their display a day early.

We got to see some beautiful and scary sites in both of our home countries.

We visited some ancient sites and saw some signs that we did not understand.

Jen found us a new home, but I was less convinced.

We went punting in Cambridge and visited the Eagle and Child, which is the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien used to frequent.

We visited the Universities where we both studied (we couldn't visit all of Jen's as she did one term in New Hampshire, which was a tad too far to drive).

We visited San Fransisco so we wore flowers in our hair (scalp in my case), which I've wanted to do since I heard the song told me I should be sure to do so.

And we went on our first overnight camping trip in Lassen National park; it started off well but went down hill when we were woken by deer who persisted in eating the grass around our tent (though there was much much grass in other places) and when it hailed (which is virtually unheard of in September in California) and rained when we woke up.

There are many more photos that I could show, but these at least give a taste of where we have been and what we have seen.

Upon Reflection - Part 2

2010-09-11T12:03:00.012+12:00

Time for part two of this short blog series, which will be my reflections on my year and half at Regent College.

The easy part is how affirming my grades have been in particular areas; my highest grades were in pastoral theology and biblical studies. Not that you can judge everything by grades, but it has been a positive experience to find that areas to which I have natural leanings towards, such as pastoral care, are backed up by my grades. But natural leanings without solid foundations can cause harm even if intentions are good, so I am both relieved and pleased that I have done well in biblical studies too.

It is a requirement at the college that we learn at least the basics of how to operate in biblical languages before taking further courses in biblical studies. When I first learned of this I was a tad frustrated as it meant I had to spend time taking courses in languages when I would rather be studying other things. Looking back now I have learned my lesson and realize that being able to study the Bible in its original form opens up new avenues for study. No one I know would say that you have to be able to operate in Hebrew or Greek in order to understand the Bible, but it does shed new light on the inevitable shifts that come in translating an ancient language into modern language and it has helped me learn new skills and tools that will hopefully enable me to handle the word of God more competently than I could before.

Not that I for one minute think that I have mastered anything. One of professors was very clear with us about this when he explained how when he graduated and started his new job as a structural engineer his manager told him that having a degree in engineering did not make him an engineer, it simply meant that he could avoid some basic mistakes and was therefore a little less dangerous. The same is very much true of us as graduate students; we are not expert exegetes but we have some skills that should keep us from making some mistakes.

I was recently playing Lego Star Wars with my nephew. I helped him complete one of the levels and when we did we were offered a couple of upgrades that made his character a stronger Jedi but there were still many other upgrades that his character needed before he was complete. And this is pretty much how I feel about myself as I prepare to return to work (and I am using the game as an example here, rather than suggesting I have improved my skills with a light saber), my time away studying has given me some new skills that I look forward to sharing with others but I am by no means complete (to be honest I do not think that completeness is even possible this side of Christ's return) and still very much have to learn how to wield what I have learned. Similar to how good intentions without solid foundations can cause harm, knowledge without Christ-like character can also be very harmful.

It is also important to clarify at this point that when I talk about skills that this is not merely an intellectual pursuit. This post is already to long to go into this in detail, so to put it briefly I want to be able to handle the Bible as best I can in order to do this and "To prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up" (see picture below).

Due to my struggles with illness I was unable to complete my Masters in Christian Studies whilst at Regent College, so I will be finishing up via distance education across the next few years. But for now I am happy to be having a breather from full time graduate education; a couple of months ago the mere thought of reading another textbook was enough to make my brain freeze, but thankfully this has lessened over the last couple of months of traveling.

One final reflection I want to make is in relation to my generation of Christians and our understanding of the Christian story (and by story I mean the biblical narrative and the 2000 odd years since then), and that is that I think we are in real danger of repeating the mistakes of the past because of the ignorance and pride with which we approach the story of the church. We do not bother to study our past as we do not think it is relevant. We do not think learning about the story of the church is relevant because we mistake the passing of time for progress; we think that because we are the most recent generation we have progressed on from what has gone before and have an ill-founded (possibly even unfounded) confidence that we have kept all that is good and lost all that is bad. Why we think this I am not sure, as we have no idea what happened in the past so are in no position to judge whether what we have left behind is good or bad. As a result we are at real risk of repeating mistakes of the past, be they heresies or actions. I am not sure how we begin to help Christians reacquaint themselves with the story of the church (which by its very name and nature is therefore the story of all Christians) but we need to.

Upon Reflection - Part 1

2010-09-02T08:13:00.009+12:00

I have not blogged about anything since last year… that's a tad embarrassing as so much has happened since then. In order to restart things once again I am going to write a four part post that will cover life since I last blogged.

Starting with the bad news, shortly after my last post my health went a little further down hill and I ended up being signed off sick with stress as well as functional bowel disease. It was a not a particularly good time.

I was talking to a friend recently about being ill and how it is vital to learn where our limits are with regards to stress. The experiences of last year have shown me where some of my limits are as well as highlighting some weaknesses and emotional damage that have been around for a long time. But being shown them has enabled some repairs to happen.

The process of recovery is proving surprisingly long in that I have had to be quite careful even in recent weeks. I am not going to say much else about this as my last blog post went on at some length about this, except to say again how grateful I am for the support I received from friends, church and family.

Now the good news! Ten years ago I made the decision to apply to be a relay worker with UCCF, a decision that would go on to completely alter the direction I thought my life was headed in, culminating in my moving to New Zealand to work with TSCF and temporarily to Canada in order to study at Regent College. Back in January I was reflecting on how much could be traced back to that point back in 2000 because I was plucking up the courage to ask Jen to marry me, which I suspected was going to be another of those decisions that would go on to have far reaching repercussions for both of our lives over the next ten years and the rest of our lives. To my immense relief she said yes! And a few months later we were married on May 1st in Vancouver, and we had an wonderful time with both of our families able to be present (despite the Icelandic volcanic eruptions) and many of our friends. We went on to celebrate it again on August 21st in the UK with more of my family and mutual friends from around the UK.

We have not had an entirely normal start to married life in that we got married, had seven weeks in Vancouver and have been traveling around the UK and the USA since then. We have now been married for four months, and are therefore still newly married and therefore very much still in the "honeymoon period," but both of us have deeply appreciated the joy of having someone who is for other person, and loves the other person as they are - with all their strengths and flaws.

This in turn has shed new light on how this is God's position towards all His people (see Ephesians and marriage as picture of Jesus' relationship to the church). Being married has also shown both us new ways that we are sinful, but has also therefore taught us more about grace as we have learned to forgive and bear with the other person. This growth in grace towards each other has also added more to our appreciation of the grace that God shows us.

There is much more that could be said, but I'll leave things for now.

Random thoughts on how I am learning to be ill

2009-11-09T13:47:00.010+13:00

So my exploration in illness continues. Having thought I was over the worst of it, the last few months have turned out to be more difficult than the previous ones. From intense nausea, to uncomfortable (but necessary and helpful) tests, to unconnected problems (abscess and subsequent root canal in a significant tooth).

Humanity is wonderfully made and therefore wonderfully complex. It is very easy to think that we now understand the human body and that with the right medication we can cure much of the ills that it can face. And there is much truth in this (the root canal combined with antibiotics was the right treatment for my bad tooth), but simply from a bodily perspective we are a complex mix of mental, physical and chemical processes. And these are wonderful and understandable but also mysterious and confusing.

I have been provisionally diagnosed with functional bowel disease (FDB). Something that is common enough to have a name and diagnosable symptoms but little is known as to what causes it or how to fix it.

As I write this I am struck by how even the desire or thought of 'fixing' reflects something of our culture, we inadvertently (or consciously?) see ourselves as machines to be fixed rather than human beings, so some Doctors become like mechanics rather than care givers; illness is seen as physical damage to be repaired so we overlook how this can effect us psychological, emotionally or spiritually. We overlook the wider impact of illness and a fixation on getting back up and running can keep us from making necessary change to our lives that will serve us better longer term.

In a book on Benedictine spirituality (which I am reading out of choice, how my taste in reading has changed huh?) the author states that "Somethings must simply be borne. Somethings must simply be accepted. Community and relationships enable us to do that." I have not been very good at communicating about how unwell I have been; I have not been able to understand what is wrong with me so therefore I did not expect others to either and as a result I have largely kept to myself how much the ongoing illness has been affecting me. Having my tooth go bad last week tipped me over the edge a little and forced me to be honest with people about the toll that ongoing illness has taken on me. The acceptance and support I have received as I have shared both what has been happening and how it has been affecting me has indeed enabled me to bare it, because others are helping me bare it. I have experienced God's grace and mercy both from Him and through others.

It has also helped me realize that confidence must not rest in our ability to control our circumstances, but in God's grace. I've always been a bit of a control freak, but as more and more things went wrong I took more and more steps to control my life (from an almost obsessive avoiding of sick people, to sitting near doors so that I could make a quick exit if I started feeling nauseous) because when I was in control it felt manageable. But when something that I had not planned for and could not control kept happening (like say a tooth getting infected), it caused panic because it showed that my efforts and control had not worked, and if I was not in control how could I know it was going to work out okay? Which at points led to a perverse sort of guilt (things were going wrong because I was not controlling them properly: it was my fault that I was not getting better).

The problem was that my perception of control was/is a facade because complete (God-like?) control of circumstances is beyond any of us. That is not to say that there is not a place for wisdom and planning (not kissing girlfriend when she has the flu=good choice, sitting near exits if feeling nauseous = good choice), but that if our confidence rests in our ability to control things it will come unstuck because we cannot completely control everything.

However, if we make realistic plans or take action but trust in God rather than our plans/control, what then?

It means that when things go well we are able to celebrate with God (and others) because we realize that though God is in control we had a part to play in the success too. But if it is just down to me then I will take all of the credit and will likely become prideful.

It means that we are more likely to turn to Him and His people for help when things go wrong, because we know that He is in control and He has given us each other to help bare each others burdens. But if it is just down to me then it is my responsibility so I must fix it on my own, which may work for a time but will wear us out in the end.

It certainly doesn't mean that things will always go well, but it does mean that we are more likely to be a little more adventurous as we know that ultimate control (and therefore responsibility) is in His hands and that he will provide a way through (though the way through may not be the way we have in mind or would even chose) if things go wrong.

Anyway, my FBD problems are finally beginning to lessen, and over-all I am paradoxically happy and sad at the same time; happy because I feel loved and supported by people all around the world, sad because the number of bad FBD days have worn me down and my body feels generally fragile. So my heartfelt thanks for your ongoing support and prayers (and feel free to ask me if I really mean it when I say I feel fine).

Epilogue: Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that illness is okay because in God's grace it can bring change; I'd really really love to be free of illness and back to normal, illness sucks and is very much a part of the fall. But I've realized it is important to take the time to reflect on the good that is being worked even while my body is not so good. I've gotten a little more of a handle on how God can turn situations to good and how in times of weakness we become more aware of grace. Also, what I am saying here is not meant to be a catch-all for every illness or injury; context matters in everything. What I am writing is simply a reflection on my experience.

And the times they are a-changing

2009-08-30T10:35:00.007+12:00

There came a time when it had been so long since I last blogged that it became easy to ignore this blog. But as a friend kindly pointed out, the point of having a blog is to blog about things. So after nearly 5 months of silence, I'm back!

So what has happened since my last blog? I have continued to get to know a bunch of wonderful people at Regent college; I recovered from appendectomy; I completed one third of the modules I need in order to 'convocate' from Regent college; I contracted a bacterial infection in my gut (the side effects of which have still to clear up) resulting in me canceling a trip to New Zealand; I have seen grizzly bears, bald eagles, seals, sea lions and otters; I visited Vancouver Island and failed to spot any whales on a whale watching tour. And I have discovered that I really like semicolons, not just for blogging but in assignments too.

What have I studied? Across some 210 hours of lectures: An overview of both the Old and New Testaments, pastoral care, an overview of the relationship between Christianity and culture since the reformation, Ethics of the Christian life, evangelism in the post-Christian world, and Christian ethics in relation to Hollywood movie industry.

How much have I read? Somewhere in the region of 7000 pages of theological material, which is probably more than the previous 3 years put together. A sobering thought.

How much have I written? Somewhere around 45000 words. And to think that once upon a time the idea of writing a thesis was intimidating!

It is impossible to explain the impact that all this has had on me, but I'll try anyway:

My studies have reshaped my understanding of how discipleship is a whole-of-life life-long process that is community based and that the gospel has truly universal implications and intentions; though I thought I grasped this before being here has helped me see (in a good way) that the more I learn and grow the more there is yet to understand, and that we need each other to keep us on the right track. I hope I am learning to be more gracious towards both myself and others.
My health struggles have challenged me to grapple with how my confidence is in God and His grace rather than my ability to control my situation.
Being part of the Regent community has helped me realize anew how wonderful it is to be part of the body of Christ and learn some new things about what it means to be a part of that body.

What is to come? I am studying four more courses: introduction to biblical languages, an overview of the relationship between Christianity and culture pre the reformation, introduction to Christian counseling and, perhaps most daunting of all an advanced class on the missional church (where each person in the class has to give a 20 minute lecture presenting a 6500 word paper on an issue of their choice in relation to the missional church). So in total that's another 5000 or so pages of reading and 28000 words of writing.

I am working part time at the college assisting with the orientation of students who come to Regent across the 09/10 academic year. It's a huge privilege to be able welcome in the new students and help the get their heads around Regent and life in Vancouver. Because it is a paid job it will cover a chunk of my tuition fees, which is handy.

Oh and what has changed? The layout of this blog and I have a beard.

Insiginificant appendage

2009-03-16T14:38:00.002+13:00

This is just a quick post to bring the non-facebook people up to date with my world. March 9th was an interesting day. In the space of a few hours I went from having abdominal pain, to appendicitis, to some unknown abdominal issue, concluding with having my appendix removed at around 1am Tuesday morning by keyhole surgery. As a side note I am the only male I know of who has had a ultrasound of his abdomen; And I must say it was a weird (and painful because the had to poke my appendix quite hard) experience. The gel stuff is particularly weird! But I am glad that it got to the bottom of what was wrong with me.

The surgery went very smoothly and I was released from hospital on Tuesday afternoon. The Vancouver wing of the Rees-Thomas family very kindly took me into their home for a few days whilst I recovered. This being my first real surgical experience I had no idea what to expect and I probably won't know what to expect if I have surgery again! It has been such a bizarre mixture of ups and downs and I am not yet fully recovered. I'll spare you the intimate details and will settle for five words to sum up the recovery process thus far: gas, discomfort, frustration, gratitude, sleep.

Everything seems to be functioning normally and I slept through the night for the first time last night and am now back in my apartment with my room mate. I am under orders to take it easy for another week, which I will do my best to do as I try and catch up on all the study I have not done!

I want to say a big thank you for all the visits, texts, emails, facebookings and care that I have received over the last week. They have kept this time from being a miserable experience in what is a relatively new country and turned it into a time were I have been amazingly blessed (if a bit physically sore). Can't really express what it has been like or how grateful I am to you, but again, thank you.

Quick Update

2009-01-16T18:36:00.003+13:00

I'm here, I have a place to live and have started classes! It's barely been ten days but feels like a month. But I am tremendously thankful to God for his sovereignty and grace, and to those of you who have been praying for me and sent messages ahead to people who you knew here to ask them to say hi to me. Thank you! As I walked home this evening my feet were barely on the ground (to quote Coldplay)!

I am sharing a basement flat 15 minutes from campus with another new Regent student who also had no where to live. We had never met before but he is a New Zealander and knows some of the same people as me and went to school with one of my flat mates in Wellington. Small world huh!

Orientation week was very helpful if a little overwhelming. There are roughly 35 or so us new students. The first week of classes has gone well but it is a very different experience to undergraduate study. I have some twenty or so hours of reading to do per week! I barely did 20 hours a month when studying computer science! Some of what we are studying is more difficult to relate to than I expected (at some point in the future ask me what Copernicus really thought about the cosmos, but also ask me about the Pastoral care class which was a wonderful combination of doctrinal study, class interaction and a sermon on Romans) but it is all really good stuff and I have had my character and convictions stretched already.

The Regent community is brilliant! It has been great getting to know such a great bunch of people over coffee, lunch and tutorials (although my memory for names is truly shocking!).

This evening I went to find out about small groups at the church I am planning to attend and not only did I meet some more great Regent people but to my surprise I met one of the Inter-Varsity Canada staff (the equivalent of TSCF or UCCF here in Canada). I've have been invited to spend some time with the Inter-varsity groups while I am here which is great! I had planned to make contact with them some time over the next few weeks but to bump into them at a new-comers meeting at a church blew me away!

Yay!

P.s. I still love and miss all you people in NZ and the UK!

Twas the night before Christmas (depending where abouts on the globe you are)

2008-12-24T00:36:00.010+13:00

So I have left New Zealand for the time being (hence the change of blog title). I am currently in the UK before heading on to Canada to study at Regent college.

My last few weeks in Wellington were a mixture of chaos, fun/fellowship and sadness:

Chaos: It is fair to say that my packing up and moving on took a little longer than I hoped and I didn't quite finish it. I am very thankful for all the folk who helped me move stuff, who have agreed to store stuff for me and for my flatmates who cleared up the mess I left behind and moved the stuff I left behind. Without all these peoples help I would never have come close to getting it all sorted out. So thank you ever so much. The actual departure didn't go very smoothly either. I got to the airport to be told that there was no flexibility over excess baggage and I would be charged $100 per kilo over my allowance! So I ended up repacking my cases on the floor of the airport and leaving a whole case behind!

Fun/Fellowship: It was great to be able to spend time with friends over dinner, BBQs, coffee and conversation. It was particularly nice to have a group of friends came to send me off and keep me company at the airport. It was so encouraging to read through cards that various folk sent me as I prepared to leave and I am very grateful for all their kinds thoughts and words.

Sadness: Saying goodbye is hard. I am sad to have left behind friends and the place that has become my new home. We've done a lot of work in the book of Acts this year and I have been struck by the relational nature of mission. They are nearly always traveling and working together in twos and threes or more. I will miss the merry band of missionaries/friends that I have left in New Zealand and really look forward to being back with them all in 2010.

Now I am enjoying catching up with friends and family back here in England. It was great to be able to surprise my family and arrive back three days earlier than expected, their faces when I turned up were priceless. I do have to confess to getting more than a little frustrated with the glorified car park that is the M25 motorway. Having flown half way round the world in 24 hours it was very frustrating to barely move one mile in one hour!

For the next few weeks it's family time and I am really looking forward to it. It has already been a joy to catch up with a fair few people.

On a down note I have run into some visa issues over transiting through the USA on the way to Canada. The instructions on the website in NZ were mis-leading (in fairness who would fly through the USA to Canada from New Zealand? so I guess there is less reason to cover it in detail). I got to the Uk and was submitting my application for a visa to transit through USA only to find that I did not qualify if my destination was Canada and I was not a permanent resident of Canada. For some completely unknown reason the US immigration service want to interview you if you are transiting through the USA and staying in Canada for more than ninety days, regardless if how long you will be in the USA for. If I had my student visa it would not be a problem but all I have is a letter of invitation which will grant me a visa when enter the country. If the US embassy are not convinced that I will get a student visa when I enter Canada then I will have to forfeit my existing flights (a loss of 500 pounds) and rebook a direct flight to Vancouver (at the cost of 1000 pounds) or risk being sent back to the UK by US immigration and having a permanent mark on my immigration record. Apparently it is down to the discretion of the immigration officer as to whether they say yes or no; so prayers would be appreciated!

The only other thing to say is happy Christmas! Take a look at this video which I think gives a helpful reminder as to the true story. May this Christmas be a blessed time for you and yours.

From staffworker to student...

2008-11-27T15:51:00.006+13:00

So last week was TSCF student leaders conference. We met together at Palm Grove Christian holiday camp for a week in the book of Acts, for fellowship and fun. It was tiring but has reminded me how much I love what we do and what a privilege it is to be involved in. Some particular highlights were a student making a decision to follow Christ (I love that this can happen at a Christian leadership conference!), students getting stuck into the book Acts, and getting their heads around what it means to be multicultural mission teams on campus. Nigel Pollock's talks will be available here soon (I promise that it will be done within the next to weeks!).

The week was particularly significant for me as it marks my last formal student involvement in New Zealand till 2010. In three weeks I will be heading off to study at Regent college in Vancouver for the whole of 2009. You can read more about it here. I am really excited (and a little daunted too, having looked at how much I have to study next year!) to be able to study full time at a bible college but yet at the same time I am sad to be leaving New Zealand and life here. Happily I will be returning in 2010 as a full time regional staffworker!

There is much still to be done before I leave in terms of handing over my office roles to other people and saying lots of goodbyes (be it more see you in a year and bit rather than goodbye) so I'd appreciate your prayers that it would all go smoothly. Thanks!

The Shack

2008-10-27T11:51:00.000+13:00

When I was in Regent in June there was a lot of talk about a new book called The Shack. Much has been spoken, written and said about this book but I thought I'd add my two pence worth anyway.

To be honest I fail to understand why people are getting so hot and bothered about it. It is a story, a real page turning story; it is not a theological text book. People are only going to get in trouble if they start reading the bible in light of the shack rather than reading the shack in light of the bible. I wonder if C.S. Lewis got as much flack over the Chronicles of Narnia as William Young has over the shack? Because in my head the two books are comparable in that the authors are using fiction to help us understand something of God's character as revealed in the Bible and history.

I can understand why the some people are uncomfortable with the way the author represents God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, but in my thinking the author has picked representations that will rattle his readers the most. And that should lead us to ask why are we so rattled? I do not think that the author is not saying that God is black female who likes to cook, rather that if God so chose He could chose to communicate to us in any form that He sees fit. Why does that bother people so much?

What made me uncomfortable was what the author chose not to say about God. There is no mention of Jesus returning to judge the world. Now I recognise that in my own argument that the shack is not a theological text book so the author is never going to cover everything. But when talking about sin and its results it is Christ return that we should look to for setting the record straight once and for all. His return will bring about the renewal of creation, the end of all hurt pain, and that God will wipe every tear from every eye. This is our certain hope. But it will also bring eternal punishment for those whose sins are not covered by Christ death on the cross.

That being said there is much in the book that I found very helpful. Here are some of my favourite quotes:

"You try and make sense of the world in which you live based upon very small and incomplete picture of reality... you see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer (because He lets it happen)... you don't think that I (God) am good" p126

"Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exists, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colours" p185

"Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies." p187

"Do you realise that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me (Jesus) there with you?" p142

It is the last quote that challenges me most. As a I prepare for another move I sometimes feel fearful. And when I do it is nearly always because I have made no room for God in my imaginings of the future.

So pick up a copy of the shack, it is well worth a look.

South Bound Snow Boarding

2008-10-15T11:27:00.001+13:00

So I went down to Christchurch to visit my friends (and colleague) Tim and Lizzy. Tim and I had planned to go snowboarding/skiing but on the first day it was too windy for my plane to land (and to windy for the slopes to be open too) so my flight was delayed for a few hours so we went sight seeing instead.

The second day was a bit more successful and we managed to get in about 4 hours before the weather got too windy again and the slopes were shut. Spring conditions are way more complex than winter as parts of the slope were just ice which is much more scary to ride on but hey, you live and learn. I also realised that chair lifts and wind are not a good combination. We were sat swinging in the air on a chair lift because it was too windy for the chairs to me moving. Swinging in the air about 20 feet above ice is not my idea of fun but it was an unexpected opportunity to try and get over my dumb fear of heights (sorry Tim!).

On the way back we stopped for some pictures with the surrounding scenery:

Tim and Lizzy have also moved house which has enabled Tim to expand his gardening skills (sorry to hear about the tomato plants Tim).

Snow Holiday

2008-09-21T16:00:00.010+12:00

Well, I'm back from holiday and had an amazing time! The place we stayed was amazing, the weather was fantastic (best three days of the snow season so far allegedly), and snowboarding was so much fun!

As you can kind of see from the photos I've at least managed to snowboard down the slope without falling over. I've even learned to make turns down the slope without falling over! I'd love to go again some time soon and see how much I've really learned. I do have to admit that I was more than a little sore after the three days; I've discovered new muscles (because the hurt), my ankles, knees and tail are bruised from falling over and I burnt the tip of my nose and a stripe on my forehead (between my hat and my goggles). All part of the fun!

The views from the mountain were stunning and I had planned to take the lift up higher on the last day. But seeing as by that point I could barely move I decided I'd do that another time. But I did get to go for a walk on some of the trails up the mountain which were beautiful (if slightly disorientating at times).

All in all it was a great holiday; a chance to relax, have some fun and recharge a little. My thanks to James, Viv (and congratulations to J & V), and Matt for a great time away.

Changing Seasons

2008-09-10T12:42:00.010+12:00

So it is finally getting towards being spring! I can tell by the fact that it is getting lighter later into the evening and that walking past some gardens makes me sneeze (hay fever)!

Last weekend was unusual in that there was snow on the hills surrounding Wellington. It was a gloriously sunny day (unlike the rain of the previous 6 weeks!) but yet there was snow (which I am also pleased about as I am heading off snowboarding next week!) which was more than a little confusing.

It is also one of the more confusing times of the year (for me) generally. The UK weather starts getting worse (although from what I've heard it's been rubbish anyway) and the weather here starts to improve. My nephews and nieces have just started a new school year but lectures at Victoria university finish in four and a half weeks before heading into final exams. It is a time when the Northern and Southern hemispheres feel at their most distant.

This morning I went to the airport to say goodbye to two very good friends, Matt and Liz, who are heading overseas as missionaries. I am very grateful to them both, it was Liz who set me up with the flat that I lived in last year (owned by her in-laws) and I got to the know the wider family through living nearby. They welcomed me in so warmly across the year and had me over for Christmas. They have played a big part in my ongoing adjustment to life in NZ.

I am very sad to see Matt and Liz go but am very excited for them and humbled by their obedience to God's call on their lives.

One thing that completely caught me off guard this morning was the rush of memory and emotion watching Liz and Matt say farewell to friends and family at the airport. It reminded me so clearly of when I moved here back in 2006. I have been here for nearly three years now and this is the amount of time I originally committed to joining TSCF for. So being at the point of renewing my contract it has set me exploring options for the future. But more on that in another post...

Homesick

2008-08-02T16:22:00.003+12:00

It is a good but difficult truth that even after two and half years of being away I still get home sick. Several members of my family are on holiday together at the moment and I would really quite like to be with them. But I am looking forward to the fact that thanks to the help of some generou supporters I will be home for Christmas this year and I am glad that they are having a good time.

The rest of the month that was

2008-08-02T13:48:00.019+12:00

So what else has happened? Well some of you will be aware that it saw TSCF’s mid year conference up in Auckland. It was a very positive week and has resulted in much good in the Wellington groups from a men’s accountability group to increased support for a bunch of evangelistic dialogue dinners that have/are being held. There is much more to that can be said and to be given thanks for but there are others who have said well already (here, here and here) so please do go read more.

Somewhat embarrassingly I crashed my car three weeks ago :( Driving round a corner on the way to church I got blinded by the sun shining and reflecting off the wet road (despite wearing sun glasses and having my sun visor down) and clipped a parked car. My car came out far worse from the collision (bumper smashed and hanging off, light completely smashed and wing staved in) than the parked car (scratched, dented, and break light glass broken). No one was hurt and it was my fault but it has been an adjustment being without a car for three weeks (so far). But it has been good for me to get into walking again, if the weather permits I may walk to work two days a week even when I get the car back.

I also completed my assignments from my recent study trip to Vancouver. I really enjoyed it all (apart from the frantic getting all finished and written part at the end) from the set reading, to the thinking, to the writing. It is quite an adjustment writing a theological essay coming from a computer science background. In the final few hours there were a few times that I wished that it was as straight forward as the reports I had to write back in the day. All that was really required was to explain how, what and why I wrote some code. Simple really. But it does make sense that writing assignments for Theological study would be more complex because Theology seeks to engage holistically with God, humanity and redemption (and that’s just for these two papers, theology is obviously a great deal more than just these three things). Writing code is mostly about making computers do something… well I want to say useful but much software has been written that is confusing rather than useful so I’ll settle for moderately helpful. Anyway, I look forward (with a little trepidation if I am honest) to my results and getting some feedback that should restart the cycle of reading and thinking.

Oh and I got a new computer for work, it’s a macbook.

Back and forth

2008-08-02T13:48:00.018+12:00

Ben Carswell very kindly invited me on a tour of the North Island with him and his sister Emma's family. It was particularly nice to be able to tag along because I used to work with Emma back at UCCF a few years back so it was great to be able to catch up with her. So on the Monday we drove up via New Plymouth on the West coast because the desert road through the centre of the North Island was closed due to bad weather. My first time on the West Coast and it was really beautiful.

We stayed overnight with the Shudalls in Auckland before driving on down to lake Taupo (NZ's biggest lake, said to be larger than the landmass of Singapore) via Rotorua. We stopped off in Rotorua, one of the most geothermically active regions in NZ, where we savoured the sulphury scented air (it's not that bad at all really) and walked around for a bit.

The following day we drove across to the Hawkes bay on the North Island's East coast where we visited some very nice vineyards (including one where Rod Stewart played a huge open air concert a few years back) before heading back to the bach we had rented in Taupo. The following day we drove down from Taupo to Wellington. We stopped at some famous and well worth a visit tourist spots, the Huka falls (water so wild it is illegal to kayake on) and the craters of the moon. The craters of the moon are bizarre. They are not particularly moon like in my opinion but it amazing to see the ground bubbling, steaming and smoking due to the geothermal activity so close the surface. We also drove through the always entertaining town of Bulls. All credit to them for not taking themselves at all seriously. I was particularly drawn to a sign outside of one of the churches (see above).

We were blessed with good weather and were able to see the mountains spectacularly clearly (I am looking forward to going back to ski there later this month). It was great seeing cars pulled over on the side of the road, not due to accidents, but because people had pulled over to have snow ball fights and to make snowmen! We got back into Wellington that night haven driven 1900kms in four days. I had an amazing time so thanks heaps Ben, Emma and Ollie, and little Seth!

On turning 30

2008-08-02T13:46:00.001+12:00

So on the 4th of July I celebrated my thirtieth birthday! Contrary to what I thought may happen, not all of the muscles in my body failed and I didn’t instantly start saying “it wasn’t like that in my day”. Mostly because that started happening a while ago.

But anyway, turning 30 provided a brilliant excuse to gather friends together and enjoy each other’s company. Someone very kindly made a cake chocolate cake covered with my favourite sour lollies (that means sweets if you are in the UK). It was odd not being able to celebrate this landmark-ish birthday with my UK family, I missed you all that day, but it was great to be able to celebrate it with my extended kiwi family.

So my thanks to all who were there; I had a really nice evening and thanks for being my friends. You are marvellous! Thanks too to those who phoned, texted, emailed, facebooked me and dispatched gifts from a far, much love to you too.

To those of you who have are turning 30 this year, enjoy it!

Post-Regent post 2

2008-06-22T17:35:00.003+12:00

In our final day of class we talked about how in closed countries we must be sensitive and make the most of opportunities to talk about Jesus with people of other faiths but recognise the danger we put ourselves and them in when we do so. We then went on to talk about being sensitive to those around us in Western countries who get offended when we seek to talk to them about Christianity.

I think that we have been tricked into thinking that as western Christians we live in closed countries when we in fact do not. A class mate shared how his non-Christians friends have said how they 'do not appreciate it' when he talks to them about Jesus. He, myself and others find ourselves at a loss with how to respond to this because we don't want to offend people.

I cannot speak for anyone else but there have been times when I have attempted to theologically justify not talking about my faith by saying that I do not want my persistence to create a barrier to that person exploring Christianity when 'they are ready'. Other times we act as though if we talked about Jesus the authorities would descend and bad things would happen. We retreat into the hope that if we do enough good things as Christians we will somehow earn the right to be heard (see previous post on pluralism) about Jesus.

I, and I suspect many others, have allowed myself to be tricked by the idea that we should not talk about Jesus unless invited to. As if we were living in a closed country.

But the simple truth is that we do not live in closed countries where it is illegal to talk about Jesus (that time may come but it has not come yet). The honest reason is it suits me to hide behind the fact that I should only talk about Jesus when invited to because I fear that if I instigate the conversation and maybe persevere over a number of conversations the person I am talking to will no longer be my friend or like me. Or 'worse' they may publicly reject me and turn others against me too. Or to put it another way, on some horrible level inside it is more important to me that people like me than that it is that I talk to them honestly about my faith.

Another part of the reason is that I have been tricked into believing the lie that it is intolerant and thereby impolite/socially unacceptable to say that Christianity is right and that other religions are wrong and if I do say either of these things then people will see me as a arrogant.

So much of this is flawed in obvious and less-obvious ways.

To start at the beginning: if it is okay for someone to say to me that they "do not appreciate me" talking about Jesus then it is okay for me to say in return that I do not appreciate them putting a huge area of my life in a category that is out of bounds (but I admit that this would only be fair response if I am regularly talking about how my faith relates to my life and the world in general. It would not be fair if I am only ever talking about the other persons 'need' of Jesus). To be honest, are our non-Christian friends really friends if the center of our existence is not allowed to be talked about?

Secondly, how on earth am I going to know when a person is 'ready' to explore Christianity?!? I completely accept that the Holy Spirit giving us nudges towards certain people but we have got to be more proactive than that. The book of Acts (13:42, 44, 45, 48; 14:1; 17:17) and the history of Christianity is full of people taking the initiative and persevering and people responding in a number of different ways. Sure, we need to be wise and know when to let it go but I know that if I am honest I generally back down because I am ready to end the conversation and have the person still like me rather than because it is time for the conversation to end (and maybe picked up again in the future).

Thirdly, we do need to accept that people are going to reject us for being Christians (John 15:18, 19). I want to be liked and the idea of being rejected is something I fear. I do not know why this causes me (and maybe you) so much trouble, but I suspect it is because I revere what others think of me more than I revere God. The example of the apostles in Acts 5 humbles me greatly. Sure, we need to be sure that it is Jesus that is the offense and not us but these days we are so caught up in being good (and as I have said in previous posts, we should be known as good people) that I don't think we need to worry too much about that just yet. We should worry more about whether we have even mentioned Jesus at all!

Fourthly, we need to correctly understand what tolerance means. I did a quick check on definitions (1, 2, 3) and they all talk about the acceptance or recognizing and respecting of differing views, not accepting that all views are equally right. We can respect differing views without agreeing with them. It is not arrogant or intolerant for me to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that I disagree with atheists, Muslims, Hindus Buddhists etc. over who Jesus is. We do not all believe the same things about him so therefore we cannot all be right. People who accuse us of being intolerant are the ones who are actually being intolerant! They are pretty much saying that you can hold any view providing you agree that everyone else could also be right. That is not tolerance it is confusion.

I must end on a personally frustrating, but honest, note. I was thinking of all the above as I flew home and got chatting with the person on the plane next to me and she asked me about what I had been studying about world religions whilst at Regent college. I am ashamed to admit that I realised after the conversation that what was foremost in my mind was how to answer her question in a way that would leave her thinking good of me. I was with a colleague at a public meeting a couple of months back and she was asked the question "you don't actually try and convert students do you?" to which she replied "yes". We chatted afterwards as to how awkward we feel saying that (in retrospect I think some of the awkwardness comes from some of the negative connotations that come with the word convert but that would take more words I have gone on long enough already). I long to be able to give an honest, gracious answer without being swayed by fear. What I am writing here is far from what I practise but it is something that with God's grace I want to strive to towards beginning to practise.

Post-Regent Post 1

2008-06-21T10:33:00.003+12:00

Here are some of my musings regarding Christian missionaries and cultural imperialism. I recognise that some of what I say is overly simplistic and generalistic but this is a blog post and not an essay so please be generous as your read this if your understanding of Christian history is broader than mine.

While I was in Canada there was a formal apology from the leading political parties regarding the residential schools that were started by churches and funded by the government. Children from the age of six to sixteen were taken from their native Indian homes and placed into one of the boarding schools. They were beaten if they used their native language, and many children were both physically and sexually abused. Many of the children never saw their families again. The schools operated for some 80 years with the express intention of to "kill the Indian in the child".

I am not quite sure why but being in Canada I felt a need to apologise too. I have previously resisted being held accountable for the actions of previous generations, after all they were nothing to with me, I wasn't even born! But this time I came to realise that I need to recognise and where appropriate apologise for actions committed by my people. Not that I am in any way personally responsible for what happened, but as the representatives of those who have gone before we need to recognise the damage that our ancestors inflicted and respond appropriately. My changed reaction also highlighted to me how I identify myself: I am firstly a Christian and secondly English. The fact that it was primarily English settlers that started the schools did not grieve me as much as the fact that is was Christians who started these schools. It was primarily as a Christian that I am sorry for what happened. It was at least mildly encouraging that the churches in Canada had formally apologised some ten years previously.

The same day the apology was issued we reached chapter 15 in the book of Acts which is the council of Jerusalem where the early church leaders met to discuss whether the Gentile believers should be required to be circumcised. The council agreed that it would be wrong to require the Gentiles to continue a practise that was primarily Jewish and had no value regarding salvation. My mind immediately skipped forward nearly two thousand years to the early Christian settlers in Canada (and New Zealand and Australia for that matter) who arrived with the view that in order to be a Christian you had to basically abandon all indigenous cultural practises and practise Christianity as the settlers did. Now this is not to say that all Christian missionaries held this view, and I recognise that the missionaries did much to help the Aborigines that they encountered, and I recognise that there are various practises that the indigenous peoples who became Christians would have to break from (same as when the council of Jerusalem reminded the Gentiles to abstain from the sexual immorality that was common place at that time). But the language of "kill the Indian" shows that then as now Christians still wrestle with a number of issues as to what Christianity should look like in different cultural contexts. Makes me wonder how much of what I see as Christian practise is cultural and how much of it is biblical. Bearing in mind the Jerusalem council and that Christians have struggled with this in the last one hundred years we would be foolish to think that any of us are beyond making similar mistakes.

An editorial in a Canadian newspaper the following day was very striking. The title was "Apology meaningless without atonement". The understanding of Christ atonement on the cross has come increasingly under attack (I suppose it always has been in some way or another but I am particularly aware of it at present) from various Christian leaders and academics. The view that Jesus took the punishment for the sins of those who put their faith in Him seems objectionable to some. I find it interesting that inbuilt into the way the world thinks is that where someone is wronged there is a price to be paid. The editorial in the newspaper recognised that it was not enough for the government to apologise, there was a price to be paid in order to make things right with the Indian peoples but that it still would not undo what had been done. In the same way there is a price to be paid in order for sin to be dealt with. It is not enough to only apologise to God. Jesus death on the cross pays that price. Because the one who committed no sin died in our place, God no longer sees what we have done as what we have done. He sees us as being right with Him.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:11 - 21

Thinking about how I cannot atone for what was done in the name of Christianity has made me realise in a new way again how amazing it is that Jesus death on the cross atones for all of my sin.

Sydney

2008-06-18T22:27:00.016+12:00

So having 10 or so hours in Sydney on the way back to New Zealand I thought I'd go for a bit of an explore.

I paid about $10 and climbed some 200 steps to a look out point on from the Sydney Harbour bridge. The bridge is quite a site to behold, having been built some 70 years ago, and the view over the city from the top was breath taking.

I guess the other obvious land mark is the Sydney Opera house. It really is an interesting shape and I had not realised before how if you put the shapes of the building together it makes a sort of oval.

I also had time to explore some of the gardens where I was surprised by the number of flying foxes (the bat-like creature above) there were sleeping in the trees (literally hundreds!) as well as some of the more colouful wildlife that was still around.

After that is was time to head back to Windy Wellington. However this time rather than being windy it was foggy. At close to midnight we got diverted to Auckland because it was too foggy to land in Wellington. So at about 1am I joined a queue of 7 other planes full of people who found themselves in Auckland unexpectedly. Air New Zealand did a great job finding hotels for us all to stay in. So after 5 hours sleep in Auckland I then headed back to the airport and flew on to Wellington. It's good to be back.

An end has a start

2008-06-15T17:39:00.011+12:00

The title of this post is taken from an album by the Editors which I am enjoying, but today also marks the end of my trip to Regent. I have had an encouraging, humbling, strengthening, tiring, rejuvenating and envisioning time. I have some musings in my head that I am hoping will come together more in my head on the flight home. But I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to the Reese-Thomas family for being such amazing hosts, they have just been brilliant to live with. I am also thankful to the my class mates, students and staff at Regent who have obviously been vital to my experience at Regent.

On the last but one day of the spring school a couple from globalization class very kindly took the class teacher and I out sailing into the harbour. We had an amazing time and I am very thankful! My first trip out on sail boat too! Above is a picture taken from the boat of Vancouver city.

It's Saturday night here and I'm about to board my flight to Sydney and I've managed to sort an electronic visa to go out an explore Sydney (seeing as I have about 10 hours there!) so will go out to explore for a bit and hopefully take some more pictures.

Regent Post 3: Pluralism Ah-ha

2008-06-10T16:12:00.004+12:00

Today saw a very early start for me: I was out of the house by 6:30am in order to be on campus for 8am! Feel okay so far by the end of the week I think I'm going to be exhausted. I don't really do mornings!

So today we spent some time thinking about pluralism and it has helped me begin to get my head around some issues.

Pluralism used to pretty much mean "all religions lead to the same God in the end", the different religions are "different approaches up the same mountain". But that definition has had to be changed because not all religions even have a God. All religions lead to God is too theistic so it has now become: "different religions are how we approach the real". The 'real' becomes a blanket term for God, nirvana or enlightenment (depending upon which religion you follow).

This in and of itself is a tremendously arrogant statement because it redefines what different religions believe in a way that followers of each religion would not agree with. The pluralists are still looking in from the outside saying "we know best", they are just doing it to more religions.

The appeal of pluralism is obvious on some levels (it allows for all religions to more or less be dismissed and elevates each individual to supremacy as they are free to chose for themselves what it right/real) and not so obvious on others (any exclusive truth claim might result in another religious group responding in violence. If we can agree that all religions are basically the same then religiously motivated violence might be avoided).

But what was a key understanding for me was realising how pluralists compare the different religions. Their primary criteria is practical: how good the followers of each particular religion are. Doctrine/belief is a lesser criteria.

If the primary criteria is how morally good we are then on some levels you can see why some pluralists reach the conclusions that they do. Each religion has followers who have had tremendous effect for good as well as for bad. Much as it may grieve us to admit it this is true of Christianity.

But as a result of this I think some Christians have been tricked into fighting on the pluralists ground. We try and prove how good we are (be it campaigning for social justice through to acts of service in our community) in order to appeal to people to consider Christianity. Now at this point don't miss-hear me, I am convinced that as Christians we should be involved in these things, it is clear outworking of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. But it is not the grounds that we should use calling others to follow Christ or to prove Christianity. When we do that we are playing the pluralists at their game and we will lose because they will still say that there is no significant difference between our good deeds and the good deeds of those who aren't Christian.

So what is a way forward? We ran out of time to discuss that in class but here are some of my reflections so far:

Fight on the real battle field. The real criteria is not how good people are, but how the things that we have done wrong are dealt with. When people try to argue that Christians are no different, we shouldn't get sucked into comparisons over how good Christians have or haven't been (now or in the past). Point them to the certainty that only the gospel of Jesus Christ gives for forgiveness of sins. People are repelled by this and always have been but that is not an excuse to point them to things they may find less objectionable.
If people are looking for an example of what it means to be 'good' point them to the best example: Jesus.
Recognise that we are called to be different and in God's grace and with His help, live differently, and be willing to admit our mistakes.

The weekend

2008-06-08T15:13:00.023+12:00

So today (Saturday) Nancy and Alastair took me on a sight seeing tour of Vancouver. We went up Cyprus mountain which has an stunning view over Vancouver. In the winter you can actually ski/snowboard down Cyprus and it will be one of the venues for the 2010 Olympics. We also went through Stanley park which is a huge reserve pretty much right on the edge of the central district. In many ways Vancouver reminds me of Auckland (but with way better surroundings). It has a central city with lots of residential areas sprawling out around it.

We also went to the Space center where there is a huge sculpture of a metal crab outside and I got to take another shot of a eagle (much clearer this time) in a nearby tree.

We also drove by a river side to visit Alastair and Nancy's niece's birthday party. Everyone got a bit of a surprise when a naked bicycle (as in people riding bicycles without clothes) tour group turned up! Very interesting cultural experience!

In the evening I went to visit the local Intervarsity (equivalent of TSCF/UCCF) group summer bible study meeting. Was nice to be able to visit another IFES group and get a glimpse of how they operate.

Regent post 2

2008-06-06T19:43:00.006+12:00

So today I narrowly avoided a near death experience by looking the wrong way when crossing the road and walking in front of a car. I realised in time so no harm done!

I am loving the fellowship and teaching at Regent! Today I had lunch with some of this years new students (A swede, a Canadian and an Australian) and heard their reflections on life at Regent and how they've found studying. Everyone is so friendly, it's great!

Today's class provided more food for thought:

We reflected on the experience off some of the 19th century missionaries to India and how what they thought were Theological statements (e.g. "Your sacred texts are not divine in origin") were heard as insults (e.g. "you are abusing our religion"). I had been taught similar things in Thailand, what Buddhists think we mean when we use the phrase "born again" (i.e. reincarnation) is very different from what Christians mean by it. It is stating the obvious to a degree but thought we may speak the same language as other people, we cannot assume the words we use carry the meaning we intend to all those who are listening - especially when working cross-culturally.

The other interesting reflection of the day was on how the word "religion" has pretty much become a dirty word associated with oppression, lack of openness, boring institutions and ritualism. The word "spiritual" on the other hand has become far more popular and associated with freedom, flexibility, openness, and personal experience. Which leaves me with question of should I describe myself as a spiritual persons? Using the term "religion" when talking about Christianity has carried negative connotations for a while so has stopped being used by many and I can understand why. But I am not comfortable with what it means to be "spiritual" either. I recognise that there is definitely a place for creativity and that we will spend the rest of our lives exploring what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. But there are boundaries between being a "spiritual person" as the rest of the world seems to define it and being a Christian. But I suspect there is much discussion to be had as to where those boundaries lie. Praise God that He didn't leave us in the dark but gave us the bible, His Spirit, and each other as we explore these kinds of issues.

Regent post 1

2008-06-05T15:35:00.006+12:00

So I am now 3 days into my studies at Regent and I'm having a great time! The book store has a wonderful collection of books and is having a sale. The students studying the same course as me have been really friendly as have the students who are here longer term. It has been great chatting over coffee and lunch and hearing other peoples experiences of Christian work and study at Regent. I have also been encouraged by the warmth and enthusiasm that there is from both staff and students (several of whom have worked with IFES in various countries around the world)towards IFES and the pivotal role it has played in the discipleship of so many. It has reminded me again of the privilege it is to be involved in student ministry and how God has and continues to use the work of IFES.

The classes have been very stimulating. It has been really interesting and helpful hearing reflections and thoughts from people in the class as we come from varied backgrounds and perspectives. A couple of particular interesting points in our studies so far have been:

Exploring the run up to the Great Commission in the Gospel of Matthew with particular reference to Matthew 5 as an explanation of what it means to be a disciple and how that might be worked out in our making disciples
Looking at definitions of the words 'culture', 'worldview' and 'religion' and how we sometimes interchange the words culture and worldview when they mean different things, and how all three terms mean distinct things but in practise are closely related and how what they relate to overlaps

Day 4

2008-06-02T14:33:00.006+12:00

Got a surprise this morning in that I looked in the mirror to find I have got a sunburned head! Not as bad as times I have burnt it in NZ but it is a little sore none the less. Does still seem a little bizarre that I could get sun burn on a mountain where there are people skiing but hey. Having confessed that I had done some singing in my dim and distant past I got asked if I would be up for singing in the music group at the church that Alastair and Nancy were visiting today. I really enjoyed it. Not last because the group were a joy to be a part of but also because of the songs we got to sing including some great hymns that I have not sung in a long while. We also sung the hymn "Come, Thou fount of every blessing" which I have not sung before but found the words helpful and the tune very memorable. The church was really welcoming and overall an encouraging time.

In the afternoon Alastair took me out into the river on their boat which was heaps of fun! I nearly fell in the river but it was only nearly. I have come to realise that I do like going fast. Yesterday it was the ATV today it was a boat! I am having a great time!

Tomorrow is the start of classes at Regent and I am looking forward to getting into it. May not blog again for a couple of days but we'll see how things go.

Day 3

2008-06-01T17:27:00.012+12:00

So today I got to go on the All Terrain Vehicle tour! It was amazing! After a quick (and mildly terrifying: "If you feel your vehicle overturning don't put your foot down or the vehicle will land on you and break your leg") we got going. We drove through mud pits, round mountain tracks, fast and slow. Personally I'd have loved to go faster but that probably would have ended up with me hurting myself and or others. All in all the five of us on the tour had a great time. After that tour the five of us went for lunch together and chatted about where we were from (Canada, New Zealand/UK and Jamaica). Which is a great example of how friendly Canadians are. There are not many places I can think of where four complete strangers would suggest that we have lunch together. It was really nice.

From there I caught the train back to Vancouver where I was picked up by my very kind hosts. Below is a picture of the train and some of the beautiful scenery that there is around Vancouver.

Day 2

2008-05-31T15:28:00.011+12:00

So today I caught the train up to Whistler. It's basically a whole town built around a ski field. I got up at 6:30am and my host family very kindly gave me a lift to the train station in order to catch the train up to Whistler mountain. The train journey took roughly three and half hours through beautiful mountains, lakes and waterfalls. There was an open carriage where you could get cold and take pictures without glass which was great. However I seemed to react badly to some pollen in the air and before long my eyes went very red and I looked slightly possessed. Took an anti-histamine later which sorted that out. I am not sure what the folk on the train made of me when my eyes were at their worst!

Once I got to the Whistler resort the hotel I am staying in let me check in early which was great! But I then found out that my all terrain vehicle tour had been cancelled due to lack of interest! Thankfully they let me re-book for the following morning so I can still go. So in the afternoon I took the gondola up mount Blackcomb (mount Whistler was closed due to building work installing a new gondola from Whistler to Blackcomb). It was brilliant to be able to wander around a bit of the mountain in the snow and take a few pictures. I was quite surprised to find that people could still use the slopes but as you can see from the picture there is still quite a lot of snow around!

On the gondola back down I was surprised to see what looked like a dog wandering around the lower (now melted) ski slope. To my excitement it turned out to be a bear! It was some distance away but already (on day two no less!) I have seen a wild black bear! It did result in a slightly bizarre language moment with the guy running the gondola. When I got backed down he asked how I'd gotten on and I replied very excitedly that I'd a had a great time and even seen a bear. He grinned at my widely and said that I probably shouldn't say that so loudly and then asked if he could have some. He thought I had said I'd had a beer. I should have just said "no, I meant a BEAR", or just nodded and moved on, but for some reason that I still quite don't understand I said "no, a bear", growled and acted as if I had claws. The guy said he understood what I meant and that there were a few of them around. He then shook me hand which either meant that he was trying to show that he didn't think I was too strange or that I can do a particularly good impression of a black bear. I'm not sure which.

Groundhog Day

2008-05-29T17:21:00.001+12:00

One other thing I forgot to say is that I enjoyed being able to imitate the movie Groundhog day. When I got into the airport I was able to say (in my head anyway) "It's 7:30am Thursday 29th May 2008... again!". Bill Murray says something similar in the film Groundhog day which is a movie that still makes me laugh after having seen it a few times.

Seeing as how Canada is some 17 hours behind New Zealand I got to experience pretty much all of Thursday 29th May 2008 twice!

Arriving in Canada

2008-05-29T16:26:00.001+12:00

I have safely arrived in Canada! A high point (so to speak) of the flight was getting a text in Sydney airport from a supporter in New Zealand pledging a very generous gift towards my personal report support. The long flight from Sydney to Vancouver was long, but I got the chance to enjoy a few movies. Didn't sleep so well on the plane so was very relieved to finally arrive.

Immigration was interesting. They seemed to question whether I really was coming to Canada to study! They asked why I hadn't paid all my study fees upfront, wanted details of where I was staying, and asked me exactly papers I was studying whilst comparing what I said with the invoice in front of her said. I am slightly offended to think that they thought I looked like someone who may try and stay illegally!

Had a great day exploring Vancouver but am feeling pretty tired now. Below are some pictures that I took today. The carvings done we saw today look similar to some of the carvings I have seen by the Maori in New Zealand. A particular highlight was being taken by my amazing hosts to see a bald eagle nest. I guess I identify with the eagle in it's baldness (although it doesn't look that bald)! It is great to see one of the things that I really wanted to see on my first day!

Off

2008-05-28T21:46:00.003+12:00

So tomorrow morning I am heading off on a study break! This July see's me completing six years in IFES students ministry. As a result I have applied for and been awarded (if that's the right phrase) a sabbatical (more on futher plans for my sabbatical at a later date). The first part of which I am taking as a study break at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. A significant gift from one supporter has pretty much covered the costs. I received an email informing of the gift literally within days of discussing what I might do on a sabbatical. It was a huge encouragement! God is so gracious!

So I'll be in Vancouver from the 29th May and get back into Wellington on the 16th June. The trip will include studying two papers (Paper 1 is Globalization, World Religions and Christian Mission, paper 2 is Acts of the Apostles) at Regent college and some holiday exploring Vancouver.

It's been a busy few months at TSCF what with my first time preparing for the annual audit of TSCF's accounts. I am more than ready for a break and a change of pace. I'll be updating my blog as every couple of days or so, so keep an eye on here. I'd also value your prayers that the time away would recharge my batteries and that I would have listening heart and mind as I study. Thanks!

New Perspective on the English

2008-05-10T12:28:00.003+12:00

I was doing some catching up on blogs and whilst looking at Paul Windsor's I thought I'd follow his suggestion of keeping an eye on the top ten most viewed articles on stuff.co.nz as these sorts of lists provide "a windows into a nations soul".

To my surprise coming in at number ten (beneath "Meet Playboy's Playmate of the year", "Chef Ramsey wants out-of-season veg outlawed", and "Kangaroos trample Kiwis") on the list today was this article about the English being described as "self-important and irritating" in the new rough guide to England. I am not sure if this bothers me because it rouses some of my long dormant national pride at English being thought of in this way or because, to some degree at any rate, some of the criticisms are fair.

I realised a while ago that many Kiwi's have a sort of love/hate relationship with England. On the one hand they'd really like to visit and form some sort of connection with what some affectionately call "the motherland". But on the other hand they are gleeful when England loses at sport or somebody English does something embarassing or stupid. So on that basis it shouldn't really suprise me that an article that puts down the English is one of today's most viewed.

But it also probably says something about me and how the English people feel towards people of other countries that one of my first responses was "surely the Americans are worse?".

Tomorrow is Mother's day here is NZ. A colleague at work showed me this video yesterday (and the words certianly remind me of things that my mother has said to me in the past). It is an hilarious but accurate description of a day in the life of a mum. You can read the lyrics here. Happy NZ Mother's day mum!

A new chapter

2008-05-02T17:02:00.009+12:00

Having blogged about leaving my old home, meet my new flat mates Mark and Loren, and enjoy the view from the balcony of our flat! Mark and Loren are marvellous and I look forward to getting to know them better. I have already much enjoyed their cooking, tastes in music and generally living with them.

It has been a complex few months for me for a number of reasons. This new home is a good thing and comes at the right time.

End of an era

2008-04-30T22:12:00.002+12:00

Today saw the end of an era for me. I have moved out of my flat in Island Bay and into a new flat in Kelburn (more on that in another post). I have to admit that I started moving nearly two weeks ago but today I collected the last of my stuff and cleaned the Island bay flat ready for the new tenants. I am sad to leave but it is the right time to move on.

I am hugely thankful to John and Linda and their whānau (maori word for family) for all the hospitality and friendship they have shown me over the past year. I have enjoyed many meals, conversations, good times and their general care. I am very thankful to God for them all.

Humbling Witness

2008-04-22T09:44:00.004+12:00

You may have heard on the news or from Andy and Nigel's blogs about the Mangatepopo river tragedy last week. I can only began to imagine what it must be like for the family, friends of those who died.

But the way that they have responded has had a deep affect on the media and on New Zealand in general. To quote one journalist:

Perhaps it was faith that enabled them to mourn their losses without rage or bitterness; without looking for someone to blame. Whatever the reason, I have never seen any group of bereaved people behave with such generosity of spirit.

As has been said by many, our prayers are with those who are mourning. But so too should be our thanks, both to them and to God, for the way that He has and is enabling them to be such a great witness in the face of such deep sadness.

The Annual Camps

2008-04-21T16:55:00.013+12:00

The weekend of the 12th April saw both of the Victoria University groups go away on their annual camps. I spent Friday to Sunday with the Christian Union at Forest Lakes camp site. We spent the weekend looking at what is the gospel, how it applies to our lives and how to make use of opportunities that we have to talk to our fiends about Jesus.

It was both really encouraging and a real privilege to talk and pray with students as they wrestled with the issues. One particular highlight was a session on the Sunday where we all got into small groups and discussed ideas for reaching out with the gospel on campus for the year ahead. It was great to hear them learning from their experiences over the last year, and applying what they had learnt over the weekend.

On the Sunday afternoon we headed off to Te Poupatate Marae in Fielding to join with the International Christian Fellowship on their Marae camp. The camp provides an opportunity for International students to meet a whole new bunch of people, experience Maori culture, but most importantly an opportunity to learn a little more about Christianity. This was the first time that two groups have been able to combine for their camps and it was great to be able to have fellowship together and build relationships. The evening ended with a hangi (one of my favourite meals ever!) after which the CUers headed back to Wellington but I stayed on for the night with ICFers on the Marae til Monday.

I have to admit that with the passing of years I find the camps increasingly tiring. But they are hugely significant for the groups both in terms of teaching/training and building relationships. I came away from the long weekend really encouraged, thankful to God that I am able to partner with Him and the students as we seek to reach other students for Christ, excited for the year ahead and looking forward to sleeping in on Tuesday morning.

It all adds up

2008-04-11T13:18:00.003+12:00

You never quite know what you might find yourself doing as part of your job. As a I blogged a while back my new job title is Systems Manager and Wellington Staff Worker. As part of the change I have just completed a course run by a local accountancy firm entitled Accounting Made Easy.

The course was very helpful and I have learnt a number of new things that have helped me get my head round TSCF's accounts and handle some aspects a little better. But I have come to realise that accountancy is far from easy and not always that interesting. But this is what God has led me to for the time being.

Over the next few weeks and I have to prepare TSCF's 2007 accounts for auditing whilst getting my head round the changes that have come in this month with the government pension scheme KiwiSaver. As a result I am taking a few weeks of campus because there is simply too much to do here in the office.

It is not too bad a time to be of campus as the next two weeks are the mid semester break. Over the weekend I am off to the Christian Union camp (where I am doing a session on using media and contemporary issues to talk about Jesus) and then to the International Christian Fellowship Marae camp. I'll blog about both of the camps next week, but the camps will be the end of my campus involvement for the next 4 weeks and the beginning of 4 weeks with my computer.

My Bacteria and me

2008-03-31T19:13:00.002+13:00

So somehow I managed to get food poisoning. Apparently the form that I caught comes from chicken but I hadn't eaten any chicken or egg as far as I remember!

This is a picture of the bacteria, campylobacter, that took up residence in my gut. They look quite interesting but caused me a great deal of pain!

The centre for disease control describes what it can do here. It seems I had a fairly normal case as it laid me out for a week!

Folicaly Challenged

2008-03-27T23:50:00.004+13:00

So after searching, well actually after no searching at all but by accident actually, I found a verse in the bible that is positive about bald people!

"A man who has lost his hair and is bald is clean." Leviticus 13:40

In your face Proverbs 16:31! So there you go. I am at home sick, and am bored.

Cricket

2008-03-21T15:56:00.009+13:00

So last weekend along with some friends I got to go and see the England Vs Black Caps test at the basin reserve in Wellington. For those of you back in England please don't be annoyed but it cost around twenty five pounds for a five day (admittedly the fifth day was pretty short) pass for the test!

The TSCF office is a couple of hundred minutes from the office so I got to nip down during the Thursday and Friday parts of the game (sometimes there are benefits to working evenings!). One particular highlight was being there for Tim Ambrose hundred, Collingwood's fifty and to see England's score reach three hundred.

The balmy army were a sight to behold and behear (is that a word?). Their chanting was brilliant. One of my favourites was the one about Tim Ambrose to the tune of "you are my sunshine":

We've got Tim Ambrose, just like Ambrosia. They make good custard, comes in a tin. They make good rice too, that's not important. What's important's England win.

More about custard than cricket but very funny anyway.

Kiwi's are a lot more relaxed about sport than Brits are. During lunch anyone was allowed on the pitch to play. It was great to be able to walk on the ground (you could even talk to the grounds men about care of the pitch if you were so inclined, which I wasn't). I can't see that being allowed at Lord's somehow.

If live sport had been as accessible in the UK as it is here I think I would have gotten a lot more into it (and I am getting more into it). Being at the test the atmosphere is just amazing. I have seen two international rugby games live and two international cricket tests live. Which is four more games than I ever saw live in England but at the same time I paid less than half of what I would have had to pay to see similar games back in England.

Don't believe the truth

2008-03-21T15:38:00.000+13:00

I just found this picture that I took a few weeks ago during orientation week at Victoria university. I found it very interesting as a comment on how some people think. Whilst I was taking the picture the owner of the car came running up and apologised and said he was about to move his car and asked me not to give him a parking ticket. I was slightly caught of guard by his thinking that I was a parking attendant but that's not important. I was surprised that the owner of the car was an American guy in his forties who was a tutor at the university. I was expecting a Kiwi geography student! I explained how I wasn't a parking attendant and how I was interested in the sticker on his rear windscreen, and apologised for taking a picture of his car without his permission. He was surprised that I was interested in the sticker and explained that he'd got it because he was concerned with how people got hung up on how they must believe what they think and how from his perspective that wasn't necessary at all. A bit worrying really.

Banana in a nutshell

2008-02-16T19:10:00.003+13:00

Watched a film today called "Banana in a nutshell". It's a documentary written around the experiences of Chinese girl called Roseanna and her struggles with being of one culture (and her parents expectations that come with that) but having grown up in New Zealand. It is a very watchable and honest film. It gives a window into the tensions of multiculturalism for Chinese families.

One of the comments that really stuck with me was when the sister of Roseanne talked about her parents cultural background. She talks about how her parents grow up in China in the 70s and 80s but then moved to New Zealand. Their view of Chinese culture is based upon China in the 70s and 80s and they are trying to raise their children according to that worldview. But because they have lived in New Zealand for the last 20 years they are not raising their children in the way that their contemporaries in China are. Because their contemporaries have seen the Chinese culture change across the last 20 years and have changed with it. Roseanne's parents are stuck with a 20 year old version of Chinese culture and have raised their children according to it. What Roseanne’s sister calls a "fossilised version of Chinese culture".

It's made me realise that I will (if I don't already) have a fossilised view of England. I have not lived in England for two years now and may stay here for another three or more. I am sure that England has changed in the last two years, I wonder how much more it will change in another three?

It's helped me understand another aspect of reverse culture shock (culture shock that can occur when people return home from short, medium or long term stays in a different culture/country). I guess talking to people can help give a picture of what England is like, but the reality is that things will have changed. I wonder what the changes are and will be?

Criss Cross cultures

2008-02-08T18:34:00.003+13:00

I had a really strange experience today. Someone asked if it was true that when English people used the term Asian they meant people from India or Pakistan. I was offended and said no! When I use the term Asia I mean people from Asian countries (Thailand, China, Malaysia etc.). But when other Brits were asked they replied that when they used the word Asian they did mean people from India or Pakistan.

It was then suggested that because I have been in New Zealand that maybe that had changed my perspective. That may be true but I suspect it is more to do with the fact that I have taken a few teams to Thailand over the last 5 years and how that has shaped my (still very limited) understanding of Asian cultures.

But it was disorientating to be asked how English people thought about something and to find that I can no longer speak to how English people think. I have been gone for two years now and been living in a different country which has shaped my understanding in various ways so I guess it was inevitable really, but disorientating none the less.

Title change

2008-02-05T19:52:00.002+13:00

We had a meeting today about roles in the office. I now have a new job title! I was Wellington and Web Staffworker. My new job title is Wellington staffworker and Systems Manager!

Not a lot is going to change but for the next 10 months I will not primarily be responsible for the website. That is being developed by a TSCF graduate (to whom I am very grateful!). I will keep doing 3 days a week in campus. I am also keeping responsibility for the finance operations for till at least the end of the year as well as all the other IT type stuff that I was doing before. The combination of finance and IT systems stuff led to the new "systems" part of my job title.

It probably shows part of nature but I enjoy change within work so am quite pleased to keep the finance stuff for a bit longer. It gives me the opportunity (with the help of others who are more administratively gifted than me) to finish revamping the office finance procedures and I really am quite enjoying the finance stuff (how geeky do I sound?). I start a seven week course in accountancy next week which should be helpful if not necessarily always gripping material.

Rugby 7s

2008-02-02T18:53:00.002+13:00

Thanks to a very generous offer from some friends, Anna and I got tickets to the second day of the Rugby Sevens. It was an amazing day! There was a great buzz in the crowd, we got to see some great rugby (England had a shaky start but managed to score a point by winning the bowl) and the All Blacks won the day in the end.

See Anna's blog for some more pictures.

A year

2007-12-31T14:56:00.000+13:00

Well 2007 is nearly over. As I am writing is now new years eve in both the UK and NZ (various other parts of the world will have to wait longer, sorry).

It is a strange thought that in a couple of weeks that I will have been here in NZ for over two years. Much has changed in the last year and there is much to be thankful for: the work on campus has grown, New Zealand feels much more like home, Anna and I became a couple (be it a long distance couple), and I have again gotten to visit family and friends back in the UK. It has not always been straight forward but at the moment nothing negative is coming to mind at the moment. Having read another friends blog I am reminded that an easy life is far from what Christians are guaranteed. All the things that I am grateful for are from His grace and not things that I have earned, and this has served to increase my gratitude to Him.

Another friend had blogged about his favourite books of the year. I have read a few good books (if I was to do eight I have to confess that would probably have to include every book I have read in the last year!) but I decided to blog about something that stuck with me from earlier in the year.

It was part of the preaching course that I studied earlier in the year. An article we read explained how as preachers the temptation can be to preach to the actions/fruits of sin that we see in peoples lives. But if you just cut the fruit off it tends to grow back. What we need to do is preach to the roots that cause the actions/attitudes to grow in peoples lives. This is how the fruit is stopped from regrowing. By stopping things at the root.

An example of this is how as we can say that sex is good but only within marriage because God has said so in the bible. And that is by no means wrong, because that is what the bible says, but it is not a full reason as to why sex is good but only within marriage. When faced by temptation to sexual sin it is not always easy (though it should be) to say "the bible says that I shouldn't do this outside if marriage so I won't". Our hearts have been conditioned by various influences to not trust God. We need to address what is going on in our hearts that is causing us to doubt God.

The other danger of preaching to fruits is that of legalism. "Don't do this because God says you shouldn't" can come across as teaching people to behave in a certain way (and to make it worse people sometimes leave with the impression that this is what makes us acceptable to God). Our intention should be to see lives transformed. I don't know about you but I haven't been able to simply behave myself out of sin as yet.

For me personally it has changed how I engage with sin in my own life. No longer "I shouldn't do this" but more "I shouldn't be like this so why am I? What particular lie am I believing in my heart that is causing me to do this?".

There you go. My end of year reflection. Happy New Year. Maybe see you around on one side of the globe or another.

Holidays

2007-12-19T19:25:00.000+13:00

Well. Just got back from my final trip to the the UK for a while. Anna and I spent a week with each others families and caught up with a couple of friends that we didn't get a chance to see on the last trip.

We had a really nice time. We had an early Christmas with my family on the 25th November (at least the date was right). We had a lovely day; all my family could be there which was a joy. All my nephews and nieces took a real shine to Anna with the girls prefering her over me at points! My mum had done all her Christmas baking so that it was ready for when I was there. We put up the Christmas tree and had Christmas dinner. My mum made all my favourite food (she pretty much did that for every meal we were there) for Christmas. We exchanged gifts from Anna and I to everyone else and everyone else to us. It really was like the real day and that meant so much to me. I miss my family a great deal but they made it a wonderful day and I really can't thank them enough or explain how much I enjoyed it. It was a joy, Thank you!

From there we headed on to Milton Keynes. Family are very important to both us so it was great to be able to get to know Anna's family better. We had a great time with them all and they made me feel really welcome. It was lovely to be around for Anna's nieces dedication and Anna's commissioning service. For the commissioning part of the servcie the church leaders gave a really helpful explanation of how Anna was remaining part of their church family and they were sending Anna out from them to serve in New Zealand not packing her off and forgetting about her. That was combined with one of the best explanations of the importance of behind the scenes type service in Christian work that I have heard in a long time.

Sadly the trip was over all too quickly and it was time for me to head back to NZ and for Anna to get on with final preparations for moving out to NZ and Christmas with her family.

The picture is of my youngest niece. The only Christmassy picture I have as I spent most of my time playing with a video camera rather than taking pictures. I'll play with the movie footage soon!

We're all in this together

2007-11-10T00:09:00.000+13:00

I am sure than none us have missed the phenomenon known as High School Musical (and lately High School Musical 2). One of the songs I enjoy the most is that "We're all in this together".

Of late I have become more and more aware of the fact that we are all in this together. Due to recent changes at the TSCF office (those who know me please don't laugh) I have been appointed acting finance administrator. I have had a lot to learn fairly quickly. I am very thankful for the way that people in the office have been patient with me and have picked up things that haven't been able to get to.

Because of picking up more responsibilities in the office I have not been as actively involved on campus as I would like. But because there is a team of us working in Wellington the other members of the team picked up all the things that I could no longer deliver on. I am very thankful for their understanding and patience too.

It has also helped me learn a little more about my control freak tendencies. Normally I would freak out about other people doing my jobs. But reaching the point where I couldn't do all that I wanted to forced me to let go. I am rebuked by how it has taken me getting to the point that I would let go of things. Seems obvious with hindsight.

I've since heard a friend preaching on Ephesians 4 and unity in the body in Christ. I think I now grasp that better than I did before. We are all in this together and we are most glorifying to God when we work together as a team. Being a control freak and needing to do things myself is sinful. I feel I have more to learn in this area.

But to end on a lighter note...

Sounds

2007-10-31T22:45:00.000+13:00

Well this evening some friends work and I went to see Crowded House in concert.

They were amazing! They played for over two hours. They played a mixture of new stuff (some of much I have to admit was a bit weird) and a bunch of thier old hits. They were great!.

But my discovery for the evening was a Kiwi band called Supergroove. They were a seven piece band (including saxophone trumpet and harmonica). Apperently they split up about 6 or 7 years ago but have reformed for this tour with Crowded House. Supergroove were just so much fun to watch. You could tell that they were having fun too. Crowded House showed themselves to be a band who no what they are about and now how to perform and were great. But Supergroove were just more fund. From to rap to rock to rhythm and blues. They were great.

Click here to listen to an extract of one of my favourite tracks on iTunes (you made need to switch to the NZ site) called "Can't get enough".

There and back again... again

2007-09-30T22:44:00.000+13:00

Well, this month I went back again to the UK for a whirl wind visit. It was planned before I even moved to New Zealand because this year is my parents ruby wedding anniversary. They invited the whole family and wanted me too. They had a renewal of their wedding vows ceremony with all their grandchildren as brides maids and page boys. All in all a lovely day.

I also did the usual run around the country thing catching up with friends and supporters which was great fun if a little tiring (I fear I am getting old! It didn't used to be as tiring travelling).

Anna and I also did the whole meeting each others family and friends thing. Anna did amazingly as she met literally my entire family (which is not small) at the ruby wedding and wasn't fazed by the experience. It was great for me to finally meet Anna's family and I am looking forward to getting to spend some more time with them.

The only downside was that I forgot again (I seem to forget every time really, see previous posts) that I find it difficult spending a small amount of time with people I care about deeply and then having to leave again. Everyone was doing well but the reality of life as we all now is that it is not always straight forward. And I still find it hard not being there any more and not being able to help. Anna reminded me that I can pray and that is more than doing something. I know that is true and that God is in control but I don't always live as if I believe this. I feel a little rebuked that I am being so slow to learn this lesson.

The surprise with this trip was that I felt foreign. It felt odd going shopping in Tesco rather than New World. It felt odd being in the UK. That is not a bad thing and I guess I should have expected it sooner or later but I hadn't really thought about it.

I now have a permanent returning residents visa. I can now come and go from New Zealand for the rest of my life (providing I don't break any laws I guess).

I now really live in New Zealand. For how long who knows, but for now I live here.

Wild life

2007-08-20T10:57:00.001+12:00

Partly motivated out of a desire to get some exercise I went for a short walk yesterday. It turned into a long walk when I found a sign saying "seals"! So my short walk turned into a medium walk round the coast of Island bay and I literally fell over some seals! They are grey and kind of wet/sea weed like so they blend in with the rocks very well. I saw some from a distance and climbed onto the rocks for a closer look. At which point I realised they were all over the place!

I was less than 5 meters from the above two seals and only realised because they moved when I got closer. My first time seeing seasl in the wild! I then sat down to watch them for a bit. Once again I am reminded how beautiful New Zealand is. Behind me was a hill covered with trees, in front of me, a beach covered with 30 or 40 seals! You would not know it was the edge of the coast of the capital of New Zealand.

It started to get dark so I got up to head back. At which point the seal let out a kind of high pitched bark, and lurched away. It then emptied it's bladder and hopped off towards the sea stopping to bark at various seals along the way. I am not quite sure why it empted it's bladder but I then found a sign saying don't get within 20 meters of seals. Whoops! Wasn't really my fault though as the seals were within 10 metres of the path.

Obvious

2007-07-15T19:08:00.000+12:00

A short term mission team from UCCF (the equivalent of TSCF in the UK) departed yesterday for Lincoln University having spent 12 days with us here in Wellington. They did some orientation for the team and helped the Victoria University students with a range of evangelistic activities that the students had planned for the first week of semester.

The team from UCCF's involvement has reminded me of how people from outside a context are able to see things from a different perspective and more importantly spur on and encourage those within the context. It has shown me again how people from within a context are more open to talking to people from outside the context. For us that means that kiwi's can be more open to talking about Jesus with those from outside New Zealand (but this does not excuse kiwi's from talking to kiwi's) which is something I need to think about some more.

The week itself was hugely encouraging! It has been a joy to see and be involved as Christian students at Vic and from UCCF come together and studied the bible everyday and served side by side in the work of spreading the good news about Jesus.

One of the things we did was a survey among students based upon the question "If you could ask God one question what would it be and why would you ask it?". It was a real surprise to me how open and honest people were, even though they were talking to complete strangers.

I have read many articles that say that the people today are different to the people of yesterday. That postmoderns have different questions to those that were previously being asked and that we need to change the way we do evangelism as a result.

Are today's students really all that different? Based upon the survey we did last week they are still asking the same sorts of questions: why does God allow suffering, hasn't science disproved God? Why does God hate people who are homosexual?

But yet I wonder if they are looking for a fuller answer. They want a reasoned answer to their question but might it be helped if connected with experience/story? One of my reflections of the past week (which may seem obvious) is that we need to hear Peter's call to "give a reason for the hope that we have" but we also need to be able to tell stories (or testimonies which is the other word that Christians sometimes use instead of the word "story": when I use the word story I don't mean fiction), particularly our own story, in a way that is firmly connected to illustrating/applying the truth.

The week has also been a rebuke for me. I have to be honest in that I did not think that surveying would work. I thought that no one would be interested. But many of them were. It may sound obvious but is has reminded me that, though it may not always be as visible on the surface (as I would prefer!), God is at work at Victoria university.

I am also thinking through how I can use questions more effectively in evangelism, someone has recommended a book called Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman which I will try and get hold of a copy of.

I am thankful to God and to the team and for all involved last week for all that was done and for all we have learnt together. One of the joys of being involved in IFES (both TSCF and UCCF are founder members of IFES) is that we can partner in evangelism all over the planet. Long may it continue!

The challenge now is where do we go from here in terms of evangelism on campus? How do we keep last week from being the high point of our evangelism? How do we keeping pressing on? What is the next step for the Christian students and how can we help the those with questions find answers? We have already setup a blog as an online way for people to interact around the questions that they have and are planning lunch time talks on the most popular questions that people have. Please join with us in giving thanks for last week and in praying about the way ahead.

Titles

2007-07-02T18:58:00.000+12:00

So I've had a few discussions of late as to what a person should call their girlfriend or boyfriend. I have a friend who thinks that the title "girlfriend" sounds a bit teenagery. I think some of the other titles that were suggested were "significant other", "lady-friend", and "object of my affection". To be honest I am note sure that any of the other suggested titles have any less complications than the first. For that matter I don't have that much of an issue with the titles boyfriend and girlfriend.

Anyway, for those of you who on the other side of the planet, here is a picture of Anna and I.

Preach the word

2007-06-15T17:49:00.000+12:00

So I've recently completed a course at Carey bible college on preaching. I learnt lots of really helpful stuff and had the opportunity to write and deliver sermons with feedback, and enjoyed interacting with other students from across New Zealand as we came together to become better handlers of the bible. Completing the course has helped me write better talks and taught me some new tools and reminded of refocused my view of the importance of handling the bible well.

Paul Windsor taught us 15 helpful steps that he uses when preparing a sermon. Not that he was teaching some sort of golden formula where a person could plug in a bible passage and a sermon would come out the other end, rather he was giving us a framework to help us write sermons and helping us make sure that sure that our convictions and motivations about preaching were right.

Some of the steps I was familiar with from writing bible studies (understanding the context of a passage, utilising a number of translation etc.) but I also learnt a lot of news things in terms of structuring a sermon, the use of illustrations, the importance of bearing in mind those who you will be speaking to as your prepare and different forms of preaching (narrative preaching was new to me). I also learnt a bit about myself and how I shape how I speak and prepare. It is in my nature to try to observe, interpret and apply what is going in a passage all at once which gets me in a muddle because something I observe later in a passage changes how I interpreted something earlier in the passage. I probably do this out of a mixture of over-excitement (because I have come to love studying the bible), and impatience (I want it to take less time than it should to prepare a talk or bible study). I have to fight to stick to observe, interpret, apply as seperrate stages of preparation.

One way that this course was a rebuke to me was that if I am honest I was dismayed there were fifteen steps. I was hoping for five! But this was a rebuke for me because one of the reasons that I wanted to do this course is that I am convinced that God works by spirit through the teaching of His word and that I believe 1 Timothy 3:16 to be true. Also James 3:1 say that those who teach will be judged differently. God places a priority on us teaching the bible well.

If I believe these things then I should be willing to do the hard work of understanding and applying the bible well. And that isn't going to be achieved by cutting corners in preparation. In my defense it is not that I had stopped believing these things; rather that I had let myself fall into the trap of saying yes to talks that I didn't have enough time to prepare for adequately so wanted a quick way of churning out sermons where as I should have learnt to say yes to less.

Please don't take any of this to mean that I think that understanding and applying the bible is only possible for or only the task of those who "officially" teach or have been "officially" taught. I am simply talking about some things that I have learnt and been reminded of in my pursuit of handling the bible well.

It is not good for man (or woman) to be alone

2007-04-15T23:03:00.000+12:00

I like people. I like spending time with people. I like getting to know people.

I have spent the last week holed up in my flat working on an essay. Because it is the Easter break there are less students around so I have not been working any evenings. I was enjoying having time to myself, doing what I wanted, when I wanted and not having to think about anyone else. Because I have had a busy few weeks I convinced myself that I had earned this time to myself. I wanted some more time to myself.

I close friend asked me if I was okay, said that I seemed different. I replied that I was okay, just a little tired.

Part of this mornings sermon was on the importance of relationships and community. I was convicted. I had stopped caring about others and was emphasising what I wanted as being the most important thing. I knew it in my heart. This was not my conscience being hard on me.

Not that I am saying that it is wrong to spend some time on our own from time to time but when it leads to wanting still more time away from people the motivation may need checking.

I guess that since the fall one if the reasons that it is not good for people to be alone is that it allows our already selfish hearts to become all the more selfish.

I am thankful for my friend, for the guy who preached this morning, for the spirits conviction and for the chance to spend some time with people after church.

Stages of departure

2007-03-30T23:48:00.000+12:00

I may have mentioned it before but I moved to Leicester from London when I finished university. It never crossed my mind that moving two or so hours up from London to a place where I knew very few people very well and had no family might be hard. Needless to say in the months that followed I learnt that moving and starting again is not straight forward and is at points really hard work.

Learning from that experience and made a few choices before I moved to New Zealand and got the some friends from my old home to help while I got settled.

I have fallen into the trap of thinking that at the end of my first year it would all be sorted. Now don't get me wrong. God has been very gracious in so many ways and I know that He will continue to be. I know that this is where I am supposed to be. I have a job that I love (most of the time at least). I have some great people who have become my friends and I care for them a great deal and am very grateful for them.

But I had forgotten to think past the first twelve months and the lessons learnt during my last move. Back then I reached the point where I knew some people well but it became more difficult to get to know more people. I was no longer new so people understandably didn't think that I needed supporting in that kind of way any longer. But I was too British to admit that I wasn't as settled as I people thought I was. But I was more settled within another 6 months or so. I also spent some time away from Leicester catching up with family (with a large family every month is someones birthday!) and friends around the country. This I was committed to doing because they are important to me but it also helped me come to feel settled wherever I was.

Skip forward to now I have gotten to know a small group of people quite well which is a blessing. But it is hard trying to get to know more people. Add into that there is the awareness of being less and less involved in life back home. Not that I have stopped caring or that friends or family have stopped caring. It is just more seperate. You miss little things that happen with family. Life moves on. Friends get married and you can't really be involved. It is just more seperate.

Not that life is all bad by any means. It is great getting to know more people and sharing life with them. But it is not easy. I now remember what I had forgotten and I am thankful that my first move was to a place where friends and family were still near(ish). I remember God's provision and faithfulness from then and it makes now hopeful. I am beginning to understand more of the importance that the bible places on remembering.

Spam, spam, spam and spam

2007-03-26T17:43:00.000+12:00

A stupid glitch in a Microsoft wizard has left me with major headaches with our smtp server. So please skip over if you are not interested while I slip into geek mode.

What the Small Business Server 2003 Internet connection wizard did was reset the permissions on relaying via our smtp (simple mail transfer protocol) server. Our server became an open relay. It is generally how spam email senders operate. They cannot generate large numbers of emails off of there own Internet Service provider so they look for insecure smtp servers and use them to send their spam. The internet connection wizard set out smtp server to allow connections from users with accounts on the server and from the servers own IP address. What seemed to be happening is that mail being relayed seemed to be hitting the server before being relayed and therefore when the emails got to be relayed they came from the server IP address and were therefore allowed. 750,000 emails were generated off our server in 3 days using this method. Thankfully our spam protection caught them all. Our server is now set to only relay email from authorised and authenticated users.

What a useful feature of the internet connection wizard. For my part I did not change any email settings so didn't think to check them. I will in future

Geek episodeover. One positive is that I have been able to work at full capacity again. so hopefully the worst of this virus is over. Yay! Thanks for your prayers.

I'm sick of this

2007-03-19T20:35:00.000+12:00

Well I am still ill. My spots have gone away but I am still struggling to work a full day. I get tired very easy and my glands swell up. I am finding this very frustrating!

But it is a helpful reminder that things don't depend upon me. God is working. Sometimes through us and other times around us. But His plans do not hinge upon us. They hinge upon His being God. Thanks be to Him for that.

Virus outbreak

2007-02-25T17:39:00.000+13:00

Well I am ill. My doctor reckons I have a virus called pityriasis rosea. I have the stupid rash and feel a but of a leper. Most annoyingly it has left me feeling rather unwell generally. I have no TV, telephone or internet and am stuck at home. On the upside it is giving me time to read.

Happy New Year

2007-02-18T21:41:00.000+13:00

A friend very kindly invited me round to celebrate Chinese new year which lasts for 15 days and starts this weekend. I had a great time trying lots of amazing new food and making some new friends. So happy new year!

Home is where the rump rests

2007-01-20T17:27:00.000+13:00

So who can tell me where that title of this post comes from?

I spent three and half weeks back in England. I had a wonderful time over Christmas with family and then two weeks of travelling the land catching up with friends and supporters which was again wonderful (accept for the day where I spent 6 hours on the hard shoulder of the M2). It was great to be able to spend time with my family over Christmas and just enjoy their company and be part of their day by day lives again (although I do have to confess that the sound track to High School musical is very much stuck in my head. But in my defense it does have some very catchy tunes!).

It was great to be able to thank people face to face for their support and also catch up with them face to face as great as skype and MSN are they are not the same as being in the same room. I am extremely grateful for peoples generosity from loaning me vehicles to me appearing and asking if I could use their toilet when driving long distances to letting me use their homes as a base. It was just great to be with people again. Before I left back in January 05 some people told me that relationships won't die just because I am on the other side of the world but I was worried that the practise may turn out to be different. After a year I can say that it really is okay which was a joy and a relief.

As for returning to New Zealand it was vastly different to when I flew out in January 06. It was relief to find that I was looking forward to returning to New Zealand. I am sure that this was in part due to confirming that relationships don't die but it was also due to the fact that I have a life in New Zealand now and do love it here.

But my understanding of home has changed. It has very little to do with places or geography. Thailand, NZ and the UK are all places that I am (to some degree) familiar with. But this time in Thailand I was in a place that I had not been before but it felt familiar as the people I know in Thailand were there. Where as the places I had been before felt strange because the people I associated with that place were no longer there. The same goes for the UK as on this visit I went to places that I had never been before but because I knew the people in each place I went to it felt familiar; like home.

I friend mentioned somewhere in his blog that here in earth is not our home but that heaven is (see Hebrews for more). One of things I have been thinking about over the past year is heaven. I think the bible describes heaven in tangible ways but for many of us it feels foreign, unreal and intangible at best we know it is going to be shiny. As a result we become more focused on life here and now which is not our real home. One of the books I read described heaven as "Eden plus" which is not saying that Eden was not good but the heaven will be like Eden in that we will be restored into the relationship with God we were made for but we will have even more than Adam and Eve because Jesus will be involved in a way that He wasn't before. I still have very much to learn and grasp about heaven but I have now realised how having our relationship with God fully restored will be part of what makes heaven a Christians' home.

Unpausing my blog

2006-12-24T17:24:00.000+13:00

Okay. I need to get my blog up and running again. So I am going to create a few posts and back date them so that they appear in the right months.

So, to hear my concluding thoughts on the mission trip to Thailand have a look at http://www.gocu06.blogspot.com/

Blog again

2006-11-27T01:27:00.000+13:00

For the next few weeks I am leading team of students on a short term mission trip to Thailand. You can follow how things go at www.gocu06.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Remember Remember

2006-11-04T23:25:00.000+13:00

I have always really enjoyed Guy Fawkes' night. It is nothing to do with wanting to blow up the houses of parliament or anything like that. There is just something about fireworks that connects with my inner boy. There are this big explosions in the sky and you can't help but go 'ooooo!' and 'aaaaah!' and want to set of some fireworks yourself!

Anyway, I am very excited that they celebrate it here in New Zealand. Come to think of it is is a strange thing to celebrate or more specifically we celebrate it in a strange way. Guy Fawkes' was stopped from blowing up the houses of parliament and how do we remember it? With big explosions. It is a little odd.

Anyway, tonight I got to stand in the street with some friends (having just gotten second place in a quiz night arranged to raise funds for a local charity. We got a free movie/cinema pass each. Yay!) watching the firework display in Wellington harbour and it was great!

Guy Fawkes' night is a little more complicated here in that it is spring time so it is dry and windy (remember, the name windy Wellington is well deserved) and fireworks get blown into the hills and tend to set them on fire. So they are thinking of banning the public sale of fireworks here next year but thankfully they will still have the public displays.

It was great to experience one of my favourite times from home here in my new home. Wasn't quite the same as being in my brother's garden and setting off fireworks with him for the rest of my family to enjoy but it was a lot of fun to watch and ooh and aah.

Remember remember the 5th of November. Gun powder, treason and plot.

Holiday!

2006-10-30T15:18:00.000+13:00

Last week I went on amazing tour of the west coast of the south island's west coast and central Otago region with friends Tim and Lizzy Hodge and their friend Anna. The scenery is breathtaking! We had an amazing time! On the first evening of our journey we took a wander up to the Franz Josef glacier:

The glacier was much dirtier than I expected. Apparently it looks darker because of the rocks that it picks up as it slides down the mountain. The following day we went for a walk actually on the Fox glacier:
I had been warned that the west coast we wet bit it surpassed even my expectations! Wetness aside it was amazing to walk out of a rain forest onto a glacier and go for a wander around! Later that day we headed across the mountains into central Otago before coming to a stop in Wanaka. We headed off to Queenstown to ride up the hills on the gondola and had lots of fun on the luge. We also found some time for some Lord of Rinds site spotting. Below is a picture of where Arwen uses the river to wash the dark riders away when she is carrying Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring:
Back at Wanaka we found time to climb mount iron:

We also went for a jet boat ride on lake wanaka, enjoyed the end of season sales at the ski shops, enjoyed the stunning scenery driving over mountains via arthur's pass then back over the lindis pass. We also found time for an entertaining sport known as geocaching. All in all it was a great holiday and I am very very thankful to Tim, Lizzy, and Anna for inviting me and for all the fun we had together!

oh and we saw a rare parrot called a Kea (I think it is the world's only mountain parrot) on the first day.

Your mission should you chose to accept it part 2

2006-09-15T15:14:00.000+12:00

I work on a campus where the majority of students are commuters and there are no students are on campus in the evening so there are no options for doing evening evangelistic events. There is no set lunch hour and students are having lunch breaks anytime between 12 and 2pm and are not always keen to spend their lunch time at another lecture type event. This makes doing lunch time events not impossible but not straight forward. Add in to that a scepticism from people to people that they do not know very well and an (at best) cynicism towards people whom are perceived to be telling them what to do and you have yet more difficulties in doing speaker focused evangelistic events. You can understand why I have been thinking a lot about what evangelism looks like here. Now before I continue let me state for the record that I am committed to the public proclamation of the gospel. I am very aware that faith comes though hearing (Romans 10 v 17) but I am beginning to wonder if we focus too heavily on getting Christians to bring their non-Christian friends to an event where someone else speaks.

I have to admit that part of my thinking has been shaped by a book I have just finished (The Radical Reformation by Mark Driscoll) which has been a very interesting and challenging read. The author walks the line between being faithful to the biblical gospel whilst understanding and engaging with the culture around him and recognises and points out the perils we fall into if we seek to live outside the culture we find ourselves in (unbiblical fundamentalism/legalism) or if we embrace the culture that we live in at the expense of faithful bible teaching (liberalism). The book makes many helpful, honest and challenging observations and suggestions and is intermingled with testimonies from Christians seeking to be witnesses to Christ in all kinds of places. I'd recommend the book very highly.

But back to the point of this post. I have reached the conclusion that we need to spend more time encouraging and equipping people to be evangelists (as well as doing it ourselves obviously). Now I recognise that this is no revelation or ground breaking idea but my question is are we really equipping folk to be evangelists and evangelists in a grace filled way? Because all to often I think we are equipping folk to be evangelists by getting them to invite their non-Christian friends to an event where someone who we feel has an exciting testimony or has a good answer to a question we think non-Christians are asking. We do encourage people to talk about Jesus with their friends but all too often they don’t get round to it because they are either embarrassed (fearful of what their friends will think of them) about being a Christian or feel that shouldn't talk about anything till they can answer every question imaginable for fear of getting something wrong and thereby failing God in some way or don't know how to talk about the gospel to someone who isn't a Christian. The used the phrase "grace filled" because I have come to think that providing we are faithful to the message of the gospel and not using shameful or deceitful means we can try something and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out we rejoice, learn from it and keep going. All too often our evangelistic efforts are not grace filled or motivated. If no-one comes to an event or responds to a survey or question in conversation then we assume that we have got it wrong and beat ourselves up about it. Which all too often leads to a temptation to mess with the message rather than rejoicing that the message of the gospel has been made known and review/adaptation of the method/approach we used.

Somehow for some people evangelism is defined as something we do at specific events or when we are doing specific things. In his letter Peter calls us to be "making the most of every opportunity" and I know for myself that is neither how I think or operate. There is almost a switch in my head that I flick on during mission weeks, evangelistic talks etc. and off again after. The truth is that I should always be looking for, praying for and taking opportunities to talk to the people I meet about Jesus. Something that I think can help with this is actively vocalising and bringing our faith to bear in the decisions we make and our general thought process. Rather than just saying what we think about a subject or issue (I had an interesting conversation a few months back as to whether classical music can be racist and how we should respond if it is) we should include we think this way because we are Christians which then gives the possibility to explain why we think what we do as Christians. I'd be the first to admit that trying to do this in my life is a slow process but I am getting better at it. Having talked about this with a few people they have said that talking in this feels awkward so therefore isn't authentic so we shouldn't do it. But just because something feels awkward does not mean it isn't authentic. It can just mean we aren't used to something. A friend of mine got married recently and it felt weird at first introducing his wife as his wife. But he did not stop doing it just because it felt weird. He kept doing it and after a while it became normal.

The Christian union that I work with has just moved from a lunch time meeting to an evening meeting and have decided that part of the extended time that evening meetings make available will be dedicated to thinking about how the people in Christian Union can talk about Jesus with their friends. They have been doing this for two weeks and already it is bearing fruit. The first week they thought about general opportunities and then prayed that they would have them and that they as Christians would take those opportunities. Two days later one of the members was travelling to a concert with a friend and they talked about the Christian faith and that friends questions. That person later agreed to come to an evangelistic service. The friend still has some way to go but they talked, some of her questions were answered, some of them weren't, but they will likely talk some more in the future.

Again, I am still convinced that the Bible calls us to be doing events where the gospel is publicly proclaimed, but I have realised we need to out meeting people where they are as well as inviting them onto out turf to do things with us.

This is something I am still working through so any feedback would be gladly received.

Skiing

2006-08-28T12:34:00.000+12:00

Well, I finally got to visit the South Island! I made one major error in that I flew down at night and so couldn't see any of the views that I was looking forward to seeing. When I flew back on Sunday we flew over the sea so again didn't see anything (but it was my first time flying in a airplane that had propellers rather than jet engines!).

I did however get to go skiing for the first time ever! It was kind of fun but I think I moved to from the started slope to the beginners slope a little too quickly in that I always felt I was going too fast so would fall over in panic. This combined with how I woke up the night several times panicking that I was going downhill too fast in my sleep demonstrates that I have control-freak type issues going on!

I did develop my own method of turning as I couldn't get the hang of the way I was taught. My method basically involved shoving my sticks as deep into the snow as I could and using them as a pivot to turn my body. This worked but I have never been in as much pain as I was that night, and this from one days skiing!

My legs ached from trying to snowplough so hard my arms ached from my unique turning method. I ached! And this after 4 hours, how do people do this for a week? Add in to this a depressing array of small children who it seemed could ski with their eyes closed and probably do backflips. I guess it is good to be humbled from time to time.

Now at this point I want to make a brief aside about sport. Why is it that at a certain point in our lives it is how much we hurt after doing something that defines how good something is rather than how much fun it was? Example would be going to the gym and coming home in agony but feeling good because as some level we hope that because it hurts so much it most have done some good to our bodies somewhere along the line.

Rants aside I did kind of enjoy skiing and I would gladly go again (and probably will next year). I will endeavor to be a bit more laid back about it. And I am going on a tour of parts of the south island in October so more on there then.

Time

2006-07-30T19:32:00.000+12:00

Okay, I am really sorry for taking so long to update my blog. I have had various entries half written over the last month and have finished them all today. So the last five entries are all new. Hope they make for interesting reading

All good things must come to an end?

2006-07-30T17:36:00.000+12:00

It is time for the short term mission team from the UK to leave. As I left the team last night I found myself quite emotional. It is probably down to a number of things including tiredness and the fact that in some ways the team represents a home that I miss (last Sunday was my youngest nieces dedication service the first big family event I have missed since moving to NZ). But the major reason is that it is an ending of a community and that is sad to extent because we may not see each other again.

I have had a few conversations of late about how develop a healthy and strong Christian community. I have realised afresh over the last few weeks that it is not primarily programs or sharing personal struggles or anything like that which develops authentic Christian community. It is joining in evangelism that develops authentic Christian community.

Over the last few weeks the team's primary task has been to serve alongside the Christians students from the Massey Christian Fellowship and Overseas Christian Fellowship with the events and activities that they have arranged in order to reach out to their friends and wider campus community with the gospel as part of Jesus week.

They were a team who didn't really know each other before arriving here. They came together to do evangelism, they got to know each other as they prepared to do evangelism, they grew closer and stronger as they supported one another in their evangelism. Longer term I am confident that people will become Christians as a result of Jesus week.

Along the way they have experienced persecution (two team members have had family members back in England taken seriously ill, people have responded negatively to evangelism). They have gotten ill to varying degrees. They have experience the stress of getting used to a different country and culture. They have experienced the heartache of people rejecting the gospel but also the joy of people wanting to know more. They have joined together in pray for each other and for those they have been reaching out to with the gospel. They met together for bible study and training on evangelism. They have been servant hearted, humble and loving. They have had fun and laughter together and encouraged each other when there have been struggles. And it has all centered around evangelism. This is what authentic Christian life/community is like and how it is built (1 Corinthians 11; Philippians 1 : 2 - 5 & 27; 1 Thessalonians 2 : 2; Romans 10 : 14 - 17; Colossians 3 : 12 - 15).

As I left Palmerston North with the team I was struck by the thankfulness of those whom the UK team left behind. They had written cards, bought gifts, and turned up pretty early (for students anyway) to say goodbye as the team left. This was not emotional hype or put on sadness; the NZ students were thankful for the teams efforts alongside them and were said to be saying goodbye. Their service together had drawn them closer together and they had to say goodbye and that is sad.

As I then left the team last night I felt that sadness too. I will miss the team; I have been humbled by their example, they have been a huge encouragement, a joy to be around and a joy to be involved with. Driving home I flicked on the Lord of Rings: Fellowship of the ring sound track and I began to think how the departure of the team is like the breaking of the fellowship of the ring at the end of the first film. They came together for a specific task but end up separated. There is sadness at the separation but that separation is necessary in order for the primary objective to be achieved. In the Lord of the Rings the objective is the destruction of the ring of power. For us it is making disciples of all nations. The NZ students will continue on spreading the gospel here and the UK guys will continue on spreading the gospel in the places that they find themselves in the UK. Each person involved will take the experience and change that God has worked in them over this time on with them.

At the end of the Lord of the rings the fellowship is reunited as they have accomplished their mission. The team has been studying 1 and 2 Thessalonians whilst they have been here; one of the major themes in Thessalonians is that of Jesus return. For now good things (like short term mission teams) will come to an end but only until Jesus returns and brings the world as we know it to an end and all Christians are united with Him in the new creation. That is why the ending of the community is only sad to an extent because one day we will again be reunited.

Your mission should you choose to accept it

2006-07-29T17:14:00.000+12:00

The last few days I have been helping out with what is generally called a Jesus Awareness week (or a mission week if you are in the UK).

The week has included lunch time talks around the theme of Who is Jesus and what would he say about various issues. "Who is Jesus" was written in chalk (this is allowed and we washed it off after) all over the campus. Across each day people were out giving flyers advertising the events, doing surveys to find out what students believed and having conversations about Christianity off of the surveys. In the evenings people had friends round for meals and shared testimonies, a couple of nights we gave away pancakes and chatted with folk about Jesus as we were asked why we were giving away pancakes. On the final day both the lunch time and evening talks were about Jesus and why he died on the cross.

A few non Christians have signed up to read the bible with someone, and a number of people have heard the gospel. This is what we are here for and it was great to be a part of it.

For myself I left encouraged, challenged and with questions. I was encouraged by a couple of great conversations I had (I have never been told before by a non Christian after a conversation about how we are all sinful and in need of rescue that "it is good that you are here because that is not what most New Zealanders think Christians are about") and other conversations had by students and other folk helping out with the week. I was challenged by the fact that I find surveys an uncomfortable evangelistic tool. But what alternatives are there and how can I help students try both surveys and other approaches of reaching those with whom we don't normally have contact? My biggest question is how do you stop "I don't care" being the end of a conversation about Jesus? This was a standard response from students and all of us found it difficult to move any further past that statement. But if it really is the general view amongst students here we need to find ways of engaging with it.

Some additional thoughts I've had since I wrote this originally:

The use of testimonies in a lunch time talk is very helpful. After the talk on what would Jesus say about racism a Christian student who used to be a neo-nazi gave his testimony. This really helped some people see how what had been said in the talk looked like in someone's life and took it from being a theory to a practice.

Secondly, the importance of listening. It is probably the same the world over but people here seem very sensitive to whether you are generally interested in what they have to say or are simply talking to them in order to communicate something about Christianity. Now sometimes we are talking to people simply in order to talk to them about Jesus but in the process we come across as not actually valuing people and what they have to say which we should be doing regardless of whether what they are saying is right or wrong and regardless of whether it is our first conversation or thousandth conversation with the person. Not only is this the model that the New Testament lays down for us but in practice I have found that if I have listened to what someone has to say they are for more open to me questioning their view and talking about Jesus.

Thirdly, and this is linked to the previous point, I am considering adding the question "Why do you think we are doing these surveys/having Jesus awareness week?" to future surveys I am involved in. All too often people have misconceptions as to why we do evangelism and these misconceptions colour the whole conversation. Hearing them say why they think we are doing what we do helps us realise some of the misconceptions that are out there and it gives us the chance to apologise if we have given the wrong impression and explain why we are really doing what we do: that the gospel really is good news that they really need to hear and that we are doing it because we love them.

Rugby

2006-07-23T16:48:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I went to see the All Blacks play South Africa at rugby. It was amazing (better pictures coming soon)!

The game itself was okay but the atmosphere was was really made the difference. Being there with thousands of other supporters cheering people on. One thing really struck me: Why did people (me included) get more excited (at least externally) when a player gets a try than we do when someone becomes a Christian?

Afternoons and coffee spoons

2006-07-21T15:32:00.000+12:00

This week has been one of those occasions were I have felt a bit confused and frustrated as English man in New Zealand. Previously in England after 2 years as a student and 4 years with UCCF I was pretty used to busy and quiet points in the year. At the TSCF conference and someone from England commented on how they felt they should be on holiday from university and that it should be summer not winter.

I hadn't really thought much about it but I came back into work after a few days off to find all sorts of conversations needing to be had with students who were thinking about being group leaders for the Christian Union and International Christian Fellowship. I didn't want this - I wanted a quiet few weeks. In my old world this should be happening in January February time not now! People had warned me that Annual General Meetings were coming but for a number of reasons I hadn't really taken it in that AGMs meant new leaders.

To be honest all too often I feel like I am reacting or responding rather than preempting or being proactive. I guess the lessons to learn are to stop and listen regardless of how busy I am may be (and the run up to the conference was busy!) but also to ask questions about what lies ahead month by month.

Anyway, my average coffee intake of an afternoon has doubled this week due to having coffee with potential leaders. It has been a wonderful time of getting to know students better, hearing ideas on different ways that the work on campus can be developed and what mission at Victoria should or could look like. But has also been encouraging to help some students begin to think through what it means to be committed to Christian service, be it a TSCF group or youth work or church based group. All too often commitment is based on what the individual gets or does not get out of a group that they are involved in rather than being committed to building other Christians up (Ephesians 4) and being missional (Matthew 28). Thankfully this is not always a deliberate approach to commitment and some people respond positively when questioned but others sadly do not see it as a problem.

Back to the Cross

2006-07-11T14:10:00.000+12:00

The conference is over.

There are so many things I could say and much has already been said by other folk (Andy, Nigel, Scott for example) on their blogs which is basically what I'd be repeating so I'll settle for saying that I agree wholeheartedly with them.

One story that I would add from a student here in Wellington:

Before I went to conference I used to wonder why God couldn't just zap sin and make it go away. I now realise that He could not do that as if He did He would no longer be a just and good God. I now realise why the cross is so important.

Shortly after sharing this the student went on to volunteer to be involved in leading one of the campus groups here in Wellington. This is what I prayed and longed to see as a result of the July conference. Students coming away not only understanding the gospel better but that understanding being worked out in their day by day lives and choices after the conference

Other significant conversations have been had with students at the conference and following on from the conference. Things are different. People are different.

For myself I have been struck and therefore horrified by how little I care about the dire situation that those who are not Christians are in. I have also been struck by how theoretical I have become about evangelism. I can talk about evangelistic strategies and ideas but am I putting it into practice in my own life? Not really, aside from a couple of conversations with people as I have flown on planes to various places. I can all too easily excuse myself by the fact that it is difficult to make non-Christian friends when I spend most of my time with Christians. I need to think more about how I use casual conversations (be it on planes or buses or in cues or cafes) as well as looking to develop meaningful friendships with non-Christians.

I have also realised afresh and deeper that a key motivation in doing evangelism is how deeply we are struck and gripped by how much good news the gospel is.

Many folk have said that the song for the conference and the song that in many ways sums up the conference is in Christ Alone and I very much agree. But a song that I have listened to a few times since the conference is the hymn "It is well with my Soul". I recognise that the hymn was written by a man in far worse circumstances that I have ever yet to experience but the following verse struck me in particular:

My sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin not in part but the whole
Was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul!

I'd prefer the word truth to the word 'thought' but never the less it sums up some of what I thinking and feeling since the conference. Jesus paid the penalty for my sin through His death on the cross. This changes everything in this life and the next. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul!

For my culture part 2

2006-06-19T12:22:00.000+12:00

Culture shock. As far as I can tell it is the term used for emotional and mental distress and confusion that comes from experiencing the differences between a persons normal country/culture and a country/culture which they find themselves.

I think that is what I may have been experiencing the last few days. I really didn't see it coming as (like I said in my last post) I was okay with coming back here. But in retrospect coming back again has made the differences between New Zealand and the UK all the more apparent.

What I have realised is that I have a set of presuppositions that my life runs upon. Or more specifically that my life in the UK was run upon. They took a number of sizes and shapes, from theology to relationships to practical day to day life stuff. I suspect that we all have them. Whether or not we do and whatever are presuppositions may be, they may or may not be right or wrong but they are things that we take as givens for day to day life.

Across a few days last week I begin to realise that mine didn't work in New Zealand and that was a very unsettling experience and had some bad effects.

In terms of theology I realised that a number of folk disagreed with my view on a few issues that back in the UK was not the case. Most were secondary issues that we could agree to disagree on but because it happened a number of times it had the bad effect of putting me on the defensive. Confidence on doctrine should never rest in whether it is held by the largest number of people. What I should have done was gone back to the bible and re-examined my views but what I did instead was I turned into a theology policeman; I would pick up and comment on anything I perceived as being of the mark, now matter how minor it may be.

Relationally I again became aware that though I have friends here I still have some way to go in terms of having very close friends like those who I had spent time with in the UK. Perhaps what I realised is that history is important. The length of time you have known someone affects how much you trust each other and strangely so does the memories of life; be it fun, sad or otherwise.

Practically I wish that New Zealand had central heating rather than thermal clothes and electric blankets!

All these things in isolation would be okay but put them all together and it becomes very unsettling and isolating.

Last weekend was my churches men's weekend away. It was great; a chance to think through what it means to be men of God off the back of some helpful and insightful teaching and a chance to get to know some guys from church. But because of the unsettlingness of last week I struggled to get past the fact that New Zealand guys really like sport and I didn't all that much. But in the final session we talked a little about our identity being in Christ (Ephesians 1 v 13 to 18). I realised to my horror that I was defining myself by all the wrong things: what I believed on secondary issues, who my friends were and what I did in terms if ministry. I needed to repent of this.

Yet I still felt isolated. I looked at my life I realised I was still an alien. The truths I had learned as to not being alone did not move me either.

My church has just finished a series on the names of God. We took a brief look at all the ones we had covered and in a quiet time of reflection God spoke to me. I realised that He is unchanging as is His Gospel (Hebrews 13 v 8) and I have a choice as to how I respond to him and how He reveals himself in His word.

That was my revelation for the weekend. The presuppositions that I run my life upon my change but that is okay because God is unchanging as is His word. Providing my presuppositions are always based upon that fundamental truth then change need not be so traumatic. I also have a choice. I can chose to focus on me or I can lift my focus to God and praise Him for who He is and what He has done for us in Christ.

What was the result? Joy in and towards God, thankfulness for all His gifts to me both here and in the UK, inner peace and conversation. Without knowing anything of how I was feeling some new friends I had made over the weekend from Church asked me how I was adjusting to my return and it was helpful to share with them.

There and Back Again

2006-06-10T21:48:00.000+12:00

It is difficult to sum up two weeks of what I wasn't expecting, but I'll give it a go.

The first thing to say is my thanks for all the prayers, sympathy, support and encouragement I have received from folk via email, text and conversation; they really have meant a lot and have been very helpful, so again, thank you.

The funeral was my first for a very close family member. It was very sad as we will all miss my grandfather but it was also a time of real encouragement. The minister from my Grandfathers church preached a great sermon as to the hope for eternity that Christians have and did so in such as way as to challenge those there who were not Christians and encourage those who were Christians. Afterward all who attended were invited on to a nearby hotel. It was great to be able to meet with family and folk who knew my Grandfather and remember and celebrate his life. The quote for the day goes to my oldest (7 years old) niece: "It's a shame we couldn't have had this party two weeks ago, then Granddad George could have come. He'd have really enjoyed it". None of us were sure what to say in reply but it seemed an appropriate way to sum up the day.

Then followed 10 days with friends and family around the country. It was really great to have the opportunity to catch up with a few folk. It also brought the additional reassurance that relationships are workable over very long distance. Though much had changed in many ways it was like I had never been away. Hooray for video conferencing, email, MSN and Skype! But an even bigger hooray for the people involved in using them with me!

I also learnt a few lessons along the way, some of which I had learnt before but had been quick to forget. The first was that (like I said back when I left for the first time) it is not really possible to communicate to people how much you appreciate their friendship, which frustrated me at first but thankfully I remembered that this is just how it is. But there is now the additional factor of knowing that (at least in the short term) thought relationships change they can still remain strong even though I do not see people anywhere near as regularly as I once did. Which is both reassuring and encouraging!

I mentioned in my last blog entry how much I love my job. Part of that has been a realisation that I can contribute to things here, Not that I have it all figured out or think more of myself than I should, but it has been great to be able to be involved in speaking at the Wellington groups and be involved in training leaders here in Wellington which are areas that I'd generally hung back from during my time with UCCF. But it has disturbed me how easy it is for confidence to morph into overconfidence and then arrogance and that is something within me that I become more aware of whilst back home and I will have to watch out for as it is a dangerous thing.

Very quickly I had been there and it was time to come back again. It was sad to leave again but no way near as difficult as when I left in January. Not that I care in any way lass then when I left in January! But from the UK perspective I know that (as I have outlined above) it is okay. And from the perspective of New Zealand, as I outlined in my last blog post, it is where I belong for now.

So I am really thankful that God has in His grace has used a potentially difficult trip back home to give me a chance to catch up with folk back home, to reassure me that it is possible to maintain meaningful relationships with family and friends back home, give me chance to reflect on the last few months, and generally know that New Zealand is where I am supposed to be for now.

Thinking home

2006-05-23T23:10:00.000+12:00

Now I head home. The last few days have given me the opportunity to take stock of where things are up to as I take a break from things here.

It has given me the opportunity to realise anew (see previous post a while back) that God has by his grace been changing me. I am mystified by how I have been engaging with the news of my Grandfather going to be with Christ. Not for one minute that I am not sad that he is gone but I have confidence that he is with Christ and know this is gain for my grandfather and I am happy for him. Also I do feel more settled here. I love my job/ministry, I am more settled in the church that I am going to, I have friends; All things that I will miss and these are all things that I would not have been able to say a little as six weeks ago. I am also very thankful for the support, prayers, encouragement and love that I have been shown by friends (both here and in the UK), colleagues and my Church here. It is one of those occasions when simply saying thank you feels insufficient. Not that I am looking through rose tinted spectacles; I still have much to learn and I still have much to get used to. But New Zealand is now my home.

I have been searching for a plan for how I have gotten to this point - I like to to be able to understand things in step by step processes. But I have realised that this is not always how the Christian life works. I realise that the majority of this change is of God by his grace through His word. And I do not bring anything to that equation except my excitement at the evidence of God being at work in my life (if you'll allow me to say that) and my praise to Him for that. It is also God prayers that have been said on my behalf and answering my prayers for which I am also very thankful. But as friends have pointed out to me, I have been obedient and followed Gods call in coming to New Zealand so from that perspective I have played my part too.

So, ready or not England here I come.

I have to say as I sit here in Auckland International airport prepraing to board my flight to my other home I have to say that right now I feel more towards the or not part of the above statement. I am not sure that I am really ready for my Grandfathers funeral, I am not sure how I am going to feel when I return to my other home here in New Zealand in a few weeks time. But I am sure that I am looking forward to spending time with my family and friends, to having a break and I know that God has a plan in all this although in many ways it is far from clear to me now.

Time to board the plane!

Words

2006-05-21T14:14:00.000+12:00

Because of a death in my family I have been thinking about the word death this week. To be honest nobody close to me has died before so I have never really had cause to think about it in this way before.

I do not like the word. There are a number of reasons why I do not like it. Some are thought some are emotionally. On a emotional level I think it is because at a fundamental level I realise that death is not how things are supposed to be; it makes me uncomfortable and it should.

But I also know that death is part of the curse which resulted from the fall of mankind (see Genesis 3; Romans 6 v 23). But as Christians we need not fear death (2 Timothy 1 v 10). Christ freed us from the curse by his death on the cross. So therefore when I speak of people I know who are Christians I don't think I should be talking about their death

I have been using the phrase "passed away" instead. Now I do not think there is anything intrinsically wrong with this phrase but I do not think it accurately explains what happens when Christians die and to be honest I don't really understand what it means.

So for now I have settled on the phrase "he is with Christ". Which is how Paul talks about his death in his letter to the Philippians (1 v 21 to 23). I still haven't entirely gotten my head around how why Paul also refers to those who are with Christ as being "asleep" in Christ (1 Corinthians 15 v 18), I need to think about that some more.

I like the phrase because it more accuratly explains the reality. Paul says my grandfathers death is his gain so I can rejoice for my grandfather in that.

But I also like it because it opens up the possability for conversations about the hope gospel gives when people (for want of a better expression) die. The need to share the gospel has become more apperent to me because I have realised how utterly terrible it would have been if my Grandfather were not a Christian. Heaven shows hell to be the horrific thing that it is and the dire situation folk who have not trusted in Christ are in.

George Banwell

2006-05-20T13:56:00.000+12:00

My Grandfather went to be with Christ on the 14th May.

My earliest memory of my Grandfather and I guess may grandparents is having home made cream soda in his garden in the summer. It was very simple: one mug of lemonade with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. My family all loved it. I have many happy memories playing with my brothers and sisters and cousins in his garden drinking cream soda.

Music has been a big feature of my life. My earliest memory of music is at my Grandfathers house playing in what I think was called an accordion. You pressed a button and it played a chord. You run your finger up an down a metal strip and it moved through the notes in the chord. I loved the sound it made and he would always let me play on it.

There are also some less politically correct memories. The funniest being him chasing his border-collie called Blackie across a field of African men shouting "come here blackie"!

But there are also many attributes that he modeled that I will remember and try to hold in my own life.

As Christians we are called to let or "yes be yes and our no be no" Matt. 5 v 37. You were rarely left in any doubt as to what my Grandfather thought and in a culture where people can be all to willing to tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear, his approach was not only biblical but needed.

He had a an ability to see past the peoples mistakes and bad decisions and see the good in their hearts.

I have been humbled by his response to all that happened over the last few weeks. From the calm confidence that he was going to be with Christ and the testimony that he shared with his doctor to the fact that one of his priorities over his final few days was to shield those he cared about from the discomfort of his final few weeks. He demonstrated such inner strength.

Skip back a few months and you have me preparing to leave for New Zealand. One particular fear that I had not been able to clear was what relationships with my family would be like when I came back after 3 or more years. Many people had told me it was an understandable fear as did my Grandfather. But what he gently shared with me was that how he was away for over 5 years fighting in the second world war. He told me how he came back after 5 years at war and his relationships with he family were still good (and I have seen that to be the case) and that I was going overseas to do Christian work and that when I cam back I could be confident that things would be okay. Those words quieted that fear. But it also an example of how much he cared (which was something he showed in many other ways too) in that he was willing to share from what must have been a difficult part of his life in order to help me.

One of the biggest lessons he taught me (and he taught it to my parents first and then taught it to us himself and through them) is the importance of family. From making family a priority to being aware of what is going on in each others lives; Basically loving and valuing each other regardless of circumstance. Being so far away from may family this is something I have come to value and realise in a new way. We live in a culture where family is becoming less and less important, sadly even amongst Christians. It may not be the most important thing I have learned from him but certainly one of the things I value the most.

There is so much more I could say and this is far from adequate and far from complete but I wanted to write something.

The ground beneath my feet

2006-05-15T10:14:00.000+12:00

Well, today's earthquake I definitely felt. Check out this site for more information. I have to say it was a fairly scary thing, kind of like being shaken really fast but the whole house is shaking rather than me. I few things fell off of shelves this time which is probably what woke me up as I slept through the previous quake I was in Wellington for.

On a completely different note in the past few weeks I have been struck again by God's grace in that he has used a set of difficult circumstances to work for good. He has promised to do this (Romans 8 v 28) so I shouldn't really be surprised that He has kept his word but I am truly thankful that He does.

Its only words

2006-04-28T15:05:00.000+12:00

Okay, after a few more serious posts, time for a few more kiwi-isms that have made me smile:

Wop-wops = Rural areas that are in the middle of nowhere
Tiki Tour = Scenic route
Hosing down = raining heavily
Hottie = Hot water bottle
Pike out = To give up when something is too difficult
Rattle your dags = Get moving quickly
Bit of a dag = Comedian, joker, or hard case
Dag = Sheep excrement that gets caught around the tail of the sheep

Not Alone

2006-04-12T17:41:00.000+12:00

Okay, the first thing to say is thanks for all the comments and emails of encouragement after my last blog entry. The second thing to say is to apologise if I have given the impression I am struggling more than I actually am. Sure, I had a bad day last week but those happen to us all from time to time. Based upon some of the responses I have had I have worried a few people and that was far from my intention. I guess the lesson for me to learn is when posting here is to think through in more detail how people a long way away are going to interpret what I have written.

My intentions when writing my last post were two fold:

Writing helps me process what I have been learning and wanted and needed to remember what I wrote in my last post
I hoped that in some small way it might offer encouragement to people facing similar struggles

So again, my thanks for all the care and encouragement I have received over the last few days, it has been very much appreciated and my apologies for any worry I have caused.

A few more thoughts of the back of my last post:

Praise God for technology! I was able to video conference with most of family over the weekend and was amazing to not only be able to talk to some of the people I really care about but see them too, and be it in a limited way participate in life back home. My various nephews and nieces performed various party tricks (once they had gotten over some of the novelty of seeing both me and themselves on a computer screen) which was enough to keep me smiling for weeks!

As a result I have found a new level of respect for missionaries in the past and present who have been to countries where communication be it verbal or visual is not possible.

Finally, in response to the question I posed in the title of my last post. Are we ever alone? The answer is no. Each of us has friends & family / people we care about and people who care about us, be it close by or scattered around the world. For those of us who are Christians we have the addition of being part of the global church which means wherever we go there will always members of our Christian family nearby. We can also have the amazing eternal aspect that we will spend eternity with them in heaven. But most importantly we have our relationship with God; something that can never be affected by geography of pretty much anything really.

So (and this will sound clichéd but that does not mean it is untrue) in answer to the question are we ever alone, the answer is no. We will never be alone; the worst we will ever be is physically apart.

Alone?

2006-04-05T10:40:00.000+12:00

Time to bear a little more of my heart. Last night was the first night in a long time where I struggled to sleep for emotional reasons. I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, alone and yearned for someone to hug me and tell me it was all going to be okay. I wanted someone to tell me that they loved me unconditionally.

As I lay there in my bed I remembered a lesson I was taught over nearly four and a half years ago by a friend of mine. I am more sinful than I can understand but more loved than I can begin to imagine (or words to that effect). At the time this caused some tremors in my life. I did not find it hard to see myself as sinful but I know I will never fully grasp how sinful I am in this life (and later I came to understand that this is directly related to how I will never fully understand how loved I am). But the earthquake then came from the second half. I am more loved than I can possibly imagine. I am? At that point in my life I was struggling very much under a works mentality. I was doing a year as a Relay worker largely out of a desire on my part to make amends to God for the bad job I had made of being a Christian Union leader and in various other areas of my life. Being taught well about Grace for the first time began to turn my world on its head then and led to change in direction for my life. I could and did not need to make amends for my sin as Christ has already done it.

Four and a half years later I find myself here. Lonely, tired, and overwhelmed. And it is grace that gives me hope (and I hope and pray it will always be where I look for it). But there as I tried to sleep I was looking for another human being to play a role that they were never intended to and never could really play. I then remembered that I don't need someone to tell me I'm okay, I know I am okay. Jesus death on the cross changes my status before God. It atoned for my sin once and for all. How do I know I am loved? I could refer to any one of many passages in the bible but John 3 v 16 will do for now.

Then I went to sleep.

This is not for one minute saying that I don't need, value or appreciate the support of friends and family. Rather it is saying that I am (for now at least) looking at it from the right perspective again.

A long way from where I wanted to be

2006-03-29T10:31:00.000+12:00

This week I have had my first experiences of a crises type event at home. My Grandfather was taken into the hospital with problems with his breathing. The did some tests and were unhappy with the results but due to the medication he is on they were unable to do any further tests.

For the first few days I was unable to do anything except phone my family. The time difference was extremely frustrating I was very distressed about the fact that I could not be there with my family. After a few days of stressing it was time to take stock.

I remembered a lesson that I have already mentioned here but again had been quick to forget: prayer is important and I can and must entrust the people I care about into God's care through it. Secondly, to be thankful. Thankful for the time I have had with my Grandfather and very thankful that he is a Christian. Should he pass away before I can see him face to face again I know I will see him again in heaven where all the forces which are attacking his body will no longer be a problem.

No Comment

2006-03-28T09:57:00.000+12:00

For a few weeks now I have been wondering why no-one leaves comments on my blog, I have just discovered comment monitoring which I have now switched off and low and behold lots of comments appeared! Considering web stuff is my job you'd think I'd have figured this out a while ago! Whoops!

More Randomness

2006-03-21T12:46:00.000+12:00

I now have a nice new car that I am very excited about. It has all sorts of new toys from electric wing mirrors to drivers air bag. It has a little more power than the mighty Skoda (my previous car) and due to my rather speedy pulling away whilst getting used to it I learnt a new word: hoon.

hoon = equivalent term for "Boy racer" in the UK

flat white coffee = How to order and ordinary coffee when in a coffee shop in New Zealand. I asked if fizzy was an option and was politely informed that it was "flat" because the milk was "flat" as opposed to frothy

Wise words from the lads on the subject of God: "You specialise in comebacks". For more see their website

Doing the whole tourist thing I went to watch the West Indies play the New Zealand Black Caps. I was very excited to learn that Brian Lara (the guy whose named cricket computer game I used to play back in the day) was playing! Sadly he did not perform very well. He was out for one run in both their innings.

Transformers

2006-03-10T12:09:00.000+13:00

Well, in a little over 19 hours I will have been in New Zealand for two months!

I would be writing this post tomorrow but as tomorrow is the weekend I will have limited email access so I am writing this a day early.

I am astounded by the fact that I am still doing alright. I know I should probably not be so surprised, but the last move I made I was by this sort of time feeling dreadful and falling to pieces. I remember 2 Corinthians 3 v 17:

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

I am not for one minute saying I am perfect (although on a sunny day in Wellington the reflection of the sun from my bald head can be pretty blinding but I think that is due to the lack of 0-zone layer not my having a halo), I still have long long long way to go, I know. But I am different to who I was three and a half years ago. God is as ever true to his word and is ongoingly transforming me and us a few degrees closer to the likeness of his Son. Not that is should need a complete change of circumstances for any of us to realise this but I am aware of it now and am thankful and even a little excited by it.

But saying that I do not feel dreadful I do still miss people and feel homesick on a regular basis. But as I said in one of my earlier posts God is sovereign and I can and must trust him. I am becoming increasingly mindful of how weak my prayer life has been. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder and I have been more prayerful as a result of not being able to see people. I am also still very conscious of folks prayers on my behalf too and am convinced that they are no small part in things going so well, so thank you.

For my culture

2006-03-01T17:33:00.000+13:00

I thought I was adjusting fairly well so far, and in many ways things are going really well. But I had not realised how the little differences between here and home and how I was generally missing home were starting to affect me. I have spent time in couple of different cultures over the last few years (Thailand, Czech republic, Hungary) and I have generally enjoyed the change and the experience. But I have now realised that there is a big difference between visiting and living.

I am beginning to realise why people encouraged me to make sure I spent some time with people who had moved from England to NZ; It is important to spend time with people understand the differences between NZ and home and the process of adjusting to life in NZ.

As for people who understand what it is like to move here, God has already graciously provided folk who have been here from few a months to a few years longer than me so I am making it a priority to spend time with them on a regularish basis.

Probably the most important thing I have realised this week is that I have been viewing things through two lenses. The narrow lens is how I view my little world here in Wellington; My friends, church, work student & office based, and my general experiences here. My wide lens is how I view things at overarching level; what the everything is like (be it culture, church, people, basically pretty much everything about NZ which by its nature includes the narrow lens stuff too) and how I am understanding it.

I have realised that I have spent too much time looking through my narrow lens. Which for my first few months is understandable. But it has the major downside of that from time to time I run into things that really throw me as from a narrow perspective lens point of view I think I understand much more that I think I do. But if I spend too much time at a wide lens perspective I can get completely overwhelmed.

The answer is not difficult to see. All I need to do is review from time to time how much time I am spending looking through each lens and remember to take time to look through the wide angle lens whilst recogniding that it takes time to get a good understanding of a new culture. You could almost say I am emphasising the need to keep things in perspective.

Random Stuff

2006-02-27T16:27:00.000+13:00

Today's post is brought to you by the location Eastbourne. I lived most of my life in Eastbourne, England. It is very different to Eastbourne here.

Bizarre: On Friday 17th February I slept through an earthquake that was 4.0 on the Richter scale.

New word: munted = spoiled/damaged

Funny but embarrassing: The phrase "Check you out". In the UK I would use this phrase to draw attention to something that another person would do. In New Zealand it generally means that you are hitting on someone (the equivalent of "how you doin" from Joey in Friends). I was thankful that the person I said it to just looked shocked and didn't slap me.

Wise saying from the lads on God's love: Your love, love is like a beetroot stain. That never ever goes away from me. Your love, Your love is with me everyday. I know Your love is here to stay with me. For more see their website

Road Tripping

2006-02-23T16:25:00.000+13:00

For the staff conference week we drove from Wellington to Keswick (Rotorua New Zealand rather than the lake district in the UK). I was once again struck by the beauty of New Zealand and had the very exciting tourist experience of seeing Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings films (although it looks distinctly less blown up and volcanic than at the end of the final film) which is classed as an active volcano.

Sacrificially I have volunteered to drive a minibus for the Wellington International Christian Fellowship annual ski trip later in the year so I'll get the chance to not only ski for the first time but ski near mount doom!

I have enjoyed driving around New Zealand largely due to the scenery but I have to confess that driving has begun to go a little sour on me. On thursday someone hit the car that I had been lent, making a dent down the wing and ripping a whole in the tyre. The driver of the van the lied to the police about the details and said it was my fault. Thankfuly I had the presence of mind to take pictures of the accident scene on my mobile phone which have gone a long way in helping my case so far. Two days later part of the gear box on the car went whilst I was driving on the motorway. Another four days later and friend gave me a lift home. Her car started leaking engine coolent on the way home.

Needless to say I now do not have a good reputation with cars!

The longing for belongings

2006-02-21T16:26:00.000+13:00

I feel a little more settled now that my possessions have arrived. I have to confess that I feel more than a little guilty that I do feel better now they have arrived. When I think of the first missionaries to New Zealand they arrived with a suitcase after a long trip round the world by boat. I arrived with double my luggage allowance and six crates of my stuff arrived today.

It is has been an eye opener as to how much specific possessions become a part of you. I genuinely enjoyed giving furniture and other stuff away when I left Leicester back in November (I even laughed at the fact that I had worked so hard on getting furniture over the years only to give it away) but I have really missed things like my music collection for example and now I have more stuff here I feel more like I live here.

Maybe I'd feel different if I knew nothing else was coming but for now I am relieved to feel more at home.

Friends

2006-02-07T15:02:00.000+13:00

I think it is fair to say as the weeks go by I have been getting more and more edgy in terms of homesickness. I am thankful that I have not sunk into deep home sickness but I have begun to realize how easy it is to become self-absorbed.

I first realized the first point when I met some new people at the weekend. I dominated the conversation entirely telling them various bits of information about me and my life. I wanted them to know and accept me, but came closer to overloading them with information and probably freaking them out. Any person who asked me innocent questions got lots of my thoughts and questions just poured out at them (my answers to the question "how are you finding New Zealand" were sometimes epic in lenth and slightly odd in terms of content). It is probably due in part to my not having made any close friends here yet and thereby needing to talk. But I think it is also due to fact that it is very easy (for me at any rate) to become self absorbed.

The last few weeks I have just done whatever as it didn't seem to matter as I had so few commitments. I was leaving home between 8 and 9am but got home between 7 and 7:30pm missing dinner with the butchers and eating on my own (I am well aware that some folk have to work these hours but right now there is no reason or need for me to). I had time to watch two hours of TV a night then go to bed. Any form of personal time with God got junked. What started as enjoying a relaxed approach to life turned into doing what I wanted and not caring about anyone else and feeling more and more isolated. I had not realised that not knowing many people and spending time on my own would lead to me becoming self-absorbed so quickly.

A solutions to this struggle was not hard to find. I have now booked in time every week to catch up with at least one good friend back in the UK by phone as opposed to my normal method of email. This has the double benefit of allowing me to hear how they are doing verbally as opposed to in print (which is always better) and giving me contact with people that know me. This may sound selfish, and it would be selfish if it weren't for the fact that it is so important to hear how people are doing.

The cure to getting absorbed in yourself is to keep the important things important (Luke 10 v 27).