5 New Year Resolutions
31 December 2008
- Get to bed earlier
- Find a job
- Be a good parent
- Keep blogging
- Get a car that goes
tags blog, shameless self promotion, thinking
2008 reviewed blog style
Here's the year in review as seen through the eyes of my blog. Enjoy.
January (9 posts) - Tasmanian Leadership Convention, Yamba Maclean Mission and my bro lost his crappy job. Things were looking like pumping for 2008 FOCUS work.
February (12 posts) - I bought Mark Driscoll's book I still haven't finished reading it. We made the move to Jane, I crashed my bike and still have the scars. Most significantly I probably made the hardest decision in my life so far goodbye FOCUS.
March (5 posts) - Dark Times. I posted very little this month in fact a record low for this blog. Looking back there is very little substance to any of these posts. I was feeling really really crap. On a positive note I revived my ipod.
April (15 posts) - The month started poorly. I blogged about the problem of pornography not once but twice. I followed this topic all year. I began my series of posts on bad fashion now one of the most Googled set of posts on my blog. Christine and I also took a nice holiday up the east coast of Tassie.
May (16 posts) - I bought that car. Laura arrived from the US of A. I blogged about divorce (and offended a anonymous regular reader). I also blogged about porn again. This was the month I preached a fairly average sermon at Tuesday Crossroads and really began the battle to organise the the MTS Tasmania Conference.
June (18 posts) - We did some beer tasting with Laura before she departed. I posted a couple of rants one on hybrid cars (Which I still standby). For some reason I posted stacks of pictures some of them quite good. I should add my good friend Benny got hitched in poo paddock. I also think my friend Adam from Jane began reading my blog. He has become one of the people I hold in my mind as I write. Oh and in a very subtle way we announced we were having a baby.
July (14 posts) - I got sick. It was a bit of a ranty month and I got plenty of comments. The two most commented on posts were Pro Consistency where I argued that Christians should name their children before birth. (With hindsight I would have worded the post differently as it wasn't intended to cause offense. Provoke people, yes but not offend). On the other post I ranted;
I think often Christians already come across as bunch of right wing George Bush loving, Today Tonight watching latte sippers. You can be a Christian, believe in climate change, appreciate art, drink fairtrade coffee and vote left wing too.That post drew one of the harshest comments on my blog to date. Finally for July there was bad fashion number #1.
August (12 posts) - I smashed up my body not once but twice. I Got sick again but completed the mammoth MTS Challenge Conference which rocked even though I didn't go. I also began a new series of rants on how to use email properly.
September (22 posts) - With the completion of the MTS Conference it felt like the fog had lifted and I increased the number of posts to a high for the year. Christine crashed my hard worked on car. No one really read this post. This was contrasted with the 2nd highest read post in the history of my blog about Mark Dricoll and his 18 points in Sydney. Other topics covered included; How annoying Sydney people are, How to run a successful blog, more Driscoll, and still more Driscoll.
October (20 posts) - My email etiquette series continued . Christine voted in an historic election which saw her cop flack (mostly on facebook) for daring to suggest a vote for Obama. It really frustrated me but this made me laugh. Of course in a reoccurring theme for 2008 I got sick with the flu again. I wrote a review of one of the post powerful pieces of TV I've ever seen and in a popular post taught my mates how to clean a shower.
November (19 posts) - I swapped a friends lunch, took a weekend break, won some cash on the Melbourne Cup. Quite a few posts linked to other people's opinions rather than my own.
December (32 posts) - I've been going blog crazy this month. I've had long stretches of duty here at Jane in which to think, reflect and write. This has meant I've posted some of my most personal and juiciest stuff to date. I also posted one of my best bits of writing this year complete with a follow up. I've also written a some longer posts and introduced my 5 things posts an idea I thought of late one night while I was sick (again). December has been a good month.
Total posts for 2008 194 and counting...
tags blog, linkage, review, shameless self promotion, thinking, update
Time to swing the axe
I can't believe we lost the second test to South Africa. I feel kind of hollow. Some people will no doubt say "it's good for Australia to loose", and "it's good for cricket". However the most upsetting thing is the manner in which Australia lost this last test. It was nothing short of humiliating going from a winning position to loose by 9 wickets. I'm still shaking my head.
It's time for the selectors to do some hard core axe swinging. Angus has some good tips.
5 Movies I’ve seen and felt like I’d wasted my life
29 December 2008
tags linkage, review, shameless self promotion
Reflections on Christmas and Santa
28 December 2008
I've been thinking about Christmas and the "true spirit" of Christmas. Firstly it puzzles me that Christians continue to fight for a return to the "true spirit" of Christmas (the birth of Jesus Christ saviour of the world) when it feels like it's lost cause in the secular world and among my friends*. The "true spirit" seems well lost to materialism, family and parties. Perhaps as Mikey put it a while back;
Rather than fighting some silly rear-guard action trying to make people care about the spiritual significance of Christmas, and consequently ruining Christmas day with a church service... why not instead just use the time to love your family, write cards to distant relatives and eat a nice meal?Perhaps I have this attitude because I'm a product of my generation.
My second reflection was to do with Santa. I'm a bit "whatever" when it comes to Santa. I don't understand why people get either all anti Santa or all pro Santa. My parents told me that Santa wasn't real from a very early age but encouraged us to pretend. We used to get right into it every Christmas and write letters. Mum would always write us letters back from Santa. It was great fun, like an awesome family in joke.
Unfortunately when we got to school we may have spoiled the idea of Santa for a few choice classmates. I remember a teacher giving me a dressing down about it which still makes me laugh. I like pretend Santa. What about you?
* I should say here I'm all for teaching my kids about Jesus at Christmas time. I just think as an evangelistic opportunity Christmas is limited or at least more limited than we're prepared to admit.
tags christian, linkage, thinking
Politics and Religion
Firstly I read a very interesting article this morning on George Bush. According to the article Bush has read a total of 95 books this year. I'll give you just one juicy quote;
Like so many caricatures of the past eight years, this one is not only wrong, but also the opposite of the truth and evidence that bitterness can devour a small-minded critic. Mr. Bush loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them.George we don't agree on many things but I take my hat off to you. You've read more books than I.
h/t to Craig
I also found this article looking at Obama's decision to invite Rick Warren to his inauguration next month. While not a big fan I feel a bit sorry for Rick Warren. He's hated by the left for being anti homosexual but the right also disowns him for being "pro Obama". He can't win. What happened to tollerance?For about a generation, many on the left have believed that active and unapologetic intolerance of the right was justified because its views on matters such as abortion and gay rights were simply unacceptable. This moral somersault may work for them, but to the average American voter, a full-throated assault on the likes of Rick Warren for being "wrong" on two of many issues looks like simple intolerance.
tags christian, linkage, thinking
5 values for new Crossroads secretaries
27 December 2008
- People over work. The Secretary should be free to tools down and hang out and chat with whoever drops by. Go and grab a coffee anytime.
- Efficiency and accuracy. This involves trying to get things done with maximum accuracy in all things (weekly email, spelling, Church rolls etc).
- Serving others. This includes serving the church members and staff (eg. Dan). The secretary should try and help out with the administrative burden where possible. Serving others also includes being hospitable.
- Technological proficiency. This is probably the most important. Mastery of the various programs we use in the office is essential to be a proficient secretary.
- The Boss. The secretary is the boss of the office. They have the right to boss people around even Mikey and Dan. Get angry and be bossy. People need to be a little bit scared of you not the other way round.
tags christian, ministry tips, shameless self promotion
Vision and 5 values for the Crossroads Office
26 December 2008
Vision: Luke H is impressed. Luke is our standard. When he wants to hang in the Crossroads office we have achieved our goal. We are still a long way off this.
- Neat and tidy. I managed this pretty consistently all year. I bought a vacuum cleaner and emptied the bins weekly. I cleaned and dusted.
- No accumulated rubbish and crap - For some reason the Crossroads office ended up as a dumping ground for crap. I took a whole trailer load of it to the tip late in the year. Churches and offices have to get better at throwing out donated crap.
- Thankful - We don’t pay rent and our landlords are awesome if a little Christian crazy.
- Hospitality - I didn’t quite nail this one this year but simple things such as making sure the tea and coffee are well stocked up and fresh. Maybe some icy cold cans.
- Not Belkirk - We want our office to be progressive with money allocated each year for small improvements. Maybe a nicely painted feature wall and no junk see point two.
tags christian, friends, linkage, ministry tips
Happy Christmas...
25 December 2008
To you all and thanks heaps for reading.
For those wondering about the flurry of blog posts and crazy facebook updates in the last couple of days, I'm spending pretty much all of Christmas working here all day at Jane doing "duty". This basically means I'm bound to the campus here and can't leave for about 3 days.
Not to worry, I've been taking a few photos (the garden is at it's best this time of year) and watching some choice DVDs. Mum, Dad and Davo and Jonny came up for Christmas lunch too which was very nice. Jonny also made a cake from scratch and it was pretty bloody good. (Click for full deliciousness).
Anyway enough babble. Happy Christmas from Myself, Christine and of course Olivia.
tags blog, shameless self promotion, update
You didn't think of that did you...
Custom hand written wrapping paper for my wife's Christmas present (click for bigness). Happy Christmas wifelette.
tags christine
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