God Spot

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God Spot
This Christian Resource Blog has been created by a group of friends from around the world. Our purpose is to provide links to useful resources, some commentary on topical or doctrinal issues, a place where anyone can come with questions and a means whereby we can share our faith. And above all, to grow and encourage each other. As Christians, we believe we bear God's image in this world, and seek to glorify God's name in this endeavour. Any Christian who wants to join with us is very welcome!

Sunday, January 29, 2006

The new world, is Shawn right?

Is unity a terrible thing, as in speaking the same language, one currency, and democracy in government. Did not George W claim that bringing democracy was one of the main reasons for invading Iraq, and did not the White House thing that Palestinian elections were a great thing until Hamas won a majority. Shawn is it a fearful or selfish approach that you are taking? If you are free to worship how you want and free to make apple pie then what's wrong?

Something Like 35 years ago Ralph Nader quipped that the election of the Chariman of General Motors was more important than the election of the Prseident. Who would it be today, I'll put in the chairman of Microsoft.

My church may be electing a new bishop soon, (rumours that get to me) and someone I went to school with is a hot candidate, (more rumours), though we were not close she and I, for I was more a friend with her brother. Fine by me.

Gary

# posted by Anonymous @ 7:42 am

0 comments

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Australila Day Awards

Juest about each year Shirley and I discuss that the Awards go to mostly to people who do their job successfully usually to the extent of a discovery or making lots of money, (or in recent years because the Prime Minister loves cricket, being a member of the Australian cricket team). Not many, only a few, get an award for outstanding comunity or charity work; yet there are plenty of people more deserving that the principal of a rich independent secondary school. More proof that the world is crazy and not balanced? I'm told that there are rewards in heaven, getting there do and will make me very happy.
Gary

# posted by Anonymous @ 6:01 am

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Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Today's Newspaper - "Court to decide if Jesus existed"

From today's Age:

An Italian court will this week ponder the existence of Christ after an atheist accused a priest of misleading the public by presenting Jesus as an historical character.

The atheist, 72-year-old Luigi Cascioli, first filed a complaint against 75-year-old Father Enrico Righi, a parish priest in Bagnoregno, central Italy, in September 2002.

Righi had asserted the historical existence of Christ in a parish newsletter.

"This complaint does not wish to contest the freedom of Christians to profess their faith ... but wishes to denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by profiting from its prestige to present historical facts as if they are real when they are only inventions," the atheist says on his website.

Cascioli says he'll withdraw his complaint if he receives proof of the historical existence of Christ. Now, there's a challenge. Shawn, how would you respond if you were in the witness box for the defence??

# posted by geoff @ 1:58 pm

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Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Sacrifice

On Friday my husband and I attended a Hindu wedding. The ceremony went for nearly two hours and was followed by a vegetarian meal. There seemed to be a fair bit of ritual with giving to and fro of offerings and gifts.

There were saris of such beauty and various colours, incense, gold, garlands, flowers, more incense, noise along with the tat tat of drums and the ear piercing 'screech' of long horned trumpets.People moving and talking.

No spoken vows that I could pick up, but three generations on both sides of the family named by the 'priest' to bring their blessing on the union, and the couple linking their little fingers and walking around the god of fire three times.

We were given a four page written explanation of the different rituals so that we could make sense of the whole evening.

One thing that really stood out to us was the sacrificial coconut.
"...The priest holds high a lit oil lamp symbolizing the divine light witnessing the nuptial knot. Also now a coconut is cracked into two halves by a close member of the family symbolizing a bloodless sacrifice. The sweet coconut water signifying love, the white kernel purity and the broken shell selfishness shed..." Not only do they have a 'sacrifice' but also a 'trinity' found in the coconut. When talking with a Hindu I guess that these particular rituals could be useful as a springboard when sharing the Gospel.

The next day we went to a Catholic wedding for the same couple. Reading through the whole program was also an eye opener. All the wording except for one paragraph was amazing. There were no 'hail Mary's' or 'Mary mother of God' said. Scripture was read and quoted and Christ was acknowledged. The one thing I found difficult to cope with was "...Let us pray for all the loved ones who have passed away, may they enjoy happiness in their eternal life..."
But apart from that one paragraph and the horrendous heat - it was a very nice wedding.

What a contrast between the Friday night and the Saturday afternoon.

# posted by shellymac @ 7:09 pm

2 comments

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Controlling the weather, a good thing

To most this really means creating rain when it dry and seeing mankind has put the world into a worse state by his own actions over the centuries we may as well do whats necessary to put it right.

The people of the bible dug wells, they herded the approriate animals for the area and grew the appropriate crops. Yes we here should farm and eat kangaroos, and not cattle or sheep in some areas. Certainly we in Australia should not grow cotton or rice for those crops take up too much water.

We all control the 'weather' inside our houses, all with some form of heating in winter. In summer more and more people here have huge air-conditioning units, unnecessary monsters big enough to drive a jumbo jet, ok, but we need to consider the environment and the electricity creating our confort usues us.

Anyway if the chemicals are not harmful to the environment, I think we should keep going with 'cloud seeding' to create rain.

# posted by Anonymous @ 5:15 am

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Friday, January 20, 2006

Ex Cathedra

Gary, you haven't let us down with your wonderfully ex-cathedra pronouncement on the deeper spiritual aspects of pulling weeds at church.

And your alliteration in your enthusiastic sentence "up the mighty magnificent Brisbane Lions pertfect punters of the puffed up pigskin propelling it through the goals" is much improved (and far more accurate) if "goals" is replaced by "points"!

# posted by geoff @ 10:13 am

0 comments

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Authority and pulling weeds.

Now pulling weeds from the garden at church may be an act of kindness to the church but as Geoff asks 'is it a job in a church' as required by BSF in that a Leader must have a job in his church.

My answer is that this definitely is 'a job in a church', because the person does something equal to that which I did as 'job in a church' for years. I handed out the books, took the books up, swept the paths on working bee days, mowed the lawns, pulled weeds out, planted plants, changed light globes, lifted seats, put tables away -- all tasks suitable to my ability. And I was a BSF leader.

There is much discernment in pulling our a weed, one has to know what is a weed and what is a pencil pine tree that should be left behind. At times by ability was stretched and I was stressed but this made me suitable to be a BSF leader.

Now the BSF manual does not define 'a job in a church'. This is because --
everyone know what a job is,
BSF doesn't know and cannot define it,
they referred to the scripture and found 27 theological arguments and 47 doubts,
they looked to the traditions of the church, then realized that they don't believe in
the traditions of the church,
they actually found a copy of the KJV

I will stop raving, Geoffery believe me, in a church you can argue about anything, but pulling out a weed is a 'job in the church' and don't think that a weed is really a nice plant that God created, don't go there even if you chew Sorrell or make Dandelion tea.

Gary

# posted by Anonymous @ 8:33 pm

0 comments

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Yes you do...

..and it was the very back one (in a section on its own, with all the recording paraphernalia) the time we attended.

But seriously, I need to know about weeding the (church) garden, and whether this constitutes a "job in one's church" for satisfying BSF leadership criteria??

Gary, I turn to you as the oracle here (being the longest-serving BSF person I know - and like with the Jewish custom, the wisdom that comes with age is to be revered highly).

For BSF'ers, I'm thinking that scripture is clearly our Torah. Then comes the BSF manual which would equate, more or less, to the Talmud. And probably interpretations like what exactly constitutes a "job in church", undefined in the manual, are maybe more in the category of "oral tradition" or Mishnah?

Thus we need your great wisdom to pronounce on this weighty matter.

# posted by geoff @ 2:36 pm

1 comments

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

I don't have a seat

Really, there should be no discrimination in church, no special seats, special places, and people should not do what so many do, sit at the back and sit and the ends of the seats. I don't mind sitting in the middle of a seat, Shirley and I can see and hear just as well, sing and pray even, and of course, put our money in the plate.

Geoffery what are you raving about, hurry up the football season for your poor befuddled mind.

# posted by Anonymous @ 10:18 pm

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in Gary's seat

Gary, I think we sat in your seat Sunday night. It was good. Talk was on 1John3, about loving one another:

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Serious stuff, not loving our brothers and sisters. And:

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

It was a good and strong practical message.

Michele, I can't imagine your church being an unloving place. But we heard that lack of love in church is a sad and serious indictment of many, maybe most, Christian churches in our land today.

Gary, would weeding the church garden on the way out constitute a "job at church" in order to qualify oneself for BSF leadership? We need a ruling on this tricky matter...

# posted by geoff @ 3:36 pm

0 comments

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Where I sit in church

Anywhere. Its an issue, yes I think that people are shy, but also creatures of habit and in some cases not good on the hearing especially in groups -- myself included having trouble with background noise and I'm keen to escape from the crowd at morning tea at church. Meanwhile I'm trying to overcome my shyness and talk to people. Shirley makes an effort to talk to new people, I usually follow.

I have or create, some troubles talking to people. My version is that they are too sensitive, Shirley says I'm tactless. Last night when I went to the church study a fellows was pulling a weed out of the garden. I said,
"There you go, you've done your good deed for the day"!
Shirley told me later that the guy was offended, spare me!

# posted by Anonymous @ 8:29 pm

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Where to sit

As I grew up my parents would get us to always sit in the second front row of church. I would sit between them and when the sermon would begin I would loop my arm under theirs.

As I grew older I started to sit in the back row. Mainly because that was where the 'female ringleader' had the hot peppermints that we would toss over to the boys in the back row on the other side of the church! We asked our minister why he always put up his hands when he said the benediction. He thought for awhile and then said it means 'all you blokes in the back row be quiet.'

Nowadays I like to sit near the back or on the end of the row. No - not for a quick get-a-way, but because I don't like to feel 'boxed in' and apart from that I can't sit still for one minute and am aware that I might be annoying the people seated nearby (that's my excuse anyway).

But I do go up to people and talk to them after the service - something which is very difficult for me as underneath by 'mask' I'm very self-conscious. But it is important to make people feel welcome. I remember our whole family going to church at Phillip Island and not one person came up to us to say 'welcome' or 'hello'. It's not like they couldn't see us - we took up a whole row as there were six of us! That day my husband and I looked at each other and said that we must not let such a thing happen in our church. I'm sure that at times it still does happen, but we are trying.

Most people are shy to some extent, but with God's help we can overcome that shyness in reaching out to others.

# posted by shellymac @ 7:59 pm

0 comments

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Why won't they talk to me

Well we have read the scripture (and believed it Shawn) about Christian love and fellowship (1 John 1 and 2) even had it explained by Paul Barker that it is a terrible thing of darkness to hate another Christian, so at supper a lot of people don't mix or talk to me. Yes, proof that I'm a bad person.

True I am a bad person, but I have long ago overcome my teenage shyness, I doubt that most of the others there have. When I go into church I sit in the middle or near the front, while a good number want to sit at the back, (hide at the back?) or sit on the ends of the seats, so they can make a quick exit? I can understand that, church takes so long, why is that Geoffery, is the minister worried that he is not earning his huge salary?

mmmm Gary

# posted by Anonymous @ 9:45 pm

1 comments

Monday, January 02, 2006

Bob McGuire and Hillsong

Two weeks ago Bob McGuire (and John Saffron) were interviewed on ABC radio about 11.30 am. For those who don't know, Father Bob McGuire in one of the great social workers of the Roman Catholic Church and I have met him, taking him around in the taxi a few times over the years.

The interviewer just asked,
"Bob, what do you think of Hillsong?" and Bob quickly replied,
"I'd rather be doing things than singing things!"

Isn't that 'classic', witty and tactful, not really 'attacking' the 'opposition'. Isn't it true?

We have 5 hymns or songs in church every Sunday morning. To me thats 2 or 3 too many!

Comments on the above ..........

# posted by Anonymous @ 5:50 am

1 comments

Sunday, January 01, 2006

All for what?

This last week the richest man in Australia died. His name was Kerry Packer.

Several years ago he had a massive heart attack and was clinically dead for 8 minutes. After had had regained his health he was being interviewed on TV when he was asked what it was like for him during that near death experience.

The answer he gave was that there was good news and bad news. The good news was that there is no Devil, the bad news was that there is no heaven.

It saddens me when I think of this. I only hope that there was a time even in his last few moments of life when he realised his great error and turned to the Lord.

Mr Packer's worldly gain was one million dollars a day.

All I can think of is the verse from Mat 16:26 that says - "What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul."

# posted by shellymac @ 6:54 pm

0 comments

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