Australia Day

I have a love / hate relationship with Australia Day.

I love living in Australia. I love the people who live here. I love the lifestyle. I love the opportunities and freedom. I love it that there are people from every nation on my local tram, who either do or aspire to call themselves Australians. I love lamb! And I love having a day off to celebrate it all. "Break out the thongs and light the barbie", I say. I am very thankful to God for allowing me to be here.

But Jan 26 seems a sad day to be celebrating this. A friend always wishes me a "Happy Invasion Day" on this day each year.

Fundamentally I struggle with a celebration that recalls the day when the British Empire decided that this was terra nullius - land "belonging to nobody". I hate that disregard for the inhabitants of the land. I hate the fact that Australia was taken from the Indigenous people of this place, and that we stole what was theirs. I hate the fact that there are still deep inequalities between indigenous and other Australians. (See here for an interesting view from Peter Adam - my good friend and Principal at Ridley)

Psalm 145 is the reading in the lectionary for Australia Day this year. Here are verses 8-9 - a true promise for our country:

The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

May he continue to show his steadfast love and faithfulness to us and exercise his compassion and mercy on us. May we become a just nation, and not forget the God who made us.

Summer Under the Son

We got back from "Summer Under the Son" conference on Wednesday. What a great 5 days it was too.

Bible expositions from Acts 9-11 by Kanishka Raffel. I found these very challenging. A couple of highlights -

• In Acts 9 thinking about Paul's Conversion on the Damascus Road. How easy it is to give up praying that God will move in some people's lives, yet here is a story of how he turned an arch enemy of Jesus around in a moment. We so often want to see people take little steps towards Jesus, little signs that God is at work - but of course in Paul's case there were none. I have a renewed desire to pray that even the most resistant of my friends can be converted to Christ.
• In Acts 12 considering the secret sovereign hand of God at work behind the scenes: rescuing Peter from prison, but letting James die. We so often can't fathom what he is up to, but assured that his purposes are good. There were lots of damp eyes as KR reminded us to hang in, trusting in God even when we can't see his purpose.

Then there were terrific missionary talks. So inspiring to hear ordinary people talking about the work they do for God around the world. There is so much need - in so many places. I often found myself wondering if we should pack up and go overseas. But for the time being think that staying at St Jude's and raising up more missionaries from the congregation is probably the right strategy.

It was great to see so many St Judeans involved: from the tech team to music, to leading among youth, to leading sessions in the auditorium, serving on branch council etc. Praise be that we have a mission minded church. However it would be good to see more St Jude's folk at SUTS each year. Watch out for 2011!

A long silence

I have been away from my blog for ages.

Last year got caught up finishing my D Min thesis on Church Culture. I submitted it on Nov 30 and now await the examiners reports. They give no indication of turnaround time. So a good exercise in trusting patience.

Since then I have been on holidays enjoying God's creation in northern NSW (Byron Bay) and south east Qld (Gold Coast and Brisbane) and have just returned from two weeks on a Theos Beach Mission in Mallacoota.



My wife and I were team parents for a team of young adults running programs to reach 15-25 year olds on holiday or living in Mallacoota (in far eastern Victoria) with the good news about Jesus. It was such a privilege to spend time with energetic committed Christian young people, who give up their own time to reach out like this. It was a great boost for our faith too.



I got to teach through the whole of the Book of Judges. Such an amazing story of the stupidity of God's people. Yet so close to our own stupidity. How often we find ourselves doing "what is right in our own eyes" and ignoring what God wants of us. How slow we are to learn.



Now we are about to spend 5 days at the Summer Under the Son conference at Philip Island run by CMS Victoria.It promises to be a great week of good teaching and hearing from CMS Missionaries around the world. The kids are off to the youth program.