Church For Men

I've come up to the main building to check out a website (28KB from our units is just unbearable when jetstream is a hop-skip-&-a-jump away!!) and I can't help myself... here I am!

I'm feeling a little miserable this evening - my throat feels the size of a golf ball and swallowing is as nasty as running it down a sandpaper slide! I've decided to do my duty tonight (you could eat off the toilet floors here they're so clean!) before heading home for an early night.

You'll all be pleased to know I have not only come full circle with Mr Brengle (Samuel Logan that is!) but sanctification has been well and truly hashed out in our theology class so as soon as I have head space to get it all down legibly, it shall appear here! Currently, there's yet another sermon on the boil for assessment next week and my ThinkC assignment is to convince 4 ex-Jehovah's Witnesses of the work of the Holy Spirit and that he is a person not a 'thing'... anyone care to sub? - you know, my life for yours temporarily?!

So why the title Church for Men you ask? Well I've just finished watching the dvd 'Why Men Hate Going to Church' and there are some serious truths in there! Pretty helpful too considering I'm a women in ministry where men are very rarely catered for let alone catered for well. Church for Men is the website to go with the book/dvd/the whole idea basically so I'm looking forward to some tips on relevant men's ministry (seeing as I'm not one, I think I can safely say I need all the help I can get!!) so, I'm off to surf...

SOS

...as I race through my week end and weekend (!!) and assessments roll over me, the question is simply - to blog or not to blog? But I can't help myself!

The 4 day Sole Officer Symposium was great! I don't think I've laughed so hard with the girls... I mean fellow captains, cadets and colleagues (!!)... in ages. In general, it was a much needed break from life at the moment.

The film is going in for developing as soon as the weekend is over and Crin has a good 100 photos to burn off onto disc for us all so I'll put a 'selection' online as soon as I get them! Rest assured, when Corryn has the camera, a shot of someone's nostrils is bound to appear!

... I digress! *surprise surprise!* There were, of course, a few cringe moments over the time together (but there always are when a specific group of people come together I think!) but our speaker - Lt. Col. Geanette Seymour, Chief Secretary, Australia Eastern Territory (how's that for a job title!!) - was... indescrible! She cut straight to the core yet gently and with such a good sense of humour along the way. She was motivational, inspirational and just plain honest about life as a sole officer.

In hindsight at the testimony time at the end, more than a few confessed to not wanting to actually be at the symposium to begin with (the amount of 'stick' a sole officer gets in attending a symposium goes beyond words at times - albeit with the best of intentions!) yet we found safe friendships in our midst, a safe place to vent our frustrations as well as tools to deal with them, and were also equipped as to how we could continue on our journey to wholeness... deep eh?! And who would have thought all this would come from just 4 short days together?

My highlight would have to be the recreation time... generally I hate playstation games but SingStar 80s it the best and the dance mat left more than a few of us, simply without words! (generally due to the fact that we were gasping for air after trying to keep up with the dance moves on-screen!)

Now I bet you really can't wait to see the photos!

At one point we had a soapbox time to share. I didn't share but felt that I would write this instead:

single but not alone

intricately woven yet completely understood

"Thankyou for making me so wonderfully complex..."

from Psalm 139 (NLT)

Food For Thought

This came out of a class we had today. Definitely food for thought...

The study and practice of mission - how to reach out to a world whose values and viewpoints are very different from those of the Bible - is a vital skill. To remain pastors of the faithful is not enough; to become pioneers, boldly leading the people where the church has never gone before, is essential.
Chick Yuill - Leadership on the Axis of Change

...your thoughts?

The birds are back in town!

Ah! How I've missed them and I had no idea how much!

Duties are rough for most of us - I base that purely on how my session mates actually look at 7am! - but the whole process is so much more bearable when I walk out my front door to an absolute cacophony of bird calls - it's just great!

And when I come home, there's always a Tui still hanging around. Almost makes me want to live in the bush... almost!

Male Pride

I must say, my writing inspiration is not exactly coming from my own life at the moment. All I can really say is, if you share with me... beware! The narrator of this event will, I fear, have to remain nameless in order to protect what little male pride he has sinced managed to scrape together!

Who knows how long ago it was that this event occurred - all we do know is that it is still rather fresh in this man's mind!... I digress...

With the secret want of being in 'peak physical fitness' in the back of everyone's minds, no-one enjoys a challenge more than a man, particularly when the challenge comes from a woman!

On this particular occasion, a male cadet went out for a walk (up the big hill to the cemetery) and as he stopped (ever so briefly!) to tie his shoelace, he was passed by a woman on her bicycle. The male in question had a bit of a snicker to himself as she was not going very fast and thought he would pass her at a slow jog - just to be infront! Without another thought, he jogged passed.

Oh how little thought we give to consequences! What this male had not factored into the equation was the sheer determination and ultimately peak physical condition of the female cyclist - would she ever give up? No sirree! She sat, apparently quite contentedly, right on the tail of our slow jogger.

And now we reach the real dilemma for our jogger - having passed the slow-going female cyclist and having reached as far as he intended to walk (not run!), he rather desperately wanted to stop and head for home. But he couldn't just stop could he(?!!) - No! Because then she would pass him and win! Any takers on picking the ending to my story??... hmmm?

Let me share some more - our jogger did not (would not!) give up and with a cyclist in tow, jogged all the way to the top of the hill so as to concede at least a win to the top of the mountain! I'm not sure how long our jogger maintained his composure (I'm guessing at least until our cyclist was out of view!) but it was not long before he collapsed (momentarily) in an exhausted heap of .... you guessed it - male pride!

Picture it - unable to stand, barely able to breathe yet a fist ever so slightly raised in the air as the barely audible wheeze is uttered:

"....I...win...."