ALL THINGS NEW

God is a God of New Beginnings!!

A Special announcement to those who read my blog :)
...Also appearing at Lifewell Conference 2009....first time publicly announced...is...special guest artist Geoff Bullock!!!

Geoff's songs have been sung all over the world and have blessed and encouraged many communities of faith. His songs include classics like - Power of your Love, This Kingdom, You Rescued Me, Refresh My Heart, I Surrender and The Great Southland. Geoff currently has 5 songs in the CCLI top 100!!

Come and hear him share his story in song. Hear about his encounter with God's grace and how God has done new things in his life. You do not want to miss Geoff Bullock, Sy Rogers, Allan & Helen Meyer

Lifewell Conference 09 is certainly shaping up to be a most significant weekend of restoration and renewal!!

Register today!!

God Loves Humpty Dumpty's

I grew up in Mildura. Our family owned the Humpty Dumpty Tourist Farm - it was home to the Worlds Biggest Humpty Dumpty.
I was reminded when I watched this video of the nursery rhyme about Humpty...Let me sing it too you...or at least give you the lyrics..."HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON THE WALL. HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL. ALL THE KINGS HORSES AND ALL THE KINGS MEN, COULDN'T PUT HUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN"

I wondered to my self...I think that this nursery rhyme is actually more theologically correct than many of our worship songs today. Can a nursery rhyme be more theologically sound than a CCLI worship song? Ponder this...Humanity was like Humpty Dumpty (You need to get past the big egg and head idea and the fact that Humpty Dumpty is not human at all for this to work) We were created good. We fell from our wall. We were broken and shattered (srambled perhaps). The image of God in us shattered, our picture of God distorted. The powers, the rulers the promises, hopes and dreams of life and purpose that pop culture offers us fails to put us together again. All the Kings, All the Caesars, All the Powers, All the Individualism, All the Consumerism cannot put these broken Humpty Dumpty's together again.

God has not given up on the world. God loves Humpty's. The gospels offers us a new way to be human. A new and better way to live life. May we let God put us back together again.

Ponderings...Is the gospel we proclaim making a new and better world?
Is the gospel to us an invitation to a whole new way of life?
What is the Gospel?

Roaming through Romans #4 - Brick

In Romans 6:1-14, Paul, not surprisingly seeing as though he is a Jew, draws upon the Exodus story as a way to help his readers understand the two types of humanity which he has outlined in chapter 5.

Egypt - was the superpower of its day. In the bible - Egypt is a place, a country a nation where the story begins. But in actual fact, it’s much more. You see, Egypt is what happens when sin becomes structured and embedded in society. Egypt is an empire – built on the backs of Israelites slave labour. Brick, by brick, by brick, by brick, the slaves worked in fear under Pharoah as the ‘Ruling Power’*

The people were set free from slavery; guided by the pillar of fire and cloud; taken through the Red Sea; given their identity as a people at Mt Sinai and on their way to the promised land**.

Bible teacher John Stott puts it this way: "Our baptism stands…like a door between two rooms, closing on the one and opening into the other" The Israelites passing through the Red Sea has shaped, along with John’s baptism and Jesus baptism of death, Paul’s understanding of Baptism. Paul wants his readers to remember that when you were baptized you moved from Slavery to sin (Egypt), to Life in the Messiah (Promised Land). It is a whole new regime, a whole new status, with a whole new master. So you are no longer under your old master, but now obligated to obey your new Master. And he draws upon their baptism to highlight the decisive shift in status. Martin Luther, when tempted and tested inside and out, used to shout – BAPTIZATUS SUM – I have been baptised!!

May we remember our Baptism - may we remember too that we left Egypt and entered into a new life – a new way to be human – with the Messiah. May we remember that we now no longer speak or live like an Egyptian. May when we are tempted and tested remember who we are – and may we shout in the face of the temptation ‘I have been Baptised’.

** Significantly, Sinai was not a country. There was no ruler or governor over this land. Sinai is free from any political and national boundary. So, God meets them in a place where no one owns, because no one owns ‘this God’. And here where no owns this land, he sets them apart and gives them the law, an act of grace, so that his people can live well with their God.

*References: Jesus wants to save Christians too. Rob Bell