Just writing an extra chapter for our book “Untamed” on the Holy Spirit and realizing just how easy it is to neglect some aspects of the Spirit’s work in our lives. And how much our past experience of excesses robs us of the very needed experiences of God, I’m afraid if I had to be really honest Al & I have become far too safe, far too careful and have thrown out too much of our early Pentecostal experiences,

here’s an excerpt from our book,

People really do fear the God-encounter…and for good reason.  “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb.10:31).  The approach of the Divine can present a real danger to fallen human beings.  We take our own security and way of thinking very seriously and fear the loss of control that God’s sovereignty brings with it.  At core here lies the root of our rebellion and idolatry.  In spite of what we say in our choruses about wanting to be touched and ravished by God, etc, we generally prefer to worship and know God at a safe distance.  British, missiologist and theologian J.V. Taylor rightly says of our encounter with God,

“To encounter Holy Spirit will be more like suddenly catching sight of the volcanic inferno beneath our earth’s familiar crust.  The Holy Spirit is totally primordial.  His is the elemental force beyond all other forces, and to call it, correctly, the force of love is not to temper its intensity but to increase fearfully our estimate of love’s fervor.”

and further along in the chapter,

Discipleship (from spiritual awakening, conversion, to maturity) is birthed in the Spirit, but it is also very much maintained in the Spirit. And while there are other forms of learning, discipleship involves a growth into the “deep things of God” (1Cor. 2:10) and this simply cannot be achieved without the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit. As such, we partake of the divine dance that is intrinsic to the life of God.  And we share in the divine life through the Spirit.  In other words, Christian life must be lived for the glory of God, under the saving lordship of Jesus, and in the power of the Spirit. Biblical discipleship is Trinitarian or it is not biblical. 

What will it take to truly abandon ourselves to God’s Spirit?

Can twittering bring people closer to God?? 

See latest Time article here

where is all this going?

I’ve just been reading Shane Hipps ‘Flickering Pixels’. We met Shane at the Q conference in Austin and found him quite provocative and very clever. In this book he provides a brilliant critique of technology and its influence on our faith and our lives. Shane was trained in advertising and is now a Mennonite pastor. He draws on Marshall Mc Luhan’s insights and gives ample examples of how and why the “medium is the message”. One of my favourite sections is when he talks about wisdom in chapter six, here’s a quote from the end of that chapter

Unfortunately, the Information Age does little to encourage the development of wisdom. This requires time, experience, contemplation, patience, suffering, and even stillness to obtain. But the churning sea of information never settles long enough to allow for the emergence of wisdom. We are left instead with “the conceit of wisdom rather than real wisdom and become a burden to society rather than a boon.

If we are not alert, the Information Age may stunt our growth and create a permanent puberty of the mind.

It’s a great book and easy to read - you’ll love it!

(Al on a panel at Q)

Well we are back home after a stimulating time at the Q conference in Austin, Texas. We experienced three days of 18 minute presentations, a variety of discussion groups and dialogues interspersed with entertainment and of course all the intensity of meeting and talking with presenters and delegates. My favourite 18 minute presentation was Micah White, writer and editor for Adbusters Magazine. He was thoughtful and inspiring with many prophetic insights, even better was the discussion we had with him afterwards. Micah was not a Christian and had not been invited into these circles before and was no doubt somewhat intrigued by the whole thing. Micah states that we must begin to “celebrate a new aesthetic that cherishes subsistence over surplus, local over national and play over work”. If you want to find out more about Adbusters and what they are on about you can do so here. 

There is much more to say about Q, the presenters and our experience of it but will leave that to future posts as I’m off to Disneyland with my aunt

oh and by the way this is Deb, as was the last post -  many confuse us when we post so we will try to remember to identify ourselves, or maybe we will just keep you guessing!

Mark with Al at home

Just spent the day with my Aussie mate Mark Sayers. In the course of the day (as we were walking around Hollywood) we ventured into a conversation about the death of dialogue (we cover about 40 topics every 20 minutes), anyway just thought I’d follow up our last post with a link to Mark’s always insightful, random, mad posts - this one is on Twitter. 

Can somebody please explain to me the whole point of twitter?? I have resisted joining just because it seems to be a total waste of time - like we don’t already spend way too much time in front of our computers on our IPhones etc. How on earth can knowing where someone is at any given moment be of any value unless of course you are a stalker? Or perhaps it’s about wanting to be validated by being known? except the problem is people are really only interested in the “celebrities” on their list anyway, and most of us are not that. I get the fact that it can communicate an idea in the ‘moment’, but I’m just not convinced it is really adding any real value to relationships. Isn’t it just a tad narcissistic? Now before I get too judgmental I have to confess that I was a facebook purist, only allowing “real” friends on my site, I like many of you, over time gave in, I now have many people on there that I have never met face to face. Al, the less extremist and more consistently reasonable of the two of us can manage to see the good and bad of twitter, but he has after all joined the party (like he doesn’t already have enough barely known associates in his life). Anyway I’m still waiting to be convinced - surely there are far more fruitful things we could be doing with our time.

Well life has been pretty full since we got back from Europe - poor Al has had another Europe trip, visited Philadelphia & Nashville and now we have Aussie friends and family with us! It’s been loads of fun and wonderfully intense and to add to all that Spring has arrived in all its splendour (well In the U.S. that is), we have the most amazing rose bushes in our garden…..I guess the Autumn leaves are falling back home in Australia, I so love the uniqueness of each season. Hint: click on each image twice to get the big pciture.

Well we are back home in our own bed again after our trip to France & Portugal. Our time away was great, we had a wonderful holiday with the Frosts and then in Portugal caught up with some of our mates who are planting churches through Christian Associates in Europe. It’s always a humbling time hearing the stories of some who have left friends and family to take the gospel to cultures that are often quite hostile. And in the present economic climate, very costly.

Mike and Carolyn led the teachings at the leadership summit and were both inspiring and informative, naturally with a good dose of Aussie rawness thrown in - living in America you get an appreciation of just how raw us Aussies really are! Americans by nature seem to be much more polite and positive, we tend to have a much stronger, cynical edge. Overall the conference was a good mix of Aussies, Europeans and Americans, which always makes for an interesting and stimulating time.

Anyway it is nice to be back home in our own bed which is soft and comfortable. Wherever we have been in Europe the beds have been rock hard and at times like sleeping on a cement slab. Al has developed this theory that one of the reasons that there have been so many wars in Europe is due to the hard beds, people wake up angry from lack of sleep and immediately want to fight someone - there just might be something in this!

playing backgammon in a cafe in Lisbon

in Lisbon

St. Emilion, France

Saint Emilion, France

It’s been a while since our last post, sorry about that. We are on the road again and this is the first time we have both travelled without our computers (see we can do it!), so it’s been hard to check emails let alone post a blog.

We are away with Mike & Carolyn Frost our great mates from Australia who we haven’t caught up with properly since we moved to the States, so as you can imagine we are having a blast. We spent the last week in the South of France, visiting a number of places including Bordeaux and the incredibly beautiful little town of Saint Emilion (above) which was just one of the most perfect places you could ever visit. I (Deb) however, had some strange thing happening to my jaw while we were there (Al says I was talking too much), anyway I was in enough pain to warrant waiting to see the dentist. Carolyn waited with me and we had an interesting time observing a muslim woman (who was in the waiting room) recite her prayers, and at times show her irritation at us when our talking became disruptive to her, mind you the waiting room was no bigger then a bathroom! After all the waiting I got to see the lovely french dentist (don’t you just love that accent) whose english was pretty good which was just as well because our french was minimal. Anyway after several exrays he informs me that due to a tooth I had removed many years ago that my two back teeth are moving and disrupting my whole jaw! He’s only remedy (apart from major dental work when we return to America) was to rest - no walking, minimal talking, and careful when I eat. Just what you want to hear when you are on holidays! And I might add I have yet to take his advice, after all what damage can one more week do?

So, on with the holiday. We arrived this morning into the glorious city of Lisbon (so far one of our most favourite cities we’ve visited). We came here last year on our way to the Christian Associates conference in Ericeira (a gorgeous little fishing village in Portugal), and again this year. We will spend a few days here in Lisbon then on again to Vila Gale in Ericeira for our leadership summitt. Mike & Carolyn will be speaking at the conference while Al and I kick back, relax and enjoy the views. Although while bending down to pick up a suitcase this morning Al did something to his back, he is currently resting it, but it’s not feeling too good at the moment….. (sigh) back, teeth, gosh we really are getting old. Part of this little holiday with the Frosts was to celebrate our joint anniversaries, we celebrated 20 years in January and the Frosts 25 years this month, milestones and proof that we are indeed getting older!

Till the next time,

Blessings…..

We discussed this fantastic video the other night at our church. Have a look…