Mission Dreams

This has been a little while coming (my apologies), but I've been a little sick and more than a little busy (did someone say Greek Test next week??...). But here's what I've been doing over what must officially be the longest blogging break I've had since I got into this whole crazy thing.







Last week was my first ever College Mission, and I was lucky enough to be involved with Ecom ("evangelising commerce") in the Sydney CBD. I can't speak highly enough of these guys. They're so well organised, efficient, hard-working, and above all, I love their vision - evangelism in the workplace. There are so many people who live at work and can really only be reached by their Christian work-mates, so I love the thought of them hearing the gospel, AND of encouraging Christians to stand firm in such a potentially difficult environment as big business.

So our job was to man a bunch of stalls around Sydney, giving away free literature and fliers, trying to get into gospel conversations basically. We had free coffee (ooo yeah!), BBQs, acapella singers, Nathan Tasker, cooking demonstrations, magic shows and stuff to attract some interest, and it was surprisingly successful.

We also put on a number of 'private events' in companies such as Earnst and Young (where I was), either doing talks or bible studies with the employees. So imagine a huge board room, one of those classic long desks with rows of leather business chairs down both sides, little microphones at each place for you to talk into, and a massive TV behind a screen they use for video conferencing! Now imagine me at the head of the table trying to facilitate a discussion with a bunch of business people, including 2 of the partners of the firm - ya, not QUITE my thing!! I mean, when else will you get that sort of opprotunity, but dude, if you know me you'll know that's not my idea of a normal bible study group to say the least. Not to mention I had the Academic Dean of Moore College sitting in on me...

So how'd it go? Well, I'd rather not swear, so I won't answer that at this point, but lets just say the Al Stewart talk we watched on DVD was all good. I spose it wasn't that bad, but I'd be giving myself a score of "a long way from perfect" out of 10.


What WAS cool was Street Evangelism! Seriously can't believe I'm saying that, but I went out 5 times over the week and every single time we had an extended conversation with a non-Christian about the gospel (as in up to 45 mins). Now, tell me that's not just very cool! It's why I loved mission so much. Weird hey...

I know this is long (again), but I've got to tell you the best thing that happened all week. On Tuesday during Street Evangelism I met Will. We chatted for about half and hour and he was really open, honest and interested in talking about God. He has a Catholic background (boarding school, so bad darts!), and seen the church do lots of bad things, so he was pretty jaded about some things (rightly so). But he ended up coming to a Bible talk on the next day, and then to a dinner/talk/bible study thing on the next night. In the next week he read Matt, Mark, Luke, and reckons he wrote about 15,000 words on his thoughts about God and life and stuff in that week.

We met up again on Tuesday and I gave him "A Fresh Start", and he said it has been incredibly good. Clear and exactly what he needed at this point in his life, he said. I can't believe what's been happening with him, I can so see him becomming a Christian (if he isn't already), and we're going to keep meeting up.

For me, that was the point of the whole week! Please pray for him. He's thinking about taking a job in Alaska for 3 months, which seems like bad timing. Perhaps it would be better if he didn't go, but either way please pray for his salvation. Things like that are so encouraging, so I've been praising God for being able to be involved too!

SO lots of other things happened too (like I got to pray in the 10:30 service at St Andrew's Cathedral - AND Philip Jensen said I did a good job!!!), but even the best of you must be hoping I leave those things for another time. So I will!

Let me leave you with this crack up of an evening I had last night.




We went and Saw Lano & Woodley and they were sensational! They're so clever, my stomach was hurting through all that blubber I've put on over the last 2 very un-energetic weeks! Shame they're finishing up...

P.S. - Pray for St Barney's too, the church building burnt down last week which has got to be pretty full on, I reckon. JT

Attachment

"Suffering is caused because we attach ourselves to things. When that thing is taken away from us, we suffer. Therefore, we must become aware of our attachments so that when they are broken, we can minimise our suffering".
(This is not a quote from Buddha, just a practicing Buddhist)








That's what I was discussing with a Buddhust fellow for about an hour and a half last week. Only problem is, I think he's wrong, in the most part at least.

I think people do attach themslves to things, but I don't think attachments are morally neutral. I think some are clearly good (like a father's attachment to his son), and some are inherhently bad (like an attachment to drugs). That being the case, I don't think the breaking of a healthy attachment causes suffering because the attachemnt should't be there, I think suffering comes because a good attachment is broken when it shouldn't be. So the son dies - the attachemnt isn't to blame, death is. I am attached to my watch and it is stolen. My attachment is not to blame, it is the person who stole it who is to blame for my suffering.

And so while it would be nice to be able to have complete control of our own suffering by just mastering our attachments (a process another buddhist referred to as becomming 'dispassionate'), the reality is that sometimes it's external to us. I can't change someone else's heart, so I don't have complete control of my own suffering. Harsh but true.

Then of course i realise that I cause a lot of my own suffering, primarily by my selfishness. And yet where this might come back under my own conrtol I realise that I can't stop doing that anymore than i can stop people from dying or a random theif stealing my stuff. The problem is in the heart of man, and it's a problem we can't resolve.

And so I am driven once again to the cross of Christ, where Jesus deals with sin, promises a new creation where sin and death will be no more, and gives me his Holy Spirit to help me wto deal with the sin in my heart until then.

My perfect world is not a world of no attachments, but where all attachments are good, and good attachments are never broken. The God of the Bible is again what makes the only sense of our world, and Christ is again the only hope for it. I pray that this man (who turned out to be a lecturer at Sydney uni), ponders this, and comes to put his faith in the Lord of the universe, Jesus the Christ.

Is there anything else about Buddhism that you have experienced, or can't make sense of? Let's share some things around, if you want...

P.S. - I'm on Mission with ecom this week, so posts may be scarce. Some amazing stuff has been happening, so I might not be able to conrtol myself though. We'll see hey!

Value this, right now.

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans"
-- John Lennon












That's my holiday in a nutshell, pretty much. I'd been waiting for it for quite some time, but then it comes and the things you plan to do aren't the things you end up doing (I blame weather and other people's business) and you feel a bit jipped frankly. But while you're cursing what didn't happen, you're losing what might happen now. While I was afraid of losing my holiday, it was my fear that was making me lose it!

So here's some of the good things I DID do on my week off.

Firstly, I say with boldness that I saw a streak of really solidly good PG movies - yes PG! I don't know why it almost hurts to say this, but I've pre-judged the whole PG thing. Such purity. Such good clean fun. I'm a new man!
(For those interested the 2 titles I can remember are Sky High, and Little Black Book. Again, they are PG, so enter at you're own risk, but I'm enjoying this limb for the moment).

Next, I went on 2 sensational bike rides down the M2. That is the best stretch of biking road (compared to Newtown anyway), and during the final hr + 1/2 of daylight, it's just awesome.

Beers are always hard to beat if the company's right... and ooo it was!

Garlic King Prawns are a rare delight, as is cleaning up on the Poker table (though that's not so rare...)

And some new clothes never go astray, even if the process is painful.

Oh, and I got to have "story-time with Josh" with the kids at church on Sunday morning, which was a crack up. Anyone else think Steph Semler's just a gorgeous little thing? If I have kids like her I'll be a happy man!


But while planning can mean you miss the moment, I'm planning something at the moment that will make a lot of big moments for me in the future. I've got to decide on an essay topic for Old Testament, and this decision will make a pretty massive difference to what I take away from 1st Yr College. So important stuff.

Ok, I think I've sucked the life out of this moment, how 'bout I go now?
Bye bye,
JT