Conversion

Here is a working definition of conversion that Mike Todd is working with:

Conversion:The transference of allegiance from theindividual world to the collective reality of the Kingdom of God.

I like it.
What do you reckon?

He gives us Himself

Doing an essay on Job (his friends theological worldview to be exact) and came across this quote by Haddon Robinson:
"When we go to God and ask Him why bad things are happening, He doesn't give us an explanation; He gives us Himself."

(Quoted by Littleton in a book by Zuck)

Resurrection

As I ponder the resurrection (interestingly while I continue to unpack/make sense of my newish bedroom!) today ... Steve's word have much meaning for me. Have a read.

Particularly these words:

"It struck me this week that the 4 gospel Resurrection stories are totally lacking in any Old Testament Jewish quotations. And that's in absolute contrast to the 4 gospel stories of Jesus crucifixion. They're packed full of Old Testament Jewish quotations.

Full of Old Testament Scripture: Empty of Old Testament Scripture."

and

"Which makes me wonder, when I meet people who reckon they've got Christianity all sorted, all nice and tidy, well wrapped and beautifully packaged,
makes we wonder if they’ve really met Jesus, this untidy disturber of people's lives."

Thanks Steve!

1 Peter

Reading through 1 Peter at the moment and these words from Chapter 3 really struck me this morning:
your beauty ... should be that of your inner spirit, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.
... do not give way to fear.

How often as people, women particularly in our own way, do we give way to fear? And so often it gives way to something quite different to the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit".
I pray that I would grow, that we would grow, in our ability to not give way to fear so that we might grow in our being people who have the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

Remaking Book

Talking of books - I've been re-miss!

The Solace community which I'm a part of have released a book called "Remaking". For several years now we have been exploring spiritual disciplines, originally based on Renovare material by Richard Foster, and shaped for us heavily too on the work of Dallas Willard. As we lived in the six traditions that Foster talks of, they became our own more and we began to speak of them as "Ways" of Remaking the World. So this book discusses what it means to be involved in the Remaking the World, Transforming Grace and then it has a chapter on each of the 7 Ways that shape our community (with two different perspectives on this way, a personal story and various ways to engage in that way all listed).

I reckon lots of people and communities would benefit from being shaped by this book - and we would love to see our it shapes you and how we can learn from the way that you engage with this material and how you are engaging with similar practices.

The book is $30 (Australian) and $3.50 for postage in Australia; $12 for postage to most other places. Let me know if you'd like a copy (comment or email me at barbd@suvic.org.au or email Stu)

Atonement

Sometime in the last week I came across something that lead me to investigate the book "Atonement for a 'Sinless' Society" by Alan Mann. I borrowed it from the library at college and I'm going to make my way through it a bit this week, in the midst of Holy Week.
It looks great - looking at the way that our understnading of self today is one around "shame" rather than "sin" and that the way we understand and talk about atonement needs to address the issues of shame.
I'll try and blog a bit as I read.

Passover

Running Passover on Thursday night with a friend from Solace. We've been working on the litrugy that we are going to use - we've done it together 3 years in a row now and we work on the liturgy every year; it's part of the enjoyment and discipline for us. If you want a copy of itlet me know: barbd at suvic dot org dot au.

Meme

Ages ago Dave tagged me and it's been sitting in my inbox to do ever since, since it can't leave my inbox until I act on it, now's the time!!!

Four Jobs I've had:
Telemarketer (yep I will admit it!)
Children and Families Worker
Assistant Librarian
Missions Co-ordinator

Four movies I can watch over and over:
(as people who know me, know there aren't that many!, a better question is movies I can go to sleep over and over in front of! and I'm doing a loose understanding of movies)
Pride and Prejudice (BBC or any other variety)
Brides of Christ
Dead Poets Society
I'm sure I'll be able to with Narnia

Four Places I've lived:
Alyangula
Hurstville
Woodend
Northcote

Four TV shows I love to watch:
(well TV, what's that? but have loved to watch)
A Country Practice
Mad About You
Six Feet Under
Friends

Four Places I've been:
Vanuatu
Mallacoota
Kakadu
Broken Hill

Four Favourite dishes:
Pad Thai
Fish ... and veges ... and chips
Spag Bog (need to say that 'cause my friend Tracy teases me about it frequently and then feeds it to me!)
Roasted Tomato Soup

Four Sites I visit daily:
Bloglines
SU Mail Site
... often google
... mmm bank

Four Favourite drinks:
latte
ginger beer
mango lassi
chai

Four Places I would rather be:
Byron Bay
Tidal River
Yarra Valley
Station Street, Fairfield (well I'm fairly close but not quite!)

Transport:
various work cars: Ford, Magna Wagon, Getz
bus
tram
feet

Four people I'm tagging:
I reckon I'm so late - if you've not done it and you'd like to - please consider yourself tagged.

:)

Posting

Sorry about the lack of posting on this site - it's just felt like too much effort to post recently; not really sure why but I've just gone with it.

Life's quite good in general - it's been a busy year so far in many ways, but partly because I'm choosing to have time out to relax :)

Just recently been to Qld for an SU National Conference which was I enjoyed and was useful, and either side of that had some time off. Beforehand hung out with some other staff (and some other friends) and afterwards stayed with friends in Brisbane. Lovely, relaxing and very much what I needed.

Have come back to Melbourne, into the house I moved into half a week before I went away, and I've broken out in some mystery disease, that's unlikely to be chickenbox (which is what I was diagnosed with) and unlikely to be scabies (which is what one of my colleagues has been diagnosed with). 3 staff who all went to the same conference with the same symptoms, baffling all doctors we have seen, but in the end having three different diagnoses! I'm fine; at home, in the warm and quite amused really!

As I said, life's good, quite, quite good actually ... but I do need to stop procrastinating an essay for college!

Lectionary Feed

Anyone know of a rss feed or daily email service for daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary?

Blog Reading

I was talking today with a friend about some people who don't normally read blogs reaction to some stuff that another friend wrote on their blog. Brought us to a point in the convo where we wondered whether there was anything around to help some new to reading blogs understand blog etiquette. From my brief looking around there is stuff for people new to writing blogs and much on commenting etiquette but where would you send people to understand the subtleties of blog world and a grid to read through???

6000 kms since Christmas

Just thought I'd write a little on what life has been for me over the last month and a half. Most of you will know that I am Missions Coordinator for Scripture Union Victoria - which means overseeing a range of mostly holiday programs that happen all over Victoria, most of which are in January. My goal for this year was to get to every program/team which I haven't seen in action previously, because actually having been part of the dynamics of the team and seeing where they run programs/where they connect with people makes a huge difference in how I can support and train directors, and help them in training their teams and the many other things involved in directing one of these teams. And I've almost made it! I've had two summers in the job and I've covered everything other than one of the youth/young adult mission teams (Theos) - as this part of my job was just added to me a couple of weeks before Christmas. I feel way more equipped for my role with these teams having been part of their life for a day or so. In each location too I tried to walk with God and have eyes to see what he might have for me specifically to do in that place - led to some ace stuff.
So I went to (in this order) Barwon Heads, Portarlington, Queenscliff, Mallacoota, Inverloch, Portland, Warrnambool, Cowes, McCrae and Tidal River. In some of those places we have more than one team.
After all that I went and spent a week (or so) at a campsite that Scripture Union owns down on the Gippsland lakes. The camps coordinator had had a serious accident a few weeks before that so I was down covering his role that week. It was a great time of understanding a bit more of the issues around our camps and the campsite, very useful since a restructure at work now means that camps are in the team that I head up in Scripture Union Victoria.
And now I've started meeting with directors to debrief their time over summer and talk about/vision together the coming year, as well as meeting with people doing stuff during the year and plan training for the year. My aim is to have met with the directors of each of the 24 teams before I go on holidays mid March!
I'm exhausted - and this weekend having a weekend collapsing at my mum's while she is away, but in myself I'm quite good and got goosebumps as to what God is doing in me ... there's some pretty amazing and deep stuff already happening and my sense is more to come.

Concern - Influence - Focus

Been thinking a bit over the last few days about a leadership / time usage / focus idea that I've heard lots times - not sure where from.
The idea is that there are three concentric circles - on the outside circle of concern, the next one in circle of influence, and the central one being circle of focus.
The circle of concern is all the things you are "concerned" about.
The circle of influence is all the things you are in a position to influence.
The circle of focus is the things you want to fucus on.

Make sense? Quite simple really but you wouldn't think so from how we live!!!
Historically when I have heard this, it's been useful in helping me concentrate my efforts in my circle of influence rather than my circle of concern - very important indeed.
But the reason it came to mind for me at the moment is that in many places in my life my circle of influence is so large I couldn't possibly influence it all and the effect of not being focused in that is that it is easy to go from influencing one thing over to influecing another thing over here - good things to influence, definately within my circle of concern and influence ... but actually distracting from where my circle of focus is being called to be.
So I've been thinking how important it is not to just influence wherever I can, but to choose what am I called to focus on within my circle of influence AND GET ON WITH IT!

Version of the Lord's prayer

Here's a version of the Lord's prayer - which I got from jonnybakers site:

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Imagine your possibilities now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment's bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

Grief and Relief

A co-worker resigned and left this week. I'm really grieving he's going. But there are other ways in which I'm relieved too. These last few months have been a hard journey for all of us - and I'm glad that at one level some of that is over. There is too a sense of relief over now being sure of some of the details of the role that we shared. Those things are all deeply true and real.

But tonight I am feeling the grief:

You'll be missed,
You're not there
Across the table
Knowing what I'll be thinking.

You'll be missed
You're not there
To take a walk, down the park
To sort through those thoughts.

You'll be missed
You're not there
with the shared understanding of organisations
and the depth of theological thinking.

You'll be missed
You're not there
To seep those values
into the culture.

You'll be missed
You're not there
To sort through what is happening
and work out ways forward.

You'll be missed
You're not there
To cringe together
to sigh together.

You'll be missed,
You're not there
to dream of the future for which we long,
to create that future together.

You'll be missed
You're not there
For those breakfasts
and other events.

You'll be missed
You're not there
with your icons,
with your broader spirituality.

You're not there
But your impact lingers on
Things are different because of you
You'll be missed.

Dreams

I've just had an evening that it's been a real privelge to participate in. It was a night of sharing dreams that are on our hearts - a group of us met, shared dreams, listened to dreams and looked for and found amazing connections in all of that. It was a good night - in the strongest sense of the word; a "sacred" night.
Yet I've come away somewhat frustrated (as well as delighting in an amazing night). While some of that has nothing to do with the evening and a stack to do with tiredness and other factors in my life I can isolate two factors of connected with the evening that I'm aware of:
Firstly, a bizarre thing to be frustrated by - people that I'm around seem to be spun out by times like tonight. I certainly am! But people around me also seem to think it's "unique" - whereas my life is full of times like tonight. Now I reckon I should feel like that's a real privelge - and I do really believe that as the truth - but tonight I'm grumpy that somehow others see that as special and don't see that I experience that on a very regular basis.
Secondly, I have various dreams, some very much of my own, some of which are shared with others. Some of those dreams get excitement and energy from others in this environment, some really don't. I came away reflecting on my dream of establishing an "intentional discipleship missional community" and how those dreams just seem too "Christian" for the comfort of many people I'm around whereas my dreams around op shops, community development, spirituality more broadly are much more accessible to people in some of my contexts.

Guilt

I've been conscious recently of a range of situations where I know I've joined with the Spirit ... but where I feel some level of guilt afterwards. I know deeply this guilt is not that of conviction but comes from what it means to be inviting people into what the Spirit is doing doesn't always fit the "nice formula" that we as Christians have often been taught. This has often been the case in these situations and the guilt comes from going against what have been held and taught formulas of sorts. But the freedom that joining with the Spirit's work brings to me and to others is sure better than any outcomes of formulas - so I think I'll keep at it!

Question of the Week

A question that I'm adding to my Examen questions that came up in a conversation with someone yesterday:
"How have I stifled what God is doing in someone?"

Question of the Weekend

A great weekend filled with many amazing moments - I must share some of them!
But the one I wanted to share right now was a question that a 14 year old friend asked me on Saturday night:
"So what is it about Christianity that draws you at the moment?"

Ace question, from an ace bloke! And great conversation followed.

Being Seen

The next step in my journey of questions from God:
after: "Being squashed by the body of Christ or not letting yourself be seen by the body of Christ?" and living a bit in the call to live in a way that let's myself be seen and finding myself in the place of "but people don't see me even when I'm living in a way that let's myself be seen".
And the question is: "What does it matter whether people see you or not".
Ouch but good and freeing.