My friend Duncan Andrews writes over at Moments Now and Then. And yet such joy! For I set myself
to love you more, to love you best;
but when my love stayed on the shelf,
dusty, weak, I heard ‘Child, rest.
It’s you loved best;
in my love you are blest.
No, there is nothing to read into the pic. It is just a funny picture about choice. But we'll get to that...Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.Impossible, right?
If you've been on a ministry staff team, you know this dilemma well:Each Sunday at all worship services, Redeemers Preaching Team will preach from the same Scripture text. Our preaching pastors rotate locations weekly, and our Senior Pastor Tim Keller will always preach at the 6:00PM East Side evening service at Hunter College, unless he is out of town that weekend.Discuss.
Redeemer does not publish or share the preaching schedule for any of the worship services, so please do not call the offices to to inquire about this information. Instead please take this opportunity to help us utilize the available seating at the 6:00PM worship service.
NORTH:
SOUTH:
News:
I just wrote a little about being a Sydney Cabbie and about ministering in the City of Sydney HERE. Which leads me to this:
I spoke at a retreat for Moore College Graduates last week. 'Twas a delight. You can read Kamil's blogging of that event HERE. Tom Harricks interviewed me on Tuesday, as asked me what I had discovered about Sydney as a Cab Driver (many moons ago). Below is the gist of what I said. And that conversation formed part of THIS blog post in the Sydney Anglican News Section. Here you go:
I drove a taxi while at Moore College. All up, I drove for about six years.
Quite frankly, I needed the money.
And yet, I discovered two significant things about the Australian cultural landscape.
1. The first thing is how secular our individual ethics are. Most of us ‘make it up as we go along’.
For some reason, people think of a cabbie as being invisible (if in the back seat) and as a priest (if in the front seat). So I listened to people as they figured out their sexual ethics between Kirribilli and Killara. I brokered arguments from Wynyard to Strathfield. One boomer shed tears from King’s Cross to Five Dock about ‘killing a man’ (he was referring to Vietnam). I left a semi-famous television presenter drunk on his front yard while insisting to me over and over ‘Do you know who I am?!’ I listened to men boldly lie to their wives about their whereabouts. Most heartbreakingly, one woman hadn’t told her parents over Christmas that she was working in a brothel.
The truth is, of course, that all these people were very normal. Very nice. And very Aussie.
2. The other thing I learnt: the city is profoundly not-Christian. Many of my customers found out that I was a Christian (I was studying theology), and yet over a period of six years, I would have had only four or five say that they were Christian. The rest looked at me blankly, as though I was a dinosaur of Old Europe.
I think that the old term ‘post-Christian’ describes Australia (if we ever were). A friend thinks that if you want to reach Sydney for Jesus, you’ve got to think of her as being Paris. Christian-no-more.
Mark Driscoll often says that Seattle is one of the least-churched parts of the US (‘More Dogs than Christians’ etc). But I preached in Portland last year, and people were engaging in conversation with me all night about Jesus. I realised then that even in the Pacific North West, Christianity is still part of the American national dialogue. We have no such dialogue.
I’m here on York St.
Give us a clue.
Or comment over HERE.
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Pic on Flikr by rtse.
Andrew Katay, from Christ Church Inner West Anglican Community is has a new Blog called: "Gold, silver, Costly Stones" (Being careful how we build).
Do you marry couples? Or are you married and read good books on marriage?
>>HERE is Mark's post on our Good Friday Service here at York St.
Mike Jensen has a Blog roll of all the Moore students, teachers and alumni who Blog.
My friend Luke Woodhouse weighs in on the Usefulness of an Outline. Click HERE for very funny and insightful little piece. He says of the relationship between his printed outline and his sermon:They’re not the best of friends. Maybe we should think about separating them. Or they should at least get some counseling. Maybe the printed outline might have more fun dating a lecturer or an OH&S seminar presenter.Go over to Luke's Blog and make a comment.
It's interesting how the word 'predictable' has negative connotations. And yet it is a neutral term, isn't it? When something is predictable, it simply means that you can basically know what will happen.
You know what?Here might I stay and sing,_______________
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
For the record, I am speaking today, and for the next three weeks at the City Bible Forum. They've asked me to speak on Suffering. And Habakkuk is one of those books that deals explicitly with the subject.
Here are two people that I am proud of (if this be not condescending):
The post on Ten Reasons *not* to Travel was, for some, lost in translation.
I've found it interesting how my last post was read. I apologise if I made it sound that one could never travel. As if I could make that claim anyway! But my post had a purpose: to challenge some of the reasons we give.I would hate to see you write a post about:I could think of 10:
10 reasons to not go out to dinner.
