Moore Mission Madness - Sunday

MTC mission is on again and this year we (ie my chaplaincy group) are serving with the good folk at Quaker's Hill Anglican ... Alright!

First stop was Enmore to pick up Chris Swann. Was a bit late. Sorry Chris! (he wasn't that upset...i don't think)


Then to Gladesville to Pick up Ben Bathgate. Hello Ben!


After all that hard work it was time for a coffee. Mission ROCKS!!!!


Meeting the rest of the team outside mission headquarters, Quakers Hill Anglican Church (QUAC). Gibbo (MTC NT lecturer, on the far left) is our leader.

Then off to Stanhope Anglican to hear Andrew Southerton give his testimony. The church meets in a leisure centre.


Then a team meeting after lunch where we folded lots of stuff to hand out at the train station the next morning. Go team!

Finally church at Quakers Hill where Russell Williams spoke with passion and clarity.

Big day! Already we have seen some people give their lives to Christ. Praise God!

I'll try and post each night. We'll see how we go.

Lost love

Waverley Cemetery, July 2001

Luke 2.30-32

Waverley Cemetery, July 2001

After Dresden

Waverley Cemetery, July 2001

Saturday night, sometime during 2000

Postcards from Karl #3

What does it mean to "have faith"?


Faith...is faith in Jesus Christ. It is thus the recognition and confirmation that God's word was already in effect even before we believed and quite apart from our believing. Faith particularly...lives by the power which is power before faith and without faith. It lives by the power which gives faith itself its object.

Church Dogmatics I/1, 154.

Faith is all about the one you have faith IN, not about how much faith you yourself have or do not have. Faith relies on something external, not on something internally within us. So next time someone says "you don't have enough faith", give 'em the forks and tell them where to get off, 'cause they're sending you on an unfair guilt trip; the only way you can not have enough faith is to not trust in Jesus. If you go searching within your own soul for some deep well of faith which will rocket you into the spiritual stratosphere then think again...methinks you're searching for something which is quite aside from Christian spirituality, something possibly idolatrous. This is why you only need faith the size of a mustard seed (Luke 17.6), cause its the size of the one you have faith IN which matters.

15 Points for the location of this painted ceiling. Points still on offer for the first Postcard from Karl.

Procrastination #3

Further to my last post, I found this site from a collage artist/cartoonist with a similar sense of humour. Here is a sample of his genius...

Procrastination #2

When you take the second 'r' out of 'girlfriend' you get girlfiend

That's funny.

Moore Books goes Arminian...

I know it's way theo-nerdy to post this ... but the irony made me laugh when I saw this in Moore Books the other day. You see Arminian theology is the opposite (in some ways) to Calvinism, and Moore College teaches a Calvinist theology, and here are Calvin's Institutes with a big pink "do not open" sticker on them. Anyway...

Right now I'm working on what has to be the most frustrating essay we've had at college yet (with the exception of Ethics 3 last year *shudder*). It's also due tomorrow (make that today...just noticed the time), so guess what I did on my long weekend???

College is so not hot right now.

Postcards from Karl #2

Why do we exist? Karl explains...


The existence of the world and our own existence are in no sense vital to God, not even as the object of His love. The eternal generation of the Son by the Father tells us first and supremely that God is not all lonely even without the world and us. His love has its object in Himself ...

Only when we are clear about this

Can we estimate what it means

That God has actually,
though not necessarily,
created a world and us,

That His love actually,
though not necessarily,
applies to us,

That His Word has actually,
though not necessarily,
been spoken to us...

We evaluate this purposiveness correctly, only, if we understand it as the reality of the love of the God who does not need us but who does not will to be without us, who has directed His love specifically on us.

Church Dogmatics I/1, 139-40.

We exist not because God needs us or because he thinks we'll make good company, in fact we are totally unnecessary. We exist because God wants us to exist, to simply act as recipients of his freely given grace and love.

Wow.

Hat tip to my brother who first gave me the idea of reading and presenting trinitarian theology as poetry. It kinda works!
10 points for the city where you'll find this brick mural. Points still on offer from the previous post.