Napier Baptist

We're starting a young adults group that meets once a fortnight. I thought it would be a good idea to have something where people can put up a few ideas for what we can discuss. Some I thought might be good are:

-Predestination
-Hell, literal or figurative?
-Is the bible inerrant?
-Maybe something along the lines of critiques of the Baptist church

Much appreciated if you could give feedback on those and also come up with your own ideas on what we could do.

Now here is some pretty powerful writing and mind-bending thinking with honesty, openness and questions of breathtaking proportions. The comments are worth a read too!

This is surely something to discuss or follow up at NapBap Young Adults?

Hat-tip to SmileyChris and RLP

I get very scared when I see politics being baptised. For a frightening example of this go and read here. The problem with this is it is too much of a cartoon picture. It's so ridiculous and weird, it's funny. But, the reality is that politics is the driver for a lot of our theology (views about God). Who you vote for says a lot about your views of the Christian faith. I'm treading carefully here because it's easy to step on landmines on these issues. For some people, they can't believe Christians would vote Labour. For other people, they can't believe that Christians would vote National! Within our church we would have people right across the range: from people who vote for the Greens through to people who vote for the Destiny party. I have 2 questions:

1). How do we co-exist? (Jesus prays in John 17:11b - "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one."

2). Faith and politics are always inter-related because voting is based on convictions just as faith is based on convictions. However, how can faith transcend politics? Could you change who you vote for because of the gospel (e.g. from National to Labour or vice versa)? Or does who you vote for determine your Christian faith?

Brilliant!

The other day I was listening to the radio, when a regular played song came on. It has quite a catchy beat and I started singing along. Its basically just this guy singing about his girlfriend, and how great she is…. blah, blah, blah. (Aren’t most songs about that these days?!)
Anyway, one of the lines was “She’s always ringing my phone, she’s even got her very own ring tone. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what love is.”
As I was singing along, I couldn’t help but think how glad I was that my God, in whom I have given my life and intend to live my life for, knows a greater love than this guy. The guy that’s singing this song thinks that love is giving someone his or her own ring tone. My God’s kind of love is one in which, he loves me so much that he sent his only son to die for me. His love is so big, that he made a great plan for my life before I was born. He loves every single person in the world with this kind of love.

I am so grateful, that me and the Person that I would most likely sing a song about, that praises them, (just as this one does about the guys girlfriend)- we have such a greater love than giving each other their own ring tone. I feel sorry for whoever wrote that song, because they clearly dont know what real love is! Gods love is awesome!
(No offence to anyone who likes this song – It’s a great song, but yea)

I love Real Live Preacher. He is a profound and yet simple writer - unravelling the depths of life in a way that most of us can't - even though we experience them, we can't name them with the clarity he can... He's my favourite author at the moment. He's just written a couple of posts on Foy that in parts are very close to home for me (don't read too much into that, it goes with the territory). If you want to know a little about how easy it is to lose your identity in a church - go and check them out:
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 (my favourite so far) is here.

Following my post on Geekdom, Lauren reminded me not to be afraid of being a 'word nerd' (my new favourite title). BAndy then made connections between 'word nerds' and computer geeks. This clip is for all the computer geeks in the world. Looks like good news BAndy if you're studying I.T.: Shift Happens

Hat Tip: Prodigal Kiwis

Corey Otto, an Australian Indoor Cricket player, was the fastest bowler in the world of Indoor Cricket at the 2004 Indoor Cricket World Cup held in Wellington New Zealand. One News, NZ TV channel, sent a reporter to go and check out just how fast he is. The reporter was fairly cocky and gave Corey some lip. Then he tried to face up to Corey with a bat - bad idea:

I've been staying at the Summer St Manse of Ponsonby Baptist. It's a swanky sort of place, full of style and class. But the tension here has been electric - you could cut it with a knife. I innocently came expecting a nice time with friends but found myself embroiled in the turmoil now known as Gollygate! Accusations flying everywhere. Nick (the prosecution) says of Golly (the defendant) "On Thursday Golly (the dog, so named because he’s black) ate an entire apple cake that Julian baked." Go here to find out more...


The fall out of Gollygate has been huge - Nick is refusing to even acknowledge Golly's presence! Now you'd think with a therapist and 2 pastors in the house that Nick and Golly could be shown the way to resolving their their differences. Shake hands, lick each other's faces, sniff each other's butts and get on with it. But no, the tension hovering over Summer St has been like a linguist listening to a George Bush speech! That was until Brian came over for a yoga session. I'd never met Brian but I over the night of yoga and eating pizza I came to love the man - what's not to love about a man who passionately helps you to understand more about Jacques Derrida? (even though he told me I looked 40). Things are different when Brian's in the room - life is good. Brian blew away the dark clouds of Gollygate that surrounded Summer St and now all things have been made new:

Thanks Brian!

I've been holed up in a little study corral at Carey Baptist College for the last week. There's books and journal articles everywhere. Now, I could pretend that this is all really oppressive and woe is me but the reality is I LOVE IT! I am a geek and I love reading books and doing study. I am in my element in this pokey study corral. I am a geek and I don't care. I love books and study.

I have books on my desk:
I have another book bag I carry with me with more books in it:
And then there's the stash of books I have in the back of my car that won't fit in my book bag:
I am a geek and I love books!

By the way, if you happen to see Mrs Picard and little Miss 6 year old Picard be extra nice to them. Mr Picard's off fueling his geekiness in the library while they're at home with bad colds. Get better soon female Picards, and then I'll come home....