A New Blog

Some very exciting things have been happening in my life over the past 2 months. To avoid re-typing a long story: Tiarnee & I are moving back to the country where I'll attempt farming, and she'll be a teacher.

So as the title 'Country Nerd in the City' will no longer apply in 3 weeks I've started a new blog complete with my own domain! On my new blog I'll be posting about all the things that life throws at me as I learn to farm and again live rural life.

So, update your bookmarks & RSS feeds (all 14 of you!) to point at the fantastic new blog. If you're feeling really adventurous, leave a comment and tell me what you think of the new site/layout etc:

http://nerdfarmer.com/

The Party God

I've tried more in more than 5 ways to describe how impacting this sermon clip is to me. But I really can't, so please just watch it & learn about the God who brings freedom, love and parties. Forget what you've seen and heard from those whose religion is rules and oppresion.

Learn about the God who longs to party with hookers at 3am in the morning.

Exercise

Once the winter weather cleared away I once again took up riding to work. Replacing my bus ride with a bike ride. Now we all know the many benefits of regular exercise, but there's been one benefit to it that I didn't consider when I started riding to work. There's plenty of evidence out there that regular exercise has a positive impact on a persons mood and motivation and that has been my experience exactly.I've noticed this in several areas including:

• Better ability to focus at work. (Compared to days I don't ride)
• More motivation to get stuff done around the house when I'm home.
• General mood etc. which has many benefits!

The icing on the cake for all this was this morning when I raced my bus into the city. So not only is it healthier, it's faster too.

If you've been thinking you should get more exercise, I encourage you to do it! It just might help you more than you imagine!

One Year On

It was our first wedding anniversary on Sunday.What an awesome year it has been. We've managed to do a lot in our first year of marriage, including:

• 2 Overseas Holidays (Fiji & NZ)
• 3 Short breaks closer to home.
• Tiarnee finishing her degree and starting teaching.
• Learning to live together.
• Growing as people together.

I've heard people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest but I'm not completely sure if that's true. I don't say that because this year has been easy, marriage is hard work. But it's been a privilege, and a blast so far! We (or at least I!) don't regret it in the slightest! Marriage streches you and grows you in ways you can't imagine before it. But I fully believe that God has used it to make me a better person.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for our future. It's all very breathtaking and exciting and right now, I'm loving the ride!

Sermon Notes

This is the sermon that I preached at the Kaniva Church of Christ on the 24th of October.

Introduction

If you didn't guess from our bible reading this morning, our topic for this morning is: 'money'!

Money. Something that's around us constantly, we use it daily. Money brings us both pleasure and pain. Most of know at least something of money and how it works, but how much do we know of God's outlook on money? The bible talks about it frequently, but do we know shekels and denarius are relevant to us know?

Because we're talking about money, I have 2 pieces of money here:

1. A 2006 Australian 50 cent coin.

2. A 1966 'Round' 50 cent piece.

Apart from the obvious 2 differences in these coins:

• Age – 40 years
  
• Shape
  

These 2 coins are worth different amounts! But Jonny aren't they both 50 cent pieces? Yes they are! Allow me to explain.

1. Coin #1 is a plain old ordinary coin.

2. Coin #2 was a commemorative coin released in 1966 to mark the introduction of decimal currency into Australia. (Some of you may remember that event!) This coin is 80% silver. Hence, if you weighed it, you would discover that it contains about 1/3 of an ounce of pure silver. This makes this coin worth between $5- $6 based on its silver content.

Interesting. But Jonny, what does this have to do with the bible?

Well, I'm so glad you asked!

You see, unlike our currency now, coins in biblical times (& even up to 1900s) contained actual gold silver and yes, occasionally bronze. So our 1966 coin is similar in many ways to the coins used in biblical times. This brings me to my first point!

1) Our wealth, our money and our possessions belong to the Lord!

Psalm 24 clearly states this by proclaiming: "The earth is the Lords and everything in it, the world and all who live in it!"

Psalm 50 takes this idea into more detail as it says:

Psalm 50:9-12 (New International Version)

⁹ I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,

¹⁰ for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹ I know every bird in the mountains,
and the creatures of the field are mine.

¹² If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.

But perhaps this point is made most directly when God says to Job in Job 41:11

Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

Or is Haggai 2:8

"The silver is mine, and the gold is mine" declares the Lord God Almighty.

As you've heard, the bible is clear our wealth does belong to the Lord and because of this we're told to be thankful for it. Which is my second point.

2) Be thankful for the wealth that God gives us.

This exhortation to be thankful for our wealth occurs in many places through the bible. But the one I'm going to focus on, is the first reading we heard from Tiarnee earlier, Deuteronomy 8.

In this passage, God is reminding the Israelites of everything good about the promised land he has delivered to them. He speaks of the wonderful farmland, and the great wealth in that land. In verses 17 & 18 he says:

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (New International Version)

¹⁷ You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." ¹⁸ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

It's a wonderful picture isn't it! God creating the world, his providing us with wealth, housing, education, and money. Tiarnee even read to us of how we can put our

"hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."

I mentioned to one of Tiarnees friends in Adelaide during the week that I was preaching a sermon on 'money'. Her response was one of surprise "How can you preach on money? Don't Christians think that money is evil?"

It was a fair question. Christians often quote from our reading this morning, "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil". Or they'll misquote it: "Money is the root of all evil". They do this without knowing that same chapter speaks of God providing wealth for our enjoyment!

If only I could end the sermon there. We could all leave feeling good, reminded of a God who created us, loves us & is generous in his blessings to us. Yet, there's more.

My final point for the morning:

3) Warnings against desiring money.

Both of today's readings carry specific warnings about what can happen when we do forget God & lust after money. Our reading from 1 Timothy 6 has a specific message for Christians who believe "godliness is a means to financial gain". Amongst other things, they are 'conceited and understand nothing".

Paul also warns more generally against desiring wealth. People who wish to get rich give in to "many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction."

It seems here, as in many other forms of idolatry, that the problem is the desire of the creation and not the creator. As we know, God detests idolatry, and a very ominous warning is given to those who forget the true source of their wealth.

Listen to the 2 verses immediately following our previous Deuteronomy reading:

Deuteronomy 8:19-20 ¹⁹ If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. ²⁰ Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

Tying it all together

So what should our response be to all of this? Well, let's look again at points 1 & 2.

By remembering that our wealth is Gods, and he created it, we acknowledge who God is. He is above and beyond us, and has no need or use for even the finest goods.

By remembering to thank God for his provisions and gifts of money, we rejoice and are glad in a God who is generous above and beyond all reason. This should also encourage us to be generous in our giving, yet cautious and prudent in the way we spend the Lords money.

If we concentrate and remember these 2 things, that will assist us greatly in avoiding the pitfalls of the final point.

There are warnings aplenty in the bible for those who do not ascribe God as the provider of their wealth. Let us not be one of those who becomes conceited and proud.

Instead let us live with godliness and contentment, as Paul commanded us:

1 Timothy 6:6-7 ⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. ⁸But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

Debut Sermon

Those of you that follow me on twitter will know that I preached my first ever sermon last weekend. I preached at my small home church, the Kaniva Church of Christ. I preached on the subject of 'Money'. I selected this subject because it was topical for me, having recently lead a series of studies on it (see earlier posts!) & because I'm interested in it. As I think we all are!

It was an interesting and enjoyable experience. I'd always wanted to give preaching a go, to see if I could do it. While it's hard for me to say how it went, it seemed to go well and I recieved a lot of positive feedback. Hopefully not too much of it was politeness. I was quite nervous at first, but managed to relax a bit more as I got into it.

It took a long time to prepare, several hours for a 10-15 minute talk. But I'd definitely do it again. Hopefully God used and spoke through what I said, and hopefully he'll do it again.

It was quite a family service, with my talented wife Tiarnee doing the bible readings and kids talk, my dad leading communion, my mum playing piano/ organ & my sister running the data projector. For all you comedians out there, no we werent the only ones there....

I'll post the notes that I spoke from in the next day or two. Maybe someone else out there will find it encouraging.

NZ Photos

For those of you interested, I've uploaded a selection of our photos from our trip to New Zealand & Melbourne. You can access them via the link just above this post. Of if you're reading an RSS feed and are lazy, by clicking HERE.

Here are a couple of good ones:

NZ Holiday Wrap Up!

Starting Sunday week ago (27th Sept.) Tiarnee and I set out on an 'end of Uni' holiday for Tiarnee. She's finished her study and when her registration comes through she's able to start teaching. Very cool! So being the last chance we'll have to take extended holidays for a while we headed off to the South Island of New Zealand for 8 days, and then 2 days in Melbourne when we returned. A brief summary of the trip: (Pictures to follow when I return to an ADSL2+ net connection!)

Day 1: Minimay - Melbourne (drive) - Christchurch
Set out nice and early to arrive at Tullarmarine Airport with plenty of time to check-in and fulfill some duty-free orders for family. The drive was a really good 5 hours, and the flight a smooth 3.5.

Day 2: Christchurch - Franz Josef
After getting up at 8:10 local time (which was 5:10 according to our body clocks!) we rushed though brekky and picked up our hire car. As the weather was miserable we headed out of Christchurch, taking the stunning drive through Arthur's Pass across to the west coast. We then headed down the coast, arriving at Franz Joseph on sunset. We soaked the evening away in some beautiful 38 degree hot pools.

Day 3: Franz Josef - Haast
As the Franz Joseph walk was booked out, we quickly drove down to Fox glacier in time to take the morning half-day glacier walk. This river of ice is 17 km long & 300m wide. It was a massive walk but a clear-blue sky made for spectacular scenery and a great walk on the ice. One of the highlights of the trip.

Day 4: Haast - Queenstown
On this morning we drove through more snow-capped mountains and beautiful clear lakes as we drove through the Haast pass. A stop at Wanaka for lunch, before driving to on to Queenstown where we checked into the Crowne Plaza!

Day 5: Queenstown
The most awesome day of the trip! Sleep-in, free cooked breakfast and the Shotover Jet in the morning! In the afternoon, up to Coronet Peak for snow sightseeing, before shopping in town (for Tiarnee) and a ride up the Skyline Gondola for yet more spectacular scenery, downhill luge, and a buffet tea! After tea what better than for a drink? So we headed to the 'Minus 5' bar where everything including the cup you drink from is made from ice! You can only be in the bar (temp of -8 while we were in it!) for 30 mins. Took lots of photos of each other and the ice sculptures inside.

Day 6: Queenstown - Invercargill
Much more low key. Another awesome cooked brekky in Queenstown (not free this time!) before we drove south to Invercargil. The further we went the worse the weather became. Went all the way down to the bottom of the South Island. Before the hail, rain and wind got the better of us and we retreated for the evening.

Day 7. Invercargill - Dunedin
Heading back up the east coast, we arrived in Dunedin in the early afternoon. A visit to the Cadbury factory there was literally 'sweet as'! We also visited NZs only 'castle' which wasn't really a castle, as there were no walls or moat. But it was a huge old Victorian mansion with elaborate garden etc. For tea this night I ordered Crayfish! Expensive but delicious! It was the first time I'd ever ordered Cray, but hopefully won't be the last.

Day 8 - Dunedin - Christchurch
In icy 5-6 degree temperatures we set out on the 5 hour drive back to Christchurch. We arrived in time to have a walk around the Cathedral Square and finish off our souvenir shopping. We also went to the even church service in the Christchurch cathedral. A very ornate church!

Day 9 - Christchurch - Melbourne
Clothes shopping in the Christchurch mall for Tiarnee, followed by a quick visit to the fantastic International Antarctic Center before dropping off Earl our hired car and heading to the airport. Our flight home was perfectly smooth, and featured a stunning flight across NZs southern alps.

Day 10 - Melbourne
A relaxing holiday day to recover from our holiday! More shopping by my beautiful wife before heading to the Melbourne Museum to visit the Pompeii exhibition & a movie at the IMAX! We rounded out the day with a delicious meal on South bank.

Day 11 - Melbourne -Minimay
Another sleep-in before our long drive back to the Wimmera. We were glad to breakup the drive by having lunch with some friends in Ballarat, and tea with some other friends in Nhill!

All in all a fantastic holiday that I'm still enjoying!

Money As God - Part 1

This is a summary of the things we covered in Week 2 of our study on 'God & Money':

1. What alternatives are discussed in these verses?
Matthew 6:19-24 - There are only 2 alternatives given in these verses, there doesn't seem to be any 'middle ground'. These are:

• Serving God Vs Serving Money
• Treasures on earth Vs Treasures in Heaven

2. What does it mean to 'serve money'?
We serve money by seeking it instead of God, in this way it becomes a form of idolatry.

Romans 1:21-25
3. What ought we be spurred to do as we regard God's good creation?

• Glorify God.
• Give thanks to God.
• Worship & Serve God.

4. What do we tend to do instead?

• Our thinking becomes futile.
• Our hearts become dark.
• We exchange the truth for a lie.
• We worship & serve created things.

5. We then looked at some of the dangers of money:

• Becomming proud & as a result forgetting God. (Deut 8:6-18)
  
• Worries of this life & wealth can choke the word of God out of our lives. (Matt 13:18-23)
• It causes us unnecessary worry! (Luke 12:16-31)

6. Some attitudes towards money that we should avoid:

• Becomming proud. (Deut 8:6-18)
• Thinking that we gained our wealth by our own strength and effort. (Deut 8:6-18)
• Being overawed or jealous of those that are rich. (Psalm 49:16-20)
• 'Setting our hearts on what we eat or drink. (Matt 13:18-23)

7. Godly attitudes we should adopt

• Remembering that it is God who gives you the ability to produce wealth. (Deut 8:6-18)
• Hearing Gods word & understanding it. (Matt 13:18-23)
• Seeking God & his kingdom! (Luke 12:16-31)

That was all from last week. There is alot that we've covered so far and a lot more that we're going to cover.

God & Money & Blogs

By pure coincidence last week I came across a blog written by a Christian that looks at the issues of God & Money and the way they relate. As I'm leading a study on money at the moment I found it very cool. If you're interested in the topic as I am, check it out:

Debt Free Adventure - http://www.debtfreeadventure.com/

From the about page:

For all intents and purposes… I am a modern day freedom fighter. In our modern era, the biggest threat to true individual independence… is personal consumer debt. I aim to stand in the gap and fight that debt – at all costs.

I am 33 years old. I live in Lansing, MI. I work as an Information Technology Manager by day, and moonlight as a personal finance guru and professional blogger. I am a Christian first, a husband second, a son and brother third, and a friend and colleague forth.

God & Money

In my church small group I've started leading a series on 'Money'. I find that talk about money is all around us, I hear about it constantly at work and the media and I've also done a lot of reading about our economy & how money works in our society. So being aware of all this information, I wasn't sure what a biblical take on all this was. So I agreed to lead the study in an attempt to gain some scriptural perspective to all of this.

Some of the things we covered in our first study were:

1. What is God's ongoing relation to his creation?

Psalm 24 ^"1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;"
Psalm 50:9-12 - God has no need for our own riches. He created them and they're his.
Psalm 104:24-30 - When God gives, his people & his creation is satisfied. But when he hides his face, Gods people and his creation are fear full, regardless of their wealth or surroundings.

2. How does money fit into this?

Haggai 2:8 - Our wealth is Gods!
Job 41:11 - God owes us nothing!

3. What is mankind's relation to creation, under God? What are our duties and privileges?

Gen 1: 26-28 - Mankind has dominion and rule over all the earth and all living creatures. Man is instructed to 'fill the earth and subdue it.'

Gen 2:15 - 'Work the garden & take care of it'. Work was always going to be apart of our life, even before the fall. We have a duty to work & take care of Gods creation.

4. How should we regard the things in Gods world? Including Money?

1 Timothy 4:3-5 - Everything God created is good, including money/ wealth. But it needs to be received with thanksgiving!

1 Timothy 6:17 - We need to put our hope in God and not in unstable and uncertain wealth. (Which was uncertain even in biblical times! The GFC is hardly a new problem. ) Our wealth that we do have is provided by God as a gift for our enjoyment! This is much more positive than what we (non-prosperity) Christians are usually told about money.

It was all very interesting. I've already learnt lots about this topic I didn't realise before. Posting all this makes me seem very 'Christian'. Much more Christian than I feel anyway. Whatever.

Tech Support: The Secret is out!

To all my family and non technical friends. This is how I did it. This is the sole reason I know more about computers than you. XKCD has put the secret out for you all to see:

Tech Support Cheat Sheet:

Freedom of Speech?

I blogged the other day about 'Free Speech' and how awesome it is. It it truly wonderfull. Think where we'd be without it.

But really, how free is our speech? Do we really feel as though we have the ability to articulate our opinions? I know there have been occasions when I haven't blogged about issues because I wonder, 'what will my work colleagues think about that?' As a result I'm in the bizarre situation of not posting on my own personal blog because I'm scared of what other people might be thinking. Which on one hand is ridiculous. If I'm confident in my own opinion and as free as the media tells me I am, I should be free to express myself. But on the other hand this is just common sense. I shouldn't blog anything that I wouldn't happily distribute in public.

I'm also a Christian, and many times in Christian circles I haven't spoken my true thoughts because I may be seen as some kind of un-godly heretic. Here, I'm in the situation where because of Jesus I'm 'free indeed'. Unless I want to express that freedom.

I got thinking about this while reading about an application that manages Facebook & Twitter. The speak of a 'personal brand' is strange to me. As though I'm some sort of product wanting to market myself. Yet, that is exactly why I don't always speak my mind at church, or work or with family or anywhere. Because of some personal fear or want of career advancement or some other personal agenda.

We all say we are free, yet we are all entrapped by our own agendas and fears. This is not the sort of person I want to be. I want to be honest, but not in an 'in your face' way. Gaining the courage to be authentic will take time.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

On the weekend I jumped on the bandwagon and joined twitter. Unfortunately, some twit had registered the names 'jonathandyer', 'jdyer' & 'jonnyd' and never posted a tweet on any of them. So I've got the name dyerjonathan. Still not too bad.

After I linked it up, I was able to add the twitter widget to blogger. On the right. (RSSers you'll have to imagine it.) I then added the Twitter widget to Facebook, so my status updates are always added to both. Finally, I added my feed to twitterfeed. So now, whenever I update my blog, all my Facebook & Twitter contacts can see it. Pretty cool.

The only thing missing is followers. So if you're on Twitter, follow me. Or leave me a comment here so I can follow you!

For the next Internet craze, I'm hoping to be a bit earlier to the plate. After being so late with Facebook & Twitter.

The War Against the Information War

I'm usually critical of all things government and bureaucracy. Indeed, when you look around society there's plenty of reason to be. But there is one thing that I think is awesome about our country and it's government. It's something our government hasn't figured out how to ban yet.

Free Speech.

I'm very thankful that shows like 'The Chasers War on Everything' & websites like this are legal. As opposed to China, where sites like myspace and facebook and other subversive sites are routinely blocked.

So because I can without getting thrown in jail... KEVIN RUDD IS A TERRIBLE PRIME MINISTER.

How have you exercised your rights recently?

What do you do?

I usually have trouble explaining to people what it is that I do for a living. They ask me, ‘What do you do for a living?’ or ‘What is it that you do in Adelaide?’or even ’What do you do with yourself?’ I then prepare myself inwardly, take a deep breath, and say something like‘I’m an IT Engineer’ or ‘I’m a Web Developer’. Most of the time that results in a blank stare. So I press on. ‘I build and maintain websites and online applications for various companies and Government Agencies.’ I then get a half-genuine ‘ohhhh’. I then will get the pleasure of sitting through some story of a computer that doesn’t work, or perhaps an expression of someone's frustration with computers generally or a statement like ‘All that’s way over my head.’

I sometimes wonder why I bother with the dumbed down version. I should reply with something like: ‘I build and maintain dynamic online applications and websites using various combinations of server side technologies including: ColdFusion, SQL Server and .NET. I also develop with the typical client-side technologies such as JavaScript and HTML and CSS.’ I honestly don’t think the majority of responses would be any different. I get internally labelled as ‘One of those people’ by the person I’m talking to either way.

Anyway, if any of you are interested, here are some examples of what I do.

I built the online entry form for the ‘Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize’. (Not the site itself, just the entry form linked to on this page.) Doing it was quite cool because I got to learn some ‘Web 2.0’ things by using AJAX calls and also the JQuery JavaScript library.

I also built this Interactive PDF form: (or Smartform) DFC Concessions Smartform. Which is linked to here. This form was built using some software called ‘Adobe Livecycle Designer'. It competes with Lotus Notes for the title of ‘worst piece of software I’ve ever used’. It uses lots of Javascript for form validation and submits data to a .NET web service.

Two Groups of Friends

My wife & I (nope, still not used to saying that) have 2 groups of friends. These 2 groups are very different from each other.

One of them is my group of mates that I've known since high school. They're Christian guys (& girls) that go to church every Sunday, don't drink a whole lot, and often helpout with local youth groups etc.

The other group of friends is Tiarnee's group of friends from College. Several times this year we've been to loud obnoxious parties they've hosted, and at different times for different reasons, we've felt let down by them, as I'm sure they have felt the same way about us.

In addition to our wedding presents, both groups of friends decided to give us somthing extra upon moving into our new house. One group brought us a brand-spanking new4 burner BBQ with gas bottle to use it. We'd wanted one to go with our awesome pool and backyard, but could never have afforded one. We were very suprised, humbled and gratefull to receive it.

The other group of friends took their strange version of a joke completely too far. They trashed our house, meaning that I spent the first 2 days in my new and previously spotless house (oh yeah, that I'm renting) with my new wife cleaning.

Yep, if you've read this far, you have probably guessed what happened. The "Christian" friends trashed the house and the "non-Christian" friends brought us the BBQ.

This has raised a whole bunch of questions in my own mind, but the one that baffles me the most is this: Why is it that non-Christian binge-drinking uni students know infinitely more about 'loving thy neighbour' than those who claim to know God?

Good Friday

John 3:16 (New International Version)
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Today was 'Good Friday'. Enough said.

Bushfire Connection

My only personal connection to the recent and much publicised Victorian Bushfires is that our wedding reception venue, the Horsham Gold Club was destroyed on 'Black Saturday'. Many people don't realise there was a fire at Horsham that day. But there was, and it destroyed 7 houses and the aforementioned Golf Club.

This is what our reception looked like inside:
This is what the Golf Club looked like after the fire:

Our head table was on the other side of these windows:The loss of a Golf Club (or a reception venue) however, is pretty trivial compared to all the other losses that day.

Wedding Photos

Tonight I finally uploaded a selection of the official photos from the wedding. This is just about our favourite one of the lot.


I proposed to Tiarnee under the end of the jetty in the background.