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.