Firstly, if I already had naturally beautiful hair, why would I need shampoo? And for another brief moment I thought I was part of the X-men with mutant powers – being able to unleash the power of my naturally beautiful hair for the good of humanity and defeat the power of evil. Plus the fact the only place my hair has never been before is off my head and down the plughole and I’d very much like to keep it the way it is!

In the same fashion, the way people work in today’s world is to talk themselves up and make themselves look better than they really are. Just like the description on the shampoo. We do it at job interviews, we do it when we talk of our sporting abilities, our cooking abilities and sometimes with the marks we get in our exams. We have this daydream perspective of what we would like to be and then we have reality of who we really are. It’s like saying that life is going along with Plan B because Plan A is just a fantasy.

That’s why I love reading the bible and soaking myself in it. Because it keeps me grounded. It tells me about life like it really is. When Jesus says he is “the way, the truth and the life,” he means every bit of it. There’s no need to make life better than it is because we are told heaven will be totally out of this world. The bible tells us we are rebellious and we need saving from our sin. There is no need to glam up that fact is there? Let’s aim to keep life real and realise we do need to let Jesus embrace us and take us to a place we have never been before.

Moving on then to the directions, it says to “Massage into wet hair and indulge in the luxurious lather. Surrender to the intoxicating fragrance….”

The only thing we need to surrender to is not shampoo but Jesus. I have almost used up the whole bottle and not yet has it done anything it has claimed to do so far. Lucky I was not putting my faith in the description or the directions. But I do put my faith in God’s Word that it will do for me what it says when I surrender to Jesus as my Lord and saviour. Because that is what surrendering is isn’t it? It’s giving yourself over to something or someone totally and saying, I give up, I can’t do this myself, I need help. Surrender yourselves to Jesus.

The shampoo also wants to tell me,“Wildly Exciting is our normal.” And I think that describes the Christian life pretty well when we find ourselves immersed in Jesus and surrendering our lives to him so we can have life to the full.

I think it also pretty much describes our lives in general also. We love to be the best at what we do whether that be at sport, in our professions or in our studies. And the result is that we try our hardest to remain in that number one position and to hold on to what we have as tight as possible.

I love being reminded at Christmas time about the position Jesus was in and what he gave up to come to earth. We’re told in the bible that Jesus began as God, meaning he was numero uno. Yet Jesus did the unthinkable and let go of everything he had, coming to earth in the nature of a servant – as a baby!

How many of us would be able to let go of what we have knowing how hard we’ve worked for it, how much we paid for it and holding it in our grasp. Yet Jesus let it all go for a reason and entered the world as a baby. He gave up his throne and replaced it for a manger. The king who had it all came to earth and entered humanity as a weak, vulnerable and dependant little baby. Let’s celebrate this Christmas what Jesus gave up so we can be impressed by him, rather than trying to impress others.

Is God able to transform a person miraculously so they feel immense elation and joy in today’s world? I think so. The bible is full of examples where people found true joy and happiness through Jesus’ healing and miracles. People were transformed by God’s wonders in the desert, through prophets, through intervention and God’s awesome power. The apostle Paul was miraculously transformed on the Damascus Road.

There are many examples where God is credited with changing people’s lives in an instant, yet there are sadly also times when other things or people come and take the glory. How quickly the Israelites forgot about God again almost straight after the crossed the Red Sea to escape Pharaoh’s army. How quickly they grumbled.

But when TV shows portray something like this on TV thinking that spiritual transformation isn’t possible, then we realise just how much we don’t rely on miracles happening anymore in today’s society and how little we think of God working in our lives.

I guess I’m always afraid of using technology in a service cause I know something’s bound to go wrong but could it be worth exploring??

Having just started up at a new church and getting to know not only the people but also a bit about the history of the church, I couldn’t help but notice all the memorial stones and plaques anywhere and everywhere around the premises. I decided to go around the other day the church building, our 2 halls, the manse and the units we have at the back of the church and there are at least 9 plaques/memorial stones around the place. There is a great sense of history in this church and seeing we’re celebrating 125 years of beloved Presbyterian worship in 2010, we thought it would be another great reason to celebrate.

I have realised though it’s not very hard to get people talking about the past history of the church seeing we have an extremely elderly congregation who have lived and grown up here and often talk about the many ministers who have served this parish and what they have brought to God’s people over the decades (I almost said centuries). God willing we’ll have our first centurion next year.

Reflecting on the past is an easy thing people do but to get them focused on the future is a much harder task. They want to see the church grow and bring in new Christian people, but the past seems almost too important to change. There are many now embracing change and it’s great to see people starting to be outward looking now rather than at focusing on what we already have. God is doing a great work amongst his people here and bit by bit, we will hopefully grow a new generation of believers and expand so we can find more places to lay more plaques to the ‘Glory of God.’

Over the past 6 years I have had complaints, all from church ministers, about my techniques, style, manner and everything else people can perceive.

Some of these criticism’s include….

• “As a theological student I should be able to read the bible mistake-free with feeling.”
• A question someone asked someone else about me regarding ‘Am I really going to be allowed to preach to a congregation after I’ve finished college?’ (I recognise I’m not going to be the best preacher but it’s not what you want your minister to say to you.)
• “In my opinion, your kid’s talk was a flop.” (I’m sure I’m guilty of many flops but that’s why I’m called a student minister)
• A minister telling me not to get involved in their affairs, which I wouldn’t understand anyway.
• I really enjoyed your sermon BUT I think you missed the point of the big idea. (Which makes me wonder whether every sermon needs to be preached according to the formula of having a big idea.)
• Another one which I found hard to understand was an elder telling me I was teaching too much bible. I was told that running a youth group on Friday nite and then a youth bible study on Sunday arvo’s and evening church after that was too much spiritual input for the young people in the church. We were getting a good turn up to all 3 groups and it was a lot more bible teaching than adults were getting. Maybe one service on a Sunday was more than this elder could probably take and didn’t think others should be on fire for God.

I don’t know whether church leaders just like to analyse these things while sitting listening to a talk or at a church but you mite think how they get spiritually fed themselves if all they do is look at the bad points of someone’s sermons. Over my years at college, I have had to critically analyse books, articles, sermons and the like but I think there is a point where people should just sit back and enjoy the teaching, enjoy the book and enjoy the Spirit working in whatever way it displays itself.

I agree there is a place for critique and evaluation, which I think is very valuable, and what I think college does well in preparing students to do when they graduate. But should ministry be all about critiquing? Are colleges trying too hard to build a team of super-preachers? I’m all for constructive criticism, knowing that I do need to work on certain areas of my ministry, knowing that certain things need to be brought to my attention and knowing that I need to do things differently the next time round. But all I want to know is where criticism ends and where instruction and nurture of individual talent is take over?

Is it me or are people today getting too soft in their lives and what they are now used to? Is air conditioning becoming such a permanent fixture that we now expect our comfort levels to be sustained no matter what the temperature is? When people complained if they were too hot or cold, I would get my ladder out, stick my hand up to the vent and wipe the dust off with my finger and then ask if that was better. Almost every time, the person or people felt the change. If people’s minds or ways of thinking expect something to happen and it’s able to be changed without anything really being done, then there is something to be said with the way people perceive what is really happening.

When people back in Jesus’ day were expecting a saviour or Messiah to come along, did they perceive what was really happening and were the claims of the Son of God true? Life was going pretty well for a lot of people and they were comfortable with who they were. They were getting accustomed to living in comfortable environments with no wars affecting them, no famine or droughts. God’s people thought they were being looked after quite well. They’re life condition was good. This messiah was going to come and protect and rescue his people, destroy enemies, provide food and wealth in abundance and rule over them with love and affection.

Is our life condition becoming too good as well? Are we turning into people who have forgotten what life outside the door is like? When we step outside and the heat hits us like a nitro-charged steamroller, will we quickly run back inside or even avoid it because we just view life too comfortably. We shouldn’t take life (and more importantly – Eternal life) for granted. Eternal life is real; it helps God’s people to understand the great joy that awaits us and only then can we feel secure with our life condition.

“Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.I said to the LORD, You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing…..You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” – Psalm 16:1-2,11

Going for a test ride on this piece of technology is like hopping on a tricycle and riding it backwards. I drove out to Western Sydney for a test ride and it took me about half an hour before I realised how to actually steer and ride it properly. You actually have to pull the handle bars towards you unlike a standard motorbike which you have to push them to steer and lean with the bike. Riding a Spyder is more like riding a quad bike and it has some grunt to it.

As I rode around I felt like I everyone on the road was looking at me and thinking what planet I was from. Riding the actual bike was like playing a game on the Xbox with all the controls at your fingertips including changing the gears. The foot was only used for braking – no hand levers or anything to worry about. I didn’t even have to put my feet down on the ground.

I don’t think it’s in my price range at the moment but it would be something to think about maybe for ministry purposes or just a fang around the block. I felt much safer on this trike than I do on a motorbike so until I reach my mid-life crisis, I’ll just have to put up with my big 4WD which accelerates from 0-100 in 2.4 days on a slight downhill slope.

I’ve visited my non-reformed church last week and it was quite interesting to be a part of an atmosphere that was full of people being joyful to God (and no it wasn’t Hillsong) and shouting and deeply into a prosperity gospel.

But in my endeavors in finding a reformed church, I thought I’d look into some Chinese churches and check out their structures and beliefs and what they are into. And while in my discoveries, I came across some shocking webpages for these churches, not in what they said but the way they looked, what they didn’t tell me like their times of worship, their location etc. Many other Chinese church websites look like they were done back in the early nineties and could very well do with a facelift.

But many of these churches are quite large and growing and cater to a specific culture and denomination so it seems that they are not trying to entice people in their churches thru the world wide web. Their growth must come thru other ways and that says something for those churches who pour much of their attention into web development and making sure they have an attractive, eye-catching website.

So beware of the mystery man coming to a Chinese church near you this weekend. I promise I won’t pretend I know Chinese.