so recently my wife - the beautiful Val (because clearly) – was on a camp where we had been asked to speak (actually first time the invitation came to us as a couple) and someone was chatting to her and said something along the lines of ‘so are you the tagalong?’ – hm, strangely that person still lives today, but ja Val was not super amped and looking back at that camp, if you had [...]
[to the tune of 'I am Spartacus' and yes it's okay that most of you don't know who that is but let google be your friend - ignorance away!] so this last week tbV and mself had been invited to speak at the national Scripture Union staff conference held at Rocklands campsite in Simonstown. as we interacted with them on the first night and during the next day this one lady stood far out from [...]
why is it so hard to live a Jesus-following life? the things i want to do i don’t do and the things i don’t want to do i find that i can’t stop myself from doing. Woe is me this wretched man, chief of sinners, sucker of note, i might as well... STOP! [not hammer time] Romans 12.2-3 ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing [...]
i was sitting in the back of the church meeting yesterday when a couple (who have been married for less than three years) arrived and she came and sat in front of me and he stood at the back of the room to the one side... it was obvious to me that they were having some kind of negative vibe – she was obviously stressed and every now and then would look across at him [...]
marvin the marshoes so it's my birthday today - happy happy - and after a super special breakfast made by my wife - the beautiful Val - and delivered to me in bed - that involved jacobs coffee and chocolate-infested and smartie surrounded yoghurt and a wad of range-free bacon - yum - i finally got given the present my wife has been building up intrigue to the last week and wow what a gift [...]
i don't understand chocolate - i know something about cocoa beans but that's about it - possibly a glass and a half of milk in certain brands and a handful of raiSINs in other overly disobedient and retarded versions - and a bunch about it liking to stick around and be an accessory to your body long after the eating date (friends with unbenefits?) and also that when it goes white it is old (if [...]
another excerpt from Erwin McManus 'an unSTOPPABLE force' - just buy it already! 'And though i'm advocating our need to become a movement, I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up.' then a little later: 'The first-century church didn't keep up with its time, didn't spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first-century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not [...]
that i am grappling with lately: one of them is taking the incredible life-transforming simple-gospel stuff we are reading about in books like Shane Claiborne's 'The Irresistible Revolution' and Erwin McManus 'an unSTOPPABLE force' and Rich Stearns 'The Hole in the Gospel' and even going back to the legen....dary Keith Green's 'No Compromise' story and not just being excited and 'challenged' and 'changed' by it, and not just talking about it and maybe looking down [...]
so i guess in some small part it was thankx to a stalkery type australian girl that me and tbV started thinking about what we eat and then started No-Meat-Thursdays which has actually been quite a rad extension of our lives and only occasionally interfered with 'normal' life - so every Thursday we don't eat meat just as a small small step in terms of meaning one-day-a-week's less meat needing to be there i guess [...]
"i believe Lord, help me overcome my unbelief." [Mark 9.24] a verse i am really drawn to in the Bible that falls nicely alongside my life themesong of 'there must be more than this' - the knowledge that God can do it, but will He choose to...? and the other day, altho it's not very CC (Christianly Correct) as i lay with my wife crying out in immense pain with the hugest of mammoth headaches [...]