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 [...]
the combined talents of the beautiful Val (aka tbV) and Michael-John (aka Muscle-John, agent of the stars) and brett FISH anderson (owner of the world's most famous stuffed dolphin, No_bob, who still doesn't!) bring you the new word that is about to sweep the world... are you ready... for... "HIGH-FIVEABLE" "Astonishing" [time magazine] "Mouth-wateringly cathartic" [the daily post] "if it was a tangible thing, i'd have one under every chair" [oprah] that's right - your [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
i remember some kids song that went 'love your neighbour as you love yourself, oh-oh love your neighbour, but don't get caught' and thinking as i write that, i may very well have added the 'don't get caught' on to what was a nice kiddies song of which i still have the tune playing in my head... so maybe scrap that... but it brings to mind the one thing that is hugely on my mind [...]
arr, so last nite of crew before baptist summer camp 1 (1000ish young people) arrive and my friend Craig Fincham leads a devotion/crew-building moment and confesses some stuff to the team and God who has been loudly whispering (well i have been incessantly converting His calls to a whisper so as not to pay too much attention to them) to me decides this is a moment of truth (MOT) moment to SCREAM at me - [...]
my wife, the Beautiful Val often calls me ‘B’ it is weird cos it is just a letter (the letter ‘b’) – but i really like it when she does. “i love you, b” “my b” so SO powerful it amazes me how much love she is able to fit into that one single letter.
so TBV (the beautiful Val, my lovely wife) and i arrive at a pastor's breakfast this morning and as we walk upto one of the pastors there he looks at her and says says something along the lines of, 'So you have to put up with this hey?' or some other kind of jesty vibe dunno-what-to-say-so-let-me-open-my-mouth-and-see-what-spews-forth witty reparte'... he was trying to be funny and it was fine... but a little while later they were [...]