Every time in my life where I’ve been praying for something big, and it starts hapening, there is always this invigorating feeling of surprise. That feeling of “wow, this thing is real!” still hits me. And it’s hit me again.
We’ve been praying for God to really do something in the lives and the attitudes of our youth for the last 18 months, just really earnestly seeking to see a compete change of direction in them. And it looks like it’s happening. Kids who we were just getting frustrating at their lack of interest in anything we had to say, are excited about being “little Jesuses” in the world. They’re starting to pray with one another, not by obligation, not even by suggestion, but because they know that the answers they seek are found in God, and in his spirit.

It’s only a beginning. And it might be a false start. But it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like we’re building up a group that are going to be real. A group that will go out and live lives that are earnestly seeking him. It’s scary and it’s exciting and I just know that it’s got nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with who he is. It’s an exciting time to be around our youth. Please let this just be the beginning of something huge.

Ever get that feeling when something that is blatantly obvious is mentioned and it suddenly has an impact? We had leaders meeting this evening and I had a bit of an epiphany at a remarkably simple thing that Pete said. He was chatting about the grace and truth balance, and confronting people about issues getting in the way of their walk, and saying that as leaders you’re in a position where you are in some way responsible for the lives of others. Now for whatever reason that hit me as being a pretty big deal.

And on the subject of leadership, part-two of the “Image isn’t everything” article over at “Out of Ur” has been posted.  There’s not really much disagreement here from me, basically saying that the solution to being overly image conscious is mostly to be in relationship with people who have the right to ask you the hard questions. There’s no doubt in my mind that a big part of where leaders (and partly from personal experience) start believing that the mentors and the like who are concerned with a certain aspect “just don’t understand”. Far more likely is that your own emotional attachment to what you’ve been doing and all the hard work you’ve put in is blinding you to what an outsider can see clearly.

But hey, you know what they say – “all generalisations are false”.

Just got back from our camp, which seemed at this stage to be a success. There was lots going on – the campsite at Oasis in Mount Evelyn has transformed itself in the past few years from being a place that the kids whinged about having to go to again (it has been about 3 years mind you), to the point where they are now keen as to head back there next time we’re having a camp. The facilities are unreal – they’ve got a sweet as basketball court area and it’s seriously sweet!

But it probably goes without saying that the camp is not actually about the sweet facilities, nor it is really about the games and stuff. We had some pretty decent spiritual times with the guys: there were a few chances for the kids to get some hardcore prayer happening and quite a few took up the opportunity. We had some very solid talks from people, and a couple of the girls who got baptised a month or so ago gave testimonies, which was very huge and very, very powerful. The wisdom that God has put in some of our kids blows me away!

It was a really funny camp for me. I don’t know whether it was overtiredness or something spiritual or just general weirdness, but I found myself really down for most of the camp. It didn’t really make much sense, and it was strange because it was something that I was aware of the whole time. I’m not normally that aware that I’m being a pill until looking back afterwards. But most of the camp I was short with people, I was too competitive in games, I wasn’t really that nice to be around. I still had good chats with some kids, and I’m sure probably still did some good somewhere in there, but it was a really strange feeling. I felt almost like I was back to being a self-absorbed teenager again.

So when it came around to the Sunday afternoon talk I was quite worried that I was going to be flat, which the kids always seem to detect straight away and lose interest soon after. But the weirdest thing happened. Once I got up to speak, there wasn’t really that much of me in it at all. I’d been feeling rubbish, but this didn’t feel rubbish at all. It’s hard to admit that God might have been releasing the spiritual gift of teaching in me without feeling like you’re being an arrogant naff-head, but I really think that it was there.

And in the “waiting for the Holy Spirit” time, God was in it. There’s not much I understand about it, but I know one thing for sure. I’d given up on me delivering some brilliant talk to these kids, and somehow God took some of it over. Now that’s not to say I didn’t rescue some of it back for myself, or that there wasn’t a problem with afterwards seeing the beginnings of some nasty pride again when people were saying that they’d liked the talk. But I really don’t think it was all me speaking. (Edit – I also meant to add that obviously it certainly wasn’t the perfect talk, by any stretch – just that God was in it)

So, in the words of the penguin from Fight Club: “Slide”

And hopefully another chance for some revolutionary God stuff. Youth camp this week, so I’m required to be responsible and holy. I’ll be missing the game again, so stand by for a rehashed richmond report, and hopefully a decent debrief. It’s a bit sad when I feel like I need to flag that I won’t be posting for a day – a pretty fair indication of how much this blog is taking over my life. So if you’ve got a moment spare, feel free to pray for the camp, we’re really expecting God to do heaps with our kids. Have a good weekend.

Sunday night was a bit of a milestone in my life. Even since leaving school, and probably before that, I’ve had an inclination, almost a longing, to chase the idea of planting a church. Some of that I’m sure comes from having been involved in a “fertile” church, where we have planted a number of congregations out of YVV (including the oft linked to Ranges Community Church). But the dream has always been a very private thing. Despite the fact that I’ve tended to lean towards making myself more vulnerable in sharing with my youth guys, almost none of those guys knew. It’s something I’ve discussed with some close friends, and happily discussed on occassion with people I barely know, but it’s not something that most people who know me are aware of. Or at least they weren’t.

So we get back to the happenings on Sunday evening. Part of the camp was a whole celebration of the past 10 years of YVV, and as part of that we had representatives from each of the plants being recognised and that was all very nice. Then Gordon Lingard (pastor of Bendigo Vineyard and Cluster Leader for Victoria) spoke and that was also very nice. Then as part of the ministry time, Judy Lingard (wife of aforementioned Gordon) had a word about people who had felt something as the plants had been called up, and that if (and I quote) “you don’t know how, or where, or when, but you want to be involved in planting a church” then people should come forward. Well I knew as soon as she started speaking that I was one of those people. And I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on whatever God was going to do in that.

Now I don’t really want to go into the specifics of the words that came out of the prayer, other than that there was a real sense that this was a huge forward step in regards to the dream, and that sticking with that is vital. But the weirdest thing was what happened afterwards. Going up for prayer in that meeting ended up being quite a conspicuous thing to do. There was only me, a “good-side-of” middle aged couple and a couple who everyone knew are eventually going to plant a church. So afterwards, the first thing was that Pete (pastor extraordinaire) came up straight away and gave me a deadpan death stare while accusingly pondering “So you’re going to go plant a church now? I’ll need to see you first thing Tuesday morning in my office”. But that’s just Pete. Then the funniest thing was one of the youth guys (a year 8 who I’d been particularly close with when I was doing Friday nights – see this post) came up and asked “You’ve not just forgotten about us, you’re leaving as well? So how long til you go?”. That required some fast talking.

But it wasn’t just them. All around, you knew that people were thinking about you differently. Sadly, and it will be something I’ll need to come to terms with, some people seemed to have a bit more respect for me, now that I might one day be a pastor of a church. I think it probably made some of my friends understand how I work a bit better. Some of my weird decision-making starts making sense. And when you chat with people, they start wondering if you’re sizing them up to come along with a church plant.

The dream is yet to have any form. All it is so far is nice thoughts, ideas, and probably a hugely unrealistic view of what church planting would be like. But this is a big step. And letting people in will probably be a positive. People might start taking me seriously. Never know. I hope this post hasn’t come across as me being paranoid about what people think of me, because that would be much more honest than I ever intended to be on here. And my focus isn’t on the other people stuff. I just found it intriguing. So, in the words of Bono: “One step closer to knowing”.