Praise the Lord

I'm in charge of music ministry at church, and I sometimes just want to tear my hair out because of all the niggly bits of admin!! [I am not one of those blessed with the gift of admin!] But I was heavily rebuked the other day, when slightly grumpy at the thought of all the organisation I had to do, I smsed one of the band members to remind her of the practice that evening, and she responded: "Coolio! See you later! Let's praise the Lord!"

What an awesome attitude to have :) I'd somehow lost the plot a little [maybe a lot... I definitely shouldn't have thrown the drum stick at our guitarist] [just jokes;)] and let all the little details distract me from the real reason why we were meeting and practising! Yay! Let's praise Him in everything we do!

The Carlights Analogy

While I was driving home the other day, a friend who was sitting with me in the car reminded me to switch on the car lights. To those of you who are freaking out a little at the thought of me driving around in the pitch dark.. I'm not that stupid. [I think.] It was twilight - light enough not to need to put on lights to see what was ahead of me, dark enough for my friend to be a li-ttle worried ;). But as I saw the cars swishing past in the oncoming lanes, I realized that sometimes we don't put on the lights for us to see by, but for others to be aware of our prescence.

And I thought, wow, what a cool analogy for the Christian walk. Sometimes we do things for ourselves. Other times, the things we do don't really matter to us, but we do them as examples/ models for other people.

Having said that, I can't think of a single example, so you're on your own there...

:)

DJ B?

Xenophobia: our response?

It was mentioned in church today that:

"Xeno + phobia" = "stranger + fear"
(i.e. fear of the stranger.)

However, did you know? The word for hospitality in the New Testament is:

"Xeno + philia" = "stranger + love"
(i.e. love of the stranger..)

I think that makes things pretty clear!

A modern take on the Poor Widow story..

While sitting watching people coming to and fro, placing their offerings in the temple treasury, Jesus saw how many rich people threw in large amounts. But one poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Yet, she was the one Jesus noticed. Calling his disciples, he told them: "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything- all she had to live on." [Mark 12:41-43]


Two friends of mine both attend a church which is being used as a place of refuge for people who are fleeing (mostly) township areas due to various xenophobic attacks that have been taking place in areas in South Africa. Many of them had fled with only what the clothes on their back, some had been able to leave with things they could carry, but the majority of them, already in poorer circumstances than the average church attender of that church, had lost everything. Having no other place to go, when Sunday came, they were all still there. So they were there for the morning service, and in an act of generosity which definitely humbled my friends all gave when the offering plate came around. And at the evening service, they all gave again.

Just makes me wonder about how much I give.

Xenophobia attacks

Otherwise, I've been pretty frustrated, mad, saddened, angry, sore about all the attacks that are happening around South Africa. It just makes me so mad to see how selfish and stupid and just plain sinful people can be. When I see what levels the human race can stoop to, I am blown away completely by the amazing mercy of God.. How is it possible that Christ died for us while we were still enemies?!?!?

Interracial relationships?

The other day a friend of mine mentioned that he'd been turned down by a mutual girl friend and one of the reasons she stated was because of of their racial differences.

After all the steam stopped coming off my head, and I started seeing things in a lighter sepia shade rather than bright red, I went to the bathrooms and sat and cried a little. It might seem a bit of an extreme response, especially considering I'm quite awesomely hardcore, and not given to leaking waterdrops at all, but what really saddened me is that he's a Christian... And so's she.

Is it unfair of me to consider this an immature response? What kind of friendship and Christlike behaviour do you show when your actions say something like "okay, despite your race, I'll be your friend and hang out with you and think you're a cool person, look look, I'm not racist 'cause I have friends of other colours", but as soon as it hits too intimate a level your race suddenly jumps up as a factor? What happened to all being equal in Christ? I remember reading a Christian book for females a while back, and it was actually really sound, but the author was against interracial marriages?!?! I think this, quite frankly, is outright bull, but if you can show me in the Bible that my opinion is wrong, I'm happy to listen.

Money: To give or to keep?

We've been talking about money again recently - oohlala, the taboo subject - and about giving and generosity. It's interesting how people always ask "How much should we give?" In a weird way, it reminds me a lot of the question of "How far can we go?" couples tend to ask. However, a brilliant response I once heard to this was to point out that this was the wrong question entirely -the right one would be to ask: "How far can we stay sexually pure? How far can we stay away from temptation?"

In a similar sense, maybe we shouldn't be asking "How much should we give?" expecting an answer of a certain amount of money that we can give to ease our consciences about not giving anything and to relieve our selfishness so that we don't give too much... Maybe the right question is to ask "How much should we keep? Why not give it all away?"

That might seem a little bit crazy, but it should be a challenge to you to consider your dependency on money - do we really need it? Why are we so attached to it?

hmmm...