Sunday Goings-on

Back into life with a vengeance! Preached at East City Wesleyan in the morning with Lead Pastor Richard Waugh still traveling the world. Pulled a stunt with a fake cell phone call from him - amused myself if no one else telling him that I had changed the message topic (true cos the office secretary had this wrong in the bulletin) and that I wouldn't preach too well and thereby show him up... Preached on foundational attitudes to money - "Your Money or Your Life?" Used a clip from the Blackadder comedy series -I'm still left wondering whether the humour was just too sophisticated for the gathered masses...anyways found myself in the midst of expounding on the "Where your treasure is your heart will be" and making the point that this verse suggests that our hearts will follow where our money is and not the other way round - ie a heart for say missions will follow the giving to missions - anyways I found myself in the moment get very intense and direct in the challenge...interesting moment - sometimes deep emotion sneaks up on me in a message and I'm not sure whether God is in it, but it nearly always reveals something surprising to me about something I care deeply over...

I had this weird moment when I was referring to being jetlagged...and because I probably was (we arrived the day before) I struggled to find the word jetlagged in my brain - all I could think of was the word "hungover"! That would have been good: "Yeah I'm still hungover...but its OK its not as if I still drunk!"

cession|community was a fun place to be Sunday night - good turnout and plenty of new faces. We dealt with week 4 of the Extreme Makeover Series - Augmentation Time. I was a little worried about this message: I was trying to get to the heart of living in the spirit as being God's way of augmenting our life. In the end it seemed to come off OK - a bunch of people stayed for prayer afterwards. One guy who has a pretty stuffed up life right now (sex addiction, sister tried to kill herself etc) left me greatly concerned - he knows some of the next steps he needs to take but he has been dodging counseling and his small group lately as part of slipping back into the mire. I was pretty direct with him about "nothing changing if he changes nothing". Anyways you could pray for him if you wouldn't mind.

The new believers small group I started just kept itself running while I was away - sharing community, extending accountability to each other and even adding people to the group! These guys are amazing!

Well, time to hit the day - there's still a heap of unpacking to do...

Jonesboy