I read with destructable bookmarks and a pen. Something like an old receipt or old advertising flyers. Every time I come across something good, I can shred it and write a note or underline the bits I like so I don’t get distracted.

How do you like to approach good bits in a book?

It’s funny the things that we ignore when under pressure or stressed. I unintentionally dropped the ball with my blog as I thinned out my thinking space – and then it blew out to a few months!
Thankfully for me I’m neither married nor dating and get to sort this kind of thing out early, because I can imagine under stress I’d probably make some horrible errors in that area. Something for me to think about!

What kind of stuff do you neglect when under pressure?

My day of rest usually consists of a nice slow morning with a decent breakfast and plunger coffee. Then around 11:00 I head out for a coffee at one of my favourite cafes with a good book or a writing pad. In the afternoon I like to cook something enjoyable to eat later in the week, and then I go off to indoor soccer or around to my Mum’s place for dinner.

How about you? What do you do on your day(s) off?

Mikey is the Hat Man.
Not in the “I have lots of vintage baseball caps” kind of way. Neither in the “Luke Hansard wears a special hat to cover his head” kind of way.

But in a Geneva/MTS/Uni Fellowship/Vision 100 kind of way.
He wore at least 3 hats today, and still managed to keep them on.

I was impressed, so this makes Mikey the Hat Man.

Today I seem to have begun blogging like Mikey. It seems to have happened by accidentally copying Jason’s one word blog title concept. Hopefully it will be good, rather than a thumbs down.

Come tomorrow, I’ll officially be a housemate.
I’m moving out for the first time to live with with an awesome bunch of dudes from Wellspring..

But although they are all awesome, I’m certain it won’t be without it’s challenges.

So, as my first post in the saga of Coolabah Rd, can you give me tips on being a good housemate?

Is Atheism in Australia outside the clutches of the secular attitude?
With the advent of Atheism advertisements on the side of buses here in Hobart, I’m curious.

When it comes to Christianity and the secular attitude, I would argue it is not primarily because Christianity makes a religious claim that it is rejected by broader society – but because it makes any claim at all that will require consideration and commitment. For people to prescribe to one view or the other (God or no god) requires some sort of commitment that it seems Australian’s on the whole aren’t willing to make. So when it comes to beliefs, Atheism is not the default, because Atheism makes an assertion about who God is (or isn’t.. God is still the object of discussion). If the default is no discussion, then Atheism builds on this to project a worldview, it moves from a place of no consideration to a place of opinion about God.
So, if my hunch about secular attitudes is correct, why should Atheism experience anything different to Christianity?

But maybe Atheism is becoming a major initial perspective. There is a mild form of Atheism present in Australian society which is bound up in our concept of freedom – the voice of the theists historically has been loud, we live in a society that was built on Christian and religious belief, and now in recent generations Australians want to be free from these moral and social obligations, to be free from God. The reason I call it mild is because it’s emotionally rooted, not logically. (On a side note, I would challenge you to find me an atheist that hasn’t begun their journey of logically deducing God doesn’t exist without first an emotional reason)

What happens when the demands become too high, when Atheism starts demanding commitment in some form to the removing of God from society? What happens when Atheism is seen for a form of religious belief, and when it begins to impinge on freedom? What if it’s already begun with Atheist ads on buses?

Will then Australians be as skeptical of the Athiest perspective as they are the Christian perspective? Will Australians reject Atheist evangelistic efforts in the same way they reject other forms of evangelism (be it Christian or otherwise)? I wonder. Your thoughts?

(As this has the potential to being a contentious topic – at a point where any discussion may become unhelpful, off topic or uncivil, I will close the comments)

I’ve found in the past I haven’t kept resolutions very well, so I’m just making a few, and giving my reasons for making them so that I might be better committed to them.

So far I have 3 New Year Resolutions:

• To blog 3-4 times a week – To encourage my own thinking about God and life and what I’m reading, and to share that with others.
• Make more time to talk with my non-Christian friends about Jesus – Because all of them know I’m a Christian, and the Gospel is too important for them to hear for me not to share.
• Maintain my skills in music composition as a major hobby. – To give me a break from thinking about ministry, to use the skills I have, and to give myself the sense of completion that I’ve been told people in ministry struggle without.

1. The main vibe of the conference was one of “We’re still working this out” – I thought that was awesome, it invited discussion, rather than dividing between those who had ‘made it’ and those who hadn’t. I wasn’t really expecting it to be any different, but it was encouraging to have this confirmed.
2. Often at conferences like this, the main speaker dudes are a bit inaccessible. This wasn’t the case at ITC, although I didn’t talk with everyone who got behind the mic, I did speak to Al and Andrew, had a chat with Tim, just generally didn’t feel ‘the divide’. Hopefully it remains that intimate. It was good.
3. We didn’t walk away with a formula, or a predetermined action plan, but instead a vision. I’m not sure how it was for the people going through assessments, but at various points during the conference there were definitely opportunities to take heed of big questions we should be asking before starting on the path of church planting.
4. A good mix of people at different points of their endeavours – it’s great to see that people who had already planted found it valuable to take part in something like In The Chute, obviously with an intention of both learning and sharing.
5. I didn’t really understand what Jim Wallace talked about on the Saturday night, a lot of the corporate and army speak that just went over my head. I wasn’t convinced it was to helpful, maybe that’s why I didn’t get it.
6. The elective sessions although excellent in content felt much like the rest of the conference itself, I’m not sure whether the organisers envisioned them to be something a bit different.
7. Would have been good to hear a bit more from Al preaching the word. In a conference like this, you can never have enough bible based encouragement
8. The final day was my favourite, where we heard some more ‘church planter in the raw’. The “Weeping Daves” as Mikey called them, they spoke of massive grace in their weaknesses and their opposition and pain. I found this the most encouraging session too. A lot of the conference I was catching myself thinking ‘How on earth will I manage to do this?’. That final session was both a comfort and a grounder reminding me that I don’t have to manage it, but God has it under control
9. The issue of pride came up a lot, along with sound biblical advice. I appreciated that as it’s a big issue for me.
10. Other ‘controversial’ issues, when raised, were treated with respect and good Biblical instruction

All in all it was fantastic. I loved every second of it (except maybe the saturday night session) and I look forward to dragging others along with me next year!

The Geneva Push isn’t a Sydney Anglican thing, nor is it just a Sydney thing. It’s for all of Australia. Tassie has a good representation actually, being 6 or 7 of us here. That being said, the place is full of Sydney people, and Moore College is a name that has probably by now been spoken by 80% of the attendees here.
I don’t find that discouraging, I think it’s encouraging. I am glad to see that Sydney evangelicalism has fired up many people for the Gospel being preached into new areas and into new contexts. But the risk is that where the ethos is very evangelical, it’s naturally going to draw in far more sydneysiders and then look very sydney. I would suggest that it’s something that TGP is going to have to wear for some time, while the network grows. I don’t think there is any way to avoid it.

[I've cut some stuff from the middle here for now, cause it looks like it's gonna be addressed in the next session ]

Solo time is hard to find. A lot of the people attending seem to be extroverts and highly energetic people, maybe it’s not an issue for them, but between sessions and meal breaks there is not much time to find to spend alone in prayer or to spend time reflecting. It’s pretty intense here, and fast paced. I know that I need to take time out to digest, but feel kind of guilty about it when I do. Maybe it comes out of the drive to connect to one another, and build up those friendships in such a short time. On the flip side, I think it is good though that there isn’t a mass of dead time. If the organisers were going to err on one side or the other, keeping the pace is definitely the better of the two.

This is all rather finicky, I’m certainly having a great time here, and much effort has gone into the organisation of the conference, and it’s certainly a privilege and blessing to be able to attend and spend time with these amazing people.