Cheerio

Hi all,

Just saw how long ago I last posted!

Since then, life got busy and blogging was the first thing to go.

In that time, I have finished at my old job, moved churches and am doing MTS at UNSW. Looks to be a very exciting couple of years, but it was also be busy.

This is one of the reasons why I will be stopping my blogging. I will continue to read blogs, but writing one didn't work for me. I felt too guilty when I didn't blog (i.e. all the time!) and the idea of blogging became more of a ego thing for me - seeking people to listen to me (especially when I have nothing really to say!). Therefore, I have decided that for me, blogging is not the best thing I can do with my time and so I will be closing down the blog. Thanks for reading.

Luke

New laptop

It was recently my birthday and so I got a new laptop. It was a birthday/Christmas present from my parents and my wife, because they all agreed that my old laptop was nearing its use by date.

I am terrible at making decisions, so as part of my present, Gem made the decision on my behalf.

The result of this is that I am typing this blog post on my new Macbook. I think its a pretty awesome piece of kit and am so far quite impressed with it. It meets the main qualities that I was looking for - light, reasonably powerful (the operative word being reasonably - I didn't want a gaming laptop) and has a good battery life.

I had also asked people what they thought on twitter and facebook and the overwhelming majority were people suggesting macs. Whether this is because mac people are more vocal and pc people don't care, I don't know.

The other upshot of this is that I now use all apple products - an iPhone and an iPod. But don't worry, I won't become an apple fan boy (well, not yet).

On my mind

So what's been on my mind? Well a couple of things.

1. I'm in the process of making the decision to do an MTS apprenticeship at UNSW, which will mean that I will be blogging more next year, and thinking through how I and Gem can serve God best with the gifts and opportunities we have been given (something incidentally that everyone should spend time doing, whether thinking about full-time paid ministry or not).

2. Where do I sit denominationally? Or more accurately, where do I sit in my thinking in regards to my understanding of the church and the bible?

3. How can I lead my youth team well and train them.

4. How can I lead my youth small group well and train them.

5. Who should I put time into and how can I reach out to non-Christians?

6. What are my gifts and how has God made me?

Just some random thoughts that are going through my head at the moment.

An explanation

So I've been slack in writing up posts. I know that this is nothing to feel bad about and that I owe no-one an explanation. After all there are plenty of other good blogs to read and they all post much more regularly and much more interesting stuff than me. But I feel as though I do owe you all an explanation. So here it goes.

At the start of the year I starting in a new position at work - acting as the manager of the small team I was part of due to my manager getting a promotion, within the larger team, but still a promotion. As the months have gone on, I've been inheriting more and more responsibility, mainly because as and when things come up, I'm asked to do them. The team has also grown by two in the time that I've been managing and the amount of work that is coming in has increased. This means that, basically, things have been all over the place for me as I got used to the increased and very different nature of my work. And, with any role of responsibility, there was the additional emotional toll it took. I also had my other roles to balance as well - youth group coordinator and husband to a wife you just started working as a primary school teacher (which is a super hard job by the way - please thank your children's teachers if they are in school , they deserve it. Especially if they are in year 5 at St Caths in Waverley!) In short, I've been super busy and things have fallen by the wayside.

Having said all that, I will continue to try and blog (and will probably end up feeling a little guilty if I don't), so please be patient with me. There is plenty that is on my mind and I hope to empty some of that onto the blog in the future. Sorry if you've missed my rambling posts about nothing in general.

Humbled

Ever feel that you're too cocky? Too arrogant a person? I've
discovered a way to get humbled and it costs nothing (except your
pride).

Go running around centennial park*. Being overtaken by every and
anybody does make it impossible to remain cocky. Especially when some
of those people are walkers.

*this will only work if you are not super duper ' I run marathons
before breakfast' fit.

More blogging

I've set up the email function on the blog so I can post from email. Now I can blog on the go (and from my iphone).

Blogging has been slack because I got more responsibility at work so don't have time to blog in my breaks. Hopefully this will help me be more consistent and (lucky for you) brief.

Here goes nothing!!

If I was asked "Do people of other faiths have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven?" on Larry King Live...

...I'd repeat word for word what Kevin DeYoung would say.