OK so now it seems I’ve fallen into the habit of using controversial headlines to grab your attention.  Sorry but I’m a product of the media.

For the record, I don’t believe He is schizophrenic – not at the slightest.  But in my journey of faith so far, there have been many times I have come across passages of scripture that don’t conflict, but rather make me question my understanding of God in a huge way.

For example, and this will be addressed later on as well, why would God spare King David after he was found to be an adulterer and murderer and declare that this guy was a “man after His own heart” and then kill on the spot Ananias and Sapphira for withholding a small amount of money after selling their property?  (See Acts 5:1-11)

The Bible is full of these kinds of scenarios and a hardened heart would probably conclude that God is indeed a bit of a schizo.  But I’m not dumb, arrogant and full of myself to come to that conclusion cause I know my God is good and all I have is but a tiny understanding of Him.

Matt Chandler

So the other day, my mate and Pastor Mark Jurisic, handed me over a sermon by Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Texas.  He said that it would blow my mind.  And being my mate and knowing what gets me thinking, and listening to a tonne of Matt’s sermons before, I knew he was onto a good thing.  The sermon was called “Does God Have Two Wills” and Matt builds his case like this:

We all know that God desires people to be saved right?  Scriptures like the following clearly state this fact:

• This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires ALL PEOPLE to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth | 1 Tim 2:3-4

• The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, NOT WISHING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, but that ALL should reach repentance | 2 Pet 3:9

• Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? | Eze18:23

From these versus, we see the will of God clearly right?  I mean, the big guy upstairs seems to be in our corner right?  Our ultimate cheer leader – ready willing and able to wipe our slate clean at the slightest hint of a repentant heart.  Then how do you reconcile this mindset with a passage such as this:

“..like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, HE WAS REJECTED, for he found NO CHANCE TO REPENT, though he SOUGHT IT WITH TEARS” | Heb 12:16b-17

If it’s God’s will for all to be saved, then why on earth does He refuse people when they seek repentance or, even worse still, kill them on the spot before they have a chance to repent?

To get the answer, you need to listen to Chandler as he questions these and many more examples.  A word of warning though, this stuff is deep and you will walk away broken – especially if you subscribe to the bling, bling version of “christianity” where God is your means to an end to get what you want in life.  Hope you enjoy.

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Download | Notes (trust me, you’ll need them)

Nah not really but I thought I would use that title just to draw your attention.  I follow a blog called “Poop is emergent too” – a satirical look at the emergent movement prevalent in modern Christianity and this YouTube clip appeared on his profile.  To those of you NOT familiar with the “discussion” on this area, you may as well leave now – as nothing will make sense to you from now on.

But if you follow this “conversation” you will laugh with the following video – unless of course you are targeted by it’s views:

For the record.  I do not subscribe to the Emergent way – just in case the tone of this post was not evident. I vote for the missional crowd.  But that’s another post.  So just leave your comments below if you care to do so….

I’ve always been moved by worship and know that I would make a hopeless Worship Leader or even singer as I tend to well up many times during a song.

In addition I am always moved by art that glorifies our King.  Faith may come from healing but, in my case, goosebumps come by seeing!

Thanks to a post on a blog I follow, I came across a video that touched me deeply.  Performed at Fellowship Church, this worship song was saturated by an expression of art that didn’t detract from an awesome song of worship from an awesome angle.

2 Corinthians 5:17 is a favorite verse of mine:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”

And this song focuses on this theme in an awesome way.  When I talk to people about my journey of faith, I often use the following analogy:

“Before I was a Christian, it’s like I saw things only in black and white.  The bible seemed like shades of color I had no idea how to comprehend.  When I heard people talk about Jesus, they were talking outside of my limited black and white spectrum.  But when I said yes to the call Jesus had on my heart, I started to see new colours.  Pale at first, but for the first time I saw blue and green and red and pink and orange.  And I’ve been hooked ever since.”

See colour is a huge thing for me and it’s beautifully expressed in art.  And when art, in it’s various modalities, is used to glorify my King, I’m moved.  And that’s why I love this video.

New Creation from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

I came across the story of this billboard in San Diego.  It says:

“Mission Gathering Christian Church Is Sorry For The Narrow-Minded, Judgmental, Deceptive, Manipulative Actions Of Those Who Took Away The Rights And  quality Of So Many In The Name Of God.”

Sure makes for an interesting read as you drive by!  But when I think about it, I’m not sure whether I like it or hate it.

To be sure, there are a lot of stupid things done in the name of “religion.”  And if you have followed this blog for awhile, you would know that I hate religion.

But at the same time, the Bible does expose sin for what it is and sometimes what we have to say may come across as “narrow minded” or “judgemental” and those who live in the darkness hate the light shining on their deeds.  So are we to apologise for this?

I guess the answer lies in the method of delivery of the truth of scripture.  By looking down on others while we are full of it ourselves, we give ample reasons to say sorry.  But if we lump all of ourselves in the same “fallen” basket, it’s mankind that should say sorry to it’s Creator.

So I’m divided on this.  Check out the original post here and be sure to read the comments to get an understanding on how others are reacting to this story.

** Caution, this post links to a gruesome file. Not for the faint hearted.

I received a Powerpoint presentation from my brother today.  The first page read:

“An excavator fell in a river in the Amazon while carrying out work on a gas-line for Petrobras. The operator broke the glass to free himself but wounded his hand trying to escape, the blood attracted Piranhas.”

I’m going to post this only to show how savage these little fish can be.  I’ve checked to see if this is a hoax on snopes.com and it doesn’t register with them.  I’m from Australia and we don’t have these crazy fish here.  But if you’re reading this from an area that does, then take note and be very careful.

Click here to view.

As an amateur webmaster of my church’s website – and a self confessed stats geek, I thought I’d check out the stats on our website.  I know, it’s boring but what else do I have to do while stuck in a hotel in Sydney while on a sales training course right?

CityWest Church is a small church plant in Melton, Melbourne, Australia (map).  Currently we have about 70 – 75 people attending each week.  By God’s grace, this number seems to be increasing recently.  We have a website, a Facebook page and a podcast.  But in reality, I wanted to see what kind of reach we have to the rest of the world.

And this exercise proved to be very encouraging to myself as I tend to spend hours each week just keeping the thing updated to a minimum level.  There are heaps of things I would like to add to it, but just simply don’t have the time.  So it’s pretty humbling to see how far and wide we’ve spread throughout the world and it gives me the encouragement to keep on keeping on.

I use Google Analytics to monitor our traffic flow.  Our data begins on 15 June, 2008 to today, 12 November, 2008 – exactly 150 days.  Here are the stats:

Unique visitors: 891
Total visits: 2356
Page views: 7900

Ok so where do these 891 people come from?  Our mission at CityWest is to reach out to the people of Melton, but also to the world at large.  Have we acheived this in our 150 days?

Number of countries: 49

We’ve had visits from people from Sri Lanka to Qatar, Iran to Jamaica and Sweden to Saudi Arabia. But the top 5 countries are:

1. Australia
2. USA
3. Canada
4. UK
5. Turkey

A break down of the top 5 countries show:

Australia

• Visitors from all 8 states and territories
• Including all the major cities

USA

• Visits from 39 out of 51 states
• Top states are Texas, California, Kansas, Florida and Georgia

Canada

• Visits from 19 cities

UK

• Visits from 13 cities

Turkey

• Visits from 5 cities

So what have poeple been checking out?  Here are the top five pages from our website:

1. CityWest Church – our home page
2. Welcome to CityWest Church – a welcome letter from our Pastor
3. Kingdome Come – our expository sermon series on the Sermon On The Mount found in Matthew
4. CityWest News – our weekly news (video bulletins currently on hold)
5. Location, Times & Calendar – a snapshot of what’s going on at church

Like I said, doing this exercise has pumped me to continue doing what I do.  And if you’re in the same boat as me, I’d encourage you to do the same exercise just to see what’s happening with your website.  I know our stats aren’t huge – but neither is our church.  But it’s an awesome feeling to know that our message of Jesus has now been pumped out to 891 people in 49 countries all around the world.  And in some small way, it helps fulfill the great commission given by our King:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Mat 28:18-20