Only a little sin

The strength of accountability..

..and the lie of the little sin.

No sin is too small to seek support from a brother/sister in Christ, as no sin is too small not to, in some way, affect the body of Christ.

Hearing a brother say to me today "I heard nothing from you about that, so I stopped praying after time" was quite profound. We need always be sharing with one another, so we can be encouraging and praying for one another.

Some thoughts on engaging my generation.

My generation is highly visual.
1. We use our eyes as our dominant sense, as our ears tend to be full of iPod.
2. For the same reason, our eyes are all the more important for communication, be it with Internet chat, or seeing a friend or acquaintance in the street.

My generation is also over stimulated.
1. Video games and Cinema experience are designed to engage many senses, and technology is growing in this area.
2. I read somewhere recently that young people tend to watch TV and use the internet at the same time. This is now the norm.
3. In order to catch our full attention, much entertainment or information must have that Cinema experience.
4. Making the effort to sit down and read a book has become much more difficult in my life time, as the internet has grown. This, I would argue, is because the internet provides the opportunity for a 'deeper' engagement through video/audio and graphical/text based information all at once.

Some questions:
1. What does this mean for the preacher? Does he adapt these growing mediums? Or does he provide an alternative to the trend?
2. What does this mean for the worker charged with Pastoral care? Must something change to allow proper relationships to develop?
3. What does this mean for leaders of praise and worship in our church? (recognising that this is broader than music, I in fact am intending to ask this more as a focus on singing praises to God)
4. What does this mean for the evangelist? What mediums should they be using to spread the good news?
5. How can we encourage our young people* to spend the time in the Bible, with full attention?
6. How can we encourage our young people* to spend time in prayer, with a proper focus on God?

*yes, I am 'young people', and I struggle with these.

A page a day..

I am about to embark on an adventure of writing to encourage me to look more deeply into the Scriptures.

To set aside some time in each day, maybe as little as 30 minutes, to reflect and write only a page on what I have read in God's Word, and how this can apply to my life.

I don't intend to blog these reflections, at least not in the interim, but to put pen to paper, engage the body in writing as well as the mind in thought and spirit in prayer.

The thoughts also won't be as well rounded as a blog post either, I've come to the conclusion that loose ends don't always need tying off, at least not when simply reflecting for personal reasons, as opposed to preaching or constructing a topical paper.
I'm hoping this might help me to allow scripture to speak more into those blank spots, and I get to make revisions of my writing.

In any case, I'm looking forward to it.
Any thoughts?

Mission update #1

Well..
This is the first of many MANY posts that are my mission updates.

At the moment I'm in my very early stages of preparation..

My current preoccupations:
- Needing to find a full-time Job so that I can save for the trip (My current guess-timations are sitting at $10k).
- Working with Tim on where I will be going and what I may be doing.
- Trying to understand the complicatedness that is going overseas.
- Reading reading reading and learning about Cambodia.
- Setting dates to aim for.

If you feel like praying for me, these are the things I need prayer for at the moment (plus some other things I guess!)