Virtually Paul

Moving Day

I’ve spent today moving most of my useful belongings to my new place out east. It’s been a satisfying day. I’ve had the opportunity to go through most of my stuff, throughout the process of packing and unpacking, and I’ve got myself better organised than I have been for a while. It’s a good feeling. The house is great. It’s much better than both of the other two shared houses that I’ve lived in.

What makes it even better are all of the furniture, appliances and kitchen stuff that I get to benefit from as one of the fantastic perks of sharing with a man who just got engaged. And I’m not just talking about a knife block Lance. These guys have a pretty cool setup.

Of course, leaving the old north-west didn’t come without a second thought. I had a bit of a moment here tonight as I was unloading my stuff. The house was dimly lit and very quiet. And it all hit me like a wave. There I was, surrounded by pretty much everything I really need to live quite comfortably for some time, but in a new suburb, some distance from pretty much everyone I know, feeling like somewhat of a visitor in the house.

The words came out aloud “What on earth amI doing here?” A few light-switches later, with a bit of a classic old CD on the stereo and I started to feel a bit better. I spent some time just praying as well, which is always a great idea for those’moments’. And now that I’ve set up my room, I’m sure I’ll be pretty cosy.

I’m not entirely sure how long the feeling of being out of place will take to completely go away - but I know that God has brought me here. Let the adventures begin!

Moving East

I just found out that we have a house! (and soon I’ll probably find out the address)

For anyone who hadn’t caught up with the change yet, I’m about to move over to the eastern suburbs to share a house with a great bloke called Geoff who has a blog that is much better than mine. I’ll be sharing with Geoff until January when he gets married to my good friend Bec, who will be henceforth referred to as my housemate-in-law.

I feel a little bit privileged to be included in the experience. It’s a bit of a special thing when two people like these guys get all married and start on the journey together in their first little home of their own. It’s kind of nice to be trusted with that somehow. I don’t think trust is exactly the word I’m going for but there is an element of sacredness there somewhere which I’ve been given permission to tread quite close to. I’m sure my share of the rent won’t hurt either. If all goes well I should have also beaten them both to blogging about it.

I’m having a house cooling party at my current place this Saturday night, so if you know me and I haven’t told you about it yet, get in touch if you’d like to come. I’ve been a bit slack on the PR.

Search terms

A big congratulations to anyone who has found my blog using any of the following search terms:

1. Essendon Baptist Joan
2. shooting at la porchetta niddrie

and my personal favourite… *drum roll*

3. frustrated with ministry (page 1 Google rank)

The results are in

I got my uni results tonight for the first three of my six accounting certificate subjects.  Two DIs and a HD.  Not too bad at all!

Dissatisfied on the inside

An excerpt from the post linked below:

Sometimes I don’t know if I can deal with it anymore. I’m tired of hearing about homosexual agendas, the Ten Commandments, and prayer in school while Christians will not even love one another.

When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he gave two. Love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself. We (Christians) have helped create the world we live in by not following these instructions. In the process we have created the Church we now live with.

Hey, Ya Know What?: The Church I Know

Freedom at last

As of 4.15pm today, I have finished my exams for the semester!  Yay!

A must-have resource for every church pastor

Link to video:
Ra’ah: Annoyed with Church Part Two

Does inter-faith dialogue undermine truth?

Please go and leave Mark a comment about his sensationalist claims about the definition of progress:

mark-markspace: dalai-lama-and-inter-faith-dialogue

(NB. You will need to scroll to see the post.)

More on Young Adult Ministry

15 Things to Know Before Launching a Young Adult Ministry - threads

A Lightbulb Moment

I was watching TV one night earlier this week with someone who shall remain nameless when an ad for Channel 7s “The Rich List” came on. Feel free to identify yourself in the comments if you’d like to take responsibility.

If you haven’t seen the show, you’ve got two teams that play off against each other. During part of the game, individual teams need to communicate with the host, without the other team hearing the interaction. So, Andrew O’Keefe, of “Deal or no deal” fame, has two big red buttons on his desk. He tells the TV audience that these big red buttons make the “pods” containing the opposing teams, soundproof. It’s all rather simple really.

My TV watching counterpart had this question to ask me:

Person: “Hey Paul, you know how he presses those buttons? … Yeah, well… How could pressing a button make something soundproof?”

Me: “Um… I think you’ll find that the pods are soundproof to start with and the button just switches off the microphones and speakers inside them.”

I tried to back-pedal at this point and convince them that the buttons actually raised and lowered sets of hydraulic flaps off-camera… but it was all too late for that.

The person looked at me curiously for a few seconds, taking in the explanation. Then the light went on and they smiled sheepishly at me. Needless to say I’m not going to be letting this one go just yet.