It's a sin to call sin sin!

Once again the sin police are at it in the Sydney Morning Herald. A clergyman named Richard Lane apparently told Justice Michael Kirby that it's inconsistent to call himself an Anglican Christian and live in an openly homosexual lifestyle.

The article says that Jesus was on about love, not sin.

True, Jesus was on about love: and in being on about love, he called sin for what it is. He didn't let social mores define sin. The character of God did. This made Jesus so unpopular that they crucified him.

Is this the fate awaiting his follower Richard Lane?

i wanna sit here, daddy!

I'm emailing this from target shellharbour where zoë has decided to sit in the storage rack underneath her pram!

Why Zoe is a girl

This article explains why Zoe is a girl but fails to explain why we can't conceive at the moment!

Heard it on the 6am news while on my way to Kiama for some exercise.

It just goes to prove that ministry is stressful!

"The Jamberoo Railway" update

Here we go:
As of today, all the track is painted a 'rust' colour, and the table top has been cleared and vacuumed ready for the back scene to be repainted a lighter shade of blue and the ballast (little rocks) to be applied to the track. This marks the beginning of the scenicking side of the layout building.

Bad footy tipping week for NRL

Two firsts for me in footy tipping this week: 6 out of 6 correct for the Super 14 and 0 correct for the NRL! My bad!

Guidance revisited

Back in January I had a bit of a rant (here) about the pagan teaching that is passed off among Western Christians for guidance.

You know the drill: you pray lots and then you listen to the 'still, small voice' of God (a misquote of 1 Kings 19:12 (best in the KJV, for misreading anyway) which makes that verse say the opposite of what it really says).

And if the 'still, small voice of God' is convincing enough, you can do what you like... oops I mean you can do what the still, small voice of God told you.

Of course, the other sure confirmation that something is God's will is the opportunity. So, a woman has the opportunity to preach, and so that overrules any Scriptures that say women should not preach. Someone has the opportunity to have an affair, that proves that the affair is ok. Of course, the guidance pagans never really admit that this is the end-result of their dodgy theology, but if we answer the question, "Should I be a missionary" with "well I can afford the ticket" as 'proof' that this is God's will, then every time I get the opportunity to have an affair it must be ok, using this logic.

My rant about all that was blogged about way back in January. But on Sunday our systematic Bible reading was 1 Samuel 24. It occurred to me as I was reading it to the church that the 'opportunity' method of guidance is knocked out of contention by this passage. David is hiding in a cave. Saul comes in to do a shit. David has the opportunity to bump Saul off: his own troops take the "opportunity equals guidance" view. But David refuses to accept that opportunity equals guidance. His loyalty is to the Lord's anointed. Read it here in the excellent New Living Translation.

Of course, the New Testament conveys a similar notion. In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul speaks of his opportunities and how he did not follow them because they weren't the wisest way to go. Opportunity DOES NOT equal guidance. Bloody hell, every time someone rejects the gospel we'd give up sharing it if we took that view!

Church member's house (original post sent by mobile phone!)

The view from a parishioner's driveway. Tough parish!

Train

While taking the bride to Kiama for a birthday coffee we saw this late-running train.

More pics of the Illawarra Fly

Here they are:

Our ad in the Kiama Independent

Here is today's ad in the Kiama Independent for our church.

Illawarra Fly

We the Farrells of Jamberoo (not to be confused with the other Farrells of Jamberoo) visited the new attraction just up the hill from us, The Illawarra Fly.

No, it's not an humungous zipper in the pants of the region, but an aerial walkway in the treetops just metres from the cliff face on the Illawarra Escarpment, and just a few kilometres from our place.

The photo is pretty crappy, Zozo wasn't co-operating.

But the view is awesome. Go visit. In the meantime, visit our Picasa web album.

Photos from the big wet

The Big Wet

These photos are from "The Big Wet" of 5 February 2008 (see original post here)

The Great Train Show

The Great Train Show is a podcast "radio show" on the ABC, hosted by former PM Tim Fischer.

A couple of weeks back they asked for humorous train-travel stories, so I sent mine in.

Here is the extract from last week's podcast.

Horsing around in Jamberoo

Well, I've blogged the cor transfers that run through Allowrie St (the main street) of Jamberoo.

On Sundays church is often interrupted by large numbers of loud motorbikes passing by on their way to the pub.

Sometimes during prayers in church on a Sunday we hear the clip-clop of horses as recreational riders take their gee-gees out for a walk.

But this was on a Thursday! And the bloke had your typical farmer look, with wide-brim had not a helmet like the weekend riders!

At our front gate!

We love living here. Truly we do, that's not being sarcastic.

Michelle's new hobby: tennis

I got a pretty good shot, hey? And yes, it was a real game! The ball is not photoshopped or anything.