A few weeks back i found out that I had won a 3 night trip to Sydney with 5 star accomodation, a dinner river cruise and 2 days at the cricket. Like most people I am one of those folks who ‘never wins anything’ so this caught us by surprise and also meant that at very short notice we had to find babysitters and juggle work. Thanks to our good friends Andrew & Simone for looking after the kids and giving them what they would describe as one of the best weeks of their life! And even bigger thanks from us for a great time away.

NSW is one of my favourite places and I really like Sydney for its iconic beauty. The Sydney harbour is one of those ‘icons’ and really quite spectacular. This time we got to do a harbour cruise with a 7 course dinner which was sensational. At a cost of $500.00 there is no way we’d be doing one out of our own pocket, but it was a great experience for someone else to pay for.

I sold the first day tickets to the cricket on eBay and then we went to the second day after spending Tuesday walking around the city, relaxing and eating out. The SCG has to be another great Sydney icon. We had gold tickets to the Trumper stand which gave us excellent viewing of the big day when Ponting and Clarke dominated. While it was great to see them in action, it was as much fun just to be part of the crowd and the hijinx that go on there – the inflatable beach balls that get batted around until they hit the field and get confiscated by security, the Mexican waves – that break with a ‘boo’ as they pass the uncooperative members area, the ‘Benauds’ (a group of blokes all dressed in Richie Benaud gear), the friendly sledging and taunts between Indian and Aussie fans and of course the cameo appearance by Bob Hawke complete with the sculling of a pint of beer. The way he was greeted you’d think be was Australia’s greatest ever PM – amazing what a bit of distance can do for people’s feelings…

When we left the cricket we decided to head for the beach and with Bondi just down the road it was an opportunity to take in another Oz icon on a steamy afternoon. Like the rest of Sydney, Bondi was busy – people everywhere from the cafe strip, the grass, the sand to the water and what stood out to us was how culturally diverse the place was. I reckon (white) Aussies made up about 30% of the crew there and the rest were from all over – quite different to home. But being so busy and unpleasantly humid we went for a walk and then quickly headed for the comfort of the hotel. The Westin, where we were staying is a fantastic hotel and again well out of our price range if we were paying our own way, but beds, breakfasts and the whole vibe made us go ‘hmmmm nice.’

After getting home from Bondi we had a short peaceful break in the room and then headed out for dinner but the hustle and bustle of the city left us heading back home for room service. A quiet night in was more appealing than sitting in another noisy cafe by a busy road. I don’t mind big cities but on this evening we were well over it, so it was some pretty classy room service, a bottle of red and an overpriced in house movie.

We finished with a final buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant before beginning the long jaunt home. I was becoming absorbed in Steve Job’s bio but then noticed that we could watch ‘Warrior’ on our entertainment sets on the plane, so Jobs got ditched in favour of a pretty hard hitting movie – no pun intended. I was enjoying the movie until the pilot decided to reboot the entire plane’s entertainment system with 5 mins left to run on the movie… I also got to watch the first half of Burning Man which is a really interesting look at grief and loss. Hopefully I’ll get to watch the rest soon.

Anyway, after a decent drive home we are back in the not so busy Yanchep. I still like Sydney, but if it wasn’t for free I don’t think I’d be doing it again for a holiday!

I got a kindle for Christmas. Its still an experiment and I am learning as I go about how it works and how ‘I work’.

I have done a lot of online reading over the last few years but primarily in the form of blogs. I haven’t read longer essays/articles online nor books. Its hard to ‘curl up’ with a laptop and read.

I finished my first Kindle novel last night and at this point I would rate the experience as less enjoyable than reading hard copy. I have also downloaded Steve Jobs Bio, as I am curious as to what the difference will be as I try some non-fiction. I read Frosty’s Road to Missional on the iPad and that went down quite well.

So far I can see that from a purely personal point of view the advantages to the kindle are:
- instant access
- cheaper books
- portability

The disadvantages relate more to the experience of reading:
- I don’t ‘feel’ like I am reading a book
- inability to lend (easily)
- a more limited range of books

I’m guessing the Kindle will be good for some stuff and less so for other stuff. Perhaps the Kindle will be used for non-fiction reading?… I still like to accumulate good novels and the sight of a ‘treasure chest’ of books on the shelves still inspires me much more than a small digital device that contains all the same data.

I’m going to persist with the experiment as I reckon there is a place for the Kindle, but its hard to get that ‘new book feel’ when you purchase from Amazon. However when you are in an airport and see an interesting looking novel its a real buzz to board the plane and start reading.

Stay tuned for more reflections as I give it a whirl!

My friend Phil doesn’t write often, but when he does it is well worth a read. Here’s his latest story of being illegally parked in Afghanistan.

Its a great story on so many levels. Read it, enjoy it and let it stir you.

Lately in our church gatherings when I’ve been reading from the Bible I just pull up the text on my iPhone and read it like that. I never carry a Bible with me these days and don’t use my old blue NIV much at all either. It has served me faithfully for around 25 years, but now even at home I sit with my phone or laptop and use them in preference to the hardcopy.

Its just words – and how you access them doesn’t matter right?

I believe that’s a completely true statement, but this morning in church as two different people read the Bible – one from phone and the other from book I noticed that I felt different.

It felt strange seeing ‘the Bible’ read from a phone, whereas seeing it read from a leather bound book felt ‘right’ and maybe even curiously more authoritative…

What’s with that hey?…

I am guessing its just conditioning. Similar to what someone might experience if they went from spending all of their life meeting in a cathedral to meeting in a family room. But it also served as a reminder that these familiar physical objects, spaces and experiences trigger things in us that may be helpful or unhelpful to what we are trying to achieve.

I imagine we will see more and more Bible being read from phone, iPads and the like, but I imagine it will take a while to ‘adjust the settings’ in our psyche to give it the same legitimacy as hard copy.

Funny creatures aren’t we…

How do you make decisions?

How do you know which way to turn in different circumstances?

My advice to people has been to ‘walk down the road a bit’. By that I mean imagine yourself in the various situations that may possible. Really feel/visualise what it would be like to be there and ask ‘is this what I want?’

Last weekend we went away to Bridgetown for a good mate’s 40th birthday. No kids, no noise, no agenda, just relaxing and catching our breath with some old friends. Nice…

If you’ve been a regular reader you’d know that I am a bit discontent with life as it stands for me at the moment. I have been wondering is there a ‘next step’ I am missing. Is there something more for me to do.

Lately my retic work has been overwhelming to the point where I have offloaded a bunch of work to a mate and then actually asked a guy to subcontract to me. I have considered expanding before but rejected the idea as out of keeping with what I want to do in life.

But I’ve been re-thinking.

So Danelle and I chatted about it. And we took a ‘walk down the road’. We began to imagine what life would be like if I expanded the business and really ramped it up. I identified 5 advantages:
a) We make more money
b) We develop a genuinely saleable asset
c) I ease the stress on my own body
d) We provide work for others and have an opportunity to help people
e) I get a new challenge in life

Each of those advantages is very appealing in its own right and the combination of the 5 looks like a no brainer. Except that when I consider expansion I actually feel ill.

We discussed the plan of putting one car/trailer on the road each year, ramping up the marketing, moving me into quoting etc etc. I reckon we could do it…

But I don’t want to. It’s partly that I don’t want the added stress, but partly too that I doubt I could effectively lead a Christian community if my primary focus was in another project.

We gave it some thought. We really ‘walked down the road’, but while we were there we didn’t really like what we saw. The somewhat obsessive aspect of my personality would be fired up and I imagine I would be mono-focused for as long as it took to make it a healthy thriving business.

To get to there means that emotional energy gets stripped from other places. Danelle, family, church and so on…

There’s a price to pay for success and its a price I’m not up for.

We took that walk down the road, but we didn’t particularly like what we saw… so we continue on where we are at. but we took the walk. If you never take the walk then you never know…

… living in Yanchep is paradise.

We have been here for 4 months now and some days find ourselves wondering ‘why did it take us so long to do this?’ Ok, so when you’re a pastor/church planter you are somewhat limited in where you can live by the geography of your missional community and up here we are a little further away than I would usually choose, but, we are loving life and wishing we had done this years ago.

In the thinking it thru we were worried that maybe it would be too far out, maybe the driving would kill us, the lack of convenience would annoy us and we may end up disconnected from everyone else.

And there’s no question there is a price you pay for quietness, seclusion and a different pace of life.

But I’d have to say that for us the benefits far outweigh the costs. We live in a house that feels like a holiday home – even 4 months after moving in. We live just across the road from the beach and we make sure we get full value from that. We wake up to dead quiet every morning – not a sound can be heard at 6.00am except for the waves breaking on the beach (and occasionally the crows going nuts.) We have good friends nearby and our church community just down the road.

But its something more intangible that we feel here and I don’t know that I can articulate it well. There is something in the geography, something in the ‘architecture’, something in the ethos of the place… I dunno I can’t really nail it.

We had hoped to one day live in a country town, but the possibilities of that are slimming as we bed down for a bit longer in the city and as the kids put their roots down. But living here really is the best of both worlds. We are a 10 minute drive from civilisation, (shops, take aways, movies…) but in the little pocket of ‘old Yanchep’ that we live in you feel like you could be in a little coastal town far away.

For the last 4 months I have been using ‘Pray as You Go’ each morning as I drive from home to Butler down Marmion Ave. I love the meditative aspect it offers and the way it make a 10 minute drive a beautiful way to start the day.

As yet we have no plans to try and kick start any kind of church up here. (It still surprises me that we would move into an area with virtually no churches and not want to start one) But we feel very committed to our friends and ‘family’ at QBC and to the community that is building there. So at least for now we are well bedded down there.

So if you’re wondering ‘where to next?’ I have to say that Yanchep might surprise you. Maybe not the new parts which still look like suburbia but with a longer drive. Instead somewhere in the old section where you can smell the seaweed and where the sand dunes dictate the shape of your block – where you might have a fence… or not… where you can hideaway if you want to, or come out to play…

Its good…