the candy cane

I wrote my first tract in time for Christmas Carolling! We ended up giving these out with mini candy canes attached to them to people that we met when we went carolling. Thought I would share it here...

The Candy Cane

It is not known how the candy cane came to be a Christmas tradition, but we can view it as a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.

Firstly, it’s shape. Turned upside down it is the letter ‘J’ for Jesus, turned the right way up, it is the shape of a shepherd’s staff to show that Jesus is the great Shepherd sent by God the Father to care for His sheep (us!). Secondly, it’s colours. A white background shows that Jesus lived His life on earth with purity – He never sinned. Unlike us, in His entire life Jesus never lied, stole, cheated, swore, envied, or did anything that broke God’s law (the Ten Commandments). The red stripes of the candy cane reflect the blood that Jesus shed on the cross – the three thin stripes remind us of His suffering, the one thick stripe shows that Jesus ultimately died on the cross to pay for the sins of all mankind.

Christmas is such a big deal because it celebrates the fact that God loved us so much that even though we did nothing to deserve it, He gave us the BEST GIFT we could ever hope for: eternal life through Jesus Christ – wrapped in the form of a baby in a manger!

If this is a gift that you would like to receive this Christmas, pray to God…

1. Admit that you are not perfect, that you have broken God’s law, and that you no longer want to live a life of sin
2. Believe that Jesus paid the debt of your sins on the cross, and accept the gift of being saved from the punishment of your sins (Hell)
3. Read the Bible and obey it. Find a good church that preaches the Bible to help you grow. And tell others the good news!

the year that was..

Can't believe Christmas is less than two weeks away! And the new year is about three weeks away... Where has this year gone? Doesn't seem like too long ago that twenty ten rolled round the corner and now it's rolling off into the distance again...

I found this little app on facebook that helped me reflect on the past 12 months. It's called My Year in Status Updates. Basically it grabs your status updates (or a selection thereof) and puts them together in a collage.

Mine came back like this...

Totally cool.

Year isn't over yet though. The next few weeks will be pretty busy but I'm totally looking forward to it!

Oh BTW - camp was GREAT! Will post some stuff up from there eventually :)

get ur tree on

It may be early, but the tree is officially up! Now for all the presents to go underneath yewww!

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cramming for camp

I decided last week that I will go to National Camp in Adelaide this year. Camp goes from 29 November to 3 December, and I booked my airfares on Friday (19 November) - kinda last minute, but I'm glad it's done.

The only thing I have left to do (other than pack) is to do my pre-camp reading of ALL the minor prophets! yowsers! So I have started cramming and doing big chunks of reading to try get through all 12 books. Praise the Lord that they are only minor prophets and some of the books are quite short!

It's funny that they are called minor prophets because what they have to say was pretty major - so far in my cramming, I have noticed common themes along the lines of 'watch out! God has been seeing what y'all been up to and He's not happy - y'all better watch out for the judgement, 'cos God is up-set and He gonna let y'all know about it really soon...'

It's not too often that you come across a solid section of the Bible devoted to God's judgement, so reading chapter after chapter about it has helped me to reflect on God's holiness and my own sinfulness.

It's a timely reminder.

Anyways, I still have heaps to go through so better not waste any more time blogging. Feels like I'm in school again haha!

am I lukewarm and lovin' it?

Watched this sermon on the weekend and it convicted me. Definitely a lot of things to think about here...

annual work conference

On the weekend, I was in Melbourne for my work's annual conference. We left on Thursday afternoon, arrived at midnight, and I headed back to Perth on Saturday night. It was a short trip, but it was just right if you ask me. The weather in Melbourne was pretty cold and wet so it was nice to come back to sunny Perth, sleep in my own bed and spend Sunday at church, and at home.

The hotel we stayed at was the Hilton in South Wharf, and it was pretty impressive. It's usually the small details that win me over with hotels, and for the Hilton, the attention to detail was definitely there: T2 teas, plunger coffee, Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries, bathtub, bathrobes, pillow menu, and an electric blind.

It was also Melbourne Cup weekend so the foyer had all these different horses - including one that paid homage to Elvis...

Breakfast was buffet-style with everything you could hope to eat during breakfast. Most importantly, they served some great coffee which helped pull me through the jetlag that came from losing three hours in transit. It was a nice mini getaway at work's expense so I lapped up every moment. I should also mention that I learnt lots at the conference part of it too!  

Because I have been to Melbourne a few times now, I am pretty familiar with it, so Friday morning, Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon gave me ample time for me to get my Melbourne fix - and by that I mean shopping. I managed to pick up a purse, a bag, a cardigan, a necklace, and some hair clips.  Not a bad effort at all.

Encouragement: The Key to Caring

This book was written by Dr Larry Crabb and Dr Dan Allender.

I google image searched the book and google gave me this picture...

It's completely different to the copy I have which is a bright green book that looks like this...

The difference between the two is that my version was bought at a book sale for $1! I seriously cannot help bragging about the bargains I get...

Anyway...

The book was so good. I think for me, encouragement has always been one of those things that I had a vague idea about, but that I never really knew how to define. 'Oh yeah, it's just like being nice to someone especially when they are feeling down and stuff'

But it's so much more.

Crabb and Allender help unpack what exactly encouragement is. What it is, what it isn't, why it's important, what barriers there are to it, what an encourager is like, how encouragement works, how it can change others and how to do it. There was just so much in there! I read this book quite quickly because it was really easy to read, and it gave me a thirst to want to know more. A chapter would end talking about some other topic and that would be addressed in the following chapter.

I found the concepts of surface communities especially interesting as this is something I have often observed growing up in church where people have layers that keep other people from knowing their fears. This in effect has the result that people communicate by just talking from one layer to another and never really get to address the core fears of others. They end up thinking they have encouraged someone, but anything that they thought they did was shallow and ultimately ineffective. We are to be totally committed to being instruments used by God in other people's lives.

I also found it interesting that the wrong solution to a surface community was  total openness. Crabb and Allender explain that total openness is self-serving as you are really just presenting your true self and expecting other people to accept you 'just the way you are'. We are to depend on God for acceptance - not other people. Total openness as Crabb and Allender put it is 'falesely courageous self-centredness'. Ouch! But so true.

Encouragement: The Key to Caring is a very practical book and a helpful resource which is fantastic because it is something that we all need to know how to do as Christians.