the fruit of youth ministry @ St. Matts

Been speaking at St Matthews Anglican Church young adults camp this weekend (AKA 'Summer Exodus'). I became a Christian through the ministry of St. Matts and was involved in Youth Ministry there for a number of years (Steve 'Mad Dog' McKerney was the youth minister for most of this time) so it was great to see old friends pushing on in Christ and meet some new people as well. It was also encouraging to see the long term fruit of the youth ministry at St Matts. For a couple of reasons:

• Most of the people on the camp were either people that I co-led with, people that I used to lead or both (which is always a scary reminder of your age). Seeing these people make up the core group of people on the camp it reaffirmed the value of a thriving youth ministry.
• There's a whole bunch of friends from St. Matts who are now at bible college this year. For many of these the place where they were challenged to consider giving up work to preach the gospel was within the youth leadership team at St. Matts.
  

Who's at college this year?

Andrew & Lauren, Nick & Penelope, Helen, Neil & Lou, CJ & Claire, Adam & Edwina

For the prayers:

• Thank God for his work in the lives of young people at St. Matts
• Ask God to sustain and grow those who are at college this year
• Thank God for the reliable men and women who handled the word of truth with great care and seriousness and passed this legacy on to people now studying the word at Moore College & SMBC.
  

Digger 21

Played a good game of Digger 21 tonight (AKA "Aussie Bocce"). Worth a game some time. All you need is a Bocce set, a large expanse of sand, and some friends. The tricky thing about this particularly Australian variety of Bocce is that once someone is close to the jack (or "Robbo") it is near impossible to knock them out of the way... you need to rely on pure accuracy. I seemed to have none of this. All of my friends smashed me tonight.

Score: Prue - 21; Dave - 20; Row -20; Me - 8

Pretty humiliating defeat. However, I did sustain a forearm injury earlier today (I rode into a tree on the side of the road) which I think adequately explains my poor form.

Sorry - the indingenous issue

Stumbled across a link to this article on Andrew Erringtons Blog. I have found it difficult to navigate my way through the issue of saying 'sorry' - mainly because the mass media (as per usual) has no thoughtful approach to tackling the issue and the debate is so charged with emotion. I found this article refreshing.

Here is a snapshot...

Is there any sense in which today’s Australians can or should identify with those of another generation? Of course, we already do so. We imaginatively empathise with what Australian soldiers did in two world wars. We are appreciative of their deeds and glad of the benefits they won for us. In relation to the future, we frequently think of ourselves in some kind of solidarity with future generations, who will directly praise or blame us for our decisions and practices in relation to the environment, infrastructure, or economics.

This participation with others is summarised in the name of our country, which is a ‘Commonwealth’—the traditional term of description for a group of people who share with each other in the present, and who pass on what is good from a past to a future, to create ‘common weal’, or common good.

It is neither silly nor fanciful, then, to do something similar with bad decisions and wrong practices from the past. In the wider indigenous debate, the goods our Commonwealth currently enjoys descend in part from the murders, thefts and injustices committed in the past.

Photo taken in Worrabinda in 2006...