D Is For Discipleship

One of my biggest passions is discipleship in the local church. In a secular sense we're talking about mentoring which basically means getting alongside folk and helping them to make positive choices in their lives and walking the walk with them through those choices. In the local church context it means doing just this but also helping them to know Jesus better by helping them grow in their faith and getting to know and understand the bible. 

C Is For Conference

Good Friday saw Tree of Life getting together with our family of Church of Love & Grace and Simon's Bay Christian Church for our first ever conference.

The theme was The Master's Plan which was highly appropriate for the Easter weekend.

I've never spoken at a conference before so was very excited by this opportunity but also a little nervous, especially about speaking in front of around 100 people.

B Is For Bible

I have to be honest and say I love this book!

The bible underpins our faith and is the building block for church life at Tree of Life.

This is our personal collection of bibles (there are a few missing scattered around the house and car) in the office just above my desk. We have goodness knows how many versions in at least 6 languages. Some are used a lot more than others, though increasingly I use e-Sword which is a brilliant bit of bible study software!

A To Z Challenge

I'm cheating today and using the A for 'A To Z'

Hopefully this will be the end of my cheating but I'll let you know if it isn't.

It Is Finished

Tetelestai, a simple ten letter word in Greek meaning: It is finished.

Book Week - Character Day

As part of International Book week my boys get to dress up as a favourite book character today.

Eli might not look too thrilled but he chose to go as Little Brown Mouse from The Gruffalo whilst Joel is truly thrilled to be going as Gollum from The hobbit.

So proud of their choices!

Truth

Truth is an interesting concept. In itself it's very simple but we like to complicate it, just look at how many theories of truth are out there and how many thousands of years they have been discussed. All this does is reduce truth to the point that society will tell us that there is no such thing as truth, saying 'one man's truth is another man's lie'. But in reality truth remains very simple.

Truth is defined as an accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.

Truth is the opposite of falsehood and lies.

I recently sat with Joel and talked about one of my sporting heroes, Lance Armstrong and how his entire world of success, fame and celebrity was built on lies. Joel knows that as a keen cyclist I'm upset about the Armstrong story and he also knows there are two groups of people I hate in life: thieves and liars. I hope that using the story of Armstrong my boys will grow to respect truth and favour it.

Tree Of Life Turns One

On Sunday we celebrated Tree Of Life's first birthday with a celebration with our family from Church of Love & Grace and it was a blessing to have Shaddie & Lisa with us from Simon's Bay Christian Church.

It was a great time of worshiping together but it was also a humbling time for us as Dean was appointed as lead elder of the church.  We really feel humbled and privileged to be tasked with this role and we're very excited about where God is leading us and what he is doing.

Back To School

It's back to school for the boys as the school year began this morning.

We can't quite believe it but Joel is going into Year 5 and Eli into Year 3. Our babies are definitely no longer babies.

We're really excited for them for the coming year as they've both got good teachers with both of them being committed Christians.

After Joel's awful year this year he's got a teacher who's already seen him at his best and likes him. Eli is going into a class with a teacher we've known for some years now and Joel had a great time with.

Let the adventures begin.

A Quiet Morning With Man Tools

When mum and Joel decided that they were going to go and see The Hobbit at the cinema we asked Eli what he would really like to spend the morning doing.  With no hesitation he answered that he would like to make something!

So dad and Eli spent the morning going to the salvage yard, buying some wood for R5, coming home and getting out the hammers, nails and power tools - heaven for Eli!  He quickly decided that he was going to make a table and chairs for his two Build a Bears formerly known as Ron and Jackie after some lovely friends of ours in the UK and now (apparently) known as Ron and Harry seeing as one of them is ginger - therefore Ron Weasley - and the other must therefore be HP himself!!

Ernest - RIP

I just heard the sad news that my friend Ernest died this morning. Ernest had been battling after a number of strokes and had his sixth major stroke just a couple of weeks ago. Sadly in the last day or so he took a turn for the worst and passed away this morning.

Thankfully Ernest was saved so we can rejoice in that. Also, he has the biggest family I have ever known and they've been amazing in supporting him, caring for him and loving him.