Maiden Warrior

Day one of road trip training revealed to me that I was one of the older people involved. This is due to the Oak Tree Foundation having the policy that you must be under 26 years old to be involved. (This rule allows young people to get involved in world changing activities and lead them). For the first time in my life I answered to someone younger then me. It was not such an odd feeling and when I think about it everyone I answered to on road trip were younger then me.
One such person who made this experience feel so natural was my group leader Eleanor who was latter dubbed as "Boss". Other group leaders could hardly measure up when it came to how they handled their groups. They were either too controlling or too focused on themselves. Ele kept us inline without making the whole thing like school camp.

Several people lost their cool on road trip and the pressure from the administration roles they had taken on had clearly taken a toll on some of them. This is understandable but a few of the crew organising the trip, never raised the tone, never spoke out of anger and kept the frustrations to themselves. Elie was one such person she made it fun and the few times a hint of stress popped through it was tame and did not retract from the experience or the atmosphere.

The key aspect to Eleanor that stuck with me was that whilst we had only a limited time together she took the time to get to know each of her team members personally. In a week full of timetables and deadlines there was limited time to do this with any one so most road trippers only got to know one or two people really well. Eleanor had additional rolls to play in the campaign as well as a group leader and still managed to have all of her team call her friend.

Admittedly I had a soft spot for Eleanor for reasons i don't really know. She represents everything I stand for, a firm follower of Christ who acts on her words and gets out into the world to make a difference. She is achieving wonders with her life, both personally with travels across the globe and with her faith. I had the amazing experience of sitting in on a conversation where she shared her faith with other road trippers and I hope I was there to back her up with it. This conversation took its natural course and nothing was forced onto people, she shared my views on when its appropriate to discuss such issues and when its not. Whilst on the war path for Poverty she happily took up her sword and battled for Christ at the same time.

I pray that in years to come that our church will be filled with young people as active in their faith and as passionate about injustice as she is. What an awesome force they could be, our churches and the world need more maiden warriors like Elie. My road trip experience was something that will stick with me forever because of the people I now call my friends, none more so then Eleanor.

Peter Harris

Primary school was a painful experience for me, for reasons unknown to me i became the kid they all bullied, i can't work out why as my self assessment says i was pretty awesome but none the less i coped it in primary school. Fortunately my family moved from Canberra to Sydney and a new start was in order at my new high School Covenant Christian School.

I have very specific memory's of a few of the early days at Covie and one that stands out more than any other was the day these new kids in my life tested the waters when it came to seeing if i was potentially the picked on kid. This is just the rigmarole we all went through when starting at a new school and Covie was no different.

Day three at the new school stands out for me, an olive skinned kid by the name of Peter Harris repetitively lined me up with harmless fun at my expense. He sat behind me and flicked things at my ear for what felt like hours. Why not? it seems humorous. I had lived with much worse in years past and remember trying to ignore it but as a child i struggled with my temper and remember hitting the snapping point. I had an apple in my entourage of food for the day, a very large apple (i don't know why, as i was not overly fond of apples)

I may be playing this up a little in my mind and Pete may tell the story differently, if he even remembers the event, but I distinctly remember the stunned look on Peters face when he relised he had just been taken out by a flying apple. I had taken enough and clicked. Not exactly lining up to join the Schools baseball team but on that day i had good aim and threw my apple square at Petes head and it found its mark. From that day on i never had another bullying problem at School.

Later in high school Peter and i became good friends and got sucked into some of the undesirables of life. Skipping Business studies to smoke cones was a semi regular occurrence and if you assessed us and our attitudes at the time you would be forgiven for predicting we would both end up in prison.

We are rapidly approaching ten years since i left high school and almost as many since i have seen Pete but i ran into him with a few other guys from high school earlier this week and was severely encouraged by his story.

Pete has, sometime in the last seven years turned his life around and has a new found inner fire for God. What an awesome God. Two guys walking a thin line between citizen and delinquent in mid high school have hardly seen each other for seven years, yet both discovered the calling of Christ in their lives and are passionately fired up for him and his callings in our lives. Pete represents the men of Faith we need. Real, down to earth, level headed Christian men who will change the world for God. He inspires me to keep fighting for my Faith and battle through the crappy times.We need more Peters.

Today was a new day

For the first time in my life i have fallen to my knees to beg to my God. I was never critical of anyone who prayed like that but i never felt comfortable about praying that way. I spent the past weekend at a Church camp which had all of our young adults group there. Up to twenty young people who have come to the Cube for some time now. A massive scandal ripped through the group this past week in a similar manner to what we see on our soapies these days. People upset, uncomfortable with other members of the cube and a whole heap of conflict. We went to camp ready for peoples lives to be changed, what we got were days of hard hard emotional work trying to help some of these people with their issues. Saturday night i had lost almost all hope of seeing any positive change in anyone's life over the weekend. I went to bed with the words of encouragement from Greg (a fellow Cube leader) "tomorrow is another day" was all he said to me.
It had been such a massive exercise to Get a friend of mine to camp. She was having troubles with her relationship ship with her boyfriend. she was planning on coming to camp, then not, then she was coming and so on. Looking back its so obvious that other forces had no intention of letting her get to camp. She had expressed some interest in Christianity and wanted to learn more, finally getting her to camp convinced me massive things would happen in her life at camp, it just had to be. But by Saturday night we only had a few hours remaining and i was loosing hope.

"Tomorrow is another day" well it had better be because the past one ended in pure shit. no other word described it.
Sunday was a new day. As if someone just clicked their fingers the next morning all of the problems of the day before were so distant. A serious and lengthy heart to heart with my friend led me to believe that if she has not already made a commitment to Jesus she is unbelievably close and told me she wishes to be baptised. It was a new day as she was the second Cube member to tell me that in one day. Camp did change lives but it happened in Gods time not in mine.

The most challenging discussion to date

Towards the end of my trip to Bathurst I felt the trip had achieved little in the way of changing the world for God. I was not expecting to achieve wonders on trip one but was still hoping for events to occur that would give me confirmation that I was heading out into the world with the correct approach. I had a few small mentions of what I was doing in my travels and what’s motivating me with people I met but had not had a real heart to heart with anyone and no real seed planting opportunities. That was until Mark and Nicki came over for a BBQ late in the trip. Mark and Nicki are friends of mine from way back and Mark was one of the blokes who established the car club back in Sydney with me many years ago. Whilst mark talked cars with the other blokes some serious God stuff went down with Nicki who was not so much exploring my faith but was more curious about my “in depth knowledge of it” she seemed to enjoy having and educated discussion on something and it did not seem to matter what it was about. Motive does not matter to me, I still got the good stuff out, one hopefully planted the seed. I will however admit that having heavy discussions on such matters is easier when you have not sunk a few beers at the BBQ.

Paranormal Activity

Opps guys another heavy post on God issues.
I find it awesome looking back sometimes at how God works, how he has absolute control, and how awesome some of the stuff he does is. Several months ago a few friends of mine organised a night out, dinner and a movie scheduled and as per usual i was told last minute and thus had no say in what we were eating, where we were eating or what dribble i was going to be forced to sit through. Sure enough when Bree is involved we were going to see some ridiculous film that safely lands within the Horror category. Not a fan of Horror films by any stretch of the imagination and here i was ill informed and unimpressed. The film was "Paranormal activity".

Basically the film was deliberately low budget and made to look like it was filmed on a home camera. The plot is a couple are dealing with a demon who is out to get them and they have set up a camera to try and catch the demon making the film very believable as your told as the viewer that what you are seeing is real footage. At the end of the day the film is surprisingly scary.

When leaving the cinema a lengthy conversation went down with a few of my friends which started with "why are you not scared Dannie, do you not believe in the supernatural" on the contrary "I believe in more supernatural than you can dream of, i just have no need to fear demons as i know I'm on the right side" as you can imagine this sparked lots more questions and hours of discussion on God, Jesus and faith matters whilst sitting on a curb in the middle of the night. In the end the final question asked of me came from a close friend of mine and she asked something along the lines of "what if i want a sign to prove to me God is real and he wants me to explore this Christianity stuff, and how will i know if its a sign?" i answered just ask for one and you will know it when you see it.

......On her way home she saw a shooting star.

Amazing things.

In the build up to my departure from work and as I prepare to depart for my first trip, I have witnessed an assortment of awesome stuff just fall into place. I have not yet received my TAFE certificate saying I completed my studies almost three years ago. I required this for my Mechanics licence which is proof I am a mechanic. This is required for me to work as a mechanic interstate (if required). Well a TAFE teacher from years back who happens to be a Christian arrived at my wok two days before I left with the certificate and an invoice for it (a cheap bottle of Brandy). Items I felt I would need to buy such as Ipod (needed for lengthy train rides) and a camera to document where I go and what I see, have just arrived as friends within my church have donated or loaned them to me. In addition to this trip one destined for Bathurst on Tuesday had and still has no agenda however it does turn out that some members from the cube (a church group) have friends up there that can assist with helping me get in contact with locals who may be in need of me.
There are still a few bumps on the way, saying goodbye to my work colleagues was no easy task. These are a group of top blokes I have spent nine hours a day, five days a week for two years in very close quarters with, not the easiest of tasks to turn and leave. I am also careful on bailing out too quick as I have big commitments with The Cube and am currently slowly working with a few of my friends who have started asking questions and exploring my faith, I need to strike while the iron is hot with these guys.
Some awesome friends have got my back at home with my home group supporting me and family and friends volunteering time to help, contacts with their friends and family they have interstate and generally getting excited about what I’m doing. So in just a few days time I will be off and looking forward to seeing where my adventures take me.

If you don’t Jump God can’t catch you.

A good friend of mine worded it like that to me this evening, is it comfort to me? I don’t know yet. A flood of fear, doubt and uncertainty has attacked me these past few days. Something to be expected I suppose but at this stage nothing has managed to calm the nerves. My entire life I have planned as best I could, lined things in order and always had enough money to cover life’s little surprises. Now I have stepped out from the shelter of my self sustaining life and am relying on God (something that does not come so easily for me). I can look at all rational arguments placed before me and they are all logical and all suggest I am heading in the right direction, but it still has not comforted me. It’s a very nervous feeling but on the upside if I look back over the past few months of my life the battle playing out in my spiritual world has been savage. Many conversations arising about Faith matters with colleagues, friends and family are a great source of encouragement coupled with the de-motivating parts of life that get in the way and I have no doubt that some of these things are from the devil himself trying to strike me down as I venture out to change the world and the lives of people I come in contact with.

This post is a little heavy on the God stuff for some of my “followers” (sounds like I'm starting a cult) but I make no apology, this is what I live by, you should try it on for size.

How much evidence do you need?

Recently I was rung by a friend who was heavily intoxicated. I answered the phone and before I had time to say “hello” my friend shot his challenge down the line.
“You have one chance to prove to me there is a God”
At times like this I freeze up and never know what to say however whenever I’m challenged like this the answers always come to me.
I replied “Sit down take off your shoe and your sock, look at your foot, move it around bend your toes and look at all the detail in it, then try to tell me there is no creator”

Ned Flanders Style Christians

Those who know me well know I get fired up about things that I consider to be important to me. Some of these topics are Mothers at the Mall, Four wheel drives and songs about utter dribble. These topics are saved for some other time however dig deep enough and I will fire up on such topics. There are two such topics relating to my faith that I become equally passionate about. One of them is the image of Christs Army which I will address latter but the other is the Ned Flanders Christians.

Before I strip threads of Ned its important to acknowledge there are positives to this character as well. He is completely uncompromising on his beliefs to the extent that the community walk all over him and at the end of the day i believe what Ned believes i just don't believe in his methods. I believe that Christians like Ned do more damage than good. Also referred to as Vomit Christians Ned Flanders and sadly many believers like him are so far over the top that anyone remotely interested in exploring religion would steer clear of Christianity. One person close to me whom I have had several discussions about faith with threw this Question at me “why would I want to be a Christian if it means I will end up like that?” He is spot on the money. Too many Christians are not Grounded these days they are not living in the real world and frankly are scaring new comers away.

Let me challenge you with this if you do call yourself a Christian what is your attitude towards body piercing, skydiving, tattoos, Alcohol, Loud audio systems in cars , Mohawks, Sports Cars, adrenaline sports, dyed hair, ripped pants, jewellery on males, mini skirts and low cut tops showing cleavage. These are the things young people are into these days and too many church goers are anti one or many of these items. Change your attitudes or the church will die with its people.

It all begins here

Frenchs Forrest Baptist Church.
This is my church and it’s a raging battle field, squabbling, arguing and disagreements and the dramas that accompany the politics of any organisation. Take comfort in that, a church with no issues is not under attack from the devil and if the devil feels the church is not a threat to him then were doing something wrong. That aside it is my church and this is where my journey begins with the support of some amazing people.

I plan to fill the Blog with crap from my day to day life, which is there for anyone stupid enough to read it however i also want to use this blog to show many young people through our church and specifically through The Cube (a young adults group) what its like to live a life for Christ, that its an amazing journey, that its well worth the hardships but above all that you can be a Christian and still be a grounded level very real person as opposed to the Ned Flanders style Christians that turn so many people away from pursuing any sort of research into Christianity.