Alright folks. I've been letting my lovely wife do the majority of the recent bloggage, but its time for me to step up and type! I recently took a trip up to Wellington with Ed Masters (my fellow youth worker from Leith Valley Church) to a conference type gathering called "Connect". The purpose of this gathering was for youth workers to get all motivated and whatnot via inspirational speakers and practical workshops. Unfortunately, I typically go into situations as such with a moderately cynical attitude that causes me to pick apart everything said and search for flaws in the messages that can then allow me to write off the speaker. This is one of my greater flaws as a person, a listener, and a christian. Despite my attempts and success at doing so, I did manage to learn something. We as believers SUCK at one of the most basic principles of following Christ. Unity. My very desire to find a way to discredit the words of my fellow believers is living proof of this fact. Am I saying that everyone who believes in some form of a "god" should hold hands and sing kum by ya?? Absolutely not! But those who have a living active relationship with the God of the Bible, who share the core beliefs that makes true Christianity unlike any other form of worship in the world really need to learn how to get along and live as a single body. Maybe instead of listening to a sermon and picking out the bad parts to mock, we should be intentionally searching for the things that we can find encouragement in. Perhaps instead of looking down on the weaker brother and wondering why they aren't as spiritually educated with retarded christianeese and condescending terminology, we should be inspired by their passion to serve a God that they've just come to know. To be in awe of God's glory without the need to analyze and categorize it. Anyways, you've suffered through enough of my rants. The bottom line? God is teaching me to be humble (never fun) and to love the body of Christ no matter how much I disagree with what some of the parts say. If its part of the body, then I can learn something or be encouraged by it!!!
-On a side note, the cross-eyed donkey that I found in Wellington made me laugh, so I took a picture...nay, like 50 pictures :)
