As a proud Aussie and an even prouder Melburnian, it was destiny that eventually I’d fall in love with the Commonwealth Games. And it didn’t really take long. Last weeks cycling and swimming had me taking a fairly close notice, especially the track cycling, I love watching a good men’s sprint. But this week has been the winner. Tuesday night the whole family went along to see the athletics and the atmosphere was unreal! We saw so many events all in one night. I loved it

And tonight (although by the time I get to hit “post” it’ll probably be yesterday) I’ve been watching the relays with bated breath, and cheered my heart out for the pole vaulters. The hockey today was amazing too, the goal that Nicki Hudson scored was about the best hockey goal I can ever remember. John Steffenson has the most explosive pace in the second 200m of the 400 that just blows opponents away. It’s so good to watch.
I know it’s too late now, but get into it. It’s been so exciting to watch, and to yell, and share in the celebration and the bitter disappointment. But I think the thing that was the biggest highlight for me was hearing Craig Mottram being interviewed tonight. He’d run a great race in the 5000m and come second, and was running exactly to plan in the 1500, when the guy behind him fell, tripping Mottram and essentially ending his race. So about 15 minutes after his race, and Mottram has had enough time to compose his thoughts, and gave a very honest interview, essentially saying that this did mean a lot to him, but that unfortunate events happen in life and you sometimes have to accept that. His graciousness in defeat was inspiring. It would be wonderful if we could engender that type of approach in all our athletes.
Go Aussie!

There’s a great post over at “Established and Emerging” which speaks about the link between the timing of the Protestant Reformation (?) and the deeply established culture of print and literature in churches. So much of the emphasis in church is on reading – reading the bible, reading books, and while some of that comes out of neccessity (the Bible is the word of God and it’s definitely a book), there’s no doubt that some of that just comes out of a church culture that has to a certain degree got stuck in a previous era. Meanwhile culture continues to evolve and these days so much of communication is about imagery and tv and stuff. Bit of a thinker.

I spend a lot of my day listening to music. A lot. I spend about an hour and a half on the train with the iPod going, and most of the day at work I’ll have earphones in. There aren’t many harder-working iPods than mine. And while there’s not much in my collection that would be deemed overtly offensive, a lifetime with parents who were always concerned with closely monitoring the music/movies/computer games I entertained my self with, has got me constantly checking myself to make sure that I’m not polluting my existence with nasty things.

So in the interests of interest, and perhaps even altering my lifestyle, I’m embarking on an entire week of nothing but uplifting, positive, good music. It won’t be only overtly christian music, although there will be a fair chunk of that. But I’m staying away from Hilltop Hoods, Scissor Sisters and the Killers. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of them, but just in the interests of science. So it’s Matt Redman, U2 and Jars of Clay for Geoff. I’ll keep you updated.

I just recently got noticed by the big-wigs at signposts.org.au after I linked to them (which was a bit exciting), writing about the distinctives of the Vineyard (a very worthwhile read and pretty much encapsulates what I love about Vineyard). And in their post there was a mention of the fact that I was posting anonymously. Now, I know first-hand that I haven’t been anonymous enough for people who know me to work out who was writing these – Scott (from Ranges CC which I’m still plugging) didn’t take more than a few posts before he asked if I was writing theGeoffRe(y)port.

So why bother? No really good reasons. Mostly it’s that one level of separation. If I was to go for a job and they were to run my name through a google search, I wouldn’t neccesarily want them reading the top 5 things that make me cry. Just that type idea. It’s a sweet irony that not revealling myself completely helps me to be more honest. In a weird, twisted way it’s kind of poetic. I also think there’s a little more interest in reading the musings of someone with a bit of mystery.

The other part of my thinking – and there’s a little bit less selfishness in this bit, is that I like being able to write about what’s going on in the lives of people around me, in broad terms, and to write about those lessons. And where I’ve been cagey about my own identity, I’d definitely be very frightened of giving out other people’s names. So it’s just building in another imaginary layer, between the people in my life, and the big bad internet. Sure it’s all just an illusion, but it’s my illusion, and I quite like it.

P.S If anyone REALLY wants my name, it’s Geoff.

Having just expressed an innate desire to one day plant a church, there’s a very confronting post on Signposts about whether church planting is the way forward or perhaps churches should be looking at “re-invigorating” existing congregations. While the post is making the point in particular reference to “mega-churches” (a highly disparaging term in emerging church circles that no-one wants to be associated with), it forces me to consider why I believe that starting a new plant is a better model than going in and trying to rescue something else.

I think that the problem with trying to rekindle a dying church is that you bring into that move all of the baggage that has been lying around already. And there’s already enough politics in any church without the never-ending (never-spoken-about) fight over who’s really in control of a church. But hey, what would I know? Already interesting to see some of the comments on the post.

Sunday night was a bit of a milestone in my life. Even since leaving school, and probably before that, I’ve had an inclination, almost a longing, to chase the idea of planting a church. Some of that I’m sure comes from having been involved in a “fertile” church, where we have planted a number of congregations out of YVV (including the oft linked to Ranges Community Church). But the dream has always been a very private thing. Despite the fact that I’ve tended to lean towards making myself more vulnerable in sharing with my youth guys, almost none of those guys knew. It’s something I’ve discussed with some close friends, and happily discussed on occassion with people I barely know, but it’s not something that most people who know me are aware of. Or at least they weren’t.

So we get back to the happenings on Sunday evening. Part of the camp was a whole celebration of the past 10 years of YVV, and as part of that we had representatives from each of the plants being recognised and that was all very nice. Then Gordon Lingard (pastor of Bendigo Vineyard and Cluster Leader for Victoria) spoke and that was also very nice. Then as part of the ministry time, Judy Lingard (wife of aforementioned Gordon) had a word about people who had felt something as the plants had been called up, and that if (and I quote) “you don’t know how, or where, or when, but you want to be involved in planting a church” then people should come forward. Well I knew as soon as she started speaking that I was one of those people. And I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on whatever God was going to do in that.

Now I don’t really want to go into the specifics of the words that came out of the prayer, other than that there was a real sense that this was a huge forward step in regards to the dream, and that sticking with that is vital. But the weirdest thing was what happened afterwards. Going up for prayer in that meeting ended up being quite a conspicuous thing to do. There was only me, a “good-side-of” middle aged couple and a couple who everyone knew are eventually going to plant a church. So afterwards, the first thing was that Pete (pastor extraordinaire) came up straight away and gave me a deadpan death stare while accusingly pondering “So you’re going to go plant a church now? I’ll need to see you first thing Tuesday morning in my office”. But that’s just Pete. Then the funniest thing was one of the youth guys (a year 8 who I’d been particularly close with when I was doing Friday nights – see this post) came up and asked “You’ve not just forgotten about us, you’re leaving as well? So how long til you go?”. That required some fast talking.

But it wasn’t just them. All around, you knew that people were thinking about you differently. Sadly, and it will be something I’ll need to come to terms with, some people seemed to have a bit more respect for me, now that I might one day be a pastor of a church. I think it probably made some of my friends understand how I work a bit better. Some of my weird decision-making starts making sense. And when you chat with people, they start wondering if you’re sizing them up to come along with a church plant.

The dream is yet to have any form. All it is so far is nice thoughts, ideas, and probably a hugely unrealistic view of what church planting would be like. But this is a big step. And letting people in will probably be a positive. People might start taking me seriously. Never know. I hope this post hasn’t come across as me being paranoid about what people think of me, because that would be much more honest than I ever intended to be on here. And my focus isn’t on the other people stuff. I just found it intriguing. So, in the words of Bono: “One step closer to knowing”.

After having a great time at the YVV camp, and especially great prayer on Sunday night about some very serious stuff which I’ll probably cover once I’ve had a chance to cogitate over it for a while, I slept in a little bit past what I wanted this morning, and was having a quck shower when it all came crashing down.

Quite literally. I slipped on the (poorly designed and very slopy) shower floor, and on my way down, managed to take a significant chunk out of the top of my foot, because I kicked the underneath of the dividing wall between the showers, leaving me bleeding profusely. So once I stumbled over to the bench, and with the very kind help of Greg Rivett I managed to slow down the bleeding, before I passed out and then I had the wound bandaged and went off to hospital to get five stitches put into my foot. And so now I’m on crutches for the next 2/3 weeks.

It’s one of those things. I can see God already teaching me things. Like patience. Now nothing happens in a hurry. Now I actually have to rely on other people. My illusion of self-dependance is shattered. That’s a tough thing to actually take on. I can’t make it on my own.