Holidays

Holidays are fun! The only bad thing about them is that they end. Not that i'm not looking forward to going back to college but i still have a lot of stuff that i would like to have done in the holidays.

We're doing a Midsummer Nights Dream at college this term. It's gonna be good, i love shakespeare now. I hated him through high school but now i can appreciate the beauty of his work, He's a freakin poet! I love it. Although, we're auditioning for parts on wed and i really haven't looked at the script enough.

Youth is gonna be awesome this term, we've got oneyouth next friday, where all the different groups come together in my suburb for an awesome night of prayer and praise, it's gonna be amazing!

Talking of youth, wrote this blog on my youth group's page:

I was listening to the radio the other day while driving and a song came on that talked about Love. Here are some of the lyrics:

I love it when she calls my phone
She even got her very own ringtone
If that ain't love then I don't know what love is

I mean she even cooks me pancakes
And Alka Seltzer when my tummy aches
If that ain't love then I don't know what love is

Gym Class Heroes: Cupid's Chokehold

We live in a world where giving your girlfriends number a different ringtone in your phone is Love.
We just celebrated the greatest act of Love in History:
1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Even the celebration of easter in the secular world has lost focus on this love shown by Jesus and has put its focus on our love for chocolate. Mum gave me an easter egg and something caught my eye on the packaging, it said "Facts about Easter". I thought to myself, sweet some religion, but it was something about what part of easter bunnies people eat first.

We're living in a world that doesn't know real love...let's show them.

SCA

well, i've been at CCC's school of creative arts for over a month now and just quietly i'm LOVIN it! It's awesome cause there are people from all over the world (which really suits me) who have come together to study their chosen art form and the bible, it's amazing.

I've made awesome friends. I can tell we're gonna be friends forever already, literally eternity! yeah lame i know... whateva, it's late. It's been a really challenging time in my life though, you'd think that if you were at "bible college" everything would be peachy but no, i think god's trying to break down all my barriers and really strip away all my crappy fakeness.

hmmm, lovin sigur ros at the moment, haven't got their albums but just listening on myspace and pure volume. Very good! Also to be noted at the moment are Anberlin and relient k's new albums, RK are sounding a bit different and in my humble opinion sounding a bit like anberlin but yeah.

Anyway, life is good.
life is god
like that?
god bless
Dan

My Gap year has come to an end

I was gonna start off by saying that it feels like yesterday that i was doing my final school exam, but really...that was AGES ago!!

So much has happened since then, and in a month i will find myself in the position of calling myself a student yet again!

I'm enrolling in a one year certificate studying acting and christian ministry. I'm looking forward to it, it's not too full on, i'll only be doing mornings 4 days a week so in the rest of my time, im gonna be volunteering at my church, i can't wait to get involved, i love it when i do stuff for the church and now i'll get to do a whole lot more and be more involved.

I'm studying at Christian City Church (CCC) here in sydney, it's funny, i found out about the course when a friend in HK was looking for somewhere to study dancing ('sup carmen!). I remember us joking that i'd probably end up there instead of her!

On another point, i was up really late reading my bible and praying the other night, and that day i'd received an email from someone i went into china with on mission, and it really made me miss them but more importantly serving in that ministry, so i said something like send me back there some day soon god, but i cant afford it this year, then i suddenly remembered a friend who raise 3000 bucks to go on mission in like 2 weeks! so i thought, why not, then i thought july and was suddenly at peace about it, so yeah i think that was god telling me to step out there, i think he wants me to get a team together for it but then i was worrying about money cause its not a cheap trip, but then i thought "if we dont ask god to do the seemingly impossible then we limit his glory" so yeah, I'm goin to china baby!

...

i just found out that one of my friends is pregnant, she's 18, the father has kicked her out of their flat, she's only recently moved to sydney, leaving her family in the country and most of her friends are through the father.

I don't know her that well and i think she's really trying to reach out to me, i just don't know what to say. I'm not sure if she's a christian or not, i just don't know what to say to her...her parents just told her that they are getting divorced as well. She needs a place to stay and i gave her my number to call when she finishes work so i can pick her up. My mind is racing ahead to what decisions she will have to make about the baby and her future, but too scared to ask her those questions.

For the moment i guess all i can do is just listen, pray and let her know that i'm there for her...

blessed is the name of the lord

Working out Gods Will

So often i look back at the Old Testament and see gods will written in bright shining lights but yet the people he is trying to tell are looking the other way. Now im not saying that they are trying to look the other way, it's just that they find themselves so involved in the situation that as much as they try, they find it really hard to see what god is trying to tell them.

I'm in that situation now, I'm looking at my life now and a few things imparticular and i really think that God has shown me as clear as day what his will is yet my "humaness" wants to keep analysing and telling myself that the urges i feel are a result of what i want and not what god wants.

So thats me at the moment, trying to discern the will of god.

godspeed
Dan

My Pledge - The Power of Words

In Australia it is part of our culture to jokingly make fun of your friends, it is a huge sign of affection to pick on your mates, i used to believe that it was fine as a chrisitan to do that because i didn't mean any of the things i said.

However over the last month or two i've been challenged to cut down on the filth that escapes from my mouth, the things that have inspired me to do this is

1. Seeing the pain it causes some people (I sincerely apologise to anyone i have offended in doing this, i didn't mean anything by it)
2. Number 1 was really enough for me to stop but here are some others. God spoke and the world came into being, showing me that words are extremely powerful and should not be taken lightly
3. Colossians 3:8 "But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." I had a couple of arguments about whether what we were doing was slander or not, ultimately not an issue cause if it isn't slander, it's lying.
4. There were more things but thats enough for now

So yeah i pledge to make my words full of love and truth, it wont be easy but with god on my side...

godspeed
Dan

Fighting Normality... and Byron Bay

9-5, 5 days a week, 4 out of 7 nights used by church things, i love church but i guess i'm just feeling flat at the moment, maybe i need a holiday, maybe i should go to HK for a couple weeks! I would probably have to quit my job and sell my left arm to be able to afford it but hey, i think it would be worth it...you?

On a happier note, went to my cousins wedding the other week. It was in Byron Bay which is an 8 and a half hour drive from sydney, byron is the hippie capital in australia, me and murray (my bro) played a game: how many hippies can you spot in 10 seconds, fun times...believe me! Beautiful wedding though, they go to a really cool open church, open being a diplomatic word for hippie there! but awesome people with an awesome passion for jesus.

It was a shame we couldn't spend more time there though, we worked out that we spent as much time actually in Byron Bay as we did driving there and back! we did the whole thing in 2 days! we left sydney 12 hours before the wedding and after booking into a youth hostel went to the wedding, we managed to get lost and when we found our way again we realised that we were following the bridal party! so yeah that wasn't so good! But all in all an awesome weekend.

Applying for uni over the next month, should be interesting!