by tashmcgill | Jan 12, 2006 | Uncategorized

Still Standing
I’m getting a little pissy as the day wears on – I’m temping at a company in Ellerslie and it’s fairly slow, but that’s not what’s taking the heat. Fiscally, I can’t afford not to work today, and working means doing nothing, versus doing a lot for a lot less at my other job. Funny equation huh – get paid for doing nothing in a workplace that’s meaningless to you, or be broke doing something you love that has eternal purpose to it.

However, with all these questions about leadership, community, direction and implementation running around in my head, I’m swimming a little in the could-be’s and what-if’s. Particularly frustrating today to be thinking about team. I like teams. I like to work in them, I like to build them, I like to lead them. I especially like being part of teams that are well functioning, supportive and encouraging environments.

I’m a little stumped about the State of the Nation when it comes to the immediate team I’m working in. After all, if I’m going to commit to serving and working here for another period – it’s going to be pretty damn important how the team operates. And because I’m not the leader of the team – it’s pretty crucial that I either figure out how to lead up, or how to comprehend the dynamicity around me.

Right now, the royal ‘We’ are planning our annual Leaders Training Day. With no input, no discussion, no planning from me at least, and I doubt any of the other team members. I’m doing a couple of worship songs. Wicked. Let me go put myself in the creative box in the corner, save the trouble of doing it yourself.

But – less with throwing the toys out of the crib – and more with the strategic ways forward. We need to spend more time meeting together – building a team ethos with broader ownership. Less time meeting seperately. And many other things.

by tashmcgill | Jan 12, 2006 | Uncategorized

Building New Ways Of Thinking
I’ve been collecting thoughts and dreams of who we as a community could be this year. Hopes of what we will become and things we want to see transformed about ourselves.. it’s been inspiring, challenging and frustrating receiving them back. Some have been magical and others too easy! But there is one that stands out .. from a 17 year guy in my youth group…

I want to see us become a family – the body of Christ become a home for the world.

by tashmcgill | Jan 11, 2006 | Uncategorized

Light Up My Skies
light up my skies darling
no one but you can
fleeting electric jolts
to my existence

everything is powered
by the dark and light
of connecting to you
momentarily darling i live

Wedding Music
I both love and loathe doing wedding music. For Alex and Lisa it was a great joy to be part of their day.. other weddings I sang at in 2005 seemed out of place and strange. And then there are the weddings that bring out the mischievious in me.. like the one I am singing at on Saturday. We are performing the processional live.. always risky, but this time creatively on the edge. We are playing a piano based version of the Trumpet Voluntary, that bursts into a fusion of Coldplay ‘Fix You’ and the most well-known phrase of the Voluntary. It actually sounds amazing. Then the song for the signing of the register is “You’re All I Need To Get By”. More upbeat than most wedding songs… but I am the wedding singer, and so I gladly serve the heart’s desire of the bride and groom.

The stress of it all is that someone’s wedding is ultimately one of the most important days of their life. And everyone is counting on you to not screw it up.

Please may we not screw this one up.

by tashmcgill | Jan 9, 2006 | Uncategorized

Here’s What I’m Thinking Lord
i’m thinking too much. there’s a lot of things that i’m juggling.. hopes and dreams and desires. there are things that are really hard to let go of, and things that i’m not sure i want to pick up. at the bottom of the swirling tidepool, I look up and know that i don’t know what you are saying, or not saying, trying to give, or trying to take away.

i’m so caught up in the future that my right now is terrifyingly out of control. and even if out of my control and into yours, is where I want it to be.. the insides of me are all out of kilter and uncomfortable because I’m not certain about where I should be heading. I’m not even sure about what i want to do.

i know that this is the kind of person I want to be; wise and available.
generous, creative, leading and enpowering those underneath me. I want to be free and to pioneer new things, I want to innovate, re-create, resource, build on, tear down and build into new life.

God, I am powerless against my humanity that reaches into to the depths of me and grapples with holding on, letting go. I am powerless in the face of my need to be loved, my desire to belong, my longing for encouragement.

By my emptiness today, I commit my ways to your hand. I look to You to relight the footlamps. I look to you to show me where I must lie down, and where I must die. And I look to you for hope.. hope not just for personal fulfilment, but hope for a life that will change the people I live around.
a life that will be honouring, a life that will love abundantly and deeply and will mirror Christ.

In my emptiness I look to Your hand to supply my need. Reveal to me where you are working and moving so that I might follow you there. Peace is in the presence of my Lord, going about his work.

Let me listen now, and for the day.. show me again, pictures and dreams.
Forgive me and heal me. Cleanse me and make me again yours.

by tashmcgill | Dec 1, 2005 | Uncategorized

Been Here Before
You may have read these before.

:: Friday, February 25, 2005 ::
I am tired now
Just lately when I think about it

Whoever said apathy wouldn’t get me
Whoever said that you wouldn’t rub off on me
Who ever said
Cos I was never that honest with you
I am tired now just
Lately when I think about it just
Lately when I think about it just
Lately when I think about it lately

And my head feels a little colder
My heart feels a little smaller
My world seems a little shorter
Something must be gone just
Lately when I think about it just
Lately when I think about it just
Lately when I think about it lately
Things just aren’t the same

:: Monday, February 21, 2005 ::
a little darkness now
a little silence in the staunch
white light
that calls me out of this sadness.

:: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 ::
Lucidity Speaks

When you speak, how often I must
listen with baited breath
to hear the thing you might say
next, could be funny or serious

off guard, i tend to spend these moments
and makes me like an addict
for I love the rush of blood to my
head when you make me think

before I speak, so I don’t get it wrong
so I don’t regret, but I live regretting
these moments, precious, few
i spend in awe of you, when Lucidity speaks

it reminds me that there’s something in the
air around us that I’m breathing funny
something makes me come alive
ideas that once were silent fly into

the sky that wakes and blinks in
blue hues that colour everything around us
somehow sharper with your eyes wide open
your voice softly speaking things aloud

where I can hear them, over rush of blood
and thought where they are blooming now
in sunshine of your fertilising mind, strange
how coincidence draws you to new places

where I’ve decided I would share a glass
of wine with you that was old, red wine that
I would usually treasure with someone dear
like you could someday be, you shake me.

:: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 ::
sometimes i have to make the effort
sometimes i have to try real hard
sometimes i have to make the effort
most of the time i question, is it worth it

sometimes i have to concentrate on what’s ahead
i have to focus on what’s important
and i have to choose between this and that other important thing
i want to go to sleep, lie down beside you
you are my important thing of the moment

cos i might never get this moment back
i might never get the hour back
and i would rather spend it in your love
than on something not worth it

Set Your Sails Love
Trevor Donnell once spoke to a church facing a time of transition about a sailboat on the water, facing increasing winds, having a choice. Set the mainsail and keep the sheet trimmed, or take all the risks and run the spinnaker. Seems like we are in similar times at the moment here at Windsor. This morning during Youth team meeting we prayed and God impressed the image on me again.. this time illuminating for me the fluidity, seamless teamwork and beauty of the human machine that pulls in the mainsail while running the spinnaker up. Each person totally committed to the task they have as an individual, but utterly immersed in the whole task. Aware, supporting, giving and taking from and between themselves. There is something in that for us.

Also in this….

God is in the Messiness.

by tashmcgill | Nov 25, 2005 | Uncategorized

Tired Of An Endless Discussion
Last night and today was the youth staff retreat. It’s the second year where we have gathered with the Focus Team for a meal and prayer and then stayed over to discuss and think about direction for the next year.

Interesting discussions about future directions. Things are being shaken at the core in terms of people moving around, ideas changing, applications changing. Even though we are a large group.. I’m drawn to addressing the question of what do we do well rather than how do we do everything.

Pretty tired of discussing an endless drift.. there’s a vertical line down the crux of the congregation and it doesn’t seem like people are moving from one side to the other in a hurry. There’s a lot of compartmentalised faith and that’s dangerous, limiting and cruel to those desperately seeking immersion.

It’s like the best way to learn a new language is to be immersed in it, and similarly, the best way of learning a new way of being, is simply to be in a different place with people who are doing it differently. I feel an unbearable pressure that as a single person without dependants or ‘responsibilities’ to model this. Yet I feel remarkably unequipped and dispassionate about doing it in this climate. I’ve suggested starting a step before intentional community living, with intentional lifestyle teachign & accountability. Even from there it may take years, if we ever are able to reach a point of sway, movement and bias away from ourselves and onto the poor, the addicted, the unloved.

We are not doing immersion. We are still doing lessons. We need to change the core of who and how we are operating. We need to be changed, rather than simply changing the strategy. Need to grasp hold of the fact that strategy for a task is not vision for a people.