by tashmcgill | Jan 9, 2008 | Uncategorized
Song Of The Moment : Bless The Broken Road
by Rascal Flatts
I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn’t see how every sign pointed straight to you
Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
I think about the years I spent just passing through
I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You’ve been there you understand
It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true
Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
There Now, Home At Last
I’m finally home – and Soul Survivor was fun, despite the homesickness at the beginning. There were significant connection points that grounded me and made me feel at home. Then home came running after me as the brokenhearted cried. The silence of my friends came like a heavy weight on my heart. This pain grieves me so.
by tashmcgill | Jan 8, 2008 | eastercamp, god ideas, Uncategorized
Or Leaving Fielding.
Here is a story that started out a long time ago, and left it’s first chapter here. Another chapter begins here, where I’ve been part of the Soul Survivor world for five days. In a mere 72 days, Sam will enter the Eastercamp world where Marko was in 2007 and where Stu always has a place.
After this weekend, there are even more threads in the weaving, including old friends who are new youthworkers, and old friends who are being made new… and everything in between. The Lord has been good this week, with lots of healing happening in the lives of people around me.
Tonight I was watching Sam preach and I couldn’t keep the smile from growing bigger and bigger on my face. There is something so good and precious happening in his gifts that I can’t wait for the story to keep going at Easter. I was so stoked to hear him this weekend. Yay. Ok, enough ranting and raving.
We’re going to leave in about half an hour for the long trek back to Auckland, where I expect to encounter dawn somewhere. I’ll take a pause whereever we are at that point, and give thanks.
by tashmcgill | Jan 7, 2008 | god ideas, Uncategorized
It’s just after midnight and the rain is starting to fall hard on my tent, in the middle of a field in Feilding. It’s been an interesting day – working on usual work stuff and Fairfax deadlines whilst in the middle of a festival.
Personal highlights so far have included a couple of special chats with people in regards to the camp, ideas and structure. It’s also been great to have the chance to share what I hope and pray have been significant words with people I care about.
Today Rich Johnson and Matty Bruns from St Pauls turned up – Rich knows lots of people I know, so hopefully we’ll continue to have the opportunity to connect, especially because we are so closely proximated during the week. In a former life, I worked at the same radio station as Matty, and ocassionally churched together and generally have swung in some of the same circles. He’s just been employed as the youth and student worker at St Pauls, after a long time working for Attitude – a youth work organisation with a difference, working with inschool presentations on health and lifeskills.
Sam took us to lunch and we had the opportunity to talk long and hard about all sorts. It was really great to connect with Matty and have the opportunity to have mini-rants. I’m really hopeful of the opportunity to continue to connect, share ideas and sharpen one another. It’s all good.
Soul Survivor – More Thoughts.
1. Talking with Matty illuminated something I had been trying to put my finger on. There is an enormous sense of old school Summer Harvests from the mid-late 80’s and mid 90’s about Soul Survivor – in regards to the simplicity of the main programme. It’s all singing and speaking, then followed by waiting on God, more singing, more prayer. There’s nothing wrong with it at all but it doesn’t feel all complete either – so that’s something interesting to consider.
2. There is so much waiting on God and expectation of the Holy Spirit to move that one could almost feel drained of spontaneity. Even tonight when we engaged in a time of prayer and “waiting on the Holy Spirit” at the end of the first worship bracket – to the extent that Sam didn’t speak tonight and probably will tomorrow… but balance that with the beauty and gentleness of how God was speaking and moving tonight in that time. It was great to pray for people in this environment, even if it does feel like a timewarp to another time and space.
>Interject….
Is it a movement sideways, forward or back? Have we moved on with or without reason? There was a time when all the Baptist events I went to had this same flavour – and similarly amongst the Pentecostal church. Now there is a tangible absence – so what has changed? Us, the Spirit, the expectation, the preparedness?
3. With such a strong emphasis on prayer ministry, more specifically ministry of the Holy Spirit, where ‘prayers’ are referred to as ‘enablers’ and asked not to pray specifically other than to ‘bless’ and ‘pray with’ the work of the Holy Spirit; it seems really really out of place to not have a follow up process for kids/adults who are responding and experiencing significant things with the Spirit. There’s no response room or followup, rather the prayers pray without verification, qualification etc, and there are no names transferred. The work that is “God’s to do, not ours” .. also then stands alone from ongoing supportive community work and accountability.
4. Casual observation allows one to see a lot of personality types, leadership structures, leadership styles and habits when you have the freedom to simply watch and see how people operate with one another. It’s a lonely environment to a certain extent because the core of the whole ministry/mission project is built on relationships within a core group, that then radiate into other corresponding and intersecting relationships. Unless you are structurally integral to the core of those relationships – it’s easy to feel divorced from understanding the cultural emphasis and momentum of what’s goine on here. So – I have to learn to undo the eyes that see with what I commonly experience, and begin to see with new eyes that can learn from being in this place too.
by tashmcgill | Jan 7, 2008 | god ideas, Uncategorized
Please spare some thoughts and prayers right now for Kenya, especially the people at the heart of the conflict in Nairobi. You can read about the crisis online from a humanitarian perspective here. you can find bloggers perspectives on the human impact and what will make a difference at allafrica.com.
Our world is full of despair and hopelessness on so many levels. We are barely competent or responsive to the issues. Darfur is suffering, Sierra Leone is still broken, Liberia corrupt, Uganda held at the mercy of madmen. East Timor, Fiji.. so many places that are full of horror. My heart is breaking for Kenya and all these places. Please spare some time in your thoughts and prayers.
Where this unleashes, there are children who become readers and authors of war. Who obliterate one another with the violence of abuse, abandonment and tragedy. There are orphans of war, famine and disease piling up and we must take note of the voice calling out. If nothing else, cry out for our brothers and sisters and children of injustice in this earth.
Inkling
I have always wrestled with the idea of spending tens of thousands on IVF treatments for couples that can’t have children. I can completely relate to the biological desire to create life but my heart breaks for orphans – for the unloved. The words of Hosea, that name children Desolate – and then see them renamed.. I love the picture of redeeming the children of this world that have been left on the side of the road. Especially in recent months when health issues have given me scope to really address the possibility of adoption in my future, recent conversations with other Jesus-followers about the potential joy of bringing the unloved into a home of love… and then listening to the story Mike Pilavachi told of someone in his community who is moving to Africa to become mum to a tribe of orphans, eight in total. There is an inkling of this in my future, and I don’t want to lose it – a heart for the child that is unloved. To redeem something beautiful that God made in the midst of humanity, where humanity abandoned them. Yes – that would be a good way to spend my love on this earth.
by tashmcgill | Jan 7, 2008 | Uncategorized
AUCKLAND TO SYDNEY
Painless and easy. Landing to the sound of Dave Dobbyn singing “loyal”.
Sydney airport is so boring. It’s bland. Even the bookstore. How could I not find a single book that seemed worth reading? And the food options are appalling. Yuck. Miserable way to spend five hours when all I wanted to do was be travelling.
UNITED FLIGHT TO LAX
What a perfect flight apart from the lack of inseat entertainment. Those big screens are really frustrating. Lots of room, a whole row. Lots of time spent talking with Jesus and feeling my nerves come down. Had a complete freakout about 1 hour into the flight. Overwhelmed by a sense of aloneness, of missing home, of all the people I wished were with me. I wrote in my journal and gave thanks for every good and deep love I have here on this earth, the ones left at home and then the ones I was travelling too. Regained my equilibrium. Bliss. Captured all the bliss by writing loveletters home to some of my dearest old and new friends. Felt amazing landing in LA.
FLIGHT TO CHICAGO
Stratched window ruined a little bit of the view until we got closer to the big late summer storm system over the whole Midwest. The clouds were huge, dramatic and all swirling together – you could picture the time lapse. Landing the sun was setting to the west of us and so the sky was Polaroid and the clouds full of pink and golden hues. So divine.
CHICAGO O’HARE
So many things to note, but the united terminals at o-hare form a sort of golden palisade, rendered caramel, gold and coffee coloured as the sun rises and hits it from the east and sets, illuminating it from the west in the evening. It’s sharp gleam must beckon homeward bound as the smooth glass dome runs on an north – south axis. Once inside the lengthy connecting travelator is still one like a living interacting tribute to colour, the resene colour swatch wall effect with glass panels echoed in the multicoloured neon madness that sits overhead. All the marble and quietness after the hours in the air is enough to make your head spin.
PEOPLE
Charlie – Charlie the marine, stationed in California and out at sea until he got the call to come home for the birth of his second child, another daughter with his wife. She was in labour while he was waiting for the customs check, hoping that she could hang out for his frantic trip to the hospital in LA
Charlotte in Chicago, a city dweller who loved to talk about all the places to stay and what to do. Gave the River Bus hint, rather than the river boat or taxi tours. For 2 dollars a trip you get an 18 minute ride down the best parts of the river on a DIY architecture tour. Also familiar with st louis she recommends forest park and the st louis zoo as one of the best in the world – and “on the hill” for thai food.
