christmas time - come and gone...

Well its come and gone again - The whole process of it arriving and going seems to happen much quicker than I used to remember it, I guess it means I'm getting a bit older!
We had a country christmas this year with my side of the family which was pretty good and pretty full on! It was good to see the little kids in the family recieve presents and run around getting excited.
Hope anyone who stumbles across this blog had a great day and paused to reflect on the birth that triggered the whole event a couple of thousand years ago. Speaking of which there seems to be a fair bit interest in Australia about people talking about and exploring the real meaning of christmas. I have heard alot of references on radio especially about christmas and people rediscovering faith and what christams means to them. I have a thoery that everyone has wittnessed people of the Islamic faith being so devout and fanatical and it has inspired them to explore there own faith and culture - it can only be a good thing.

The light at the end of the tunnel...

Well I've finished my field trials for my PhD!! Quite a significant point - it means I now focus wholey and soley on writting - which is a bit scarry as its not my recognised strong point!

It means I have about 4 months to wrap everything up and make a story out of what I've been doing for the last 3 and a bit years. Easier said than done I think.

The land of christmas parties..

Well if you want to go to lots of christmas parties you should get a job at uni... If I wanted to I could have attended about 5 - as it is I might go to 2...or 3. I'll see. You could get out of alot of work between now and christmas if you wanted to!
This time though, and all the christmas parties, do bring out the best in people. Often its just a time when people stop and express how much they have appreciated the hard work of colleges and enjoyed working with them - and people generally spend more time wishing each other well. Its almost like we wait for christmas as an excuse to do away with the aussie ribbing of each other. Maybe we should just do away with it all together...

Nice post from Thinx

Beautiful post on worship from a guy I know. here. I think lionfish would enjoy it...its similar to the things he often writes on his site...

Carols on the foreshore

Well the 'ol carols down on the shelley foreshore went really well last night - it ended up being beatiful weather and the music was really good. Its the first time in years I havn't been up on stage having orgainsed and put together the music - It was quite relaxing just being able to sit down and enjoy it but it also felt kind of weired! I think it is probably the reason christmas has crept up on me this year - I've normally being singing and practicing carols since the start of november and this year last night was my first crack at singing them!
But yeah - they went well, I reackon about 1500-2000 people were there, which is a pretty good showing, considering there were a couple of really big carols events around the area. I think the local community really waits for and supports our one on the river - its always a nice night!

I still haven't found...

Last sunday night at church it was my turn to lead (again - three times out of the last four weeks!!), and we tried some nice ideas - mainly kaths ideas but i get to implement them and therefore get most of the credit. We sang "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" at the start of the service as a why of "shocking" people into thinking about song lyrics and what they're singing. I think it worked really well and people responded well to it, and there has been alot of positive feedback to it, even from the oldies!!
The other idea we used was to place a tea light on each person chair and have them light it at the right time and place it up the front for something they are thankful for. At the end there was about 130 candles all burning as symbols of Gods goodness, it worked really well and was just a nice tangible way for people to interact.

Blogger is working again...

If anyone had been coming here to read fairly mundane posts about me and haven't noticed any for the past week it is because blogger has been malfunctioning! Everytime I try and login it takes me to someone elses dashboard! But it seems to have fixed itself now so thats alright!