February, 2004:

We had David and his family over for a BBQ and swim last night.

We love spending time with his tribe and there’s always so much to catch up about. Time seems to rush by between visits and it’s usually months between get togethers. Why do we get so caught up in the day to day that we miss spending time with friends?

We seem to swap ‘the stuff of life’ with the endless struggle to exist. Relationships are so very important and yet we often let trivialities get in the way of maintaining them.

Thankfully we’ll be catching up again in a couple of weeks.

Hamo has a wonderful sermon illustration on his blog. It compares how we might feel about heading off to a nudist colony and how unchurched people might feel coming along to one of our church services. Well worth a read.

A quick blog from work. My home computer died a thousand deaths. I should have it up and running in the next day or so but until then – nothing. I hope you’ll miss me.

I’ve been pretty much missing in action for a while. I’ve been very busy preparing for the preview screening of The Passion of the Christ in Perth.

I work for the Bible Society and on Saturday night we hosted a screening for church leaders. It was a powerful time and I can assure you that this film will have a big impact.

Many have given the advice that believers should see the film themselves before taking friends. Their reasoning is that they will need to deal with the issues it raises for themselves before taking others.

I wonder if it’s wise to hide our own journey from our friends in that way. I’m not saying that it may be wise to preview the film but I ask if it may be more impacting if our friends witness our reaction and our own search for a response.

The film has attracted an MA rating in Australia with a warning of graphic violence. There’s plenty of that in the film but it’s certainly not violence for entertainment’s sake. This film will shake many people – many of them people who are already believers.

I truly reccomend this film and look forward to the questions it will raise for people around the world.