Articles
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Any light here?
Will legalising prostitution reduce the amount of prostitution? Will legalising it make it better for women? Will it reduce the exploitation and oppression of women in the sex-industry. Will it reduce the criminal element? All good questions.
Perhaps the aim is merely to control it and to remove it from the suburbs. How will the new law reduce the prevalence of prostitution in the suburbs? Presumably by police action. But is there not a law against that already?
Controlling, regulating, supervising, put it under the watchful eye of a bureaucracy as well as the police ... might still allow scope for bribery, corruption and the criminal gangs.
Is it worth letting our MPs know our opinion on this? For what reasons have they not adopted the Swedish model of making the use of prostitutes illegal, rather than making prostitution legal?
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
What should we do?
It was quite an exciting weekend at Willetton last week. The multi-cuisine feast was a gourmet’s delight. Once again there were a lot of people present who are not normally in church on Sundays.
And on Sunday at Willetton we also had quite a lot of people who are not normally in church with us. Some were visitors from other churches, and some were visitors from no church.
Is this a good thing? Having people come to events or church services who don’t normally go to church? Coming to meals is OK I suppose. But what about church? Do we really want lots of people coming who are not used to church and don’t know what to do?
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Why baptise?
Why would anyone want to baptise children these days? After all it is becoming a minority sport. We could ask why parents add their child’s name to the waiting list for private schools (and pay a large fee for the privilege in some cases)?
Because they want the child to have a good education (and they hope the school will still be a good school 12 years later when the child enters secondary education). So we baptise children because we want them to be part of the (minority) group that follows Jesus. Because we want them to follow Jesus themselves. And learn about him. And find out how to follow him.
In a way it’s a bit like enrolling the child as a member of your favourite football team. You want them to have the privileges of membership eventually – and to be supporters.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Job – was he right?
“She has the patience of Job.” is a famous saying. Job has become the great example of patient suffering. But while Job persevered, he may not have been very patient. Much of the book is taken up with complaints. Job’s friends complain that Job is not admitting his faults (and so making it easier for him to escape his suffering). Job on the other hand is complaining that the Lord has caused him to suffer for no good reason.
Both Job and his friends ask the question as to how a person can be in the right with God. The friends have one answer, Job doesn’t agree and wants to talk to God about it. They complain that one of Job’s problems is that he tries to justify himself rather than God.
But one of the interesting things about the book of Job is that it starts off with the wonderful testimonial about Job, repeated by the Lord himself, that “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job is a righteous person at the start, and remains so all the way through.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Jesus at work
Lots of people like their work. Some like their workmates as well - or some of them anyway, some of the time. Some would like some of them more if they weren’t workmates. Others find their fellow workers are what saves their sanity in the face of impossible or deadly jobs.
Many jobs are very enjoyable except for the “politics”. Meaning power struggles, petty jealousies, higher ups who haven’t quite grown up, people with chips on their shoulders, and others who bring their own problems from home and inflict them on the group.
Keeping one’s head down and out of the way of the cross-fire is one way of coping. Joining in the struggle appeals to some. And most work-places have peace-keepers on hand to help out.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
What a lovely home
“What a lovely home!” we might say when visiting someone for the first time. Some homes are so lovely that we say the same thing every time we visit. Some of us think it about our own home (if we have one).
What makes a home lovely? Depends on what you are looking at I suppose. Decor, garden, tidiness and cleanliness maybe. People. The people who live there make the home. And truly lovely homes are made up of lovely people.
On Wednesday the morning Communion group thought about God’s home (Psalm 84). One of the psalm writers was overcome with affection for God’s home – the place where God lived. He meant the temple. But he wasn’t interested in the building – magnificent as that may have been.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Oxygen
A few weeks ago I attended the Oxygen Conference in Sydney. 2,300 pastors and church leaders were there to listen to John Piper and John Lennox speak and to take part in a variety of elective sessions. What was the benefit?
It was meant to be a conference that encouraged pastors and church leaders. “There’s no fire without oxygen” was the slogan. It was encouraging.
It was encouraging to see so many church leaders together in one place. So many! Men and women of all ages and from a wide variety of churches. There were people who had been in ministry for decades, missionaries, pastors, lay leaders, church wardens, musicians through to people at the beginning of ministry such as the whole leadership class from Trinity Theological College in Perth.