Two days of Oxygen

Oxygen is a big conference run by KCC at Australian Technology Park, with the tagline "fuel your passion for Christian ministry". There is a fantastic lineup of speakers, workshop leaders and musicians. It's so encouraging to be in a room full of people involved in ministry of some sort. Exhausting, but encouraging.

The thing that really gets me feeling good is singing with thousands of people. Our church is a small one and no matter how passionately people sing (which isn't always very passionate), you're never going to get that quality of sound that thousands of voices raised in praise generate.

I may write my notes up more fully - actually I was only really taking notes in the music ministry electives with Bob Kauflin. I don't have the energy to do that right now but I know some people who read this blog aren't on Twitter so thought I'd repost my tweets here so you can see what I've been hearing the last two days.

Tweets about "#oxygen14 from:becjee"

The main talks will be available to stream for free on the KCC app - as well as plenty of other talks from other KCC conferences. The ones I've heard so far are great and I have no doubt the rest of the week will be just as edifying. I won't be there tomorrow, sadly, as I have too much work on and am just too exhausted. But I hope to go back on Thursday to hear the last talk.

what a week

I went to work this morning and lasted an hour before the headache hit and I had to come home and lie down. I guess if you're going to be sick at home, a cold rainy day is a good one to choose!

I watched a disc of West Wing season 1 and slept under my blanket with my hot water bottle. It's been a pretty huge week and a bit. I think I'm going to give up on trying to write anything extensive about Driscoll and all the things I went to hear him at, but I'll do a summary.

Engage
Guan, Mary and I drove up to the mountains in the late afternoon last Friday. We were the first to arrive at our accommodation, The Blue House, where we got set up and ate shepherd's pie for dinner. Mary elected to stay home and have an early night, and Guan and I went to the convention centre and met up with the others.


Mark Driscoll gave four talks over the weekend, and his bombast and difficult challenges were well-tempered by Don Carson's reasonably straightforward exegetical preaching. They were a good combination - I think too much of one or the other would have been a problem.

I really enjoyed seeing Driscoll give a talk; I've listened to a few podcasts and read some of his writing, but he definitely has a 'watchable quality' (as Annabeth on the West Wing would say). But that's not to say he's all style and no substance. He packs a lot into his talks, and goes off on a lot of 'riffs', and doesn't fail to tie his theology in with living life. In fact, he dispensed with his third talk altogether to answer questions from the crowd, as he had observed that in Sydney there is a lot of good solid theological teaching but people had a hunger for practical application of what they were learning. As the questions were SMSed in, people were free to ask anything they wanted without fear of embarrassment, so there were predictably mostly questions on relationships, sex, family and things like that.

It was the end of this question time that he answered a question about why men should leave home younger than they generally do (ie, mid to late twenties). That's been one of his big themes while he's been speaking in Australia, challenging young men with the 'adultescence' mindset to grow up (sorry, I hate that term, but it fits). His thinking is that no woman is going to want to marry a man whose mom still tucks him into bed with his Star Wars sheets and footy pyjamas (when he speaks in the States, it's Star Wars pyjamas, but I guess he was tailoring the message to the audience), so guys should grow up, get a job, leave home, show they can provide for a family, get married, etc, etc.

He also talked about the responsibility fathers have towards their daughters to protect them, nurture them, encourage them to make good decisions and teach them discernment about men. He said some very good stuff here, but then it just started hammering into me that this was something sorely lacking in my relationship with my own father and how I had made some colossal mistakes and trusted some very dodgy people because I hadn't had a good model in regards to men as I grew up (not saying dad doesn't love me, or that I'm not also culpable in the decision making/wilfulness of the whole thing, but I didn't start off with a very solid foundation). It made me immensely sad, and by the time we got back to the house for lunch, I kind of lost it, cried all over my lovely friends, had to go and lie down and sleep it off for the rest of the afternoon.


But it was nice hanging out with the Beilharzes, the Un families and Elsie. By the end of the weekend, the big talks, the 2000 people and not sleeping very well, I was glad to be home and back in my own bed.

Ministry Intensive
As a National Office team, we went to this together and saw many other AFES staffworkers there. Again, it was the Driscoll and Carson double-act, with Kent and Barbara Hughes as well. Carson repeated one of his talks from Engage, which was a bit of a shame as I'm guessing a good number of people there had been at Engage (and apparently he wasn't supposed to give the same talk twice!).

In his second talk Driscoll was hard hitting and confrontational about what, as an outsider, he saw were the reasons that evangelism was being hampered in Sydney (Gordo gives a pretty thorough rundown if you're interested). I thought it was a brilliant talk, and really something only an outside observer could deliver.

I got cranky after lunch when we were separated into men and women and told which talk to go to, so I skipped Barbara Hughes' talk on Evangelism in the Home. Was too tired to go to Carson's big talk in the evening, and hadn't really perked up much by the next morning. I didn't really get much out of Kent Hughes' talk on Pastoring from the Pulpit but then I guess it wasn't really aimed at me.


Was supposed to go to the New College Lecture series on God and the Artist, but I was so completely drained by Tuesday night I didn't go. As I mentioned a couple of posts back, on Wednesday I resigned from work and hadn't recovered any more energy so didn't go to that night's lecture. And on Thursday I was unexpectedly given a ticket to Bek Caines's PhD graduation ceremony, so I went to that and missed the lectures entirely!


So it's probably no wonder that today I'm out for the count.

brain drain

It's been a big, exhausting and interesting week. Engage was fantastic but I hit a few emotional speedbumps along the way and got peopled-out pretty quickly. The Ministry Intensive was also fantastic but...intense. And today I resigned from AFES (I'll be here til Christmastime). So all up it's been huge, physically, emotionally, pretty much in every way you could imagine.

I'll post some musings about the talks, etc, soon, but just thought I'd keep y'all up to date.

Burn your plastic Jesus

So Wednesday night was Burn Your Plastic Jesus at the Entertainment Centre with Mark Driscoll from Seattle's Mars Hill Church. This won't mean much to the non-Christians among you, but take it from me, Driscoll is the hot ticket amongst the uni-age set in terms of speakers you have to go and hear preach. He's been in Australia for almost a month holidaying with his family, who have now returned home to the US to leave Driscoll to work. And he works hard! Seems he's speaking just about every day/night at various places in Sydney, the Central Coast and Brisbane until he goes home next week.

Anyway, back to Wednesday. I hadn't planned to go to this event because I'm going to the Engage conference this weekend and a Ministry Intensive next week that both Driscoll and Don Carson are speaking at, and I didn't know that I needed another dose. But Mark and Lu had a spare ticket and I thought 'why not?'

I'm glad I went!

As Mark and I bussed into town, went to King's Comics and wandered down to Dixon St to meet the other Wild St Church people for dinner, we played Spot the Church Group. They just stand out so much from everyone else! We couldn't really work out why, but you just knew which ones were Christians. By the time we left the food court and the place had filled up, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a non-Christian (and the food court staff seemed a little bemused by it). But it's not surprising, as there were reportedly 10,000 people converging on the Entertainment Centre for this event. I enjoyed the chance to hang out with church people (especially the nutty youth groupers), and at dinner I had a whole plate of dumplings to myself, which was great.
As for the event itself, the staging was slick as a rock concert with the difference being that the house lights stayed up the whole time. The Engage band was full of familiar faces, and they did a great job - there is nothing quite like singing to God with 10,000 people! Though I was surprised at the amount of singing we did; I'm sure the non-Christians in the audience wouldn't have been too comfortable about it, and perhaps this could have been offset by someone from the front saying something like "One of the things we do when we gather together is sing praise to God - we'd love you to join in, but if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to". Anyway that's a minor gripe - from my point of view, the music was excellent. Nathan Tasker played a couple of songs with his band, but I didn't think that added a great deal to the night.
There was the obligatory screening of videoed vox pops, people saying what they thought of Jesus - if they thought of him at all. I was especially saddened by the young mother who was quite defensive about it and said basically her world was her children and family and she'd never thought about Jesus before so why should she bother now? He didn't have anything to do with her.

Then Mark Driscoll came out and spoke for about an hour and a half. As a speaker, he is a friendly, funny man with a relaxed style and an easy-to-listen-to voice. He dissects and critiques culture especially well, and he is not at all ashamed or timid about what he believes. He spent the first chunk of his talk tearing down seven versions of Jesus he thinks people hold up that have nothing much to do with the actual Jesus (though he never referred to the passage from Revelation 19 that had been read beforehand, which I thought was a little odd). In the process he challenged and rebuked us, but also made us laugh a lot. The pitch was a little hard to work out initially, but he had something to say to the committed Christians, the fringe Christians and the non-Christians, and I thought he covered his bases well. He then took questions (via SMS!), and answered them gently but forthrightly. Then in the last section he talked about the real Jesus that we see in the Bible and why we should have relationship with him. If you're interested, you can download the talk for $2 at KCC - it's funny, engaging, challenging and well worth a listen. You can watch the clip below from Sydney Anglicans for a taste:

At the end of the night, he invited people to stand if they had decided to become Christians, or if they wanted prayer for something, and he asked the Christians sitting around them to pray. I had expected something like this to happen, as it's a fairly common end to a big event like this (they used to do 'altar calls' where they'd get people to go up the front, which is even more confronting), but it did take a while for people to start moving. It would have taken a lot of courage for people to stand up in full view of the entire Entertainment Centre, but gradually, as he spoke and kept encouraging people to stand, people started getting up. I don't know how many there were altogether, it wasn't a huge number, but there were a fair few. And then as the musos played quietly, we were asked to pray. I found it incredibly moving, looking around the room at this sea of people sitting, and here and there clumps of people standing together, praying. Gaz said it reminded him of white blood cells grouping together. I was so struck by the face of this one girl standing near us, her eyes closed, tears on her face, and a look of utter conviction.

It's a hard thing if you've made such a life-changing decision to go from a context like that back into the hard, gritty world. I really hope and pray that those people who decided to become Christians on Wednesday keep exploring God's word, that they are supported and loved by the friends who took them along to the event, and that God would continue to grow them in the knowledge and love of him.

And now I have to finish packing to go off to the mountains for Engage. Should be a great weekend!

Faithful Writer

It seems odd that a writer would have trouble writing about a writers' conference, but I don't think I've actually managed to digest/process the Faithful Writer yet. Maybe I never will. That's part of the problem when you're on an organising committee of any sort, even if most of the running around is being done by someone like Karen The Dynamo. You are just aware of tiny things that have the potential to become problems, you don't get a chance to just soak up the atmosphere or just hang around with the other delegates.

I arrived at 8.15am, as Karen and I had arranged, with the booklets I'd designed. I was barely through the door when I was already being hassled (the hassler was obviously just worried because people had turned up early, but since the registration desk didn't open until 8.30 I don't know why he was so frantic). I had to tell people to just leave me alone for one minute, allow me to put my bag down and work out what I was doing. Guan had kindly bought me a coffee, and once I was organised, we registered about 120 people and welcomed them to the conference.

Trevor interviewed the keynote speaker, Mark Tredinnick, and then did a short devotion. Mark then gave a fairly rambly talk about writing as an act of faith. He talked about how you needed to do the important work of 'mending the nets in the hope that a fish may rise', continuing to work away at your writing even when it seems mundane, so that you're ready when the moments of inspiration hit. I can relate to that.

He encouraged us to aim for the Hemingway school of thought and try to say things in a way they had never been said before. He said "a way of finding your voice is in refusing the clichés that are most precious to you." And the final thing I wrote down was "write the poem, the sentence, the essay, the story, the book that only you can write - the one told in your own original voice."

Good advice.

After a donutty morning tea, Guan and I wandered to a local cafe so he could work on the writing exercise that had been set. I didn't even attempt it; my brain was so scattered and my thoughts so unfocused I don't think I could have managed much. But towards the end of the hour I scribbled a few things down about the whole writing shebang:

Words are ordinary things that fall from our lips every day, but they can also be extraordinary and dangerous when put together a certain way. When they are put together well. But as Mark said this morning, that can take discipline and practice.

Kate Grenville works by a couple of principles. One is 'never have a blank page'. Another is 'you can come back and fix it later'. It was very freeing to realise that, to be released from the idea that something had to be perfect the first time around, or that you had to keep nutting out a phrase before you could move onto the next. Sometimes you just have to step over that roadblock and move on. You can come back and clean it up later.

Just before lunch everyone handed in their writing exercises for us to look through. Karen, Trevor, Tony, Mark and I read them all and pulled out ones we thought would be good for workshopping after lunch. It's kind of hard to do that; just as hard as it would have been for the writers to feel confident submitting something for public scrutiny after only an hour, it was hard to read them all and feel like we'd done them justice. But we weren't looking for the best or worst, just ones that had something interesting to talk about in the workshop.

Karen and I grabbed a quick lunch. After letting Mark read through the pieces more thoroughly, culling them down to a final six, we typed up the pieces so they could be projected onto the screen for all to see. Mark led the workshop and was tough but fair and reasonably gracious. I think everyone learned a lot through the process, about avoiding cliche, about when and how to use certain types of punctuation, about what makes a piece flow better, about how to structure something.

Then it was time for the seminars. Karen and I ran a seminar on Writers and Editors, which oddly enough had the highest number of attendees of all the seminars. We did a kind of tag-team effort, with interview, role play, brainstorming and general discussion all thrown into the mix. I had a minor disagreement with one of the delegates who kept saying, "I've had two books published and my experience with editors has been nothing like that". I never quite know how to respond to things like that without getting prickly and defensive. But apparently I handled it well, and we were on friendly terms by the end. George was very encouraging and said we had done a good job at running training (drawing lots of inspiration from her seminar at Word by Word a while back).

I don't think I had afternoon tea. I seem to recall chatting to Dave and telling him I needed a holiday, but I'm not sure if that was at afternoon tea or lunch. Then we tried to call everyone together for the readings, though we were running a bit late by this stage. Greg read an excellent piece about getting his car (or himself?) serviced at a prestige garage, and some entertaining poems he had written for his children. I read the pineapple tarts section from Undragon Stories - and a brief listen to the audio tells me that I still need to work on slowing down my delivery. And to close, Mark read a selection of his poetry.

After the conference I sat, guarding the bookstall cashbox, while the packing up went on. I was impressed that Karen was still able to rush around, but she just kept going until everything was done. People came up to me and told me how much they loved the story, which still amazes me because I am so familiar with it I can't see any of its merits anymore. But several people said they really really wanted to taste a pineapple tart, and others commented that they felt they were right there in that humid kitchen. One lovely woman said after last year's conference she had scanned the Sydney Writers' Festival programme for my name, and hopes to see it there next year.

Maybe one day!

being a depressive at staff conference part 2

I wake long before my alarm, much earlier than the time I usually get up. I'm cramped and uncomfortable, so I decide to go for a walk. The air outside is sweet and cool compared to the awful dorm room, and I walk with long strides. I try to veer off onto a bush track, but it's been raining and I don't like my chances on the muddy ground, so I stick to the road.

When I get back to the site, I sit in a corner with my laptop and ipod on, trying to write, but other early morning risers keep wanting to chat to me. That's okay, I guess, though I don't feel like I have much to say. I sit with Mark and Tim for breakfast.

Grimmo gives the morning Bible talk on Philippians 3:1-16. He starts off by making poo jokes, which is kind of unexpected, but segues neatly into how the apostle Paul described everything in his life prior to knowing Christ as dung. Our translations are much too sanitised (the NIV and ESV use the word 'rubbish') but Grimmo said it was more akin to bin juice, or whatever the most revolting thing you can think of is. Before his conversion, Paul was the 'Jew of Jews' and was obsessed with keeping the law and being made right with God by doing the right thing. But after knowing Christ, he knew that was impossible, and was prepared to give all that up, his reputation and everything he had worked for, thinking only of straining towards the goal ahead of him - life in Christ.

You can’t get your life sorted out and then come back to God when you're ready. There’s nowhere else to go. All you can do is come back to Jesus and fall at his feet, and lay all the crap of your life at his feet. The three takeaway points:

1. Keep finding your righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ and in nothing else. (Not in achievements - it’s not about achievements but ‘have I honoured Christ?')
2. Forget what lies behind. There is nothing that has happened in your past that needs to define you in your relationship with God. A profoundly excellent truth!
3. Suffering and perseverance is part of it - but so is resurrection. As we share in his death, we will share in his resurrection. One day this body will be taken away and we will be given bodies that are fit for glory.

All very good things for me to be reminded of in my current mindset!

We have prayer groups again, then go into a couple of hours talking about SPRTE. This is our big conference at the end of the year, which this year will include students from all over the South Pacific. The logistics of it all are already wearying us!

I ditch lunch (processed meat...bleagh) and go down to Fairy Meadow to visit Stacie. I always think it's funny that Fairy Meadow sounds like such a cute sort of place but it's on the highway, with huge almost industrial buildings here and there. But Ben and Stacie's house is kind of cute. We're both feeling a bit flat and blah. Stacie puts Eli down to sleep, we just chat over lunch. It's always good to chat to Stace as you can be as blunt and honest as you want and it won't faze her because she is also blunt and honest.

I head back to the conference site. I'm getting so peopled out, making eye contact, making small talk, keeping it all together. The afternoon session is really good though. Leigh Hatcher, who is a Christian journalist and news presenter on Sky TV, gives us some media training and interview techniques. He has a warm, lyrical voice that sounds like the aural equivalent of butter menthol. He never says 'um'.

I'd seen him on Channel 7 news, but I wasn't hugely aware of him before I read his book I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. It's an easy-to-read autobiography looking specifically at the period of his life when he was struck with chronic fatigue syndrome, and how he had to work through that and ways of dealing with it and other peoples' impressions of what the illness was. I know it's not the same thing as depression but I think it does share a similar stigma. It's always helpful to see someone on the other side of something like that, looking healthy and happy and helping people. I feel fairly confident I'm going to come through this somehow, and I will be fully functioning again one day. I hope I never take good health for granted, if I ever get it back.

I chat to Mark and Keith and Cathy over dinner and then Cheryl and I drive home. Ahh, my own bed! My own hot shower! My own block of chocolate! It's good to be home.

being a depressive at staff conference

I really didn’t want to come. I’ve been in the middle of a depressive period, black and tear-filled and unassailably glum. I’d look in the mirror at myself and think, “who could care for that fat, ugly, unmotivated lump?” and that would just reinforce the negative thinking with the force of a fist slamming into me. I cried the night before coming, desperate to just hide, to not do anything, to just be immobile and uncontactable and quiet. To not have to talk to anyone. I packed my bag with reluctance, and slept.

I put on my bright face as I leave the house, gear my tongue ready for conversation, pick up my colleagues and we are away. I chat without any problem, we listen to music, I make light. But it’s like holding together a broken vase with sticky tape; I fear that at any moment the pieces could start to fall away.

We arrive and people are glad to see us, of course they are. We go into prayer groups and I’m asked to introduce myself to those who don’t know me and to talk about how I became a Christian. I don’t shy from that sort of conversation, and my goal is to always be as honest and open as I can be about the trials I’ve been through, but also God’s great grace in saving me and keeping me safe through the difficult times. It’s good to be reminded of those things as I speak. The girls in my group pray for me, loving, earnest and heartfelt prayers that feel like a balm to my cracked soul.

The day’s sessions are filled mostly with admin and policy talks. I try to concentrate, but feel my attention slipping. During free time I get in the car and do what I do every year, go in search of decent coffee. It takes me a while to find a place that’s open and decent, but I don’t mind. The drive down to Thirroul along the Sea Cliff Bridge is one I don’t tire of, the majesty and contrasts of creation on all sides, the vastness of the ocean and the hugeness of the sky. I have my coffee and cake, then go and sit up at the Bald Hill Lookout. The sea is a silver sheet of rippling satin, and it is quiet up there.

I catch up with J over dinner and we have a honest heart-to-heart about the things we’re dealing with. I talk to her and T about what depression looks like for me, what it’s like when I can’t stop crying, when I can’t get out of bed, when I have to force myself to just get out the door in the morning, when I’m exhausted and just sad about everything. J prays for me.

It’s a night off but there aren’t really any options I feel like joining (State of Origin? No thanks), so I go to bed early, before everyone else gets there so at least I’ll have a few hours of lying down without worrying about making noise or whatever. I listen to a talk on my ipod and drift in and out. The room smells like toilet cleaner. It’s stuffy and full of peoples’ stuff. My bed isn’t comfortable, it’s like sleeping on a couch when you fall between the cracks of the cushions. I hate staying in dorms like this but I’m glad I brought my own pillow and can curl up like a caterpillar in my sleeping bag. I eventually go to sleep when the others get to bed and settle down.

Twisted, part 3

We don't get lost this morning, but we're running late. This last day of TWIST is only a half day and they've switched the order of things around, so we start with a workshop. I'm in Song Leading Advanced with the lovely Julie Morrow. It's a great group that seems to get along well and share ideas easily, and Julie is a welcoming and friendly leader. We all get lots of tips and encouragement about why and how we lead the congregation in singing, and ideas on how to prepare and write meaningful introductions, rather than just saying "Okay now we're going to sing, please stand."

It's another chilly, damp day, but not raining as much as yesterday. We have morning tea chatting to Jocelyn, who used to work for AFES, then we go and sit in the third row again for the last session.

Dominic's talk is on 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. He talks about orderly worship, the 'weighing of prophecy', and how we're expected to consider and weigh up the teaching we receive, not just wholeheartedly accept everything that is said from the front. But even this weighing up needs to be done with thoughtfulness and in an orderly, self-controlled manner (so not everyone carrying on and talking over the top of one another).

This then leads into the tricky bit of the passage about women staying silent in church. "Er...I think I'm out of time!" he jokes. But I think he handles this subject really gently and with love, and gives clear examples that illustrate his point. He outlines what stances people generally take on the subject, and then gives us his opinion, that it's a particular word for married women (although there are implications for other women too), and it's certainly not suggesting that women are to be silent in church at all times, in every situation. It's more talking about the time at the end of the meeting when the 'prophecy' is weighed, and saying that it is important for the unity of marriage to be upheld in public, so a wife shouldn't be contradicting her husband in front of everyone. It's respecting the order of Christian marriage. It isn't saying that women shouldn't have an opinion or shouldn't express it, but it's saying that for the thoughtfulness and order that was mentioned earlier, wives need to respect that their husbands represent the head of their households in public. He uses himself and his wife as an example, saying, "If I spoke in public and then my wife piped up and said 'I completely disagree', that not only undermines me but it puts the marriage on the line in public too."

This is a complicated and emotive issue, and it's hard to condense it down into one blog post without the context of Dominic's whole talk. So if you're interested in what he had to say, I'd highly recommend getting the TWIST talks on CD if/when they go onsale from Emu.

One thing I find interesting is when he says that it's the world that has shifted its perspective, not the Bible, not God. God's word hasn't changed but society has, so to our 'modern', post-feminist sensibilities, a passage like this seems oppressive and archaic. But Dominic stresses that the Bible's teaching on gender matters, that this is God's instruction to us, and as Paul says, if you overthrow the Bible's teaching on gender, you will be ignored. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything worse than being ignored by God. The very thought of it makes me quail.

He ends his series of talks with an exhortation to us to retain the theological heart of our music worship, but to remember that we are not just brains, we are bodies too, and we require an emotional response as well as an intellectual one. This is something that is certainly lacking in many Anglican churches, and something we touched on in the song leading workshop too, that people aren't engaged. As music leaders we need to engage peoples' hearts and minds and prompt them to respond to God's word in their lives.

After the talk, the kids who've been at the kids' programme get up the front and sing a song. You can tell that they're kids of musical parents because they dance and sing and are right into it (although there is always one kid who seems to stand front and center with no idea what's going on, just staring into the middle distance).

We close with a couple more rousing songs, and then it's all over for another year. Mum and I decide not to hang around for the sandwiches and head home for leftovers of delicious beef stew. Then I do some washing and nap. And that's the end of the long weekend! Lots to think about.

Twisted part 2

I'm really not concentrating this morning as we drive to TWIST for day 2. In fact, I'm just thinking about the pleasant vanilla scent of Tic Tacs as you pop them into your mouth (as I had just done) when we sail on past the Pennant Hills Road exit. "Was I supposed to get off there?" "Yeah." "Oh." After a few turns around, we eventually get back to the Kings School and head up to the main hall, hearing the strains of music from within.

The Kings School is absolutely massive (set on over 300 acres of land, according to their website). Coming from a small, inner-city school that (at the time) was located in an ex-factory, it's pretty eye-popping to wander around this exclusive, wealthy boys' school with so many facilities. In fact, even though there are no boys from the school around on the weekend, it feels weird being a girl at a boys' school. Things like having to use the boys' toilets and being overwhelmed by the persistent smell of urine in the grim toilet block; you can just picture some tiny boy being victimised at lunch time by those much bigger than him (I eventually found nicer 'visitors' toilets in the newer buildings). Or the posters and displays of inspirational men throughout history in the Centre for Learning and Leadership. Or the crude representations of male anatomy graffitied on classroom chairs and tables - I guess it goes to show that the old adage is true, boys will be boys, no matter where they go to school.

We learn a couple of new songs again (I especially like one of Mark Peterson's new ones that we did at NTE last year, The day will come (though I'm not sure I like the arrangement of it on Come Hear the Angels Sing, the latest Emu album)). One of the key ideas behind this year's conference is 'The Naked Church', borrowing the idea from Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef. Basically they're saying that we have such wonderful raw 'ingredients' that this year's TWIST is designed to strip it all back, and rather than just presenting us with the finished product, they show us different ways of putting things together to create a delicious, nourishing 'meal'. So, for example, they played In His Image and each verse played it in a different style just to show us how easy it was to completely change the feel of a song.

But the one I really enjoy is when we sing Crown Him with Many Crowns with the same melody and words as always, but with a really upbeat rock feel. It gives what is usually a very solemn, stately song an injection of energy and vibrancy that has everyone dancing around. It just shows you don't have to do songs the same way each time, that there is a place for doing the traditional hymns in a traditional style, but also for changing things up a bit.

Dominic's talk builds well on yesterday's. I've got written at the top of my page "Before you think about the volume of the guitar, you need to think about the heart of the band", which I think is a good summary of yesterday's talk! Today's passage (1 Cor 14:1-25) is mostly about gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues. Dominic said that although some churches make it a very public thing, speaking in tongues is a private form of communication with God that does nothing to help those who are listening because it is unintelligible. It's especially alienating to the visitor or outsider. So similarly, with music and the way we structure our church services, we need to be mindful of whether we are serving people, whether we are playing music to build others up, or whether we're doing it to make ourselves look good. He said, "I don't see that there's any place in church for a Latin chant." (basically because nobody speaks Latin, so what help would it be to get people to sing something they can't understand) "Sure, you might have the best Latin chant ever...sing it at home! Don't bring it to church!"

After morning tea, there's a special concert for kids' music, with lots of kids and parents who have come especially for it. Ben Pakula plays first, and totally rocks out with songs from his excellent new album, A Very Special Tent. This is a Christian kids' album for kids who aren't really into the...gentler kinds of kids music. This is for kids (and maybe parents) who love their guitars loud. I had had the privilege of listening to some of the album last week when we went to Ben and Stacie's for lunch, but it's just as good on second and third listenings (one of my favourite lyrics of Ben's is "Thank you God for lollies! (and for giving me a good toothbrush").

After Ben's bit was the J is for Jesus concert. It's a bit like the Christian version of the Wiggles or Hi-5 (though I should be loathe to compare anyone to Hi-5, I dislike them so) - the little kids absolutely love it. They've all heard the CD so many times they know all the songs and the bits when they're supposed to sing really loud. Sarah, Julie and Matt muck around and ham it up, showing a completely different side to themselves than the one they display when they lead the adult singing.

We head outside for lunch. The weather is totally opposite to yesterday; it's cold and drizzly. But we find a step under an awning and eat our sandwiches. Then it's off to workshops. I'm in Sound Recording, led by Rob Smith. He's friendly and warm and I learn a couple of tips and tricks about amateur recording, though I realise that I have learned quite a lot already by just teaching myself how to use GarageBand. It's much more helpful than yesterday's seminar, though, and inspires me with the possibilities of what I can do with my dinky little home set-up. Though I think I'm actually going to have to buy a proper microphone one of these days.

There is a huge rainbow arcing over the campus as I walk back to the car. Mum joins me from her songleading workshop and we head home. I briefly toss up going to church, but although I'm not quite as tired as yesterday, I realise I just need to get inside and have a rest. Maybe I'll go and have a hot bath.

Twisted

For a mother's day present I bought mum a ticket to TWIST. We have both been heavily involved in music ministry for a number of years. She is still carrying the can at St Martin's, and I had to have a long break when I moved to Wild Street as I was quite burned out. I thought TWIST would be a good thing to go to, as when we've been in the past it has really energised us and re-motivated us, and refocused our vision on why we do music at church. It's a pretty good thing to do with our long weekend too (although just blobbing out would have been pleasant too, but I can do that on a regular weekend).

We get up early and head off to Parramatta and the Kings School. I decide to take all the toll roads because it's less hassle and also I don't have to think too much about how to get where we're going. It's quick and there's hardly any traffic.

We hang around in the quad at the Kings School after we register, soaking up the delicious sun that has been hiding behind sopping rainclouds for the last week. Everyone blinks sleepily into the morning light; I don't think musos on the whole are made to be awake before midday.

After a while, we shuffle into the chilly auditorium, and grab a seat in the third row centre. With about four minutes to go, a giant projection of a clock starts counting down on the screen while the band wanders onstage and starts getting ready to play. The countdown is oddly mesmerising. And the exact moment it hits zero, the band launches into Hallelujah to the King of Kings.

Any sleepiness is gone, a huge grin breaks out on my face, which is reflected back in the faces of the singers as we just exult in singing praises to our great God. I've always loved this song sung congregationally, since the first time I sang it at TWIST a number of years ago. It has such a great sense of momentum and when you sing it with hundreds of people you really do get a sense of that heavenly praise. I'm excited to sing again in a room full of musicians and music-minded people who are full-voiced and joyous.

The irrepressible Jodie McNeill is the MC as always, and his energy and enthusiasm is infectious. He introduces Dominic Steele, this year's speaker, with a game of 'Twist and Specks', asking Dominic to sing tunes to some well-known Emu songs using the words from this year's conference booklet (Dominic gratefully hands the duty over to one of the band members instead, who makes a good job of it!).

We sing more songs, some good new ones that I imagine will be popping up in churches all over the place fairly soon. That's the thing I like about TWIST - there is so much singing! Normally at conferences you get a couple of songs at the beginning, a couple in the middle and one at the end, but at TWIST you sing two or three songs in a row after each segment from the front.

Dominic preaches on 1 Corinthians 12-13. He reminds us that there is no particular gift that marks you out as a 'spirit person', but the marker is whether or not Jesus is Lord of your life. We need to remember that being a musician in church is no more important than being a dish washer - it isn't the task that is the gift so much as the faithfulness that means you turn up week after week to serve others. Each member of the church has different gifts and each one is called to use those gifts to build up the body (that is, the church) so that it can proclaim Christ. Every gift is needed, valued and wanted.

The key comes in chapter 13, when Paul talks about love. It's a passage that's famously used at weddings, but Dominic pleaded with us not to use it: "In context, it's actually a stinging rebuke from Paul, saying 'this is what you aren't'! Not really something you want to say at your wedding!" But the idea that comes out of it is that our service should be an act of love for others, not an act of self-promotion or false humility. Love is other-person centred, and this must be shown in the way we do everything in church, including music, because ultimately it is all for the glorification of God.

More singing, then morning tea, then we split into two large groups for a 'thinktank' session. I go to the one on creativity in music ministry, and mum goes to one on 'why people don't sing in church'. We meet up for lunch in the quad and chat about what we'd learned in our sessions.

After lunch is the first of our workshop sessions for the weekend. I had chosen 'Song Leading Advanced - Harmony'. Perhaps I misinterpreted the title; I assumed that it would be a reasonably advanced group. But when Janelle, the leader says at the beginning "If you're like me and can hear harmony almost as soon as you've learned a song, you might want to leave now and find another group because this is going to be pretty basic", my heart sinks and I realise that 'advanced' means the next stage up from singing the melody as a songleader, not 'advanced harmony'. But I'm sitting in the front row, she is one of our AFES Staffworker wives, and we had been told we weren't allowed to swap workshops, so I don't feel like I can leave.

I'm fairly bored for most of the session, especially the musicianship stuff. But if anything it makes me realise how much of my musicality is intuitive and innate. When did I learn this stuff? I mean, yes, I did AMEB piano and flute throughout high school, and learned jazz piano at uni, but I don't remember ever actively learning how to sing or create harmonies. I could just hear them. I just knew them. Maybe it was because my mum had always sung to me, and we sang together from when I was a little kid. I think I definitely have a good ear for it, much more than looking at a chord chart and being able to see patterns and possibilities there. In fact, my piano and flute improvisation was always a bit lacklustre because I could never make the sounds in my head translate into the instruments. But with singing, it just came out how I wanted it to sound, usually.

I realise I am very blessed with that!

We head home and are both exhausted and starving by the time we walk in the door. We have pizza for dinner, I sew a little bit, the cat is happy to sit in front of the heater with us, and all is well with the world. Now to bed, so I have the energy for TWIST Day Two!

falling through the cracks

I haven't read any of Debra Adelaide's books, but I was taken by an interview with her in this week's Spectrum, where she talks about the process of writing her latest book, The Household Guide to Dying. This seems to underline the point I made at last year's Faithful Writer* about how important time, space and support are to creativity and writing.

...The Household Guide To Dying must have been forming unconsciously for years. By the time she embarked on the novel in 2003, her marriage had ended and she was raising three children - Joe, now 18, Ellen, 15, and Callan, 10 - in south-west Sydney while working as a book reviewer and part-time creative writing teacher. That year she scored a full-time lecturer's position at the University of Technology, Sydney. Then Callan developed leukemia.

Again Adelaide is adamant that her novel is not about her son's illness. However, two years of treatment, worry and work left her little time to write. Callan recovered but Adelaide was not sure if her novel would. "I was afraid to look at it because I thought, how can I continue writing a flippant novel about dying when my own son's been suffering with leukemia? I had to make a decision. So I forced myself to open it one day and I found I could go on with it."

A small research grant enabled Adelaide to offload some of her teaching last year and meet a self-imposed deadline. "I felt convinced that a book I'd written to amuse myself in snatched time in a little corner of my bedroom - a novel I had to fit into the cracks of my life - couldn't possibly work." When she handed it over to her agent, Lyn Tranter, she said, "You'll probably tell me to go away and give it a decent burial." Tranter, however, decided to auction the book.

I love that phrase "a novel I had to fit into the cracks of my life"; that's exactly what it feels like writing my book Undragon Stories. I want to give it more time and space, but feel like my life is so stretched most of the time, there's nowhere to put it.

Yet every so often I get a little burst of enthusiasm about the book, like yesterday when I workshopped a very small scene I wrote a few weeks ago and felt greatly encouraged by my fellow Word-By-Word writers. I've checked out a few grants here and there, because it would be so wonderful to be able to buy a slab of time that I could use to finish the book. But most of the big ones, even if you're applying for the new or 'emerging' writers grants, you have to have a certain number of things already published. I've had a few things published, but not nearly enough. So how do you prioritise? Is it more important to work hard on a book to get it finished, or to work on shorter pieces you can get published in journals so you can apply for the money to allow you to work hard on the book to get it finished?

At this point, just writing at all is a victory, and I'm happy to claim it.


* by the way, this year's Faithful Writer conference is coming up on August 2. The keynote speaker is Mark Tredinnick, he of The Little Red Writing Book fame. There will be writing time, workshop time, and some great seminars (Karen and I are running a seminar on Writers and Editors, but we both want to go and hear the others too!). Along with Mark Tredinnick and Greg Clarke, I'll be reading some of my work at the end of the day. You should come along - register now if you haven't already!

The day after

I feel sick and sad. This always happens after conferences, or shows, but this time seems worse than the others. My entire body is aching - I'm just one big ache - but no matter what I do I can't get comfortable. I'm almost too tired to go to sleep, if that makes sense.

Last night I fell asleep the wrong way round on my bed - with my head down the foot of the bed. I have no idea how I got into that position, but it was more comfortable than sleeping the right way round for some reason. The only problem was that it meant I kicked the glass of water on my bedside table over at about 3am. Then at about 5.30am I woke to a weird buzzing noise - the mobile that had been handed in to lost property was in my bag and of course it had a vibrating alarm set for 5.30am. Of course! So I facebooked for a while and pottered around before driving mum into the city for work, and then going to work myself.

I had planned for a short day but ended up staying til 5.00. I had lunch with Karen and Ben at the Sinma Laksa House across the road, which was delicious (one of the few places in Sydney I've been to that feels just like being in Malaysia). Good to chat to the two of them; I realise that although I am fond of him, I don't actually know Ben very well. Must remedy that.

The office was quiet as Mark, Howard and Jess are all away (or in and out) on NTE mission. So it was kind of nice to just tidy things up a bit. I got absorbed in putting together a DVD of all the good photos I'd taken at NTE and before I knew it, it was 5.00 and even Guan was going home before me! (this is a rarity)

I've been feeling listless and kind of washed out ever since I got home. I know I'm just tired, but I just can't shake it. And the humidity doesn't help either. But I am glad to be at home and able to just blob around on the couch with my laptop, and not to have to talk to people, and not to have to run over to the dining hall to avoid the crush, and not to have to deal with daily dramas (although I did learn today that Snowy's van, containing five peoples' luggage, got stolen during the last session! UNSW people had to turn around and come back to pick people up and last we heard, Snowy was still in Canberra waiting to deal with the police. Also the people at the Canberra Theatre knocked over a guitar stand and damaged some of the guitars after the last session, so now there's an impending insurance claim...you'd think by the end of the conference nothing else could go wrong...).

Oh! And another exciting thing that happened today was that the real estate agent said I could have a kitten! Heath and Simone have one they needed to find a home for, so come Sunday I'll have my very own 6 week-old boy kitten! Here he is being cuddled by Sim:

home

I'm finally home! I am so tired and sore I can barely speak, but for some reason just need to wind down before I can actually sleep.

The conference finished up beautifully; Greg's last talk on Hebrews was moving and powerful, the singing rocked and we managed to get some great group shots of everyone in the lovely blue NTE t shirts (which I designed). Then after a lot of mucking around and toing and froing, we finally hit the road (with a bag of Maccas in hand) and made it back to Sydney by around 6.00pm. I arrived home to a delicious dinner and catch up with mum and Dave, and am just so happy to be back in my home, clean and comfortable and not beset by flies or spiders.

And now...to sleep.

writing

Oh! I just realised I forgot to write about the Writing network time we did yesterday.

We were in the cavernous junior common room at John XXIII college, and had to kick people out who were watching The Chaser's War on Everything (we did invite them to stay, but none of them did). It was a bit of a weird set up, but we tried to make it close enough that people would be able to hear, etc. The thing that was tricky was that we didn't know how many people to expect - we could have had three or 30. I probably would have preferred to have all sat round a table, but since we didn't know if there would be enough chairs we ended up just having us sitting on this weird little dais with a crescent of chairs in front (looked a bit like a morning chat show).

In all, we had 12 people turn up. Most other groups got an average of 20, so we didn't do that badly, although I had expected more. Part of the problem was it wasn't advertised well at the main meetings, and as it's the first year we've run network time people didn't really know what to expect. Anyway, Karen gave a great talk on why we write, deconstructing the romantic myth of the writer as some tragic, melodramatic type who is captivated by a muse, and basically saying that it's important for us to use words - but to use them well, to use them truthfully.

I then talked about how to write, and people seemed to get a lot out of what I said. I quoted copiously from other, wiser heads than mine, but also gave little practical bits of advice that I have found helpful over the years, such as don't have your writing space in your bedroom, read a lot, try and write something (no matter how brief or dodgy) every day, support other writers with encouragement and prayer, have people around you who support you, and recognise that it is a difficult but rewarding pursuit.

We wanted to have a writing and workshopping time, but the group didn't really seem to be into it, and I think we were hampered by the weird room and the arctic air conditioning. Still, we chatted about blogging and other kinds of writing, then prayed and went off to dinner (and Karen drove back to Sydney).

I think it was worth doing, but if we do it again in the future we will know what things we need to be aware of beforehand.

One good thing that came out of it is that Karen had a great idea for a collaborative Christian writers' website where we can post articles, links, useful information and also blog about writing. I am quite excited by the prospect of collaborating with Karen and Guan. Let's hope we get the momentum to get it going! (does that make sense? guh. you know what I mean)

almost there...

Ah we're on the home stretch. We have had to move venues, for the last part of the conference, so tonight we will be at the Canberra Theatre. I feel sorry for the poor techies who have to completely bump out one venue and bump in to the next venue in 24 hours. But I'm sure it will all go well.

I've had fun with Andrew's camera - here are some pics of the main meetings at the National Convention Centre just so you can see what I've been working on this week!


Today's been a little more cruisy, as we didn't have a main meeting this morning. I was supposed to drive Cheryl to the bus stop this morning, as she was leaving at 9.00. Of course, I thought I knew where I was going and actually didn't so...she missed the bus. In fact, it was so close we saw the bus turning the corner as we ran into the bus depot. Grr. So I took her out for a coffee while I had breakfast (a most delicious mocha and blintzes with ricotta and sultana) and she had to hang around for a while waiting for the 12.30 bus. I did manage to get her there in time for that one, though, so that was good!

I then went and met Jackie at her workplace, we bought some delicious food from the Prime Minister's cafeteria (well the one in his building anyway, it's not his personal cafeteria) and went to eat in the Old Parliament House rose garden. It was so beautiful, flies notwithstanding (Canberra is not only the capital for the Australian people, it must be the capital of flies as well). We had a good catch-up, and just revelled in the lovely surrounds, the cool breeze and the dappled sun. She also brought me a bag of spectacular looking cherries that she picked on the weekend at Young.
The as I drove back, I found myself sitting at traffic lights opposite the impressive structure that is 'new' Parliament House. I could also see a number of people rolling down the grassed roof and wondered whether they were our students (wouldn't surprise me). How typically Australian! Although the security guards probably don't condone it and the average citizen probably wouldn't rate it as one of their favourite things to do, how lucky we are to live in a place where you can roll down the roof of Parliament House - imagine trying to even lie down on the lawn at the White House; you'd probably be shot!




No spider in my bed last night, you'll be pleased to know, and I've only got one more night here. Then it's home sweet home!

bed bugs biting

Everything's just so full on here. Every time there is any tiny little thing that that goes wrong, people deal with it in strange and unique ways. I'm trying not to take on the stress levels of other people and get done what I need to get done, but people just keep freaking out and making it all worse.

But having said that, not much has really gone wrong. It's just mountains out of molehills, that kind of thing.

Also, I woke up with the world's most intense headache this morning, bordering on migraine territory. Had to confront the horrid shower again and then when I came back, I pulled back my sheets to make my bed and something black and about 2cm long hurried away and over the side of the bed. I didn't have my glasses on so couldn't see what it was, but...well, tried not to think about it too hard or it might make me completely lose it.

I avoided the breakfast queue and went to Macca's instead, sat by myself and had a highly unhealthy breakfast. Didn't take in much of the talk this morning but was photographing again, though I did enjoy belting out a few songs.

I'm trying to finish gathering my thoughts for this afternoon's writing time, but haven't quite managed it yet. People keep finding me and asking me to do things. Also I went back to the room and thought I'd check my bed again, and sure enough the critter had reinstated itself in the middle of my warm bed - turned out to be a large black spider. Lucky I'm not an arachnophobe. But EWWW. I shooed it away and rolled my bed into the middle of the room, figuring that at least if it wasn't against the wall and the window, the spider might choose somewhere else to nest. I hope.

friends, food and sustenance

It's been a big weekend!

As always with NTE, I find it quite hard to process everything. It's like getting a juggernaut going, this conference, but once it's rolling there's no stopping it. There has been torrential rain, as well as all the other dramas I've mentioned, but the students seem to just be loving it. And it is a pretty amazing conference to come to. Everyone is really positive this year.

I met up with a friend, Jono, who stayed with us a couple of years ago when the UTS mission team was at our church. He graduated this year and has moved to work as an electrical engineer in Singleton. He rang me last week to wish me a good NTE, and after our hour's conversation he decided he was going to drive 6 hours there and 6 hours back to come to NTE just for one and a half days. That's how much some people love it! It was great to see him, and I think he needed to have some soaking in the word, and being with other Christians as he is the only Christian in his workplace and is quite isolated.

We went to a cafe called Cream, in the new section of the Canberra Centre. We had hot chocolate, a yummy cheese platter, and a great chat (inspired by Karen I've started photographing my food).


(not a great photo of either of us, but there you go)

Today I've had some time to do a bit of writing and prepare for the writing network time we'll be running tomorrow. Karen arrived and we went to the National Gallery. We saw a curious exhibition of artworks by a Japanese Buddhist nun, Rengetsu, who used to paint and make pottery sake and tea vessels, inscribed with poetry. I found it quite fascinating, seeing these small, crudely made yet beautiful items covered in Japanese characters, and thinking how intrinsically words were a part of this woman's everyday life. Much of the poetry was quite beautiful as well. I would have liked the catalogue, just to read a bit more about her, but couldn't really justify buying it.

After wandering around the other exhibitions, soaking up a bit of impressionism at the end, we looked at everything in the bookshop and I had to resist buying many things. Then we headed back to the Canberra Centre to go to Koko Black. Karen had written about this place when she visited it in Melbourne, and was very excited when I suggested we go there.



This is what we had - a 'Belgian spoil' with delicious hot chocolate. Oh, it was good.

Tonight I managed to get my hands on Andrew's Canon EOS 40D digital SLR camera, so spent the whole meeting wandering around taking photos and remembering how satisfying it is to use a beautiful camera. I'll post some of the pics when I get them off the camera.

Now I just have to finish putting together my talk for tomorrow, and hopefully get some sleep!

swan dive

It's calm now. The first session went beautifully and Greg Lee's talk on Hebrews was fantastic. The venue looks great, the singing sounds amazing, everyone is amped up and it's all good. Added to that, none of the delegates know about the major dramas and our collective blood pressure has eased somewhat.

God is great!

I'm going to go out now, find a cafe and read some of the Saturday paper.

today's catalogue of chaos

• the rest of the mugs still haven't turned up
• the Fijians didn't get visas granted in time so haven't turned up
• all the doors need to be open as people keep coming in and out and registering, and so there is a lot of beeping of different pitches and paces and it's almost enough to drive one insane
• the people at the Convention Centre (our main venue) neglected to arrange for the electricity to be turned on, so our techies turned up at 5.30am to bump in and were not able to. The electricity has to be turned on by someone with a special key to the special room, etc, etc. Insanity rules. There was a brief panic when we thought we'd have to cancel the first session but I think it's going ahead now.

I would say at this point that you should not get too excited about having everything organised before you arrive at the conference because invariably, everything else will go wrong when you actually get there.

a revelation

I think it's quite amusing that I tend to blog more when I'm away from home. Obviously more is happening that I need to process, and also I need to feel connected to normalcy in some small way.

I woke up at 6am this morning, so decided to get up and go to the gym. It was great - I only did about 40 minutes, but felt so much better for it. Got a huge coffee and a muffin and started off the day much happier than I have the last couple of days. Also had a shower in the gym's clean, bright showers so didn't have to contend with the mould.

Today has been a busy sort of day, but bitsy, running around doing odd jobs and getting stressed out by constant demands from people. But still, I got to hear Richard Chin's talk on Revelation 6-7, which was excellent and extremely challenging (one big point I took away was that although we in the west might not face death for following Christ, we need to live as though death would be preferably to faithlessness - or anything else without Christ, really. Might sound extreme, but, well, it is!).

I was planning to just hole up somewhere and chill out on my own most of the night, but a bunch of staffworkers from Newcastle asked me to go to see Elizabeth: the Golden Age, and I jumped at the chance to get out and see a movie. I don't seem to do enough of that anymore.

The movie was gorgeous to look at, but I found it quite disjointed and disappointing in its portrayal of religion, and the way it played fast and loose with historical facts (though I didn't really expect anything else). The Catholics (especially the Spanish Catholics) were all zealots and going to war as ordained by God; the English Protestants were basically just English - England was the thing that mattered, and God didn't really get a look in, even though they were staking their whole identity on a question of religion. I need to do more reading on church history to get the facts straight in my head; that's the problem with this type of movie, the glossy narrative and visuals tend to stick more than something you read in a book.

But it's interesting how there were resonances there with what David Brown, the General Secretary of the GBU, said in his talk last night about student work in France (GBU is the French equivalent of AFES). He was explaining why the French have the attitude they do to Christianity, and said that basically they have had it ingrained in them for centuries that religion equals war. Having seen some of that portrayed in the movie tonight, it's easy to see how people would believe that.

The passage Richard was speaking from this morning was about the four horsemen of the apocalypse that bring conquest, leading to war, leading to famine, leading to death. The language is poetic and symbolic, and can be hard to get your head around. But the fact is this: it isn't some vision of the future, of things that will happen someday. This is the world we live in now. It makes us weep and cry for justice when we see the things that are happening in our world, when we see man's inhumanity to man.

Yet the only one who can bring peace and justice and restore things to right is our God. Not a Queen. Not a regime. Not any earthly power, be it a treaty, United Nations, or international war tribunal. Only God can do that. And the way he chose to do that was through giving his son as the atoning sacrifice for all this evil, all this suffering, all this sin in the world so that we would be washed clean of all this filth. It's quite incredible. Revelation uses the symbolic imagery of the Lamb (= Christ, the innocent sacrifice), and his blood washing us white as snow. As Richard said, it's bizarre! Have you ever tried to get a stain out by using lamb's blood? But that's the image - that through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, we are made perfect in God's sight. What a wonderful thing.

In his love and infinite patience, God is waiting for us to turn back to him so that many more can be with him in the new creation...what a glorious day that will be!

Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?"

I answered, "Sir, you know."

And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore,
"they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Revelation 7:13-17