Paul Long's Ramblings

I like this story very much! :-) A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time. This story teaches two lessons: 1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can...

Just posted up my weekly Pastor's Notes. It's some reflections on another chapter from Alex Tang's book "Spiritual Formation on the Run" - Omission and commission reflections .

Had a lot of positive response to my last Sunday's sermon. More than usual so I am "chuffed" and motivated to do some more reflection on sermons and preaching before I blog on the preaching forum ... For the curious my topic was "Samson: A good bad example". I love narrative preaching and I felt a look at Samson's life would be something beneficial to my congregation (self included) due to some interesting church developments. I am so glad that I decided to preach that sermon. I found out too that I need to spend more time in choosing how I word my sermon titles. The sermon title in itself I discovered helped stir up interest in the sermon (among other things). My Good Friday sermon "The stewardship of pain" (a title inspired by Frederick Buchener) had a similar effect and one church member mentioned this to me a few times already and how she is still thinking about the sermon contents and how the title helped. Hmmm... And in 2 weeks I will be pr...

Haven't posted for a few days. Been busy la :-) Also somehow been feeling rather tired of late. By 9 PM or so I find that I start to get drowsy and when I do sleep I have been finding that I wake up still feeling drowsy and have to force myself to get up (even though it wasn't a deep sleep). I suspect that it is because the sunrise is not as early anymore now that it is already mid autumn. We put in a ventilation system (DVS) in our house a few weeks ago. We have been saving since July (when we bought our house) for a heat pump but decided that a DVS would be better value for money and more relevant to our house needs. Our house is pretty cooling in summer (we have lots of windows that can open wide unlike our previous place) and it is not that cold either. But moisture / condensation has been a bigger problem (esp with a certain son's room) and two of us in the house have dust mite / dust allergies. So DVS it was ... and we are pretty pleased with it. Next on our to consid...

My post relates to a NZ Herald report (see below). Often I get confused as to why things bother people. I keep thinking to myself that this is another ridiculous PC issue that is overblown. Last night I watched on TV an interview with the only "genuine" Inuit NZer. For him, it is a nice thing to be known as an Eskimo. But am I missing something? Am I just plain insensitive? I remember some years back how someone from US visiting Malaysia made "noise" about the Darkie toothpaste ... about how racist it was etc and it eventually became "Darlie" toothpaste I found out here (and seen too in newspaper reports) that many people refer to European white Kiwis as "pakeha". But some do not like the term as they deem it derogatory. Others simply don't bother. Anyway I found it ironic this report of an interview in a Canadian newspaper , the following ... Seeka Veevee Parsons made headlines across New Zealand this week after complaining to a TV crew ab...

Ok,. here's a response to Sivin's post on " 7 pleasures that keep me sane " and his mail on "friends in conversation" 1. Reading a good comic book. Thank God for the Waitakere library! :-) 2. Fooling around with some "magic" stuff 3. Experimenting with a new recipe for dinner (but it has to follow my "must be simple and everything done plus cleaning up in 45 minutes" rule). 4. Curling up in bed with my wife to watch one of our favourite TV shows. 5. Blogging 6. Fooling around with either my guitar or ukulele 7. .... will reserve the last one for another time. If I have to choose seven, I want to think longer about the last one :-)

This story came in an e-mail list (mostly jokes) ... so it was unexpected. I like it as I have been "promoting" finding ways of showing love to our neighbours (e.g. via my "Pastors Notes" column). I thought story was a great illustration. The sack lunches I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. "I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap," I thought. Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. "Where are you headed?" I asked the soldier seated nearest to me. "Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan." After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. ...

Finished my Sunday sermon preparation!! Now only have to redo the ppt presentation. Decided to just limit myself to 4 slides this time.... :-) Anyway to "reward myself" I caught up with some reading and world news and found a nice online newspaper (Irish independent news) via an article sent to me by "Dr. Haiwan". The article he sent me was "The dark side of Duba i" . Be warned, it is a long and very disturbing article. One of the most disturbing is the "legal slavery" upon which Dubai depends on. Then another article caught my eye (in the Middle East section) .. WOMEN were pelted with stones in Kabul yesterday when they mounted a rare street protest against a new Afghan law said to legalise marital rape . That's as much terrible news I can handle for today ... so I quit reading anymore.... ok back to my sermon ppt

First workshop I attended was entitled "How can the baton of biblical preaching be passed on to young people?" Quite a few young people were there. Presenter was a doctoral student whose daughter (teenager) was very into preaching (all began during a mission trip). That was interesting.... as she had personal conflicts as she was from the older school (despite being a woman preacher) and more academically inclined where strong biblical exegesis is foundational for preaching. Presentation was excellent in terms of exploring some of the hows and whys (which was her bigger issue) and a quick look at the general differences between "baby boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y" and stuff like that. One of the funny parts was her showing of this video ... Mrs. Beamish, a song by a duo Richard Stilgoe & Peter Skellern. However in the end I was left rather disappointed as what I was looking for was not generalizations of things already known (true as they may be) like 1. Make the de...

The opening address by Paul Windsor was entitled "Preaching within the borders of the book of Acts" Like I mentioned in my first post on this topic, it was an excellent presentation. Wish he had more time. Basically he highlighted the fact that it is very unfortunate that too many people have accepted CH Dodd's oft quoted words (which is simply wrong) that "The New Testament draws a clear distinction between teaching and preaching ...teaching (didaskein) is in a large majority of cases ethical instruction (while) preaching (keryssein) is public proclamation of Christianity to the non-Christian world." He went on to show how other scholars have shown that there were numerous "speaking" words of great variety in the NT which related to preaching. Kittel in TDNT for example mentions 33 words! I thought the quote from Peter Adam (first time I have heard this scholars name and I will now pay special attention whenever I do hear his name) was really enlight...

Thought I'd blog on yesterday's forum. It certainly was an interesting one for me though I must say I had mixed feelings in terms of enjoying it because : 1. I had a bad headache - taking panadol every 4 hours *sigh* It took a lot of energy to focus. 2. I did not know anyone there except one of the presenters (whom I had met almost 2 years ago) and one other participant (one of the senior lecturers in the missions department of Laidlaw College) 3. I felt that most people were not exactly friendly (due to the fact that they had their own cliques, which was fair enough) and I had come alone. Just a handful made some effort to respond in friendliness to me. a. A very senior man who was a lay preacher. Rambling on and on (like me! LOL ) when he sat down for lunch which got me confused as i had a headache ... b. stand up comedian who works part time for his church as one of the preaching team members. (Yup- you read that right - and it was good to chat with him as I had actually bee...

It has been a fruitful week despite suffering headaches, some nausea and dizziness for a few days. Someone told me that "there's a bug going around" ... which is reason for praise as for me it has been on and off and no fever and major aches (which this person said will come). So three days already and I am pretty ok. I am now ahead of time in my preparation for my next two sermons... YES!!! Got the outlines done etc for 26th April and 10 May :-) And tomorrow I will be away for the whole day for my first NZ preaching seminar cum forum - organized by Langham Partnership NZ (the NZ branch of John Sottt's Langham UK based organization) and Carey Graduate School. Looking forward to a good learning experience as the focus is 1. to encourage a biblical preaching that is rooted in this Aotearoa-NZ context 2. to probe the question faced by preachers in Aotearoa-NZ today and resource them with answers 3. to gather together both experienced and emerging preachers and make space...

Elsie (from SU Malaysia) sent me this link. Thanks Elsie! http://www.cultureu nplugged. com/play/ 1081/Chicken- a-la-Carte I agree with her that it is something we all need to watch. I remember growing up and having my mother tell us her children to eat up what was in front of us etc and when we were reluctant would add something along the lines of "Do you know how many people are starving in Africa and would be so grateful to eat your leftovers?" Of course the impact of her words were often much reduced because it was not always given in the right context. Often, there was just too much food. Today I find myself "preaching" the same sermon: "Don't waste food." "If you order, make sure you finish it!" "Don;t take what you cannot finish!" .... and a whole host of other admonitions! I do this not just because of what my mother used to tell me but because I believe it to...

Had a very interesting appointment today.... A lunch / breakfast meeting with some good ministry buddies from Malaysia. The four of us used to serve together as part of our seminary alumni committee. Patrick (NECF), Ron (New Life Restoration ..) and Frankli n (used to Pastor an FGA church but is now a College lecturer). And it was nice too to have someone I really admire join us at the last minute Rev. Lai (former pastor, NECF and now with Focus on the Family). Quite a privilege as the meeting was to catch up and have fellowship and after ward brainstorm on church leadership issues (Ron bein g the new chairman of NECF's leadership commission and Patrick being the NECF liason in this committee). They had their coffee and roti canai for breakfast while I had Fejoias and a pear for my lunch :-) Quite interesting especially since Patrick kept having to move the video cam every now and then so I could see everyone's faces as they talked. Very interesting conversations :-) But also...

This is a cross post ... just finished my pastor's notes for the bulletin and website and then thought ... hey, I should post this up on my blog too. Thanks Sivin for the link to the very practical article. --------- That was the eye catching title of an article on the Sojourners blog. Click here for the article. But what does it mean to “love your neighbor”? And is it important? According to Jesus “loving your neighbor as yourself” is the second greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' So yes, it is important. Michael Wilkins in his commentary on Matthew rightly says that it is helpful to go to the sermon on the Mount to see how Jesus understands “love”. I think he has it spot as he continues that: “Love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect p...

I found this post in Scott McKnight's blog interesting as of late I have been thinking about clothing and how I / we dress. It has come about due to a Ladies Meeting coming up soon where one member will be giving a talk on dressing (Fashion, colour coordination etc). As I make the announcements each Sunday, I could not help but think that living in NZ in a country where we have different seasons allows women (and men too) to have a greater variety of dress styles. And I do appreciate that that is a pleasant thing (to the eye) Anyway here's McKnights' post first (at least his has spiritual content! :-)) and my reflections later ... ---- Faith in Jesus Christ implicates a person in his way of life. Here is a sketch, a caricature that delves at the same time in the depths of the ordinary: James 2: 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing ...

My Easter present to myself. I am now a sponsor of a child under CMCT, India :-) I blanked out some of the info... I like the way they do the write up and give me the info with a picture etc. Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter!

I just got some photos that were taken of a magic show I did a month ago for a local Kindergarten. First time I was doing a show for a kindergarten and did it as a favour for a friend. It was a lot of fun despite the fact that it was pouring cats and dogs that morning and I got soaked. So it was quite ironic that my magic show was based around my water routine. Playing with water is always fun. :-) The big smiles on the faces of the children and their laughter was definitely worth my time. A pity that I do not have photos of my last show a week or so ago at the Baptist Church, Next time I must specifically ask someone to take photos for me.

The "new" Kelston Community Church (KCC) is now 13 years old. "New" because 13 years ago a group of Christians moved over from their church to merger with the former KCC, which was a "dying" church with a dozen members to form a new look church. It was from what I understand and can see ... it was a great combination as the church grew slowly but surely. The majority of the Christians who moved over were ex-Malaysian so this brought a Malaysian (truly Asia) flavour to the new KCC. Over time, we evolved to be a more international community... and this opened the door for me to come over as Pastor due to the international flavour. :-) Today we have people who have roots in ... Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, India, Ghana, Zimbawe, Tuvalu (I think), China, Australia, Germany, Holland, UK and of course NZ. Oh, we had two cakes because we also surprised one of our elders and his wife (it will be their 40th wedding anniversary next week)... some of you might know t...

Not the nicest piece of news to read. But at least NZ officials are not "denying" the potential problem. Really sad that this is still happening around the world. Terrible to read that Malaysia supplies in this sex slaves trade. Sex slaves may be working in NZ, officials say http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565125&pnum=0 4:00AM Saturday Apr 04, 2009 By Jared Savage Fear of reprisals can stop victims from speaking up. Immigration officials admit that women could be working undetected as sex slaves in New Zealand, despite previous assurances that there is no evidence of a problem. The Cabinet will be asked to set up a taskforce involving seven Government departments to stop human trafficking in this country. The action plan follows criticism in United States intelligence reports, which name New Zealand as a destination for traffickers from Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and other Asian countries. Police and advocates for...

It's this weekend. I think I blogged about this in my now defunct Multiply blog. Four people, one goal: 100kms in 36 hours April 4 & 5, 2009 @ Lake Taupo Oxfam Trailwalker challenges teams of four to walk or run 100kms through some of central North Island’s most spectacular terrain in 36 hours. Read more about it here . If you feel generous, consider supporting one of these teams (there are many teams participating) ... gossipgirls or Trailblazers You just need to type the name in the box "Find a team" and hit search. One of the gossipgirls Deboarah Teh (Christian) is a university student from my church and the Trailblazer s team leader, Julia Bode (non-Christian) is a friend whom I worked with in our refugee family. I stress the "Christian" and "non-Christian" part so you know that Oxfam is not a Christian organization but I do think it is a good organization. All the money goes to help the poor so it is no big diffe...

Ok .. something a bit more sober ... been cross posting this. Something I wrote for this week's church bulletin. Matthew 27:11-26 : 11 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 12 When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" 14 But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge-- to the great amazement of the governor. 15 Now it was the governor's custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18 For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. 19 While Pilate was sitting on the...

Got this in my mail today ... exaggerated of course as this doesn't actually happen ... at least not everything on the list :-) But I thought it funny Reasons churches don't ask clown ministries to return 10.Pesky escaped balloons stuck to the Sanctuary ceiling for weeks after they've gone. 9.That cream pie in the music ministers face wasn't accepted in the fun spirit in which is was offered. 8. They force people to smile during the 8 a.m. service. 7. It's hard to say with dignity, "The sermon today will be given by Brother Umpa-Doody." 6. Whoopee cushions inevitably appear under pew cushions. 5. Sermons take a lot longer when they are presented in pantomime. 4. Many denominations do not recognize seltzer water baptism. 3. Those bottomless trick glasses the clowns snuck in during the communion service. 2. Church Janitors charge extra to get all of the silly string off the Sanctuary ceiling. And the number one reason Churches don't invited Clown Min...