Blog Yellek

I’ve just posted a new track that I have been working on and I finally came up with a title: Proclamation. The people I have played it to have liked it so I hope you do too. You can get it here. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

I was reading Lessons from a Church Potluck over at Christian Singles Today and the thing that struck me about what Camerin was writing was a cry for community. It’s a cry that we all have from the bottom of our hearts, the cry to be loved, accepted, welcomed, understood. God created us as relational beings so when we feel that our relational needs are not being met or understood by others we hurt.

Our means of coping with and avoiding this hurt are many and varied: some retreat and close off from relationship so that they can avoid rejection. Some become chameleons, taking on the shape and color of what we perceive to be popular with greater or lesser degrees of success. Both of these are extremes though and what most of us do is to find as many people as we can that are like us and form relationships with them. This works. It gives us a sense of belonging and people who understand but there is a problem: numbers. If there aren’t enough people we know or can reasonably meet who share enough in common to form those sort of relationships then we feel the pain of lonliness and isolation. It’s not the fault of the others - they are just trying to do what we are doing, connect with like people.

If you find yourself in a situation like this, as so many single people in the church do, what can you do? Well one answer is to go somewhere that there are more people like you. This is why we see so many churches that cater to a narrow demographic and so many christian singles groups and organizations that cross congregational boundaries. Our singles ministry does that to an extent although when you go to a church as big as ours there are going to be a fair number of single people around in any case.

I think, however, that there is a more powerful way. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about God’s plan for the body of Christ to be a diverse collection of gifted individuals and this gives us a picture of what our fellowship should look like. The challenge to us is to show the love of God to those who are different to us and not just the people we have something in common with.

Yep it’s here! I just signed up and even bought a couple of songs. I was specifically looking to see what Christian artists were there. No Hillsong that I can see but I did see Jennifer Knapp, Audio Adrenaline and Petra all under the “Inspirational” category. I was also looking at DJ Tiesto’s Just Be Remixed album. I can forsee a dip in my bank balance Thanks to Neil Atwood for the heads up.

A convincing win no less!

Well tonight marks the beginning of a new Ultimate season and the Masters of Spin have been cleft in twain, forked, split, partitioned I tell you. There are now 2 Masters of Spin teams and I’m not sure how that will work out. Come out and see us at 8:30 if you like. We will be in the south parklands just east of Goodwood Rd.

I was reading this article in the Australian this morning over breakfast in a local cafe this morning and it set me to pondering as to what I thought about the idea of a divorce party.

Divorce is horrible, I’ve seen people I know go through it and it would have to rate up there with any of the most traumatic experiences it is possible to go through in this life. The idea of having a ritual, a cutting off point, to mark the passing of the old life, the one with all the pain and anguish, and the beginning of the new independant them is an appealing one. It is a celebration of independance and sufficiency apart from the partner that has hurt, and may still be hurting, them greatly, especially if there are kids and regular access visits involved.

Then I looked at it from another perspective: would you invite Jesus to a divorce party? If we are so busy declaring to the world that we are sufficient on our own is there room for us to depend on the one who gave His life for us? If the purpose is to validate the feelings of bitterness and hurt that divorce often engenders then how much more difficult is it to forgive the other person as Jesus compels us? If we can publicly blame the other person for what they have done then how is this reflecting the grace that God has shown us when we fail again and again? Is deliberately celebrating the end of a relationship the wrong message to be sending to our kids? In short is our desire to move on leading us into the sorts of behaviour that are spiritually unhealthy for us when we go overboard and is it making it more difficult for us to heal?

Are divorce parties wrong in general? I don’t know but I think that they are a temptation to do some really unhealthy things that need to be avoided and in that sense they need to be approached with extreme caution.