HIlls NZ Golf Open 2007

As an amateur (very amateur) golfer I look forward to watching some of the Hills NZ golf open over the next few days. NZ’s greatest hope is again Michael Campbell winner of the 2005 US open but like most sport in our country at the moment I don’t think many would rate his chances. He has been the absolute model of inconsistency for most of his career and probably more so since winning the US open.

Golf they say is a real mental game - you can read that one of two ways let’s go with the sensible way today. So is it the mental agility that Campbell lacks – he has a psychologist as do many other professional sportsmen and women today but can they really instil confidence in your swing or your putting?

Even the greatest golfers seem to have ‘off’ days’- how many times have we seen Phil Mickelson lose a tournament with an awful shot or maybe two or three awful shots?

And then there’s Tiger the enigma of world sport – does he ever have an off day? Of course it’s just that his off days are the equivalent of a good round for other golfers. There is something to be said for natural talent obviously but I suspect we can’t escape the dreaded P word – practice.

Even Michael Campbell admitted it on TV , that perhaps he had enjoyed the US open win a little too much – but it isn’t all his fault – we put him up there, asked him to every social event under the sun and encouraged him to be involved in all sorts of things.

Of course that’s my excuse too, too many social events – that’s why I didn’t get an invite to the tournament after all my best round is a 54! Let’s not mention that is for 9 holes!

No I’m afraid that when it all boils down to it, if you don’t put the hard yards in you won’t make the yards off the tee. Shame really I could be such a great golfer…not!

Transcendent Worship

Of late I have been listening to David Quinlan, a Portuguese worship leader on youtube. A friend of mine put me on to him. All of the lyrics are in Portuguese and my attempts to find a translation haven’t been entirely fruitful shall we say.

One of his songs in particular appeals, ‘abraca me’ – meaning ‘embrace me’.

Despite not knowing what the rest of the song actually says there is no doubt that this man is using his gifts to worship God. It gives you one of those ‘shiver’ sensations – the knowledge that there is something about it.

To put it in ‘christianese, there is an anointing on it.

That got me thinking that true worship is really transcendent – no not spooky new-age transcendence but transcendent in that it crosses barriers, barriers of language, style etc.

I don’t know what David Quinlan is singing about per se but I do know that he is worshiping God and something about it draws me to worship him (God that is) as well.

I think it is testament to what Jesus meant when he talked about the church being more than just a local congregation – as one we all worship the same God despite all those human variables like style that seem to be what we get hung up on – funny that.

The touch of the holy spirit on a song has no regard for whether it fits what we like or should I say how we like to worship.

The verse about ‘worshipping him in spirit and in truth’ comes to mind – perhaps this is what it meant? Just a thought – but for now if you are interested have a look at the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akds2ltYIx0

Flying a plane for the first time

First Time Flying…

For my 30^th Birthday my wife surprised me by organising a flying lesson.

As with any new endeavour there is a certain amount of trepidation, that knowledge that you really don’t know what you are doing and the ramifications of that, when flying a plane, could be disastrous.

The pilot who took me up can’t have been any older than me but it figures that he did know what he was doing. He ran me through the basic controls before we left the ground but after take-off the controls were all mine!

So off we went flying towards the Mount and up the Papamoa coastline – given the fact that he took the above picture he obviously wasn’t too worried about my flying. As the time of the lesson drew to a close he again took over and landed the plane. Apparently landing and taking off are the hardest parts to master.

I think that too, is the way of life in general, especially when it comes to ministry. When we are starting off we live in that trepidation that we don’t know everything – and for the most part that feeling is always there to some degree – sometimes worse at times than others but thankfully we have people and God to help us, to explain the basic controls. And like flying he also lets us fly by ourselves. When we finally come to landing he has that sorted as well, his destination is already set for us.

People say that staying in the ministry for the long haul is a difficult prospect, in fact the statistics aren’t too flash, so how do we keep on flying.

To continue with our plane analogy , we need to be continually refuelling – it’s a little hard to refuel in midair when you are in a cessna but what if you had one of those jets that can fly behind a refuelling plane like you see in that movies, now that would work.

I think that maybe we need to take time to refuel sometimes, serious intentional time – fatigue only leads to pilot error and lets face it you won’t fly far on an empty tank.

This morning John Watson spoke to the interns and gave this bit of advice. If you wish your arrows to keep hitting the mark then you have to loosen the string on the bow at times otherwise it will eventually break because of the continued tension.

Something for us all to think about.

plane
Originally uploaded by doctornemoidian