Beck and I did something a bit different on Sunday for the message. We did it together and we both loved the conversational approach.  Several people have asked for our notes so here’s a condensed version.  You can get the  audio of the message here.

God’s plan is for your marriage to be fun, healthy, close and a source of strength and life to you.  Marriage is hard work sometimes but when we push through, talk it out, sort it out, we get closer and life together gets better… and hotter!

We’ll talk about 3 areas of marriage (2 of which apply to all relationships) which are talking, living together and sex. (NB. This will be a long blog!)

1.  TALK

Read James 3:5-9 (The Message).

Good, healthy communication is foundational to a healthy marriage.  This means being open, honest, sensitive and truthful.  Don’t make your partner guess what’s wrong.  Tell them! Us guys are especially clueless when it comes to guessing what’s really wrong. Don’t assume they know… tell them!

Ephesians 4:15 talks about speaking the truth in love.  Truth is essential but unless it’s undergirded by love it can come across harshly and only distance you further.

A bad attitude undermines any forward progress.  It’s like when your car needs a wheel alignment.  You can fix everything else but unless you get the wheels aligned your car is going to keep pulling to one side and the tyres are going to wear more quickly.  Translation? A bad attitude wears on the relationship even if you’re working on everything else.

A negative attitude tells of unresolved bitterness, unforgiveness or unspoken expectations.  We need to train ourselves to work through issues properly, speak in love and be life-giving during the process.

Barrack for each other.  We need to be our spouse’s greatest encourager, and supporter.

Talk about your future, dreams, plans, etc.  Your future needs to mesh!  Best way to make that happen is to talk about it.

2.  LIVE

Ecclesiastes 9:9 – “Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love…”

Grace (unmerited favour) for each other is favour when the other person doesn’t deserve it.  A bad day/moment/week can be shrugged off if the other has grace for it. Not everything is a personal attack (i.e. the coffee cup which never seems to make it to the sink).

A bad experience doesn’t need to shake the relationship.  Think of the context of your relationship, your history together, the wider, broader understanding of what you share together. Learn to think CONTEXT.

Learn to think THEM first.  Have a general attitude towards putting your spouse first.  Learn what they like and integrate their preferences into your world too.

Have reasonable expectations for each other.  It’s ok to be wrong too. Compromise and flexibility in marriage is key! Talk about what you expect, don’t leave them guessing!

Teamwork in everything… budgeting, housework, kids, schedules, etc.  Being considerate means asking if ‘going out with the boys’ suits.  It’s not under the thumb, it’s just the right thing to do.

Regular timeout.  Life gets chaotic quickly.  Have regular date nights where you do dinner and a movie or read magazines on the lounge and each chocolate. Do something together and regularly.

3. SEX

Song of Songs 5:1b – “Eat, O friends and drink; drink your fill, O lovers.”

Rick Warren said on twitter recently, ‘Without fun and sex marriage is just a business arrangement.’

Sex is a gift from God to be used in the context of marriage to have fun and enjoy each other in creative, fun and intimate ways.  It’s fun, enjoyable and brings a couple close but because of it’s power it can be a source of division too.  It’s essential that it’s an ongoing conversation in your marriage, that the both of you are dialoguing about it regularly.

Communicate and often.  Be open even when it’s awkward.  Be sensitive but honest.  Talk things through. Be committed to sorting it out and not sweeping it under the carpet.  You’ll find new levels of closeness and fun if you do!

Men and women are different.  In general women warm up slowly and men are ready in a heartbeat.  Women become aroused when the temperature of the whole relationship is warm.  Men can get turned on when they see a little bit of extra leg!  It’s essential to communicate with your spouse how it works for you as every person is different.

Educate yourself!  We have stacks of books on marriage and sex and we keep buying more.  The more informed you are about how you work and your spouse works, the more you think sex and understand sex the better opportunity you’ll have in enjoying an ongoing great sexual relationship.

Read Song of Songs together and laugh!  Even write your own sexual poetry for each other.  Guaranteed to put a smile on your faces.

Psalm 52:8 – But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the House of God.

Church seems to be the optional essential.  Many people feel it’s optional, they go when it suits, when they haven’t got something else on, when there’s no better offer.  Because we are in a grace based church culture there’s no ‘law’ on going to church.  It’s optional depending on if you had a party the night before or a late night, or couldn’t sleep.  It depends on if you had a big week, got to see your family much over the previous week or got enough time with your partner.

God doesn’t see His House that way.  To Him it’s the Essential.  One can’t flourish unless one is planted in His House.  One can’t connect with others doing the same life unless they are connected to their church.   We can’t live a life of life, truth, power, God’s presence, revelation unless we’re plugged in.

So church has become the Optional Essential.  Optional for some, essential for others.  Those who flourish are those planted (Psalm 92) it’s as simple as that.  If you want your life to flourish, you MUST be planted in the House of God.

Make the choice.  Be in the House.
Every week.  Make it essential.
Not optional.

Here’s a movie I can’t wait to see.  Defiance starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell.  See here for more details.

I LOVE the start of a new year. It feels so refreshing… so much like a new beginning. In all realness though we get a new beginning every day which is exceedingly cool… something we should probably think about a bit more.

Is 2009 going to be your best year or not?  That’s the question.  And really it’s not a questions of positivism or wishful thinking but a question of faith.  Do you believe that God is inherently good or that he’s got a mean streak and you always seem to cop it somehow?  How you view God will directly impact how much faith you can have about a thing… anything really.

Faith is like a mirror which allows you to see the possibilities of the Kingdom of God at work in your life.  If you’re sick, faith looks and sees the power of the Kingdom of God bringing healing to your body.  Prayer and constant faith bring that possibility into your present reality.

But if you have misconceptions about who God is, if you think he’s a happiness sucker or a dissappointment giver then that’s going to skew your faith mirror and you’re only going to see a blurred picture of what God wants for you.  Faith exists in the revealed will of God.  So get your view of God right and you’ll see more of what God wants for you.

And then 2009 is going to be your best year yet!

So on Christmas Day the Chapman family was travelling to Sydney on the freeway when the car quickly overheated, a light came on and a beeping noise was heard. 20 seconds later the car lost power and I had to find a place to pull over very quickly.

Opening the bonnet we noticed some steam coming from the engine (not a surprise – I was thinking a hose had come loose) but when the NRMA turned up he mentioned one of our Welch plugs on the side of the engine had corroded. He proved it by filling up our radiator overflow with water then we watched it pour out of the side of the engine, several litres ending up on the road very quickly!

We were stuck… about 10kms from the end of the Freeway to Sydney. We’d have to get the car towed. Traffic was a problem though. We’d already waited about 45 minutes in the car with the kids and no A/C! What an adventure!!

Ben and Glenn ended up picking us up (and presents and the kids new bikes!) which was awesome. The tow-truck showed up only 20 minutes later and we went to a petrol station in Wahroonga with a workshop.

THEN I noticed they were opening on 5th January. Not good! That’d mean no car for about 2 weeks plus we are on holidays on 3rd. The driver made a couple of phone calls then gave me the option of going to Hornsby where a workshop could look at it on Monday and we might get it back by Tuesday! GOOD NEWS!

So that’s what happened, just in case anyone was after any more info. It was a BIG day. We ended up staying at Ben and Yvette’s in Sydney overnight then Marg and Al rescued us yesterday. It was a huge couple of days and we’re thoroughly exhausted!

Christmas was worth it though. The time with family was priceless, a wonderful (yet mildly chaotic) time. I love Christmas!

‘Magic Happens’ was the New Age sticker response to the profanity laden comment handed out liberally and regularly by the average Joe here in Oz. You know what I mean (‘#$% Happens’)

But what I’m finding wherever I go is that PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT! Even today while talking to a few people I discovered their brief elation at the remote prospect that suddenly the smallest piece of magic was going to drop in their lap and bring untold amounts of serious, real deal, actual blessing!

Can we PLEASE get out of this mentality?! Can all our hopes start to rest on something a little more significant? A little more substantial? Solid? Surely our experience in the past hasn’t led us to ACTUALLY believe that hoping for a tiny piece of magic is going to radically transform our day, our sales targets, our marriage, our inner world? Surely we’ve been let down by vain hopes enough to look for something deeper?

Apparently not.

I think that if we have nothing to base our hope on or if we lack any level of true hope, we’ll attach hope to anything that might bring some level of relief or peace. We’ll even do it with a totally unsubstantiated, utterly ridiculous basis. For this poor guy I ran into today, my brief spruik had the potential to lift his business’ sagging afternoon and bring about the retail version of the 2nd Coming.

Let’s not put our hope in random occurrences lifting us out of the depth of personal hell, marital pain, business/financial turmoil. Instead, trust God and pray that through faithfulness, understanding and some real, actual, powerful help from heaven, that things are going to turn around for the better. Our faith must be in the God who works all things together for good, who promises never to leave us nor forsake us, who promises to bring us through to completion and who has a prospering plan for us… not in some random act of randomness to lift our dreary day/life out of the pit.

A massive step for me recently was to hear God tell me to slow down and then to actually start doing it. I’m a fast paced kinda guy. I get an idea and I want it implemented yesterday and the results showing today already! I normally hate slowing down.

But now that I’ve done it I’m actually starting to enjoy it. When the 50km/hr zones were introduced in most residential areas here in Newcastle I was adamant that I wasn’t going to abide by them (Romans 13 then hit that on the head!). 50 was too slow. There was no way I could do it. Very soon, Beck challenged my perspective on it. “Think of it as a nice relaxing, casual drive instead” she said. Taking on that view changed the whole thing! Now 50 zones have a pleasant almost holiday feel to them!

Our life can change for the better just by slowing down. By learning how to be faithful in the small things we’ll inevitably rise into bigger and better things… in every area. In your walk with God, don’t think you need to read 3 chapters a day to learn something. Just slow down, take it easy and let God speak to you. Even a few verses a day can change your life. The point is to be growing and establishing your foundation, your planting in God much much deeper.

Sit. Stop. Read. Journal. Pray. Listen. Grow.

E=Sword has finally gone online over at http://live.e-sword.net. Several version of the Bible are available, not as many as YouVersion or BibleGateway however but the site is more tailored to Bible study rather than reading or sharing revelations with the online community. It’s well worth a look.

Check out my review here over at techpastor. What do you use to go deeper in your knowledge and understanding of the rich depth of the Word of God?

Hi again, I’ll post about my busy, spiritually deep day later on .

Here are some new photos from my time so far in Jakarta, Indonesia.  Enjoy!

Well Presence Conference is finished and was truly amazing and ended exactly as I thought… I left empowered, full of faith, hope and love, dreaming of an incredible future and believing that it is possible and also more committed to working my backside off to making it happen

I leave for Indonesia on Wednesday with Ps. Keith Edwards from C3 Victory. We’ll be in Bali for 3 days hooking up with C3 Bali, the Compassion project there, hopefully the Bali 9 on death row and definitely the markets. Keith is renowned for his phenomenal shopping endurance. I’ll be all shopped out after being there for 2 days I’m sure. I am hoping to get a tailor made leather jacket though. That’d be great!

I’m hoping to blog a fair bit while I’m over there. I’ll even try a bit of video blogging again too so stay tuned for that!

Here’s a few things to check out:

- the Mothers Day message I preached at New Life yesterday. It’s called Women Are Priceless and is all about the value Jesus placed on women. We need to really pick up our game in this area. Grab it here.

- John Finkelde’s new blog here.

- YouVersion.com – an online bible reading and journalling resource. Also lets you share notes with other people and the whole online community. A great tool!

- Tech Pastor blog – my own and slowly being developed and added too as much as I can. Featured on John Finkelde’s blog here!