Saturday, February 25, 2006

A life lesson...

In somewhat anti-social fashion, I leave my family at their restaurant table, and head for the bar to catch the end of the cricket. I am only somewhat distracted by the racket going on around me, as what I later learn are a group of shearers make merry. Idly, I start pondering the apparent gulf between myself and the other people in the room- privileged middle class versus working, white collar versus blue. I wonder how I can possibly relate to any of these folks, and find myself quite emphatically concluding that I can't. I might be able to make a difference in their lives through some indirect means, but no sir, if I try to talk to them about anything beyond the frivilous they'll scoff in my face.

How wrong could I be. I was too gormless to start a conversation myself, but I accidentally found myself face to face with a girl and she made the first step. After she assured me that she wasn't hitting on me, we made small talk for a while- she was surprised to learn that I knew the location of her home town, Tuatapere, as my aunt and uncle used to live there; I was even more surprised to discover that she remembered them. Then I mentioned I was in a band, and that we often play in churches. "So you're a christian then?" Why yes, I suppose I am...

After receiving several more emphatic assurances that I wasn't being hit on, I found myself being bombarded with questions- Why hasn't God answered my prayers? Why does God allow pain? Why, if God loves us, is the world such a mess? Why should I believe in something I can't see? Am I a bad person because I smoke dope?

So there I was, engaged in a deep philosophical discourse on the meaning of life and other topics most christians are too scared to properly discuss, with a person I had subconciously written off as being beneath said topics only minutes earlier. We ended up talking for close to an hour, exchanging various personal stories and the like. I couldn't adequately answer most of her questions, but I shared the gospel- not exactly your standard black book version- but the gospel none the less. She said she believed in God, but struggled for this reason and that to accept the christian way. I told her fair enough- it isn't easy, but encouraged her to keep seeking God. When she eventually had to go, she said it was really encouraging talking to me. I hope she was half as encouraged as I was!

The moral of the story? Don't EVER let yourself think that it's not worthwhile talking to a person. No matter who they are, and who you are, you can still make a difference. You never know what effect one conversation can have. And, every christian should spend more time hanging out in pubs.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Wellington

I've been through the Wellington plenty of times- but never spent more than a few hours here. Today I got to have a bit of a look around, and now I understand why people rave about it... very artsy and cultured, and the central city is so much nicer than the mega-malls we have in Christchurch. Not that I'm interested in shopping mind you.

Today we played at Tawa college at lunchtime, and Wellington Primal in the evening- both went really well, although our rendition of Coldplay's 'Clocks' at the school gig was a little sketchy. That'll happen though when your drummer has never played the song in his life and the band hasn't played it in nearly a year. After the Primal thing a few of us went down to the waterfront to loiter and eat pizza- good times. Then, we got (ahem)lost on the way home...
No, seriously, we weren't lost, we just took the wrong motorway and ended up in Lower Hutt rather than Johnsonville. Then we got to Johnsonville and realised the place we're staying wasn't there, it's actually in Churton Park or something. Tim (our resourceful drummer) was locked out, since we had the key... but, resourcefully, he decided to go for a run when he realised we were going to be a while.

Anyway, it's 2am so I'm going to hit the sack.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Bono a prophet?

Eugene Peterson (who authored The Message bible translation) thinks so. You can read about it here:

http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=4232

For those with limited time on their hands (although I'm not quite sure what you're doing on my blog if that's the case) here's an excerpt:

"Is U2 a prophetic voice? I rather think so. And many of my friends think so. If they do not explicitly proclaim the Kingdom, they certainly prepare the way for that proclamation in much the same way that John the Baptist prepared the way for the kerygma of Jesus...Amos crafted poems, Jeremiah wept sermons, Isaiah alternately rebuked and comforted, Ezekiel did street theater. U2 writes songs and goes on tour, singing them."

Friday, February 10, 2006

Well, here goes...

Ok, so I've decided to start a blog. I've been meaning to do this for a while actually, I'm reminded everytime I think of something that could conceivably go in a blog. Of course, now I'm actually starting said blog, I can't think of anything interesting to write. So here's a bit of a summary of what I've been up to for the last few weeks:

Parachute- My band, luminous, got to play twice on the palladium and once on the Life FM stage- the palladium was fun, but too big... 9000 capacity, we had 500 people max. The Life FM stage was an acoustic set/ interview that actually got broadcast live on Life FM, so that was cool.
After parachute, we stayed in stinking Hamilton for a few days... it was hot as heck and more humid than most Chinese rice cookers... we managed to escape to Raglan for a day but the elements conspired against us (no surf, and it rained). We played at Hamilton Primal on the Thursday which was cool, and then back to Raglan for the weekend- this time the weather was good (although still no surf)- we played at an awesome church called Raglan Surfside- great people and their band was incredible, probably the best worship team I've ever experienced- very inspiring.
From there we headed to Auckland for a few days off- I managed to get plenty of work done which was good, I'm still working for IBDG in Chch, just doing it remotely and only 20 hours a week while I'm on tour.
In Auckland we played at a youth event at Greenlane church, and did a couple of events with one of the Chinese churches which was really cool- Chinese people are great. They took us out for some authentic Chinese food- chicken feet, cow stomach lining, fungus soup etc. Mmmmm...

Now we're staying with some friends at Lake Rotoiti (the northern one that is) en-route to Wellington, where we have something like 6 gigs in 4 days- we'll be back in Chch on the 20th.