This is an advance advertisement for the preaching series we’re doing in 4th term of the year at Eatons Hill Presbyterian Church. It’s Called ‘Why I Am Not a Christian, Reasons for Rejecting & A Christian’s Response’.  We’ll be looking at the reasons, the importants reasons, people have for rejecting the Christian faith.  Each week we’ll be looking at another critique of Christianity and offering a response to it.  This will be a provacative series, but its meant to be helpful for the regular church goer, the curious investigator, and the vehement athiest.  Come along and hear what will be said.  Invitation leaflets are now available.

Every Sunday at church we aim to make it family-friendly. We love that children are running around, part of the church community and together with everyone, growing as followers of Jesus. But this coming Sunday, 6 September, is a special Sunday.  It’s ‘Family Church’.   This is a Sunday when the kids will be even more involved in what happens. We’re having it in the undercover area in the school (very close to where we normally meet) so that we have the extra space for everyone to fit in.  Just follow the signs as usual to church and you’ll be given direction on where you need to go.  See you then.

This week in our mail box we got one of those pamphlets for a certain Smoke shop.  You know – one of those shops where you go for all your cigarette, cigar, pipe and bong needs.  It was interesting reading in terms of the stuff they sell, particularly given that the whole thing was promoting gifts for Father’s Day.  It was all the more interesting to see the categories of ‘bloke’ the shop wants to target.  Here’s the categories I can see when I flick through the leaflet:

There’s the Beer Bingeing Bloke who can have the boozeometer beer glass, the walking stick with can holder, the tic tac toe drinking game, and of course the ever fashionable drinking hate.

There’s the Rude Bloke who can have the brass testicles door jam, the happy man bottle stopper and the swearing finger key ring.

There’s the Rev-Head Bloke who can have mugs, shot glasses, clocks & pictures – that will express whether you’re a Holden man or Ford man.

There’s the Hard Rocker Bloke who can have all sorts of AC/DC memorabilia.

There’s the Fantasy Fiction Bloke who can have dragon goblets, skull money boxes and skeleton hand candle holders.

There’s the NRL Bloke who can have all sorts of stuff  – glasses, stubby holders, key rings, baby dummies, bbq aprons – with your favourite team’s colours on it.

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Did you know that there’s a website dedicated to ‘What Would Dumbledore Do?’ It borrows from the WWJD? Christian merchandising gimmick, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ For those who subscribe to WWDD?, it’s a very serious thing.  They see Albus Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter books, as a source of teaching on social ethics.  They want people to draw on the words of the ‘the greatest wizard in history’ to guide and inspire them on such topics as health care, fair trade, happiness, and family.

Andrew Slack who represents this site is a self-declared “Harry Potter rabbi” who quotes from the books like someone else would quote passages from their own religious text.  Using the opinions of Harry’s mentor Dumbledore as a moral compass, he sees numerous parallels to social issues that others should engage with.  For instance Slack suggests Potter fans should support fair trade because Dumbledore agreed on giving rights to house elves.  And what’s trully amazing is that the organisation has raised money for aid work in Rwanda and the Dafur region of Sudan.

For me this raises the first issue of why choose Albus Dumbledore for guidance when you have real people from history eg. Jesus Christ!? Why draw wisdom from a children’s fictional world of magicians and elves, when Jesus spoke directly to humanity?  I suspect part of the answer is because Jesus will never fit into a box of a moral teacher.  Jesus doesn’t offer tit-bits of wisdom that we help us with our favourite social issues.  Jesus came and gave a critique of our heart, exposed how we’re distant from God because of our sin, and died for us to reconcile us with him.

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Starting this week, our mid-week Growth Groups will be working through the book  ‘A Foot in Two Worlds’ written by John Chapman. This is a great book.  It’s readable.  It’s clear.  And it provides an honest view of the Christian life - in that it’s both unbelievably wonderful and also very hard. This book will help us think biblically and theologically about this ‘tension’ and gives us a timely warning about the false roads we can take to try to reconcile the difference between the blessing of living for Christ and the suffering that can come our way. We have growth groups meeting on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, plus also a women’s group, ’WOW’ that meets on Wednesday mornings with baby sitting provided. If you’re interested in finding out more about our growth groups, contact garnet@freshchurch.net

Right now Mitch Smart is taking us through the Old Testament book of Lamentations.  The series is called ‘Self-Harm &  the Hero of Hope’.  After we finish this short 3 week Lamentations series, we’ll be going through the New Testament book of James.  The title of this 8 week series is ‘Real Faith’.  What we’ll discover is that there’s a big differerence between knowing about Jesus, and truly following him. What we’ll discover is that there’s a big difference between having a belief in God and entrusting your life to God.  We’ll see is that there’s all the difference in the world between a faith of outward religiousity, and a faith in Jesus that brings about true change in character. It’s all about ‘Real Faith’. We start this series on Sunday 26 July.

Last weekend freshchurch was at Bribie Island for our Great Weekender. It was a time to press the ‘pause’ button on the busyness of life and spend time connecting with others and having fun together, as well as hearing some excellent bible talks from Bill Colyer on the subject of ‘Our Union with Christ’. It was a great time away and very soon some photos will be posted right here. This Sunday, church is back on at the normal spot – Eatons Hill State School, 930am. See you there.

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This coming weekend, 22-24 May, is our ‘Great Weekender’ on Bribie Island.  It’s going to be a great time.  There will be plenty of time to hang out, have fun and build relationships. I’m looking forward to the ‘lifesaver olympics’ on the beach myself!  But a big part of the weekend will be some very challenging bible talks by Bill Colyer on the subject of ‘Our Union with Christ’.  As we get into the bible we’ll be getting a clearer picture of just how amazing it is to have our lives joined to Jesus. Please note: church on Sunday morning will be at the campsite on Bribie Island.  For this Sunday only, there won’t be church at Eatons Hill State School. On Sunday morning, don’t go to our normal location, but please join us for church at the special time and location of: 9am, ‘The House of Happiness’, 2 Clement Road, Woorim, Bribie Island.