Month: May 2011

More on Stott


I was just reminding myself of something I read on the views of John Stott on gifts, as reflected in his interview with the publication Christianity Today…

On Gifts:

The most important gift today, measured by Paul’s principle that we should excel in those that build up the church, is teaching. Nothing builds up the church like the truth, and we desperately need more Christian teachers all over the world. I often say to my charismatic friends, “If only you would concentrate on praying that God would give teachers to the church who could lead all these new converts into maturity in Christ, it would be more profitable.

Objectivity and clarity of thoughts and expression is always important.

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We’re still here Harold


Well, Harold needs a new calculator!

Harold’s Hogwash


Harold Camping is an 89 year old. He likes numbers. And dates. Based on numbers, he’s worked out THE date. According to Harold, the numbers in the Bible all work out to the world ending on 21 May 2011. That’s tomorrow. My mate is celebrating his 50th tomorrow. Should I tell him about Harold?  

I wonder what his website (http://www.familyradio.com)  will say if per chance, the clock ticks over 12am on 21 May 2011 and we find ourselves looking at 00:00:01 on 22 May 2011 with little more than a slightly sore head as a result of a few extra glasses of tipple on a mate’s 50th party.

Thankfully Harold isn’t taken too seriously, generally speaking. There are always people who would believe anything. Like the Norwegian Blue parrot, or the Arctic Grey. Enough people, apparently, to let him raise in excess of USD120 million. I wonder if Harold has given any of that wealth away, if he truly believed his own work. Or maybe he’ll disappear for a few years, and resurface with some explanatory recalculations locked away in case he is ever asked to account for the non-event.

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Is Perkasa the Malaysian Monty Python in disguise?


Is Perkasa the Malaysian Monty Python in disguise? Maybe Malaysians have been missing the point all along. Maybe the bigotry of race and religion is really like the dead parrot and Perkasa is nothing but the Palin styled pet shop owner. Certainly the way Perkasa geniuses respond to issues and statements has been very Pythonesque,  Can someone please tell the likes of Syed Hassan Syed Ali and Ibrahim Ali – why are they all Ali’s – that racism and bigotry should be dead. Expired. Ceased to be. It was a Norwegian Blue Parrot to start with, or the Arctic Grey one. It should be creatures which exists only in the world of Monty Python. Perhaps is we just picture the likes of Ibrahim Ali as a lumberjack singing the Lumberjack Song we can all have a laugh instead, except this circus isn’t merely poking fun for a laugh, it is spoiling for a fight. The audience is perhaps more likely to walk out than remembering lines and laughing along.

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Leaders Are Trustees


Administration of a trust is often riddled with hidden difficulties. If I am part of a body of decision makers entrusted with deciding a range of matters, whose interest am I permitted or obliged to consider? How much of my own preferences and sentiments can I bring to bear on the decisions? None at all, or am I permitted to give these some thoughts as well, as I too am part of the body on whose behalf I have been entrusted this responsibility?

If there is currently a pool of finite resources, how do I ascertain the utilisation? Am I obliged to consider, recommend and implement a reserve policy? Would I be derelict in my duty if I err on the side of caution and exercise conservatism always or am I permitted or obliged to be conservative?

Would I be obliged to act purely in the best interest of members by acceding to all requests? Or I am permitted to exercise discretion to take into account other factors?

Can I for example, consider that we need to set aside resources to deal with contingencies such as unexpected and major building works, major illness of key personnel which requires additional external resource to take over tasks, major equipment failure requiring replacements, emergency needs of members requiring either gift or loan, future wealth deterioration hence adverse future contribution by members or any other contingencies which would impact income and expenses of future periods?

What if the minimum operating expense to sustain merest of maintenance mode assuming the severest impact on income, could only ensure availability of resources for the next 18 months? 12 months? Is this the basis upon which I must have a reserve policy?

On what basis do I consider the severest impact on income – a scenario involving mass exodus of members rendering a massive drop in giving? On what basis do I consider that a possibility – historical track record? Certainly it has happened before. Do I then use past experience as a baseline?

Leaders are trustees and administration of a trust is often riddled with hidden difficulties

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3AW – Talking Melbourne (but Reporting to Sydney?)


One of my favourite radio stations is 3AW. I know that tends to betray my age. I was on a site visit a few weeks ago with a colleague, who frowned on 3AW when I turned on the car radio. He is of course, a younger man so I acknowledged the folly of my age and switched to a more mod station – some FM rock rumblings (like Triple M) to rob the journey off its peace and serenity.

The only other talk radio offering here in Melbourne is MTR, a recent venture spearheaded by Steve Price, once a program director of 3AW and who was responsible in bringing Ross Stevenson (of the Ross and John Breakfast Show fame – oh what blazingly quick with) to 3AW.  MTR is part owned by Macquarie Radio Network, which also owns 2GB, a station I used to listen to when I was a student in Sydney and first learned to like talk radio. It was the likes of John Laws and Mike Carlton who ruled the airwaves then, both on 2GB. I believe Laws moved to 2UE later, but I’m not sure. Or maybe it was Alan Jones I was listening to on 2UE.

Anyway, there was a smallish news article this morning about Fairfax Media Ltd (owners of 3AW) commissioning KPMG to look into the possibility of selling 3AW, and one of the interested buyers is Macquarie Radio. I guess the ACCC would have a say in this transaction.

3AW is an institution in Melbourne. I have been listening to it since the day I arrived in Melbourne and other than the occasional foray into ABC Classical music or Light FM stuff 3AW has the main chunk of airtime in my home and car. I’d have Ross and John on weekdays and Darren on weekends (Buy, Swap or Sell – or something like that – and the gardening show with a lady whose name I forget). When I have the day off, I’d have Neil Mitchell on too. Darren Hinch is in the kitchen on most evenings as well.

As an institution, 3AW has a place like no other media platform. It has probably the most captive audiences across all forms of media. I believe whatever residual market there is after 3AW, falls onto MTR’s plate.

If Macquarie Radio succeeds in acquiring 3AW, not only would it provide the company with control over the only 2 talk radio stations in Melbourne, it would also provide a Sydney-centric company with direct control over Melbourne’s most iconic media hub. I mean – take a look at the Board of Macquarie Radio. It is filled with the establishment of Sydney’s financial and advertising personalities. Guys like Mark Carnegie (of Carnegie, Wylie and Company the investment bank), Steve Chapman (Founder Chair of Baron Partners, another investment bank), Max Donnelly (of Ferrier Hodgson) and Richard Freemantle (Mr Cisco system) as well as personalities like Maureen Plavsic, an ex Channel Seven advertising powerhouse. How does a Melbourne institution like 3AW contemplate being controlled by this mob?

Not that it matters to me as a relatively new Melbournian who grew up on 2GB – but surely the rest of Melbourne wouldn’t like this and isn’t Grant Samuel from Melbourne?

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Life Imitates Art. Again.


With Chelsea only managing a draw against the Zebras overnight, United could have won it without the tension at Ewood Park on Saturday. I guess that’s all academic now – had United lost, Chelsea might have played differently, perhaps not starting with El Toro – the expensive Lamborghini aka Fernando Torres – which doesn’t always hit the mark. United didn’t lose, the League is in the bag for the 19th time and it is for Kenny Dalglish to respond. They lost to Spurs overnight, which was somewhat halted their momentum to finish off the season on a high but that shouldn’t affect their approach next season and I think they have all the ingredients to mount a serious challenge.

The tragedy though is the relegation of West Ham. I have always had a soft spot for the Hammers. I never harbored any thoughts of ever following any other club but if I did, either Hammer or Villa would have been distant seconds. I mean, how can a club which churned out players like Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Trevor Brooking of yesteryear and contemporary players like Michael Carrick, Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole meet such a fate? Granted they continue to lose their best players in the transfer market but somehow they have always been managed prudently and wisely and the Premier League will be the poorer without the pedigree of this club.

***

Tress and I spent yesterday afternoon at the Doncaster Westfield shopping centre. I cannot believe how a supposedly pleasurable activity zapped me so completely dry. We were there straight after church – after a stopover at the Malaya Inn at High Street Doncaster for lunch – and didn’t get back till about 5.30pm. Kiddo was in the city in Melbourne University for a lecture and we picked her up close to 6. We got home just before 6, and for the rest of the evening we just sat in front of the television and got ready to bed – we went to bed at 9.30, a rare but great luxury. We were at the shopping place with a few ladies from church who wanted to get winter coats in Myer which were on sale, and I was mostly playing with a little 1-year old girl. Her mum’s a stylish fashion aficionado and I was gauging if she picked up her mum’s taste by putting fierce looking ladies’ winter boots on her tiny feet, which made her laugh. I tried scarves on her too and it worked as well, so I think she will end up like her mum. I still cannot understand however, why an afternoon shopping in this manner tired me out so much.

***

It is now the home stretch for the semester for me. After submitting a major essay on Friday and having a couple of days off over the weekend, it is time to plan the remainder few weeks to study and finish another final essay for the semester. It has again been enjoyable but it remains a struggle.

Church is feeling a little different these days. A mate of mine left for another church in search for something better for his kids, and though I am mostly contented to just be in church and return thereafter, I am starting to forge new relationships. On Sat night we were at the home of a family who are new migrants from Singapore. A third family – also from Singapore – was also there and it was good to get to know both families.

Building relationships is hard work. It can however, be rewarding. It can take a lot out of you, especially if you are like me. I am the type who prefer to be home alone reading a book, listening to music, watching a movie or a game of soccer, and sharing a meal with close friends. I believe more in spending hours with a small group of close/old friends than spreading my time over a large group of people. And yet building relationships is an essential feature of serving. We are asked to build each other up and sticking to the same group of people can at best be a guise to cover up our own propensity to avoid the harder task of building His church.

Like many things in life, building requires grit and graft. It is the slow and deliberate act of laying brick after brick. I guess it is a bit like winning the league. It will take time – game by game to win point by point – to accumulate enough points to win the title, and to win enough titles to be the best team on the land. For the second time this weekend, I have found that life does imitate art and we can draw real life lessons from the players on the stage set in the theatre of dreams.

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Red and Blue Day


I think today could well be the first time the Reds and Blues of Manchester both won domestic honours on the same day!

Sir Alex Ferguson, Take A Bow


Sir Alex Ferguson has met his greatest challenge. He has knocked Liverpool off the now infamous perch and installed his Manchester United as the most successful club in English football.

What a ride it has been for fans all over the world. From Bryan Robson to Cantona to the Fergie Fledglings – Beckham, Nevilles and the evergreens in Giggs and Scholes – to warlords like Bruce and Keano and Van Nilsteroy, from superstars lime Cristiano Ronaldo to the current crop of grit and graft.

Well done you mighty Reds, thank you again and may the Reds keep marching On! On! On!

Man Changed, God Hasnt


Some interesting thoughts from the Business Spectator offshoot, Technology Spectator website:

  1. The world is becoming more crowded, older and lonelier. The crowding will mainly be in sub-Saharan Africa (contributing 20% or population growth) and China and the Sub-Continent (contributing 50%).
  2. China has more than 20% of world population but less than 2% of world oil. Oil will continue to be more expensive as will most other stuff. The world will have to cope with living with less.
  3. Mobile technology and communication is the moving force for the world today. This changes traditional allocation of roles such as between producers and consumers and between the collective formal structure and individuals. Mobile communication machines such as smart phones will outsell PCs by next year.
  4. Technological and knowledge developments have been expansive and pervasive, and costs of manufacturing machines which connect technology, people and data in smarter and more sophisticated ways are facilitating a connection (connectedness) and exchange which make learning and adapting a rapid process.
  5. The world economy is being driven by a different engine now. China, India, Russia and Brazil have become the dominant and dynamic forces and the bulk of world money, trade, and production will move towards these countries.

On one level, this looks like a very ripe harvest where evangelism is concerned. This however is only from the perspective of demographics and infrastructure. The soft side – how and whether these developments and changes have any impact or effect on the human perception of his need for God – would probably not change very much.

I wonder if the unbelievable rate of change we have seen in recent years have taken man nearer or further from a sense of their need for God. I mean, the bulk of the stuff we use regularly today, was probably non-existent not too long ago. In my back pack to and from work every day, the umbrella, lunch box and security tag to my office building are probably stuff familiar to someone in say, the year 2000. Maybe my car keys as well.

But those are items I don’t use very much. The umbrella has been used more often this week but other than that it is seldom touched. The lunch box is opened and sandwich fished and that was it. The box is not even looked at till I got home. The security tag and car keys, ditto – only the start and end of the working day.

The remainder 2 items in my back pack used many times throughout the day are: the phone and the computer. 10 years ago, my Treo 280 was state of the art but it has probably just a fraction of the functions and capacity of the iPhone today. I now use my iPhone 20-30 times a day. Other than calls and text messages, I use it for web browsing (several times a day) emailing (every hour or so) book reading (15-20 minutes to and from work), weather checking (2-3 times a day), scheduling (2-3 times a day), listening to radio and music (15-20 minutes to and from work). I use the other item – an iPad – very much in the same way, except when I need to do some additional work such as make notes on my readings or write an email longer than a sentence or two or work on an essay or stuff like that. All of these activities are probably alien to someone (in the way they are carried out) commuting to and from work on the public transport system in the year 2000.

Back then, the external factors are different too. George W Bush was a first term President in a world contemplating energy challenges and peak oil was an emerging concern. Clinton had sealed some important victories in Eastern Europe and pushed middle-east peace process in a promising direction. China was an energetic adolescent fast becoming a virile young man and seeking to rule the roost. John Howard was also riding high and fast becoming quite a figure in world political leadership. With the dotcom bust dust settled, emerging technology entities like Google are promising a second nirvana. Exotic new financial instruments like ABSs and CDOs were starting to promise the rainbow’s end and were making home ownership every American’s dream come true.

I don’t know – can’t recall – what other external factors were there making and shaping thoughts and aspirations then but 10 or so years hence I’m not sure if any or all of these changes have made any difference in man’s perception of his need for God.  If anything, I get a sense that we are nearer than ever to a Babel incident and man seems to think we’re doing ok and we’ll plot our own route and end, without any regard for our Creator.

We ought to engage the world – especially the youth – at a level which is more intense and robust as it has ever been. In many ways, new channels and new methods have come up for the gospel to be communicated in new, refreshing and more effective ways than ever before. The platform to present a cogent, orthodox and biblically true gospel is there and we need to provide the content and widen the reach in these media.  The immutability of God – He is the same yesterday, today and forever – should mean the modern mobile man can come to know the God incarnate of first century Palestine and who remains the God who loves just as much today.  

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