Posts from 2015 (Page 2)

On one occasion at a Minister’s Association meeting an Anglican colleague took me aside while we were enjoying a cuppa before the meeting proper began. He asked whether he could “pick my brain”. A strange expression! Were brains up for grabs and he wanted to choose mine? Or was my brain that hard to crack that he needed a pick? We really ought to come up with a different expression for those moments when we want to benefit from someone…

One of our regional State High Schools is introducing a new way of teaching their students, using a tool that is becoming increasingly popular around the world.  It is called Classcraft and is managed by an on-line company by that name: classcraft.com.  Their stated objective is that “Classcraft helps teachers manage, motivate and engage their students by transforming their classroom into a role-playing game.” The thinking behind this latest phenomenon is some statistical data.  In the USA 58% of Americans…

Just two weeks after my sixteenth birthday the late J. F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the US of A.  I remember well his inauguration speech – well, at least one line of it, which became famous and has often since been repeated and quoted: “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That’s a line that more Aussies should take to heart today.  The…

I came across a cartoon that finally answered an old question that has become the butt of many a joke: Why did the chicken cross the road?  The answer is: peer-pressure.  The cartoon showed a hesitant hen standing by the roadside with traffic flying past.  On the other side of the road stood some feathered friends crying, “Chicken!”  Perhaps that needs explaining to some.  In my teenage years if you were scared to do something that others did, you were…

In our book club we’ve been reading Theodore Dalrymple “If Symptoms Persist”.  The author is a medical doctor whose territory includes the local penitentiary and public health department.  The author relates stories about some of his patients.  One of his gripes is how some of his patients have come to have a sense of entitlement to live off the public purse.  He sides with the long-suffering tax-payer.  It’s wonderful to be living in a country that subscribes to the ethos…

I’m not quite sure where the saying came from about something going ‘pear-shaped’.  I googled it – but not much help there; with Wikipedia listing more than ten possible sources.  The term first seems to have been used in the air-force for planes trying to do a loop – that often looked more pear-shaped than circular.  Another suggestion that I could relate to is that party balloons are round when they are blown up but when they deflate they become…

Only once have I ever preached on the topic of giving – and that was because my elders asked me to do so.  I’ve certainly referred to this matter indirectly on various occasions but it has rarely been a subject that I have addressed specifically.  Only that one occasion comes to mind. The reason for my reluctance should be fairly obvious.  We pastors are the recipients of the giving of our people.  That makes it easy to accuse a preacher…

Trivia Nights are a well-known way of doing fund-raising.  Here in Toowoomba several churches have run Trivia Nights to raise funds for school chaplaincy programs.  Trivial Pursuit is a board game that many of us are familiar with.  Trivia is what is unimportant; it’s what doesn’t carry much weight.  Trivia is what we find easy to dismiss. That word, trivia, came to mind when we recently had some days away at the coast in Yamba and I ended up watching…