St Andrew’s Cathedral Sydney, on ABC 1 Christmas Eve 6pm. 
This year the ABC’s national broadcast is St Andrew’s Christmas Eve Celebration. Philip Jensen and Peter Bolt will explain the historical significance of Christmas and why Jesus came (ie he came for Easter).  The broadcast gives all of us a great evangelistic opportunity to share the gospel with our friends, colleagues and neighbours. Tell them not to miss it. Gather the family to watch it together. If you are going out, don’t forget to record it, then write to the ABC after Christmas thanking them for showing it.

Dear Friends, today I received very sad news. Dave McDonald has been diagnosed with cancer – either of the lung or the lung lining. He is talking with specialists about next steps. As you can imagine this is a great shock.

He was in the process of moving from Crossroads church Canberra (an Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Church) which he planted about 17 years ago, to move to the Northern Territory to plant another church beginning 2012.

Providentially they are still in Canberra so they are surrounded by great support.

Please be in prayer for them.

This Thursday Rowan and Sarah Hilsden are going to Auckland to find a place to rent to live in next year.  Please pray for wisdom as they search for a place.

At Growth Group this week we were chatting about our reading the Bible ourselves.  We discussed the great resource (in fact the best resource i have found in 20 years of being a Christian) for our own bible reading. It’s called Explore.  I use it for 4 reasons

1. It works through books of the Bible, so each day i just continue on from the day before.  It means i am not jumping all over the place. Also it means i get some NT and some OT.

2. It is not too long.  They recommend about 15 mins, but you can do more.

3. It has questions, which make me think. But it also has a blurb which helps, especially if you find questions tricky.  The application is always practical.

4. Those who write it are biblically sound.  Other daily notes i have used are not as theologically on track as this.

Have a look at the website: http://www.thegoodbook.com.au/bible/daily-bible-reading/explore

You can a single book ($7 + postage) or get subscription ($28 total).  Also, you don’t have to do it everyday if you can’t.

This is what they say: First published in July 1998, Explore is a quarterly publication, designed to help people to get to grips with reading the Bible on a daily basis. It encourages a devotional routine of Bible study and prayer, each issue looking at selected readings from Old and New Testament books.

Explore has daily readings that are:
- Reliable; clearly applied Bible teaching covering Old and New Testaments
- Manageable; a suggested 15 minutes per study with optional cross references for further reading
- Flexible; dated and numbered readings so you can go at your own pace
- Incisive; not a ‘thought for the day’ approach, but clear and careful teaching within the context of the whole of the Bible’s revelation.

This year those who publish the NIV bible have brought out a modified version of the NIV.  The one we have been using for the last six years is the 1984 NIV translation.  The NIV 2011 version has some changes to it. It’s trying to be more gender inclusive. 

In short, over time we will need to work out which translation we are going to use in Church on Sundays since we won’t be able to continue using the 1984 NIV since no one will be able to buy one. The two possible translations we will need to think through are The Holman Christian Standard Bible (HSCB, or Holman) and the NIV 2011.  There are other more literal translations like NASB and ESV but these are a little too difficult to read (they don’t flow well as they are going for greater literalness to the Greek and Hebrew).

So we are having a look at the different translations.  A helpful article discussing the Holman and NIV 2011 is this: http://www.matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2011/10/after-the-niv-then-what/#comment-6227

After the sermon last sunday Ash sent me this You Tube clip of the song which has extra information of their suffering.  Horatio’s and his wife’s life was such a great testimony of trusting in Christ despite suffering.  Here’s the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8_EfDqF7YI

There is an excellent article for everyone at Church about teenagers.  Well worth the read and to share around. Here it is…

Dividing walls of teenage hostility

“Who am I? … I don’t know. I guess I have a lot of things to ponder.”

-Derek Zoolander, speaking to his reflection in a puddle, in Zoolander.

In an interesting twist on the Narcissus fable, the really ridiculously good-looking Zoolander neatly sums up one of the main pressures of the adolescent years: the search for identity. Teenagers have a lot of things to ponder!

In the early years of life, parents play a huge role in defining the identity of their children. I see it in my own kids; despite a few interesting debates with my daughter about whether it’s appropriate to wear a summer dress in winter, we decide what she wears. We decide what our children eat, what they watch on television, the music they listen to, the pre-school they attend, and even the friends they associate with. We are church-goers, therefore they are church-goers. The fact that my daughter loves anything to do with ballet and the colour pink has more to do with my wife’s preferences than Abby ‘just being a girl’.

As young children grow towards adolescence, they start to explore their identity outside the sphere of their parents’ influence. Going to high school means that, all of a sudden, a teenager is confronted by a myriad of different subcultures, all inviting them to try out these varied identities: Beliebers, hipsters, skaters, lads, and so on. The teenage years are often absorbed in experimenting with these different identities in an attempt to discover the one they can ‘find themselves’ in. Have you ever wondered why teenagers in your youth group post so many pictures of their different poses on Facebook?

Many of the big questions teenagers are looking to answer as they try on these different identities are related to acceptance: “Who loves me? Who will accept me? Will I still fit in if I start wearing cardigans and floppy beanies?” Or even, “If I choose to stand out, will people notice me?”

The second half of the article continues here…  http://www.matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2011/08/dividing-walls-of-teenage-hostility/ 

I had the privelege of preaching at Forster last Sunday, so that Chris Ekins could go on holiday. It is a blessing to have partnership with the FIEC churches. It was good to be able to go and visit them and see the Church that we support financially and prayerfully. Our heavenly Father has been growing this church which is a joy to see. Ruth Shooter (who is working at the Church) was encouraged to see new people at the meeting and also how the youth were inviting friends and how some momentum was being created. If you’re interested their website is www.coastec.net.au/.  Connan