I've just been back from NTE.

As I talked to students, and I hear the talk, impelling them to gospel work in their lives and beyond, I remember being in their shoes. I remember how I thought and lived as a Christian in my early years. How the world was starkly black and white: and all matters were either ephemeral or eternal. And those things that pass were unimportant. How the gospel was all that mattered. I learnt those lessons well, and I think it is fair to say I pursued God's kingdom as hard as I could. I didn't always succeed, but it drove me as I served at Unichurch, as I uprooted to Quakers Hill, as I pursued MTS as the avenue to understand ministry, and if that was what I should do. I learnt those lessons and I dreamt in black and white.

In reflecting on my year at SMBC, it occurs to me that one of my big lessons this year has been to see the world that God has made in colour. Subjects such as Intro to Degree Theology, Old Testament, and various sermons on Wisdom Literature has tried to show me that the world that God made is wonderful and deep and mysterious; that Yahweh, our God, is amazing and unpredictable and joyful and spontaneous.

The created world is wonderful. It sings with beauty and splendour. The variety of creation: thousands of types of trees, birds, flowers. It is amazing to watch a baby grow and change and develop. It is wonderful to be part of the created world; and we should marvel no less at the things that man has accomplished which God has hitherto imagined: cars and buildings and computers and books and the internet.

I still feel the urgency of the gospel. People still need to hear about the saving work of Jesus Christ. Teaching the word is still necessary, and preaching the gospel to the unsaved is of prime importance. But the wonder of this present world that God has created hasn't paled in comparison. Rather it paints it in even sharper focus. There is still a God-like-ness in working, in bringing order to creation, in bringing life to the world, in saving and restoring, in ecology and social work. In care that only lasts for one lifetime.

Because even though the effect is fleeting; and the trees we save, the people we heal, the order we restore to the world will not last, these hymn we sing to God, of his glory and honour and praise will last for eternity.

Normally Sarah writes these sort of updates, but I do like to reflect sentimentally every now and again.

Micah has developed so much in the last month or two; if I didn't pause to write this stuff down, I would forget, and it would fade into the deep dark chambers of forgetfulness and regret.

Two weeks ago, Micah hadn't figured out to crawl. He'd been verging on it for a while; he figured out how to spin around (generally anti-clockwise) on the spot, but you could count on him not moving anywhere. In two months, he's finally mobile. His boring old toys are just not interesting when he can explore the adult world, and all the various things his parents have left around the house. His current favourite thing is bee-lining my CDs and pulling them out systematically. In the TV room, he does the same for DVDs. The net effect is: we really need to babyproof our house.

It's been a fortnight of firsts for Micah. Apart from the crawling thing, he has been impressing all and sundry with his impressive technological skills by sending an SMS (entirely unaided) from my mobile phone (a HTC Touch, with a touch-screen) to Sarah. (the precise message: "a7oP 7x". No, I don't know what it means, and I doubt he does either.)

He's also developed an uncanny ability to whistle. He purses his lips and breathes in and out. While it's not a proper whistle yet, he's getting pretty close, which is pretty awesome, because Sarah reckons kids only learn to whistle around age 8.

It's pretty amazing to think how much he's changed; how many new things he's done in the last 8 months, and how much further he has to go. It's nice to look back and remember that I can hold him in my arms. That in the first week of his life, I was able to calm him down every time I held him. That when had trouble sleeping, I had a perfect formula: I would gently rock him to sleep, singing Rainbow Connection to him. That I used to "fly" him around the place and he would love it. The first time he grinned at me; and the times now where I can get him to grin, by hiding under the highchair, tickling his tummy, and eating his back.

Because some people asked about it... here's a PDF comparing, Times New Roman, Adobe Garamond, regular (MS) Garamond, and Caslon: Font Comparison

On a rare afternoon out sans baby, Sarah and I decided to watch Up.

Although as an animated movie it was billed as a kid's movie, in reality it seemed as much a show for someone more mature, because the central tenet of the movie is grief.

The first five minutes are a tenderly told love-story; and what follows is a endearing tale of enduring grief. Now a widower, Carl Fredericksen sets off to take the memory of his wife to the place she had dreamed of going her entire life. He takes his memories and his house to South America.

In some sense, it is a modern-day Pilgrim's Progress; instead of an overwhelming burden of sin on his back, Carl Fredericksen bears his house—borne on balloons, but no less heavy a weight. His house represents his grief and love and despondency and loss, and his journey is how he can lay his dead wife to rest in his own heart.

The journey to the waterfall at the end of the world is not just to fulfill a promise, but becomes a journey into the past, a catharsis, and an attempt to find life after loss.

Life seems to small and fragile and precious when compressed into a love-story of five minutes; but maybe that's all it will become in memory. Maybe when you look back on your life and your marriage, all you recall are vignettes that collapse into one short, poignant story.

This movie made me feel, and I confess, it made me shed a tear. It made me feel, and it made me think, and it entertained. What more do you want from a movie?

I may have been slightly bored in the OT lecture last night. So I did some Wordle-ing.

The Book of Ezekiel

The Book of Micah

The latter might be useful to anyone leading Strand 2 at NTE...

In about 16 hours, we will witness our second birth of the year.

This time, it's also about family, but this time, we're talking Church family.

For the last 9 months (yes, it's been that long!) Sarah and I have part of another growing family: Soma!, and tomorrow is the launch day!

Soma is our church plant, and together with a wonderful team of people, we've been slowly plotting and plodding together, through thick and thin, towards starting a new church. Unlike most church plants, we started as a disparate group of people from all over Sydney, and not only did we have to wade our way through various theological arguments over membership, leadership, worship, and music; but we also had to get to know each other well enough to trust each other!

In the mean time, we've been working hard on marketing, advertising, promotions, websites, church communication systems, job descriptions, and prayer; which seems like a heckofalotof things to start a church, but God willing, we've built a firm foundation to start on. Of course, the foundation of this church is Jesus, and so whatever happens tomorrow, we'll rest firmly in him.

That having been said, it's hard to know what tomorrow will look like. I have no idea how many friends and visitors we'll have, and how many non-Christian newcomers will come (if any!)

Undoubtedly, there will be much coverage of the launch, so stay tuned!

Sydney Evangelicals get uncomfortable when we hear preaching that's not expository. Certain well-known American preachers come to Australia, and they preach things that are biblical, but they don't necessarily exposit the text in the systematic way that we're used to.

We come away feeling slightly uncomfortable about this, but we don't really know why. Or at least, we know it's because they haven't shown us where their points come from in the Bible, but we don't know why this ought to be such a problem, seeing as how they're presenting true, biblical ideas that we agree with.

I think the answer can be explained by a philosopher—an epistemologist to be precise—called as Edmund Gettier.

Two steps back: Epistemology is the study of knowledge.

For a long time (in fact, since Plato), a working definition of knowledge is this, "A Justified, True Belief" (abbreviated by philosophy students as JTB). That is, if I believe Plato is dead, and Plato is actually dead, and I have I good reason to believe that Plato is dead (he was born more than 2400 years ago!).

Gettier, in 1963, demonstrated that it is possible to have justified true beliefs that one cannot be said to know. Such situations are known as Gettier Cases. Generally speaking a Gettier case is a situation in which a person has a true belief that has an erroneous justification. One such example is amusingly described here by Dinosaur Comics.

Justified true beliefs then, are a necessary condition for knowledge, if not a sufficient condition.

Shifting from epistemology to Christianity, the joy of expository preaching is that we are not only dealing with true beliefs about Jesus; we are given justification that what we are being told is, in fact, true. We are then able to assess the reasoning and determine if that justification is faulty or correct, and (we feel) our knowledge founded on solid ground.

The frisson of wariness we feel, in response to non-expository preaching—as true and biblical as it may be—is that there is every possibility that what we are told is false. There is no justification supplied, and there is every possibility that it may be erroneous. Indeed, we cannot really be said to know if we have no justification! All we have are statements which we believe, which we hope are true, and for which we have no justification.

Better the man who built his house on rock...

[in which the author considers life, conversational necessities, self-revelation, the passing of time and the perspective which that grants, fatherhood, goodness, silence, and other assorted tidbits floating around his brain.]

"How is life?" you might ask. Or, "how are you?"

I have always found that question difficult to answer. I have never really been inclined to self-revelation. I consider other things more interesting than my own life: theology, philosophy, arguments, quibbles, foibles, meaningful questions, and other peoples' lives. I am not so pleased by the sound of my own voice, and I have imbibed that wisdom that says, it is better to say nothing at all. Better to listen than to talk. Moreover, even if I wanted to share of my own life, my brain is simply not adept at remembering anecdotes from my own life, small or large, interesting or prosaic. Sarah, for instance, is the opposite. She remembers the interesting things that have happened and can tell me when I come home. She can store them up for her weekly chat with her mum. For me, my day has condensed itself into a blur, and all the lessons learnt into an amorphous body of knowledge in my head. And a brief inspection allows me to truthfully say, "it was good", but not much more.

Thinking back over the past day, week, month, and year, it seems to me that time improves the vista. Let me explain.

If you were to ask me how I am, on any particular day, it would probably be okay, but not much more. An "excellent" day would probably start with 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and me waking up alive, alert, refreshed, and bursting with energy. I would probably also have played Frisbee the night before, and my body would be thrilling with the ache of tired muscles and the zing of endorphins. This has not happened in a great long time. Normality involves slightly less sleep than I would otherwise want, which is a negative, and my morning has probably started with a nappy change and a rush out the door. Worse mornings include being late to college, and being pooed on by Micah.

One might add up months of average days and assume that my life has been average at best, and tragic at worst. But this is patently not the case.

The last five months of my life have been the best five months of my life. The last year has been the best year of my life. The last 3.5 years have been the best years of my life, bar none. Fatherhood of Micah and marriage to Sarah has brought me a super-abundance of joy, and continues to do so each day, in increasing measure. The same can be said of Bible College. I do not regret these in any way, shape, or form.

But what is this phenomenon that's happening? Is it some sort of mathematical averaging function? Or is it that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Do weeks and months have no relation to the days that make them up? Or do days simply come around so often that they breed contempt, reminding us: there is nothing new under the sun?

But I digress. I can also truthfully say that life is good. And it continues to get better. Fatherhood is more and more rewarding each day, as Micah finds new and interesting ways to respond and grow and develop. Husbandhood is joy; I revel in the unspoken synergy between Sarah and myself...I don't have words to describe it. It's just awesome. SMBC is, and continues to be the right choice. God has put me here, and it is the right place for me to be at this point in time. I don't know what the future holds, but I am content for the time being to learn, to grow, to be challenged, to see godly examples before me, and to grow grow grow in as many ways as possible.

[This blog contains entirely unoriginal thought: I just read a very interesting article by Paul Barnett on the subject.]

When we think of the phrase, "Christ crucified", we generally think of the person: Jesus, dying on the cross.

Paul Barnett argues that first-century Jews would have heard something quite different: a stumbling-block of epic proportions. For they would think of the office, not the person.

That is to say, when they think of their Christ or their Messiah, they are thinking of the important (and long-neglected, but just as long-anticipated) office of the King of Israel. The David figure who would rescue and redeem them from the intolerable suffering to their enemies.

What that means is that the phrase, "Christ crucified" is a oxymoronic anathema! It is inconcievable for the Christ-king who would rescue them from their enemies could possibly be executed, in a bloody and horrific Roman manner, by their occupying enemies.

That explains to me the extremely violent reactions of many Jews to Paul's preaching in Acts, which I'd always felt as a bit of an over-reaction.

I'm awake at 4am. Apparently, you shouldn't drink four coffees in the morning, and follow that up with chocolate-coated coffee beans in the afternoon. Curse you Aroma festival!

Anyhoo, Sarah and I trekked into the city for the Aroma festival yesterday. It was pretty ground-breaking for several reasons. First of all, it was Micah's very first expedition into the city, which is pretty exciting. Secondly, it was our own little private birthday celebration (shared with 10,000 other people). And finally, it's the first time I've gone out on a Sunday morning in...forever! Definitely the first time since 2004, and even before then, it would have been a rarity. Besides which, since 2005, Graeme Hamer has been bugging me every year to go to the Aroma Festival (because somehow, people think of Haoran as synonymous with coffee... fancy that?!?)

We did the socially-acceptable thing and took public transport into the city, and in the process found out that State Rail does the "Family Funday" pass; and both of got unlimited public transport in Sydney for $2.50 each. Awesome! The non-Christian world has been holding out on me all these years and I never knew!

Which gets me to something else: even though I know lots of Christians check out the Aroma Festival and head to evening church, I certainly felt like this was the great Sunday alternative to church. This is what the 90+% of people who don't go to church are doing on a Sunday morning: worshiping the great Coffee Bean!

State of Origin night seems like a good time to talk about something that's been burbling around in the back of my head for a bit.

A common criticism of the game of Rugby League is that it is two dimensional. It's boring and repetitive, watching men constantly run into each other.

Granted—there is a three-dimensionality to AFL or to soccer that rugby league generally doesn't manage.

But there's no reason why an extra dimension necessarily makes a game more beautiful. That is to say, a square is no less perfectly formed than a cube. The beauty that a sphere has is no less geometric beauty than that of a circle; it merely has a different quality to it.

One of the joys of rugby league is like listening to a symphony slowing unfolding. It is a beauty of subtle variations on a theme. A hit-up here, a solid shoulder-charge there, a sudden sidestep, a burst from dummy-half, a half-break, an unexpected off-load, and the game breaks into full song.

When the game degenerates into broken play, it remains a far prettier sight than AFL. Because movement in one direction is relatively constrained, there is far more order to the chaos (as oxymoronic as that sounds).

Indeed, broken-field running is often pure joy to watch; no longer restrained by the rest of the orchestra, the soloist bursts into glorious song.

It's amazing how many strange beliefs we have that are just given to us; they stay with us and we don't even realise they're there.

For instance, somewhere along the line, I have been taught to believe that the value of an Australian life is greater than that of someone overseas.

Example. My uncle once ran a sandwich shop in the city. To find workers, he advertised, only in Chinese in Chinese newspapers. What sort of applicants and workers did he end up getting?

You guessed it—he had Chinese workers. This offended my Australian nationalism to no end! Why not Australian workers? His reasoning was that Chinese workers (non PRs) would work harder, and for less.

Now my uncle is not an ungenerous man. We ran into him at our local favourite Malaysian restaurant yesterday, and he shouted us lunch out of the blue.

What am I reacting to? I guess I have been fed, taught, subliminally messaged, that the value of an Australian life is more important than that of someone from China.

Why is that? The Australian worker will no doubt spend his money on his mobile phone bill, a couple of drinks at the pub and a night out on Thursday and/or Friday night, and save very little. The guy from China will pay off some debts, send most of it to his family at home, and live on a pittance for the rest of the week. [Gross over-generalization!]

But actually, the latter is probably far more helpful for the world at large, to the extent that one person in a large economy affects much.

Further than that; I am encouraged to buy Australian made. It's "better" that I buy a t-shirt that's made in Australia, rather than something made in a sweatshop overseas. Doesn't that $1 pittance that the little sweatshop worker earns do more good for that person and that third-world economy than the $15 the Australian businessman gets, or the $5 that his employees earn?

Recently, with our Kevin Rudd money, I used some of that to buy some stuff from the US. And I was stricken with a small degree of guilt: aren't I supposed to be using that money to prop up the Australian economy, not the US economy? But then again, there are poor people in the US economy as well. There are poor people in every economy. What makes the welfare of the Australian state more important than that of the US state, or the Botswanan state, or the Indonesian state?

I've just been writing essays on (and thus thinking about) the nationalistic pride of Israel, and the 1st-century Jews. It's one of the things that seems to get rejected in the first-century church throughout Acts (and books like Galatians). Or, what Jesus accomplishes on the cross is healing the nationalistic rift created in Genesis 12 (or perhaps, Exodus), as explicated in Ephesians 2: there is no more Jew and Gentile; rather there is a one humanity, a common united humanity under Christ, where there is no more dividing law or wall.

I could also appeal to the creation account in Genesis 1: the fact is, mankind is mankind. And so, I have more in common with the single mum in Ghana, or the guy selling fake watches to make a living in Thailand, or the guy picking rubbish out of a diner in New York than my neighbourhood cat. Or dog. They're humanity. They're in the image of God.

What makes me prioritise the Australian over anyone else in the world? What make me think that she is more important than anyone else in the world?

Only all the propaganda I've ever been fed in my life.

Sarah and I have been married a bit over 3 years.

Upon hearing this, a single friend asked if I even remembered life before Sarah.

Does it ever work like that? I'm curious what you guys think.

Because I've been thinking: marriage fundamentally changes your state, but does not fundamentally change you as a person. Like fatherhood, I will now, and foreverafter, be Micah's father. But having a son does not mystically generate parenting skills or bonds of affection. Being married is now a more significant thing to me than any other aspect of my life: my car, my house, my job, my education, my friends, my parents [but let us exclude faith from this list]. But I am still the person I was before, and change does not happen overnight. Rather, it creeps up on you, every hour, every day, every second you share, you are marked and are changed, for better and for worse. I am kinder, but lazier. I am more practised at choosing Sarah's needs over mine, but now I am also more dependant on Sarah's reciprocal service; as such I am probably even lazier now at cleaning up (if that were possible).

But marriage (unlike conversion), is not a fresh start. I am the same person I was before, with the same baggage I had before. Marriage prep is often not about clearing away your collective baggage, but helping you to shoulder each others' burdens.

For instance, I touched various scars the other day, prodding and poking and wondering if they were still there. And it surprised me to notice that they still hurt. They were remarkably poignant, even though I am in a far happier place now than I have ever been. Perhaps, like most ingrates, I am only truly appreciate what I have when its gone. Showing lack of contentment, I want what I had, rather than being content with what I have now. Except... I don't! I have more now than I ever had.

Because the nature of joy is far different to that of disappointment, hurt, regret. Joy is like being on caffeine. I feel generally warm and fuzzy, but when it is gone, I long and long for the feeling to return.

I have not yet, then, truly mastered contentment, nor the ability to rejoice, actively, in all circumstances.

Normally I wouldn't post one of my SMBC assignments on my blog, but every now and again you do something you just need to be a bit self-indulgent. My blog is probably a good place to show I'm, occasionally, a smart-arse.

So, just prior to Micah being born, I was working on this OT assignment. The assignment: "Read and respond* to one of the following OT books". (* Be as creative as you like, but interact with the text!)

I did mine on Numbers:

• Haoran's Reading Log Book

The Homogeneous Unit Principle (The HUP) is the idea that, in terms of evangelism and church-planting, a certain group of people will attract people who are relatively similar to them. So, university students are more likely to have friends who are university students, and so a church targeted at university students will work well by starting with a large pool of university students.

In some sense, that's basic human nature. People like people who are like them. That's why Vietnamese people tend to be found around Cabramatta, Chinese people tend to be found around Ashfield, and so forth. And in some ways, that makes good sense. A Mandarin-speaking church is able to do ministry that an English-speaking church can't. Similarly, a Korean church, a Persian church, and so forth.

The reason that's relevant is that a minister yesterday tried to convince me that I should work in an Chinese church, because of the HUP. "Culture", he said, "is bigger than language". So, his argument goes, even for the 2nd generation Chinese person, who speaks English fluently, is still more Chinese culturally, than Australian. He felt that at bible college (for him) there was still a visible cultural divide between him and the Anglo people at college.

Now the argument was brief because I had to go to class, but nevertheless, experientially, I think that's bollocks.

But then again, this guy didn't really know me.

I know there's ABCs who have more Chinese friends than Anglo friends. Maybe for them it's a good idea, because in order to reach their friends, a church of English-speaking Chinese would be the best way to reach them.

But that's hardly my experience. I strongly associate as an Australian. I don't reject my Chinese-ness, but I don't live in a Chinese world. I live in an Australian world. Which, by the way, is extraordinarily multi-cultural, and not necessarily Anglo. Nevertheless, for what its worth, I've lived with Anglos, and gone to "Anglo" churches, and married one. I am as Australian as I want to be. Australian as I need to be. I feel entirely comfortable in an Anglo church. (In fact, my mother, who is far more culturally Chinese than I am, also far prefers to go to an Anglo church.)

I'll admit that there was a time in my youth when I rejected my Chinese-ness, to embrace Australian-ness as much as I could. But I still have many element of Chinese-ness in me. I love my Chinese name (which is my Christian name, thankyouverymuch) and I made sure we gave Micah a Chinese name too. I know a phenomenal amount about Chinese cuisine, thanks to my parents (who love eating in restaurants), and I have the rudiments of Chinese bouncing around in my brain.

But all that aside, I think Culture is and should be subservient to the gospel. I'll be whatever I need to be, to serve the Lord Jesus and the Gospel. To the Aussies, I become Aussie, but to the Chinese, I become Chinese. When I speak to Aussies (especially those that strike me as potentially dubious) I'll speak with as much of an Aussie twang in my voice as possible, and tell them I was born in Australia. When I speak to a mainland Chinese student, I'll make as best use as I can of my 6 words of Chinese (which I don't speak with an Aussie accent), and tell them my parents are Malaysian-Chinese.

I need to run off to class, so I'll leave it there, but at the end of the day, it seems to me like the HUP is more like good pragmatics and bad theology.

More anon.