New Timbercrete Website

Check it out! Looks Awesome, fresh, green and vibrant!! New galleries of homes built with Timbercrete, new testimonies from pleased customers, easier navigation and easier to read info. Thanks to the team at Enabled Solutions, great work!

Adelaide Homeshow

Off to the Adelaide Homeshow this weekend.
Speaking on the Greensmart stage everyday and getting Timbercrete 'out there'. We're expecting it to be very busy and great for exposure and sales etc They expect 25,000 - 30,000 people through, should be a hoot!

New Addition

I think Scruffy's a little worried and unsure just what he's got himself in to . . . . other than his favorite hiding pipe that is.

ABC on Good Friday Footy

In relation to the next post on Good Friday Footy I found this:
"So what’s going on how is it such a remark can pass unremarked on national television? Is it perhaps that religion and in particular Christianity has lost its hold on the public imagination? That, a bit like Kim Beazley, the folk out there just aren’t listening anymore, and that as far as leadership is concerned, the condition is terminal? It’s not about hostility; it’s about indifference and perhaps even irrelevance. Christianity does not matter to most people because it has nothing to say to them. Or perhaps in a consumer culture, it has nothing to offer them?"
Full Article

Good Friday AFL

It seems the AFL are voting tomorrow on whether there should be AFL played on Good Friday. It seems to have sparked some interesting discussions about faith and life in Australia Article Here AFL Poll I'd be interested in anyone's views on it. Australia definitely has a religion of following footy and it would be interesting to know if that religion outweighs (or is more wanted) than a remembrance of Jesus' death. I don't know what to think, being a follower of Jesus and a follower of footy and being a bit tired of doing things just because they're done ie going to church on Good Friday because everyone has always done it etc. Could we watch a bit of footy in the arvo after spending some time with a group of believers? What else would we be doing? I myself like to think that Jesus' death on the cross affects my life everyday not just on Sunday or even Good Friday. The question also has to be asked whether the bible actually asks us to meet specifically just to remember his death and resurrection at the approximate time at which it happened. I get the feeling that Jesus would far rather us be affected by who He was and is as the Son of God everyday than go to a Good Friday service and give honor to Him once a year.
And what if before the big game they actually remember Jesus and who he was with a statement or prayer and a minutes silence. I wonder how many people would hear a message of hope that maybe wouldn't have if the footy wasn't on?

Awesome Signage!

Just put up a new sign at the Home Idea centre in the city - looks awesome! I'd like to say thanks to Grant and Craig at Enabled Solutions for their artwork and professionalism, they've been awesome! Great photo work too from an unnamed source, now we pray it brings in the work! :)

Christian or just a follower of Jesus?

Words, even though I was always told that sticks and stones will break my bones and names(words) can never hurt me, they (words) can still play a pretty significant part in life and beliefs. I think I've come to the conclusion that to call someone a Christian doesn't necessarily mean that they follow the teachings and life of Jesus. That being a 'Christian' is often wrapped up in the local church or religion and there can be a big difference! It's also interesting that other religions often see a 'Christian' as a hypocrite yet see Jesus as a great man or even believe Him to be the the Son of God.

Well that sucks!

What a shocker!
What a day to have a bad one. If only they put up a bit of a whimper? So many things to have a whinge about. You have to wonder whether it would've been better to bow out (pardon the pun) against West Coast with some sort of fight (although they still would've had a second chance) than to go out like this. All I can hope in, is that this will cause them to fight real hard next year and I guess it certainly has the potential to cause this team to want to prove something so . . . . look out in 08 . . . . please.

Love and the Church

The Dave Andrews awesome read of 'Not Religion but Love' really echo's some of my sentiments towards the local Christian church in huge amounts. I think my difficulty over the years with the church has been because the local church has been more interested in doing the church thing rather than simply being the people that Jesus wants them to be and loving others unconditionally. I wrote this a while ago about this very fact:

"For so long now I believe the church (generally speaking) has given God’s true love a fair bit of lip service that hasn’t dropped to the heart or feet.

For whatever reason, often I have seen local churches chase the easy options, chasing those who can come into the life of church the quickest with the least amount of effort. Unfortunately it doesn’t take much love for this to happen.
What we see in Christ though is far greater than this. Jesus came to love as God loved - with a whole gamut of self sacrifice.

It is this sacrificial unconditional love, that caused grown men to drop their nets and follow, that caused sinners to weep at his feet, that sent self righteous accusers who pointed the finger to take a good look at themselves and men in high positions give up the right to their riches and fame."

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on that.

BRING IT ON!!!

C'mon the Power! Tame those Cats!!!

Church and Discipleship

Been commenting at a previous lecturer's (one of my fav's and a good bloke) blog site. There's been some interesting conversation going on about community and understanding Jesus outside the normal Christian format. So I thought I'd post this as it prompted me to think of some stuff I have written in the past:
"The problem is, I believe, that because of our (churches across the world) fleshly desire to create something that ‘looks good’, in building our own church empires and making sure there are plenty of people, we have let go of the very thing that is good, simply growing passionate disciples of Jesus. We’ve replaced what God designed to be good - getting alongside of an individual, loving them, leading them to Christ, helping them grow in their understanding and their position as a child of God, and leading them to do the same, into - come to church, get involved in what we do, become a part of the crowd and follow the religion. No wonder they don’t want to follow Jesus actively, just look at what we’ve served them! An empty fulfilment of rules and rituals, legalities and burnout, high, unrealistic expectations and a love for the things of church, not necessarily a love for God and each other, the primary commandments of the one who we say we follow".

Sports all round!

Well I'm kinda a sports freak in many ways, have been from a young age. Played footy and basketball until my knee decided to go in a different direction to where I wanted to go. Needless to say .. the end of competitive sport. It just so happened that at the young age of 21 I married a very zippy point guard and netballer. So you'd think that if we had some children they'd be loving sport. Well you'd be right! This is as good a bragging place as any so here goes.
Footy. . . . as a coach and Dad of player was very hot this year. The mighty Christies Beach Primary 4/5's were unbeaten! Not only that, they kicked an everage of 107 points per game, with a total of 1395 points for the 13 games played. Brody Kicked 30:10 for the season from playing primarily on the ball and no I didn't tank it so he kicked more. :)

Glenno in the middle - the big one - Brody's on my left arm (with the boofy hair!).










Gymnastics . . . . seems we have a new State champ in the fam! State championships for Shannon, Kirrily and Hannah was last weekend and they all did well!
Kirrily had a ball and came 8th overall with a 3rd on the bars in her Grade. Her team won the overall grade.










Shannon had a great weekend also and her team won the grade overall as well. Shannon also came a personal fourth overall.


















Hannah had an awesome championships! In under 6 in her grade Hannah came first on the vault, 2nd on the beam and 4th on floor and took out the Grade as State champ, what a little trooper!

















So we're very proud of our kids and their efforts, they have tried so hard and it's been awesome to watch them develop and we look forward to that more into the future. It's been a big year in sport! Go 'the Power' and bring on the cricket!

Sustainable House Construction #1

Ok, so, starting a new line of Blog that will be a journal to building a new, Energy Efficient Home.
We have a block of land at Aldinga Beach that we want to build on. It is approx 1200m2, 51m deep and 24m across, it's flat and north facing.
We want to build it as energy efficient as we possibly can and the least amount of impaction on our environment. That means on gases into the air, co2 etc, amount of electricity, lpg etc used for living and most importantly that we are doing our best to save water.
So, hopefully this can be a reference point for us as we research and maybe for others as they also consider building or renovating their homes.
I'll be gathering information off the web and hopefully linking to other like minded blogs and resources that are doing the same. If anyone can help or wants to join in, it would be most appreciated.

New Camera

Bought a new camera, mainly for the business, a Fuji Finepix S9600. It's nearly an SLR but not quite. Very good though and so far am having a good time with it. The main shots that will be taken will be ones like the header of this blog, of bricks and homes. But there'll be some others like the macro's of the flowers around the place and some action shots.
It's very easy to use and has many manual functions. The 28mm lens gives a great wide shot and should be good for shots of homes, especially those with a wide frontage. Now I just have to learn some good photography techniques! The shots above were taken at my place, two macro shots, a daisy and a reed with droplets of water. Then an action shot of Lara.
Not bad seeing as I had to kick the ball, focus and shoot in a few seconds!

Our wild stallion and equine flu

Check out our lawn mower! Don't have to start it, give it fuel, push it (sometimes) and it goes all night.
Bossy's his name for a good reason too.
Talking about Horsies, this equine flu thing seems to be a bit of a farce. Yep I understand the need to be careful about spreading the disease etc but it's only really affecting the racing crew. If a horse gets it it's like getting the flu ourselves, we lay low and get better, and that's the whole issue!
Horses have to lay low, that's fine for ours that's all they do anyway but for the racers it's all about the $$$$$ As if they don't have enough anyway!

The adventures of Glenn and Stuey

Well we have an employee, the big stumeister, a very good friend of mine. It's great having him around and we work well together. We have some rather funny times also so I thought that now and then I'd have and adventures of Glenn and Stuey section on the blog.
Today the big Stu nearly had a major issue. It's hard to explain in full without actions but as we were about to pull up a mold Stuey bumped himself on the saw bench which propelled him towards the soft blocks in the molds and towards me. So imagine the look on his face as he's falling towards me and the wet bricks and my face as I brace myself to catch him. Now think about how it looks when one man is supporting another like a bridge over a bunch of wet bricks! He he. I pushed him back and we lifted the molds. No damage done and much laughter was had by all!

Mars Hill

I've been listening a lot to Mars Hill teaching lately and I'm finding it awesome and inspirational. I have this mp3 transmitter and can transmit a teaching mp3 into the factory from the office. So while I'm stacking (it's too noisy when making them) Timbercrete bricks I'm listening to Rob Bell or someone else at Mars Hill.
The focus on biblical teaching, church not being just Sunday but people, focus on serving local and global, mentoring instead of just programming, methods of ministry that have resonated in my heart for years all come through this place and I'm loving it.
At the moment the series is 'God is Green' you can find it here. Seeing as Timbercrete is green and we as a family are trying to live and build green, to know that God is the greenest of all means we need to listen to him about that. As followers of God and His son Jesus, the green greenies, I pray that we can follow, live and lead a greener life.

Broken Hill and General Footy

At the start of the month Brod's and I traveled to Broken Hill for a couple of games of footy. Brody made it into the U13's South Adelaide Dev Squad which was a huge feat as he's a year younger than he should be so that's been cool. The team played the first game straight off the bus against the best from around the Broken Hill area. The boys had been on the bus for 6 hrs so to lose by only a couple of goals wasn't bad. The next game 2 days later was much better, the boys put in a very hard effort and came away with a good win. It was a great trip, good to get to know a few people and I helped out as a runner which was cool but I discovered I'm very unfit, aerobically anyway!
Coaching this year has been a blast. This will be the last year of coaching the 4/5's as next year Brody and most of the team will be 6/7's, so I'll probably coach them. I have to say that coaching footy is awesome! Being around people in this footy community is great. I have some close friends there now after coaching for the last couple of years and I would say that there are who some who are more like Jesus than some of those I have known in the past that have claimed to be.
As far as results go, the boys haven't lost a game, as a matter of fact they haven't won by less than about 9-10 goals, some by about 20. This is fun but in many ways they're getting a bit cocky and could do with some good competition, reality will hit next year I think / hope.

Switchfoot in Paradise?

Ok, I'm a bit miffed.
I heard a rumour from a pretty good source that Switchfoot were at one time invited to the Oz gospel Music Festival in Toowoomba and they turned the organisers down due to the fact that Switchfoot had said they don't do 'Christian Events'. Now I fully support this to the hilt. I would rather see Christians impacting our world in the world than saying they're a Christian and never leaving the comfort of the church pew. So I was pretty pumped to hear that Switchfoot wanted to have more of an outside impact than in. Now . . . I was pretty excited to hear that Switchfoot were coming here to Oz, then I read off the website that they are only playing at Youth Alive venues in a youth alive package, one of them here at Paradise Church - not happy.
Now lets just say Switchfoot are struggling for mainstream airplay on radio, which I think they are, is playing at these venues going to do them any favours? I don't think so. Who will also go to these venues and what will they be hit with when they're there? Will there be an alter call, a love offering?? What is this about, Switchfoot and their kingdom impact or Youth Alive and drawing a crowd? Is Switchfoot changing their tack, are they just interested in the $ more than the influence, if so then 'American Dream' is just a song with no meaning?
I'll be trying to get there coz I like their music so much, but I'm confused and not happy, wishing they were at a better venue.

My answer to my year 12 english teacher

I think it was 1987, sitting in Yr 12 English and after receiving a result (probably a bad one)Ms Matthews asked me this question. 'Why are you in this class? What are you going to do after school anyway? The real question was - what are you doing in my class? You're obviously not going to use anything from yr 12 English, what are you going to do that could ever need English!
So now - my answer to Ms Matthews wherever she may be:

Well after school I'm going to become a carpenter and I'm going to have to write some assignments for trade school. I'm also going to need to write essays for my advanced building certificate. After a few years in the trade I think I might try and get a theological degree which will require me to know how to write 2000-3000 word essays with specific guidelines so that the lecturers know what I'm talking about and to meet protocol. After I finish my degree I'm going to become a pastor in a church and I'll be writing messages for public speaking every week and sometimes twice a week. After about seven years of that I think I'll start my own business and have to answer emails, write invoices, fax's, marketing strategies, financial reports etc etc and then I think I'll do some more building study just because I love English soooo much. During that I think I'll blog a little. :)

So Ms Matthews that's why I'm in this class.

Just an encouragement to all of you - You may not know why you're doing what your doing, but God does. You may get people saying to you 'why are you doing this or that? That's ridiculous!' My encouragement is to keep your eyes fixed on the goal and push on. What you're doing now may not make sense but in years to come you may be able to look back and realise that what seemed stupid at the time God had a purpose for.