Congratulations to Sara Lohmeyer, the High Wycombe Child Health Nurse on being named Australia’s Nurse of the Year at the HESTA Nursing Awards in Melbourne at the weekend. It’s fantastic to have someone like this a part of our local community.
Nurse of the Year
Posted: May 13, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: congratulations, High Wycombe, nurse, sara lohmeyer
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Australians are slow to make changes to our Constitution – and rightfully so, since the Constitution provides stability to a nation.
But the latest bit of news has got me curious.
I was interested to see that a national referendum has been called to recognise local government in the constitution, but we still haven’t got to the point of recognising indigenous Australians.
This is the third time that a referendum on recognising local government has been put to Australians. The 1974 and 1988 votes were unsuccessful.
In the meantime many Australians are still waiting for a referendum on the recognition of indigenous Australians and the removal of the clause which says the States can ban people from voting based on their race.
John Howard proposed a Preamble to the Constitution in 1999 that was defeated and in 2007 he made an election promise to hold a referendum to recognise indigenous Australians in the constitution. Kevin Rudd also pledged bipartisan support. It is still part of both Coalition and Labor policy.
The Recognise website outlines the current situation:
In 2010, Julia Gillard struck a deal to form government with Independent MP Rob Oakeshott and the Greens that included a commitment to hold a referendum on constitutional recognition by the 2013 election. An expert panel was appointed to advise on a model and process. It reported in January 2012.
In September 2012, Labor announced it would delay the referendum, citing concern at low levels of public awareness.
As an interim step towards a referendum, the Government proposed an Act of Recognition in the Parliament.
The legislation has a sunset period of two years, which Liberal MP Ken Wyatt – the only Indigenous federal MP – likened to a “post it note on the fridge” to remind the Parliament to finish the task.
Meanwhile, a grassroots movement of Australians is growing steadily to build the community support needed for a successful referendum.
The post-it note is still on the fridge.
The Mission of the Long Beach Depot for Creative ReUse is To encourage, inspire and promote fun ways to reuse items and materials “too good to throw away” for creative reuse projects.
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Posted: May 7, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: Community, redemption, reuse
Empty Bottles
Posted: May 6, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: Church, inspiration, spiritual sustenance, worship
We all have a bottle of water.
When we have a difficult conversation, we take a sip. When we have to make a decision, we take a sip. When there is a disagreement with someone, we have a good gulp of water.
…And by the end of the week, the bottle is empty.
So many people come to church on Sunday needing to get their bottles filled. The sermon from the preacher, the singing, the Bible readings, the prayers, and the good conversations with other 
people all contribute to filling up the bottle.
We go out after church feeling envigorated, empowered, strengthened. We’re ready for the week to come.
…Or maybe we don’t have that experience. What we get on Sunday doesn’t seem to do it for us. The preacher is boring, the songs are lacking in inspiration, and the people we meet seem to be more interested in themselves than in me. So we give church a miss next time.
Clearly we need to do more to make sure that church can really fill people’s bottles. Worship should be a time when we are brought into the presence of God and experience his grace in all that happens. And we need to do all we can to make sure that happens.
But rather than becoming spiritual consumers whose only goal on Sunday is to get our bottles filled, maybe there’s another way forward.
I reckon there is a place for learning how to re-fill our bottles during the week. When we read the Bible or pray, we are putting some water back into our bottle, when we offer a word of encouragement to someone else, we contribute to re-filling the bottle, when we meet with fellow followers of Jesus and share our encouragement, the bottle gets topped up.
So when we get to church on Sunday we are not so anxious to fill our empty bottle, but we are keen to share some of our full (or nearly full) bottle with the people around us whose bottles are less full than our own.
That leaves the church with a couple of goals: We need to make the sure the filling station is working well for the sake of those who have come with empty bottles, and to top up those who are not so empty; but we also need to help people to find ways to become daily re-fillers.
What are some ways you have been able to re-fill your own bottle, and how have you helped to fill other people’s bottles? Share your thoughts.
Hello Sunday Morning
Posted: May 2, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: alcohol, binge drinking, Hello Sunday Morning
Hello Sunday Morning is an exciting new initiative by a group of young people who figured that something needed to be done to address what has begun to emerge as a dangerous culture in Australian society – the binge drinking culture.
Hello Sunday Morning is a movement towards a better drinking culture.
According to the ABOUT page on the Hello Sunday Morning website, the purpose is to “provide a platform for individuals to create meaningful change in their lives by taking a short break from alcohol. By sharing their story, each persons’ stand is a unique and essential contribution to a better drinking culture.
“Hello Sunday Morning is a way for any individual to take a break from drinking and recreate the drinking culture around us. Since 2010 nearly 10,000 people have signed up to go 12 weeks or more without alcohol, and blog about their journey on Hello Sunday Morning.”
I welcome any move towards addressing a culture that is creating a great deal of pain and suffering and is a major cost to our society in the areas of health, relationships, justice, and much more.
Well done to those people who are behind this initiative and those who are prepared to join up and make some personal changes
Staying Salty
Posted: April 28, 2013 in UncategorizedTags: followers of Jesus, redemptive presence, salt of the earth
There are 14,000 known uses for salt, according to the Salt Institute, the North American based non-profit trade association dedicated to advancing the benefits of salt. They claim that salt is the world’s oldest food additive and on their website highlight some of the benefits:
(Keep reading, you’ll get to the point of this post soon!)
- One component of salt, sodium (Na), is involved in muscle contraction including heartbeat, nerve impulses, and the digestion of body-building protein.
- Sodium is the major extracellular electrolyte responsible for regulating water balance, pH, and osmotic pressure;
- Salt is important in nerve conduction. Because of sodium’s importance to your body, several interacting mechanisms, including generation of hormones angiotensin and aldosterone, adjust the system in the event of consumption of insufficient amounts of salt which would threaten the body’s nerves and muscles and interference with the sodium-potassium “pump” which adjusts intra- and extra-cellular pressures. If your salt intake varies widely, these mechanisms activate to assure that your body remains healthy, maintaining a relatively constant blood pressure;
- The other component of salt, chloride (Cl) is also essential to good health. It preserves acid-base balance in the body, aids potassium absorption, supplies the essence of digestive stomach acid, and enhances the ability of the blood to carry carbon dioxide from respiring tissues to the lungs;
- Because salt is essential to good health, the human body is hard-wired with an innate salt appetite;
- Iodized salt is used by 70% of the world’s population to protect against mental retardation due to Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD);
- Many countries fortify salt with fluoride against dental caries in situations where fluoridating drinking water is inappropriate;
- A growing number of countires fortify salt with iron to prevent anemia;
- Salt brings to food far more than one of the five basic taste sensations (sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami); it enhances other tastes. Sweets taste sweeter. Salt masks bitter tastes, making naturally bitter foods like chocolate and broccoli become delicious;
- Before recorded history, men learned salt’s key role in food safety and preservation by retarding the growth of spoilage microorganisms.
OK, here’s the point. Today at church I talked about the followers of Jesus as being a “redemptive presence in our community”. I wasn’t the first to say that. Jesus said it, not exactly in those words, when he said to his followers: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. He then went on with a different image, but same theme: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
What do you to stay salty and remain alight? Use the comment section to share your thoughts.
We tend to think that management has always been here, but it is just something some guy invented in the 1850s. It’s a brilliant technology but it is designed to get compliance. What we have is a set of motivational mechanisms that were good for 19th century work and not bad for 20th century work. But they have outlived their usefulness for most 21st century work. If you ask people when they were most engaged at work, they don’t say: “I was so engaged when my boss told me exactly what to do.”
From an interview with Dan Pink. Some useful thinking about leadership and management in the 21st century.
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Posted: April 25, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: 21st century, Dan Pink, leadership, Management
Here’s a song for Anzac Day from Colin Buchanan, Lee Kernaghan and Sara Storer.
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Posted: April 24, 2013 in Uncategorized
I reckon that little two or three letter words are easier to remember than big words.
That’s why I am using the words UP, IN, and OUT in my current talks about how the church functions.
UP represents our focus on God. Worship is the highest calling of the followers of Jesus and we need to learn how to put God as a priority for every part of our lives.
IN represents the focus that we have on the church and the need to develop a healthy church. I suggested on Sunday that among many other things we need the following qualities:
The Prayerfulness of Anna (Luke 2:36-38)
The Grace of Stephen (Acts 6:15)
The generosity of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:1-4)
The trust of Barnabas (Acts 9:26-30; 19:11-26)
The faith of Lois and Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5)
Finally, OUT represents the need for the church to reach outside itself to represent Jesus in its involvement in the world. I’ll be talking about that next Sunday.
Last week’s video shows how the three elements come together.
The nifty thing about “Up … In … Out” is that focussing on one without the other two doesn’t make a lot of sense. Put all three together, and hey presto! you can see the cross.
INSPIRE NEWSCAST 