“You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word.”
Psalm 119:114
This Psalm of David is the longest of all of the Psalms, and the longest chapter in the whole Bible. Here, David is saying to the Lord that he finds his refuge and safety in the Lord. When Saul was searching for David, it was the Lord that told him where to Hide, to help protect him physically, and spiritually.
Likewise, we should find our refuge in the Lord. When we are being trialed and tested, we should look towards the Lord, we should put our hope in his word. We should trust in the Lord to hide us, to give us refuge, from the temptations of the world, and to shield our mind and soul from the harmful things that we often come across.
One of the best way to find ways to improve your own website is to look at the competition to see what they do, and what you can learn from them. Today, I’m looking at the website for St George’s Cathedral, Perth.
Home Page
The home page has a rotating flash banner with well-chosen images, with a message over the top of each image. Below that is a three column layout where there is an image based navigation on the left, a short welcome note, including a link to sign up for the e-mail newsletter, and Latest news in the centre column, then a virtual tour and upcoming events in the right column. Continue reading “Website Review: St George’s Cathedral”→
It is with great pleasure that I can announce the Liesl and I have been accepted for training at the Salvation Army Training College as part of the Disciples of the Cross session.
For those outside of the Salvation Army, this means that Liesl and I have been accepted for training to become Salvation Army Officers (Ministers), and will see us move to Melbourne at the start of next year for two years of study at the Salvation Army Training College.
My journey starts a few years ago. When I was in year 11, I went on a “Priesthood Vocation Camp” that was being run by the Anglican Church in Perth. The Anglican Church identified a few young people who might be interested in ministry, and give them a weekend to explore the ministry. It didn’t really work out well for the Anglican Church. Of the five participants on the weekend, one is now in the Church of Christ, one’s moved to the Baptist church, one doesn’t really have a church, one floats between Baptist, Anglican and Salvos, and the one person who is entering the ministry is entering for the Salvos.
However, at the time, I wasn’t really interested in the priesthood, I wasn’t interested in Ministry. My Dad had been a priest (Both Church of Christ minister and currently an Anglican Priest), his dad had been a minister (Church of Christ), and my mum is an Anglican Deacon (having previously been a Church of Christ minister). I felt that God had our family, and didn’t need me. Well, he had other ideas.
When I started dating Liesl, I decided to check out the Salvos, because I had never really known what their service was like. Then one evening service, while I can’t really remember the message, I clearly remember my call. God said to me, “You’re going to college, and you’re going with her (Liesl)” and that was it. I talked to the officer that night, and started the journey to becoming a soldier, and eventually becoming accepted for college.
The application process for college is quite in-depth. It starts off with an A1 form, which is a general overview of you and your calling. Then if that gets accepted, then you get your pre-college assignments, and then your full set of papers.
The Pre-college assignments are some short assignments and readings that help you explore your calling, and leadership principles. There’s also some practical exercises, such as leading a service, and preaching.
The full set of papers give the Candidates Boards an in-depth view of you and your calling. There’s a family history, full set of medical and dental reports, a budget, and more. It really is quite in-depth.
Once your full set of papers is handed in, you will have your interview with the Divisional Candidates Board. Here they ask you some more questions, some which may have arisen from answers in your full set of papers. You also get asked to explain a bible passage, and to explain a doctrine.
From here, your application gets passed to the Territorial Candidates board, where they make the final decision on whether you are accepted for college or not.
From here, Liesl and I start making the final preparations. We need to finish our Pre-College assignments, we will need to do some fundraising, and then there will be the packing and moving. There will probably be a whole heap more as well as we prepare ourselves for lives as officers.
Once we have completed our training, we will be commissioned, and appointed to a Salvation Army Corps or Social placement somewhere within the Southern Territory in Australia. That’s basically anywhere in Australia, except the ACT, NSW and QLD (which are part of the Australian Eastern Territory). We will have no real idea of where we will be heading, but for me that’s part of the exciting part as we will be sent where the Army thinks we will best be able to serve that community.
Liesl and I are very excited about the future, particularly the next six months and the next 2 years of study, and can’t wait to be serving God wherever he needs us.
Well, I’m now a week past knee surgery, and things seem to be going well. I’m now walking around the house with the brace, and have ditched the crutches for the most part. The knee still feels weak (sometimes more than others), but most of the time it feels good.
I haven’t felt the need to have a lot of pain medication, and it’s only in the last couple of days that I’ve actually felt any discomfort, which has been taken care of with some paracetamol. On Sunday, I was at Church, and we had a long day, in having a corps lunch and then an afternoon meeting. By the time I got home, I was desperate to get the brace off, and my leg was incredibly tired.
I went to the surgeon on Monday for my post-op check. He was very pleased with how the wounds were healing, and said that the wounds and the swelling were progressing above average. Good news! I mentioned that I expected to be in more pain than I had been in. He responded saying that most knee surgeries come out with the patient being pleasantly surprised, and most shoulder surgeries going the other way. I wonder why that is?
Anyway, I keep going on with my exercises. I’m slowly rebuilding my strength and flexibility. I have the exercises to take me up to 6 weeks without a physio, however I’ll probably go see one anyway just to keep me motivated and ensure I’m heading down the right track.
I went to Church yesterday, and halfway through, Liesl comes up to me and says “I think they’re doing your song for the songsters message.” Indeed they were, the Songsters message was my arrangement of “Let the weak say, I am strong” by Rueben Morgan. Thanks to not being able to sing (would be too tough for me to get up there with my knee) I instead headed up to the sound desk at the back to record it on my phone.
This wasn’t exactly a complete performance, as there is actually a violin part at the beginning. However, I did write it so that if a corps didn’t have a violin player (which, to be honest, there would be more corps without any musicians than corps who have a violin player), it could still be performed and have the same effect.
I’m really pleased with this arrangement. I think that within it all, every part has beautiful lines that are just a pleasure to sing. Of course, the sopranos have most of the melody. But the lines that I’ve written, particularly the Tenor and Basses are just beautiful. It’s a bit hard to hear in the recording, but the Basses have this great line in the chorus which provides a fantastic grounding to the chorus, while the Tenors get this lovely moving part. I’m also really impressed by the dynamic change in the final couple of lines, which I think provides a real lift to that final line, “Jesus died, and rose again.”
Hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll hope to get a few more out soon.
I love the internet. It has truly made a positive benefit to our lives.
For example, this weekend I was supposed to go to see James Morrison perform a tribute to Louis Armstrong with WASO. However, thanks to my knee surgery, there was no way I would be able to fit into my seat.
So my seat went to my sister, and then the next night I was able to watch the webcast thanks to iiNet. So I still got to listen to the concert (and have better vision than if I was there live).
The other thing I’ve really enjoyed doing on the internet has been streaming the live feed of the Formula 1 races. I enjoy watching these, while Liesl gets bored by them, so I can plug my earphones in and watch on my laptop, while liesl can watch whatever she wants.
TV on the internet has certainly come a long way, and there is now the possibility to watch anything from anywhere at a time that suits you.
This morning, I’m heading off to my church to help out with the first Mainly Music session that we’re running. This has been a long time coming, but since we set a date and made it a reality, the overwhelming sense of excitement at our church is hard to miss.
Mainly Music is a fun music group for parents or primary care givers to enjoy together with their young child. Throughout the morning, children develop gross and fine motor skills, language, imagination, mathematical and pre-reading skills as well as socialise with others.
Normally I won’t be able to help out, thanks to having to work at the time. But since I’m off work sick, I’m heading along to get out of the house, and to help out with the PowerPoint. I’m also helping out with putting the PowerPoint and music each week. I want to share some of the images that I’ve selected this week to help brighten up the slides.
For the song “Dancing Feet” I love this cute image of the little girl on her mum’s shoes
For the same song, “Dancing Feet” this cute shot of a kid dancing on the playground
A lovely image of two kids dancing, again for “Dancing Feet”
So I went under the knife a couple of days ago, and I thought I’d update you with how it’s been going so far.
Coming out of the anaesthetic, I was incredibly cold. The nurses had me in double blankets, including around my head. Apparently I looked a bit like Muhammad Ali.
I was out of it most of the rest of the day following surgery. I wasn’t able to keep my lunch down, nor did I manage to go to the toilet. Even despite all the nurses best efforts, the Urologist was eventually called out to put a tube through to my bladder. Good fun!
Thankfully, the next morning everything was back to normal and working fine. I wasn’t using much pain medication, as I wasn’t in much pain. Eventually got back home, and enjoyed having dinner at home with my wife.
Sleeping was a bit difficult, as I found my compression bandage made my leg very itchy. Thankfully, Liesl had some powder that helped reduce the itchiness, and I ended up getting a good nights sleep.
Today, it’s been a quiet day, relaxing in front of the TV. I’m about to get down and do my exercises before dinner. The more I do this, the more likely I’ll get back doing things sooner.
It may be a tough topic for someone who writes a blog to say that we are too dependent on technology. Bloggers are, by their nature, people who embrace technology of some kind. However, are we dependent on that technology?
I have my computer, and my laptop. I also have my smart phone (HTC Desire HD) which allows me to be constantly connected. However, does having all this mean that I’m dependent on it?
I don’t believe so. I love my technology, but I could survive without it. For example, as I posted yesterday, I’ve been in hospital over night following knee surgery. While I’m writing this the night before my surgery, I actually plan on not using my phone all that much (hence the writing of this post before time), and look forward to reading a lot of my books that I’ve had on my reading list but haven’t really had the time to read yet.
However there are people who are dependent on technology. Is that a bad thing? Not entirely, so long as they do make sure there is time for the other things that are important in their life. When something takes over your life to the detriment of the other important things in life, then what becomes ok – whether it’s technology, sport, alcohol, gambling, sewing, whatever – then it becomes a problem.
Today I go under the knife. I’m having my left ACL reconstructed. I was playing basketball a bit over a year ago, made a drive in towards the left, and my knee collapsed under me. The guys on the court initially said that it appeared that my patella (knee cap) dislocated around the left and then popped back in. However, it turns out that it was actually my ACL rupturing.
So I’m now going under the knife to reconstruct my ACL. I’m a little bit worried about this, but not too much. My surgeon specialises in Knee and Shoulder surgeries only, so he knows what he’s doing. Apparently I’ll be in the pool and on the exercise bike in 6 weeks, and my recovery goes on from there.
While it means that I’m going to be out of action for a while, I am very much looking forward to having strength and confidence in my knee again. While it will take a year before I’m able to play basketball again, I much prefer some time out of action so that I can get back out on the court at some stage.
So for anyone reading this, some prayers for the surgery and my recovery would be greatly appreciated.
Ben Clapton 