shmatt.com

Pentecostalism ≠ evangelicalism ≠ fundamentalism.  Did you know that?

In fact, Pentecostalism has it’s roots in the Methodist holiness movement, the same movement that the Salvation Army was born out of, which in turn is where I started my journey of faith.

In it’s early days, Pentecostalism had strong ties with emancipation, woman’s suffrage, social justice, liberality and pacifism.  It was characterised by the coming together of all races and “classes” - without discrimination - to worship God and see the broken set free supernaturally.

This is liberating to me, because over this past weekend I was led through a life changing series of experiences that swept me back into my core Pentecostal beliefs that I had almost left behind.

I had almost left them behind, because they seemed to me to be so tied up with other experiences in my past - legalism, prosperity theology, institutionalism, empiricism, selfish ambition and subcultures - that seems to me to be incompatible with the Gospel.

But Pentecostalism is not about all that.

I was gracefully shown this through this week’s Podcast of ‘Speaking of Faith’ with Krista Tippit.  I started to listen to this podcast when she once featured Shane Claibourne.

So I can still believe that God moves supernaturally, and in profound, powerful ways in a person’s life, and yet still practice Love, reject capitalism and meet organically, because this also seems to be the beliefs of the early Pentecostals.

That is good to know.

It seems that Tasmania is the third most popular region in the world for us Tews

Top Regions (Frequency per Million)

ALABAMA , UNITED STATES
208.37

NORTH CAROLINA , UNITED STATES
181.87

TASMANIA , AUSTRALIA
143.63

UTAH , UNITED STATES
117.81

EAST MIDLANDS , UNITED KINGDOM
107.06

No inbreeding jokes, please.  And definitely no comparisons with Alabama.

Check out your surname at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames

“He is like a Mounty, he always get’s his man, and he will zap you any way he can…

…ZAP!”

Thanks Dan Kimball

My mate Rob Chaney and I will soon be starting a podcast that we record while sitting and chatting down at the local.

The aim is just to capture simple conversation between two blokes sitting in a pub. We want it to be raw conversation about doing faith when it really meets the road.

We hope to the other to get in guests from week to week including regular guys as well as celebrity names that we will force to talk about everyday issues that might not come across when in the spotlight.

So keep an eye out for it. If you want to join in for a chat one day let us know, and if you have any ideas please post on the comments.

Don’t you just love ‘em

Ps. I know it is technically spring

It’s green, it’s mean, and its, well green…

http://www.thecoolhunter.co.uk/transportation/ECO—EXOTIC/

Perfectly legal, and the Mercedes E-300 I was in handled it perfectly.  Still, it was FAST. Could have gone faster, but Doreen the driver didn’t have it in her.

Sorry about the crappy video.  To give you an idea, the cars we passed were probably doing at least 150kph themselves. 

By the way, if you ever visit Germany, you must go to Potsdam.  Amazing old-world city with impressive buildings.

We had to give up our last dog some 5 years ago due to it having a jeckyll and hyde personality where it would be the most placid and docile dog while we were around, but we received continual reports that she would bark at and attack neighbours when we weren’t at home.  Hard to believe at first, but it continued until the point we were told that she needed to be muzzled and kept behind high fences with dangerous dog signs.

After holding off for some years, we feel that we are settled down sufficiently now to get ourselves another dog.  This time, we have chosen to buy an Australian Labradoodle.  They are hypo-allergenic (important for me) and well-tempered dogs.  So on that note, I’d like to introduce Mocha*

Mocha is a little boy, born on the 17th Feb.  We pick him up this week some time.  he is a small dog - will grow to 40-41 cm.  We wanted a bigger dog, but our landlord conceded only once we agreed to a small dog.

We are all very excited.

We were originally going for a different breed, but decided it was too ugly in the end. (WARNING: don’t click that link over lunch)

* Mocha is pronounced moh-kah (mk), for all you uncultured Australian’s who think otherwise.  And on that note, mocha is originally a type of pure, rich arabian coffee, not the sickly coffee/chocolate blend correctly called Café mocha or moccacino.

Hey.

Now that my serious posting is done at my new blog (Nomadic Faith), I can now feel free to post frivolous stuff here.

Like this: