It has been a long time since my last blog. I friend of mine gave me a challenge to keep it up. It is amazining what we can waste our time doing or how time each day just disappears so quickly.
I am back teaching after a busy holiday. It is great to see the kids again but it is strange that in my third year of teaching I do have much greater emotional distance. I want to continue to care for the kids but I am developing my teaching as a craft. Also you realise that though a class of kids are really special to you another class will be there the folowing year who are just as dyanmic or challenging. It is interesting that as I get older things don't seem so immediate and I have more of an ability to see my life in years and patterns rather than the day I am in right now.

Anyway on another unrelated topic, I watched Destiny T.V for a short while this morning and it got me thinking about my view of Brian Tamaki, his theology and way of doing church. I have never been to a service at a Destiny church so my only real experience has been through the media's portrayal and their own t.v programme. He was talking about being strong and growing and said that often people complain about being tired or having struggles in their lives and are not strong enough to deal with it. He was talking about this in the context of spritual warfare and overcoming attacks by Satan. Interesting because my recent church experience has focussed on compassion for others and facing up to our weaknesses. My understanding of Jesus is that he became tired and was not 'strong' all the time such as when he needed to be alone. Thsi understanding has really helped me to learn how to relax and let God be the strength. However I could see what Brian was getting at. I guess he was encouraging people not to dispair and to belive in the power of God. So often I find that hard because I can see so many situations where is seems people are not experiencing 'victory'.

He finished by talking about the passage in Acts where the demon asks "Who are you?". Brian argued that if you are a child of God and planted in a Church (he specifically named Destiny) then you have spiritual authority. I agree to a certain extent however I think being part of the body of christ, the entire family of God is the important thing and which church you go to is slightly irrelevant. I did wonder where Brian was planted and whether he recongnised the rest of the Church, not just his own brand as aprt of the body of Christ.

I guess when it comes down to it sometimes I wonder why God allows churches who seem to have some questionable values and practises to thrive? But during his sermon he directly talked about violence, alcoholism and financial matters as areas which are spiritual battles and challenged the congregation to trust God and to be strong in these areas. So he must be relevant to some people and give them hope and strategies for life. It seems that few things are fully good or bad just like I am neither completely good or completely bad. Who am I to judge?

That leads me to my final thought. When as Christians should we correct each other is we believe some teaching or practise is not biblical or does not reflect Christ? when can we say we know that something is wrong?