Follow Your Dreams! - Father Dave's Blog

“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” (Acts 16:9-10)

Dreams can change your life.

Paul had been in Troas, in modern-day Turkey (about 50 km from Gallipoli) when he had that dream about the Macedonian man, calling for help. No doubt Paul already had plans. He was probably thinking of looping back towards Jerusalem and visiting the churches he’d planted along the way. Even so, he had that dream, and so he told his team to head out and purchase tickets for a voyage to Europe!

My mind goes back to 2012 when I first started hearing news reports about the uprising in Syria. I had no idea where Syria was at that stage, and I didn’t have any Syrian friends but, for some reason, I couldn’t get Syria out of my mind. I’d lie awake at night, thinking about what was going on there, and I remember saying to God, “I’m busy here, Lord”. Even so, six months later I was in Damascus, going to bed each night with the distant glow of mortar fire lighting up the night sky in every direction.

I expect Paul’s stay in Philippi, Macedonia’s capital, was at least as risky for him as Syria was for me. Philippi was a Roman city, and it was a town full of vets (and not the kind that look after animals)!

One of the big problems for kings and emperors in those days was what to do with your retired soldiers. This was not a group that the government wanted to get offside, so the Romans pensioned off their veterans very generously. Philippi had been given over entirely to veterans, which meant it was a city full of rough old men with money. Some would have had families. Many would have been single, and I imagine there was a thriving sex industry there and lots of late-night bars. It was an odd place for Paul to launch a Christian mission.

If Paul had been guided by the contemporary wisdom of church-growth strategists, he would have looked for an area with a well-established Jewish community – people who already understood concepts like Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Philippi didn’t have that. Paul couldn’t even find a synagogue there, and while he had dreamt of a local man calling for his help, he didn’t find any men he could connect with once he got there. Instead, he wandered outside the city and found a group of women praying by a river and … the rest is history!

We can’t be sure about much when it comes to the early development of the church in Phillipi though there has been lots of speculation. Was the leader of that prayer group, Lydia, the church’s first pastor? Were Paul and Lydia an item at one point? There is much we can’t be sure about, but one thing does seem clear. Paul looked back at his journey to Macedonia as one of the best things he ever did.

When Paul was in prison some years later, who did he write to? It was his spiritual family in Phillipi. And while so many of Paul’s letters have him exasperated, or frustrated over issues of lust, greed, immorality, and idolatry (e.g. Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians), listen to his words to the community at Phillipi:

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:3-8)

I love Paul’s frankness about his passion for these people whom he ‘longs for with the affection of Christ Jesus’. I feel the same way about the people of Syria, and it’s breaking my heart to see what is happening to them at the moment.

Dreams can change your life. They can bring you light and love and joy and peace, along with risk, pain, suffering and exhaustion, but … only if you follow them.

Our Sunday Eucharist

We had a very special Sunday Eucharist last weekend with Eric Fistler joining David Baldwin and myself on the panel.

It was Eric’s first time streaming live with us but, having been co-host of the Pulpit Fiction Podcast for more than a dozen years, Eric was no stranger to live Bible Banter and, indeed, the two most popular shorts from the broadcast that were published this week both featured some of Eric’s wisdom.

See the shorts below, or see all the shorts from last Sunday on our Sunday Eucharist Instagram page. To watch the entire replay, visit our YouTube channel.

This coming Sunday I’m looking forward to having Doug Pyeatt and Rob Gilliand with me. Our dear sister, Karyn Hemming, was initially set down to join us but has had to reschedule. Thank you, Rob, for stepping in to the breach.

We broadcast on Sunday from noon (Sydney time) via TheSundayEucharist.com, Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia and Streamyard.

Please do join us, and please invite your friends. Refer them to the Facebook Event Page or encourage them to sign up directly through Streamyard.

Let me work your corner

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What’s On?

Saturday, May 24^th – Boxing at Fadi’s Boxing Gym in Five Dock from 8.30 am
Saturday, May 24^th– “Rise up for Syria” rally @ Sydney Town Hall from 2 pm
Sunday, May 25^th– Our Eucharist from noon @ thesundayeucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard)
Tuesday, May 27^th– Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm.
Thursday, May 29^th – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
Friday to Sunday, May 29to June 1 @Binacrombi. Please join us.

The pics above are from the sparring day, held at the Mundine Gym last Saturday. All our boys did brilliantly, and I got in some rounds with the lads in centre-screen. One of them wrestled and threw me, which was a bit de ja vu, and took it out of me. Even so, I got the better of both opponents despite the age and weight disadvantage

The other big event for me this week was Joy’s induction as Presbytery Minister for the Sydney Presbytery. Translating that into my tradition, she’s now a bishop, which is a rather big deal! It was a privilege to be a part of the service. Pics below.

I’ve mentioned already the rally for Syria tomorrow. Please come if you are able.

You might be thinking, ‘what’s the point?’, as there’s little hope that the Australian government (or any government) will intervene in Syria to protect minority groups and prevent ethnic cleansing – not when the US President has just been shaking hands with the former Al Qaeda leader/now self-appointed President, Al Jolani.

We meet because we are grieving, but (as I say at every funeral I take) we do not grieve as people without hope. I believe in miracles, and I believe that after death comes resurrection. Dare to believe with me, and I’ll see you at the rally. 😊

Finally today, I have a question and a request, and they’re connected.

The question is whether you’d like to join me for a mid-week Bible-study/discussion. I’ve had a few people suggest this now – that we set aside a time each week to meet online and discuss the weekly Bible readings and pray for each other. If you’re interested, let me know via a comment or send me an email and I’ll get back to you.

Finally, and in a similar vein, I want to encourage you to join our weekly coffee catch-up, held immediately after our Sunday Eucharist broadcast every week.

A small group of us have been meeting after the weekly broadcast for years now but it’s suddenly become more complicated as Microsoft has retired Skype which was the platform we used for the meeting. In it’s place, Microsoft wants to transition us to it’s new online conferencing platform but I’m hoping that we can instead use Faithia.

I appreciate that Faithia has its limitations, the most obvious of which is that it only operates on your mobile phone and not on your computer. Even so, I really like the Faithia team, who are a group of Chinese American young people with a vision for connecting communities of faith online.

The Faithia platform also has one feature that I really like. If you sign up for a group (like the Sunday Eucharist Coffee catch up group) the app will send you a reminder each week when someone comes online and starts the meeting. So … please:

Scan the Faithia QR code below with your phone
Download the app
Sign up for a free membership
Go to ‘Groups’ and join the Sunday Eucharist Coffee Catch-up.

You might like to join some other groups while you’re there, such as the Order of the Fighting Fathers group, and we’ll probably be starting a new group there soon for the weekly online Bible-study.

That’s plenty for today. If you can’t join us in person at the rally tomorrow, do say a prayer for us and for Syria, and keep dreaming. ❤️

May the Lord bless and strengthen you for the work to which you have been called.

Yours in the Good Fight,