About 3 weekends ago i went up to Launceston for the Save Tassie Summit.

It's always a struggle for me when i go to these types of things because I'm often left feeling like something which promised so much, has only half delivered. What do i mean by this?? Well, i love the passion that lots of these guys from Pentecostal churches have, i love the way that transfers into their worship. But i couldn't help but feel that it was a little bit substance lacking. For example, one bloke gave a talk on Love. He was very entertaining, and said some good things. But he talked for an hour and said that we should love one another in our youth ministry and that we should make that our culture by being intentional and making sure that we don't not love each other.

The other thing that i found strange was all their talk of anointing. We had anointed piano playing fingers, anointed generations, and anointed speakers. I'm not really exactly sure what they mean by this term anointed. I think its something like what i would call gifted, but gifted by God with a specific purpose that God wants that gift used for. However i could well be wrong. So if you happen to understand the theology of anointing i'd be very happy to have it explained as i'm currently confused.

Its taken me a while to post something up here about this because, mostly i just feel like i'm complaining or being cynical. Which i think a large part of me is being. However, i think we can still ask questions and think about the way we do things, i'm in no way being critical of Youth Alive, and i enjoyed my time up there. It just made me ask some questions.


The rest of my trip...
... was very enjoyable. I went to Door of Hope (i think it must be the biggest church in Tassie) on Sunday morning and that was very enjoyable. The sermon was good, i can't exactly remember what it was about now, but i can remember i thought it was good! The music was good too. I thought that it actually had the balance between emotion and thought pretty well covered.

I also got to catch up with some friends, which was lovely. God turned on a sweet day so we got to sit outside on Sunday afternoon and eat some very tasty food at a lovely little cafe somewhere in Lanuceston.

Then we drove home, and John (my road trip buddy) and I played in the band at BayWest that night. And i think it's fair to say the music went off! At least the band had fun anyway!