My Personality

Your #1 Match: ENFP

The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends.You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules.Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives.You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller! You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.

Your #2 Match: ENTP

The Visionary You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression.You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything.Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off.You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments. You would make a great entrpreneur, marketing executive, or actor.

Your #3 Match: ESFP

The Performer You are a natural performer and happiest when you're entertaining others.A great friend, you are generous, fun-loving and optimistic.You love to laugh - and you like almost all people equally.You accept life as it is, and you do your best to make each day fantastic. You would make a good actor, designer, or counselor.

What's" Your Personality Type?

I'm a worrier

I’m a worrier, I don’t worry about everything but the things I do worry about I worry about more than normal to account for the things I don’t worry about. One of the things I worry about (just ask my mum) is the future.
What will I do now that I have a BA? Do I want to be a teacher? Where is Cameroon and why do I want to go there? Will I get Visas in time? How much will the injections cost?
Sometimes I worry so much it keeps me up at night I have to go for a walk to “let off some steam.”
I have been walking a lot between the hours of 10pm and 2am this year.
It has not been the easiest year for me, with constant stress with full-time work and my body getting use to that time of day fondly known as “the morning.”
But God has helped me through this year, well God, mum, work colleagues, my cell group and Ed (my pastor).
I feel like I have got to the end of the tunnel and I’m excited (and a little worried) about stepping into the light.

One of the things that hit me this year was looking at my spiritual journals from when I was a 17-18 year old.
I had such a strong faith I was hopeful and excited about the future I believed that God was there with me everyday helping me through. I had goals and dreams.
I use the past tense because that faith has gone, not totally but it has diminished anyway. I’m not sure what has happened to me since I left school I guess it is what we call reality. But I’m cynical, at times hopeless, goalless and passionless. This is probably why I need to do DTS to find that passion, that hope in God the goals that God has given me.
I’m still worried about what the future has in store for me but now I’m trying to focus on the journey that God has got me on, one blessing at a time.

A tale of two videos

I have seen two videos recently one made me cry the other made me cringe.
The first video made me cry because it ignited the passion I have for seeing the Church fulfil it’s purpose which is praising God. The video was about the Global Day of Prayer.
The Global Day of Prayer started as a South African thing in one or two stadiums and then it spread to the rest of Africa. Last year they had people from all over the world praying on the same day. When I watched it I couldn’t help thinking this is what we are made for.
The other video was a promo for Greg Laurie. It made me cringe because the focus of the video seemed to me to be on how God made me feel.
It goes something like this let's for arguement sake call it the pente cycle:

I’m feeling stink.
I go to a gathering of Christians.
I get a warm fuzzy.
I go home.
Two days later I’m feeling stink again.
The speaker has left town.
I don’t know how to get the warm fuzzy again.

These two videos show a different perspective on Church.
In the first video the people are coming together to give something to God, the glory and honour due to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
In the second video the people are coming together to get some thing from God (a pente experience).
The first video shows what Church is supposed to be like. The second video show what it too often is like.
Church is totally not about us (contrary to most the songs we sing) it’s about praising our Father. To often my Church (including me) have had the second view particularly in the youth group.
Looking back at my time spent as a youth leader I feel that we were baby sitting the young people between these experiences they were having at outside events Easter Camp, Harvest etc. The young people weren’t growing. We were focusing on the wrong thing, what we needed to focus on was discipleship equipping these young people for the world as a Christian, the ups and the downs and the battles. The experience you get from these events (which may be God) is fantastic but more important is the question; In two years time will these people be better equipped to face the battles?
At the end of the Laurie video they had a stat thing on the screen:

Number attending the events: 20,000
Number of “commitments”: 2,000

They needed another few stats:

Number understanding their “commitment”: 200
Number following through their "commitment": 20
Number discipled to help others to make "commitments": 2

Can you see the pente in me fighting with the cynic in me?

My plans for Christmas and beyond

My sister comes down from Auckland on the 21st and we are going to watch the Narnia movie as a whanua on the 22nd . Christmas Eve I’m doing Drugarm which will be fun. Christmas Day will again be with the extended family. Between Christmas and New Years some of my family are heading to Omahi Beach (not Omaha Beach that’s kinda out of our way). I may stay home and “house sit.” For “house sit” read “sleep in.” Then in early January I’m doing a kids camp with a friend of mine at Woodend. After that I don’t have any plans until March. What is happening in March? I here you ask with batted breath. Well I’m applying for a 6 month DTS in Cameroon, Africa. I decided a while ago that I needed to get away from commercialised, western stuff and give my self a new perspective on life, the universe and everything in it. So what better place to go than Africa eh?

Beginings and Endings

Well it’s nearly the end of the year, that time when we look back and think about our lives and what we have achieved or haven’t achieved in another year.
So here it is with thoughts form the Semisonics “Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end.” (Closing Time) With that gem of pop culture here it is a year in the life of Steve.

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.
2005 was a year when I began to work full-time.
It was a year when I learnt about myself and others.
It may be the end of my time as a teacher.
It saw the end of my year of independence, which came after the year of the rooster.
It was a year when my (extended) family had one wedding, two 21sts, a farewell, a homecoming, a baby and an adoption of sorts.
It was a year of confusion and frustration but also a year of opportunities, revelations, and breakthroughs. Hopefully the rest of the year and beyond will hold more of the same.