I'm Back

Wow, I haven't blogged in more than two years. Well i'm procrastinating so here goes. What has happened since my last post? Well I have trained as a travel agent, worked as a travel agent and then resigned from being a travel agent after one year. I have met a beautiful women, dated a beautiful woman and broken up with a beautiful woman (all the same woman).

Now I'm almost finished a year at Laidlaw College (formerly Bible College New Zealand) in Ministry Internship. So i was studying and working at my church, Papanui Baptist as assistant youth pastor.

The year of study/work has been great very challenging it is great how they blow all of your theology in 3 hours and then you spend the rest of your life trying to rebuild a different theology. The theologians that I have loved this year are N.T. Wright, Tite Tienou, Charles Olsen, Brian Mclaren, Shane Clairbourne, Mark Strom, Jim Wallis, Rob Bell and Tony Compolo. So where has my year of study left my theology? I have realized why the traditional evangelical view of salvation never really got me excited - it is flawed.

By traditional evangelical view I mean the basic formula that goes like this:

Garden of Eden = Perfect relationship with God

Fall = Separation from God

Jesus = Restoration of relationship with God and eternal dwelling with God in "heaven."

This is basically right but also does not include some vital elements.

The fall was the destruction not only of our relationship with God, but also our relationship with each other and our relationship with the environment. Sin affected all of these - if we redefine the problem in this way we also redefine the required solution - Christ's life, death and resurrection and return is the restoration of all things and all relationships not only our relationship with God.

Part of the problem with the traditional Evangelical view is that it assumes that the point of salvation is the escape from this world into eternity in some other spiritual world. This view is wound up in neo-Platinist dualism - ie the world is made up of spiritual (good) and physical (bad) and ultimately our destiny is to escape the physical and find the spiritual. I have found this is also flawed. This does not seem to fit with the language in the Scriptures that talks of Heaven coming to Earth (Rev 21). My belief is that Christ's return will consummate the Kingdom of God on earth. Our ultimate, eternal destiny is not to float around a spiritual realm with God but to dwell on a transformed "new" (or "renewed) Earth where Heaven and Earth are one and the same. All the relationships have been restored the way they where intended from the start.

I don't know if anyone is still following this blog but anyway here it is.

Over and out

Hey I don't know if you guys still read this but i'm moving to the greener (but emo infested) pastures of Bebo so check me out if you want to:

Stephen Thornehttp://swthorne5.bebo.com/

P.S Won't be using this blog anymore

YouTube

I have discovered the joys of "youtube".
It is prety simple people just upload videos and then you can watch them.
Here is my pick of videos

Jumping Russians

Nike adds

Football freestyle
Basketball freestyle
Football beats

Weird Al "white and nerdy"

Two Chinese guys

Hope you enjoy them as much as i did

Im back

Im back in the country after my adventure in Africa, you can check the blog in the previuos post. It would be cool to catch up with the people i have not already seen, there are like 6 months of news that i need to catch up on it. Now im working at Alpha (my Mum and Dad's language school) in the mornings and not much else for a few weeks. In November i will be doing full time at Alpha. Here are some pictures of Africa



The photo on the right is of all the students except for me. From left to right Fanta, Florence, Kahlia (Australia) Felix, Marthe, Serge, David, Bernard, Paul (staff) and Daniel on the guitar. All of them are from Cameroon excpet Kahlia.












This is the living quarters 6 guys in here! My bed on the top right.














This is the classroom in the base.














This is what Douala looks like in the dry season. In the wet season just convert the dirt into mud.

There will be more photos later

Steve's African Adventure

I have created a new blog specifically for updates on my DTS in Cameroon. You will be able to find news, prayer requests and also photos. You can check it out here.

Ferrit

Here is a disturbing but real conversation I just had with Matt on Msn

Spelling mistakes included (me= Matt Eh Steve=me) :)

Me: hi steve, you don't have an ad at the bottom of your window for ferrets and beards do you?
Eh Steve: why do you need a feret with a beard?
Me: i suppose i could be persuaded that i need one
Eh Steve: we have quite a range....
Eh Steve: its an add for ferrit dot com
Me: i'd click on it but... they might use my IP address and steal my soul
Eh Steve: yeah but you could get a ferret....Soul for a ferret....hmmmm
Me: ...and it does come with a beard...
Eh Steve: depends what state your soul is in
Me: and how it is relatively proportionate to the ferrets beard
Me: i think my soul would be equivalent to a rather thin beard on a disproportionately hairy ferret
Eh Steve: thats a bit harsh
Me: if it was course and wirey as well
Eh Steve: maybe....
Eh Steve: the ferrit comes on the beard
Eh Steve: in which case...
Eh Steve: i want one
Eh Steve: or as the beard
Me: a disproportionately hairy ferret would be kind of cool
Me: and may come in quite handy in the most unlikely of situations
Eh Steve: And what situations are those?
Me: i think it would be quite unlikely that i could imagine one
Me:...which makes it all the more important, if you want to be prepared for anything
Eh Steve: well you could strap stuff too its back and use it as a carrier ferret
Eh Steve: or you could train it to fetch things and it could be a "gun ferret" and you could take it hunting
Eh Steve: OR you could use it as a "guide ferret"
Eh Steve: Or as a "sniffer feret" at the airport
Me: or you could stick it on the end of a stick and use it to clean the chimney
Eh Steve: the oppurtunities for a well trained ferret are endless
Me: it could be an imitation hairy ferret
Eh Steve: the fact that it is very hairy is also useful as a chimney sweep
Me: you could floss all your teeth at once
Eh Steve: or if you were a megolomanical tyrannt you could strap laser pointers to its nose
Eh Steve: or you could use as one of those scrubbing brushes in the shower
Eh Steve: or a draft stopper thingy
Me: in the hands of the wrong people, it could be extremely dangerous
Eh Steve: maybe YOU shouldnt buy one Matt i think you are "the wrong people"
Me: it could be used as a phycological weapon
Eh Steve: like a means of torture?
Me: or even a psycological weapon
Eh Steve: if it had a flexible backbone you could use it as a pipe cleaner
Me: maybe even a psychological weapon
Eh Steve: if you had a pipe
Eh Steve: you could disguise it as a greyhound....
Eh Steve: and teach it to run really fast...or at least eat greyhounds......and you would be rich
Me: you could tape a bunch of them to a rotating cylinder for use in a car wash
Eh Steve: or put it on a pole (maybe even the same pole for the chimney) and wash your upstairs windows
Me: ceiling insulation
Eh Steve: attached to a desk fan it could be a car polisher
Me: they could be breed for a third world microenterprize scheme
Eh Steve: Like instead of buying a sweedish piggery you could buy a sweedish Ferretery
Me: you could establish ferretory territories
Eh Steve: cool
Eh Steve: Maybe we should get into the small rodent business
Me: with a sfety pin you could have a fashionable tongue piercing
Eh Steve: we could breed ferets, hamsters
Eh Steve: or a belly button ring all though it would look like lint
Eh Steve: a toupee
Me: a disguise kit
Me: to make you as inconspicuous as possible
Eh Steve: a pair of slippers (you would obviusly need two)
Eh Steve: so you can blend it with all the other people wearing ferrets?
Me: it would depend upon the success of our marketing campaign
Eh Steve: you could train an evil army of the night
Eh Steve: what is our target audience?
Eh Steve: we could get someone who has done commerce stuff like Andre
Me: and someone like Nathan who has done psychology...for the psychological warfare division
Me: I believe we should target suckers
Eh Steve: and people who don't know what ferrets are
Eh Steve: and megolomanical people with dirty chimneys, bad teeth, big cars and no hair!
Eh Steve: that is a pretty small target audience
Me: well you obviously aren't from around here
Eh Steve: if that who lives around here im kinda gald
Me: they're everywhere... i have to put special filters on my windows
Me: well, i'm off to establish my own chain of "Discount Hairy Ferret Warehouses"

No i didn't transcribe it, you can save MSN conversations.

40 Hour famine

Hey everyone I’m doing the 40 hour Famine soon. World Vision have got real flash this year. They have online famine books so you can sponsor me online just follow the link. http://www.famine.org.nz/Eh_Steve.