Future Forum

a Biblical thought...
"Last night God's angel stood at my side, an angel of this God I serve, saying to me, 'Don't give up, Paul. You're going to stand before Caesar yet—and everyone sailing with you is also going to make it.' So, dear friends, take heart. I believe God will do exactly what he told me. But we're going to shipwreck on some island or other." (Acts 27:23-26)

a Book thought...
The longer you look at Jesus, the more you will want to serve Him in His world. That is, of course, if it's the real Jesus you're looking at. Plenty of people in the church and outside it have made up a 'Jesus' for themselves, and have found that this invented character makes few real demands on them. He makes them feel happy from time to time but doesn't challenge them, doesn't suggest they get up and do something about the plight of the world. Which is, of course, what the real Jesus had an uncomfortable habit of doing. (N.T. Wright)

a Dave thought...
Yesterday I attended Future Forum which featured workshops by Australia's "best and brightest" minds: Dr Bruce McCabe – Australia’s leading IT Analyst, Allen Kearns – CSIRO Environmental Scientist, Mark McCrindle – Social Demographer, Neville R. Norman – Associate Professor of Economics (University of Melbourne) and Dr Robert Kay and Bruce Hills co-founders of innovation and commercialisation consultants - Incept Labs.
As I attended this event in my full uniform, again everyone wanted to talk to me about their past religious experiences or the Oasis documentary that was on the ABC recently. Over lunch there was one particular conversation I won't forget. We had just come out of a session on sustainability and the presenter left us with the challenge that we each must learn to live using less resources, including smaller homes and driving smaller cars. Then Tim, a wealthy businessman, shared with me over lunch that he had links with The Salvation Army many years ago and that his grand parents were SA officers. He went on to say to all at the table that the most content people he ever new were these grand parents who had very little but were always far happier than anyone else he had every come across, and fondly recalled the times he would drop in as a child to visit them at their humble quarters.
I will blog on some of the content over the next week but again it was the people I met yesterday and the conversations I had which made me realise why it is important that The Salvation Army is present at such events.

Just a thought.