OnWatch Christmas 2005

What Gift will you give God this Christmas?
New Year Resolution - 2006
AMC Annual Report - 2005
400th Anniversary of the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit
Christmas at Cronulla: Reaction or Racism?
Were the Sydney Riots Racism?
Rise of Middle East Crime in Australia
Prime Minister calls for Christ to be put back in Christmas
Christian Journalism course starts in UK
The Power of Sex - abuse is a learned behaviour.

What Gift will you give God this Christmas?

What will be the greatest achievement in your life? You are invited to consider this question for a few minutes... it defines your life goals.

For me the answer is clear:
to be esteemed by God.

Could there be any greater accomplishment in life?

And who does God esteem?

For the answer to this profound question let's open our Bibles at Isaiah 66:1-2 (or click here if your don't have your Bible handy):

This is the one I esteem (says God): he/she who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.

What gift will you give God this Christmas? Will you join me in prayer:

'Lord search my heart today and see if there is any offensive way in me (Psalm 139:23-24). Set me free from self-centredness, avarice and apathy. Transform my heart into a place of humility, contriteness and trembling at your word. Lord, this permission is my gift to you this Christmas.

New Year Resolution - 2006

Here is a word from the Lord for our workplaces:

"I want every person to have at least one opportunity in their lifetime to work alongside someone who is a living letter of Jesus Christ to them."

The term "living letter" comes from 2 Cor 3:3. You may well be the first letter from God that your work colleague reads, so here is a great resolution for 2006:

'Dear Lord, I resolve to contextualise my discipleship in my workplace. Please work in and through me so that I may be a great letter from you to my non-Christian colleagues at work.'

Editorial by Peter Kentley.

AMC Annual Report - 2005
By Peter Kentley (CEO)

Unless we move on from the parochial schisms that divide - and represent Jesus afresh with credibility and unity - the world will remain unbelieving. In AMC we are wholehearted about this call of Christ on our lives... that the world may know Jesus.

The hope of the world is found in the unity, obedience and mission of the body of Christ. As the workplace is where Christians spend about 60% of their waking time Monday to Friday - and it is the place where Christians meet non-Christians the most often - mission in the marketplace is crucially important.

A Year of Service and Fruitfulness

This has been a huge year for AMC and a time of increasing fruitfulness. Many have come to know Christ, many prayer groups have formed and ministries have been encouraged. A new connectedness is developing and a fresh boldness of faith has been emerging in the marketplaces of the nation...

Click here to read full report.

The Great South Land of the Holy Spirit - 400th Anniversary

ESPIRITO SANTO SOUTHLANDS CELEBRATION
Luganville, Santo, Vanuatu
Saturday and Sunday May 13th - 14th 2006
400th anniversary of the declaration of the “Great Southland of the Holy Spirit”.

This is your chance to be part of our nation's Christian history. Join others from across the South Pacific on the beach in Vanuatu where the original declaration was made to reconfirm the prophetic truth that Australia is indeed part of the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit.

Click here for more information.

Christmas at Cronulla
Comment On Current Unrest In Sydney
By Brian Pickering
Australian Prayer Network
www.ausprayernet.org.au

In view of the events of the past couple of weeks in Sydney, coming as they did as a result of differences between people of different cultural and religious backgrounds we believe it is important for the Australian Prayer Network to explain our position in relation to these events and their underlying causes...

Click here to continue article.

Were the Sydney Riots "Racism"
By Andrew Bolt
Melbourne Herald Sun
www.heraldsun.news.com.au

Whilst we would never condone the sort of violence that erupted in Sydney last week, there is a real need for all Australians to understand what brought it about. It was a wrong response to a widespread and growing problem that needs exposing before it gets worse.

Many people are stating that it was racism - Muslims and Lebanese people are crying 'foul play' and saying they are all being branded because of a few. On one side, anger and frustration have taken over, and on the other side the victim mentality overrides everything - both responses prevent a clear perspective of why this is really happening.

Click here to continue article.

The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia
By Tim Priest

Tim is a retired detective and he gave this talk on 12 November 2005 at a Quadrant dinner in Sydney.

"I Believe that the rise of Middle Eastern organised crime in Sydney will have an impact on society unlike anything we have ever seen. In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at the old CIB...

Click here to continue article.

Prime Minister Calls For Christ To Be Put Back Into Christmas

Prime Minister John Howard wants to put Christ back into Christmas. He says he has contempt for arguments Christianity should be downplayed at Christmas in case it offends those of other faiths or non-religious people. Mr Howard said it was not a sign of tolerance to "bland out" religious symbols of Christmas. "You don't demonstrate tolerance towards minorities by apologising for your own heritage," the Prime Minister has told the Sunday Herald Sun.

"I hope some department stores would have the courage to bring back nativity scenes and not just Christmas trees. "When I was a kid you'd go in and see the Christmas tree and Santa Claus, but there'd also be some nativity scenes in department stores. "They seem to have disappeared in recent years and you have this sort of "oh we don't want to offend anybody". "Actually you're offending a lot of people who think it's a great pity they've disappeared. "Even if they're not especially religious themselves, they like the association. It's part of the culture and the history and the nature of this country."

Mr Howard said he did not believe the majority of the Muslim and Jewish community resented the emphasis on Christmas. "They respect the fact that it's a Christian day. You don't win tolerant brownie points by pretending to be something that you're not. "I just think it's silly and it's patronising towards minorities and it's offensive to our cultural history."

Click here for full article.

Christian Journalism course starts in UK

With the aim to equip Christian believers to make an impact in the secular media, the first Christian journalism course of its kind in the UK has been launched.

Set up by Cleland Thom Journalism Training Services, the coursework is done online with full tutorial support and carries with it the National Council for the Training of Journalists' qualification.

If God is calling you to be a journalist you can now train online -- with the help of a tutor who is not only a committed Christian, but one of the country's leading journalism trainers.

The course leads to the National Council for the Training of Journalists qualifications and will enable you follow God's call into a career in journalism.

Click here to continue article.

The Power of Sex

Dr. Mary Anne Layden or the University of Pennsylvania, addressed the Sexual Integrity Forum at Parliament House in Canberra in August 2005, the text below is condensed from her two addresses:

Sex is central to the human species. Sex drives humans to the best and to the worst in their nature. We ignore, or misunderstand, or falsify or misuse sexuality at our peril.

For ten years I was a college professor and taught theories of human behaviour. Then at one point I said, I wonder if any of those theories are actually true? had been teaching these theories all those years and then I thought: Does any of this actually work? It was at that point that I changed my career. I’ve now been a psychotherapist for 20 years.

I began working with individuals who had been raped, who had experienced incest and all kinds of sexual violence. After ten years of working with these individuals, certain things became clear. One is that there was not one case of sexual violence that didn’t involve pornography. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know something was going on here. Apart from pornography, there was no other common factor. The other thing I came to understand was that, despite my belief in the power of individual psychotherapy to heal, I knew that there were not enough psychotherapists in the world to heal all those who had been damaged. I knew we would not solve the problems merely by doing psychotherapy after a rape or a case of incest.

I was pulling victims out of the river as fast as I could, but that would not solve the problem. So I decided it was time to go upstream and see who was pushing them in. When you do that, it ultimately leads to another question: Who’s pushing the pushers? Sexual violence is learned behaviour

Click here to continue article.

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