Target

I once saw an amazing documentary about the World Hair Olympics. Stylists from around the globe met together in one venue to ‘out-do’ each other and win the grand hairdressing prize.

The hairdressers trained for more than a year to do only one hairstyle each. It was planned down to the minutest detail of cut, colour and length. Curls were flicked and sprayed to exact angles. Feathers and flowers were added. The results were like nothing I’ve ever had on my head!

Each stylist practiced on mannequin heads for months leading up to the actual event when they used a real person. The heads were washed, blow dried, coloured and then washed, blow dried and coloured again.

Once the competition was over and the heads had lost their purpose, they were discarded.

Where did they end up?

Not on an urban rubbish heap. These particular mannequin heads were given to the local police department to be used as target practice. Each head was mounted on a spike while police officers fired round after round into them.

It is possible for us to treat people who do not yet know Christ in a similar way to these mannequin heads.

We get to know them and we spend time with them but it’s only until they’ve served their purpose. Then when we’re ready, we target them and fill them, bang bang bang, with the gospel message.

I would hope that no Christian would ever consciously target someone else for evangelism in this way. However, it is an easy trap to fall into. There are many reasons we do it -- and many of them are good reasons.

Sometimes we value the importance and the truth of the Gospel message so much that we forget the value and importance of the people we are sharing it with. A feeling of urgency can make the end result seem more important than the process.

Targeting people is foul. Being friends with people in order to ‘get them along’ or invite them to a Bible study is basically using them for a quota system.

People know when they are being used. People know when they are being manipulated into ‘buying’ something, whether that’s a mobile phone, an overseas holiday, or a religious belief.

We should be friends with people because they are people – because they are God’s creations, loved by God. And our lives should be so imbued with the love of God that sharing Jesus will come out in natural, gentle ways.

People will see our lives and hear our speech and know that God has made that difference because we are open. When we are lovingly curious about their lives and want to share them, they may pay us the compliment of being curious about our lives and the God that we serve.

I cried

This is the latest book to be discussed by our book club. I absolutely loved it and the chapter in which the author's young husband died made me cry real tears.

Well worth a read!

Sign of the times

Water restrictions have had an effect on all of our lives.

My nine year old was invited to a friend's place on a hot day and was asked to bring her swimmers.

"Why do I have to bring them Mum?" she asked.

"You're going to play in the sprinkler," I explained.

"What's a sprinkler?" she wanted to know.

On holidays

We're having two weeks away at the beach from tomorrow, so bye bye bloggy land. See you all soon!

It's all finished!

Have a look at the cubby house - inside and out. I'm really really delighted with it, and the children are like pigs in mud.

Birthday cake

My poor hubby missed out on his birthday party this year because our boys were suffering from the vomiting bug.

However, we did get to eat his birthday cake, made before the dreaded throw-ups started.

Painting the cubby

I know, they aren't great photos - obviously I need to wipe the lens... but here's the progress on the cubby house.

The paint is on - green with white trim on the outside. One room is cream inside and the other is pink.

Below is my neighbour, the brains and designer behind the whole operation. He's making the roof frame and tomorrow we should have a completed house!

Once again, our other neighbour came over to have a stickybeak and a cuppa!