I spend my days doing stuff for Soul Survivor NZ and my church "Blueprint" in Wellington NZ. I am perplexed, amazed, in awe of, and spend a lot of time thinking about this revolutionary called Jesus and what it means to follow Him. Facebook me! Skype Me! On the link below
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 by Sam
My apologies for the lack of activity on the blog, had a sweet time in Auckland - however somehow picked up a stomach bug (i think its food poisoning) that has left me running to the loo to deposit the contents of my stomach pouring out my mouth on a regular basis, and lying in bed not wanting to do anything - achy etc. Stoked that Paul Potts won the "Britians Got Talent" contest... ol Paul Potts is going to be an amazing illustration of the kingdom of God in future talks. What a legend. Check out the performance hereMeh Labels: paul potts, random, sick, travel
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Sunday, May 27, 2007 by Sam
Found this cool little tool that shows the countries you have being to, found it a bit discouraging because I thought that I had being to a few but turns out I haven't really scratched the surface. Its insanse when I look at this and realise that somehow I have had the privledge of seeing a bunch of the world by the age of 25, and yet its not like my parents are wealthy, my dad works for the church! I dont really know how all this stuff came together. The cool thing about visiting a country is that it is an automatic story for each one. Like the time in Brazil having a gun held to my head by the local police (longer story than I can be bothered writing about here), or the time in Tonga when I got up to speak in front of a High School and completely froze - possum in the head lights style - and eventually had to be guided off the stage by another dude in the group travelling with us etc etc. So Ive visited 18 Countries which equals about 8% of the possible countries I could visit. (and actually being to them, not sat in an airport between flights). Im super keen to see more of Africa, and more of Asia in the future... hopefully.  create your own visited country mapBunch of rants and raves that have being brewing around which should make there way to the blog sometime soon, and post two on the "Characteristics to Nurture in a Jesus Follower" is on its way, this was post one. Labels: random, travel
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Sunday, April 22, 2007 by Sam
At hillsong church in Sydney at this very moment. That is all I am saying
Home? Labels: church, Hillsong, travel
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007 by Sam
I had a blast over the weekend in Rotorua for the Presbyterian Easter camp. Cranked out the talks, hung with the crew from the Bay of Plenty, clocked up 1400kms in the car, hung with my mates Rob and Sam from Karori. It was probably the best easter camp I have being to, with sweet games, great leaders, lots of fun times, a great band, good small groups, and crazy wild kids... and hot pools. Some photos of the weekend.  Rob all tuckered out. I forgot to tell Sam and Rob about the small detail that they would be involved in small groups and duties... hehehe, that meant a 6:30 start every morning. Poor Rob thought it was going to be a holiday. This is how Sam spent nearly every moment on the car trip... theme seems to be developing here.
 And thats me enjoying a big group hug from some of the crew there... and by the look on my face, enjoying it a bit too much Apologies for the 7 times the last post appeared. I think it was because I was sending it from my phone in very limited reception. Labels: easter camp, speaking, travel
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Saturday, March 17, 2007 by Sam
Cool quote from the youth alpha training day I'm doing right now. "Beware equally of an undevotional theology and of an untheological devotion". Bishop Handley Moule (an Anglican bishop circa 19th century) Read that a few times... Great statement worth pondering on. Im having a blast with some very crazy youth workers from the chch. Over the next few days I'm looking forward to spending time with Steve Taylor, the NZ emerging church guru, and Mike Dodge, the craziest guy I have met in a while and a veteran youth worker of 25 years, Dave and Scottie from grace vineyard, and hopefully get a wave in if the planets align just right. Being thinking a lot about humility recently, and so post on its way soon... I've being wrestling with some of this stuff for the last 4 years, and am a poster boy for learning this stuff the hard way... and I'm the first to admit that I am still a very very proud git. Must stop emailing in this training day... Behave yourself (or have fun being naughty) Labels: christchurch, quote, travel, youth alpha
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Thursday, March 01, 2007 by Sam
I've being hanging in Auckland since monday catching up with old BCNZ mates, visiting different peeps for Soul Survivor. Two photos that have a story: Stu McGregor, one the the most respected writers and commentators in my circle of friends during "Agony Aunt", a weekly tough questions session with his youth group. Seeing Stu put on the Agony Aunt hat and have to answer some very curly questions was highly enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. And the questions? Is Masturbation wrong? Is dating a non-christian bad? And; who is more holy, NSYNC or Backstreet Boys? I had to get up after that and speak. Thanks Stu 
And though this is a murky photo, it was a beautiful moment on Tuesday night as myself, dave and his wife mili sat outside on the deck surrounded by native forest and clear skies, cranked a pink floyd dvd on the big screen and soaked up the mellow vibes. Lots of great conversations happening, off today to spend time with Rich Johnson and the guys from FreeSet. Im learning heaps from spending time with such amazing people, we are blessed here in NZ to have such a huge number of highly underated very approachable guru's. Time to battle some traffic Labels: auckland, dave wells, friends, rich johnson, stu mcgregor, travel
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Sunday, December 03, 2006 by Sam
Steve Taylor, the resident NZ emerging church ninja has opened a container load of worms (but worms that need freedom, that need a life of fresh air and nice soil, worms who have being locked up for too long) by asking people to post the toughest God questions they have being asked, or have rattling around upstairs. Its going to be a great blog to track for the next little while as Steve asks people to join in him in attempting to answer some of the curly ones. I like this discussion, because in reality there is a lot of mystery in life and in faith. There is a lot that we dont, and probably wont understand about God and His ways, about life, about death.And we have to learn to live with that. The Eastern Church and the two thirds world are happy to live with mystery, it is part of their world. Not so in the West, and that is something we need to learn to sit with. So its nice to see a place like Steve's blog where people can voice the doubt, cynicism, questions, queries that they carry. Its not going to change much, but it is going to bring a bit of freedom to have those questions out there. And it will hopefully model that it's ok to have that stuff, in fact the Bible asks us to "work out our faith with fear and trembling". We need to wrestle with the big questions, but that doesnt mean we are going to find the answers to everything. And I would far rather have some doubt and questions and voice them wisely, than play happy christian games wearing a plastic smile and pretending that everything is peachy and im just fine. Why are some christians so afraid of honesty?  Returned from Gissy this morning, the place rocks, the people rock and the training day went really well. Speaking at The Rock church tonight, writing this blog instead of working on talk. Me and procrastination are best buddies. Labels: doubt, honesty, jesus followers, travel
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Saturday, December 02, 2006 by Sam
The world is a far brighter, far more welcoming place. I have being enjoying interactions with fellow humans in a "non-leper" kind of way.
But I was thinking; anyone up for januhairy (no shaving for the month) before dropping into MO7? Up in gissy, about to launch into a youth alpha training day. Youth workers are a fun bunch to hang out with so it should be a good day. I packed my wettie in case there was a wave, but even though we sourced some boards, gissy has no waves. And dare I say it, this is my first time in gissy. Which is the equivellent of blasphemy for a surfer.
Labels: movemeber, travel
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Friday, October 13, 2006 by Sam
 Singapore was very cool, its geek heaven with a bunch of great technology markets. And the food rocks. However the most exciting part of the trip was landing in Wellington. We hit some absolutely crazy turbulence, people were screaming, the plane was thrown round like a pinball, and they had to abort the first landing attempt. Awesome stuff. I have clocked up some air miles in my 25 years on this planet, and have ticked off every continent bar one, and this was the worst turbulence have ever experienced. I wanted to kiss the tarmac when I got off the plane.  One of the interesting things I noticed about Singapore is the way that the different religions seem to co-exist with very little problem. I talked with a lot of the taxi drivers (who were predominately Buddhist) about this and they were all very proud of this fact. It was so enjoyable to go into these sorts of conversations just wanting to learn and to hear about these different faiths and their worldviews, although my old pastor from St Marys made a classic blunder in the taxi when he asked the driver "so are you a believer?"... hehehe of course he is, just not in what we believe... it was cool to sit down with a Buddhist prophet from a local temple (pictured above) and have a drink. It made me aware of how little I dialogue with people of different faiths here in NZ (unless you count agnostism or athetism a faith, which I suppose it is). Labels: religion, singapore, travel, turbulence
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