Month: October 2024

Weights is my favourite hobby

October 6, 2024
This is me when I was 25 after seven years of training.

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

My favourite hobby has always been weight training. I started weights when I was 18 and I am still training in my late fifties.

When I started I was very skinny at 183cm tall and weighed 60 kilograms (kg). That is 6 feet tall and 132 pounds. These days I weigh 91 kg (200 pounds). It was a long slow process of gaining muscle for me. Some years I was only able to put on 1 kg of muscle. Some years none!

Weight training has given me so much. When I started I was crippled with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I would often use crutches to walk to my gym. Slowly over time that changed. Now it is not an issue.

One thing with my weight training was I was never tempted to take steroids. I always had to balance gaining bodyweight with how much my arthritic legs could handle. Slow gaining was better for me. I would put on some weight and then see if my body could handle it.

In the image above I am 25 years old. I had been training for about seven years. I have this image up in my gym to keep me motivated as I get older. I am planning to take the same picture when I turn 60.

So what do I love about weight training? There are a few things…

1. I love the pump from the blood in your muscles.

2. It helps me to be strong as I get older.

3. It helps me to control my weight as I age.

4. It has helped me overcome Rheumatoid Arthritis.

5. It has motivated my kids to be fit.

I changed my mind about Jesus

October 4, 2024
The tract and prayer I prayed to receive Jesus

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

As a teenager and in to my early twenties I did not believe in Jesus or the salvation He offers. I believed He was a historical person that some people believed in.

I can look back at times when people would talk to me about Jesus and I would reject them and their message. Some I even ridiculed and told them they were crazy.

At the age of 22 I came to believe in Jesus as more than a historical person. A friend gave me tract explaining that Jesus loved me and He died on the cross for my sin. This got my attention.

The more I read, the more I realised this was true. I realised I was a sinner, Jesus died on the cross for me, and I needed to repent and accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I realised what people told previously me was true.

Accepting Jesus as my Lord and Saviour was the best thing I have ever done. It truly turned my life around. Without Jesus I had no hope, no purpose or no meaning. With Jesus that all changed.

In the image above is a copy of the tract my friend gave me back in 1989. It contains the prayer I prayed to receive Jesus as my Lord and Saviour.

Life without a computer

October 2, 2024

Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

Life without a computer. I could not imagine that now. I have been using a home computer since the early 1990s.

Initially it was for email, my studies and looking up a few websites, but over time it became more about ministry. I set up PASSIONAustralia.org in 1998 and it has been going ever since.

Since setting up PASSION a couple of things stand out to me…

1. Our website PASSIONAustralia.org has had tens of millions of visitors with many of them going to our salvation pages.

2. Our free discipleship booklet has been downloaded over 100,000 times and translated in to different languages.

When I was working as a Pastor I would come home after church and put my sermon text and audio online for people to read and listen to again or if they missed church that week.

Most of this has been done on my home computers I have had. More recently it has been on my iPads or my iPhone, but still I could not imagine doing ministry without a home computer.

So life without a computer, it would look very very different.

What skill?

October 1, 2024

What skill would you like to learn?

I have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I have tried a few times, but I have never really committed any time to the practice.

I have always thought it would be handy for small group worship if I could play the acoustic guitar. Many years ago I learned to play the drums, but that would not really work for small group worship!

Maybe when I retire I can have that as a goal? That sounds like a good goal.