Hi - welcome to my website.
I'm a graphic artist, a husband, a book-lover, a Christian, a web-head, a Jag-lover, a genealogy-nut ... among other things.
I have lived in many and varied places: Tasmania, Salford (near Manchester, UK), Reading (UK), various places around Sydney (Australia), and now my wife and I are currently living back in the UK.
Late in 2001, I was asked to write an essay on the subject "What is a Priest" - asking how I understood the role of a priest in the Anglican church. The result is this essay, which you may or may not enjoy. Feedback, as always is care of the little @ symbol at the top right hand corner of the page. Please feel free to click there and leave me a message.
You can also read my sermon "Created to become like Christ", based on Jesus' story of the Church growing like a vine. I preached this sermon in May 2003.
There's something a little more important that learning about me. It's a question for you and a story about Jesus.
Let's start in the middle:
About 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ lived on earth. He said that he came to earth from heaven to show us what God is like. Since the time that Jesus lived on earth, people have always been attracted to him because of the amazing love that he shows. Jesus loves us so much that - although he is God - he came to earth to show us the right way to live and to take the punishment that we deserve. Punishment? What punishment? The Bible tells us that we naturally face punishment in the next life, because we choose turn away from God and generally choose to live in ways that he forbids. Jesus said that the most important rule to obey was to love God with everything that we have ... and to love our neighbours as ourselves. I try to be a good Christian, but I know that the decisions I make in life are often based on what I think is best, rather than making a decisions based on God's will or other people's needs.
...and that takes us back to
the beginning of the story
From the time that humans were made by God, we have preferred to do things our own way, rather than follow God's will for our lives. The Bible calls this 'sin'.
God made us for his own purposes and he has the right to do with us whatever he likes. If we act against his purposes for us, God has the power and the right to punish us.
We quickly step back to...
the middle of the story
God showed us how much he loved us by coming to earth as Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a perfectly holy life, and chose to take our punishment on himself. Jesus taught that that, if we believe and trust him as the one who rules our life (our "Lord") and the one who has rescued us from death (our "Saviour"), he will forgive us for turning away and allow us to come back to him. We will then live with him forever. What a hope!
...so of course the last stop is ...
the end of the story
In the end, we each have a choice: will we ask Jesus to rule our lives and accept the fact that he took our punishment for us... or will we not accept Jesus and live our lives our own way, and in the end suffer punishment for our sins?
What will you do?
If you have read this and have realised that you aren't "right" with God, a great way to start along the path to knowing God is to find a copy of the Bible and ... start reading! A book of the Bible called "Luke" is all about what a doctor called "Luke" (amazing, huh?) researched about Jesus' life. If you are interested/concerned/fascinated by what you read there, you could get in contact with your local Christian church and ask to join a Bible study group. The possibilites are ... endless!