The Thursday Blog

Hello there.

Yes, it really is me, not some celebrity guest writer. The question is: are you happy about that?

A part of you would of course say YES, because the reason you tune in each week is for the sultry sounds of my written word. But there would be a big part of you that would say NO, because the guest writers were just so darn good.

Well I have news that will excite both sides. Today I am bringing you this episode and I will continue to do so each week until my Princess goes into labour. That is when I will sound the emergency broadcast system and you will have a few more weeks of celebrity guests while I remember our breathing techniques and enjoy our new and bigger family.

Tonight is not about My Princess or my soon-to-be-born treasure; but about the girl who very like her mother has changed my life for good. Today’s episode is about My Little Princess Grace, and it is called:

Sooooooooo Much

Tonight when Mummy put Grace down to bed, Grace said to her “Tomorrow sing happy birthday. I’m Two!” That statement was not only amazing because it was a string of 6 words put together which is close to a personal best, but also because it is 100% correct. Tomorrow My Little Princess is turning two.

Let me tell you about Grace. She is something else. She has the amazing ability to enable me to produce endless amounts of love for her, for her mother, for our family and friends, for our church, for my work and for everyday people. I don’t know how she does it but she does. She gets it from her mother.

We have so much fun together. Currently we have the following games between us going: the animal game, the flannel game, the goodbye game, who’s at the door game, and the teddy sheep said no, no, no game. I would go into an explanation of them but you would need a masters degree in DaddyandGrace-ernomics to understand them. From the moment she sees me in the morning she wants to play and spend time with me, and will often bless me with her contagious laugh. Very similar to her mother.

I try to limit myself talking about her to others, not because I don’t want to be that guy that is always talking about his kids, or because I think I am going to bore them (my stories are generally not boring); but because others don’t get it. I could talk for hours about how amazing she is but if you haven’t spent time with her you wouldn’t really understand. And even when you spend a day with her you still can’t grasp just how incredible this little person is. I have spent the last two years with her and I haven’t even scratched the surface of realising the uniqueness of her. She is truly breathtaking. Just like her mother.

I have been taught by My Little Princess just how truly amazing God’s creation of people is. If you were to spend a lifetime with one person you would still not fully grasp everything about them. The problem is when people get older they tend to forget about them, commit them to their subconscious, and do their life with them in the background whilst failing to explore life with them.

One of my greatest privileges as a father is I have the great honour of doing life with My Little Princess and discovering life within her. I have seen her come alive when she is patting an animal, dancing to a song, running on the footpath, laughing at my funny face. What makes her smile, what makes her laugh, what makes her want to hug me, what makes her walk over to the 4 year old in the park and say “hi”. All of this is a mystery and something I want to discover.

Thank you My Beautiful Little Princess for what you have done for me. You have helped me see life in a whole new light and it shines brighter than before. You have taught me that everybody is Ah-MAZING!!!! and even though I only get the opportunity to really get to know a small handful of people, I will be in constant awe at how wonderfully and fearfully they have been made. Especially your mother.

Happy Birthday Grace

Have Fun.

Daddy

Advice to expecting fathers…

Wow! FMD asked me to write about “advice to expecting fathers.” Furthermore, he claims that I have 79 kids. Well, first let me say it’s an honor to write for FMD. He’s a legend and his passion for the next generation is not easily matched. Secondly, I don’t quite have 79 kids, I have five kids and they’re all amazing. I’m going to take a different slant on the topic…I want to talk about the process leading up to “THE DAY.”

Here’s five things I would tell an expecting father in no specific order:

1. Don’t Pick. I can recall people asking me if I wanted a boy or girl before my firstborn was born. I gave the pretty obvious answer of “I don’t care, just as long as he or she has 10 fingers and toes I’m good.” When in fact, deep in my heart I really wanted a boy. I felt that if I dwelt on that too much and he turned out to be a girl that I would be greatly disappointed. Well, it turns out my first child was a girl and there was no disappointment. In fact, after I saw her and months afterward, I couldn’t imagine having boy. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t even know what to do with a boy because I was so in love and used to my baby girl. Long story short—God knows who we need.
2. Enjoy the moment with your wife. Often times we can get caught up with everything that comes with becoming a parent for the first time—endless classes, working longer to bring in more money, parties, etc.; that we forget to take a moment to enjoy what is happening right now. What’s happening is that your wife will never be pregnant for the first time again. All these feelings that she’s feeling right now will not quite be the same the second time around. Every “first time” is special. Don’t just “act” like you care about the first sight of the baby bump, first kick, etc. but actually take the time to enjoy those moments, which takes me to the next point…
3. Be involved. Don’t let your wife do this on her own. Take the time to go through the whole process with her. Go to those classes with her that place you in uncomfortable positions and making awkward breathing noises while bouncing on giant bouncy balls. Don’t miss out on the doctor appointments. It’s easy to say that you’re working, but it means the world to your wife to be there even if she tells you not to worry about it—more than likely she probably still wants you there. Ask her how her day went. Be around more. Do more around the house.
4. Don’t panic. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20. Exactly. From a father who has been through this I can say with confidence that there’s not much to panic or get worked up about. Also understand that I’m speaking from a perspective of my wife’s pregnancy going as planned. We had no complications and nothing out of the ordinary that would cause us to worry. I talk to many first-time fathers who get pretty worked up about nothing and later they’ll say to me that I was right—there was nothing to worry about. You want to be a rock for your wife. She’s going through a bunch of emotions, she doesn’t need you stressing—her body is doing enough of that. Now, when you see your baby for the first time there’s no such thing as “tough guy.” Many guys cry and at that point it’s more than okay!!
5. Be a proud dad. There’s nothing wrong with being the dorky dad who’s showing off the baby and singing through the halls. You’ll never quite have this feeling again and it feels incredible!! One moment you and your wife were by yourselves doing whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. Now, you not only have to keep yourselves maintained, but you’re responsible for keeping another human alive. Sure it can seem scary, but beyond that it’s a very proud moment. This little person will want to be like you, mimicking your every move; you’ll be his or her prince or buddy and those thoughts through your head should cause you to puff out that chest and strut through the hospital and everywhere else.

I’m sure there are a million other things that could be said, but as a father of five kids I have repeated these steps a few times. As much as I repeat and as unique and special as each birth is, there’s nothing quite like the first. Happy fathering!!

PJ

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Thursday Blog. You are going to enjoy today’s episode whether you are reading this for the first time or only read it when there is a guest poster. Welcome.

I am filling very large very virtual bloggy shoes today. The great one with a small g and small o asked me to write a few words of advice to expecting fathers.

The only advice I was given as an expecting father of our second child was “Having one kid is like having none and having 2 kids is like having twenty”. I will try and be more specific and more practical even though that statement was shockingly accurate.

We live in a day and age in our world where we have a systemic problem of pandemic proportions. It’s not the flu, it’s not the black plague, it’s fatherlessness. We need fathers to be what God has called them to be like never before. Statistics prove that kids with an involved father do better in most areas of life. So many kids grow up with their fathers being either emotionally or physically-absent fathers. If you are a father or are soon to be a father, you have no greater call and your kids have no greater need than you in their lives.

My advice to expectant fathers would be:

1. Make sure you come home and spend time with your wife before your kids.
?2. Tell your kids you love them every night.
3. Speak to their strengths and pray for their weakness but trust God with everything.
4. If the first child needs something put down the baby and help them.
5. To diminish sibling rivalry teach older kids to be kind to the younger kids and teach the younger kids to respect the older kids.
6. Teach them God is first and family is second. Nothing on earth is more important than family.
7. Begin with the end in mind. Don’t raise your kids making it from day to day, think about what you want them to become.
8. Care more what other adults think about your kids than what other kids think about your kids.
9. Teach your kids from the very beginning to live generously. To love others more than they love themselves.
10. Teach your kids that Jesus loves them with a never-ending love. That we can’t make Him love us more. Because of His amazing love for us we can trust Him no matter what.

Hello Everybody.

That is a bit more enthusiastic than last weeks intro of of “Hi Everyone” but it is still not to the usual standard of a massive thought-out intro that may or may not include international espionage.

Just when I thought last week I was in a very busy season, it turns out that I didn’t realise exactly how busy I was. The next two weeks are going to be a real ride. Currently alongside the genius Dave Wakerley, we are finishing off the scripts to our Christmas musical. The problem with a musical is that it actually has music in it and that music has to be written. We are up to 4 songs and we have 4 more to write. This is an incredibly fun process but also hard and takes a lot of time.

But no matter how busy I am, I still have time for this blog. This is coming from the man who forgot about this blog for the first time when he was at Kidshaper. Also I am going to let you know that I am going to take a holiday for the next few weeks and have some guest bloggers. This is something to look forward to as my friends are amazing writers and even more amazing people so you will love it.

Now to today’s episode that is called:

Embarrassed

It felt like it was only yesterday…… hang on, it was yesterday. I was with my beautiful 33-week pregnant Princess at the hospital for a checkup. We did the usual thing of sitting in the waiting room for close to an hour after we rushed to make it on time, and then it was finally our turn.

On today’s agenda they were going to have a look around the inside of My Princess. This involved using certain tools, which had to be placed in certain places, and then they showed a video of it on a screen. My Princess had to go through the whole uncomfortable event of getting the certain tools in certain places, so I was there by her side holding her hand and being the rock on which she could rely on. This was going fine until it happened.

I don’t know what caused it. Whether it was standing up for a long time; having my hand squeezed repetitively; or most probably because of the lack of carbohydrates I had consumed in the last 3 days as I was dieting; but things started to go strange. I started to feel uncomfortable but I shook it off. My Princess needed me, I am the rock. But then I had a surge where everything went white, and then it happened again. I politely said to my Princess “I am so sorry honey, but I am going to have to sit down” to which she replied “Oh my, you are sooo white!”

I kind of thought she knew that before we got married. It turns out I was more whiter than I usually am as all colour from my face had left the building. The next thing I know I was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room with the doctor telling me to sit on it and put my head between my legs. I was told that I had stumbled over there with the help of the nurse, but for those 5 seconds I went blank. In other words: I had fainted.

Now I am going to say this up-front. Yes they were showing the inside of my wife on a TV screen but I did not find that confronting. I can’t tell what anything is anyway. I am good with blood and I don’t find many things overly off-putting just by the look of them. But the Nurse and the Doctor thought it was a different story.

“Don’t worry” they said.

“It happens to a lot of men” they said.

“My husband fell flat on his back when he saw me deliver my baby” the Nurse said.

“Many people can’t handle what you were seeing” the Doctor said.

It was so embarrassing. They even called in another doctor at one stage to get his sign-off on what they were looking at, and I am slumped in the corner in a chair to which he comes over and rubs my arm and says:

“Sometimes it’s harder on the dad’s, hey”.

Everything inside of me wanted to yell out “you have got it all wrong, I haven’t eaten much today, I am dieting, I have been exercising a lot lately, my wife squeezes very hard”, but in the end I stopped myself. I will never see these people again so who cares if they think I can’t handle what was on the screen.

There is not much that gets me embarrassed but that was one of them. Do you know what I have found is the best way to get over something embarrassing quickly?? Tell everybody you know. So that is what I have done.

Have Fun.

Dan

Hi everyone.

I am not going to lie to you, I am still quite tired. Like I have said before there is a lot to get done before our next baby is due, which is similar to when people work really hard before a holiday and then they finally get to the holiday and can rest. The difference with us is that we are working really hard up to the point where we have to work even harder to bring this baby out (especially My Princess who will be doing most of the work). After working hard through labour we will get to the point where we have the baby in our arms and he or she can join our family. At that point we must start a new journey of working even harder as we bring up our new cherished child and continue to bring up our already-cherished two year old daughter. But that working hard will be different as I try to…

Count it all joy

Isn’t it funny how we can lose perspective on what we are doing. I love to play tennis. I am not amazing at it but I really love to have a hit and a run around. Recently when we were filming for the Summer Series for Hillsong Kids Big, we were at a place with a tennis court. This provided a daily hit of fun for myself and Nath McLean. I would glady have a hit of tennis once a week for a year but it is not a privilege that I often get. I don’t have a tennis court at my house so I would have to hire one each week which is a costly exercise and not a priority at the moment. So I stick to really enjoying a game whenever I get the chance.

Now here is the strange part about how my attitude used to be toward tennis and to a lot of fun games such as 8-ball (pool), table tennis and… (I would love to add another sport in there to make me sound sporty but I have nothing). All I could add would be darts, air hockey and 10-pin bowling which isn’t that impressive but these are all things I have some skill in. By the way side note: to this day I have not met someone better than me at Air Hockey. Just saying, if you are ever in Sydney I would love a challenge.

So back to the strange part about these ‘sports’. When I was young I used to be so focused on my performance that I would stress out and not enjoy myself. I used to 10-pin bowl as a 15 year old and I gave it up due to stress. Can you believe it? I wan’t even playing in a tournment but just a tiny league in my home town and I was stessing out. But looking back, I can’t work out how in the world I got stressed in what is an enjoyable activity. If it wasn’t an enjoyable acitivity they wouldn’t charge people to do it!!!! The way I was acting they needed to pay me for the amount of stress I took on.

Nowadays I am a lot more chilled out and if I ever start getting annoyed I say to myself “Dan, you don’t get to do this everyday of your life, this is awesome, enjoy it”.

So what does that have to do with entering into a season of a lot of hard work with two children? I figure if someone can count an enjoyable experience as work, then I can try to count work as an enjoyable experience. And when I am changing my 18th nappy, after spending the whole day teaching, entertaining, talking, moulding and shaping, hugging, chasing, gaming, disciplining, and imagining with my children; whilst also doing shopping, cleaning, cooking, and house-holding; I will say to myself: “Dan, you won’t get to do this everyday of your life, this is awesome, enjoy it”.

Have Fun

Dan

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Thursday Blog. You are going to enjoy today’s episode whether you are reading this for the first time or reading this for the second time.

Don’t think too hard about that intro.

Well what a week I have had. It has been full on mainly because I have decided to cram a few important things in this week. In fact My Princess and I have a fairly big list of things we want to get done before we have our next child in December. This is extremely challenging but it’s ok. We can rest when our child is born………….. hang on that won’t work. We may need to re-look at this plan.

To add to the challenge I have decided to try something new which involves a lot of:

Looking Silly

This week I went to a Karate lesson. Now stop laughing at me or I will fly kick you in the head……… as soon as I learn how to do that. I found a deal online 6 months ago that gave me a month of lessons for $19 so I thought it was worth a try. I booked in and was told that there would be plenty of new people so to just wear shorts and a t-shirt. I went to the first lesson with high hopes.

I rock up and quickly realise that I am the only one without the full karate uniform. I go sit in a corner and look around. At first I thought that no-one was friendly until I found out there is no talking permitted in the Dojo. The Sensei comes in and everyone gets in line in order of rank. Can you guess where someone in shorts and a t-shirt stands. You got it, at the very end of the line.

The lesson went on and I tried to follow along. I was hoping that I was a child prodigy that was a freak of nature and would at least be a brown belt. Unfortunately that was not the case as I struggled with my punches and kicks. My kicks are the worst. He kept saying “Kick up” and I kept thinking “of course I am kicking up, why would I kick down???”. I didn’t say that to him, not because I am a coward but because we are not allowed to talk.

I managed to get through a lesson on Monday and the next day I felt so sore. The kind of sore where you pick up a pen from your desk and your muscles yell at you “WHY ARE YOU PICKING UP THAN A 4-TONNE WEIGHT”. Everything in me didn’t want to go back. Why? Because no one likes to look silly, and compared to everyone else in the class I definitely looked silly.

I returned on Wednesday and to my joy there was someone else new with no uniform. I stood next to her on the end of the line (as a gentleman I let her stand in a higher position in the line). I also wanted to look out for her so I whispered to her a few things like when to stand, when to kneel and what in the world the word “Yami” means. Then we started punching and I was focusing on my punches which were looking great. I kind of felt sorry for her as she would have no idea what she was doing but I couldn’t help her, I had to concentrate on what I was doing. I just had to let her look silly seeing as it was her first week.

We then broke off into groups. The Sensei told the white belts and us newbies to be in one group whilst all the pros did something else. He then pointed to her and told her to stay with the pros. I had no idea why? Maybe she was the karate prodigy that I wished I was. He then told her to go stand on the end of a line and had every pro come and attack her one by one to which she proceeded to block and then counter attack with lightning speed!!!!

It turned out she used to be a black belt a few years back and is getting back into it…and I was giving her tips. I definitely was the one looking silly again.

Many people refuse to try new things for the fear of looking silly. It may be joining a sport, taking up a hobby or even trying an outreach for your kids ministry. The thing is there is no way around it, you will look silly and you may suck for a while but that is a part of getting better. For years in my performances I would only do things where I could guarantee a win, but it was holding me back from discovering something new. We need to remember that even if you fall flat on your face at least you are going forward.

Have Fun.

Dan

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Thursday Blog. You are going to enjoy today’s episode whether you are reading this for the first time or have created a franchise of Thursday Blog reading centres that didn’t survive the GFC because the much sort-after blog is readily available on the internet.

There is a lot going on in life at the moment. My new job is going great thanks for asking. I have finished for the week as I have tomorrow off to go to Kidsfest (such a cool employer). I am really looking forward to my two performances and I have put in some really great preparation. And then tomorrow night I am taking My Princess away for a Babymoon. This is where we go away to relax as a couple before our next baby arrives. It will be the first time ever we will be away together for 2 nights without our Little Princess. We will miss her but we will enjoy the sleep-in’s

So things are good, but that isn’t the case for a lot of people. Which brings me to today’s topic:

The child’s speech

It was the end of a fun night which involved having My Princess’ family over for dinner. I turned on the TV and flicked between channels. I stopped when I heard the most extreme Scottish accent coming from the mouth of a young girl. The accent was so thick they had subtitles even though she was speaking English. She sounded awesome, the Scottish sound so cool. Shortly after I got over the novetly of the accent I realised what she was saying. She was talking about her living conditions.

It is a strange thing for a 12 year old to talk about living conditions but this Scottish girl had a lot to say. She talked about her unit complex being run down and how she didn’t feel safe. She talked about how many times in the playground she has found bags of used needles. And worst of all she talked about the mould. Her unit was plagued with mould and every room felt damp. She used to sleep on the top bunk bed but would wake up covered in mouldy water from the ceiling. She now takes shelter on the bottom bunk. She talked about how she always feels sick and so does her family and how it is affecting her at school. Can you imagine going to school everyday with wet smelly clothes??? This is what she faces.

The show moved onto a young boy of 12 who lived with his father and two siblings. His father is out of work and has been for 5 months. His mother walked out on them last year leaving the father to raise the children on his own. The father was doing his best to support the kids but the monetary government benefits he is receiving a month is the same amount he used to earn in his job in a week, so things are really tight. One of the children’s birthdays was coming up which the father said was one of the most stressful times for him because he has no money for presents yet he is still going to get some.

There was some good news for the Scottish girl. The government found replacement accommodation for them, a house, without mould, in a good suburb. She was so happy. She said she felt like she was the luckiest girl in the world. She exclaimed that she could finally start her life and be happy.

I can’t get over how these children speak. The boy, though still too young to have a job would constantly talk about money. It would be from the perspective of a child but he would still talk about money. He starting ranting about the economic situation of his country and how there were a lack of jobs.

The girl would conceptulise things like an adult. When she saw the moving van that her father had hired she said “That must have cost so much. The hire cost alone plus the petrol as well.”

This is not right. These children have had to see the world through the lens of an adult. They can’t take anything as a given. When they need school books they can’t automatically assume they will get them. When they need new clothes, they can’t expect they will get them. When they are hungry they can only hope that today isn’t the day the money runs out.

Poverty has many effects that can cripple a person, a family, a community or a nation. One of these effects is that it can rob a child of their childhood. We need to be the ones who do everything we can to enable children to be children.

Hi all, how are you? Let me tell you about me.

I have started my new job this week which has been great. I have a fantastic team to work with and I am excited about the future. As exciting as this is it also has been very tiring as there is so much I have to learn about their systems, policies and procedures etc. So it would be foolish of me to sit here and try and pump out an episode when I know it probably wont be very good.

Instead I leave you with two friends of mine, Steve and Jeremy, to discuss the finer points of life. A funny fact is that seeing I am one of the creators of these characters I may have been the one to name then. It has just been brought to my attention that I gave them the same names as one of my closest friends and his brother. I didn’t mean too but maybe it was my subconscious that did it. I am really brainy like that. In fact I am so brainy I won an international brain award for being so brainy.

Have Fun.

Dan

P.S. This is one video from the new Hillsong Kids Big Supernatural Curriculum. I personally put well over 100 hours of my time and effort into this project and I was only one of many people that did so plus more. One thing I can promise, is that it is a quality product. www.hillsongkidsbig.com

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Thursday Blog. You are going to enjoy today’s episode whether you are reading this for the first time or …..

Can you tell I have copied and pasted the above intro and couldn’t get the energy to finish it. Why is that? Because I am fighting off sleep as we are currently filming for the next BIG Curriculum which brings us to todays topic.

So as much as I wish to write something awesome for you I have to focus all resources towards this project. I promise I will return next week.

In the mean time I leave you with something random but fun.

This is a dance I created with my mates that we performed live at our youth conference. It was filmed on a phone in 2006 so the quality is not great but I hope you enjoy. I am the guy in the middle.

Have Fun

Dan.

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Thursday Blog. You are going to enjoy today’s episode whether you are reading this for the first time or you have printed off every episode every written and insulated your house with it so you can be kept warm with guidance.

I am no builder, but I suggest you also invest in heating as good guidance may warm the heart but it won’t provide the adequate temperature necessary for basic survival.

Now I know today is Friday and this is The Thursday Blog but I have this to say in my defence………………

I am glad we all agree then.

Time for today’s episode:

The Value of a Price

Price is a funny thing especially when it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables. I know the price can drastically change from place to place but that is also true for many other things, but the thing that makes this so strange is that the price of fruit and vegetables can drastically change in the same store in a matter of days. Why is this? Well there are probably many reasons and I am not going to pretend to be a specialist in agricultural produce, but I think in the western world we forgett hat most fruit and vegetables are seasonal and not easily grown when it is not in season.

What do you mean not in season? I WANT IT NOW!!!! (Said by the average 1st world citizen)

That is fine, you can have it now, but you will have to pay for it (Said by the average supermarket/ grocery store)

That is fine, charge it to my credit card (Said by the average 1st world citizen)

Muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (Said by the average bank who issued the credit card).

So this means where I live we get the privilege of getting such fruits as avocado all year round but the price can range from 75 cents to $5 each depending on the time of year. So the question is: “What is the value of an avocado?”

Well the answer is definitely $5 because I have paid that amount for one before and I really enjoyed it. I remember it as if it was yesterday, just me and my avocado, and a sandwich with just the right amount of cheese. I could hardly wait until I got home so that I could crack it open. It was magical and I treasured that avocado because the price was high so I made sure the value was as well.

But these days they are in season so they are as cheap as 75 cents so I bought three. That means instantly I have saved $12.75 in value as I have gotten $15 in value for only $2.25. I know I have lost those who don’t like maths. But I have gotten so much value and will enjoy it so much. But it didn’t work out like that. All of those 3 avocados were put in the fruit bowl and forgotten about, only to go off and to be chucked a week or so later. I got no value.

If you mentioned the word “banana” to an Australian a few months ago every one of them would start salivating. Why? Because there was a hurricane that killed 75% our bananas, so the ones left were expensive. Usually they are anywhere from $1 – $2.50 a kilo but they got as high as $14 – $18 per kilo. This meant bananas were like gold. If you got a chance to have access to a banana for free say at a function you would run to the table and crash tackle anyone that went near it. Sadly this average fruit is now premiere all because of its price.

Why is it that when we have full access to something we never use it but when it is hard to get we will go the extra mile? My parents are away overseas on a big trip around Europe. It is so hard to call them as I have to call one of 14 different hotels, get transferred to their room and hope they are home, plus call at a strange time for me because of the time difference. Even though this is hard, I have been wanting to call them a lot recently just to talk. But why have I not had the same urges when they are in Australia. I can call them for free when they are at home but instead I wait until it costs a fortune. What is wrong with me???

I have heard so many people during the banana shortage say “I will never take them for granted again” and then after the price comes down they do. I have also heard so many people say when loved ones go away “I will never take them for granted again” only for them to come back and to be forgotten quite quickly.

When it comes to people price should never determine value, but value should determine value. The value of a person is limitless, just something to remember.

Have Fun.

Dan