Q 1. Why did you write Grace V Self-Esteem? A 1. Firstly, let me say I am the last person who would write a book. I had no ambition to write and in fact I had nothing to write about until I had an encounter with God. (You can watch it on in2grace.com) I was called to write but had to wait on God for the message. In the months afterwards I travelled up and down the east Coast of Australia on business. I would pray about the call to write. Then as I travelled, a word would come to mind then a parable expanded from that one word. I wrote down the parable. The experience happened over and over again. So I collected the parables and found that each parable was interconnected and all of them showed me a big picture. I studied the parables, looking at the Bible, social trends and my personal life experiences. Q2. Who is the book written for? A 2. The book is for everyone but especially for the Western World. I would say it is extremely important for Pastors, Teachers and Counselors and Doctors to read. Anyone interested in modern life and society. Q 3. Tell us some more about the parables? A 3. As I have mentioned God called me to write, but I had no idea what he wanted me to say! I have always liked stories, especially as a kid. Then as a young adult I came to faith, I liked Jesus’ parables. So it was probably natural for me. But I never thought a parable would come through me! I was just driving along the Aussie countryside either early in the morning or late at night. One key word would enter my mind and before I knew it a parable came to life. Even now I look at those parables and learn something new. They are incredibly simple on one level but incredibly deep on another level. They speak to the heart. The meaning is easy to grasp yet the spiritual truths go deep. I am just an ordinary guy nothing special but these parables are special! I am humbled they were given to me. Q 4. Grace V Self-Esteem is an interesting title, does the title suggests there is a struggle or battle between the two? A 4. Yes, there is a spiritual struggle between the Grace of God and modern Self-esteem teaching. Most people these days think that high self esteem creates happy, successful and self actualized citizens. Most Psychologist, Counselors and Teachers and even some Preachers have encouraged the pursuit of high self-esteem as a desired goal. However, the grace of God affirms everyone as valuable. The cross is God’s love in action for everyone. In chapter 5 you can see the spiritual struggle; it shows how the Self-esteem teaching in practice creates arrogant and self serving personalities. While grace esteems and humbles us allowing us to love God, and others. Q 5. What is the core message of your book? A 5. The core message of the book is that self-esteem teaching is a counterfeit of grace. Both grace and self esteem gives us a sense of value. Grace is a divine attitude found in the generosity of God. That all of life is an unmerited grace gift and Jesus death on the cross is the greatest display of love declaring our value. While self –esteem in practice has become praise hunger and praise hunting in self worship. Q 6. How did the modern praise game start? A 6. The emphasis is upon modern! The desire for praise and status has been with us since Adam was a boy but there has been some major social changes that forces us in the West to hunger and hunt for praise. I call this the praise game. Around the mid 1950’s teachers adopt positive reinforcement methods in teaching or in other words using praise to motive children to learn and achieve. Unfortunately praise was used to socialize children, conditioning children to hunger for praise and to seek praise in the class room. While it started in the class room it grew out of control. The prize of the game is to win praise to assert one’s own personal value. You can read about this in Grace V Self Esteem Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Q 7. You mentioned that self-esteem is a modern invention? A 7. Yes absolutely modern. Around the mid 1950’s the teaching profession introduced the practice of positive reinforcement into the school system, first in the US then in other countries. It was seem as a great advancement for educating children. Young children learned that praise was good as they sat and listened to the teacher. Then teachers would use praise to motivate and before long competitive praise entered the class room. Praise also became addictive as it created a pleasure praise biological response. Unfortunately hunting praise has become the main heart motivation for our generation. You can read more in Chapter 1 and 2. Q 8. How wide spread is the praise game? A 8. The praise game has gone global or at least the effect of it has! Teachers in the western world have adopted the use of praise as a teaching method starting in the US then to England, Canada, Australia and many other countries. On one level this teaching method worked brilliantly but it ignored the spiritual and social impacts on culture. Q 9. Is the praise game about self-worship? A9. Yes absolutely, to worship is a strong instinct just like eating, drinking and reproduction. Everyone is given the ability by God to worship or praise him. The gift allows us to love God but unfortunately when we use praise to gain our own sense of worth we worship ourselves. When we do this we disregard the second of the Ten Commandments. As a consequence we suffer the horrid side effects. I have traced the trail of human suffering from Chapter 1 to Chapter 14. Q 10. What was Jesus’ attitude to praise hunting? A10. In the gospels Jesus’ displays a distain for hunting praise. It’s without doubt his main criticism of the leaders of Israel; he called it hypocrisy, speaking out against their hunger for praise and status. This attitude allowed the leaders of Israel to oppose Jesus’ ministry and his teachings about the grace of God. You can read about this in Grace V Self Esteem Chapter 7 & 8 Q 11. What are the effects of the praise game on us? A 11. Let me just say self worship is false worship and idolatry which creates a wide range of horrible side effects; it creates and promotes violence, depression, greed, abuse of the poor and also leads to hatred towards God. The praise game creates this! In Chapter 2 you can see how the praise game makes us abusive and violent. Chapter 6 shows how it creates depression; Chapter 9 shows how praise hunting creates abusive relationship patterns. Chapter 10 shows how praise distorts our sexuality and causes sexual crime, abuse and suffering. Then in Chapter 11 it shows how the hunt for praise abuses the poor and exploits the earth. Q 12. Grace v Self-esteem looks at how everything is interconnected? A 12. Yes everything is interconnected; small seemly harmless activities form part of the bigger picture. On the website The Big Picture page you can see how everything is joined together, for either our blessing or cursing it’s like one big social and spiritual map. The way of grace leads to paradise the other to the spiritual garbage dump. You can read more about the spiritual garbage dump in Chapter 13 Q 13. What does Jesus teach about grace? A 13. If there was one word to describe Jesus life, teaching and mission it would be grace. No other word best described the attitude and lifestyle of Jesus. By this I mean that everything comes from a generous loving God, and we are all valued by grace, the goodness of God. Jesus claimed to be God’s son and freely offered his life to pay for our sins. You can read about this in Grace V Self Esteem Chapter 4 and Chapter 8 Q 14. When will the book be released? A 14: It is available for sale in the US, Canada and Mexico now. In Australia–1st of February 2010. The UK–March/April 2010. Q 15. How does the praise game make us depressed and even suicidal? A 15: Every kid at school knows it’s better to be cool than not cool, these words describe the praise game. As children we are taught to hunger and hunt for praise, unfortunately some kids are deprived, conditioned to hunger for praise, taught to seek it to achieve esteem. They will feel insignificant or in some cases depressed. Depression is the main characteristic symptom for suicide. You can read more about how the praise game creates depression and leads to suicide in Chapter 6. Q 16. How does the praise game make us mistreat and abuse others? A 16: The praise game makes us self focused and self absorbed but on a deep psychological and spiritual level it makes us more concerned with the outer appearance or our self image. This creates socially acceptable “show case images” of ourselves. It lets us hide any negatives behind the image. Hiding sin and nasty attitudes rather than correcting them, they tend to grow! Jesus criticized the Pharisees for cleaning the outside of the cup or dish and leaving the inside unclean. When the image is challenged aggression and resentment will surface. Q 17: How does the praise game affect our sexuality? A 17: In Chapter 10 you will learn how the hunger for praise has distorted our biology and makes us hunger for praise in sexual attractiveness. The chapter highlights the sad outcome of sex without love, which keeps us fixated on the mirror and leads many to seek meaning in sexual desirability. Q 18 Tell us a little about your interests? A 18: I am married to Connie and have two teenage children Elijah 19 and Hannah 16. I love exploring the Ocean: fishing, diving, sailing, walking the dog along the beach or just enjoying the waves. You might say when I am around the ocean I feel close to God. I can’t help but praise him. I am sure the Ocean is God’s entertainment theme park. One of my all time best worship experiences occurred while scuba diving with Grey Nurse sharks, fifty or so eagle rays and a giant Queensland grouper big enough to eat you whole. I felt so close to God. I just kept on praising him for his full on awesomeness! Q 19: How would you describe your ministry? A 19: I feel like an ordinary guy carrying and extraordinary message. As I have said I felt called by God to write and the parables just blew my mind. I left full time ministry some years ago. I had once served as a pastor, a manager of a Baptist residential Youth and Family therapy program. But when called was selling fishing tackle, to my surprise God wanted me to write, go figure! So I stepped out in faith to start In2grace. This extraordinary revelation about grace has rocked my world! I have a prophetic responsibility to spread the word and show everyone what stops the grace of God coming alive in people’s lives and society as a whole. This message holds the key to revival. So I feel compelled to wake the sleeping members of God’s family. Q20: what is your educational qualification? A 20:

• A Bachelor Degree from the Sydney College of Divinity, a BTh, 1995
• Diploma in Theology – Morling College – Baptist 1987
• A Social Welfare Work Certification- Southern Sydney Institute,TAFE (3 years Part time) 1985
• One year Family Therapy Training Programme- Eastwood Family Therapy Centre, Epping 1990