Sheep and Shepherds
Preparing for next Sunday's Video talk, which we're filming later today, I found a great deal of interesting detail from this source, reproduced at www.baptistbiblebelievers.com Manner And Customs of Bible Lands by Fred H. Wight Copyright @ 1953 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Shepherd ...
Curses and Blessings, Balaam & Barak
It's not just the strange tale of a talking donkey. Numbers 22 has a lot to tell us about blessings and curses and how words work God's way.
From Attendance to Action: How to Fully Participate in Church Life and Mission.
Playing Your Part: Embracing Fellowship, Discipleship, and Ministry in the local church. The early church, as described in Acts 2:41-42, 46-47, provides a clear model for how believers should engage in church life just as much where you are now ...
There are things we must do differently in a crisis, quickly, to enable us to have a future that we will be able to create something new for. Some things we just have to do now because “The ship won’t take much more of this Cap’n!”
You can’t put Jesus on lockdown.
He healed the sick, still does. He raised the dead! Remember his friend Lazarus? How he called him out of the graveyard by name, because if he hadn’t been specific everybody would have come back to life at his command there and then!
We have prayed that we would be like the church in the Book of Acts – you have to be careful what you pray for!
I can’t imagine how anyone could get through this without knowing what John 3:16 tells us – that God loves the world. He loves it so much he gave his Son to save anyone who puts their trust in Him. Jesus Christ is God.
The Church in the west has tried, tried and tried again – and by and large been found wanting – because people don’t want it. We’ve offered a God who people don’t desire, a community where they don’t belong, an institution they distrust.
It’s time for a REFRAME.
How often when we are talking with others do egos get in the way because we are trying to prove or disprove a point? Someone sees it one way, someone else another way, and someone else can’t see it at all!
The ‘higher’ you go in leadership actually means going lower. Rights go down and responsibilities go up. It means to serve more, and doing the things you don’t always like. The one who serves most, leads most.
Steady progress over time will not only build a great organisation, but a great life.
hope is not up front – the way the world sees it. It may not even be what you have with you at the beginning. It’s what you’re holding onto, at the end.
If I am one with the One ‘through whom all things were made’ – all the things he made must matter to me too. Reconciliation, climate change.