This month's most popular posts

  • 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 ... posted on December 10, 2013
  • 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. posted on February 11, 2023
  • Why Paul told Timothy he was so FOR women leading, and I want to be too! Why would Paul name two men getting it wrong then apparently write ‘so the answer is don’t let women teach?’ Writing something which for 2000 years since has been used - by men - to clobber women into submission at ... posted on March 19, 2021

George Verwer at Message Prayer Day

Psalm 67 It’s a missionary’s psalm. May ALL the peoples praise you!! One of the emphases of Proverbs is the need for wisdom. So much information – so little wisdom these days. People can be brilliant in one field and awfully foolish in other ways. The wiser you get, the less confidence you’ll get the truth you need from the media. Most people who go Overseas in mission end up going back to their own country – and end up influencing there. So Go into all the world! 2000 years on, how is that going? 5 different kinds of countries: 1) Massive Growth: 1 million more Christians a year in Brazil. Exploding growth in S Korea And China, church growth spreading from countryside to the cities. Philippines. Singapore. Many nations – Global South. This was not true 50 years ago! We long for more here! 2) significant breakthroughs – but not great. Algeria. Very little fruit visible for some missionaries USA – lots of new movements, but some decline. 3) People think nothing’s happening – but it is. Eg France. […]

My blogging in 2011- review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it. Click here to see the complete report.

Lynn Swart- Your god is too expensive.

Let’s conspire together to act together to do some good this Christmas. Not allowing ourselves to become so enamoured with all the stuff we forget the stable. To do that, we have to spend less. People right now are getting trapped. Ex 32:1-4 Summary? ‘Come- make us gods…’ So they took off their jewellery and made it into an idol, and said ‘these are our saviours, and worshipped them. They corrupted themselves and invoked the wrath of the real God. This was 1 Built on wrong inspiration. It says ‘When the people saw…’ At the same time as Moses was hearing/listening to God. What do you see? Genesis 3 talks about how Eve was deceived by what she saw sensually and naturally – that closed down the hearing of the supernatural voice of God. We lose the bigger picture. We stop trusting God & fashion our own. Shaped the god they wanted to accommodate them. They were blinded by their stuff. Obsessed with the calf so they couldn’t see the cloud! God was close, but the calf blocked their view. […]

LOVE ONE ANOTHER. That’s about it.

I’ve heard this story before in talks but only just spotted its source (Jerome). When the venerable John could no longer walk to the meetings of the Church but was borne thither by his disciples, he always uttered the same address to the Church; he reminded them of that one commandment which he had received from Christ Himself, as comprising all the rest, and forming the distinction of the new covenant, “My little children, love one another.” When the brethren present, wearied of hearing the same thing so often, asked why he always repeated the same thing, he replied, “Because it is the commandment of the Lord, and if this one thing be attained, it is enough” [JEROME].

Carl Beech: Iron Sharpens Iron

Here’s my notes on Carl’s recent talk when we were at Soul Survivor, Watford. Great stuff and it was a sell out! Looking forward to  playing at home for the ‘North’ version in January! Details of that so you can book in here (why not organise a group from your church?); http://www.new-wine.org/events/mens-daysIron Sharpens Iron IRON SHARPENS IRON Life’s up and down, and often gets very hard – and we men retreat too often. Testosterone gives us ‘fight or flight’ but we run too much too soon, rather than go through the muck and mud. Romans 5:3 says ‘We glory in our sufferings’ why – because of what it produces! If we didn’t go through this we’ll be spoilt brats who sulk when something goes wrong. 9 out of 12 apostles were killed. William Carey saw his wife die. Peter preaches and sees 3000 saved, Stephen says, ‘I’ll have a crack at that.’ And gets 3000 bricks on his head. This helps us understand why so many men are down and depressed. The measure of a man is how you hold […]

LYNN SWART at Ivy MCR: Called to EXTRAVAGANCE

Lynn Swart at Ivy MCR Called to Extravagance These notes from Lynn’s talk tonight form a great study for our Grow Groups: When she was in the USA recently, saw amazing manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Gold dust on people etc., that’s a miracle – but how about all the other provisions he gives us? Discuss: What do you think about that kind of thing happening in services? Weird – or God? Discuss: When was the last time something took your breath away? Watch the Frozen Planet; the penguins jumping out of the water – WOW! Isn’t our God amazing? It can take your breath away. We can’t script for those moments. God takes people’s breath away in the Bible: Read Isaiah 6: and pray that God will keep taking our breath away… Ezekiel fell on his face before God, as did John – read Revelation 1. What would we do if we saw God in his glory like that? We need to recognise that the Trinity is here with us, now. Do we see that? Or can worship become […]