“My God,” he prayed aloud, “I’ve served You on earth.. And my reward should be that I shouldn’t die before I bring a Jew to Christ, because Jesus was from the Jewish people.” He sighed. “But I’m poor, old, and sick. I can’t go around and find a Jew. In my village, there aren’t any. Bring a Jew into my village, and I’ll do my best to lead him to Christ.”
Some time around 10pm (I think) a singer put down his trumpet and said, ‘The Holy Spirit is here, let’s be silent and welcome his presence.’
Within a few minutes, we all knew the anointing, overwhelming, presence of God – come to counsel and comfort, to convict the world with regard to sin and righteousness and judgement.As I looked around I saw hundreds, many hundreds, all kinds of people around the Arena where not long ago death and horror reigned doing just that men and women and young people coming back to life! Hands up everywhere. Many were in tears and others smiling broadly as they did business with God in what was now surely a holy place as he made himself present where he had been so royally welcomed and honoured. The King had come.
Every day – God says what he sees and he sees ‘it’s good and it’s good and it’s good!’
And a blessing comes. Because God’s blessing makes everything productive and flourishing.
You are unique and unreproducible. God made the universe in such a manner that even if you’re a twin no one looks exactly like you, thinks your thoughts, or feels your feelings. There is no other person in the world equipped and gifted like you, with your track record of faith through life’s ups and downs, sharing your particular passions and if you are a Christian, nobody else has your uniquely designed pattern of spiritual gifts. There are tests you can take to try to get an idea of what they are, and some of them may even be helpful to give you some idea of whether you’re more of an apostle or evangelist or teacher, but I have found that discovering our place in the Body or our spiritual gifts is not something we do alone by going online to take that kind of test, like a true-or-false quiz or Myers Briggs. So how do we work that out then? First of all it requires us to recognise that it’s not about me – it’s about Jesus. Jesus moves in this […]
John 17:6-11 ‘That they may be one – even as we are one.’ This is what is on his heart and uppermost in his mind – unity. He has everything being put into place on the other side of his death and resurrection. And he knows that UNITY is the Key, if we are to build anything in life. Nobody can do it alone. So his emphasis, his prayer for us – is unity. Even as he’s on death row effectively, he’s not praying ‘Lord be with me, in this trial, make it easier.’ He transcends his needs to pray for ours. We are here as church, because of this prayer. You can’t just have revival because you hold a prayer meeting or an event, how do I know? We have tried it! It comes – to the desperate, those who know their own poverty who cry out, in their desperation for God, and for their own condition. Our lives are made up of moments. Some of have had those life changing, life shaping moments. What if this happened now when […]
How do I pray today?
And HOW ON EARTH am I meant to do what this verse commands and submit here on earth, for heaven’s sake? “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”
Save souls, make them into disciples.
That is the purpose of every church and every Christian.
Do you believe in the Great Commission?
Yes, we’d say of course we do!
Well do your systems back that up?
Do we put the responsibility of the weight of the Great Commission on every believer?
What stops us saying ‘We would love to multiply where you are.’ The only way to do that is to overcome fear. Because fear is the opposite of faith. And if that has stopped you, don’t let having less not stop you doing more because scarcity brings clarity and if we make our vision and mission again. Serving the hurting. Saving the lost – We would see this as such an opportune time
I think you’ll love listening to this wide ranging and prescient interviews as we discussed subjects including but not limited to Quiet Quitting in Church, Yoga, CS Lewis and what makes great literature!
“We just kept circling back to the kinds of fruit that we’re hoping to see in the lives of people and in our kind of church body and because of that, in our community and in our world,
And so we really kind of shifted the game and said, well then instead of focusing on, “Here’s our big church vision that we want you to get in line and get on board with and help us build, we really kind of turn the table and said we want to come alongside people and help them figure out what they’re kind of discipleship path our discipleship plan looks like, and that’s what we’re going to put our energies as a staff and as leaders – asking “What does discipleship look like for you?’” and we wanna walk with people and help them really establish what are the tools and resources we can provide as a church to help people on their journey so ultimately we’re putting spiritual growth back in the hands of people and saying we want to walk alongside of them and help them with that…’