I used to always sing this to the kids at bath time. I loved it whether or not they did! As I write the talk now for this coming Sunday at Ivy Church I finish up thinking about our living out our potential. But if we think about our potential as only being for this life, we miss out so much of what God has prepared for us. The Bible says about Jesus, ‘When we see Him, we will know Him,’ (How?) ‘Because we’ll be like Him.’ We live as citizens of heaven. This world is not our home, we don’t always fit in. Some days more than others we feel that don’t we? But our Christian hope is that one day soon, we’ll stand before Him. We would be ashamed of our ‘grubbiness’ as we focus on ourselves, until he says, ‘Look at who I have you!’ The perishable will be clothed with the imperishable. We’ll never waddle again, but soar!
Tag: Jesus
Good Questions (2) Who is Good?
Your Bible might headline the meeting in Mark 10 as the rich young man, he’s also referred to as ‘The Rich Young Ruler’. He is everything our culture aspires to be wrapped up in skin and riding a posh donkey with go-faster stripes, but really he’s a self-satisfied, self-centered seeker. The gospels say he’s rich, but he probably didn’t think of himself as Rich. We never do. Materialism hides well in a heart and keeps you from seeing yourself as rich, however much you have. If someone from my world were to go to the poor parts of the same world – you discover you’re a world apart. In Haiti where I have been a number of times and will visit again next year, if you’re ‘Blanc’ – they see you as a millionaire. Why do we never see ourselves as rich? Because of who we compare ourselves with and come into contact with. We compare up not down, and feel better about ourselves as a result. I’m not as rich as Beyonce, Rooney, lottery winners, or MPs. They should do something! […]
Good Questions (1) What is Good?
Despite what many people in our culture may think, anyone who reads the Bible will soon discover that Christianity is NOT a system for Good people trying to live good lives. When people say, ‘I don’t believe in God or Jesus – but I’m just as much a good Christian as you..’ You can be sure that probably through no fault of their own they either missed the point or were given a description of Christianity that was about religion and rules and quite rightly rejected it. But the REAL gospel – the good news, starts with the bad news that you’re not good. You’re more sinful than you ever dared believe; and more loved than you ever dared hope. Because of the cross of Christ, if we exchange our own messed up record, we get his spotless one. That’s how we end up being ‘counted or reckoned as good.’ Justified, the Bible says. Because of Jesus taking the punishment for my sins, I’m justified – it’s ‘justasifI’d’ never sinned. If that’s all news to you, please get hold of […]
The Joy Paradox – Krish Kandiah at @myivychurch @krishk my notes on a great talk
Everyone on the planet is on a search for joy, but paradoxically most of those searching for it end up with broken lives and disappointment. Bertrand Russell had lots of money, sex and power, yet said ‘The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain – a curious wild pain – a searching for something beyond what the world contains.’ Where do you find what he (and everyone else) was looking for? Well CS Lewis said, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Do you find yourself longing for home? Lonely in a crowd? You were made for more! You were made for joy! Joy that’s not dependent on circumstances. Krish once lived in Albania. He saw an eagle – the national bird – but it was in a cage, slowly disintegrating itself because of being bound in its circumstances. The apostle Paul was not confined by his circumstances. We can learn from him. Paul was in prison when he wrote […]
Wanted: Jason (and Jane) Bournes for the Kingdom – NewThing Global
I am reflecting back on the inaugural NewThing Global meeting in Nairobi earlier this year and thought a summary post might help answer some of the many questions I get asked about NewThing Europe right now. We met there because of an initial connection between two leaders; Oscar Muriu of Nairobi Chapel was speaking at the Willow GLS and his message impacted my friend Dave Ferguson. They later reconnected through the conference Dave helps lead, Exponential – where Oscar in his amazing keynote from 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 he asked, ‘What are you living your life for that is worth Christ dying for?’ That led to our partnership discussions, and the idea of NewThing Global (of which I am now leading NewThing Europe) developed from that. We wanted to get a small group of friends to gather from the corners of the world to become part of a network, because trust can be communicated through all the relationships in that network. We’ve all been part of groups. There are groups that meet to train, or to talk, but a network is there […]
Ivy Church Becomes A Movement! Check the Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUdWHoXi9pQ Because we all danced to ‘You got to move it, move it’ and because you have to get moving or don’t call yourself a movement – that’s what #IvyKinetic was all about. The whole church got equipped for the call – and hit the streets! To find out more or connect with us, check out the Ivy Church website or Like the Ivy Manchester Facebook page after you watch the video. If you’re a leader who wants to turn the church inside out to help people find their way back to God, you can connect with me after investigating NewThing to find out how we can together catalyse more reproducing churches that help people find their way back to God in the UK, Europe and around the world.
FULLY ALIVE! My notes from @erwinmcmanus teaching day at WCA UK
Everything this guy says is tweetable 🙂 I started tweeting some but I couldn’t do that and take good notes so I stopped tweeting… I have seen way too many people not reach their potential, but it’s unthinkable that Christians do that. Christians have been taught that the future was set, by the same people who taught that the world was flat. The words we use most end up having the least meaning for us. Beautifying the bride? If you put a beautiful white dress on a bride with a leg cut off and bleeding, she’s not looking too good. He is from El Salvador – which means ‘The Saviour’. Great address! But he grew up without much religious connection. God was an unreal object of frustration for his mother. He was interested in mythology, to try to work out what it was to be human, which led to a psychiatrist from 12. The psychiatrist asked him, ‘What do you see?’ That clued him into how people see differently. He began to want to escape from a reality he didn’t […]
GROWING – How different people change us into different people. Brad Jersak at Ivy Church Didsbury @bradjersak #Bgbg2
What if you don’t make particular people your target group for your church- but make the Trinity your target group, then God will come, and bring His friends.
TIME TO KICK THE ROOF IN!
In Luke 5 Jesus is in a house teaching, the crowd checking him out was so large inside and out that some friends bringing a paralysed man couldn’t get into the house. No disabled access! No way in, nobody moving to make a way through. It says there was NO WAY TO DO IT. So what did they do? ‘Sorry pal, we’ll have to take you home again?’ No! There was no way so they made a way. They got creative. Dangerous even. They climbed up on the roof and kicked the roof in so they could lower their friend down on a bed in front of Jesus! This appeals to me from ex police days, where one of my favourite jobs was to be ‘Donger man’ on raids. The Donger was what we called that battering ram which provided a useful key for the majority of locked doors with 14 stone behind it. I’m terrible at DIY, but if you want something smashing, I’m your guy. What those guys did to the roof and how Mark’s account says when Jesus saw […]
The Kingdom Of God Is A Party
Very much in line with my talk for tomorrow morning where I will talk about what happened when Matthew threw a great party ‘with Jesus as the guest of honour,’ this fabulous talk by a hero of mine will blow your mind about what Christianity is really about.