It’s not just about me dying and going to heaven. The gospel is God is showing up here and now in broken places, in hard times in lives, in sickness… this is what the kingdom looks like. For everyday people in all sorts of ways!
Don’t limit yourself by your personality.
Be and believe He’s right in what he says about you! Either he’s right or you are.
There are no limitations when we agree with who He says we are!
Discover who you are in Christ – and act like it.
‘What God gives you is his gift to you, what you do with your gifts is your gift back to him.’ Dave Holden
We are not meant to come to church and have the pastor tell us what to do.
We are to come and tell the Pastor what God is doing!
Will we have bottlenecks, or wildfire?!
The leaders are necessary if they are there to provide guidance and support and discernment- but all through the week God should be breaking out through everyone. We need the Holy Spirit most of all!
The commission was directly given to the apostles but indirectly given to the ecclesia in every generation. After the early apostles died, the commission remained – and so does the authority, until it is fulfilled it will remain in force.
So they had a commission and were sent to fulfil it. In their generation the church grew like crazy and changed everything, everywhere. We have the same commission and we are sent to do it. That’s the key, they went, because they were sent. That’s an apostolic church.
INTIMACY with Jesus.
PROXIMITY to Jesus and
DEPENDENCY on him.
SHUT THE GATES!
Rather than come up with another TO DO (or not to do) list for 2024, there’s a more important question – and it’s not about doing
RETHINK the ACT of Evangelism Think of a line, scale of 1 to 10. The person of yesterday in the 1950s, they would have had a positive view of Christianity and a sense of guilt or conviction when they broke the tenets of the faith. Based on that context, unchurched people who were at 7 or 8 on the scale already worked easily because they were nearly there already. Just a tract or a talk again. AN EVENT. Now; the contemporary unChristian might be on what – a 3? So how do we talk to them. We need PROCESS and Event. Pay attention to the process that helps them progress to a 5, to get them forward. CS Lewis said the gospel was first of all to people who were conscious of sin, and aware of the supernatural. But ‘I sometimes wonder other we shall have to reconvert people to real paganism’, before converting them to Christ. Move To Explanation We have moved from Acts 2 (When Peter told them – who were God fearing Jews, monotheists and had the […]
Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step… If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.
My friend Patrick O’Connell is the Global Director of NewThing, the network which I and Ivy Church are privileged to be part of, which exists to partner with movement makers and catalyse reproducing disciples, leaders, churches, networks, and movements. Here he tells the story of how he came to faith, having met his wife in a punk rock mosh pit, joined the army, he went into business and while finally successful in worldly terms when he finally after 4 years accepted an invitation to go to church and everything changed! He went from church goer to church planter, now serving thousands of church leaders and planters worldwide through NewThing’s dream – to see a church planted in every community around the world. We discuss, among other things – How might we help connect people far from God so they don’t just learn to cope, but receive hope. What army life taught him about teams and sacrifice, and how that applies to the army of God and ministry ‘in the blood and the mud.’ How do we collaborate and form networks that are all […]