DAY TWELVE: THURSDAY MARCH 30 DARWIN TO TOWNSVILLE

Stuart McMillan is a total Trojan. He lives at Humpty Doo which is about forty minutes drive from Darwin. He was so keen to spend time hanging out with us and reviewing the time we had together in Darwin that he overruled our protests about him driving the other guys to the airport but got up early enough to pick them up at 4:30 so that we could spend some time at the airport before the plane left. It was a profitable time, too, because we were able to talk about different observations we had had and about some possible future directions for building the church in the city of Darwin. He has this revelation strong and deep in his heart. He is also a long term committed Top Ender (a lot of people come and go from the Top End). We were so impressed by his loving but strong capability that we agreed he would be worth doing anything for in order to support.


The plane left at 6:00 and arrived at Cairns just on 9:00 am. With the half hour time differential that made it just a two and a half hour flight. There wasn’t as much heavy cloud across the top as I had expected with the cyclonic activity of the week before but by the time we got to the coast we were in some heavy cloud. Cairns missed the damage that Innisfail experienced so it was just wet and not quite as muggy as Darwin. There was about an hour transit time and we were on a packed Dash 8 (thirty eight seat aircraft) for the forty five minute flight to Townsville. Anne Harley (Uniting Church) was there to meet us and we were dumped our bags at the motel and headed down to the Strand. This part of Townsville has been beautifully developed with parks and walkways and restaurants. It looks over the bay to Magnetic Island, about a twenty minute boat ride. I was reminded of a story that Briant Clark told me about a parachute training exercise he had to do in the army when he was here. They were taken up in a Carabou and dropped into the sea. He said he spent the whole ten minutes or more in the water wondering if sharks might or might not be attracted to the colourful material and whether there was a way of using the chute to protect himself if one came around.


Our first engagement was a lunch meeting with the leadership team here in Townsville. Peter Patterson is an AOG pastor who gives leadership to the group who meet to pray each Friday in the two cities of Townsville and Thuringowa. The whole dual city now comprises about 160,000 people and about 70 churches. We had a great time talking with these guys. They have done some terrific stuff together and while they, like everyone, have a long way to go, there is a strong and deepening conviction that the church of Jesus Christ in the city must be built and it must be built as one. They have a great relationship with the two mayors and councils who fund a number of their initiatives. The actual funding is not so much the issue. It is the strength of the relationship and the level of respect they have earned. They had a twenty one day continuous prayer gathering some time ago and saw significant increase as a result. Some time after that there was some feeling that the momentum had been lost. But all in all there was a healthy optimism and a sense of direction. We agreed that of all the places we had been, this level of unity was unsurpassed.


After a long lunch we were taken back to check in to the Motel. Some went for a sleep and I went over to McDonalds to plug in to the internet, answer emails and send off a blog. By the time that was done we were ready to be picked up for the next part of the program. Anne Harley took three of us to an Aboriginal boarding school called Shalom. Aboriginal kids come from all over the top end to this school. It is a great idea and involves a huge amount of work to keep it happening. The kids were terrific. Shy to begin with but warmed up after a while. Anne had planned a band to come to play for worship, but they were late getting there and the sound stuff didn’t work too well. That side of things was a bit of a shamozzle (why does the spell checker not know that word) but in the big picture it didn’t matter at all. It was probably very consistent with what happens in most tribal situations. We get upset about stuff like that, but Aboriginal people don’t fuss about it at all. Anne was getting pretty frustrated….understandably from her point of view. She has a good rapport with these kids and there must have been fifty there altogether and it was totally voluntary attendance. An island girl and a while girl did a spiritual movement thing to one of the songs and did a great job. I was to give the talk, so I told them the story of Jesus and Bartimaeus and did some simulated activity to tell the story and they got involved pretty well. We ended up staying around praying for many of them. The prayer they were wanting was so consistently for their families and Anne was telling us that there is a great challenge because many of these kids have lots of opportunities at the school that never eventuate simply because of the dysfunctional situations with their families in the communities they come from. Not all come from far away. Quite a number are from around Townsville and up and down the coast from here.


We just had time for some take away food on the way to the evening meeting. It was at Peter Patterson’s AOG church. They bought what was a supermarket near the beach area of Townsville, just north of the main city area. It is a good setup. There were only twenty or so people there and we shared some of our city church stuff and some experiences from around the nation. A good discussion followed. There are a core of people here who have this vision and they were encouraged. I think the leaders have a clearer idea of where to go from here because of things that they heard about and that came up in the context of the meeting.
Anne generously asked us if we wanted to go for coffee after the meeting, but four tired old voices sounded a grateful but negative response. We were, to put it in colloquial language, “totally knackered.” Add to that the growing sense that I tend to get at this point of a time away from Canberra, of wanting very much to get on a plane and get home….and you can tell why I just came to the motel and crashed.

DAY ELEVEN WEDNESDAY MARCH 29TH DARWIN

Our first official engagement was a lunch gathering with the pastors and leaders from the Darwin area. Paula and I lodged ourselves in a coffee shop and talked our way through a number of cups and the odd small non-health food delight.

We were taking two of the women elders from the Bagot Church to the pastors meeting and arrived in time despite a few of the customary diversions along the way. Joy and Noela are delightful people and love Jesus passionately, but in the midst of very dysfunctional community circumstances. There were no other indigenous pastors or leaders there and I was afraid our two would be swamped by the table full of white guys. I was also afraid the white guys might not rise to the occasion and include them. My fears were unfounded on both counts. The meeting began with pastors introducing themselves and sharing their heart for the work of the kingdom of God. There was a broad spread of leaders there: Salvation Army, Baptist, Uniting, Pentecostal, Anglican, Independent and a mate of mine who runs a ministry to service personnel at Robertson Barracks (Army Base near Darwin). Ian and I both had some input and there was some terrific sharing. We are touching on some powerful crunch issues here and as we saw in other places, pastors and others began to gain faith for forward momentum.

Among other things that we have been sharing is the basic kind of church assumed by the New Testament. There are churches denoted by households and one by a small region in Asia Minor (Galatia) but the overwhelming assumption is that all of the apostles and Jesus himself refer to church by the name of a city. That church can only emerge as those people (leaders especially) who see it begin to give it expression by their attitudes, intentions and actions. It will only take the shape that they collectively give it. The task therefore is not to go off in some kind of idealistic fantasyland adventure, but to start with whoever believes that and allow that to be like yeast in the flour of the other congregations. Jesus said he would give this church authority to bash down stronghold gates (and only this church) (Matt. 16) and that he would give this church the keys that would establish the kingdom of God.

We have also been sharing the idea that the various expressions of the body of Christ are in their best sense, remainders of prophetic words that God has spoken to the church at some period of the history of Christianity: Lutheran, Methodist, Roman, Orthodox, Puritan, Pietist, Anabaptist and Pentecostal alike represent something that God was doing. The prophetic foundations of that church need to be rediscovered as the leaders come together and honour what God originally did through those prophetic movements. We need what was the original seed in all of them to bear fruit and give expression to the fullness of Christ in a city. Many of those churches have lost their prophetic call like the churches did when Jesus wrote to them in the book of Revelation (2,3). If we help re-dig these wells of revival, each time we do so we will gain something of the expression of the fullness of Christ.

After the lunch time meeting I stayed on and talked with Allan Pipes who is a Crosslink guy working at the Robertson Base. He and his wife Brooke are a great hearted family who have a single desire and that is to see servicemen and women come to Christ and be discipled. He began to get a fresh idea of building the body of Christ on the Base. They are experiencing some really challenging times at present and need our support in prayer. I know God will use them greatly.

In the evening Paula and I went for a meal with Katrina Poysner and Stuart Anderson. Katrina is from Grace, Canberra and works with the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Darwin, but has also become part of the Bagot Indigenous Victory Church. Stuart is a great young guy who was a friend of Paula’s. She met him through her rock climbing group and he became a Christian about a year or so ago. He and Katrina will be married at the Bagot Church on June 3rd this year. It is a very exciting prospect, not just for them but for the whole church community. You many not know that a formal wedding ceremony is not part of traditional Aboriginal culture, but the members of the church are excited at the prospect of making the church (a roof over a cement slab) look great for the wedding. We talked till ten thirty or so and then Paula and I returned home to get to bed for an early start for the airport at 4:30 in the morning for the trip to Townsville. It was quite a bit later by the time I got to bed.

DAY TEN: TUESDAY MARCH 28TH PERTH TO DARWIN

In the taxi going to the airport the driver, a Scottish man, began to talk about the Commonwealth Games coverage on the Nine Network in Australia. I wouldn’t have rated him as an inveterate winger, but he was very annoyed with what he saw as an extremely “ethnocentric” bias in the coverage. They wanted to see events that featured gold medal performances of other Commonwealth nations besides Australia, but were seriously and consistently disappointed. I tend to agree. I don’t think it has as much to do with overt narcissism as it has to do with advertising dollars and therefore ratings. When an industry is totally built on advertising revenue and when advertising revenue depends on ratings the formula is quite logical. It think it might have been Nola who suggested the coverage should have been given to SBS.

The flight from Perth to Darwin takes just under four hours. There was some cyclonic activity in the north west but it had not come anywhere near Darwin. It is the wet season here, or nearing the end of it, so there were plenty of rain filled clouds around and rain coming in waves for most of the day. They have had a decent wet season this year. The first for a while. The four hour flight was good for me. I have been trying to make the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah good friends instead of casual acquaintances and I was able to listen to most of Jeremiah during the time of the flight.

When we landed in Darwin the other three guys caught a taxi to their motel while I stayed on to wait for Paula (my daughter who lives in Darwin) to finish her shift as an RN at the RDH (Royal Darwin Hospital). It gave me time to catch up on emails and write a bit of stuff that has been sitting in the “in tray” for far too long. I was also able to make a few phone calls and round up a few people I knew for the meeting tomorrow.

Our commitment today was an area meeting of Christian guys gathered in Humpty Doo by Stuart McMillan. Stuart is the pastor of Living Waters Uniting Church in Humpty Doo. Humpty Doo is a town centre about forty minutes slightly east of south from Darwin. It is the gateway to the Kakadu National Park. Stuart told us that there were about 20,000 people in the area and only five churches. That means a church for 4,000 people. If you think of the Canberra region there are about 350,000 people and about 220 congregations. That represents a church for about 1600 people.

The meeting gathered people from the immediate region, but mainly from Humpty Doo and Palmerston (satellite city just south of Darwin with about 30,000 people). There were two guys there from Kunnanurra in WA. You might have seen one of them. His name is Peter and he is the flying Vet from that region. I think the ABC did a series of television shows following him around and seeing the things he did. He is a terrific Christian bloke from Toowoomba. I actually met his son last Sunday week when I was there. Ian officiated at his marriage some years ago.

It was a day of meeting old acquaintances for Ian yesterday. When we got to the airport he ran into a family who were working on a mission station about twelve hours south and slightly west who came from his church. Then there was Peter and even more amazingly, he met an Indian guy from Fiji who came know the Lord in a meeting in a tin shed in Lautoka thirty years ago. Just amazing.

The church we gathered in was a great building. It had a large raked rook with no walls. With rain falling around us and a slight breeze blowing through it was wonderful. A bit like churches in the South Pacific island nations. The meeting consisted of input from Ian Shelton and myself. Ian talked about the need for Christian men to once again take responsibility for building the communities of our nation. He spoke powerfully and talked about the time in Toowoomba when the Christian men gathered outside the city hall to protest at the proposal to introduce brothels and all kinds of sexually explicit entertainment to the town. They called it, “Silent No Longer.” They public repented to the women of the town who had been abused by the sexuality associated with such activities; they repented for remaining silent while the dignity and honour of women was attacked through the years that have seen a consistent rise of sexual explicitness and they even repented to the City Council for not making known their views before this point. What made it a great story was the fact that the idea was knocked on the head by the Council.

The two guys from Kunnanurra shared their story. The Vet was one and an Anglican minister had come with him. There are 4,000 people in Kunnanurra and 8 churches. The total church going population is less than 150. Just think what that says about the 8 churches and think of what statements it makes in the community. Add to that the fact that when the wet season comes a lot of people leave town because they can’t do whatever it is that they do. So the churches have come together. It is a new season and there is much more of a sense that this is the way it should be permanently. What is it that gives such a notion of sovereignty to some little group who think that if they can just maintain their nominal identity the kingdom of God is somehow advanced. Its almost delusional (to use a word quoted to us about some church’s ideas of their own importance to the overall task). It was a great story and one that encouraged everyone.
I hitched a ride back to Paula’s place with these two guys and found out that the Anglican bloke had been part of Bernard Gook’s church in Darlinghurst in the seventies. Bernard was a hero pastor in Sydney for two reasons. One was as rector of St. Barnabas’ Broadway where they established this flourishing kids ministry to Glebe kids and secondly as the Anglican vicar who rode around Kings Cross with his suit and dog collar on a beat up motor scooter. In Darlinghurst they established houses where people who were broken up could live and be restored. I knew him well when I was at Moore College and doing youth ministry in Clovelly.

Even though the day was shortened by an hour and a half with the journey from Perth, bed was welcome when I returned to Paula's place.

DAY NINE: MONDAY MARCH 27TH PERTH

WAPSSLT Western Australia Prayer Summits Servant Leadership Team

John picked us up from the hotel at a bit before 7:00 am to take us to the church. There was a breakfast meeting with the group designated above. I think John McElroy was the only one away, but Bob Burton, Robin Cullen, John Yates, and a few others were there.


Once again, the people who gathered for this breakfast are top quality people. They have carried the load for five Pastors Prayer Summits. All of these have been run on a city wide basis and have attracted around 300 difference pastors and leaders. The biggest number they had was 120. This has been a mammoth effort. They are planning another Summit in June this year and Colin Shaw is going to be the facilitator.

As with other gatherings, we discussed the matter of large city plan and municipal city plan. When we raised the issue of whether the load of gathering pastors on a city wide basis, and the issue of whether there was a city wide plan. The answer to that question can only come from the answer to another question. Is there a full Perth (or Adelaide, or Melbourne or Canberra) expression of church. The answer is probably in the negative. It is nice to think of big numbers and big gatherings, but it is probably impractical to think that there could be an expression of church that would represent Perth. Not an active organic one. It could only be an institutional events based identity and that probably would not be capable of being an organic body.

If that is so, then church can probably only ever achieve organic expression in a unit the size of a municipal city. I think John said there are twelve church congregations in South Perth. South Perth as a municipal city has a population of about 36,000 people.

John has felt for some time that pressure has been placed on him to do a Perth wide work, when he feels that he would be much better off working on his municipal city. We all agree. It was great to be able to affirm that in him. He is a great bloke doing a great work. Already his own congregation and a local Baptist congregation have developed great favour with the Council and other organizations in the City.

At about 10:00 am we were joined by some pastors and others from some other cities around Perth. Not a great number but a good committed group representing various ministries as well as local areas. I think it would be good if we did this again to see if we could work hard to gather as many of the regional leaders as possible. Maybe it would be good to spend a few days just connecting with key regional leaders and encouraging them.

Each local person shared what they were doing in their own regions.

Ian shared a great word about the things that bind people together in a city expression of church and mentioned some of the things they have learned. He also spoke powerfully about his own experience of God speaking to him about how he wasn’t the important factor but other people were….and how he had grown to love the idea of serving things that helped others to be effective and the part the cross played in this whole enterprise. We can only gather at the foot of the cross. Ian has this great idea that only internal integrity will produce external integration. It must also be true that a person’s capacity to integrate externally will be a mirror of their internal integrity. If this is true, then one of the problems we have to face is the lack of internal integrity in some people who might otherwise be thought of as successful Christian ministry leaders.

I shared some things about the nature of church in the localized sense. We referred to the Watchman Nee article that said the only name a church should take should be the name of the city or region.

After lunch we discussed some of the matters that arose from the input and finished by praying for all the local people.

Richard had to leave a bit before we finished. He has some other meetings to go to in Perth before flying out to Launceston on Wednesday. It was a bit sad to have him leave. We have packed in together a bit like a rugby scrum and with Richard going we have probably lost our hooker.

When we finished the meeting, I went over to John’s office area and did some internet stuff and at about 3:00 I met with John and a few of his staff people to talk a bit more about Monday Church things. They are a great bunch of outgoing people who want to connect and impact their community. They are already doing all kinds of stuff, but they have a desire to do Monday Church better. We had a very practical grass roots conversation which was of great benefit to each of us.
I met up with the other guys for tea and we all retired to our rooms to rest up a bit after what has been another consistent but extremely worthwhile time.

DAY EIGHT: SUNDAY MARCH 27TH PERTH

Today we spent our time in ministry at South Perth Church of Christ. John and Julie Bond have been in this church for about fifteen years. When they came the church was in considerable debt and some decline. They are seen the church grow significantly and they have a great facility next to a beautifully groomed private school property in Como. They are on a large block of land and will soon be developing a new community centre and a number of other projects. Sunshine FM, Perth’s local Christian radio station, will be building on their block as well.

It’s a bit hard to tell, but the church seems about 500-600 people in size. They have two morning services and an evening service and I was down to preach at all three. John had asked me to preach in the morning on the Monday Church theme (now officially “Building Church Where You Are”) so I gave my best effort on something that has become part of my blood type and genetic makeup. I broke the matter up into two sections and did the first half in the first service and the second half in the second.

While we were waiting for the 8:30 service to begin there were a number of older people sitting variously in the building so I decided I would get to know a few of them. I targeted a couple sitting in the back row. No sooner had I asked them how long they had been in the church they proceeded to tell me about the big issues for them as members of the church. The building didn’t look like a church; they didn’t sing enough hymns and so on. I decided to see whether there was anything at all they liked about belonging and no matter what aspects of basic church life we traversed, it was to no avail. What I did find out that they had turned up at church faithfully every week for some large number of years without missing a beat. It made me think that if they were a couple of people in their late teens or even twenties, they would probably have been to three or four different churches if not more, and they would probably have only attended every few weeks. There has definitely been a culture shift hasn’t there? It reminded me of a radio interview I heard a week or so ago where some psychologist was trying to prove that people were the same whether they were baby boomers, gen Xers and Y’s or whatever. He was a business management consultant talking about how management should relate to older and younger people. That made me think of something Nola has often said: that there is clearly a difference in attitude when you employ someone under thirty and another person over forty five. It has to do with what this couple sitting in the back of the church represented. There was something inviting about their faithfulness regardless of the fact that we weren’t able to find too much to celebrate about the way church was being done.

The preaching on “Building Church Where You Are” resonated strongly with a whole bunch of people and the guys in the team were generous in their support.


We were dropped back to town by about 1:30 pm and wandered around the Hay St. Mall until we found a feed bag or three and had a very pleasant lunch. I love these guys. If we were to slightly amend the verse from the Bible that says, “Pray without ceasing” to “Talk without ceasing” I think we would represent a perfect fulfillment of such a (sadly non-existent) verse. We do pray and we do talk a lot. Its been great to filter and refine thinking on a whole range of matters. There is an honestly and openness here the measure of which I have rarely known among peer Christian leaders. It allows frank disagreement without competition and open heartedness that is without fear.

In the evening we returned to South Perth for the evening service. I preached about the way Jesus made himself nothing in order to fulfill the purpose of his Father and used the Henri Nouwen article from Philip Yancey about his time with L’Arche and the young man he used to look after Adam. Stacks of young people responded to the appeal to follow Jesus in this way and we prayed for all of them.
I had been up since before 3:00 am this morning, so by the time we hung around and then got a ride back to the hotel, I was whacked. The 3:00 am thing wasn’t so much a matter of piety as it was a matter of body clock time I think. Sleep usually overtakes me quickly. I have this shut down system and works at a moment’s notice and it was working well once more……in fact…..zzzzz…. oh, where was I……zzzzzz……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz !!!!!!

DAY SEVEN: SATURDAY MARCH 26TH ADELAIDE TO PERTH

Some of the Crosslink pastors and their wives from Adelaide and South Australia came to Hosanna Heights for breakfast today; Graeme and Dianne Hore from Tea Tree Gully, Nick and Mary Hawkes from Athelstone, Mark and Colleen White from Claire and Phyllis (?? terrible of me to forget the surname) who is also from near Claire. We had a great time. I doubt that we stopped laughing from more than five minutes during the hour and a half we had together. There are some great stories of things that they are doing both separately and together. No doubt we will hear more as they bring the stories to the Conference in September.

At ten, we piled in a couple of cars and headed for the airport. Our plane didn’t leave till a bit after midday so we had time to relax and read the paper. The other guys all of Qantas Club membership so I get to go in as a guest which is very nice. The facilities are amazing. I headed for the computer area and was able to get a Telstra hot spot happening to load up the blog page and do the email thing. I really find this form of doing business very useful. If I can check in once or even twice each day it keeps me up to date with what needs to happen. For a bloke who almost never wrote a letter (even to my mother) I am really good on emails and associated web connections. We are going to do more conferencing using IP the Skype and other forms of the same. It is the way to make the distances seem less isolating.


It was a three hour flight to Perth and a two hour differential with the daylight saving in South Oz and no daylight saving in WA. The time on the ticket was only one hour. We arrived at what was yet another new airport to me (rebuilt since I was there last) and bundled our bulky load (and I’m not referring to our collective waistlines) into a maxi taxi and headed for our hotel. It is called Kings Perth Hotel and is an older but very comfortable, and quite reasonably priced hotel in the centre of the city. Hay Street for all those of you who would know.
Our host in Perth is John Bond. He is the pastor of South Perth Church of Christ and also is part of the One Heart Core Group. In the evening we went to his home where, with his wife, Julie, we were treated to a great barbecue tea and some time with members of the local Pray WA Servant Leadership Team. They are a great bunch of guys and along with them and their wives we had a night of conversations going ten to the dozen until it was time to leave. The members of that team were: Bob Burton, Robin Cullen, John Yates, and another guy who, with his wife supports unity in towns to the north of Perth. This last couple were celebrating their eleventh wedding anniversary so apart from celebrating the opportunity to be together with terrific people we were able to add that to the list. By nine o’clock (Perth time) we were all getting toward the end of energy supply and remembered that our body clocks were on Central Oz time. John himself had only just arrived back from Malaysia where he and Rod had been meetings with some missions people and he was able to share some pretty exciting developments in Asia.

DAY SIX: FRIDAY MARCH 24TH ADELAIDE

This morning I was up early and left the building at Hosanna Heights to walk to McDonalds to get myself plugged into the internet. I knew there was one down along Magill Road, but I forgot how far it was. I walked for about an hour and a quarter and finally arrived just about the time it opened at 7:00 am. What I hadn’t planned on was a group of junior high school kids who were having an end of course breakfast. I had no choice of table because I needed a power point, but they chose to sit in my section and proceeded to overrule the sound of the music playing through the speakers, and the TV set that was blaring a morning news program. I immediately began to compile a dossier of the sins of the younger generation in my mind. Then I realized that there wasn’t much future in such activity and got on with the job.
By the time I worked out how to catch a bus back and got on the wrong bus but pleaded with the driver to drop me off at the closest point to where the Centre was, I was able to walk in the door just in time to get to our first meeting.

Today we had three groups of people come to meet with us at the Centre here. The first was a bunch of pastors from the Tea Tree Gully network. This has been the network established by Rod Denton from Clovercrest. He has done a great job in sowing a vision and a heart for the revival that unity and prayer might bring. He has recently resigned that leadership and a guy called Ken Graham has taken it up. Ken has a different style of leadership to Rod and there will be the normal settling period of the changeover. He has a much more issues based agenda than Rod….whereas Rod had a much more basic prayer relationship agenda.

Tt seems to me that there is a sacred trust about the way a network of pastors develops if they are going to increase the expression of the church of Jesus Christ in the city. There will always be leadership and leadership will always be a matter of taking responsibility for the forward momentum or traction of the operation. Unlike many examples of leadership in local churches it must be an agenda that the Spirit places in the hands of the gathered leaders. This requires loving relationships much more than any other single factor in my view. Because there are so many agendas running around both inside individuals and beyond, this matter is often a source of confusion or diffusion. There has been an institutional or business conclusion that the vision comes from the leader. There is a truth in that in some respects, but that vision needs to be something that is confirmed within the group. If it is not, it either weakens the unity or brings division.

The two guys who came to speak with us were precious servant hearted guys once again and we were blessed by their openness and fellowship and by the prayer we had at the end of our time together.


The next group wasn’t really a group. John Ridley has been a CRC pastor and is now associated with Sturt St. Crusade Centre (or whatever it is called now). It is in the middle of the city. He showed us a DVD of a Christian Heritage display in the State Library about the Christian Heritage of South Australia. It is a significant heritage and great to have it on display. We were also told about prayer rallies and prayer before the elections and the like. A lady pastor from the West side of Adelaide called Sue also showed up and told a passionate story of the history of the western part of the city and how it had changed. She was gathering people together and was working to bring pastors together and praying with political leaders and all sorts of things. It was refreshing to hear from her and we had a chance to pray with her at the end of the time.

After lunch we entertained yet another group. This time from the eastern part of the city. Three municipal cities and not a lot of unity between the pastors. This was a group of people committed to intercession and included a lady from the northern part of the State called Phyllis. She has been establishing prayer groups across the Spencer Gulf and the Ayre Peninsula.


What has become clear is that many people feel that the configuration that was Pray SA, for all its significance and value in establishing prayer and unity across the state has fulfilled its purpose in its past form. We heard of a prophetic word brought to the last Pastor's Prayer Summit by Peter Vacca (Bethesda) who said that God was going to do a new thing in the city and state. I think we are seeing that new thing in these multiple servant leaders that God is raising up. They are leaders of smaller geographical areas, but leaders with a pure heart to serve but a strong resolve to carry the vision forward. They need a lot of encouragement if what is in their heart is to be fulfilled. That encouragement will probably not come from their own individual sphere, despite the fact that there is generally more than one in a given area. It may well be that the One Heart Group could give some of that support if members could be released to go and do it.

Later in the afternoon I spent some time with Graham and Dianne Hore. They pastor a Crosslink Church in Tea Tree Gully. They have just bought the Tea Tree Gully Baptist Church building. It was great to go around there and see it all, but even better to spend time with two terrific people doing a great job. They have some challenging issues to deal with and I was grateful to share with them and to help share the load in a very minimal way.

After tea tonight we had no commitment so we went over to the room and began to do a brainstorm on what it means to see the church in a city emerge and what it means for the leaders of churches to give leadership in that church. It was a complex open, sometimes confusing but very fruitful discussion. There are too many aspects to talk about here, but I can just say that it is so very helpful to be in this environment. It helps sharpen your image of what is important and what isn’t. It is encouraging by way of keeping on track and its also great fun. This group of brothers has a large capacity to speak totally openly without taking offense. All of us a very different kinds of people and yet there is a complementary strata to our relationship which is among the most precious and valuable things I know as far as following after a vision are concerned.
I think the Commonwealth Games are still on. I also think there might be a car race in Adelaide this weekend. There may be another world out there somewhere, but not a lot of it is connected with this current experience. I am still very much attached to my family and phone at least once a day, and I am just able to connect with the Grace office , but the people we are listening to and sharing with and the journey we are on together is taking up most of the time, attention, thinking and dreaming at the moment.

DAY FIVE: THURSDAY MARCH 23 HOBART - ADELAIDE

We were due to meet at the River City church in the city area of Hobart at 9:30 ready to leave for the airport. We needed to get the hired mini bus back by 10:30 to take advantage of the single period booking. Hobart airport has been renewed but the security seems to be more stringent than the other larger (and possibly more important) airports. We couldn’t take the bus to through to simply drop off the baggage without risking a heavy fine (information provided by a courteous but deliberate word from a security guard) so we lugged the baggage from the drop off point to the terminal. When we were going through the screening system a couple of the guys found that shoes and other things that had never set off the alarm at any domestic or international airport were tripping the alarm in Hobart.

The Virgin Blue flight to Adelaide takes about an hour and a half flying time, but with the change in time zone we could leave at 11:30 and arrive at 12:30 Adelaide time. I hadn’t been to the new Adelaide airport. Nice if you like minimalist lines and metallic feel and long walks to the baggage area. It’s a straight line terminal that includes international as well as domestic flights. We were met by Phyllis (name problem again) and John Ridley. Great people. We stopped off at the Koorong Book store for lunch and all of us had to exercise twice as much constraint to stay legal. One in the food department and one in the buying book department. Les Holmes saw the all day breakfast and it sounded good to Richard and myself, so we suffered the undignified comments of the others who had quiche and salad with juice. The religious spirit never seems to miss an opportunity…..but then neither does the appetites of the flesh for (not so) greasy eggs and bacon. This is such a great bunch of guys to travel around the country with. Plenty of offense given but absolutely none taken.

We were expecting to meet with Andrew Evans at the state parliament building, but John was told we were to meet him at a café in Campbelltown. When we got there he phoned up to say that his PA had told him the wrong details and he was in town. We waited for him and got involved in a very fast paced discussion on what the shape of a church in the city might be. Lots of diagrams later Andrew arrived and we were hard into discussions about the South Australian elections and the make up of the parties and the deals that needed to be done. Family First now has two seats in the upper house. The Labor Party only have seven out of twenty one. The Liberals have eight, so there are going to be lots of deals going on for business to proceed. The six non major members are made up of two Family First, two Anti Poker Machine Party (or something like that) a Democrat and a Green. A very interesting concoction.

The Queensland guys were able to ask straight questions about Family First candidates in the Queensland elections (due some time this year). There are a few issues to work out with Family First putting up candidates in electorates where there are Christians standing for major parties. In the Queensland system this is a problem because they have an optional preferential system and people can just vote for one person without preferences. It means that people voting for two different Christian candidates can split the vote and they could have an amalgamated total to get one in but wouldn’t do it unless all votes had preferences. The problem for the voting Christians is to make sure they do put preferences right. Educated voting has always been a challenge. Just ask Fred Nile who could have seen another CDP person elected to the upper house in NSW except for the inability of Christians to correctly place preferences.

Andrew is a hugely wise person and is doing a great job. I think he has a lot to offer young Christian candidates about becoming “parliament savvy.” Even though he has only been in the house for one term, his wisdom goes back through church and other leadership roles and is so deeply rooted in the real life situation, but spiritual and righteous at the same time. He knows what to let go and what to take a stand on.

After our time with Andrew we were taken to Hosanna Heights, the accommodation place across the road from the Morialta National Park. It is owned by a Malaysian Chinese couple who have transformed what used to be the Catholic Seminary for South Australia into an accommodation place for overseas students and other students as well as a Christian conference centre. We all have old style but very nice ensuite rooms.

This evening we met with a couple of Uniting Church pastors from Salisbury and Elizabeth who run a network of leaders in that northern part of the city. South Australia has seen a bit of a shake up with Rod Denton standing down as the leader for the city and the state and with some sparks and disagreements between prayer people and pastors (in particular, Rod). A couple of things are clear.
It is clear to me and to the others that the idea of a prayer or prophetic movement as an identifiable entity is over. It was probably never meant to be a movement any more than there was meant to be a unity movement. The prayer movement has taken on a form of its own and should probably have been like the form a good steak takes on when it is served up on a plate in front of you. It loses its shape and becomes energy that enables your body to do all kinds of (hopefully) good things. All the restoration works of God should be like that. I would call all of these things “prophetic movements” as long as you use the idea of movement in the non-institutional sense. God wants his people to hear a word and respond. The word is to the church just as Jesus spoke to the churches in the early chapters of Revelation. That word was to shape the churches from the inside out, not the outside in. Well, we are witnessing the somewhat painful experiences of death come over something that started as prophetic fulfillment and finished up as an institution.

The second thing is that in South Australia what used to be a state wide thing must now become a city by city, region by region thing. We talked to these two people and heard the heart beat of God for a genuine work of the Spirit that would rise up in a city area of this larger state capital and in the regions around it. This has been planted by the good work of Rod and his team and needs to die so that God can bring the next season’s growth. We were in awe of what we saw happening here. It is a much purer work, since it is coming from people who want to serve something rather than to control something. It is subtle but very powerful. It’s a bit the same as for Melbourne. Forget the big city one size fits all operation, and allow the bigger polis to be changed city by city (i.e. municipality by municipality). I think it is a genuine Aussie strategy that will be the most effective in the end. Just think if every region had its own expression of church and the leaders came together from that basis rather than a central body directing the traffic. Much more would happen. This is definitely a new wineskin that needs maximum encouragement and affirmation. These two terrific people were greatly encouraged and so were we.

DAY FOUR - Wednesday March 22nd - Launceston to Hobart

It sounds a bit pathetic to say that I got up early today and at 6:00 am wandered a hundred yards down the road to McDonalds. The truth of the “co-dependency” is not so much related to big macs or even coffee, but the fact that McDonalds around Australia have been set up by Testra as computer wireless hotspots. The same with Starbucks and a few different hotel chains. With a wireless port on the laptop you can go there and fire up Windows Explorer and when the Telstra website comes up you key in your mobile phone number and they immediately send you a code. When you key that in you are hooked up to the web as if you were at home. I actually went down twice. Once at 6:00 to pick up and respond to all my emails (and have coffee) and a second time when I had packed to send off some radio programs to Canberra.

I was there when Richard Holloway and the other guys called around ready to head off to Hobart. He had hired a great mini-bus. There was plenty of room for gear and people and the seats were really comfortable. Travelling down the main north south highway was a tonic in itself. Tassie is just a beautiful place no matter which part of it you are in. The north south road goes through the main sheep farming country in Tassie. There are a number of old towns, like Ross where we stopped for coffee. Ross is just a total snapshot from the nineteenth century. The morning was calm and warm and it was so good that it was almost worth dying for. The problem was that we were then running a bit late and Richard had the job of keeping moving with quite a bit of traffic. When we entered the outskirts of Hobart there was a huge traffic build up as if it were peak hour. We were passing the Hobart entertainment centre and thought for a moment that it might be revival and everyone had heard that a powerful ministry team had come to preach the word of God. Sadly this was not so. People were lining up in their hundreds to go to a Wiggles concert.

We wound our way to a church called “The Way” somewhere in the south west (I think) of Hobart where about twenty pastors or maybe a few more had gathered. It was good to see an older Anglican guy by the name of Robert Legge introduce us to the others. He has been the longstanding voice for unity here for decades. An AOG guy called Jim whose surname I can’t remember talked about the resurrection of the cause through the establishment of a group calling themselves Aussie Mates in Ministry. What a great name. We were all taken by it.

Each of the guys in our group shared things that were part of their experience in their cities. It was all short and sharp and good value. Robert summed the thing up well and we had a great time or prayer together.

Each of the mainland guys were introduced to our hosts. I was introduced to a guy called Kevin who is the associate pastor of a Bethesda related church here in town. He and his wife teach at a Christian school here and they have two boys. We went for coffee with the other pastor of his church, a young guy called Damon. Both these blokes have lived in Tassie all their lives and there were a lot of people we knew in common.

The meeting last night was at the Church of Christ in town. A bloke called Larry is the pastor. He had been to the One Heart conference in Canberra way back in the mid nineties. He spoke with deep conviction as to how the vision that had been birthed in his heart back in those days had been stirred again today and how he knew it was the desire of God’s heart to see this happen.

The Hobart guys had asked that one of us should simply preach after the worship and Ian thought that I should do that (a bad mistake in my view). What made it more of a mistake was the fact that we were going to have a testimony before the message and Les was going to do that. When I got up to speak I clean forgot about Les giving a testimony and just charged into it.

At the end of the meeting we prayed for all of the pastors and then we and them prayed for the people who expressed their commitment to pursue God to bring about a oneness that would not diminish, so that Hobart would experience the fullness of Jesus.
After the meeting Damon came round to Kevin and Michelle’s place and we talked till about 11:30 when I became a pumpkin and had to find my bed.

March 21, 2006 One Heart National Consultation - Day Three - Launceston

We gathered at Graeme Cann’s house at 7:30 to set out for Melbourne Airport. There was some possibilities that the freeway would be blocked or very slow. Even though our plane didn’t leave till 10:30 it was good to be there by about 9:00 and wait around in the cues to the check in. They always seem to be long and slow no matter what time you are there. Graeme joined us for this part of the journey and it was good to have the opportunity of more time to talk over what happened yesterday and to talk through issues to do with the Melbourne situation with him. He is such a great bloke and obviously has an anointing from heaven to give leadership in that sphere. The good sized number that gathered at Syndal Baptist church the day before were all there as a result of an email he sent calling people to recognize that the church in Australia had operated on a sectarian basis for two hundred years. Today Ian an I encouraged him to recognize that God had given him a mantle for this and even though it was one that did not sit comfortably on him because of his genuine godly humility, it was there nonetheless.

We arrived in Launceston at a bit after 11:00. I had been talking with a young German back packer on the way down called Inger (spelling might not be the best). She had been in Oz for ten months and was going to be in Tasmania and Canberra before returning to Sydney and back home to start a degree in politics. We connected well and I was able to share with her some of the things that belonged to having faith in Jesus. She was at least polite and at best open. I gave her my “Life Purpose Consultant” card and offered to link up with Nola and I (and I mentioned Ingrid Ross in dispatches and suggested the possibility of some genuine German cooking might be possible if she was feeling at all homesick for some). She was at worst polite and at best open to the idea as before.

We were taken from the airport to a church called, Door of Hope. It is a Church of Christ church in Launceston that has taken over a very large factory. I think there are 8 acres of space under the roof. They have done a terrific job of fitting it out and Craig Spalding is the senior guy and has a great love for the city and for the church in the city.

We were given lunch there and were then treated to the stories of the people who make up the core of Launceston Together, the Network of pastors and leaders in the city. They have a five point plan to touch the city: unity among the churches, prayer, evangelism, serving the city and one other I can’t remember. The local people who spoke were all excited and hopeful because of what God had been doing and what was ahead. There were stories of increase in all those areas. The prayer team had taken stock of the things in the past that had impacted the people of Tasmania and had been praying that there would be no way the enemy could hold people in bondage as a result. They cited a number of things that had happened that were, in their view, results of this prayer: some of the usual suspect figures had dropped (crime, drugs etc.) and there had been some significant wins in values (as well as a few areas still being fought).

Some of the evangelism city wide stuff is good. They go around giving out 4,000 plus batteries to people for their smoke alarm systems at the change of daylight saving with a little message from the churches about Jesus. They clean up after the racing carnival and gain huge mileage with the city governing bodies and many businesses.


I stayed with Mark and Rachel Comino (spelling may be adrift). They have three great young boys and run a small house church in their home. Great people with a great heart for God and a great sensitivity to the Spirit.

Tonight we met with people at Richard’s church. There were only about twenty five or thirty people there, but we had a great time. Myself and Graeme shared our stuff about the power of the local church to block the oneness of Christ in a city. Les and Colin shared stories of oneness in Toowoomba and New Zealand and then Ian moderated a question and answer time and finished up with a short encouragement. It was just a great smorgasbord of encouraging and prophetic proclamation. Everyone did a great job and the people were so encouraged. They couldn’t say enough. We had some great prayer times about the things we had spoken about. Richard does a great job in giving heart leadership to the work. People really respect him and his genuine love is appreciated and carries the message he represents.

One Heart National Consultation - Melbroune

One Heart National Consultation
March 2006



Monday, March 20, 2006
Day Two:

This morning we met with pastors from the Melbourne Pastors’ Network. Graeme Cann had written an email to a selected number of people outlining some of his concerns about the fact that the church had adopted a sectarian model for doing church in Australia for all of the time there has been a church in this nation and for more than two hundred years it hasn’t worked. Not one single generation has been reached with the gospel. The current generation is not being reached and we are still defending the sectarian model as if it were useful for something even after all this time.

He referred to the fact that the hard questions that were stalling all movements towards strategic oneness were in danger of not being addressed squarely.

On the strength of that, here are the tensions I see and in each case I believe that if we are not able to cross a line where certain things take priority over other things we will simply continue to move up to the mark and stall again and again:


Primary commitment to do what will promote the well being of my congregation
Vs
Primary commitment to what will promote the advance of the church in the city


Pastor the people in my congregation
Vs
Work together with others to pastor the people in the city


Give primary loyalty to denominational obligation
Vs
Give primary loyalty to what will promote the church in the city


Develop duplicate programs in different local churches that reach people in the city
Vs
Develop ministry that complements what other congregations are doing and reaches more spheres of the community


Allow other church pastors to fall or fail without getting involved
Vs
Do whatever is possible to heal the brokenness and prevent pastors from falling


Limit relationships to those few people who I like and can get on with
Vs.
Seek to maintain the highest level of relationship possible and to work together with other pastors to reach out to all the pastors of churches


Compete with other churches for the same gross number of churched people in the city
Vs
Compete with the prince of darkness for the lives of people who are lost from God


Continue to be satisfied with a few churches growing but no net increase to the kingdom of God
Vs
Only being satisfied with the advance of the kingdom of God


Limit the experience of oneness to building relationships between pastors
Vs
Lead the church into a lifestyle of growing oneness with the church in the city


This list is not exhaustive and probably needs to be refined, but I think this kind of checklist will measure the capacity of a pastor and congregation to embrace what God wants to do in the city

Graeme and Rob Isaacson were wanting this meeting to lay a foundation for a different kind of summit they will be holding in August where they are inviting pastors to come to a time away just to embrace the forward journey of seeing God build the experience of the church in the city. Ian spoke about the expression of the corporate Christ coming forth only as we embrace him and one another at the cross. He has a great statement about that: internal integrity produces external integration. What that means is the more you are together as an individual the more you want to form healthy relationships with others. The more dysfunctional you are as an individual the less capable you are of forming healthy relationships with others. It is the same for a church. The more a congregation is together internally it will be proportionally capable of relating will with other congregations.

Colin spoke about the experience in New Zealand of doing “Round Table” meetings and how it was building momentum there through the work of Vision Network.

The Melbourne guys shared some of their stuff. Mark Dury is an Anglican pastor from Caulfield (I think). He talked about doing some research into the history of the church in that area and found that when the church was founded there was a work on unity that started in 1878 and ended up producing the outpouring of 1901 that most people know about in Melbourne. I think it was called the Sunshine Revival because it started or was centred on Sunshine, a little town that was just on the western edge of Melbourne.

There were questions and some good discussion followed. I think the meeting was important, among other reasons, because it started out at the right spot and cut a lot of the wandering around that often goes on. I think we need to be even more pointed in seeing how people respond to the idea of the continuum issues like the ones I have referred to above. These are definitely crunch issues.

Towoomba Ministry

I have been in Toowoomba since Thursday March 16th. I flew to Brisbane a few hours before my close mate, Ian Shelton arrived having been in Canberra himself. We drove the hour and a half to Toowoomba and I doubt if there was three minutes silence the whole time.

Friday morning I attended the Toowoomba Ministers Network prayer time. They have about fifty or so from every different part of the church. I think the Toowoomba pastors have the most developed sense of unity anywhere in the nation. It is a credit to the work that Ian and Colin Shaw and the Toowoomba City Church have committed to. They have put in the time, effort and plenty of funds over the years to serve this purpose. There are a group of about five or six pastors who carry this work in their hearts: besides Ian and Colin there are pastors from the Lutheran, Crosslink, Independent Pentecostal and one or two others. The worship at the prayer time was wonderful. Ted Evans is pastor of the largest AOG and plays the keyboard and leads with a beautiful spirit.

I had lunch with the core team and appreciate their faith and wisdom.

In the afternoon I went with a larger group of Toowoomba pastors to a Mayoral reception afternoon tea. Once a year the Mayor and Councilors host the ministers to a reception and they say nice things about each other. It is wonderful. All the more so since the Mayor began her term with anything but respect for the church or its leaders. She is a pretty rough diamond and tends to open her mouth without putting her brain into gear, but the pastors stretch everything that can be stretched to work alongside of her every way they can. They have won her respect through very persistent faithful prayer and practical activity.

SATURDAY

I spoke at a Men's Breakfast at 7:00. A number of guys gave their hearts to the Lord and it was a strong time to be together in the presence of God.

I had opportunity to spend some time with the leaders of the Toowoomba City Church in the morning and we connected in a very strong way. I probably haven't said that the reason I was in Toowoomba was to welcome the TCC church as a member of the Crosslink Christian Network. We didn't speak much about the Network, but I spoke about some of the signs that tell whether you are on track as a ministry.

In the afternoon I spent some time with one of the other Crosslink pastors and his wife. They pastor a small church down the hill from Toowoomba (Toowoomba is on the eastern edge of an escarpment which defines the Darling Downs). They were having some difficulties and I spoke with them and three of their elders. They have some hard yards to walk but I feel confident that the Lord will enable them and they will seek to draw from his wisdom and strength.

In the evening I spent time with another couple of Crosslink pastors, Herman and Val Reuters (don't shoot me on the spelling). They are great people but Val has had a run in with cancer and has been having some of the horrible therapies that they have to endure. In the middle of that she fell and broke both of her arms - can you believe it. Regardless of all of that, we had a great time together.

SUNDAY
I preached at the TCC morning service this morning. It was a very full program, indicative of the amazing and broadly based ministry this church has. They had people reporting from all over the place of the work they were doing in the name of Jesus. Herman and I got to present them with their Crosslink certificates and we prayed for them. I preached then and it seemed to come out okay. I was preaching on the five features of incarnational ministry from Philippians 2. I had a great time preaching and then as good a time again with people sharing and ministering to them after the service.

We had to leave to get to Brisbane by 12:30, so there was no time to do anything else.

When we arrived at the airport I ran into Don Easton, an old mate from many years ago. Don is a Christian City Church pastor from the Gold Coast and is involved in planting churches in a few other parts of the country. He was on his way to Bundaberg to be with a church they had planted there. Great to catch up with him.

We arrived in Melbourne and were met by Rob Ward and were able to drive the 70 km through the middle of the Commonwealth Games City in really quick time. It is an amazing road system here. We met with Graeme Cann from Berwick Church of Christ and were allocated homes to go to. I am staying with Rob and Meredith Ward, who run a church in Hallam, which is part of the Casey City area. They are great people and we talked till it was too late to think and finally got to bed.

One Heart for the Nation - National Consultation - Schedule

March 20,21 MELBOURNE
March 21,22 LAUNCESTON, HOBART
March 23,24 ADELAIDE
March 25-27 PERTH
March 28,29 DARWIN
March 30, 31 TOWNSVILLE

Thanks to all those people who will pray. We are seeking to stir good brothers and sisters in Christ to persist with the essential ingredients of Biblical and historic conditions for a visitation of God to the church and the nation: expicit agreement, visible unity, extraordinary prayer.

STAYING ON TRACK

CHANGE IN THE CHURCH



Change has no value in an of itself. There is a Godly kind of change and there is a worldly kind of change. In the world , bad change is designed to distract us from depending on God and the word of his grace – e.g. greed, pride, independence, division.

In the kingdom of God change can only be measured in two ways: internally it must be measured by the quality of my relationship with God intimacy (love for Jesus) and faith (obedience to his Word).
Externally it can only be measured by the increase of the kingdom and glory of Jesus in the world. Another way of saying this would be to look at the evidence for the further fulfillment of his purpose.

Its like flying a plane to a certain destination. The first thing that counts is that you are familiar with all of the operating systems: normal and emergency operations. An aircraft is set up not only to fly normally, but also to keep flying when something goes wrong. (illustration of the guy flying a twin out of Bankstown who lost half of his instruments after take off) The second thing that counts in flying to a destination is navigation. You must be able to use the equipment available to reach a certain set of co-ordinates. Its all pretty easy to fly in normal clear conditions. The question is not whether you can get to a place when everything about the circumstances is in your favour (no cloud, no extreme heat, turbulence and when you are flying down the Hume Highway from Sydney to Canberra. That is no test of whether you are a real pilot. The issue is whether you can do it when there are two or more adverse factors (cloud, featureless terrain etc. no reference points). Its also easy with a GPS these days. I have a mate who was so enamored with what he used to call “real flying” that he did a course and learned to use a sextant and he used to go on journeys to places with just a set of coordinates and only using a sextant and a compass. He contended that it was almost as exact, but it was much more exacting. What you need to know is how to tell whether you are getting closer to your pre-determined destination and what to do if you find yourself off track.

In point of fact, the two operations are part of the one. You need to be able to operate all of the internal normal and emergency systems to be able to fly to a destination and you need to be able to use those systems to find the right track to the pre-determined location.


The same is true for us as sons and daughters of God. We have internal operating systems that need to be maintained in a high level state of serviceability. We need to have a clear understanding of the destination and we need to be able to monitor whether we are on track at any point of the journey. The sobering truth about people who don’t reach their destination in a plane is that 85% crashes and incidents are attributed to human factors and 100% of those are related to failure to fulfill normal or emergency procedures.

One of the exhilarating things about my life serving God, and the life of most of the people I tend to hang out with is that something has happened to our chosen flight plan. We are all heading for things we have never experienced and to places we have never known. To change the analogy, a large part of who I am as a child of God has been because of the people who have given me their shoulders to climb up on, but my destination has only come from one source, and that is the things I have discovered about the heart and purpose of the God of heaven and earth.

Of all the books I have read and been impacted by, nothing has shaped my life like the Spirit of God through the Word of God. The books are like peaches and ice cream at a meal. They top off a really good meal, but the meat and vegetables are the Word of God taking shape in me by the work of the Spirit of God. Other people’s writings have been like a paint job to a vehicle, but the shape has come from the Word that has imparted my Father’s heart and my Father’s intention. (“This is what I am like, and this is what I want to do.”). By the way, there have been people who have tried to mess with the issues of “being” and “doing” by saying that God’s purpose is for you and I to “be” a certain sort of person and in saying that they have subordinated the matter of “doing” to the idea of “being.” This is always going to end up as a mis-truth. There is no such separation. You can’t do unless you be and you can’t be unless you do (Philemon 16 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.)



My question in all of this has to do with the church in nations like Australia (and specifically in Australia since that is where God has placed me and given me primary responsibility). I have a conviction that keeps getting stronger that says the church is not on track. All the reference data coming up on my instruments tell me that despite the hype we so often hear, the church in this nation hasn’t ever got much closer to the God given co-ordinates (Matthew 24:14; Deut.6:5; Matthew 22:37)

If we are to take example from the churches that Jesus wrote letters to in the book of Revelation (2,3) we can see that what tends to happen in churches is not that everything becomes instantly unserviceable and they crash and burn, but that they lose enough of their internal and external reference sources to get to the point where if they don’t do something about it, they will certainly crash and burn (as they eventually did). The issue wasn’t whether they were doing anything that was good, the issue was that they were off track to the degree that they were not going to make it without pretty radical change. How did they get off track?

TESTS THAT SHOW WHETHER YOU ARE ON TRACK

Ephesus
PROBLEM No passion Lost first love
CAUSE Focused on structure
SOLUTION Repent; start doing the things you used to do before you fell


Smyrna
PROBLEM No self esteem
CAUSE Focused on human status and comfort
SOLUTION Don’t give way to fear; be faithful to the point of death


Pergamum
PROBLEM No righteousness
CAUSE Focus on false teaching
SOLUTION Repent; confront the issue



Thyatira
PROBLEM No accountability
CAUSE Focus on false leaders
SOLUTION Confront and warn the false leader(s) and the people they influence



Sardis
PROBLEM No life
CAUSE Focus on the past
SOLUTION Wake up, strengthen the life you have; finish the tasks you started; go back to first principles



Philadelphia
PROBLEM No courage
CAUSE Focus on human resources
SOLUTION Take up the opportunity; use what you have


Laodicea
PROBLEM No zeal
CAUSE Focus on wealth and property
SOLUTION SRestore fellowship with Jesus and receive what you need from him.


In the case of the churches in Asia Minor at the end of the first century who were experiencing their second generation of believers, the method Jesus used was a prophetic word spoken to John and given to some representative leader (angel) or messenger. I take the simplest possible interpretation of the idea of messenger, to refer to someone from that church who would come to visit him on the island of Patmos and would take the word of Jesus back to the church. I assume that this person would be some kind of leader and that John’s relationship with that person would be a kind of mentoring relationship. This may be putting too much into it, but it is the explanation that makes the most practical sense to me. I am also aware that Jesus said to each of the churches “Hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” That involves two very important principles for a person like me. I think it is essential that we hear the prophetic word to our own church (the one in our city or region) and we need to heed that word and use it to correct our heading or our altitude, and we need to hear what Jesus has said to the other churches because we will have no chance of getting to our destination if all we know about is our own local experience. We need to hear the word to the churches because it will enable us to take warning from the experience of others and it enables us to fellowship and support what Jesus has said to other churches. We can only pray for them and serve according to the measure to which we are aware of what God has said to them.

WHEN YOU COME TOGETHER

First Corinthians 11:17

“In the following directives….”

Paul is giving instructions to the church at Corinth. That’s one of the things that happens in working out of the kingdom of heaven. Some people have grace from God in the same way as other people have grace from their experience. They give instructions about things they know. When I was learning to fly, I had an instructor. The instructor had clocked up over ten thousand hours just as an instructor, let alone hours he flew learning and as the pilot of a number of different charter planes. When I went for my first lesson I knew very little about flying an aircraft and he knew a lot. Even though I knew almost nothing, in the first lesson I actually ended up doing a take off all by myself, with him instructing me what to do. The more lessons I took the more I learned how to do. First he would instruct me and then he would watch me and after a period of time I could do some things without being told and then without the instructor even in the plane. Not once did I say to him that I was going to do it the way I thought it should be done. Not even once. At no time did I feel rebellion rising up inside me and the desire to do exactly the opposite. As a result I am alive today and not dead. And I haven’t killed anyone else either. All of that happened because I was willing (and eager at that) to get the information and the insight from my instructor about how to do something until I could do it myself.

Why is it that in life we are so willing to believe that we know enough to make our own judgments and we are an expert on so many things. We wouldn’t say we are experts, we just act that way by refusing to take instruction.

When it comes to things like Christian people coming together, the Corinthians needed instructions. And Paul was the one who could give it to them. He knew what was supposed to happen when Christians came together and he also knew that what was supposed to happen wasn’t happening. The difficulty for the Corinthians was that they didn’t know that what was happening wasn’t supposed to be happening. They had lost sight of what was supposed to be happening and didn’t realize it.

We have this problem in our own experience of Christian meetings. We are often the worse off for the fact that we have all kinds of practices and procedures that have built up around previous things that God has done. We have these litanies that began as a work of the Holy Spirit but have now been taken over by human decision, human comfort, human control and human ego. We call them religious systems and every part of the church has them. While they do not necessarily make the idea of relating with God impossible, they nevertheless enable a religious experience that does not depend on God’s presence at all (cp. Genesis 33) The Bible clearly says on more than one occasion that the only thing that separates Christian people from other people is the fact that they are people in whom the presence of God dwells and is manifest. All too often we have opted for a preferred human model than something that evidences a supernatural relationship.

So Paul was the instructor here, and the Corinthian people were in danger of crashing their plane as far as their meetings were concerned. They needed a refresher course on the subject of “what should happen when Christians come together.” And here in the letter Paul begins to expound the following themes as he points out some of the problems they were having and the things that happened as a result of those problems.




WHAT WAS WRONG
WITH THE CORINTHIANS MEETINGS ?




1. RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships between people were wrong (11:17-34; 13:1-13)
i) Division and discrimination
ii) Lack of genuine love for all


2. MOTIVATION
The motivation for spiritual gift ministry was wrong (12:1-26; 14:1-33)
i) Creating a false hierarchy of spiritual gift ministry
ii) Lack of primary purpose in doing things that would benefit the whole group
iii) Lack of appropriate structure (not necessarily a lack of formal structure)


3. LEADERSHIP
Their way of exercising and relating to leadership was wrong (12:27-31)
i) Lack of acknowledgement of the forms of leadership anointing


4. BEHAVIOUR
The way some women were behaving was wrong (14:34ff)
i) Disruptive behaviour- probably calling out while the meeting was happening
ii) Some were seeking to manipulate on the basis of superior spirituality



WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
WHEN CHRISTIAN PEOPLE COME TOGETHER ?


1. UNIQUE BENEFIT
Meetings are supposed to provide a value for believers that is not possible in any other way (cp. Hebrews 10:25) (11:17)

2. MULTIPLE CONFIGURATIONS
Coming together is one of a number of ways the church expresses the presence of Jesus (11:18)

3. UNITY
Meeting together is meant to be an expression of total unity. There are to be no divisions (11:18)

4. WORK OF GOD
People should do what will be facilitate a genuine work of God through them so that others can be encouraged by their faith (19)

5. CARE FOR ALL
The atmosphere of the meeting should evidence a strong sense of concern for the well being of all the members, not just one and not just some. (11:20-34)

6. RULE OF JESUS
The meeting should only do that which honours and proclaims the Lordship of Christ (12:1-3)

7. VARIETY
There are many different forms of spiritual ministry that are possible in a meeting (12:4-6)

8. BENEFIT ALL
Spiritual ministry to the whole meeting should be restricted to those things that are of benefit to the whole group (common good) (11:7ff) (14:1-19)

9. LEADERSHIP AND MINISTRY
There are leadership gifts for the church and there are ministry gifts for a meeting (12:27ff)

10. LOVE
Love is the only valid motivation and the primary critical success factor for any spiritual ministry (13:1-13)

11. TANGIBLE PRESENCE OF GOD
The ministry of spiritual gifts in a meeting should evidence the presence of God to all (14:20-25)

12. SIMPLICITY
The gifts should simplify the flow of God’s power not complicate or confuse it. (14:26-33)

13. RESPECT
No one should be allowed to disrupt a meeting (14:33-40) There should be a wholehearted reverence for what God is wanting to do in the meeting


Your meetings do more harm than good:

Christian gatherings are part of the rich heritage and essential character of holistic Christianity. As western society rushes headlong into a pit of ego centred individualism, the redemptive work of the Spirit ushers believers into fellowship. Interestingly, one of the features of adversarial governments has been to seek to thwart the opportunity of Christian people to meet together. The aspect of Christian fellowship is unique when you compare it with many of the other major religions around the world. While Buddhists or Hindus may assemble it is not for fellowship. It is to participate in religious ritual. Muslim gatherings are the same. The gathering is around the strict observances of their liturgies. Even Judaism, which involves many “fellowship” style customs does not marry fellowship with the core expressions of worship.

Christianity by contrast was founded on the idea where “two or three gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst.” The gathering was both the cause and the effect of their relationship with Jesus Christ. The New Testament declares this again through the words of the apostle, Paul, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:19,20)

In this apostolic directive to the Corinthians, he was attacking them for the fact that they had passed up the strategic character of Christian fellowship. Even though they were gathering together, another agenda had surfaced and had supplanted the agenda of heaven. They were offering up their holy calling as a people as the people of God on the altar of self promotion. They were using the pipeline meant to flow water from the heavenly fountain to pump recycled human pride and prejudice.

What we need to understand here is that Paul wasn’t talking to a singular individual who might have carried the leadership responsibility for the church in Corinth. Interestingly there is very little reference in the New Testament to the misdemeanors of leaders. That isn’t to say they don’t have them. Our culture has a very different way of ascribing blame. If our culture was writing this letter to the Corinthians, at this point the name of the leader of these meetings, or the leadership council of the church would be named. As I have said, and need to emphasize, I am not suggesting that leaders in this matter were innocent. I am referring to something far more important that finding out who was to blame and taking comfort from the fact that we found out who did it and going home with the satisfaction that they and not anyone else (especially us) were to blame for what was wrong.

Another way that our society acts at times like these is to blame no one. If no one is responsible then we can all take the view that there is nothing that can be or needs to be done about it. If we continue to take this view then we will find ourselves having to face the increasingly difficult task of rationalizing ongoing failure. This begets all kinds of cultural myths and draws the net of collective captivity more tightly around us.

It is consistent with the culture of the kingdom of God to direct responsibility to the corporate whole when something goes amiss. Jesus rarely blamed an individual. He chastised his disciples on a number of conspicuous occasions, religious groups were gathered together for the same purpose and at other times he nailed the “generation” of the “city of Jerusalem” for culpability serious enough to seal their own destruction. Here Paul is writing to the church. In this part of the letter he is speaking to the church when he says that “they” carry the collective responsibility for what some people may be more guilty of that others, but the comparative guilt is not even close to the issue. The blame is to be carried by all. In this case they are responsible for the fact that when there is a Christian meeting Christian things don’t happen. The characteristic hallmark of a true Christian meeting is that people commonly draw benefit from the fact that Jesus’ presence is tangibly manifest. Instead of Jesus presence blessing, encouraging, challenging and inspiring the whole group, we are served up a diet of division, self interest, pride and confusion. Instead of the word of God we hear only the message of (in the immediate context) human partiality and greed. Instead of a broad expression of spiritual ministries we have to put up with bland repetition. Instead of power from on high we have pride from below. Instead of exalting Jesus we have the exaltation of human personality.

It would be wrong to suggest that a genuine ministry of Jesus is going to create some form of ethereal tranquility. That certainly was not the case if you read the gospels. What is certain is the fact that Jesus was accessible, truth was dominant, love was overflowing and redemptive purpose was paramount, day in and day out.

When Jesus talked about Christian fellowship he referred to the fact that His presence was going to be more available, more manifest and more dynamic when believers were together. If I go up to the Brindabellas and spend a day or a week in prayer, alone with God, that is almost certainly going to be a wonderful experience. But it will always be a far more limiting experience than if I am with five, ten or fifteen other people who are making Jesus available to me through the sensitive but bold unveiling of their faith. The problem is that when we are together we are all too willing to withhold the full and free expression of our faith in Christ. We guard what is in our hearts and carefully measure what rises in our spirits. That is not the way of genuine Christian meetings. The benefit to all is going to be mathematically proportional to the flow of faith coming from the heart of all. That is not to surmise that every person in the meeting will take turns in addressing the meeting. It does assume that they will be fully participating.
Unfortunately we are in danger of producing another generation of vicarious worshippers, vicarious listeners and vicarious ministers. We are all to eager to let someone else take the risk or the responsibility. That is not consistent with the heart of a true servant of the Lord.



NO SCHISMS BUT LOTS OF HERESIES

I hear that…..there are divisions among you….No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. (11:18,19)


Here are the major culprits in Paul’s line of suspects. There are too many divisions and not enough differences. There are two words here that we need to understand in order to get the picture.

The first is the word translated “division.” In the Greek language this is the word “skismata” and refers to a the separation of something that should be together. It has to do with ripping something in half so that it can not be put back together again. This idea has a destructive force about it which is dark and sinister.

In the Bible we examples of these falsely derived divisions:

Tradition: Jewish believers divided from Gentile believers (Acts 15; Galatians)
Language: Aramaic and Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6)
Ethnicity: Jews and Greeks (Galatians 2:28)
Gender: Male and female (Galatians 2:28)
Political/Class: Slave and free (Galatians 2:28)
Ethnic origin: barbarian or Scythian (Colossians 3:11)
Age: Older and younger (1 Timothy 4:12)
Leadership: Different groups built around leadership personalities (I Corinthians 1)
Preference: Divisions based on personal preferences (Ephesians 4:3)
Conscience: Divisions based on matters of conscience (1 Corinthians 8; Romans 14,15)
Status: Division arising from the desire for status (Luke 9:46ff; 3 John 9)
Opinion: Divisions arising from difference opinions (Acts 15:36ff)
Spiritual gifts Divisions based upon exercising different ministry gifts (1 Corinthians 12:21)



From the earlier parts of the Book of 1 Corinthians we can see some of the factors that created ungodly alliances and led to division:

¬ People forming different groups based upon which leaders they were aligned to (1:12) and then fighting with one another about who was the best and who was right (3:3)
¬ People forming into different groups on the basis of secular education (3:18 [cp. 1:20ff.])
¬ People thinking less of others on the basis of the outward show of comfort and prosperity (4:8ff)
¬ People judging others on their competence in public speaking (4:19)
¬ People divided over those who condone and those who condemn an immoral member (5:6)
¬ People taking sides over legal disputes between church members (6:1ff)
¬ People taking sides over whether it was better to be married or single (7:1ff)
¬ People taking sides over whether it was right or wrong to eat meat offered to idols (8:1ff)
¬ People taking sides over whether leaders should be given generous love offerings (9:1ff)


And in this immediate context we know that people were coming to the church and when they shared food together and where part of that meal was the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper. Some people would eat so much that there was nothing left for the people who came later, and some drank so much wine while they were eating that they were drunk when they took the Lord’s Supper. (11:20ff) Think about the words that describe what was happening and look for the underlying issues they expose that make the gathering of Christians in a meeting anything but a unique source of benefit and blessing available to all the members.

¬ Each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else (21)
¬ Someone remains hungry
¬ Another gets drunk
¬ You humiliate those who have nothing


The Bible then gives the reason why this is so bad:

Jesus took bread and said that this was a remembrance of his body which is FOR YOU” (not for me without you or us without them).
Jesus took the cup and said that it represented the shedding of blood representing the NEW COVENANT
The act of eating the bread and drinking the cup is a proclamation of the fact that Jesus life was a life totally given for the sake of everyone else other than himself
When people gather in a Christian meeting and all they do is think of themselves and act on behalf of themselves, or when they think of a certain group of people within the whole and not the whole group they are guilty of misrepresenting the very nature of the Lord’s Supper.

“recognizing the body” The idea is surely that the person who acts as an individual when they are part of the manifest expression of the body of Christ is misrepresenting Christ and abusing the whole idea of being part of the body of Christ. The actual word for “recognizing the body” is a word that means discerning or making an assessment.[1] The issue is that these people have entered a holy place when they have come to join the gathering of the people of God. The nature of their gathering is to BE the body of Christ. The participation in the Lord’s Supper is to celebrate and represent the fact that the Son of God chose to do something that was of untold personal expense an something which was only for the benefit of everyone else except himself. When someone acts in a way that defies the nature of that Jesus did they are representing the opposite of Jesus. They have failed to understand what meeting together as Christians is all about. In doing so they defame the honour and misrepresent both the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

“This is why many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep,”

This is deeply challenging. This has often resulted in a set of conditions that relate to whether a person is permitted by the church to take communion or not. Some churches[2] focus on a liturgical preparation while others require the pastor or priest to affirm the person has been living according to Christian moral values. Whatever merit there may be in these practices, it seems clear to me that they so easily miss the point of Paul’s directive to the Corinthians. What he was describing as a set of attitudes that had already invited the judgment of God had to do with the relationship between members of the church meeting with one another. In point of fact it was their willingness to justify divisions and therefore discrimination. The key to this was the way the all embracing love of Christ that was being celebrated in the Lord’s Supper was accompanied by self interest and sectarian loyalty to put it mildly. This was an offense to the people who were excluded and it was an offense to Jesus’ indiscriminate love.

Just think how pointless it is for a person who accommodates this divisive attitude to think that if they just refrain from eating the bread and drinking the cup they will avoid judgment. The need to examine oneself can only assume that the person takes the reminder of what Jesus has done as a way of testing their own hearts with a view to repentance and a change of attitude and subsequent action.

The further important point must be made about the seriousness of the sin of division in the body. If such divisions result in weakness, sickness and even death one can only assume that it is a form of sin that is up there with the worst. Judgment from God needs to be seen in the same light as we would expect the laws of gravity to judge a person who jumps off a cliff. If we seek to defy gravity we will either be badly injured at best or die at worst. No one would argue with the consequences of such defiance. When we defy the very principles that are intended by God to foster and preserve life is it any surprise that the consequences may be dire for the same reason? The result just declares how horrible the form of sin is – in reality. This is the same for a sin like pedophilia. This sin cuts so deep into the soul of the victim that in some ways they perpetrator would have been less harmful if they had cut off an arm or a leg. Such is the sin of rationalized division of the body of Christ. It is a sin whether or not the church gathers and whether or not they share Communion. It is more heinous and more rampant when the church seeks to provide the blessing and benefit that God intended in Christian fellowship. Jesus wants to make his presence known in and through the gathering. That presence and desire to bless must be available for all or it is not Christian. It is some kind of “mongrel” alternative.

One can only wonder at the divisions that have been defended, fostered and even extolled over the years and its impact on its overall health and the health of its constituents. If Paul is telling the truth (which I am prepared to accept without question), when Corinthians Christians gorged themselves at the expense of others, Alka-Seltzer would not be sufficient to deal with the consequences. They were guilty of a sin that not only brought shame upon the real nature and presence of Jesus, but invited a totally just outcome: weakness, sickness and death. Paul warns them because they obviously have no idea at all what they are playing with. It’s like someone toying with the tail of a tiger snake. Our problem is that it doesn’t seem to us like a tiger snake.





WHY THERE SHOULD BE ‘HERESIES’

“No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.” (19)

If the word previous used to describe a piece of material that was designed to be one complete unit has been ripped and torn to shreds is the word used to describe the destructive divisions that existed in the church in Corinth, then the word used here is similarly descriptive and very intriguing.

There have to be DIFFERENCES. Paul is giving a directive here as with the other things he says. So if we are going to respond to the other point and say, “We must never allow any form of division to occur or remain among us” we need also to say, “We must do all we can to encourage these differences.”[3] The word used here is the word from which we derive the English word “heresy.” If we were to put it literally, the Bible here tells us that we must have “heresies” in the church.


There is no other place in the New Testament where this word is used in this way. We shouldn’t try to force a Greek word to mean the same thing every time it is used any more than we should when we refer to a single word in English.[4] The clue for us to understand what kind of direction Paul is giving here will come from the area covered by the meaning of the word coupled together with the context in which the word is used.

Here are the pieces of evidence we have at our disposal to understand what the apostle is referring to.

“no doubt” this is a matter of certainty for the gathering of believers not for debate. Churches should be characterized by their expression of different levels and forms of anointing
“have to be” It is a normal operation for a church. It is expected that the church will give expression to these different levels of anointing whenever it comes together.
“among you” this is something that happens between people in the church without regard to their position or function or length of experience. If they are part of the church they are the raw material for the display of these differences
“to show” when these differences are encouraged, the result is that people can plainly see the anointing of God (or the lack of it) in operation.
“God’s approval: it is only when a spiritual gift or ministry is exercised in the church that people can see whether this person has anointing or something else. Any spiritual ministry will be known by its fruits. The fruit of genuine ministry is that God does things in the lives of recipients that can be known and testified to. As Paul says in another place using the same word:
For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends[5].


Christian meetings are for the display of different anointings. It is not the display of the person that is the focus. Unfortunately it is often our focus. Very often there can be an anointing upon someone and they hold that anointing to themselves for reasons of fear (reverse pride). Sometimes people talk about this fear as if they are so jealous for the glory of God that they hold an anointing to themselves supposedly to avoid making a mistake and, in their unbiblical judgment, guaranteeing the greater glory of God. I say unbiblical because there is no biblical warrant for a sincere person holding on to an anointing just in case they are wrong. When the Bible says, “Don’t quench the Spirit, don’t despise prophesying but test everything and hold fast that which is good and avoid every appearance of evil,”[6] The presumption is that things will be said that will seem to be worthy of despising but in fact when tested will be proved genuine. The fact that a prophetic word might seem at first to be thrown out either by reason of the person who brings it or the way it is brought means that someone is sitting there with something that has some doubt about it. I defy any person to suggest that there is ever any anointing that is beyond doubt for the person who is thinking about offering it.

On the other side of the coin we have people who are very good at collecting the style and culture of spiritual ministry, but whose pride, or other expressions of their flesh need them to be taking the microphone whenever there is an opportunity. There are people whose insecurity is somehow temporarily suspended when they offer some form of ministry to someone else. There are people who unconsciously manipulate through the proffering of something that sounds as if it is spiritual. In the Old Testament there were various modes that were taken as being prophetic.[7] We have a number of them today. What we also have is the opportunity for people to go to great lengths to reproduce the mode but have nothing from the Lord to say. There are many occasions where it doesn’t matter how many times people say, “Thus says the Lord” or how much King James language they use, the word has no effect.

Either way, the point Paul is making here is not to encourage people to be spurious, but that the church might develop an environment that valued spiritual anointing. So very often we fall foul of another “demon” here, namely the one that says we don’t like people who display greater anointing than ourselves because it might make us feel inferior. There is a huge penchant generated by our culture to be the “same as” everyone else. To have the right clothes, to use the right language, to go the right places. Every season there is a mad scramble to find our these things and fashion designers make sure there is plenty of encouragement to ditch what was “cool” last season in favour of the new thing.

In this part of the New Testament the opposite is the case. We ought to encourage different kinds of anointing so that people might be encouraged to see how they work and what they do. This is turn should provide an incentive for others to learn in a way that is almost uniquely Christian: know about it, see someone else do it, have a go at it ourselves.

The final issue is the fact that the God of heaven wants to give expression to his heart and will when Christian people meet together. The agenda of that meeting should be the agenda God sets and the setting of that agenda will never be possible when it is commandeered by one or two people no matter how anointed they might be. As we will see from the following chapters, no one knows who the Holy Spirit is going to anoint and how he is going to anoint them. Only as they respond to that anointing and offer their ministry will the agenda of God be discovered. Not that God’s agenda will be known by everyone in the meeting regarding everything God wants to do or has done, but the issue is that when people come together there ought to be anointing dynamite waiting for the person holding it to press the switch and set it off. Whenever that happens the work of God will be experienced. People will be blessed, others will see and be encouraged and others will learn.
[1]
Mt 16:3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
Mt 21:21 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.
Mk 11:23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.
Ac 10:20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
Ac 11:2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him
Ac 11:12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.
Ac 15:9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
Ro 4:20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,
Ro 14:23 But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
1Co 4:7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
1Co 6:5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?
1Co 11:29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.
1Co 11:31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
1Co 14:29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.
Jas 1:6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
Jas 2:4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Jude 1:9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Jude 1:22 Be merciful to those who doubt;
[2] Presbyterians had communion cards issued only to those people who had attended church enough times. Catholic church developed the idea of going to confession and receiving absolution as a preparation for participating in the Mass. Many other churches have liturgical and moral checks to determine whether a person is worthy to participate in the Communion service.
[3] Here are the NT references for the use of this word:
Ac 5:17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.
Ac 15:5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
Ac 24:5 “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect
Ac 24:14 However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets,
Ac 26:5 They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.
Ac 28:22 But we want to hear what your views are, for we know that people everywhere are talking against this sect.”
Gal 5:20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
2Pe 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves
[4] E.g. the word, “sanction” (The king gave his sanction; They imposed sanctions on the warring parties).
[5] 2 Corinthians 10:18
[6] First Thessalonians 5:19-22
[7] 1 Samuel 10:9-11