BrianMedway

TRY THIS TO GET THE NEW BLOG POSTS

2007-03-24T14:14:00.001+11:00

Sorry about the no go for the address. Try this one:

http://brian-medway.blogspot.com

Once again, let me know it if doesn't work.

Love to you

Brian

I'VE UPDATED TO THE GOOGLE VERSION

2007-03-24T10:02:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that I have upgraded this blogsite onto the google server.

The new address is slightly different to the old one:

brian-medway.blogspot.com

Hope you can access it.

If you can't please email me: lifepurpose@ozemail.com.au

BRIAN

A JOURNEY INTO THREE REVELATORY EXPERIENCES OF CHRIST

2006-10-18T20:41:00.000+10:00

Here are some notes I wrote a little while ago that stirred in my own heart. It has to do with the Christian journey and I find it both inspiring and challenging. I hope it makes sense to you.

The Kingdom of God

A STARTING DEFINITION

Most discussions about the kingdom of God are carried on by theorists. That is why most recently there has been an emerging expression of Christian faith that has to do with the outworking of a revelation of the kingdom of God.

The terminology
We first need to draw some inescapable conclusions that relate to the terms themselves. The first is that we are talking about a area of rule. There are many places to go to read about the Greek word. No matter how it comes out, we are talking about some sphere where there is a ruler. In Australia we have a government that rules on behalf of the people (by the people, for the people etc.) This is so far from most of the experiences of the first century Mediterranean world assumed by the language of the New Testament. Most of the world at that time (with the exception of some experiments in Athens and an occasional Senate uprising in Rome) assumed a single ruler with absolute power. That power was mostly exercised through military might and delegated to a series of underlings who represented the supreme ruler. The realm ( “___dom” where the suffix is a shortened version of “dominion”) was determined according to the geographical sphere where that person’s will was done. A kingdom is a space or series of spaces where a king gets what he wants.

The second part uses two words: “God” and “heaven.” It is usually assumed that Matthew uses the second alternative for reasons that have to do with Jewish issues about using the name of God. It was a carry over from the Old Testament. While there are been some arguments over the years that the two terms refer to two different notions, I am not very convinced by them. This course will assume Matthew’s decision to use a different term to refer to the same thing.

Three Consecutive Experiences of Revelation Matthew 16

In Matthew 16, Jesus refers to three revelatory experiences that will be part of the intended Christian experience. He identified the first as having happened to Peter but alerted all the disciples to the fact that if this revelation happened there would be two further revelations and these would produce a ministry that was irresistable

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. 21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

One: Personal Governmental Change - Follower of Jesus Christ

The first revelation was that of Jesus Christ. The ability of a person to give expression to the belief Peter made can only come from a revelatory encounter with the Father. - “flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven.” (v.17) This revelation totally changed Peter’s life. He used to be a fisherman and he was not following Jesus. This revelation, to be genuine must involve a radical change. Realizing that Jesus is the Messiah assumes a commitment to be a follower. The reason I have included all of the verses from Matthew 16:13-28 is because the qualities of a follower of Jesus are clearly identified. And they are the only things that ear mark a person as a follower: they are people who have set aside personal self fulfillment and have devoted their lives to lose themselves in pursuit of what will eternally benefit everything except themselves (“…deny yourself…”); they are people who have come to terms with issues of self preservation and comfort and are prepared to live a life characterized by the cross of Christ. On that basis they have set aside personal ambition and live to follow, serve and represent their new Master, Jesus Christ.

Two: Social Governmental Change - Part of the Body of Christ

The second revelation had to do with our relationship with other people. It had to do with a new strategic invention Jesus was creating. It was to be known as “church.” Jesus doesn’t set out a long an detailed definition so that we know who’s structure is right and who’s is wrong. As often happens the entity is defined by who is part of it and what it does. It is clearly made up of people who are following Jesus, and they are related together in such a way that they destroy every gate of hell in front of them. Aren’t we a crazy bunch. We will kill each other over some theological issue related to something we think about the church but the gates of hell remain blithely unchallenged. The emergence of “church” from followers of Jesus living or working in the same location can only happen by the work of Jesus. He clearly states that it is HIS church. Only HE can build it. WHEN HE BUILDS IT gates of hell are smashed. How quaint of us to build church around a particular theology (Baptist, Pentecostal) or around a form of government (Presbyterian, Congregational) or an individual leader (Lutheran, Wesleyan) or indeed around a particular ethnic group (Anglican, Dutch Reformed) when Jesus said we should build it around a ministry, that of smashing the gates of hell and plundering the darkness in our communities and nations. Christian history will declare that when any expression of church relegates its identity to theology, structure, personality or ethnicity heaven sighs and God raises up yet another bunch of nobodies and points them to the task. But it is clear that Jesus has no “Plan B.” “Plan A” is his church. When we become followers of Jesus we qualify for another revelation. That revelation is that we should be strategically related to a certain bunch of other followers so that we can ‘gate crash’ hell’s parties.

Three: Community Transformation - The will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven

Jesus said that this new group of people who were brought together to represent the purposes and power of God would qualify for yet a third revelation. Jesus said it in these words, “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And he warned them not to tell anyone he was the Christ…” (v. 19,20ff.) Here is our current subject. If we are going to talk about the kingdom of heaven, we have to talk about it as something that is associated with church and if we are going to talk about church we can only talk about a collective of people who are radical followers of Jesus in some given sphere. Jesus intends another transfer from heaven to earth. This is supernatural, not natural. Jesus will give something. There are many things that Jesus says he will give. Each of them refers to a supernatural transfer: forgiveness, peace, rest, Holy Spirit, authority, the kingdom, abundant life, eternal life, All of them are things that come from heaven and create change in the lives of people on the earth. The same is true for the people who make up “church.” Jesus says he will give them keys. When they use those keys, the kingdom of God will come. The sphere of this operation is an extremely inclusive one. The word used is “on earth.” The change is supposed to come to the earth, which belongs to God. It is not change in the church but change in the earth. This means that the coming of the kingdom of God assumes change in the earth or the community.

THE KINGDOM PRAYER

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
Matthew 6

As Jesus was teaching about prayer and citing a model kind of prayer to be prayed he provided a profoundly simple definition of what the kingdom of God was about. The words are those in italics and represent the petition of a follower of Jesus regarding the kingdom of God. They form a parallelism. Jesus is using this Hebraic form of poetry to give emphasis If you look at the whole prayer you can identify the following features:

There are two statements about God: God is a spiritual being (in heaven)
God’s is to be reverenced

Two statements about the kingdom of God it is meant to increase
It is God’s will being done

There is a single statement about provision asking for daily provision

There are two statements about forgiveness we need God to forgive us
We need to forgive others

There are two statements about hardships Don’t lead us into hardship
Deliver us from the evil one

Heaven is described as the place where God’s purpose is totally embraced. The kingdom of God comes to the earth when God fulfills HIS PURPOSE in the face of every other alternative (i.e. your will, my will, our will, the devil’s will). In other words, the kingdom of God is heaven happening on earth. It is the future happening in the present.

LIFESTYLE ATTITUDES THAT PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

2006-09-15T13:31:00.000+10:00

DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE POST IMMEDIATELY BELOW!!!

It's a bit funny when you put posts on a blogsite. Your latest one comes at the top. That works fine except when you want to say something that assumes people have read what you have said before.

In this case it is necessary in order to see the context of what I am about to put together here from the book of James in the New Testament. Having been stirred by the story told in the book(and film) "End of the Spear" I went and read the letter of James three or four times just to get a feel for the wonderful spiritual values it speaks about. If you want to proclaim a message about Christ without mentioning his name I discovered eight values that are identified in the letter as uniquely Christian. Its not to say that every single one is only espoused by Christian faith, but the package is most definitely unique. What I did was to ask the quesiton of the material in James' letter, "If every believer fully lived what James was talking about what kind of people would we be?" What I came up with was a set of trademarks of genuine Christian faith. If you are a person who has been made new by the Spirit of God, this is a picture portrait of what you are like. I will set it up as eight statements that say what Christians do

1. We rejoice when we are experiencing hardships because of what we know (1:1-18)
2. We want to be changed by the Word of God not just educated by it (1:19-27)
3. We consider all people to be important and treat all people that way (2:1-13)
4. We indicate what we believe much more by what we do than by what we say (2:14-25)
5. We use our mouth only to bless and edify people (3:1-18)
6. We don't compete with or judge anyone or anything (4:1-16)
7. We place no intrinsic value on money (5:1-12)
8. We begin to resolve every issue in the presence of God through prayer (5:13-20)

HUGE APOLOGIES DEAR PEOPLE

2006-09-15T13:14:00.000+10:00

I was just on the phone to Don Shingles who reminded me that there have been no updates to the blogsite post Uganda. This is a major source of embarrassment to me and I do apologies for the silence. Its one of those annoying things in life that I don't quite understand. We were incredibly busy in Uganda and I found the time to send off material almost every day. I come back home where I have more notional control of my diary and yet no time is spent putting bits and pieces up here. That is very bad practice.

I have been extremely impacted by the recent (early this year) release of a book, a documentary and a feature film released on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of five young missionaries in Ecuador in their attempt to reach one of the most ruthless people's ever known in history - the wooden (Auca) Indians of the Ecuador Oriente. The feature film has not been released in Australia yet, but you can get it from Amazon and other places if you have a player that is not zone restricted. It is called, "End of the Spear"

I don't know if I can do justice to the story in this post, but here is a brief. What impacted me was the end of the story, rather than the event that has been commemorated.

For people like me who are interested in cracking the hard and well developed barriers we find in western society. The Auca (as they were formerly known) name means "savage." It no longer applies. Think of a tribe of people with a homicide rate of 60% and everything that goes with that kind of super payback lifestyle. Think about the fact that they now have a new name and the reason for the new name is because they are totally transformed. The power of God transformed this tribe.

For people like me who are interested in the strategic shift from "nothing happening" to "establishing a beachhead." I want to know what creates that breakthrough. This story is amazing. It did not become known from the mid fifties when the five young men were killed to the nineties when Steve Saint, son of the MAF pilot who was killed, heard it from some of the men who killed his father.

The five men were killed because one of the women from the tribe told a lie to cover up something she should not have been doing. When the Auca warriors went to act on the lie and to spear the missionaries they embraced some things they had never seen before. They saw people who spoke kindly even though they were faced with death. They stayed and allowed themselves to be killed rather than running for safety. They could have defended themselves with firearms but chose not to - and at the end of the killing all of the warriors saw angels hovering over the river where the bodies lay....and one of the missionaries saw it also before death overtook him.

That would have been wonderful in itself, but the powerful thing was still to come. As the Waodani warriors told this story it was so different from the stories of other battles and other spearings. Every time they told this story there were things that profoundly refused to make sense. In fact the story bothered them so much that when one of their young women returned to the tribe from living with the missionaries (Dayuma) she began to tell them about the True God who "allowed his son to be speared but did not spear back." When she told that story it was the only thing that made sense of the story they had been telling about the death of the five young white men whose "wood bee" had landed on the beach.

Here's the thing that challenged me. The five young missionaries would have had no idea of the impact they were ultimately to have. The just had a huge impact to love them into the kingdom. The fact was that they kept the enterprise a secret just so that it would not be compromised by any action that did not emerge from a genuine godly love. They had previously agreed they would not shoot any Waodani on the basis that the Waodani were not ready for heaven and they were.

In laying down their lives in this way they were part of a parable of the gospel. It was first told without any reference to Jesus Christ or the cross. Every time it was told it had impact, if only to challenge the Waodani world view at its core. It served as the perfect foundation for when they received the key to understanding...namely the gospel story itself. If they hadn't died there would have been no proclamation and no invitation to the two women who later went and lived with the tribe, led them to Christ and translated the Bible into a language only fifteen hundred people in the world will ever speak.

I would like to know what I should do in the midst of the people lost from Christ in my spheres of influence that would tell the story of the gospel just by telling what was said and done, regardless of whether they mention the name of Jesus. I would like to do something like that in a way that would challenge the power of accepted forms of Aussie pagan world view. I would like to do things that would only make sense if people heard the story of Jesus. I reckon that might be what Jesus had in mind when he said "You shall receive power.....and you shall be my witnesses...." (Act 1:8)

What do you think?

Summary Photo File for Uganda

2006-07-31T00:15:00.000+10:00

UGANDA IMPACT - SUMMARY REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS

2006-07-28T00:48:00.000+10:00

A UNIQUE MATCH AND A STRATEGIC CONNECTION
Over the two and a half weeks we were with Bishop Patrick Okabe I witnessed a very amazing sense of brotherly friendship develop between that I am sure is a work of the Holy Spirit. We are different in many ways and I’m not talking about our divergent cultural backgrounds. Yet over this time I have discovered the pastor of a dynamic church in an African nation who in so many ways mirrors my own values and priorities as much as anyone I know. When you think that all of this happened because a young man from Uganda decided to take the very unusual step of coming to train in Australia. The UK or the US would have been far more likely places for him to go. I asked Patrick why Emmanual chose Australia and he responded with what sounded like an obvious answer: They both felt that it was what God wanted.

Add to that the fact that this man has not sought after connections with Christian leaders from western nations in the way that many African (and other) pastors tend to do. This man is has an apostolic ministry that has developed quite apart from any system or sponsorship. Add to that the idea that Patrick runs a network of churches involving around 200 and has a vision to support and make pastors effective across the whole eastern Uganda region. He has one of the few large churches outside Kampala and has spent himself in seeing thirty churches planted from that one church. Think that the Mbale church has only been going seven years. He has a kingdom perspective and is aggressive in seeking lost people. His heart is to see the cities, towns and communities transformed, not just churches that grow.

Think about the risk a man like this takes by inviting a name given to him by his son in Australia and on the strength of that suggestion gathers over a thousand pastors and leaders to a conference and organizes two city wide outdoor crusades. I can’t see myself taking that kind of “sight unseen” risk. When I made this observation in the presence of the church on our last time together Patrick responded by simply saying, “It is no longer a risk.”

What God will do with this I haven’t that faintest idea. I have some ideas of my own, but this is not the place to air them. I always have a lot of ideas. The success of this ministry trip almost begs some kind of sequel, but neither Patrick nor myself are prepared to speculate but are both prepared to see what God says and wants to do.

IMPORTANT TEACHING FUNCTION

I think there is a great need to build a stronger and deeper teaching ministry in churches like the ones represented in these conferences. Someone has made the (exaggerated I think) statement that “a lot of African Christianity is a mile wide and six inches deep.” I think it might be hard to substantiate, but Emmanuel has said to me that Africa can produce great preachers much more than it can produce great teachers. I think there is a vulnerability in any community where broad and thorough education has only emerged comparatively recently – especially in the rural areas. That vulnerability exists because both praise and preaching operate in that wonderfully dynamic way. Both are responsive, vibrant and emotional experiences. The excellence of the commitment by a large proportion of any congregation to participate fully and the genuine responsiveness all up creates its own vulnerability. It can, all by itself become the point of exploitation. It can become nothing more a stylized system of rhetoric. I am not here claiming to be an expert, I am merely wishing to make some summary comments. If our exposure happens to be unrepresentative I will gladly adjust my observations accordingly.

The point I am getting to is that I think there was something of value for us to contribute. Not that we are going to radically change something in a few short days, but I wondered beforehand what we from a nation like Australia might have to contribute. We have heard the great stories of revival and transformation. In reflection, I think there is a valid partnership and I think we do have something that might well contribute to the way ground that is taken could be held. Much of the community life we observed is still largely based on an oral culture. This is changing and I think there is yet an opportunity to meet these changes by providing partnership and resources that will multiply the opportunity for more believers to found their faith in their own exposure to God through the Word rather than on the preachers alone.

BROAD COMMUNITY IMPACT THROUGH A GREAT TEAM EFFORT
This team was absolutely fantastic. Everyone contributed a huge, challenging, physical and emotional (spiritually also) effort. The work of the team in schools, hospitals, jails and camps was as effective as it was appreciated. Many young people came to Christ all the way around these efforts and I will say that they were not necessarily “open season” situations. The worship and drama contributions they made were similarly spiritually impacting and greatly appreciated.

If I would venture another observation here: I think all of us (and many others who have experienced similar) were blown away by the celebration and worship. I would give all of my right arm and some of my left to see such wholehearted beautiful praise. It was simply and profound at the same time. It was engaging even for someone who couldn’t understand the language. It not only engaged the believers inside churches but it engaged the unbelievers in the crusade grounds. At the same time the level of engagement does not follow when the focus turns to what we could differentiate as worship. The Ugandans don’t do the meditative worship nearly as well as they do praise. The team from Liberty Church in Goulburn were greatly appreciated for their excellence in this area. Jaemin shared the preaching in the conference sessions and provided a hugely complementary stream. His contribution was as Jaemin’s whole approach to ministry always is: unique, clear, heartfelt and powerful.

The combination of community based ministry by the team members as parallel to the conference ministry compounded the impact overall. If I or someone else had simply gone to do the conference speaking and Crusade preaching that would have been okay, but this way it clearly multiplied the effect.

EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF A RAVAGED BUT EMERGING NATION
It was a privilege and a great opportunity for all of us to travel to rural Uganda and get a taste of the life of a nation full of people who have endured such crippling incursions to their life and faith and remain faithful, joyful and hopeful. The town of Mbale has not seen the devastation in the same way as the Itesso people from the region around Soroti. Of course they suffered under Amin and Obote regimes. But you have to put it in context. The average life expectancy in Uganda currently is 47. There are older people of course, but Amin was in the seventies and Obote in the eighties. Those are twenty and thirty years ago now. What people are more aware of are the ravages of HIV and of the Joseph Koney terrorist war. When you put that with the hugely inadequate health system, financial poverty and the dietry and heath issues that go along with it, many people die. There are still millions of displaced people and thousands of orphans.

But there is hope. I don’t think there is a huge sense of hope in the political system. There is so much corruption and the current President is never far from being a military backed dictator in the way he has been able to manipulate the system to retain power. There is hope in the gospel. I have seen so many examples of people whose circumstances have been so changed by the intervention of the grace of God. I would make the claim based on an obviously small sampling that only the gospel deals with the real problems and only a thorough working out of the gospel in the society provides any real hope for the nation to be raised up from poverty, disease and division. This is obviously a challenge for any church. The same thing is true in Australia. Material wealth has never been much of a substitute for a heart made strong and pure by the power of the Spirit of God. The same gospel that can deliver a poverty stricken person from the ravaged soul can deliver the wealthy person from the ravages of materialistic humanism.

Patrick and I had many conversations. One of them involved the subject of true prosperity. He is clearly not taken by the prosperity teaching that has, e.g. seen a certain woman pastor of a large (5,000 member) church in Kampala purchase one of only three Hummer’s in the country as a sign of the blessing of God on her life. At the same time he preaches that God can lift a person out of their poverty and that obedience and faith must anticipate the blessing of God that includes freedom from poverty and sickness. He observed very perceptively that if he were preaching in America or e.g. Australia he would probably apply that message in a different way. I agreed totally with him. His own life is a testimony to that blessing. He wants all his people to believe God for a pathway that will lead to an increase for them, and their families. Its not a hyper spiritual thing in his case. He has been responsible for a whole raft of employment creating opportunities for all kinds of people.

DYNAMIC FAITH BUT NOT ENOUGH GRACE
If there is a strength to the faith of African people like we met in Uganda it is certainly the level of their faith. It is similar to the faith of people in China and India and other similar places around the world. Where people do not have the “support systems” we have come to depend on in the west, they are thrown directly on the mercies of God and such circumstances so many times will breed strong, deep faith in God.

This may be an observation based on an ignorance of the culture, but Jaemin raised it with me fairly early in the piece and I very much agree with him. I think there is a need for a greater understanding of grace among such people as we observed in Uganda. There is a very strong inbuilt mechanism that creates all kinds of hierarchies. We spoke about this in various ways and were told that it is built on a system of respect. But there is a very quick capacity in the people in any form of leadership to build their leadership around legalistic expectations rather than grace born expectations. I think this is a tendency wherever you have people who “have” and others who “have not” no matter what kind of “have” we are talking about. Position and authority are highly valued and often thoroughly abused across the culture and the church needs to reflect a different set of operatives if it is going to see a transformed culture, not just a reflected one. We have the opposite problem in Australia. We have such a strong commitment to “grace-do-called” that reflects the godless individualism rather than challenging it.

EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF MINISTRY IN AN UNDER RESOURCED CHURCH SITUATION
What kinds of resources are essential for a strong, persevering and expanding church based ministry? In Australia we might have all kinds of things on the list. The church in China can prosper without buildings, bibles and budgets. I would say that they have found ways to do that and they have proved to the world, especially the west that a church can grow as it did in the first century with the limited resources available to the first century Christians. The issue is not that it can’t be done. The issue that tends to torture churches in places like we visited in Uganda is that resources do exist and can be provided but so few have them. Those of you who read “The Heavenly Man” will remember what happened in China when contacts with Western churches and church leaders began to happen during the late eighties and certainly the nineties. The people who were equally deprived in former times suddenly became unequal. Some had contacts and money and resources and others had none of the above. That single fact led to expressions of pride, competitiveness and division that was previously unknown.

That happens in Uganda. In Kampala there are churches that have contacts, money and resources and if they don’t flaunt the fact it does emerge nonetheless. Patrick has grown a church, planted thirty churches attracted leaders to his wise and trusted oversight and care. He has done this from nothing and virtually with nothing (comparatively). If I were going to make a comment about what kind of resources are most needed I would posit the following:

BIBLES I think every pastor should have a Bible and know how to use it
BIBLE PORTIONS I think every believer ought to have access to at minimum a part of the Bible
FOOD, SHELTER, EDUCATION I think orphans and widows should be loved and cared for
TEACHING FOCUS I think believers should be discipled so that they are more able to get their own revelation and wisdom from God and then confirm it through their leaders rather than being entirely dependent on their leaders with no personal way of hearing from God.

The sound equipment we had built here and shipped with us not only enabled us to do what was done during our own time in the country, but will be a totally vital tool for preaching the gospel. Bishop Patrick is Wesleyan in his approach to the Eastern region and the nation. He cannot conceive of transforming villages, regions, towns and cities apart from people getting a new heart and a new spirit by turning to Jesus. Every church in every village doesn’t need this kind of equipment, but Patrick will run crusades in all kinds of small and larger centres and will use their wonderful worship team to build a platform for the preaching of the gospel. This will continue to serve churches wherever they decide to go. We felt totally convinced that we had brought something that was going to translate an idea into a greater ministry reality.

PARTICIPATING IN A CITY BREAKTHROUGH MINISTRY
Soroti was clearly the greatest phenomenon of the journey. It was overwhelming to go to a town that has been so attacked, betrayed and ignored. The Itesso people who live in that region in many ways are considered by other groups in the nation to be the also ran people. Not only have the suffered under Kony, but they have missed out when so many other areas have been supported by government programs that facilitate real development. Even before we hit the town I had felt that we were in for the greatest challenge but also the greatest breakthrough. If you have read the diary notes you will see that we had our challenges there but we had the biggest attendance. It would be like getting thirty five thousand people to a series of evangelistic meetings in Canberra and seeing with three thousand people getting saved and half of those showing up to the first service of a new church while many of the others show up for church in other places around the town. In the diary notes you will see that there were wonderful testimonies when three hundred adults showed up at the first service of the new church along with a hundred children. Witches being saved, people walking from the hospital and getting healed and saved. Muslim people being saved a huge personal cost.

We were personally welcomed by the Mayor and his team and he said that if the hearts of people were not changed the city would not be changed. The impact of this particular crusade lifted the faith of the church leaders by sheer tangible evidence that there was a way to gather thousands of unbelievers into the city centre and minister to them dynamic worship and great local ministry people as well as the raspy preaching of a grey haired old white man. We have heard enough reports from the town even at this early stage to confirm that the city was impacted, not just some hundreds of people making Christian commitments. Add to that the welding of relationships between key pastors and church leaders and you have a very potent brew.

THE BEGINNING OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP POSSIBILITIES

I don’t know what will become of this set of partnerships. As I said earlier in this summary, I thing there are very many possibilities and it would not be much use to articulate them here. I do have a pretty strong sense that there are more things that we could do to support these precious people. There was such a strong and almost instant bonding between the team and a whole lot of people. I am aware of the way Africans think about white people all being a source of unending amounts of money for all kinds of worthwhile causes. I am of the opinion that this will not just be a fund raising exercise. Having said that, I am sure that there will be things that we could and should and probably will do that will involve money. But there is much more to this relationship than money. We were never asked for money by Patrick. We didn’t come on that basis. The sound and musical equipment we brought was our idea based on information that Emmanuel gave us. I am of the opinion that there will be much more important and more valuable commodities needed here than just funds. There is the potential here for a strategic alliance that will not have the “rich man-poor man” underlying assumption. I say again that I may be wrong, but this is how I see it at present.

I have invited Patrick and Christine to come to Australia in the middle of next year. They have not had a single week away from ministry for more than three years and I put forward the idea of bringing them here so that they could attend the Hillsong Conference, do some ministry with us and with Liberty Christian Fellowship and also visit their son Emmanuel. I think it would be great for us to let them relax a bit rather than just bring them for a packed ministry program.

As always I would value an feedback you might like to make. Nola asked me a very important question sometime during the last two days we have spent together since arriving in Sydney. She said, “If the Lord told you that you were going there for reasons that had to do with you and reasons that had to do with them, what are the reasons to do with you?” I am not able to give a final answer to that at this time. As with the matter above, I have some ideas but no precise summary conclusions. It was the most stretching experience I have had. I am linked to a wonderful apostolic man and his wife in a nation that I have prayed for long before I met Emmanuel. I have seen more people come to Christ in a couple of weeks than I have in twenty years of ministry in this nation. I have had a severe values check once again. All of those things have stirred things in me that I haven’t got specific direction about yet, but watch this space if it interests you.

MONDAY TO WEDNESDAY - OUT OF AFRICA

2006-07-28T00:46:00.000+10:00

Its hard to believe that this challenging, stretching and vibrant experience has come to an end. The experience of rising each day with the single thought of responding to the demands and embracing ministry opportunities came to and end. For the first day in more than two weeks I wasn’t thinking about whether it would rain or not. I wasn’t thinking about how I could describe spiritual truth in a way that would cross one or two language barriers.

I can tell you what I was thinking of in one four letter word beginning with the letter ‘h’ and ending in the letter ‘e.’

There were certain realities that needed to be faced as far as the Monday program was concerned. Originally there had been a chance that I could link up with a friend of Evans Lagudah (an African and an elder at Grace) who worked at one of the Universities in Kampala. Originally I was thinking that there might have been room to move with the program and I could make myself available to meet with him and spend some time with some of the students at his University. He is connected with a very wonderful Christian ministry organization in Africa called African Enterprise. I had tried to contact him but somehow the connections did not work out and during the last week in Soroti I made all kinds of enquiries and phone calls but they were all to no avail. So I canned that idea. My second desire was to meet with Pastor John Mulinde. John runs a church and a ministry called World Trumpet Ministries and has been associated very strongly with George Otis from the Transformations (videos on revival and national transformation over the last ten years or so). I have tracked with this man’s teaching and ministry on prayer and revival for the last few years. As I tried to tee that meeting up I found that he would be out of the country for all but two days of the time we would be there. He invited me to attend a two day summit meeting at the Prayer Mountain he has established just outside of Kampala but it was during the week of meetings in Mbale and I couldn’t attend. I talked with his chief of staff person and thought there may be some value in meeting with him. As it turned out that was not possible either.

We were planning to leave Mbale at 8:00 am to make the four hour drive to Kampala. The team members were keen to do some shopping for people at home and there was a very good place called the National Theatre in Kampala that Christine said would be ideal for this purpose. People also had to change some money. But the trip down was slow and when we got to Kampala the traffic was of nightmare proportions. We had to go to the centre of the city for these things and we were locked in traffic jams for long periods of time. I was getting pretty edgy about time and told the Bishop that I would simply cancel the idea of going to Mulinde’s place and by the time people got to a money changing place and we loaded up to go to the Theatre, it was after one o’clock. Our plane left at just after four and I was not wanting to get to the airport after two thirty. Entebbe is more forty minutes drive from Kampala. So I warned everyone that we would have a very short stay at the Theatre and ended up having to round everyone up to leave. Regardless of the fact that Entebbe is not as busy as some other airports, I know that bureaucratic processes always seem to take longer than you think.
We ended up arriving at Entebbe not much before three o’clock. Our parting with Patrick, Christine and Emmanuel had to happen with what seemed to be regrettable haste. The parking policeman wouldn’t let the bus stay at the kerbside and at Entebbe the departnres area is restricted from before check in, so there was no real point in the Ungandans staying around. We said simple goodbyes and felt bereaved to do so after having shared together so fully for the past seventeen days.

Our trip to Dubai stopped at Addis Ababa for the regulation hour and a half (we all sat in the place for the duration) and we arrived at Dubai three quarters of an hour after midnight. If you;ve been to Dubai airport you will know how spread out it is. Our plane parked away from the terminal and the bus took fifteen minutes to drive us to the arrivals area. What a blessing it was to see a well dressed Hyatt Hotel man with my name on his care greet us just inside the arrivals gate. He showed us how to get through customs and we were greeted by the Hyatt staff who man a booth at the airport before we were escorted to the very comfortable mini bus and driven to the home of Rachel (nee Capon) and Chris Franzen’s home. Chris is a manager at the Dubai Hyatt Hotel and they have a nice town house in an estate operated by the Hotel for their staff. Rachel had all wonderfully set up her living room for multiple bodies as well as the spare room and one bed in their baby girl’s (Ashley) room. We simply flopped and dozed our way to around 7:45 am, had a simple but very welcome piece of toast (with Vegemite) and tea before the bus arrived just after 8:30 to take us back to the airport for our plane ride to Sydney. With traffic there was not a lot of time. Our plane left at 10:15 am and there are a lot of processes and checks even if you don’t have baggage to check through. You also have to walk from one building through a tunnel across a very wide access apron to the departures area. We arrived with just enough time but the plane was late boarding and when we got on board we were sitting there for a whole hour while they did something with the fuel – I think they needed to add more (which we all approved of by the way). But at last we were off for the nearly fourteen hour leg to Sydney.

No one could sleep. We had had a sleep and our journey took us to what would have been the early hours of a regular night. That translated into a 7:30 arrival at Sydney. After the customs rabble it was nearly nine by the time we walked out to the enormously anticipated welcome of husbands and wives. Unbelievable. The Goulburn crew were all traveling home in a small bus, and I accepted Nola’s offer of a slow ride to Canberra.

I will do one more posting on this Africa trip that will include some summary observations and comments. Thank you so much to all those who prayed for us. It was one of the most prayer aware times I have experienced and the grace of God that was obvious everywhere we turned was testimony to the faithful and persevering gift that you have given. Thank you also to those who contributed financially. We could not have accomplished what we did without the equipment that you provided along with the meals and support we were able to give to the people we served, especially those in the Displaced Persons’ Camps.

SOROTI PICTURE GALLERY

2006-07-27T07:17:00.000+10:00

The numbers of people coming to the Crusade in Soroti ended up being larger than those in Mbale. Considering that the size of the town is much less than half the size the impact was much bigger

The responses were also as big most of the evenings as they were in Mbale and on one night were the biggest of the whole time in Uganda. I had been sensing from the Lord that Soroti was going to be a very special time.

The Mbale Worship Team, Voice of Faith were once again fantastic and every afternoon when they began to fill the garden park with the praises of heaven, people came and got involved in great numbers. The amount of energy expended in praising God comes much closer to the idea of "all my heart, soul, mind and strength" stuff than anything I have seen before now.

Emmanuel began to do some ministry one night during the celebration time and people began to fall to the ground.

Bishop Patrick would come up after the altar call to lead the people to make a commitment to Christ.

At least I had some semblance of an ordinary voice in Soroti. My throat is still not totally recovered. I wonder that I might be like this forever now. Maybe I'll become known as the "Whispering Evangelist"

There was a young woman in Soroti who had been miraculously healed from HIV and had a an amazing singing voice. Her name was Eglas and she sang wonderful original songs in both English and Itesso. Somewhere I have a couple of her CD's and I intend to play them on my IWAY FM program

On Sunday night in Mbale the whole team were prayed for by the church people there. We had such a great time and God did so many amazing things. Jaemin and I shared our vision and heart and the church there agreed to pray for us

SUNDAY - GREAT NEWS COMES FROM THE NORTH WEST

2006-07-26T19:37:00.000+10:00

Six of the team woke up in Mbale this morning, five of them with the responsibility of sharing a short word in the early service. They were sitting around putting notes on paper and getting right into it. Jaemin and the rest of the team had stayed in Soroti to preach and sing in the first service of the church there. We were all keen to see how many of the new converts from the crusade would show up.

The morning service at Faith Fellowship was comparatively gentle to many of the meetings we had been in. Quite a few of the worship team were not there and were most likely recovering from the arduous days and nights of great work in two conferences and two crusades. It was still the vibrant fully committed worship that we have come to expect. Songs that have a beginning but no ending. People who dance and sing and interact totally for an hour without looking tired. Simple songs with simple music that generate power from the simple expression of passionate praise rather than the complex arrangement or crafted presentation.

I preached abut being obedient to the vision from heaven (Acts 26) and there was a humorous kind of irony about what happened at the end. I wanted to give opportunity for people to come to Christ and I should know enough about the need to make instructions very clear, but I messed it up. When a hundred or more people started coming forward I knew this couldn’t be the case. So I had to stop in mid stream and call people out who were wanting to come to Christ. About fifteen people were taken by the elders for counseling Then the way was clear to pray for hundreds of people looking to the Lord for their future and looking away from their past. After lunch the Bishop and his wife gave us some fruit and snacks to eat with the prospect of a meal together at one of the hotels here in the town. It is called the Mt Elgon Hotel and faces north from the town toward the very steep and majestic mountains that form a wall across that quadrant. The hotel is quite inexpensive but provides a priceless view.

We hadn’t been home for very long when the team arrived from Soroti. The news was that the church’s first service was attended by three hundred adults and a hundred children, mostly new converts. Jaemin reported with great excitement how people had testified about their experience of salvation. One such woman had been a witch but had felt the power of God lift her from one side to the other. Another woman came from her hospital bed and was both saved and healed within the space of half an hour. Jaemin seems to be the Muslim specialist. In Mbale he led a young Muslim guy to the Lord and then had the joy of baptizing him. In Soroti he did the same thing with another Muslim young woman. She gave her life to Christ at the Crusade and when she showed up for church on Sunday she told Jaemin that she had told her family what she did and they immediately disowned her. Her response to Jaemin was very humbling. She said Jesus had given her a new family and she would belong to that family now.

The Bishop said he had never seen anything like it before. What great glory belongs to our God. This has been an amazing time. I had a strong idea that Soroti would be something special but I couldn’t have foreshadowed the expanse of it all.

I finally got on to the internet tonight and teed up the details for our trip home. Rachel and Chris Franzen have kindly agreed to rescue us from the floor of Dubai airport and allow us to have some hours of sleep before we catch our plane for Sydney. It seems strange that we get on a plane at a bit after ten in the morning on Tuesday and don’t get to Sydney till six o’clock on Wednesday morning when it is only a fourteen hour flight. I know, it has to do with the time zones. Dubai is four hours behind eastern Australia.

In the evening service Jaemin and I shared something about Australia and our ministries there. The people prayed for us and blessed us in a beautiful way. We were very sad to be saying goodbye. These are such wonderful people. We have spent over two weeks without seeing more than a few European types from one end of it to the other. The mix has been so easy and the issues of relating have been as spontaneous and natural as they have been sincere.

I need to pay tribute to a wonderful man of God we have grown to know and love here apart from the Bishop Patrick his wife and Christine. There are others as well who, if justice were to be fully done, should have their names in this diary. But the person I am speaking about is Pastor Peter. He basically had responsibility for running the Conferences over the two weeks. He is such a godly and insightful man of God. He has responsibilities in the church in Mbale for pastoral care and training. I hope we can find ways of encouraging and supporting him and his lovely wife (who leads the worship team, but was sick with malaria – most Ugandans live with malaria in some form- while we were in Soroti. The Lord has and will use them more and more.

By the time we arrived back at the house tonight the whole team only has one thing on their mind. Walking out the door of the Arrivals area of Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning.

THIS WEEK IN SORTI

2006-07-22T17:47:00.000+10:00

MONDAY
THE CONVOY MOVES TO THE NORTH WEST

I don’t know when we will be able to connect to the internet this week, so I am writing this just on spec that I will find a connection somewhere and get it sent. Monday morning was a rest morning and most of the team had the opportunity to sleep a bit longer. The Bishop was full of activity of course, getting across all the arrangements that had to be carried out to get all of our equipment to Soroti. That included the large stage that had been erected for the Crusade in Mbale. If you saw any of the photos of what went on on that stage you would realize what a large job this was. During the times when the worship team from Mbale would be leading the worship there could be as many as twenty people on the stage. Not only that be they would be in full up African dancing mode. So right after the last meeting on the Sunday night the crew went to work and pulled the whole thing apart and loaded it on the truck.

The Bishop Patrick and Christine’s home is about two kilometers from the main shopping area of Mbale and so most people walked up the street to do some shopping. Christine took the ladies in the team to some shops that she knew had good value things. A couple of the young guys bought heaps of stuff and so injected some good quality overseas dollars in the local economy.. Everyone who was game had the experience of riding home on the back of a “taxi bike.” These are bikes without gears where the rack behind the seat has been upholstered a bit to sit on. The women sit side-saddle and the men straight. Given the potholes and corrugations and the steep incline down to our house it makes for an exciting ride.

We were told that we would be traveling to Soroti after lunch. That happened to be after four o’clock by the time the church bus got back from its first trip. We were really chafing at the bit by that time. Our task was not only to get to Soroti, but we had an extra forty five minutes drive to the village where the Bishop had his village house. We ended up arriving at Soroti when it was nearly dark. The countryside is as flat here as you would know the Hay plains to be in Australia, but with much more vegetation. There are trees and there is long grass everywhere. We passed through a number of small villages on our way. There is almost no road anywhere that you don’t see people walking or riding bikes on the side. As usual the traffic takes up all the usable road space. There could be three vehicles passing or being passed at any one time given the fact that the road was free. When there could be a contest people are generally willing to give way depending on size.

We called in at the Crusade ground to see how things were going and the work on the stage was three parts completed. Then we set off for the village. The village where we are sleeping is only about thirty five kilometers from Soroti but the road is so bad that it is impossible to drive fast anywhere. No matter what time of the day or night there are always people riding bikes and walking along any part of the road. Given the fact that there is no moonlight at present all of us reckon the Africans have a super vision for seeing at night.

After coming to a small village that was dimly lit (but actually had network power) we passed along for another two or three kilometers and then Patrick dived off the road into what seemed nothing more than bush (high grass and trees) and we trekked along this track for a few more kilometers and came to a clearing where a brick house had been almost completed. We were amazed. There were some round huts next to the house but the house itself had windows and doors etc. There was no power and there was an outhouse with two pit toilets and a place for having a wash with a dipper and a basin. We were told to sit around while Patrick and Christine and some of the other village people here did unpacking and sorting. Then we were shown to the rooms where we had mattresses on the floor for sleeping. A definite luxury we were not expecting at all. Before long we were all getting into rice, cabbage and young goat meat that was as tender as any lamb I have eaten.

Without knowing what the surrounding area looked like and having made a whole lot of new friends we crashed into bed to get the energy bank full of what we would need for the first day of the program.

TUESDAY THE DAY OF VERY MIXED CIRCUMSTANCES

We were looking forward to the conference starting in the morning this morning but did not leave the village (I can never remember its name, but then I could call it anything at all and it wouldn’t make any difference would it.

Our first stop was the Crusade ground and we saw that preparations were going really well. Emmanual has been working tirelessly since we came. He has undertaken all of the sound and stage equipment and makes sure it happens. You wouldn’t want to know about some of the electrical connections that happen. Two bare wires hang in mid air and separation of active and earth is only by the grace of God or an experienced twist in the wire or both. The power to the main amplification system is something we don’t want to tell Anthony Price about (the great Canberra bloke who built the system we brought) because one of the huge risks that people take with amplification is that if the system is on and there is a power failure it can spike the speakers and cause expensive damage. Well, the generators sometimes fail and other things happen. But so far the system has been working wonderfully well. It is one of the very important factors of the success of the ministry not only because it pumps out the sound but because it is so portable. What happens is usually that it serves a task at the conference and then is unpacked and moved to the Crusade ground. It begins its work at the Crusade from about three in the afternoon and works until about “who knows when” at night when they go on dancing and celebrating. It has been doing this for about nine days now. There was one day off for good behaviour in the middle somewhere.

After a while at the central park area we were taken to the municipal offices to meet the Mayor of Soroti town. He and all his senior officials were there to welcome us. He is a comparatively young man for a Mayor and spoke very graciously and encouragingly to us. The Bishop spoke, I spoke and Jaemin introduced the rest of the team. Then the Clerk spoke and it was over. There has been a deal of opposition from some groups in Soroti to the meetings but it hasn’t come from the council. Some of it has come from some of the church leaders and as a result of some of them one of the judges in the town wrote a letter trying to ban the crusade. They also influenced some one in the police department and there was a bit of resistance from there. All of it has been overcome, to the praise of God.

The conference went really well. I have been very surprised that I have been able to get some of the measure of the people and God has given me a lot of liberty to speak and connect and even interact. All of that seems to be refreshing people. There is a reasonably strong culture of speaking and commanding on the part of leaders and listening and obeying on the part of people. We seem to have managed to crack through some of that. There has also been a strong influence here from the “faith” and “prosperity” side of the religious system. There is a lot of interaction on one level but it is not generally relational and I would agree with Jaemin there is an overall lack of grace. Please understand that I am not saying this is the overriding issue. But it is an issue and we are definitely here to represent some of that broader set of issues. Jaemin has been treating it in some of his teaching and I am also having a go. So far the response has been what I would think as being beyond my expectations. Our message is getting through I know that from the response we are getting and from what people are saying outside the sessions.

The Crusade began in normal mode this afternoon. The interesting thing was that I knew something was about to happen that I knew would create a disturbance. I can’t say I knew all of what would happen but I thought it was going to rain heavily and rather than telling the Bishop, and getting the preaching part happening sooner, all kinds of people had a go and the pre-program went on and on. I was getting really frustrated as this went on. I had hardly spoken for three minutes when the rain came heavy and hard. I actually continued to preach while people were scattering and all but the brave were somewhere else. I was so cranky with myself for not acting on the information better and because I felt the enemy was having a sideswipe at us and the program. It was even more pronounced because I have had a feeling that Soroti was the major purpose for us to be here. While I finished preaching and prayed a prayer that people could follow under the trees and the shop awnings and the service station the team were frenetically covering equipment in all directions. When I came down from the platform one of the pastors had a vehicle waiting for me to climb into out of the rain. I was soaked to the skin.

For the next forty five minutes or so we waited for the Bishop to return from wherever he had to go to. The bus was packed with worship team and Australians as was the vehicle we were in. Finally he came and we swam around to where some of the worship team were staying through the filled up potholes and water running everywhere. We got a few kilometers from Soroti and the rain had stopped. We got to the farm and the roads were dusty and dry. This was clearly an adversarial storm. I have seen a few of them in my time and this was the same as the others. I was really frustrated on the way home and at home. People were very encouraging to me personally but that wasn’t what I was interested in. I longed to get to a place of prayer and sort out what was going on.

Here was my conclusion: rain is a blessing to the people of Soroti, but the God of heaven doesn’t send rain just as the Word is about to be preached. God is sovereign and allows things to happen for his greater glory. Part of that greater glory is to stir the believers into greater and more focused commitment. This had been an attempt from the enemy to spoil what God was wanting to do. It was also a blessing to the people in the town (but not in the district where the farms are). God was wanting us to stir our hearts and our faith and to lift our game. I will talk with the team in the morning.
WEDNESDAY
AN AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH IN THE FIRST FULL CRUSADE MEETING

It was just wonderful to wake up and walk out to see this beautiful bushland of what they call Tasoland. It is the land of the Atasso (spelling may be off) speaking people of the lower north west of Uganda. Not as many people here speak English as in Mbale and the history of the area has clearly impacted the town and the people. As I said before, it is relatively flat but there are bumps here and there and gradually sloping higher ground. If you’ve ever been to The Rock down in the Riverina of New South Wales then Soroti is built right next to a much large rock. A bit like a much smaller version of Ularu in Oz.

Only a few years ago, the last concerted fling of the LRA (terrorist group armed by the Islamic government of north Sudan operating from bases in Sudan) was launched to try and capture this town. Their previous tactic had been to overrun smaller towns and the people would just leave. The LRA would take their animals and herd them across the border and sell them for guns and ammunition and supplies. The ongoing bad feeling here is that the Ugandan government would not dispatch the armed forces to defend the town. So the people of the town decided to form up an army and defend themselves. The government did give them some old guns and ammunition. It was a bloody and protracted battle. Many people still fled the town. But the Christians here were as much a part of the defense as the armed but untrained young men who fought the battles. They would have prayer happening around the clock. Christians literally would pray until they couldn’t stay awake and then sleep till they got more energy to pray. The young men fought bravely and with a grim and gritty resolution. Eventually and for the first time in the twenty plus years of the terrorist war the Kony forces were beaten back. The town was saved but horribly scarred. They were scarred by the battles themselves and by their feeling of betrayal by the government.

In Soroti there are many displaced people’s camps here. People who fled their villages from the north western areas because of the terrorists live here but all the government supplies are mud huts to live in. The people have to find all their own food and they go out each day looking for either a way to earn money or some way of receiving food. There is something very deep and horrible about this that cannot help but impact anyone who has contact with it.

We had a team gathering before we left the village today. I spoke to the people about what I felt had been happening and how God was wanting us to sharpen up and get our faith works focused on the job we were here to do. Everyone including the Bishop felt the same way and we had a great time of prayer before we left. We had another prayer time in the conference. I spoke at the conference about the natural signs and what they mean and it was a very powerful time. We spent the last period of time in earnest prayer seeking the grace and power of God to come and draw people to Christ.

We had a meeting of the whole team at 4:30 before we went to the Crusade and once again it was a terrific time of “girding up” whatever needs to be girded up.

From the moment the Crusade ministry began you could feel the atmosphere of victory. I mean, there was a huge crowd, there was an amazing expectancy. When it came time to preach I found a whole lot of things coming from my mouth that I had neither prepared nor considered but they flowed and when the altar call was made stacks of people came to receive Christ. I stood in awe and just knew the grace from heaven that was there in response to the faith of people from Uganda and Australia together - the ones here and the ones at home. We prayed for many people and when it came time to leave for the village the bus took off and we were along the road a bit when there was a phone call to tell us that Matt was still at the Crusade ground. He had been praying for this young person and witnessed an amazing instant healing. So we totally forgave him for not making his way to the bus according to our established custom.

There was a powerful celebration after the meeting. Emmanuel took over and there was a full on Holy Spirit shindig. Dust was flying everywhere as we drove off for the second time. The power of God was so profound that when we called at the petrol station just across the road from the Crusade ground the bishop and I led the guy working there to Christ. He lifted his hands to God right there as the petrol was being poured into the bus. It was certainly a different atmosphere when we arrive home. People were stuffed (tired) but so very thankful to God. At the end of the day, Soroti got some needed rain (albeit at the wrong time) and God was glorified even in what has happened.

THURSDAY
MORE MIGHTY MIRACLES

We all felt more confident and excited as we left for Soroti town this morning. We have become much more vigilant and the wider team members and the believers from the churches in the town were also much more determined to serve the purposes of God than when we started. Soroti has not seen a Crusade like this one before. There are about 120 churches in the town, the largest being about the same size as Grace.

In one way the days follow similar patterns for us. Patrick went to the local markets in the village yesterday before we left for town and bought wonderful fruit: oranges, mangos and the sweetest pineapple you could ever want to eat. I have been eating mainly fruit and a little rice and very small amounts of meat. Its not that the food has not been well prepared. I had a long talk with Christine one day and she said how careful she has been. The challenge of having white people stay was something she took very seriously because she said she has known pastors who have invited white people to come and they get very sick. We haven’t eaten a single piece of food that has been grilled. Everything has been boiled or stewed or however else it happens. We have had hard boiled eggs offered every morning. The milk has also been the safety version. They do have cows they milk at their home in Mbale, but Christine buys powdered milk and puts it with boiled water. We are so grateful for this very special gift of her love. She is an absolute treasure. She was an orphan by the age of seventeen and has had a very hard time, but is a woman of great wisdom and incredible faith.

The conference sessions go from 9:30 to 2:00 each day. Jaemin preaches in the first session and then the team often goes off to a school or to one of the camps. We put some of the money we had left to buy some food for the people in the camp we went to yesterday. It was about $A60 or USh 100,000 and it bought enough maize and rice to give every family a good portion each. It is sobering to think that it will only be a bit of food for a day or so. One of the things that always blows me away is the capacity these people have to be happy in the most dreadful circumstances.

I taught on the incarnation today. I know it isn’t what they are used to hearing from western preachers and therefore from Ugandan preachers. There is one lady pastor in Kampala who has a church of about 5,000 and has just bought a Hummer. There are only three in the country and they cost the absolute earth. She is a prosperity gospel preacher who married a man who had divorced his first wife in order to be free to marry the preacher. Of course it is all over the papers here and doesn’t bring honour to God. But because the nation is poor and because some people have been poor but are now comparatively well off, there is this huge dream of becoming prosperous and that prosperity is the sign of God’s approval. The Biblical issue is that God always does want to bless the poor but he doesn’t make everyone rich either. Also status is very important here. I have been offended by the way I have seen some government officials treating people and the way they talk with them. It is the old thing. When you get a bit of power you throw it around and “laud it over” whoever is down the pecking order. Well I ran right into all of that and spoke about the five things that belonged to Jesus’ glory as the incarnate son of God. I am looking forward to the question time tomorrow to see if any of it has hit home.

The Crusade was one of the most powerful times we have had since coming to Uganda. There were so many people in the garden park and they stayed glued to the program for the one and a half hours of worship and music that precedes the preaching. There is some amazing talent here. One outstanding one is a girl who has been healed of HIV and sings fantastic songs. I am bringing a CD of hers home with me to play on the radio station. But there is another group called “Mike and Joe” and they do the greatest rap kind of stuff you would hear anywhere (of course I am a world authority on good and bad rap). I am hoping to get something from them as well. The boys are from Mbale and the girl is from Soroti and sings in both Itesso (the language of the people from the Soroti region) and English.

After I preached tonight and gave the opportunity for people to receive Christ, people just flocked to the front. It was possibly the greatest number we have seen on any night. It was an amazing God thing that was overwhelming. Considering that the crowds here have been smaller than Mbale (6,000 or so to 3,000 here) it is simply wonderful. After they were counseled and all their details were written down we spent the rest of the time praying for sick people. So many people come for prayer. It is both depressing to see the need but exciting to be able to pray. The members of the Australian team and the pastors from the town get to lay hands on every person who comes and we could be there praying all night if we were up to it.

When that part is over Emmanual gets going and leads this great (and very loud) time of celebration. It is always still going strong when we get in the bus to come home to the village.

Patrick is an Itesso man and he was telling me today that the Itesso have always been the left out tribal group in Uganda. They have generally been looked down upon by others and have been excluded from any high office ever. He says he doesn’t really know why this is so, but he has a great desire to see God raise up an influence for the gospel through this people. That’s the core reason why he is here doing these meetings in Soroti and I know that is the primary reason we are here. The Itesso are not proud or independent people, but are hard working, faithful and loyal. May the Lord to a great work and raise up an army of spirit filled servants who could carry a pride-less mantle to the whole nation and be the catalyst for unity across the tribes that would see the nation become not just the pearl of Africa but carry their beautiful faith around the world.

FRIDAY - THE GREATEST MEETING SO FAR

Today was an amazing day of breakthrough and progress. There were a few casualties though. A number of the team members started getting the flu. I think it might happen because of the dust. Apparently when it has been dry the dust that is almost constantly in the air carries diseases. Oddly enough we have had beautiful rain this week as well, in the mornings it has been raining and the people are thinking this is a sign of the blessing of God because they have not had rain for a long time. By the afternoon it has cleared and the Crusades have all been in beautiful weather since the first evening when it bucketed down.

Jaemin was the worst hit. Amy was also pretty crook. When we got to town today the Patrick and Christine and I took Amy to the hotel just near where we are holding the conference meetings. We booked Amy a room to lie down in for the morning and she really appreciated that and was the better for it. By lunch time she picked up and when the team went to the Displaced Persons Camps today she felt up to going there with them.

Jaemin decided he would preach anyway and did a great job at it too. He had a difficult interpreter but we are learning to make better and simpler phrases when there is a breakdown in the interpreting process. At the start of the proceedings this morning I went looking for an internet café to try and download some blog material and check the emails. I found one, but they had no facility for me to plug my laptop in and so there was no opportunity to update the blog page. I will try another method tomorrow.

The second part of the conference was a great breakthrough time. There has been some little difficulty between some of the members of the pastors fellowship here in Soroti and the program we are doing and especially about Patrick starting a church. This had been complicated by the fact that the guy here who was supposed to coordinate things didn’t know how to handle the situation and simply backed away from it. This only led to more misunderstandings. While there have been quite a number of the pastors attending the conference each day, the main guys had stayed away. Well, today they showed up and there was a wonderful process of understanding and blessing and unity. The Bishop took the situation in hand and spoke very well and with great wisdom. He talked about unity and why he had come to the town and what he was hoping for. He was very honouring of the leaders of the pastors network and they were very positive toward what was happening. I finally got to speak and was able to reinforce the unity and purpose theme in my own way. I found out from one of the pastors that there are not more than 10,000 believers in Soroti. That’s a bigger percentage than Canberra but still not big. The pastors all agreed that the task was to work together to win the lost.

After lunch the team went off to the camp and I stayed at the Hotel to pray and prepare. I couldn’t have anticipated what was going to happen. The meeting today was the biggest since we have been in Uganda. There were more people in the garden park than even the largest day in Mbale. There were around seven thousand people there. This is in a town of seventy thousand residents. That would be like having 30,000 at a meeting in Canberra. God brought a tenth of the whole town to the Crusade. The response was the largest we have had since coming. Between two hundred and two hundred and fifty people received Christ and recorded their decision. I preached a very simple message on the prodigal son and it was overwhelming to see the people flocking forward to “come home.” After the people went to the side to have cards filled in and the follow up process put in place, we prayed for many sick and troubled people. Ugandans love to be prayed for and what we do is to have the team and the pastors from here stand in front of the platform and when the Bishop has finished praying we go through the crowd laying our hands on everyone. It’s a bit of an art because they are crowded together. You have to be careful where you put your feet because many of them have no shoes, especially the small ones. When you get out to the edge of the crowd coming for prayer you have to be careful in the dark because the mothers who come with their small children lay them on mats on the ground. In the darkness it can be hard to see a small dark body lying down. I think when God made white people he might have did some kind of upgrade on black people because they definitely seem to be able to see better in the dark. When we drive home along the bush road there are people walking and riding bikes. And these roads are full of deep corrugations and huge potholes. The moon doesn’t come out until early in the morning at the moment so it is very dark.

The last phase of the Crusade continued with the whole garden park area throbbing with the sound and movement of Christian worship and praise in the way only the Afticans can do it.

Tonight is our last night in the village. In the morning we will be packing up and bringing all our gear with us so that we can return to Mbale after the Crusade meeting. We are anticipating the largest crown of all tomorrow evening.

SUNDAY PHOTO GALLERY abridged today

2006-07-17T15:16:00.000+10:00

The service this morning was the biggest this church has ever had. More than twelve hundred people packed themselves in and were standing outside. The atmosphere was generated most by the presence of a hundred and twenty or so new converts. The thing about Africa is that there is always room for about hundred more people in any given space anywhere anytime .

The baptism was an amazing experience. Even though we baptized over a hundred and twenty people the presence and grace of God was tangible and so wonderful.

A GREAT BAPTISM SERVICE AND THE LAST DAY OF THE CRUSADE

2006-07-17T15:10:00.000+10:00

Today was the last day of the Crusade. The church services this morning were totally wonderful. We had a teaching time for the new converts at 9:00 or so. I taught about baptism and the church was full even at that time. We were going to do the baptisms before the main service but the water was still being piped into the newly constructed (re-constructed baptism pool. In the end we waited until after the main service. All that had to be taken care of was the clothes situation. The Africans are so keen to put their best into worshipping God that they don’t like to be dressed in anything less than their best gear. It’s not just a “British tradition” it is a sigh of honour toward God. You can’t criticize them on that could. Everyone gets dressed up. So Jaemin and I had to come back after the teaching session to get changed. Then we had to take our clothes for the baptism and get changed again.

The main service was totally packed with people standing outside. More than a hundred and ten of the new converts were in the service and they made a bit fuss of them in a very genuine way and gave them some books to help them with their Christian life. There were many other converts in other congregations around Mbale according to other pastors so that was absolutely wonderful. There were a lot of other new people as well and they reckon there was over twelve hundred in the service.

It was their seventh wedding anniversary as a church. Not bad having twelve hundred people gathering after seven years. They also have planted thirty churches and have two secondary schools and a primary school and have 700 kids being looked after in orphanages.

The actual baptism time was just terrific. We baptized over a hundred and twenty people. I don’t know how those guys baptized three thousand because I was pretty tired after this lot. They lined them up in two lines and Patrick and Jaemin baptized one line and one of the other pastors and myself baptized the second line. It was pretty wild in the pool as God began to touch some of the people as they were in the water. There are no shortages of people to haul anyone who needs it off the floor or out of the water. One of the things that I noticed was how so many of the older people especially were really thin and I don’t mean healthy thin. We’ve prayed for a lot of people with aids this week and you always think that if the person is really thin they are probably aids affected.

We came home for lunch and I did some preparation for the last Crusade meeting. I was expecting a small crowd but there were thousands once again. At the beginning of the altar call I thought we may have fished the pool dry, but people kept coming. What tends to happen is that about a half or two thirds of the people come through my appeal and then the bishop takes over and another third come. He is much more persuasive than I am and has a great rapport with the people. We make a good team.

We went out for pizza after the service. Imagine that - pizza in the heart of rural Uganda. It was beautiful and we really were hungry. Everyone was in really high spirits after the events of the day. One of the things that happened as we were leaving the school grounds: the people were celebrating like we have not seen all week. You would have to be here to see how this happens. Everyone gets moving. The little kids and the adults alike. If I was going to make a judgment I would say that the men dance with more rhythm that the women, but there wouldn’t be much in it. The worship team are great African dancers and they get the whole place moving. Emmanuel is the final segment celebration leaders specialist and he gets everyone involved.

Tomorrow we have a rest in the morning and then pack up and head for Soroti in the afternoon. There is a betting agency taking money on how long it will take to get there. We have heard as quick as an hour and we have heard three and a half hours. We are about to find out who gets the money.

I’m not sure if there will be opportunity for me to send from Soroti. I am hoping there will be an internet café there or something, but I will try.

The photos’ will probably come tomorrow. The power went out again and they are running a generator here at the house just for a short time.

Hope to keep you in touch. Love to you all and keep praying for us.

SATURDAY PHOTO GALLERY

2006-07-16T12:59:00.000+10:00

One of the young guys on the team had his hair done in those tight plaits and then had some coloured hair added to the ends. When I was with Bishop Patrick this morning he told me that while that may not be important in Australia, in Africa only the women and the very rebellious young men have their hair done like this. It is a fashionable thing for women but a statement of rebellion for a man. So the team helped Dave get back to normal this afternoon before the Crusade

This is Dan. He is a young Acholi man who helps Patrick and Christine in the house. Here he is using the coke powered iron to do my shirt for me before the Crusade. They burn the pieces of coke inside the body of the iron and when it is hot they can iron the clothes. It takes a bit longer but works when there is no power.

The members of the team went to the prison this morning. It is about 40 km out along the road to Soroti where we will be going on Monday afternoon. As soon as you get into the country the style of housng changes quite significantly. Here is an example of it.

As I have described in the report, the team went without Jaemin and shared, sang and preached in the prison. They were quite impressed with the way the Christian prison governor handled the situation and the prisoners. Seven of the men gave their lives to Christ through this ministry.

Here is a better way to preach. If we have the British colonisers and missionaries to thank for the fact that the pastors wear suits and ties to preach, I am grateful that the Africans had better sense. This shirt is not quite as formal as the suit, but Patrick said it would be acceptable for me to wear. It will be even more appropriate when we go to Soroti where it is much hotter.

SATURDAY LAST DAY OF THE CONFERENCE MBALE

2006-07-16T12:52:00.000+10:00

Today was the last day of the conference. It was a great meeting. Jaemin preached from about 9:00 till 10:00 am and it was wonderful stuff. We are still working with two interpreters and it makes the going slow. No way to keep speaking momentum. When there are two interpreters you need to speak in longer phrases or sentences so that people can get a whole thought at one time. It’s a bit harder but by no means impossible.

They had a great time of worship after the first session and then I was up. I spoke about the fourth imperative, that being the need to operate by the power of the Spirit and not on human ability. I spoke from about 10:30 to 12:45 and then we had ministry and the Holy Spirit certainly broke out in a big way. It was quite some time till things were back to normal. At the end of all of that the Bishop closed the meeting and recognized the pastors who had been attending and with whom he had relationship. He was quite candid in his comments about the fact that for many years the churches of Kampala had looked down on the pastors from the regional towns and villages. He re-emphasized his own vision and the vision of a large number of pastors from the eastern region, to come together to see the revival flow into every small village and every town. He said that a Kampala pastor had stopped by the Crusade and was amazed at the crowds and the responses and said to him the if he was in Kampala he would have a much bigger church than he had (Mbale is known for it’s hardness against the gospel. It is the main centre for Islam in the East Africa Region. They actually have an Islamic University here and Muslims come from all over Africa to study here. It is also a place where there is a lot of witchcraft. Churches have struggled to grow here, but the Spirit of the Lord is moving in a new way at this time and the Christians are very encouraged. Patrick said when the pastor from Kampala made the comment, that he didn’t want to have a big church in Kampala. He wanted to see the churches growing in Mbale and in all the villages.

They are holding a pastor’s convention at the end of August and there will be about 500 pastors coming. They will be seeking God for the ways to work together to see the work expand. They speakers are all going to be local and the prayer is going to be very focused. Jaemin and I have made an undertaking that we will make sure that all of the pastors who don’t have Bibles get Bibles. There may be as many as 200 pastors who don’t have Bibles. We are going to speak with the Bible Society in Kampala on our way back through to Entebbe to see which is the cheapest and best way to get them here. We need Bibles in English, Luganda and Acholi. It will be a big task to get them here in time, but we are determined to do it. Unfortunately even the cheapest Bibles here are about 12 dollars US which seems wrong to me when we can buy one for about three dollars in Australia. We will see if we can ship the English ones in from somewhere else. We will be trying to raise about three thousand dollars to cover the costs.

The team went to the jail outside of town today. A number of the prisoners made a commitment to Christ. The Governor of the prison is a Christian and once again there will be good support. They took a few boxes of soap to give to them. It was a great experience for the team to go there without Jaemin and as they preached people responded so they were really pumped up. Being Saturday there were no schools to go to so they had a well earned rest time this afternoon before going off to the Crusade.

The Crusade was great again tonight. I was wondering who would be there because the pastors and leaders from the Conference (about 1,000 in all) made up a part of the crowd each night. But we didn’t have any concerns as we drove to the ground because the place was full of people. Being Saturday there were a lot of locals who couldn’t come during the weekdays. There were large responses to the call for salvation and the people who are going to show up for baptism in water tomorrow at church will be large. The baptism pool was just being completed this afternoon.

Today the Bishop took me to a shop where he bought me two African shirts. They are formal shirts but have no collar and are much cooler to wear. I was all decked out in a shirt and tie, but he suggested I put it on in the shop and wear it to preach. That’s what I did. It sure felt a lot better than the suit and tie job. He bought me two and they were a good price. I might even buy one more and take them to Soroti which will be much hotter than here.

We are all gearing up for Soroti. We will be doing Conference and Crusade meetings every day from Tuesday to Saturday as well as schools and the displaced persons camps and one or two other places. It will be much more difficult than this week since we are sleeping at a village about 40 km from the town and there is no power or sewerage or any plumbing there. This means we will go into town first thing each morning and come home after the Crusade meetings at night. There will be no place to rest between meetings so we will have to do the best we can.

FRIDAY PHOTO GALLERY

2006-07-15T13:42:00.000+10:00

The crowds gather in the Mbale Secondary School Ground as the Crusade Program begins. The people gather at 4:00 and the preaching starts at about 6:45 pm. After the altar call and healing ministry the people break out in this wonderful celebration of worship and praise

Both at the conference today and at the Crusade there was this pumped up worship band using these traditional instruments. They were a total blast. One of the things that happen as people perform worship songs like this is that people come up while they are presenting the items and put money in their hands to show their appreciation. They do it some times when you are preaching as well. I need to point out that I have received a total of 1,000 USh which amounts to about seventy cents Australian. Perhaps I need to pump up the preaching a bit.

By the time the preaching happens it is usually dark I asked Bishop Patrick if the people would be less likely to respond because it was dark and should be pull the program forward so that the altar call would be before the darkness comes. He said that people don't go home because it is dark and the darkness often make them more likely to respond. He is an astute operator, no doubt about it.

More and more people are coming to Christ. When they pray and commit their lives to Christ they are taken to the side and have all their names and contact details recorded. They are invited to church on Sunday to be baptized. The church has had to re-dig its baptism pool. It was outside the building and got covered with soil during a development . I saw all this digging going on yesterday and didn't know what was going on until the Bishop told me they were "re-digging the wells of revival" so to speak.

FRIDAY AT MBALE A LONG TREK FOR THE TEAM

2006-07-15T13:40:00.000+10:00

I felt for the members of the team today. They have given themselves so totally to whatever has been asked of them and partly because they have been doing such a great job the pastors of Faith Fellowship Church who has been organizing the schools and orphanages packed them in today. Jaemin in particular has a tall order because he preaches for an hour each morning between 8:00 and 9:00 before all the others join him to go off to the school program. One of the state school principals was talking with the team today saying that the Ugandan government is totally disorganized when it comes to schools. They can be given thirty computers to use to teach the kids but some component of the system will be missing and they won’t be able to use them and it seems almost impossible to track down what they need. Also they can have computers but no one trained to teach with a similar result. He said it was all very political and not very educational. So many of the state school principals are believers and the guys on the team find it amazing and refreshing to have the Principle strongly urging the students to hear and respond to the message of the gospel. In those cases also the Principal’s will make very sincere commitments to follow up the students who become Christians.

In addition to the two schools they went to the local hospital this afternoon at 5:00. It was a pretty confronting scene for everyone, especially the girls on the team. Apparently the conditions were pretty poor and the state of people’s health was worse. There were a lot of aids affected people there and the whole thing impacted them quite noticeably. On top of that they were rushed back to the crusade to do their worship stint. Everyone appreciates what they do so that makes the energy demands a little more bearable. When they got home tonight they all had small meals and were quickly off to their beds.

I don’t know whether I have a picture of David Grevengoed or not. He is one of the guys on the team and yesterday he was talking to a lady who does people’s hair and he asked her if she would do his hair in those tightly plaited locks. It took her two hours or so and it was quite a work of art.

I had the morning off this morning. The Bishop and I had a talk about my voice. I have been just making it each day. By the time I speak for more than two hours in the morning and then preach at the Crusade I come home without a voice. We thought it if was rested for a morning that might help. There is still a long way to go in this work and so the Bishop decided to preach. I went along with him to the session. It was a very lively session indeed. He preaches like a fox terrier grabbing hold of someone’s trouser leg. He grabs hold and doesn’t let go while there is any hope of something worthwhile happening. At the end of the session we prayed for all of the pastors in particular, but what often happens when there is a Holy Spirit breakout here is that you inevitably end up with people writhing in a snake like way and they drag them up and lay them at the front. Sometimes they have to physically restrain them, but as the ministry goes on and the demons are cast out they end up lying there peacefully. All of that happened today.

By the time I got to preach at the Crusade this evening there had been some wonderful testimonies by a couple of guys who were now pastors of churches in the region. One was delivered of a bunch of demons that made him like a madman and the other pastor had been healed of aids….actually both he and his wife were healed. His first wife had died of aids and he and his second wife both contracted aids and they were listening to the Bishop preach on the radio and heard his call to reach out to Jesus to be healed. They both did and they both were. He was an older guy and was clearly healthy and strong and pasturing a growing church in a nearby town. I was going to preach another message, but when there was such a strong testimony of healing I preached about the woman who pressed through the crowd to receive her healing. There was once more a large response of people who came to the Lord and then we prayed for many many people to be healed. The presence of the Lord was once again very tangible and amazing. I know I have said it before, but there is something even more profound when the presence of God comes to an open air situation. This school ground is definitely holy ground at this time. I am reminded of what we were told about Carlos Annacondia in Argentina where that was literally born out in the fact that people who were sick would step onto the ground where the crusade was being held and be healed….and then come up onto the platform and testify to it. Well, there’s a challenge that we have yet to see here.

In the local papers (Kampala) today there was a story about a set of peace talks that are taking place today in South Sudan with leaders from the LRA. It seems that the Ugandan Government have agreed to attend these talks and it seems also that enough senior members of the LRA are prepared to go to the meeting. All of that does look a bit weird to me. Why would the government want to have peace talks with a person who has broken every human rights convention in the book. Patrick told me the government were going to the talks not to end up seeking a peace deal but to find out what state the LRA is in and what their terms might be. Already Joseph Kony is facing charges from the International Criminal Court. As with all stories there are more than two sides. One of the things that has empowered the LRA is the matter of discontent in the north and north west of the country. There have been ideas that there could be a secession and South Sudan and the extreme north of Uganda would form a new nation. It is a nightmare idea in all reality but like a lot of these things, when you get into the forgotten north here the people are not necessarily willing to think rationally. The disaffection is strong and therefore the opportunity to form a “One Nation” kind of confederacy become a reality. It is one of the issues the Ungandan Government is having to deal with. Because Kony so severely stepped over the line there is not broad support for him. There is certainly not a broadly felt idea that he could form an alternative government with South Sudan. But of course you have the same thing in the Sudan. People in the south are disaffected and angry and that’s how Kony was supported at the beginning. That’s where he got arms up until quite recently (as you may have seen in the video).

The reason I speak about all of this is not just the politics, but it highlights another great need and that is for churches to be planted in these areas. The re-settlement is slow and the impact of the gospel is currently weakest in this part of the country. For there to be a strong lift in the nation this problem has to be overcome. The back of the demonic opposition has been broken as you have seen, but this is the poorest part of the nation and like people everywhere there is a lag in the work of re-pioneering church planting in these areas. The Bishop is very aware of this and one of the reason why he wants to plant a church in Soroti is to use that town as a base for planting more churches into the north west region. He comes from Soroti and speaks the Acholi (spelling??) language. What a great work it would be to see this area not only resettled but evangelized.

THURSDAY PHOTOS

2006-07-14T23:07:00.000+10:00

HERE IS THE PREACHER GIVING IT ALL HE'S GOT.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN COMING TO CHRIST EACH DAY IN THE CRUSADE.

THIS IS THE YOUNG MUSLIM MAN WHO GAVE HIS LIFE TO CHRIST AFTER BEING AT THE PREVIOUS THREE MEETINGS

HERE THE TEAM IS SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH YOUNG PEOPLE FROM ONE OF THE SCHOOLS

THURSDAY – MBALE

2006-07-14T22:41:00.000+10:00

We are in the second part of the week now. The crusade will continue until Sunday night in the School ground. The School is about three kilometers from the church so most of the people at the conference walk there after lunch and walk back to sleep after the crusade. No one wants to leave early because of that. They probably would in Australia. There is clearly a hunger for God here. When you remember that relatively few people have Bibles it’s a matter of comparing Christian meetings to reading the Bible. It’s not quite like that but there is a strong hunger that surpasses self interest. That’s the key. There are great things happening in this nation. It is interesting to be here and to get a different perspective on things than the video presentations show. Its not that the videos are covering up the truth. They tell a part of the story.

The other part of the story has to do with all the usual suspects. There are some pastors who belong to a National Fellowship of Born Again Churches or some such name like that and some of them have more access to the political leaders and they have often tended to attract the interest that has been created outside Uganda by the videos. And, you could guess it, they attract more of the money and support that comes whether or not they are doing the front line ministry. The other side of it has to do with the other usual suspect of parochialism. The Kampala driven ministries are often restricted to the city and there are large regions of the country that need church planters and pioneer workers. Due to a hundred and twenty something years of missionary endeavor there is usually a residual of Christian awareness, but when people turn away from the things of God they turn to traditional paganism and witchcraft and the like. The enemy tends to rush in like a flood.

So there are very few who are pushing up through the centre to the north west areas. These, as you may be aware are the ones that have been most affected by the LRA terrorists. It seems that Joseph Coney is still around breathing threats. His power has been very significantly weakened as you saw in the video (if you haven’t seen “An Unconventional War” contact Toowoomba City Church and they will send you one. It is a great story. Very inspiring). People here have been aware of the fact that a journalistic team recently came to Uganda and somehow managed to arrange a meeting with Coney and they interviewed him. He is like the Osama Bin Laden of Uganda and the people here feel angered by the fact that a foreign team would find a way of getting to him but not do anything to help get him arrested. One of the claims he made was that he lives by the ten commandments. I think he might have a few less than ten in his book. Murder would be a glaring omission.

Soroti, where we are going next week, was a town that formed its own army when the Ugandan government would not come and protect them. Coney targeted the town to take it over and use it as a base. He had taken over other towns just through people leaving. But Soroti resisted him in two ways. They formed an army and got guns from the government to do so and the churches came together to pray. Before each attack the Christians would pray for the locally formed army and while they were in the battle they would engage in unceasing intercession. The result was that Soroti because the first town that Coney did not capture and it was a turning point in the war against this terrorist.

One of the reasons I am glad that God has brought us together with Bishop Patrick is that he has a huge heart for this region and has already been planting churches back up toward the north west. We will be helping them plant a new church in Soroti itself and I will be preaching at their first service. Patrick also works well with pastors in this eastern and central region. He is a real father figure. We would definitely call him an apostle because he has gained so much broad respect and because he provides a structure for churches to relate much like Crosslink. Here is a true pioneer. The church here in Mbale was only started in 1999. In the last twelve months it has doubled in size. Patrick is definitely Mr. Perpetual Motion. Everyone knows his mobile number and they text messages asking him to pray for them. And he does. He is on the radio every evening at 7:00 pm once again receiving prayer requests and praying for people’s needs.

We had another great day today. Conference session included Jaemin preaching for an hour between 8:00 and 9:00 and then I preached from 11:30 to after 1:30. Today was a bit more of a challenge because they were not only translating into Luganda (the most common language in Mbale) but there was an interpreter into the language that they speak to the north west of here, which I can’t remember the name. I have enjoyed working with Joseph, who does the first interpretation but the second guy was a bit slower and so I had to speak and then Joseph and then the third guy. It was okay once I got used to it. What I had to do was to speak in full short sentences rather than half sentences. Once I got that right it was okay. You can see why humour takes some doing in this kind of situation. You have to wait for the second group to get the words before they can react, and the first group react when they hear the first translation; and there are quite a few who speak English so they get it right away. Can be a bit confusing.

There seemed to be an even greater anointing in the crusade meeting this evening. There was a much bigger response to the altar call. One exciting story came from Jaemin. He had been scouting around the perimeter looking for people to talk to and had met this Muslim man. He had been at the meetings each night but when the appeal was made and Jaemin asked the question he always refused. Well, tonight he responded. It was so terrific. We were praying for sick people till much later. One of the difficulties is that Emmanual likes the sound to be totally full up. When you stand in front of the stage area praying for people you can’t hear a thing. The worship team always bring worship during the ministry time so that means you just lay hands on people and pray for all you are worth.

Tonight we came home and had a meal and headed straight for bed. Much much nicer plan, despite the great food last evening.

WEDNESDAY MUCH MORE IMPACT EVERWHERE

2006-07-13T21:59:00.000+10:00

I’m probably going to get confused somewhere about now. The days are full and demanding, but at the same time exhilarating. These are great people to be in the midst of and we so much enjoy what we are doing. But it is like a long distance runner enjoys the challenge but has to find a stride somewhere in the middle that will keep the pace up without running out of steam. We have all put a lot into what we have been doing. The (mostly) younger guys from the team continue to work hard in the schools and at the crusade meetings. People always appreciate what they do and more an more teenagers have been making commitments to Christ.

Yesterday was the first day it didn’t rain at all from the beginning of the crusade. The sun was shining and there were more people. The responses have continued at about the same rate. One of the things that interests me is the fact that the altar call definitely needs to be extended from what we might think is appropriate. If I stopped the call when I would probably do so in Australia, only half the people would be there. It’s not just a matter of manipulation, and it may be cultural, I don’t know. It is certainly worthwhile. I am not one of those people who has any issue about long altar calls. I got saved through a long altar call and my salvation is pretty genuine. It’s a work of the Spirit and while it remains a work of the Spirit we just need to allow the Spirit to work. That’s what I say. I am learning to see what is needed and fall into line.

We spent a long time praying for sick people at the end of the meeting last night. African people are like aboriginal people as far as looking for prayer is concerned. We prayed for hundreds of people.

When it was over and we arrive back at the house (around 9:00 pm) the power was out. I think I may have mentioned how the power works. It is rationalized around the country and at any one time half the towns may be without power. So it was the turn for Mbale to be without power for a good long stint. Bishop Patrick decided that we would all go out for evening meal. It was a wonderful idea as far as Christine was concerned, but as for most of the rest of us it was a bit torturous. I for one was dead tired. And I mean dead. I had no voice, I couldn’t even whisper, so I sat there in the restaurant talking to no one. The whole thing took about two hours. It was a restaurant that served European food and it was very good of the Bishop to take us there. Many of the guys had steaks that looked terrific and it was relatively cheap. A full steak dish was only about $A10.00. I could only muster enough energy for an omelet. With the power out I wasn’t able to get near the web and so this report is coming late. This will be good practice for us of course because next week we will be staying in a village west of Soroti where there is no power.
While we were at the restaurant the girl serving the table quietly put some candles on the tables without saying anything and then about half an hour later the lights went out while they refueled their generator. Then they came back on. By the way, the restaurant was called “Oasis of Life” and they played Hillsong worship and Terry Macalmon worship tapes as background music.
This morning when I went to see if there was any way of ironing my shirt, Christine got a young boy to fire up a coke iron. I don’t know if you would ever have seen one, but coke was put into the body of the iron and it was left out on the step so that the wind could fire up the coke. When it was all hot and burning well, they closed up the iron and before a few minutes had elapsed I had a nice ironed shirt.

I will send this without pictures simply because I want to keep it happening. I so appreciate your interest and prayer support. My voice, as I explained above is still only a happening event when I am preaching. I said to the Bishop that if they had taped any of the session (which they don’t here because few people have players) and sent the tapes home no one would recognize my voice. I sound like one or two footballers who have been tackled by a stiff arm across the throat too many times.

In conversation this morning I was remonstrating (in a whisper of course; very hard to remonstrate well when you can only whisper) that Paul had asked three times to have his thorn removed. I said I had been asking three days and thought it should be gone by now. Then someone corrected me by saying that as far as we know, Paul never lost whatever it was that bothered him. He just experienced more grace. At that point I began to think of all the reasons why this could not be a thorn in the flesh. I wouldn’t like to spend the rest of my life operating like this. I would be needing to preach a sermon to have an intimate conversation with Nola. I don’t think she would find that very pleasing.

No I’m going to pray that God will heal me. It is definitely the result of the cold. I have preached as much as this before without a bother, so it is just one of those annoying things that God has allowed to happen so that purposes would be accomplished that I wasn’t planning for.

DAY TWO AT MBALE - MORE RAIN BUT GREATER RESPONSE

2006-07-12T06:00:00.000+10:00

We have had a great day again today. In terms of battles it was greater today but in terms of results they were also greater.

Here are the guys preparing food for the people who have travelled to the conference

Jaemin preached to the early group at the conference (between 8:00 and 9:00 am) and I followed along at about 10:30 am to do my session. Jaemin has been doing a great job and his teaching is very well received.

I had no voice at all. In conversation I could hardly make myself understood. I had determined in prayer this morning that I would simply trust God to give me a voice. That was literally what happened. In fact when I was invited to speak I opened my mouth and could not make more than a very soft sound. The interpreter was really in trouble of course. But I determined that the God of heaven and earth would be glorified and even though it seemed foolish I began by whispering into the microphone: “Today my voice is weak. But I have read this in the Bible. That God’s strength is made effective in the midst of human weakness. I asked them to stay with me for a few minutes and see how God’s grace would be seen. As I kept on talking my voice literally became strong. Every knew that God was doing a very wonderful work. I preached and taught for two and a half hours. I am amazed and somewhat relieved that I can connect with these people in a way that is natural to me and that gets the message through. It is SO connected that I can only think it is a result of the special anointing of God and nothing less. Its different to what happens with me when I am in Australia and yet just as connected. The Bishop was not expecting me to preach for that length of time (even though he had encourage me to take as long as that and more). I know that many of you who read this may think how long two and a half hours is for preaching, but here it is like 45 minutes. I taught on repentance and when I called for a response at the end there was a move of real heart repentance that went on for quite a while.

This is the house where Bishop Patrick and his wife Christine live. They have six children. Three are away at school. They had rooms done up just in time for us.

When a came back to the house I was once again almost incommunicado. No voice. I spent the afternoon leading up to the crusade resting and in prayer. When the Bishop came to pick me up I was still with no voice. I just squeaked. So I had to go through the same thing again. You might think that this time I would be full of faith but the second time was just as hard as the first. I sat there and it was beginning to sprinkle with rain. By the time I got up to preach it was heavier rain. Once again God came to visit and I was given a voice to preach. The crowd was smaller because of the rain and it became even heavier. Some people began to leave and others went for cover under some trees. I wondered what would happen. I was going to cut it short because of the rain but the Holy Spirit challenged me not to be distracted. So I kept on firing with every barrel available to me. I couldn’t believe the response. Some came and then more and then more and then more. By the time the Bishop had come and finished the appeal there were more people seeking Jesus than yesterday. Maybe up near two hundred. After that we prayed for the sick and the presence of God to touch people was once again very profound and tangible.

By the time I got home my whole body ached. Once again my voice went back to its mouse box and I squeaked my way around the house until we went to bed.

In addition to all of that the team went to two schools, High Schools today. They had a much better time than yesterday and about a dozen high school kids gave their lives to Christ. High School kids here are a bit the same as in Australia. They don’t get manipulated into anything. These commitments were fair dinkum and the pastors who went with the team were diligent getting names and details to follow them up. We have been building all week for a great baptism service on Sunday morning. I am really looking forward to this.

We are grateful to God for what he has done in us and to us as well as through us. We are also conscious beyond debate of the sense of being carried by your wonderful prayers. Tomorrow will be another day following basically the same schedule (which changes delightfully in African style) and we are becoming aware that serving God here is good practice for serving him anywhere. We need to be ready to do anything at anytime anywhere with anyone.

The team have once again been just top draw. Amy gave a talk at the High School today. She is a more quiet kind of girl and was fearing the presentation stuff. Everyone including herself knew that as she started with some hesitation it wasn’t long before she was flowing truth by the power of the Spirit. A great step up.

Keep on praying for us. We need desperately and we are seeing it bearing fruit more and more each day. The pastor from Soroti who is coordinating the meetings there came to spend the day with us today. He was really excited about what was happening and told us some great stories about the town and how the saints of God had gathered together when the LRA came to take it over. They were turned back with a Joshua army on the ground and miracles driven by the prevailing united prayer of the believers. We are looking forward to being there next week.

Folks, excuse this personal bit:
Nola, I have been getting your emails through the Ozemail web page, and have sent three or maybe four emails to you. One was sent from Dubai and the others in response to your email. Thank you for sending them and please keep at it. I can't tell you how great it is to get them. I will have to try and figure out why my replies are not getting through. I love you

THE FIRST DAY OF THE CONFERENCE AND CRUSADE

2006-07-11T15:47:00.000+10:00

This morning I woke up to find that my voice was beginning to crack up. I have had a cold for the last few days and was coughing and sputtering a bit with it, but the combination of the cold and the preaching to date managed to affect my throat.

People started gathering for the conference by about 7:00 am in the morning. By the time I was taken to the meeting at 10:30 the church was overflowing with people and they were (of course) in full swing. Bishop Patrick was busy getting arrangements done for the day and the meeting was being run by one of the other pastors. Emmanuel preached for a bit and then the Bishop preached and I was put on at about 11:15 and preached and taught until after 1:30 without stopping. There is a difference between the way preaching and teaching happens here. I can’t say that it is common, but in this movement there is a lot of shouting and the preaching tends to be very emotive. I’m not saying it is not genuine but it certainly pitches into a spot that we would see as the emotions rather than the mind or somewhere else. There is a tendency to view teaching as lacking anointing just because it is less demonstrative. This was one of the reasons why Emmanuel wanted me to come. He wanted to expose the people to teaching where the power would come from the word more than from the presentation.

So I taught about how important it was to live by every word from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4; Exodus 8:6). At one point I asked how many people did not own a Bible and found that there were some hundreds of people there who didn’t have one of their own. As a group we pledged to return to Australia and raise the money needed to get them Bibles. The session went really well and I was able to connect with people and establish a rapport. The interpreter was a great bloke who was not only skilled but had a personality that made what we were doing fun.

The rest of the team went to a couple of schools and gave presentations there with music and skits and preaching. They returned to the conference and we were there together for most of the time I preached. They did some worship at the end.

The March for Jesus was supposed to happen by 3:00 pm but before that time it started to pour with rain. It was very strong and constant. We began to pray that it would stop and it did. The march went on as planned but a little late and then with the rain the Crusade started late. I came home to rest after the teaching and was really worried about my voice. I spent the time in prayer.

The Bishop came to pick me up and drive me to the Secondary School grounds. The place was not filled but there were many thousands of people there. The program was cut a but short. The worship team from Faith Fellowship Church led the first part of the praise and then our guys did some worship songs. Then it was my time to preach. My voice was cracking and there were moments where I would lose it altogether. But the grace and presence of the Lord was so powerful. He kept on giving me the ability to speak and by the end of my message I was still able to speak strongly. I preached on the healing of Bartimaeus and had talked about him running to Jesus. When I made the altar call I challenged people who didn’t know Christ to run to the alter. And they did. Somewhere between one and two hundred people received Christ. It was a very powerful time. We then prayed for healing and hundreds more came to receive prayer. That was also powerful and God did some amazing things. We will be hearing people give their testimonies in the meeting tomorrow.

The team worked hard, helping the local guys with the follow up stuff and with other prayer. The rain stayed away and the night finished with a great time or praise and worship. People were so filled with joy and knew the power of God’s presence was in the place. It’s a funny thing, but the experience of the presence of God in an open field is different from in a building. I can’t say how or why, but it is. There is something greater about what we had experienced.

The Lord will need to do a job on my voice. This is the beginning of eleven days of Conference and Crusade, then there are two more Sundays of meetings. I am looking forward to everything God will do.

I was so proud of the way the church leaders and the Bishop himself handled the rain and all of the complications it brought. There was a time when I wondered if we were going to be able to even have the meeting, but the Lord prevailed and Patrick and his team were strong and what turned out was a great beginning to the meetings.

Sunday July 09

2006-07-10T16:23:00.000+10:00

Uganda Impact 06

Today started reasonably early. The guys had to take the PA gear up to the church before the 8:00am service and get it all sync’ed with the other gear they had. It works wonderfully. The people in the church said the sound had never been so good. Emmanuel wanted it turned up pretty loud and even though it was only running at about 30% of the capacity it filled the church building and beyond.

Jaemin preached in the early service. They have services here that basically run into each other without a break. The first service is a Bible teaching time and as soon as it was over the worship team from the church were pumping up with great worship.

At the same time as this was going on, Bishop Patrick and I were up at the local radio station doing a one hour program. It comprised the Bishop doing some fiery introduction, then me preaching for fifteen minutes and then people ringing in to have prayer request prayed for over the air. The phone was running hot, as was Patrick’s mobile with SMS. We had trouble keeping up with all the requests. We also used the program to enable the co-ordinators from the outlying regions to know where and when to be picked up to come to the conference.

They are expecting about 6,000 people to the conference and many of those are staying at the church compound and the church people are feeding them. They have had to cut off the numbers just because they couldn’t cope with the accommodation and food. People began arriving in trucks and on foot. Some of them came from as far away as Kenya. There were seven Kenyan pastors with their people at the evening service tonight.

The church was full for the 10:30 am service. There would probably have been around a thousand people gathered there. The guys from our team played some worship songs and people loved what they did and soon got involved. The local worship team consists of a choir and musicians (just a keyboard and bass before the drum kit that we brought was set up). These guys are all rhythm. The choir would pass off anywhere in Australia as dancers. The guys are every much as good as the girls and they add so much context and energy to the worship. But the people in general are like that and many many people are out there dancing away during the worship. We couldn’t understand most of the songs. They don’t have words on any screen and they don’t stop from the beginning to the end of the worship time. Worship usually goes for an hour or so and is totally wonderful even if we couldn’t sing the words. I’m determined to get some of those body moves happening and be able to dance like these guys do. They are just total rhythm from top to bottom.

I preached and, among other things gave an invitation to come to Christ and about a dozen people came to the front to receive prayer and ministry. The pastor who counseled them said that they were all from Mbale so that is good for follow up. One of the things I have had on my heart is to point people beyond revival. They have experienced revival here, but the nation has still been ravaged by terror and violence. The reason why we need more than revival is because God wants to create a nation where there will be safety and blessing for our children and grandchildren. There have been very few revivals that have seeded blessing for their grandchildren. So many people responded to this call that we had to create a prayer tunnel and while we sang some beautiful worship songs that we knew, the people came and were being touched by God as they made their way through the tunnel provided by out team. While that happened I stood at the front and began to pray for children, asking that they would not only inherit something, but carry something from heaven for their peers. It was a very powerful time.

We had lunch with the Elders of the church after the meeting. We went to one of the hotels in town and were served some great Ugandan food. Don’t ask me what it all was called. We had a great time getting to know these precious people. After lunch we went to pray at the school ground where the stage was being built for the crusade meetings. We just stood together and prayed that God would make this ground holy and that it would become a meeting place where the God of heaven would meet people at their point of need and pour out his grace and favour.

All of that took up the time almost until the afternoon service. Their evening meeting for the day begins at 4:00 pm. They do it this way because they very often don’t have regular power supply. Towns are rationalized for power and it goes off every second day in some places. This is a political thing and an export thing. Uganda generates power for other nations as well as an export commodity and the people in the regional areas have to do without so that export dollars can be earned for the nation. Most businesses have generators. In fact some of the girls on the team went to a market after church tonight to buy some dresses and the power went out so they had to finish choosing by torchlight.

The evening meeting was smaller than the morning but here were people who had arrived to stay at the church for the conference. I think I already said that there were six or seven Kenyan pastors there and some of their people. I preached again and talked about the glory of God in the ordinary but called for a final time of prayer to seek the blessing of the Lord on the conference and crusade meetings. We had an awesome time of prayer. It was so powerful. Everyone just humbled themselves before the Lord and were crying out and weeping for the lost people from the regions. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

I was pretty whacked after all of this so I just sat in the car while the others did their shopping and the Okabes did some food shopping. When we came home I lay on the bed and had to be woken for the evening meal. I hope I can get onto the net and send this off. The pictures are from today’s experiences.

Please pray for my voice. I have had a cold almost since the say I left Sydney and my throat is not all that strong. And pray for the meetings that will be going on each day as you read this. Thank you for this special love and partnership. If you met the people we have been meeting you would understand that it is a partnership of very great value.

UGANDA IMPACT FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

2006-07-09T05:31:00.000+10:00

July 7 and 8

The last few days have seemed a bit like a blur really. We climbed on board an Emirates A340-500 and spent fourteen hours in dark skies and landed at Dubai at 5:30 am. After a few hours wait we loaded up again and flew to Entebbe via Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia) Its amazing to find the number of Christians and Christian groups on these kinds of flights, especially from Dubai down to Africa. There were a whole bunch of Irish young people who were part of the Habitat group or one of those groups who build houses for poor people around the world. It took us until 3:30 pm to land finally at Entebbe.
The first challenge was our accompanied baggage. They weren’t going to let us go until we produced invoices and descriptions for all the things we had. They were talking taxes and big time. We tried every avenue until I talked with the lady who seemed to be in charge and said we were going up country to serve the Lord and this was our equipment and that she had the power to bless the people of Uganda by releasing us with our gear. She agreed and we walked out with it.
We had another fourteen pieces of unaccompanied baggage in the cargo depot at the airport but by the time we got there it was closing up and we were told to come back in the morning (Saturday). This was not possible for us since we were going to drive for five or more hours. But there was no two ways about it and we agreed to drive back in the morning. It would mean leaving before 5:00 am.

We eventually arrived at Mbale by 11:00 pm. They were holding an all night prayer meeting at this time and we needed to go over and spend some time meeting the people and I was to give a word and etc. We ended up getting there by 12:00 and stayed until 2:30 am. There were about 700 people at the prayer meeting and they were going right off. It was wonderful. We were dead beat but very energized by the passion and faith of these people. Emmanual shared and ministered a bit. They love him and were so glad to see him return.

Patrick (Emmanuel’s father) and I got up and left for Entebbe at around 5:00 arriving by 9:00am. Patrick had enlisted the help of a man who worked in the President’s office to see how things could be processed with a minimum of fuss and even more important a minimum of expense. What proceeded from the time we arrived was far too complex to explain. I don’t ever think I could explain it. We went from office to paperwork and from one official to another. We finally got in to where our equipment was and there wre three pieces missing. There was all the same set of disputes about how much the stuff cost and the fact that if we were leaving it in the country we would be required to pay tax on it. This could have ended up costing another 3,000 plus dollars. The melee continued and it was obvious that certain people would have to be given financial incentive to simply allow the process to continue. It ended up costing us about another $A1,000. It was a convoluted process that took from around 8:30 till 1:00. We finally had our clearance paper at 1:00 pm but guess what…..the whole show shut down at 100 pm and we were told to return on Monday morning. This was impossible as you would realize. Our conference and crusade began on Monday and I was the only one who could appear to accept the goods since they were on my ticket. We were all praying like mad for God to intervene. And he did. The key woman customs officer finally told our official man that she would return in half an hour and open up the shed again and we could get out our gear. We waited longer than that but she returned and our fourteen pieces of equipment were extracted and loaded up. We gave her a lift back to Kampala and she talked about the fact that she was a Christian and wanted to help us but found it difficult with everything else that was going on at the time. We were more than a little grateful. We arrived back in Mbale at about 8:00 pm in the end. What a day. What a struggle, but we are now poised to begin the program tomorrow with the services in Faith Cathedral. The rest of the team were able to sleep and relax, so that was terrific. I’ll try and get a good sleep tonight and get ready to preach in the morning.

Pray for us..

Love to all of you from all of us.

HEALING THINKING AND BEAHAVIOUR

2006-07-06T09:11:00.000+10:00

Philippians Chapter Four

2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

THIS TEACHING STARTED OUT AS A RESPONSE TO A FIGHT BETWEEN TWO SISTERS IN THE CHURCH IN PHILIPPI.

· It must have been a long standing disagreement because Paul was in Rome and these two ladies were in Macedonia and he was writing assuming that whatever it was between them had taken on a permanent format.

· These two were not people who didn’t know better. They were fellow workers in the cause of Christ. (Remember that the church in Philippi was started with a bunch of women who used to go out from the town to pray.)

· This was a problem that had been allowed to remain and it was obviously continuing to affect the church, but had not been resolved.

· This is a good down to earth example of what happens when we find ourselves operating in consistent dysfunction. This disagreement was saying something about the women and it was saying something about the church.

· All dysfunction needs attention, otherwise it will continue to needlessly limit the effectiveness of the church.

· So often we alternatively choose to live with the dysfunction and when we do that for too long it becomes as normal for us.

· When we make dysfunction normal, we will certainly see it being reproduced in the people around us and the people who look to us for their values.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

SIX IMPORTANT PERSONAL INITIATIVES

1. DETERMINE TO FIND THE JOY THAT COMES FROM JESUS, RATHER THAN FROM CIRCUMSTANCES (4)

2. ALLOW GENTLENESS DOMINATE YOUR APPROACH RATHER THAN DESTRUCTIVE REACTIVE EMOTIONS (5)

3. DECIDE TO LOOK AT THESE ISSUES IN THE LIGHT OF THE IMMANENT COMING OF CHRIST RATHER THAN ALLOWING THE PRESENT MOMENT TO REPRESENT TOTAL REALITY (5)

4. GET TO A PLACE OF PRAYER INSTEAD OF SITTING AROUND GETTING ANXIOUS (6,7)

5. FOCUS YOUR MIND ON EVERYTHING THAT WILL HELP RESOLVE THE ISSUE RATHER THAN THE THINGS THAT WILL CONTINUE TO DESTROY (8)

6. MAKE SURE YOU ARE DOING EVERYTHING YOU KNOW RATHER THAN WORRYING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW (9)

Photos of Great People We are About to Meet in Uganda

2006-07-03T19:33:00.000+10:00

Here are a few pictures of Uganda and the people we will be working with there.

On the left are Bishop Patrick and Christine Okabe. They are the leaders of Impact Ministries and we are going to serve them and their member churches. On the right are some members of their main congregation, Faith Cathedral in Mbale.

We packed up 450 kg.'s of unaccompanied baggage today. It included most of the sound system and a few things that Emmanuel wanted to take back and give to his father and mother. We still have to find a place for twenty (deflated) soccer balls and a whole carton of Life Savers that a wonderful friend gave me to give out to the kids in the schools and orphanages we will be working in.

UNGANDA IMPACT 06 PROGRAM

2006-07-03T06:48:00.000+10:00

Thursday July 6th - Emirates flight from Sydney to Entebbe via Dubai
Friday July 7th - Arrive Entebbe airport
Interview for national television in Uganda
Drive to Mbale (5-6 hours)
Attend the first part of an all night prayer meeting at Faith Cathedral
Saturday July 8th - Final preparations for the Conference and Crusade, Mbale
Sunday July 9th - Preaching in three services at Faith Cathedral, Mbale
Monday July 10th - Jesus March in in Mbale
Beginning of Conference sessions for pastors and leaders (11:00 - 2:00)
First meeting of the Crusade (4:00 - 8:00 pm)
Tuesday - Saturday
July 11 - 15th - 8:00 am - 2:00 pm Combined Churches Teaching Conference
Team ministry visits to schools, hospitals and other community centres
4:00 - 8:00 pm Combined Churches Crusade in the School grounds

Sunday July 16th - Preaching in Faith Cathedral Services as well as other churches

Monday July 17th - Travel to Soroti
Tuesday- Saturday
July 18 - 22 Soroti Ministry Program
8:00 am - 2:00 pm Teaching Conference
Ministry for team in Displaced Persons Centres and Schools
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evangelistic Crusade meetings and ministry

Sunday July 23rd - Preaching in Soroti churches and Faith Cathedral, Mbale

Monday July 24th - Travel to Kampala
Speaking at Universtity Campus
4:15 pm Emirates Flight Entebbe to Sydney via Dubai

Wednesday July 26
6:30 am Arrive in Sydney

UGANDA IMPACT POWERS UP - EMAIL FROM BISHOP PATRICK OKABE

2006-07-03T06:44:00.000+10:00

We are now in the final stages of preparation for our trip to Uganda to work with Bishop Patrick Okabe and his wife, Christine. We will be putting regular posts on this site from now on to let you know what is happening. The very next post will be a full copy of our ministry program. I thought you might be interetested in this email from Patrick.

Dear Pastor Brian,
We have had a great service too this Sunday Morning and I am getting ready for the evening service. We had a full church and we prayed for you and the team to arrive safely and to be used by the Lord when you are here.
All the arrangements for the conference and Crusade are now done. We have Posters and banners every where in every street and every corner. Announcements are running on all Radio stations in the town. This will be the largest Christian event ever to take place in this town. All the Pastors of different church denominations have come to support us( Over 100 churches). We are looking forward to a great harvest of souls for the Kingdom of God.
One thing I didn't mention to you is that we have also arranged for water baptism on Sunday 16th. We will conduct it. We have constructed a pool by the church.
All our churches of Impact Ministries which number over 30 will be coming together for this service.
This will also be a service for our aniversary to mark
7 years since our church was launched on 18th July 1999.
Before I started Impact Ministries I was a Principal of a Bible school. I left in march 1999, and started planting Faith churches. In the last 7 years our church has grown to be the largest in Eastern Region of Uganda and we have over 30 branch churches.We hold the largest single all night prayer meeting evry First Friday of the night in our town. You will be our guset speaker in Next Friday. You will be tired so we have arranged for you to be in the night prayer meeting till 12.00 am, then you can go and sleep. We thank God for His grace and Power which has enabled us to carry out the great commission.
Note there will be a march for Jesus on Monday 10th at 3.00 pm. beginning from the conference venue to the Crusade venue.
We too feel priviledged to host you in our house.
Thank you for the sound system.
We look forwad to seeing you

Patrick & Christine

HOW GOD RELEASES US FROM THE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT CREATED BY SHAME

2006-06-18T15:22:00.000+10:00

Grace Canberra
Building church where you are

Ephesians 2
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The Recovery Story is the Story of the Bible

WHOLENESS Dealing with the whole issue not just a part of it
God wants to heal the whole person: problems in one area always affect every other area of your life - spirit, soul and body
THE CREATION Reinstating the original plan In order to recover I have to come to terms with the fact that I am a person who was created in the image of the God of heaven and earth. Recovery will only ever be the measure of how much we are able to capture and possess our intended identity and our purpose
THE FALL dealing with the cause rather than the effect
Loss of relationship with God; introduction of guilt, shame, fear, deception and judgment
THE LAW Setting aside human compensative substitutes
Human substitute coping mechanisms - performance, blame, shame and a whole raft of sources of false comfort – pleasure, money, status
THE CROSS God’s loving substitutionary solution
God’s answer is and has always been to bear the consequences himself and then to give us what he originally intended as a gift.

THE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT CREATED BY SHAME

Here are some of the statements that people make when they allow shame to build a prison for them rather than using it to point them to God's ready made plan of redemption

· What I have done or what has been done to me will always shape my future.
· I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life and it will colour everything I do
· I will always be second rate compared to you/others
· I will only ever deserve to expect the worst that life has to offer
· No one feels as bad about themselves as I feel about myself
· I hate myself, so I may as well do things that destroy me - and destroy anyone who loves me
· So many bad things have happened in my life that I now only expect them to continue
· I’ve tried to make things different, but it doesn’t work.
· Even trying to do life differently is too hard
· I have very little to offer
· I feel so unsure of myself that I will find someone who needs me and focus all of my effort on maintaining their need of me
· If I wasn’t so fat/thin/short/tall/plain/ugly people would naturally like me

SHAME - GOD’S EARLY WARNING SYSTEM?
God has created warning systems in our make up: e.g. anger
Shame is the warning light of the conscience. It tells us when we have done something that has adversely impacted our relationship with God
Warning lights are not tools, they are arrows that point us toward the solution

SHAME - FIVE SIGNPOSTS
EMPTY ISOLATION “you were dead in your transgressions and sins”

DEADLY SUBSTITUTES “…you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air…”

LIFESTYLE INFRASTRUCTURE “…All of us also lived among them at one time..”

WORLDLY APPEAL “…gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature..”

CHOOSING JUSTICE NOT MERCY “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”

SHAME – WHAT GOD HAS DONE ABOUT IT
OUTPOURED LOVE “because of his great love for us, ”

MERCY NOT JUSTICE “… God, who is rich in mercy,..”

UNSECURED INVITATION “… made us alive with Christ even when..”

GIFT NOT PERFORMANCE “… it is by grace you have been saved..”

SHAME - WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RECEIVE GOD’S GIFT
LIFTED TO HEAVEN “And God raised us up with Christ”

ABUNDANT NOT MEASURED “… riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus...”

INVITATION NOT COMMAND “… made us alive with Christ even when..”

PURPOSE NOT CHANCE “… created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do…”

NEW CITIZENSHIP NEW NATIONALITY

19 Consequently,
you are no longer foreigners and aliens,
but fellow citizens with God’s people
and members of God’s household,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
1 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple
in the Lord.
22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling
in which God lives by his Spirit.

We need to realize that God's plan to redeem us from the things that cause us to feel shame are not just personal and private. They involve the gift of citizenship in God's family. Participation in that family is an important part of the recovery process. It is also a challenge for the family to BE that environment of redemption. In the words from the end of Ephesians 2 the following qualifications are imperative for every expression of the body of Christ:

a. Brothers and sisters in Christ must never be treated as aliens and foreigners
b. The body of Christ must always be built out of appropriately called, consecrated and gifted leaders (apostles and prophets)
c. Jesus Christ must always be the singular reference point
d. The Spirit of God must be allowed to strategically relate people together to create a powerful and holy residing presence of Jesus.

HOME TOMORROW AND UGANDA PREPARATION PRESENTING WORTHWHILE CHALLENGES

2006-06-10T09:14:00.000+10:00

This will be a long day for us. Those of you who have traveled to Darwin and want to take advantage of the cheaper air fares will know that it will more than likely turn out that you arrive after midnight and fly out after midnight. Today began my regular trip to McD’s to upload and download stuff via their very handy wireless hot spot. We will get on a plane tonight at about 1:30 am and fly to Brisbane, change for Sydney, pick up a car and drive Nola’s Mum to Port Kembla and then hit the road for Canberra.

Last night we had a great Bagot experience once again. The young people go to a water park at Leanyer (spelling ???). Nola and I went to cook the barbecue and then I spoke to the kids. It is always a challenge because they are kids who seem to travel in every direction at once and flat out. Getting them to sit and planting something in their hearts is a great challenge. Last night we had a ball and they were terrific. One of the young girls who is in Paula’s discipleship group had a birthday and Nola had bought her a little cross and dove necklace. She was blown away by it and spent the rest of the night with it around her neck, but I don’t think there was a moment when she wasn’t touching it. We introduced Nola’s Mum to Rachel who is a strong Bundara (near Katherine) woman who has prayed for her almost every day since she had to go to hospital for surgery. Rachel is very shy but incredibly strong in faith. It was a good and God connection for a mother in law who is afraid of just about everything that moves including God.

All the while we have been here in Darwin, preparations have been going on for the Uganda trip next month. We are seeking to raise up money for sound equipment to take with us and leave there when we return. They need it for church planting in villages toward the centre and north of the country. We will be going there after the crusades in Mbale. We are also looking to raise money to be able to feed the people who come for the meetings and to give the refugee people among them blankets for when they need to come into the villages each night for safety. Jaemin Frazer’s church and our church are working together on this and the money is beginning to come in. If you would like to contribute to this very worthwhile cause, please contact our office and talk to Renee or Graeme or Karen.

One of the challenges at present is being able to get the equipment there either AS or BEFORE we arrive so that we can take it up country from Entebbe with us. There will be between 400 and 500 kgs. of excess baggage. We are trying to find ways of minimizing the cost on this so join us in prayer and the Lord will show us how to be clever. We will obviously need to pay something for it, but we want to conserve as much as possible for the feeding, clothing and blanket crusade. We are currently looking at possibilities like purchasing and shipping from Johannesburg and all kinds of things like that. I have a friend called Anthony Price who is a great bloke and knows almost everything there is to know about sound gear. He has made a very difficult task possible and has been really happy to help. So pray specifically that arrangements will be made so that when we get to Entebbe the gear will be there and gettable.

Mid Week Service at Bagot Victory Church

2006-06-09T23:34:00.000+10:00

We had an amazing time at Bagot last night. I thought it was going to drop in a totally dysfunctional hole to be honest. Paula was at work at the hospital and David Gawler was out at one of the remote hospitals so that left Josiah setting up and Isobel Gawler driving the bus everywhere picking people up. There was no one to lead at the meeting itself. And there was some angry drunk Aboriginal guys there who were on the verge of a punch up or two. So I decided to wander around talking and praying with people who were sitting and waiting. Isobel was probably the default leader and she was away until quite a way through the meeting. With Josiah (young boy from Victoria who is working with the Gawlers for a year) we agreed to start the meeting with prayer. So I got up and began to pray over everything that would rob us of the presence of God. I prayed that the pain in the hearts of people would be replace by the peace of Jesus. I prayed till I felt that something was happening. One of the Barunga women, Rachel began to get the ladies together and they started to worship in Creole (an Aboriginal form of Pidgin English). That certainly started to gather things together and the threat of a punch up seemed to die down. They sang for about forty five minutes or a bit more.

Before Isobel got back I started to preach and the Spirit of God came upon me in a very profound way. God gave me a message from Joshua 5 about not asking whether God was on “my” side but asking whether “I” was on God’s side. There was a great sense of the presence of God there and the people didn’t stir for probably fifty minutes while I preached. I even sang a song that was anointed (just to be kind to people’s ears). In fact I sang two worship songs and the Spirit was on that as well. So I spent the last thirty minutes or so praying for just about everyone. God healed some of the people from pain and some diseases. Aboriginal people are not backward in getting prayer for things, but even so it was an amazing time. Everyone knew that the presence of God was there and that we were all responding to Him.

Unfortunately I had to leave before the pack down was done, but Isobel asked if I might put the message in a DVD video form so that she could give copies to people who were not there. I’ll have to figure out a way to do that. I think John and Faye Williams are going to come back for next weekend so I might get John to tape something before I leave and he can do it up for them.

WHO SETS THE PUBLIC AGENDA?

2006-06-07T08:27:00.000+10:00

I was watching one of the so called news digest programs on television the other night and happened to see a segment about a new learning program for small children that called on the education professionals to avoid using the words “mother and father” when referring to parents. One of the people they interviewed was a friend of mine, Bill Muhlenberg (sorry if I’ve misspelt your name Bill). Bill heads up a Family watchdog organization from Melbourne and does a great job providing well researched materials that uphold the cause of marriage and family. He was put up against a young educational professional who was proposing this expression of so called political correctness and was making the valid points about robbing something of value in order to provide some kind of encouragement for people who didn’t belong to families where there was a father and a mother. The figure of more than 2,000 was quoted as the number of same sex couples who have children living in their households.

What intrigued me was not the usual to and fro of the argument and the assumption that what is happening must be right because it is happening. In fact the argument has gone beyond that. It is more right now to be in a same sex relationship with children than it is to be in a heterosexual relationship with children. The reason it is considered by its political agitants to be more right is because they propose the idea that people in heterosexual relationships should be discriminated against so that the others can be more greatly favoured. Those of us who think that father and mother is a good thing now have to have our identity stolen from us. What trendy intellectual rubbish this is.

As I thought about it, what intrigued me was not the destructive blows being yet again dealt to the idea of family, but the fact that the media have such power to set the public agenda. I know that will be not a new idea to anyone. If you take notice of how the media works, there is an agenda being set through its pages and its transmissions not based on newsworthiness but on selling advertising. News is not about reporting it is about ratings. Because it is about making money we must not assume that because its in the news then it represents any kind of common public agenda. The media set the agenda and then report on an agenda as if they didn’t set it. They create their own news items and try to make out that what they are reporting on carries a level of importance simply because it is talked about. When you add the importance that is placed on talk back radio and the ancillary forms of public discussion this only adds to the charade.

Often Christians can be duped by this process. We can often think that our agenda needs to be set by what is current as it is expressed through the news media. We can even think that if we make the news it is some form of achievement. Some Christian ministries think that its worth doing stuff just to get featured for thirty seconds on national television news…that somehow it represents impact. No way.

We have to set an agenda by a lifestyle that impacts our core spheres of influence. The Roman empire was won over by Christians continuing to do just that. The gospel won out by a process of simple osmosis. Ordinary people letting their light shine in their own dark spheres. This gives substance and credibility where it counts. What may assume a place of false importance on television today is forgotten tomorrow. What impacts another person you are in relationship with today builds for tomorrow. Lets keep setting the pace in our little public worlds.

THE WEDDING AT BAGOT COMMUNITY

2006-06-06T10:13:00.000+10:00

Apologies to those people who have been checking this site with nothing much to see. Its all a matter of routine I think. When I was traveling around with the One Heart Team I got into a good groove and seemed to have the spaces to dump a few bits and pieces on the blog page.

We had a great weekend at Bagot. The prayers of the people of God, both here in Darwin and in other places (including Canberra) were heard from heaven and the violence in the community has diminished. Part of the dynamic of all that has been the fact that many of the residents have left and gone other places for safety. Part of it was the fact that faithful believers have stayed and prayed. Part of it was the fact that the news was around that Bagot was going to have its first ever wedding ceremony.

The meeting place was looking very spiffy by the time people began to gather on Saturday afternoon. People from the community had picked frangipanes and other flowers and decorated it wonderfully. There must have been a hundred and fifty people there altogether. Stuart and Katrina represented a very wide range of people groups. There were people from every state in Australia and many tribal people from all over the territory and the islands.

When I get back I’ll show a video of the ABC news report. It was a classic. When David Gawler (white leader and surgeon at RDH) approached the community leaders about the wedding the leaders asked if they could put a news release to the press about it. There had been so much bad publicity related to Bagot and they were keen for a good story to be told. It was a great story.

There was a good representation from Grace Canberra. Noel and Patricia Levings were here. Cathy Macfarlane was a bridesmaid. John and Faye Williams have been traveling north and planned their Darwin time to coincide with the wedding. Carol Chou was here as well. What’s more they all behaved pretty well also.

I’m not going to say too much more about it because the photos will speak more powerfully than I could. What I loved about the whole thing was not just a beautiful wedding, but the way the people of Bagot were genuinely loved and honoured. They were also extremely excited by the whole event. Some of you may not be aware that there is no such thing as a wedding ceremony in Aboriginal culture. I didn’t know that until just a few months ago. They do have marriage type commitments but no ceremony. How strange (and sad).

Brian

BREAKING THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION

2006-05-30T22:20:00.000+10:00

ADDICTIONS

Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control.

Many people are not aware of the more subtle addictions, the addictions that are often so covert and pervasive that they are as invisible to us as the air we breathe. Yet these addictions may be impacting us negatively as much as the more overt addictions. Many people are aware of the fact that addictions are used to avoid pain, and most of us are aware of the common addictions: food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, TV, spending, work, sex, rage and so on. Most people, however, are not aware of the more subtle addictions, the addictions that are often so covert and pervasive that they are as invisible to us as the air we breathe. Yet these addictions may be impacting us negatively as much as the more overt addictions.
Take Sam, for example. Sam is the kind of person who ends up doing everything, both at home and at work. Sam works much harder in his retail business than either of his two partners, and often feels overwhelmed by the amount of work he has to do. On weekends, he ends up doing a lot of work around the house, even though he has two strong teenagers who could be helping out. Even when others offer to help, Sam turns them down. Sam is devoted to being a "nice guy" and caretaking others - doing for others what they need to be doing for themselves. On a deeper level, he is always trying to control how others' perceive him. He wants them to see him as a caring person and often feels victimized when others do not give him the approval he seeks. Then, when others react to his attempts to control how they feel about him with irritation or withdrawal, Sam is angry that they are not approving of him. When he is really upset, he will get drunk. He will often obsessively ruminate about how unjust his wife is or his partners are. If his wife wants to explore their problems, Sam goes into defending, explaining and resisting, stating that she is just trying to control him. When nothing else works, Sam will withdraw.
There are many addictions going on here. The more overt ones are work, anger and drinking. Sam is also addicted to approval, to controlling how others see him through caretaking, to being a victim and blaming others for his misery, to obsessive thinking (ruminating), to defending, explaining, resisting, and withdrawing. All of these addictions serve the same purpose as the more overt addictions. They are all attempts to have control over getting love/approval and avoiding pain.
You might want to honestly look inside and see what some of your covert addictions are.

Are you addicted to blaming others for your unhappy feelings?
Do you use anger or tears to attempt to make others responsible for you?
Are you addicted to illness as a way to avoid personal responsibility for yourself?
Do you get obsessive in your thinking about what you will say or do in a particular situation?
How often do you explain and defend yourself rather than open to learning?
How often do you get angry or withdraw to avoid dealing with yourself?
How much time do you spend analyzing and figuring out yourself and others as a way to have control?

Any behavior other than taking loving, responsible care of yourself and being open to learning with yourself and others is addictive. All addictive behaviors are attempts to control rather than learn. Our intent to control or to learn actually governs all our behavior, and is the basis of Inner Bonding.

I get so much understanding and practical wisdom from the Bible. The Bible is not a book of straight out wisdom, it is a way of connecting with the Source of wisdom, the God of heaven and earth.

The Bible doesn’t refer to addiction in a direct way, but consider the following verses.

ISAIAH 55

1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. 4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples. 5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.” 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD'S renown, for an everlasting sign ,which will not be destroyed.”

HERE IS A PARAPHRASE WRITTEN FOR PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS

Hey, everyone who is wants to be free from their dependent, compulsive habits, come to me. You won’t need money for the treatment I will give you. If you will decide to transfer your dependence to me and I will give you everything you are searching for in your addiction but will never find there.
Look at all the money you’ve wasted on things that only destroy you and the people you love. These addictions go on demanding all kinds of effort from you but even if you had all the money in the world to spend on your habit, it would kill you not satisfy you.
I want you to listen to what I will say and if you receive what I will satisfy the deepest needs, the ones you are trying to satisfy through addictions. The risk you have to take is to transfer your allegiance from that habit to me. If you receive what I have to say, my words will save you and your loved ones from inevitable destructive separation and even death. Instead of making a covenant with death, make your covenant with me. My covenant is to give you life now and life forever.
When you make this covenant to hear and respond to me, you will have a new authority. The things that ravaged and plundered your life and the life of your family will no longer have power. You will be envied by others not pitied by them. Your life will be an example rather than a warning.
So seek the Lord, not the source of your next addictive experience. He is near to you right now. You can find him right where you are.
Begin to exercise this decision by saying goodbye to things that you know are destructive and tell those compulsive thoughts to take a hike. Do something, anything that would be an action that signifies you are turning your life over to the Lord God of heaven and earth. He will receive you lovingly. He will wipe away the guilt you carry around with you every day and the shame that never leaves you.
All this might seem impossible to you. What you have to understand is that I can see things like you could never see them and I can do things you could never dream of doing. The difference between your resources and mine and the difference between the way you do things and the way I do things are like cheese and chalk. You have to learn to trust my ways even though you don’t understand them.
Just like rain and snow fall to the earth and accomplish their purpose of providing water and nourishment for the soil, so the words that I will speak to you will have their impact on your life. They will accomplish what is impossible in your own strength. They never fail to achieve the result I have intended. There is no such thing as a received word from God not accomplishing its divine purpose.
The result is that instead of the guilt and shame that crushes you, and instead of the anguish you cause to those around you, you will not leave your home in anger or sorrow. You will leave with joy and return with joy. You will come and go with peace inside your heart and peace in your mind. The world around you will seem a different place and will embellish your way. It will seem to celebrate with you rather than be against you..

You will no longer sow unrighteousness and reap destruction. Instead of living a life that only produces hopelessness and uselessness you will begin to see the fruit of God’s plan. You will sow honesty and reap beauty. You will sow godliness and read joy for you and your children and your children’s children..

These things will be the sign of the honour of God in your life and nothing will destroy what God does in and through your life.

THE POWER OF ADDICTIVE HABITS TO CUT YOU OFF FROM GOD.

2 Corinthians 9

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Strict Training
What we are called to do matters. It matters to God. It matters to other people and therefore it must matter to us.

Practicing for greater focus
No one gets into this work automatically and they don’t get better at it automatically. It requires strict discipline and training. What we do must make sense in terms of the reason why we breath. If it doesn’t get rid of it.
The challenges provided by our priorities are important as far as the process is concerned, not just the result. What will happen in side of us when we rise to these disciplines is as important as the result. This has nothing to do with legalistic practices and religious duty any more than training for an athlete is simply rigorous and otherwise meaningless rituals.

I make sure my body is subject to me
What I eat and drink
What exercise I do
What priorities I keep
What I watch and what I read
Where I take this body

If I don’t this could knock me out of the game
The issues here are as mentioned above. It is not just a matter of food or habits that cause needless suffering and hardship to ourselves and others. If something can control out bodies like that, the same thing can control other things we do.
If the unreality we live in by not dealing with these things is allowed to remain we can find ourselves developing elaborate systems to cover up flaws and weaknesses that will one day have the ability to destroy our whole ministry in Jesus name.

THE PRINCIPLES COME FROM THE GOOD NEWS THAT JESUS SPOKE ABOUT

MATTHEW 11
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. 27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This principle will only be missed by people who are too full of themselves to be willing to see it

The opportunity to embrace what God is wanting to give and what God wants to do is open to everyone. Jesus life was the shopfront window that people could look in. He wasn’t exclusive like the religious leaders of his own day. He put God’s mercy and grace within the reach of all the people the religious systems turned off. (how many people have been turned off by the unrighteousness of the church that has been assumed to be righteous)

COME TO ME

If you have loads to carry that don’t mean anything and if you are simply giving out all your energy but accomplishing nothing.

If you want the battles to stop happening in your mind, and in your heart and between you and the people who love you

TAKE MY YOKE

You will need to be constantly connected to me
You will need to form the closest of bonds with me
You will need to become accountable to me
But the reality is that I want to be connected with you forever. I want us to be a team

LEARN FROM ME

Start a course with me. Learn everything there is in the Word
I am a really good teacher; I don’t laud it over everyone and make them feel bad because they make mistakes. The only way you will not learn from me is be separating yourself from me. If you let me stick around you will learn. It might take a while but you will learn.

AND THE BATTLE WILL BE OVER: rest for your soul

CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE PHENOMENON

2006-05-15T16:32:00.000+10:00

“It's perhaps worth noting

that one of the very few books

to sell more copies than The Da Vinci Code

in the past two years is the Bible.”

(Time Magazine April 18, 2005)

The release of the movie version of history’s most recent best seller has served to heighten controversy surrounding the claims put forward relating to the integrity of Christianity and the church.

Most of the Christian responses to the release of the book and the film build around fifteen (or so) different claims that are presented as historically founded and challenge basic tenets of orthodox Christianity.

The matter would never have reached to current heights of controversy were it not for the statement in the front of the book that claims the references to names, groups and activities are historically accurate. In other words author Dan Brown claims to be presenting factual history through the story of the novel. At that point he puts himself in a different place to other writers like Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlam and Frederick Forsyth.

I have copied an copyright free article by Dr. Ron Rhodes that provides what I believe is an excellent presentation dealing with the challenges themselves. Most of the challenges to basic Christianity can be quite easily refuted. Some can be so easily challenged that one wonders how any of the other claims could be respected by sheer association. It also seems amazing that anyone could take Dan Brown seriously when his references are so easily discredited. The answer lies only in the success of the novel as one of the best ever best sellers.

As Christians in a society that has largely turned its back on God (except for a notable mention or two in times of crisis) the phenomenon of the book and film should stir us to respond to the real issues, not the largely bogus claims of the book. Those issues have to do with the answer to questions like these:

When a book that like the Da Vinci Code is so clearly portraying lies as truth, why is it so popular? What are the 40 million people (plus) saying when they buy and read the book?

Here are my own conclusions.

1. Getting Some Dirt on a World Famous Person

People like to read dirt on famous people. If Dan Brown and his researcher wife dug up some dirt on Brian Medway and then wrote it into a novel, it might be novel but it wouldn’t sell books. No one wants to know dirt on Brian Medway. You have to choose a famous person. It is also true that no one really blinks an eye when someone turns up dirt on a famous person who is known to be “dirty.” What sells copy is if you can find a famous person who is known for being “clean” and find dirt on them. What if you could find some so-called dirt on history’s most influential figure? And what if that figure happened to be associated with righteousness, holiness and love? That would be the substance for selling copies of anything. Don’t put it in a magazine article. Write a novel and weave it into the unfolding of a fast paced murder mystery. In other words, the reason people buy a book like the Da Vinci Code is a testimony to the greatness of Jesus Christ. It’s a bit like the fact the way the name of Jesus is used as an expletive in many parts of the world. It is horrible that the pure and holy Son of God is joined to an expression of disgust and anger. But have you ever wondered why the name of Buddha or Mohammed is never used as an expletive? The reason is that their name has no power. Their name is just another name. The name of Jesus is like no other name. The enemy of God’s purpose on the earth wants desperately to sully the name of Jesus BECAUSE of its uniqueness and power.
In the same way, the writer of the Da Vinci Code has a winner. Put up a proposal that Jesus was less than his claim and try to legitimize that proposal by referencing some discredited historical documents and a lot of less than historical assumptions. Either way it is about Jesus and the Christian church. It’s going to be a marketers dream.

So when you have an opportunity to speak with someone about the Da Vinci phenomenon, make sure you applaud the way this phenomenon marks the uniqueness and powerful influence of the Person of Jesus Christ in history. Say you are shocked that Jesus should be associated with such flagrant fraud, but explain that the reason it sells books is because of who Jesus is. The person who has influenced the history of the world more than any other by a country mile.

2. Write a book that presents the humanistic claim that we are alone in the universe by means of a good story and an otherwise “good” human figure.

The hero of Brown’s novel is the unassuming but amazing Robert Langdon. Mr. Langdon is just in Paris for a conference. His Harvard specialty is “Symbolism.” He happens to be at the Louvre Museum looking at the Mona Lisa when a murder is discovered of which he becomes a suspect. He is the epitome of humanistic heroism. He is unassuming and intelligent with an amazing array of skills. Along with a cryptologist from the French police who believes in his innocence they follow a trail of discovery unfolding a plot implicating the Catholic Church in the major coverup of all time and some of its members in murder. It also uncovers a group of people called the Priory of Sion who are the so-called protectors of the secret of the Holy Grail: the fact that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were either married or had a son. This line is said to be the actual Holy Grail. Apparently all kinds of famous people have been part of this secret society and have carried on certain rituals of their own with an overall purpose of keeping this secret for revelation at an appropriate time. Langdon is the hero who is good and intelligent and clever who will save the world from the lie of Christian faith.
The fact that he does it without falling into bed with his co-hero and with all the sincerity of a genuine researcher make him all the more believable. So another hero has been added to the stable of humanisms attempt to present an alternative to goodness that has no reference to God. In this case that goodness is particularly helpful to the humanistic cause simply because he will expose the “great lie.” More than forty million people want to adhere to humanism. This is especially so in the west. They like the idea of Jesus being less than the traditional claims of Christian faith and especially of the church. Dirt on Jesus means that Jesus can no longer challenge their autonomy as he might otherwise have done. That makes it easier to lock God up in a convenient box and let him out at crisis times.

The question to ask people when the Da Vinci Code subject comes up is: “Does the idea that Jesus might not have been the Son of God make you feel more comfortable? If so why?”

3. The alternative idea puts forward sexual experience as a form of gaining deep spiritual insight

In a world that has elevated sexual pleasure to the realm of essential virtue, the Da Vinci Code plays well to its audience. In that same intellectually winsome way, Langdon and his associate witness the Code’s alternative world view. It is a world view represented by the Priory of Sion. They reference the high point of the Priory’s cultis when the gathered congregation of “believers” witness the main man and the main woman of the order engaging in sexual intercourse on some kind of high altar. That will definitely sell to a set of cultures bound in a covenant with many different forms of lust. It plays into the willing hands of that society to have some of their adopted sexual practices endorsed by the long list of famous people supposedly (but historically discredited) committed to the Priory. As we engage with people who find comfort in such an endorsement we are not faced with a genuine and sincere discussion as to the legitimacy of such practices, but a society without any values reference points. This is a much bigger issue.

The Question I would be asking someone who considers the Dan Brown invention to have some value is: where do you look for a set of values that will sustain long term loving relationship and a stable caring society? If you look to the Robert Langdon discovery you will only find the exaltation of self as the primary virtue.

4. People are willing to believe a lie because they have personal preferences vested in values and views that are false.

Anyone who thinks that to provide an argument against some claims about Christianity and the church will make a major impression on an average pagan moviegoer will be disappointed. Its good to have the arguments there, but you will find very few opportunities to use them well. Most people aren’t the least bit interested in them. Even if they are shown to be watertight. Rational argument is not the issue when sin is on the line. Sin is a spiritual issue not a rational one. It has to be countered with spiritual strategies, not rational ones. I know there are instances where it is helpful to reason things and I know the Bible tells us to be able to give a reason for the faith inside us. The “reason for our faith” may not only imply close philosophical argument requiring tertiary level understanding. We have to come to term with the fact that our commitment to engage people relative to the impact of the Da Vinci Code will need to be other than at an academic level. If people would rather live according to the day to day dictates of their emotions we have to meet them at that point and offer something better than an unconnected series of emotionally created personal prisons. If people would rather take the view that they are masters of their own destiny, we have to meet them at the point where their mastery seems to fail them. Jesus did this all the time. If you tally up the number of things Jesus attacked in order to establish the kingdom of God you will find religious institutionalism high on a very short list. He preferred to point people to the works of God and the God of those works. One of the reasons why we prefer to present a raft of well researched arguments is because it is much easier to do that. To follow people to their point of real need is much more time consuming and far harder to predict. Rarely do you find Jesus coming, presenting an argument and leaving. With Jesus the arguments came as a result of the ministry, not in place of it. We tend to offer no ministry but offer sound arguments. I need to add that I am not despising arguments or reasons.

I have and will have the list of claims and responses handy when I seek to engage people about the Da Vinci Code. What I expect to find is that arguments will be less helpful than ministry based on discerning real needs. When you set out to interact with people on the basis of the Da Vinci Code Phenomenon try looking beyond the claims of the book to the reasons why people want to believe those claims. Try asking them would they consult Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson to solve their day to day issues. If they would be unwilling to tie their future to the Simpson flagpole, then ask them why they would place value in a set of false claims in a best selling novel.

CONCLUSION In all of this it is helpful to remember that while Christians take a lot of issues seriously, many people (many, many) like being entertained by a good story. At best the Da Vinci Code is an entertaining novel that has a crack at some very foundational tenets of Christian faith. Many people will not ever be conscious of these attacks. To presume that they are may be a serious misjudgment. When we engage people we may well have to explain the attacks before we can give any refutations.

GOD IN PLAIN CLOTHES

2006-05-11T18:32:00.000+10:00

SESSION THREE

GOD IN PLAIN CLOTHES
The glory of God through the ordinary

“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory.
The glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth….
…and from his fullness we have all received and grace for grace,
for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God at any time. The only begotten Son
who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.”
John 1:18

This reference from the gospel of John has shaped another core Christian truth. In theological circles it has taken the word, “incarnation.” It refers to the fact that Jesus was God revealed through the medium of humanity. Like the doctrine of the Trinity it is essential not in the way a trophy may take an important place on a shelf in the lounge room of someone’s home, but the way a primary tool is important to carpentry. It is an expression of the nature of God. Any work of God must be some kind of expression of the nature of God. The way church is configured is a work of God. For church not to reflect the incarnation is as false as church that fails to reflect the Trinity, or the resurrection.

The phrase from the text “and dwelt among us” is very beautiful in the original language of the New Testament. The words say that Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh and pitched his tent with ours. In its own context it was a powerful statement of the desire of God to live in the midst of his people. It was literally true when Moses was commanded to built the tabernacle in the wilderness. All the Israelite tribes pitched their tents on the four sides of a square. The tabernacle Moses built under instruction from God was erected in the middle of the square. God was no longer on a mountain somewhere with fire and smoke. He was living with them in their midst. He was still the holy God and there were strong symbols of his holiness all through the tabernacle activities. But God was in the midst of them.

The full revelation of God’s glory
We learn from Hebrews 1 that Jesus was the full expression of the God’s glory and the exact image of his Person (1:3). The idea of a full expression of God’s glory demands that we understand that there are less than full expressions of his glory. The context refers to this in the sense that there was a measure of glory in the “word” that was spoken by the prophets of God. We can also see that in the Old Testament there were all kinds of things that happened on the earth that were expressions of God’s glory. There was glory when the cloud and pillar of fire hovered at the Israelite camp. There was glory when Moses first completed the tabernacle (Ex. 40). The same thing happened when Solomon dedicated the temple (2 Chron. 6,7). The interesting thing to note with this expression of glory was that everyone saw it no matter whether they were believers or not. If you were a pagan visiting Jerusalem on the day described in 2 Chron. 6,7 you would have seen the fire and the impact of the presence of God on the priests in the temple. You might have explained in differently perhaps, but you would have witnessed that glory as it really was.
The glory of Jesus was a different kind of glory. It was without a single doubt the greater measure of glory and the greater manifestation of glory. Hebrews says that very clearly. We might ask the question as to when that glory appeared in Jesus. We would hardly suggest that it showed up the day he was baptized by John. No, he was the expression of the fullness of glory from the beginning. He was glory in the womb of his mother, Mary. He was the glory when he worked in his father’s carpenter’s shop. He was the glory when he grew up in Nazareth. Mary knew he was the Messiah. Just think of what it would have been like to live thirty years with the Messiah growing up before your eyes. The most powerful part of that experience would have been the fact that the boy was so ordinary. There was no magic. He didn’t sleep suspended fifty centimeters above the bedroll. He didn’t walk through walls. He didn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. Unlike “Superman” he didn’t slowly develop superpowers as he grew. He always had everything he would ever have from day one. It was a matter of the timing of God’s purpose. That’s why Jesus talks like he does to his mother at the wedding in Cana (John 2). When they have no wine, Mary looks to the Son of God for help with the problem. His response is profound: “Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:4). What happened next was the way the fullness of glory shows up in the ordinary. It was an ordinary wedding with ordinary people. Jesus didn’t come with a T shirt on advertising himself as a winemaker. He didn’t show up with the intention of turning water into wine. In that amazing way that God works, an “ordinary” man ordered the servants to fill water jars with water. When it was done the water was attested to be the very best vintage going around. Even the fact that the servants, Mary and the disciples knew but no one else knew carried the atmosphere of piquant mystery.
So God was living in a house in Nazareth and the fact that the people of Nazareth wanted to stone him later on for what they perceived as blasphemous arrogance shows that they saw nothing for thirty years that convinced them that he was God.

God also stood in a line with other Jewish people on the banks of the Jordan River where John was baptizing people as a preparatory act of repentance for having missed it so badly for so long as far as the purpose of God was concerned. When he stood before John the only reason John (his second cousin) knew that Jesus was the Messiah was because the Spirit of God had given him a pre-arranged signal. He knew that someone would show up and a dove would come down and rest on him (John 1).
The ministry of Jesus carried on this powerful marriage of supernatural and natural, divine and human. Divine in the sense that a very different authority flowed when he preached, healing flowed when he touched, demons departed when he commanded and life was in all of his words to the disciples. He could walk through an angry crowd of Nazareth residents who wanted to kill him. He put fear into the religious leaders who opposed him. He gave hope to the people who had none. He imparted a sense of worth to all kinds of groups in the society who were held in common contempt. At the very same time could be challenged with self righteous fervor and without restraint by his opponents. There was no climate or awe accompanying his daily activities. There was no set of angels walking with him that gave the message that he was the real life Son of God leaving footprints on the dusty trails around Galilee and Judea. He was so vulnerable to his disciples that Peter felt totally free to give him some good advice when he talked about dying on a cross.

Ordinary People, Ordinary Circumstances: the Stage Set for the Fullness of Glory
Not only was Jesus impeccably ordinary, he also called followers who were ordinary. The ones he chose as disciples were all Galileans. They were outstandingly ordinary. Galilee was the backside of nowhere by all the opinions that mattered in Jesus’ day. They spoke like country hicks and the fact that they were separated from Judea by Samaria gave more strength to the Jerusalem based view that they were always to be regarded with suspicion and would never amount to anything. Nathanial makes the definitive statement: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1). The answer is: INCARNATION. God appears on the earth dressed in the plain clothes of Nazareth, speaking with a Galilean accent and the son of a tradesman and his wife who couldn’t maintain their virtue prior to marriage. All of this, viewed through the eyes of religious aristocracy was about as low as you could go.
When Jesus sent out seventy two others to visit all the places he was going to be coming to (Luke 10) they do what he says and Satan crashes so fast he needs to be compared to lightning striking the earth. The no name apostles get to do it and Jesus leaps with joy when it is done. He says that “children” have been doing what was regarded as the exclusive domain of specially selected adults.
On the day of Pentecost there were a hundred and twenty Galileans in an upper room hoping no one would hear their accent and associate them with a guy who had just been killed by the Romans on behalf of the religious mafia. Suddenly they are all speaking in languages they have never learned but with accents that give away their origin and the nations of the world that are gathered get touched by heaven’s heart of love. We don’t know most of their names. We do know that believers were sent out to nations all over the world as a result of their obedience and faith. God showed up in the street outside the upper room in Jerusalem and ordinary people saw God as his glory was made manifest through ordinary people. They were indeed the body of Jesus. They were ordinary people. It was an ordinary day in the city (there had been plenty of ordinary Feasts of Weeks before that one). It was singled out because these people were the incarnation of Jesus Christ in that circumstance at that time.

The Culture Wars of the Early Church
The incarnation strikes a more incisive blow to fallen humanity when, despite the best efforts of the church to keep Judaism and faith in Jesus tied together, Gentiles start getting saved and don’t have any inclination to become Jews. Paul the ex-Pharisee champions the cause of cross cultural or incarnational ministry. He preaches the gospel and people are saved. The church in Antioch is amazing. The very first church that represents heaven (heaven being every nation, tribe, family and language group worship together before the Throne of God). The gospel is preached to Greeks. God moves powerfully upon them and they join with Jewish brothers and sisters to form the first church of its kind. This church becomes the sending base for Paul’s missionary ministry to Syrians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. He speaks the language of their culture and lives the lifestyle of their culture and sees the redemption of their culture. Some in the Jewish church, especially in Jerusalem were convinced that Gentile nations should not embrace Jesus without embracing Jewish religious culture.
All of the issues written about in the letters of the New Testament have to do with the kingdom of God becoming incarnate within the ordinary lives of the people in those cultures. Through this incarnational ministry homes, cities and nations were transformed and the transformation turned out different in every case. This is the result of ministry that takes seriously the incarnation of Jesus Christ. As with Jesus, apostles like Paul took on the nature of the people he was ministering to (cp. 1 Corinthians 9) as his Saviour had done. He spoke their language and spoke into their lifestyles.

THE INCARNATION AND THE CHURCH WHERE YOU ARE

All of this is very powerful and inspiring. We need to bed this down in the circumstances of our own lives and the spheres where we seek to serve as members of a church that would proclaim the kingdom of God with grace and truth. Here are some issues that arise from a commitment ministry that reproduces the incarnation of Jesus.

To help us here we will look again at a passage from the letter to the Philippians.

1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2

We need churches that look like Jesus when they begin to take shape. Jesus was the Word of God as much as he proclaimed the Word of God. He was church and he established church. The church, we are told is his body. It must be like him in every conceivable way. What would a church look like if it embraced the reality of the Incarnation? The words from Philippians seem to indicate at least four distinguishing characteristics.

SELF EMPTYING

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing,

This is not a term that fills our minds with joy and excitement. It sounds hard and it feels uncomfortable. Here is the simple path that this process involved for Jesus. Let’s see if it translates into experience we can envisage as being “Jesus like.”

He was originally a spirit being
He had status and glory of a full member of the Godhead
He set aside the status, titles, and the privilege and the “security” of heaven
He set aside the resources that were available to him as a member of the Godhead
He saw no comparative value in hanging on to previous status when there was opportunity to set it aside and become like the creatures made in his image
He deliberately chose to enter the plane of human history without any kind of status that would afford him intrinsic opportunity or authority

When we set out to see a church planted in a given sphere we are so prone to think that we need to make use of all kinds of humanly derived credentials and resources. The commitment to incarnation sees no intrinsic value in any of these. In fact, incarnation does not rely on being clever or smart. It relies on a relationship with the Father and the immanent power of the Holy Spirit.

Very often we are prone to want to take the high ground by humanly recognized titles and credentials (educational, social, demographic etc.). Jesus clearly set those aside. When he was growing up in Nazareth there was nothing outside of his relationship to his Father in heaven that was going to give him a chance of doing anything other than carpentry. One day he left home for the Jordan River and all of heaven broke loose around him and his ministry. We need to give away the idea that becoming “somebody” is of value. The “somebody” we need to care about is the opportunity to be a loving son or daughter of our heavenly Father. If we do what flows from that identity then we will have all the opportunity we need.

SERVANTHOOD

taking the very nature of a servant,

Here is a tricky little number. Very often this idea has been taken by Christians to mean that everyone else sets their agenda and marks out their territory by reason of the fact that we are called to serve. We are indeed called to serve, but called to serve as Jesus was called to serve. Jesus served people through teaching them, healing them, casting out demons from them. They were never his master even though he was a servant to them. The Father was clearly his master. His agenda was daily set by his Father and that agenda served the loving purposes of God for people he cared about.

The strong servant model of Jesus ought to flow through us in such a way that we would be willing to meet the people at the point of their felt needs and meet those needs with the resources that come from heaven: supernatural love and esteem, supernatural grace, supernatural wisdom and supernatural power. We have a kit of stuff to use in the way we serve people that connects them with heaven. Think for a bit about the way Jesus defined the nature and process of servanthood. He said of himself: “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew ) He also spoke about servanthood in the context of an argument about who was the greatest.

Write down some of the aspects of his kind of servanthood that you notice in the ministry of Jesus.

Serving people out of the resources we have that represent Jesus is a profound and powerful weapon. It is not just handing out food and running second hand clothing stores. It is a matter of engaging people with heaven through servant acts of kindness.
The church you plant in some community sphere must be characterized by its servanthood. That was why so many people like being where Jesus was. They were esteemed in love by his wiliness to serve them in the name of His Father.

OTHERNESS

being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man,

Here is the amazing example of Jesus. If you think of humanity as a people group with totally different language, culture and values to your own, then Jesus didn’t just go for a visit. He didn’t even take out a resident’s visa. He didn’t go for dual citizenship. He became human for the rest of eternity. There is a man seated at the right hand of God. What measure of identification could be greater than that. So great was the transposition of God that Jesus adopted a very strong name and used this name about himself more than any other: “Son of man” - nearly eighty times in the gospels.

FOUR EXAMPLES OF OTHERNESS FROM THE INCARNATION OF JESUS CHRIST HEBREWS 2

1. IDENTIFIED WITH HUMAN SUFFERING
Bringing many sons to glory
10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

To put these aspects of incarnation in perspective it might be helpful to think about moving from a country like Australia where there is comparative wealth, peace and safety, to one of the places around the world where there was oppression and trouble. Your first set of inclinations would be to ask whether it was really important to go there. If it was, your second set would all have to do with personal safety. So many people from western nations travel the world going from one western style hotel to another and from one English speaking group to another. They maintain as much of what is preferred and culturally familiar. They view the other parts of the world from the vantage point of facilities and services provided by willing business people who know their well heeled clients want to see a lot but identify with as little as possible. They want to stay the same, and take as little effort and be able to move without discomfort or risk. This is the antithesis of incarnation.
What if you were not just touring another nation? What if you were becoming a temporary resident? How would you avoid the idea of incarnation? You would build a house like the one you had in your original country. You would wear clothes as much as possible like the ones people were wearing in your native land. You would work hard to plan all sorts of events that reminded you of “home.” You would make sure you kept up your native language. You would seek out other ex-patriots and spend as much time with them as possible. No doubt you would make acquaintances in your new country, but it would be unlikely that they would become as close as those who were “like you.”
Much more could be said about this, but what we need to understand about the incarnational model represented by Jesus Christ is that he didn’t sneak off from his home and go to the local “Angels Club” to play heavenly snooker. Apart from his union with the Father, he spent his time with ordinary people: very ordinary people. He spoke their language, lived in their houses, wore their clothes and ate their food. Not only that but his demonstrated preference was to make friends of “tax collectors and sinners.” Not only that, but the path of righteousness he trod set him constantly at odds with most of the power and glamour people of the day. Not only that but he suffered rejection by his family, his nation and finally his Father. He joined with the worst rejects of society and ended up nailed to the cross by his choice to carry sin that wasn’t his. Whatever is the current sampling of that kind of identification in your sphere that is the path we are called to.
To get a full dose of incarnation you need to read one or more of the gospels and just focus on the suffering and pain Jesus carried up to and through the experience of the cross. When you do that have in mind just how that kind of identification may take shape if you and the church you build in your sphere decided to take the incarnation journey. As you do, ask yourself whether there is any other journey that would embody Biblical legitimacy. At this moment we have a Saviour who is seat

2. IDENTIFIED WITH HUMAN FAMILY
Calling mankind his brothers
11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”

Jesus walked the paths of Judea and Galilee in fellowship with his Father. That fellowship was an extension of the inclusive oneness generated by the heart of the Tri-unity of God. As we have seen from the second chapter of Philippians, the “trappings” of the Godhead were set aside. What people saw and heard was a man. What some were able to also see was the unmistakable imprint of God in everything that this man thought, said and did. Others just saw a man. The missionary heart of God was in Jesus, so his fellowship with his Father energized, inspired and guided his compassion outward.
The second aspect of incarnation is described in the words, “..are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Jesus said some powerful things about family. Family was a big deal in the culture of the people Jesus called his own. It is still strong today. It has taken a bashing in our day at the hands of the misguided foolishness of trendy intellectual humanists. It is hard for them to destroy the image of God totally. Parentness and childness still rise up from the ashes. Adopted children have an inbuilt radar signal that will only lock on to their birth parents. Shameless and irresponsible parents have difficulty assuaging the guilt of their neglect. Siblings still have a connection that takes strength to deny. In Jesus’ day it was overtly powerful and socially undergirded. There were significant moral and legal obligations relating to membership of families. A profound moment in the ministry of Jesus came where he was inside a house responding to some challenges from the Pharisees. News came to him that his mother and his brothers were outside wanting to talk with him. Perhaps this was one of those occasions where they sought to intervene because they thought he was mad (Mark 3:21) His response to this piece of information was public. He pointed to twelve people who were his own disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.” Think about the reply that would have been carried outside the crowded house to his family. Remember that this is the fullness of “grace and truth” speaking here. This is the loving God speaking. Jesus isn’t getting even. He hasn’t stopped loving and honouring his mother. He isn’t cheaply using them as an object lesson. He is speaking lovingly about the shape of incarnation. He isn’t just the visiting speaker. He is family. His love for us is both ‘agape’ (I will lay down my life for you no matter who you are or what you do) and ‘phileo’ (you are a brother or sister to me and I am your brother; we are family).
In the cold hard world of community spheres there are people. Some of them are well known and others are little known. Some of them we like and some we don’t. If you take seriously the idea of incarnation you have to let God make them brothers and sisters. They must be family to you. That heart must be in you before it is fulfilled as they are born into God’s family. Jesus is a Son of his Father. We are also sons and daughters of the same family. He thinks about us as such and treats us preferentially as such. The church we build must rise to this. Its members must be brothers and sisters. This has been taught with reasonable clarity over the years. But we need to live it not just use the language. What is even more vital is for the church you serve as Jesus builds it in the community sphere where you live and work must consider the people in your sphere family. You must allow Jesus to show you how to live out this family life. You are the prophetic sign of God’s family in your sphere and the people you relate to are those who are brothers and sisters in your family. That is incarnational.

3. IDENTIFIED WITH HUMAN ALIENATION
Destroying the power of death by his death
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

The third powerful sign of incarnation is the fact that Jesus not only identified with humanity by becoming a full and complete man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief (cp. Is. 53), not only did he relate to them as family but he identified with their sin and its consequences. He carried no sin of his own to Calvary, he only carried the total measure of the sin of all mankind. He experienced the guilt of it, the shame of it and he had to embrace the consequences of it. He was alienated from his Father as he bore the final stroke of its eternal lash and gave up his life. If you know a single experience of experiencing the blame or the consequences for the sin of another person, you know how your very soul wants to rise up at the injustice. Jesus chose to embrace this injustice. He never once set himself above the sin of the people around him because he was too busy embracing it with compassion and mercy. He saw the lesser as well as the greater and was likewise drawn to the self inflicted victims with nurture and empathy. It was the consistency of his life and carried through to his final incarnational act. He was there instead of me and instead of you.
When you consider your own sphere and seeing a church planted there you must also see the impact of sin through the eyes and through the heart of mercy that would gladly bear and bear with the sins of those to whom you are committed. You need to carry they because of their sin. You need to carry them to the cross since you are not able to bear away their sin or your own. You need to stand in the place of human brokenness and agree to stand there without judgment and without an air of superiority. You see the stupidity. You may never have been that stupid, but why not stand together with the stupid and bear their folly without blame or condemnation. The world has heard enough condemnation from the church. We think that condemning sin is an expression of righteousness when it is nothing more than self righteousness. Condemnation is reserve for the Judge, not the witnesses.
We would be better served if they heard something that would provide an alternative. We would operate with more power if we told a beggar like ourselves where we found something to eat. We would do better if we lifted them up with the arms of our compassion and carried them through sand of their self appointed isolation from God. That would be an expression of incarnation.

4. IDENTIFIED WITH HUMAN SIN
Merciful and faithful high priest
16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

The last expression of incarnation noted here about Jesus Christ has to do with his attitude to the people he was becoming joined to. Jesus experienced every form of coercion and pressure to take a path that would lead him away from fellowship with His Father and His Father’s purpose. Despite the fact that it was a road he had never taken, there were many intersections along the way. Some people take this verse to mean that he must have faced the opportunity to lie but didn’t lie, to become sexually attracted to a woman but remained pure in thought. He must have faced the opportunity to walk in pride but remained humble. He certainly faced the prospect of the cross and sought the possibility of a different option. We will never know the answer to that question. The issue is that Jesus is the one person who knows how to avoid sin. He knows it in the face of an environment given over to sin. In this way he has become what Hebrews calls “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12). This qualification has everything to do with incarnational life. Jesus wanted to help. He wants to help you and help the people to whom you are committed and that help comes from having walked the road that they have walked. He didn’t avoid life. He embrace it. He didn’t rob a bank so that he would know what its like and therefore be able to help bank robbers not rob banks. He did live in a world that was full of broken people and understood first hand why someone would be stupid enough to think that robbing a bank might be worthwhile. He knew what was in the heart of a rich young guy to be able to deal with his problem in one bold act of faith (Luke 18). He did know what ostracism was like and could speak to lepers with understanding.
There are two things we need to carry together as we seek to follow the pathway that would plant a church in our community sphere that would become and remain incarnational. We must not divorce ourselves from all the sullied issues that mess with the lives of people. We don’t need to participate of course. We do need to understand. Understanding involves listening before speaking and watching before making conclusions. We must assess what we see from the standpoint of the other person, not our own. If you have a read through the ministry of Jesus you will find that his compassion for people and his desire to minister to them demonstrated a huge comparative difference in understanding from the experts of the day who wanted to opposed what he did and the way he did it. The fact was that their approach was totally drawn from their own world of religious legalism. No wonder the ministry of Jesus was so refreshing and exciting for ordinary people. They were used to the cold judgments of the religious leaders. What they felt from Jesus was heavenly grace that gave them hope.
UNQUALIFIED OBEDIENCE

...and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:8

The final expression of incarnation doesn’t have as much to do with the “man” side of things as the God side. It is a very important aspect of any incarnational ministry that the person wanting to identify with a group of people in some community sphere obey God in that sphere. The strong pull that incarnation creates is the one that pulls the person across a line where they respond to the pressure of that group for the individual or group representing God to become like them in other ways than those which proclaim eternal truth and righteousness. I remember being involved with a great missionary couple who were working in an Asian nation. They were a great couple and he was a wonderful evangelist. He led so many to Christ. He began to teach at an English language school in the heart of one of the most corrupt parts of that city. The people he was meeting every day were not just culturally different, they were morally bankrupt. He ended up living with one of the girls who came to his class and leaving his wife and child. His capacity to identify with the people was admirable. Their acceptance of him and his ministry was enough to make any Christian ministry person envious. His commitment to obey his Father in heaven was negotiable.

The phrase of this verse is very powerful. What it refers to is the fact that Jesus would rather die than disobey his Father. It wasn’t that he reached the point of his commitment to the cross and gained a level of obedience that rose to the occasion. He had that level from the very beginning. And it wasn’t obedience in the sense of fulfilling his duty. It was the abandonment of trust that was devoid of self interest. On any given day his delight in the will and purpose of his Father was such that he would always rather die than choose a path that separated him from his Father’s good purpose. On some days this joy filled choice just meant that he was scorned by the religious leaders. On other days he was just misunderstood by his disciples. On other days he felt the same scorn from his own family. On other days he found his cousin John the Baptist sitting in prison thinking that there must be someone else to come as the Messiah. It was his heart for God’s purpose that resisted the pressures from all of these sources. His agenda anywhere and at any time came from his Father. The reason that this agenda was something else that drove him into the not so welcoming arms of humanity was because the Father’s heart and the Father’s purpose was exclusively committed to the redemption of humankind.

I am always suspicious of people who say they are obeying God but I find that this obedience seems only to have the benefit of themselves in mind. It seems so often that the kingdom of God gets a raw deal. It seems that people sum up an alternative on the basis of what benefit they will gain. All of this is usually justified under the heading of “God’s blessing.” The powerful truth there is that God does want to bless. He wanted to bless his only begotten Son. He blessed him with a family who didn’t understand him, disciples who constantly failed to get the point, crowds who were willing to receive from him but not to stand with him. He was blessed with a set of religious and secular authorities that were constantly out to thwart his mission and ministry. He was blessed with the opportunity to carry shame and blame to the cross. We are told in Hebrews 12 that Jesus should be our example: “…who endured the cross, despising the shame in is seated at the right hand of the throne of God..” We must not stop there of course. He was blessed with the opportunity to gather the sheep who were without a shepherd. He was blessed with eleven disciples who were still there at the end. He was blessed with many others who believed. He was blessed with a church that took on the Roman Empire and eventually won in his Name. He was blessed with the opportunity to open up a new and living way for the peoples of all nations to be reconciled to the God of all the earth. He was blessed with seeing the sick healed, the lame walk, those with demons set free. All of this came because from day one he found his greatest pleasure in embracing his Father’s will and pleasure. It was more than food and more than comfort. It was his delight. This is the blessing we need to claim. The joy that comes from knowing that the good purposes of God for the world that he loves are being fulfilled through what we are doing. If we have that kind of delight, and if we are not tied to a filter that gauges all things by the increase to our own gratification and self absorbing pleasure, then we will face everything including death rather than accept an alternative that is not the will of God.

In the matter of shaping a ministry to a community sphere we have to do it with the idea that we are there to do what God says to do. We may not know how to have a ministry in a given sphere that would see the planting and establishing of a church. God does and wants to. God’s directives will always take us closer to the heart of full and complete identification with our sphere. This is consistent with everything that we know and have seen with God. He wants to dwell in the midst of the people he loves. His representatives in this are ourselves and the people who belong to the church that is planted in this sphere. We must unquestioningly, fully and immediately obey what God says. Even if that seems to cause some upset in the people we are seeking to impact for him, we must trust that upset now will create deeper relationship in the longer term. Obeying God will get us in. Obeying God will gain us favour where we need it and will cause offense where it needs to be caused. We mustn’t allow the two to get confused by compromising our obedience with what seems to work best in a given situation. It is God who will tie us in to the fabric of our spheres and the people in them. We must trust him to know how that will happen best.

CONCLUSION

When Jesus came he did not come with a disguise. He was not God in disguise. He was God in the flesh. The kind of flesh he took on and the manner of his pre-ministry life as well as his ministry demonstrated this amazing heart. As representing the inclusive oneness of God he drew people to himself by being fully drawn to everything they were and everything they could be. This was why there was so much hope around him. This is why the common people flocked to him. It wasn’t posh humanity. It wasn’t narrow band humanity. It was suffering, tested and oppressed humanity that clothed the Word made flesh. And it is the very model of our calling.

Incarnation is not just about putting on God clothes. It is about God clothing himself in you.
It is the ultimate example of otherness. Jesus left no trace of himself. We have no picture of him. No one knows much about his hairstyle or his stylistic preferences (eg. A Beatles hair cut). He came to leave something of himself in you that represents you being more YOU. That’s his trademark. It is the trace of supernatural grace. We are to become more like him but that turns out to be more like who we are supposed to be.

The preoccupation of incarnational ministry is not to brand everyone with our personalities, phrases and affectations. Our obsession must be to sow ourselves into the lives of other people that when it happens they are released to achieve their God ordained destiny.

THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

2006-05-08T07:47:00.000+10:00

Sorry about the silence for the last few weeks. I can't believe it was the middle of April. One of the issues about this kind of fellowship is that I found it easy to do while I was travelling the country because there were always slivers of time without a litany of waiting tasks. Now that I am home there are always twenty things to do at any time of the day and its easier to let some things slide. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Thank you to those people who have registered their connection with the page. I like the opportunity to connect in this rather oblique way, so..... we're back !!

THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH

2006-05-08T07:44:00.000+10:00

The Spirit of Elijah

And he will go on before the Lord,
in the spirit and power of Elijah,
to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children
and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Luke 1:17

In recent times the phrase from Luke 1 about John the Baptist has been picked up and referenced to the period of time we seem to be in as Christian churches in most of the nations of the west. There is a strong anticipation that God will hear the prayers of his people and come in a visitation of his Son that would see transformation of our decaying nations.

Whether that is true in the particular sense, it is certainly true in as a model of the ministry needed to prepare people for the coming of the Lord. When and angel appeared to an old priest doing his job in the temple and told him he and his wife were to have a son and his name would be called John the Baptist and that he would be the forerunner to the Messiah, we have a clear model of ministry needed that would anticipate a visitation of Jesus Christ anywhere anytime.

If those who have a very strong sensitivity to second coming teaching can just back off a little, I want to speak in another vein about the coming of Jesus. It is not the parousia (ultimate second coming of Jesus to register the end of the age) I refer to but the way Jesus comes and makes his presence known to an individual or a group of people, or a church in some region or city. For example, when a person is introduced to Jesus Christ for the very first time and experiences being born again that is certainly an experience of the coming of Jesus Christ.

From a Biblical point of view, the ultimate coming of Jesus is simply the fullness of what we experience in part whenever we experience the work of the manifest presence of Jesus. And the coming of Jesus in the personal or group sense is a prophetic sign of the ultimate coming. When Paul talks about the “seal of the Spirit, guaranteeing our inheritance” in Ephesians 1 he is describing what I am talking about here.

I want to embrace every aspect of Jesus presence of grace. I want his presence to be made known in my personal life, my family life, in the fellowship of the people who belong to my congregation. I want him to come to situations and circumstances in my everyday world that would enable people who are lost from him to know him. It has happened heaps of times, but not enough. So if I say “Come Lord Jesus” to use the words from the last book in the Bible, I am going to be referring to the microcosmic reality not the ultimate. If I wanted to put them together, I would say that if we can prepare ourselves to receive every microcosmic visitation of the manifest presence of Jesus that will be the best kind of preparation for the ultimate coming of Jesus.

Any visitation of Jesus is a sovereign work of God. The issue isn’t whether Jesus will come. That has been sovereignly declared. Jesus said he would never be with us forever, to the end of the age. What is far less certain is whether we will prepare in such a way as to recognize his presence when he does make it known. The Christians at Laodicea read a letter Jesus wrote. The letter said that he had been outside the door knocking and wanting to come and fellowship with them (Revelation 3) but their preparation had been the wrong kind. They had been gaining lots of wealth and comfort. Their lukewarmness had hardened their hearts and blocked their ears.

So we need the ministry of John the Baptist. We need a preparation plan that has been tailored by the same God who would send his Son in a visitation that would revive the church so that it could see the transformation of the town, region, city or nation for which we have been given missionary responsibility. And we know from the angel’s announcement to Zechariah (Luke 1) that the preparation ministry was fashioned on that of a previous prophet: Elijah.

The outline above and the notes below reference the spirit of this ministry. The best way to define what the “spirit of Elijah” means is from the text of 1 Kings 17and the chapters following. When we reference the events described there we will not be looking to do a detailed exegesis. We will be looking to answer the question: “What was the spirit in Elijah that enabled him to take bold initiatives and to respond to challenging situations?” “How did the experience of God shape and develop him as a person?” In other words we want to know what is the “spirit of Elijah” in order to allow God to shape us and shape our lifestyle so that we may prepare for the coming of the Lord to our spheres.

ONE: THE SPIRIT OF SOVEREIGN DESTINY Luke 1:17
God’s promise is always a door that no man can shut

“And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah”

When the angel told Zechariah what God was going to do Zechariah’s response was to object on the grounds of previous non-experience and human reason. For that little tantrum he was prevented from speaking for a bit over nine months. What the angel was saying was: “God has set before you an open door which no man can shut. It is a door to parenthood prepared by the Lord.” Zechariah only saw a door that had been closed a long time ago.
If we are going to actively prepare for a visitation of Jesus, we better curb our appetite for unbelief based on similar non-experience and reason. God’s promise is a sovereign open door. We must never call shut what God has sovereignly opened. We must treat the promises of God as they are and take the opportunity that our lack of experience cannot foreshadow and that our reason cannot understand.

TWO: THE SPIRIT OF SUPERNATURAL CALLING 1 Kings 17:1
The atmosphere created by a CV written in heaven

“Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab….”

How often have we felt unqualified to attempt kingdom ministry. How often has the world thought that servants of God were unqualified to do what they did. Gladys Aylwood was a fine example. She was rejected by a missions board that simply saw her lack of human qualifications. They couldn’t see what God saw. They missed what her heart was saying, like Samuel was prone to do. We must obey the Word of the Lord. Whether it is a word imparted to us personally by the Spirit or a word from the pages of the Bible all of them represent qualifications for a believer. In reality my CV includes a testimonial made up of sixty six books. Add to that the anointed leading of the Holy Spirit and you are qualified for absolutely everything.
Elijah stood in the court of one of Israel’s most wicked and yet powerful kings. Ahab and his wife Jezebel were responsible for driving the people of God into the arms of the Canaanite god, Baal. They had a palace, an army and plenty of advisors. Elijah came and stood before them without one single qualification that would have meant anything. The call of God makes them unnecessary and irrelevant. What is the call of God on your life and what does it qualify you for?

THREE: THE SPIRIT OF SERVANT AUTHORITY 1 Kings 17:1
The measure of the authority is the measure to which you serve God

“As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve,
there will neither be dew nor rain in the next few years except by my word.”

Think of something that you currently have authority over. I have authority to drive my car. When I look at the controls nothing there creates fear or insecurity. I have been driving for nearly fifty years (starting in the paddocks of our farm when I was very young). That experience has given me an authority. The other thing that gives me authority is the fact that I own the car. The other day I was talking to someone on my mobile phone while walking back to my car and for some reason the key wouldn’t open the door. Then I realized to my embarrassment that it wasn’t my car I was trying to open. I didn’t have authority over that car. When I saw my own car right next to the one I was trying to enter and put my key in the lock of my door, my authority was everywhere. The door opened, the engine started. All kinds of things happened that could not have happened with the first vehicle, even though it looked very similar to mine.
Elijah had authority to speak to Ahab and he had a key to the weather pattern around Israel for the next few years. He didn’t have that authority when he was a little boy climbing rocks around Tishbe in Gilead. It can following an encounter with the living God where God had commissioned him to become a servant of His purpose. He had no experience in meteorology, nor did he have diplomatic experience. He had authority to serve the purposes of the God of weather and the King of kings.

What do you have supernatural authority over? It will be to the extent that you know how you are meant to serve the purposes of the same God that Elijah served.

FOUR: THE SPIRIT OF CONFIDENCE IN GOD’S PROVISION 1 Kings 17:2-16
Faith for the method not just the fact is an integral part of the learning experience

Elijah is required to trust God for two separate forms of provision. One is food and water in a time of drought and the other is protection from the wrath of Ahab. No doubt his warning of drought went unacknowledged by Ahab at the time it was given. But as the drought took hold and the economy took a serious downturn, Ahab’s disregard quickly turned to anger. The faithful prophet Obadiah is an amazing object lesson in the kind of people God raises up and places in strategic spots. He tells of Ahab’s plight and attitude. Replace food and water with money, buildings, people, time equipment and you have the same principle for every form of kingdom ministry.
God’s provision for Elijah came first in the form of a directive word. There was a spot somewhere east of the Jordan called the Cherith Ravine. He had to go to that spot to get the provision. There was no provision in Jerusalem even thought the temple was there, nor in any other spot that might have been more comfortable and easier to access. This was where the command of God connected with the earth. Elijah went there and found that water continued to run in a time of drought and the “ravens home delivery” service provided food twice a day. Then a strange thing happened. The brook dried up and the ravens stopped coming. Cherith ceased as the place where provision had been commanded from heaven. That provision was now located right across the other side of the country. It would be like moving from Bateman’s Bay to Ceduna (SA).
Sometimes we are perplexed as we serve the will of God, that provision ceases from a certain source. We can often feel let down and frustrated. We need to learn that faith for provision has less to do than some overall confidence that God will provide. Faith for provision is the confidence to know HOW God will provide. When people quote “Jehovah Jireh” (the Lord who provides) to me, I generally respond by quoting “Jehovah Qum Halach” (from 1 Kings 17:8,9; The Lord said, “rise up and go..”). We are far less ready to hear God say, “Get up off your backside and go..” than we are to hear a word like “Just stay doing nothing and the Lord will send…”
The spirit of Elijah is the spirit that doesn’t simply lie on the ground in the Cherith Ravine and complain about how God had let him down. First the current source of provision stopped. Then he sought the Lord and then the Lord spoke to him about a widow in Sidon. Different sources of provision is one of the strategic principles of God’s purpose and preparation for a visitation of God needs not just provision but the right source of that provision.

What are the sources of provision that God has commanded for what he wants you to do? Maybe you are struggling in Cherith when you should be in Sidon?

FIVE: The spirit of reciprocation I Kings 17:17-24
Blessing from heaven must always be a two way stream

22 The LORD heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. …
…He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”
24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God
and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.”

Ministry is always a two way street. In the kingdom of God there are not just givers and receivers there are only people who do both. It is part of the raising up of the spirit of Elijah to see the need for those in some front line of ministry ready to bless those who enable them to be there. It’s not a matter of keeping the supporters happy. It is nothing to do with good public relations. It is not a business arrangement. It is a spiritual relationship where there are mutual obligations. Obviously there will be all kinds of circumstances where we will receive provision through the good grace of people who we may never get to know. But where we are involved in a relationship with those whose grace enables the broader purpose of God to unfold there needs to be a mutual sense of responsibility. So often good people are abused because people in “full time ministry” somehow think their ministry alone owes them a living. God uses people and people are relationships.
Elijah was confronted with a deep crisis in the life of the woman whom God had commanded to provide him with food and lodgings. When that need arose, Elijah took personal responsibility for the woman, her son and her circumstances. He stood in the gap for her and blessing from heaven flowed back to her for her willingness to put God’s purposes before her own comfort and safety. These “widows” are precious jewels in the temple of God and deserve to be honoured as such. To think of reciprocal ministry as public relations or in terms of a free “supporters dinner” is an insult. Through the spirit of Elijah, the woman’s home, family and future was acknowledged as worthy.

Whose provision of time, insight, mentoring, money, ability and the like has contributed to the call of God on your life being enabled. Have you looked for the opportunity to sow into their circumstances and future by being an agent of the blessing of God upon them?

SIX: THE SPIRIT OF WISDOM 1 Kings 18:1-15
God’s way of getting God’s work done

1 After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah:
“Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.”
2 So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. …..
7 As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him.
Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said,
“Is it really you, my lord Elijah?” 8
“Yes,” he replied. “Go tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’ ”

One of the binary principles of Christian ministry is the important marriage of the truth of God with the wisdom of God. I couldn’t count the number of instances I have known over the years where something that was genuinely a word of eternal truth has been sacrificed on the altar of human foolishness. Elijah had been given a word from the Lord that the rain was about to cease. He was told to present himself to Ahab with that news. This part of the ministry epitomizes the way God embeds intention with strategy. It was his intention to address Ahab with the news that rain was coming, but it wasn’t just a weather report. It was a further and almost final gracious warning about the broken covenantal relationship between God and his people. The strategy involved a faithful prophet called Obadiah who was positioned inside the king’s palace. Imagine being part of the entourage of a disobedient king whose organization included four hundred representatives of demonic power.
Wisdom could be defined as God’s way of getting God’s work done. In the case of Elijah he could have done it the way he did it before. He could have fronted Ahab and delivered the message recorded in the further section of Chapter 18. For reasons we are not told, God set up a meeting between a wandering Obadiah and a focused Elijah. It was a bit reminiscent of Moses meeting Aaron in the desert on his way back to Egypt. This is strategy and in kingdom ministry strategy is divine wisdom. The strategy is as important as the intention. Both are from God. Both need to be from God. Jesus echoed this principle in the following words: “The Father tells me what to say (intention) and how to say it (strategy).” (John 12:49, bracketed words mine).

Do you have a clear sense of how to fulfill the command of God based on something that God has said, or do you just do what someone else does, or how you have done it before?

SEVEN: THE SPIRIT OF CONFRONTATION 1 Kings 18:16-40
The freedom to say what needs to be said to the people who need to hear it

16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17 When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the LORD'S commands and have followed the Baals. 19 Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

Elijah meets with Ahab and the first words are full of accusation and blame. The reasonings of rebellion are always curiously pastiche and seriously flawed. He is challenged right there to modify his word simply because if he doesn’t he will incite the already inflamed king even more. If Elijah thought for a moment that he was going to sweet-talk Ahab into taking a short holiday trip to Mt Carmel along with 400 of his Baalist associates it was just not going to happen.
The character of all confrontation will need to be customized according to what it is that is being confronted. When brothers and sisters confront it should needs be in a spirit of gentleness. When it is a representative of entrenched demonization it must not be so. The cost of God’s grace to Israel is three years of suffering and deprivation on the part of relatively innocent ‘little people.’ His purpose was to create a calling card to Ahab and his idolatrous controlling wife. Elijah needed to speak without regard to himself, his feelings or his fears. He was representing the sober warning of a God of grace. This confrontation came in the form of a series of commands. Rain would come, but there would need to be a meeting on Mount Carmel before it was going to happen. Ahab could do little but comply.
Confrontation is always hard and we tend to avoid it as if it were harmful by definition. What is more harmful when things are wrong is not to confront. Leaving damaging issues alone is not only unloving it is irresponsible. This is not to say that every example of wrongdoing must be fronted. If that were the case we would do noting else. We are talking here about matters that were threatening the future wellbeing of a nation and all of its people. Indeed in 721 BC the whole northern kingdom of Israel was dispersed throughout the Assyrian kingdom because of what didn’t happen in response to this gracious warning from heaven.
Christians ought to be skilled confronters. We carry the most powerful redemptive message on the face of the earth. We represent the God of heaven and earth who is the essence of grace and mercy. We ought to gain his heart so that we can confidently confront. Only when we have divine love can we effectively deliver divine truth.

How free are you to confront when the circumstances demand it? Why don’t you ask God for the spirit of Elijah to come upon you so that you will be qualified to say what God wants said to the people he wants to say it to.

EIGHT: THE SPIRIT OF PREVAILING PRAYER 1 Kings 18:41-46
Being an active participant not just a keen observer of God’s purpose

41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.” 42 So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.

What happened on Mt Carmel after the people left was as full of excitement as what happened when the fire fell as far as having the opportunity to participate in the unfolding purposes of God is concerned. The declared word of God was that rain was coming. That was the message from the Lord that Elijah presented to the king. That message came with conditions like all messages from God do. Rain involved a prior meeting at Mt. Carmel where God demonstrated his power against the best that Canaanite priests could muster. They managed come cuts and abrasions done on themselves by themselves and no doubt them got some aerobic value from many hours of pleading and begging. Fire was, after all, Baal’s specialty. Elijah precipitated a contest ending in fire falling from heaven consuming some water, a bullock and the credibility of Canaanite fervor. Then he re-iterated the message about rain coming.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as far as the eye could see when Ahab rode off down the track that had accumulated through three years of drought. The timing of the rain was also revealed. It was going to come before Ahab could get his chariot onto some decent roads. In fact Elijah said that he’d better get going or he would get bogged on the way.
What happened next is critical in our understanding of the spirit of Elijah. While Ahab was getting take away at the Mt. Carmel Burger King Elijah was climbing back up to the top of the mountain. His purpose was to participate in bringing rain. Those people who bring a particular well known theological system to this verse will have difficulty with my next comment. The question I want to answer is: Would rain have come if Elijah had not gone up to the mountain to pray and watch (times seven)? If he had gone to Burger King and had a whopper with cheese and a cup of coffee would the sky have darkened and rain begin to fall? I am convinced that it would not. Prevailing prayer is not an optional extra to the sovereign plan of God but a key to it. Things happen because people pray and things don’t happen if they don’t. It’s as simple as that in my view.
Purpose and prayer go together. There is no such thing as praying for no reason and there is no such thing as a purpose that doesn’t need praying. Prevailing prayer happens when someone realizes that the God of heaven and earth wants something to happen on the earth and also realized that prayer is the one of the keys involved in that strategy. What I like about this example is the fact that this example highlights a great example of what Jesus referred to in the instruction: “watch and pray.” (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38; Luke 21:46). He prayed, then the servant went to look. He prayed again and the servant had another look. This happened seven times in all before some sign appeared that rain was coming. It may not have been a sign to a meteorologist, but it was to a servant of God. Notice please when Elijah stopped praying: when the rain started to appear. That is the spirit of Elijah and the power of prevailing prayer.

I wonder what prayer assignments belong to your sphere of ministry responsibility - family, neighbourhood, workplace, community, nation, nations. Are there things that you should pick up on the basis of what God has promised that hasn’t happened. Just think what it would be like if rain was promised but didn’t come because you chose to sit in Burger King rather than the kneel on the mountain top.

NINE: THE SPIRIT OF PERSONAL RENEWAL 1 Kings 19:1-18
Renewal is part of normal operations for Christian ministry

1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” 3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

Here is yet another factor critical to the success of all Christian ministry and evidenced here as part of the spirit of Elijah. John the Baptist was certainly evidencing this when he sent some of his associates from his prison cell to ask Jesus whether he really was the one or whether they should look for someone else.(Luke 7:19). There’s a lot to say about this, but suffice to point out that Jesus’ reply is much the same as God’s response to Elijah when they met on Mt. Horeb in Sinai. Elijah was not prepared for Jezebel’s obduracy. He had seen fire fall, people repent and false religion overruled. He had seen the drought break. He was expecting the nation to turn to God and for Ahab and Jezebel to join the penitents. The idea of Jezebel putting out a contract on his life signified that all the grace that flowed from heaven was for nothing, new priests would be installed at the palace and what looked like repentance would quickly manifest as useless remorse. He was tired of carrying the can for a rebellious nation. He was tired of being isolated by his commitment to serve God. He was tired of the fight for God’s honour. No one rushed to console him, Crowds didn’t appear volunteering to sign a petition. It seemed that no one cared.
This form of isolation is well known to good hearted servants of God. Obedience to God’s purpose quickly draws lines and there are plenty of times when you seem to be the only person standing on your side of the line. The drop out rate from “full time” Christian ministry (as if there is any other way of living for any servant of God) in Australia is epidemic in proportion. Unfortunately not enough of those thousands who once put their hand to the plough end up at Mt. Horeb. Too many complain to everyone else except the one place where it is healthy to complain, viz. in the presence of God. Other people can be wonderfully supportive at times like this but none can provide what a person in need of renewal requires. They need something from God. Too often we pander and cajole people in a state of what ought to be called for what it is: self pity. God alone knows how useless that is. What is needed is renewal leading to re-commissioning. If you take the still small voice as a token of intimacy, then intimacy with God is the most under-developed quality of the lives of so many servants of God. Ministry can beguile us away from the very thing that gives us strength. Elijah had to survive a long walk, hardly any food, a whole lot of whiz-bang stuff going on that wasn’t God and he had to suffer the indignity of God’s twice mentioned reaction to his complaint: “What are you doing here?” God never gets involved in Elijah’s emotions. Plenty of people would want to fill Elijah’s ears with every kind of accolade and tribute in the hope of bouncing him out of his depression. The Great Counselor must have missed that class at university. Instead he re-commissioned Elijah to do greater works than those he had already done. This re-commissioning was the prescription and getting focused on it was the medicine that broke the cycle. God also added a corrective clause in his reply. “You are wrong about the numbers. The church that you think has only one member really has seven thousand still on the roll.”

Personal renewal is a critical success factor in ministry. Doing the job isn’t too hard. Making sure you do your primary dealings in the presence of God is much more difficult but so much more important. The next time the work starts to get you down, why don’t you write out your full complaint and take it to the Lord and wait for his answer BEFORE you talk to anyone else. Talking to other people is fine, but not as a substitute for seeking intimacy with the Lord.

TEN: THE SPIRIT OF FATHERHOOD 1 Kings 19:19-21; 2 Kings 1,2
Making room for the next generation of God’s purpose[1]

“…and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet”.

This part of the command of God was most likely going to shape the remainder of Elijah’s ministry more than any other thing he did. In ministry terms it was like the marriage of God’s purpose and Elijah’s commitment to it was about to bear a son. Not only a son but sons. One of the things we notice about this period of time in the history of Israel is the development of the “company of the prophets.” It was a phenomenon that appeared first of all when Samuel was judging Israel.
Something important happens when ministries beget sons. It hasn’t been done well. We have had the same thing happen in the church as has been the case in the wider Australian society. We have had to suffer irresponsible and absent fathers in many “households.” There have been fathers in the house, but they have done everything but raise sons. The other problem has been the way fathers have raised sons. Once again like the sons of any household, it has often been the goal of the father to straightjacket their sons to perpetuate their own ego under the guise of creating succession for the ministry. I come from a rural background and succession has always been a big subject for farmers. Unlike their city counterparts there is a thing called “the property” that has often been in the family for generations. Succession has not always been successful but it is always on the high priority list. Apprenticeship of sons is easy nor is it always natural. Hand over is also a very sensitive area for fathers and sons. Because we have largely adopted an institutional approach to ministry the issue of fathers and sons has been illegitimately commandeered by a committed or individuals in a system. There is rarely anything about the process that is within a country mile of “father and son” and very little to do with the real advancement of the ministry. Until very recently there have been almost no books on the subject of succession in ministry and there have been more bad models than good from my observation point.
Even if “sons” don’t end up taking over the ministry represented by a “father” the call to raise sons and daughters is a valid and important part of Scriptural warrant and needs our attention. It is an issue for everyone involved in a ministry and ministry in the broad sense. Too many demons have had too much impact around the matter of succession. I may be making too much of it, but in my view it could well be the most serious challenge for any ministry if the ministry is going to have life beyond its incumbent leader.
In the case of Elijah he had no thought of raising sons. God did. I sometimes wonder what Elijah’s reaction was the moment he heard God say that he was to raise someone to “succeed you as prophet.” If we take the recorded experience as any kind of guideline (and we should), that process was certainly not the warm and fuzzy frenzy we may prefer. If you look at the interactions between Elijah and Elisha we won’t find too much that is comfy and cuddly. Others will have to guess just what kind of relationship it was. The following are some that seem obvious to me: the offer was given my the father before it was requested by the son, the responsibility on the part of the son was to go after what he saw in the father, not to have it all laid out for him, the part of the son was to serve the father, not for the father to serve the son, the measure to which fathering would happen was going to be determined by what the son was prepared to go after rather than what the father was going to offer,

There is not the space here to apply this to everyone’s area of ministry, but I would urge all who have attested experience in ministry to consider where your sons are? I would likewise ask all who would seek to grow and develop in ministry where your fathers are? There is no individual onus of responsibility here. The onus rests with both potential sons and potential fathers to get up off their individualistic backsides and make sure their ministry involves both functions at the appropriate times.

[1] Rob Holmes (Storm Harvest Ministries, Cootamundra) has a really good book about this and other aspects of the same subject as I have raised in these studies. It is called “The Spirit of Elijah” and contains profound wisdom relative to this issue.

Seven Things that Jesus said from the Cross give context to his command that his followers should make the way of the cross a daily decision

2006-04-15T21:12:00.000+10:00

“If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” Luke 9:23 (Matt. 16)

“Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing..”

1. POWER TO CREATE FORGIVENESS IN ADVANCE

Jesus gave a very powerful insight into something that was going on within him while he watched the empty spaces in the crowd created by the absence of all but one of his disciples. He watched the religious leaders who were supposed to represent the heart of his Father to the people but who had rejected him and worked with all their might to have him put on the cross. He watched Roman soldiers carry out orders from the world’s greatest political force as that force was powerless to confront the clear lack of evidence from the Jewish leaders. He forgave them in advance. He forgave them when they didn’t deserve it, weren’t asking for it and while they were carrying out their foulest deeds. The cross spells the forgiving force of the love of God. This is our characteristic heritage. It is core culture for us. The work of the cross provides us with the same motivation and the same power to forgive in advance. Just think what happens to offences when they are met with advanced forgiveness.

“I tell you, this day you will be with me in paradise…”

2. POWER TO EXPERIENCE CITIZENSHIP OF HEAVEN

The Bible says that both the thieves hurled insults at Jesus. At some point in the proceedings one of those realized there was something different happening. He moved from the place of denigration to the place of revelation. The amazing thing is that the revelation he received was greater than every other person present (or absent for that matter). He knew Jesus was the ruler of a heavenly kingdom. He stopped hurling insults and bowed his heart to the king. Jesus responded by proclaiming his new citizenship right there.

The cross has power to remove the offences that prevent us from entering the kingdom of heaven. In the most amazing of transactions we are made citizens of heaven by the power of God. That citizenship is our identity. We are not to have dual citizenship. We exchange our citizenship of earth for a citizenship of heaven. We then hold a temporary resident’s visa on earth.

“ ‘Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’”

3. PRODUCING FAMILY FROM STRANGERS
Jesus said a number of radical things about family. He said that he was inventing a new expanded version of family made up of those who do the will of the Father. He said that loyalty to God must exceed the worlds most common primary loyalty, to blood relatives. He said that if people left their own families to serve him they would discover multiple substitutes.

If we can just set aside our sometime sense of offence at the idea of putting our own family second to our loyalty to Jesus and focus on the fact that God elevating those who have been made his children by their faith commitment and his matchless grace, we will understand something very special about the cross. It is the power to produce family out of unlikely relationships

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”

4. JUSTICE SATISFIED VICARIOUSLY
Not a single person who has ever lived will know the experience that these words describe. It is the experience of the self fracturing of the Godhead. Something that never happened before and will never happen again happened at Calvary on a cross. The Son was cut off from fellowship with the Father. It was the greatest pain of the massive measure that Jesus was called to carry. On the cross Jesus became the world’s greatest sinner. None of it was his own, but he carried all of yours and all of mine and all of everyone else. If you’ve ever felt the pain your own sin has caused or if you have ever felt the pain of someone else’s sin when you were the victim of it then you will understand, if only in minutiae, what Jesus experienced.
Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do. More to the point, have you had to do it publicly. Jesus was made out to be a horrible sinner. He died the death of the lowest among humankind. In the process he was estranged from his Father. This experience carried him beyond the line of rationality and reason. His cry was the cry of a broken heart.
The deepest part of vicarious suffering is always irrational. The feelings are irrational and the thoughts they produce are most certainly irrational. Such was the cry of the sinless one who “learned obedience through the things he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) When we are called to take up our cross daily a part of that will be the opportunity to experience suffering for things we don’t deserve. It will be our privilege to walk with Jesus in the “fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3). It is a lonely walk and as we learn to walk it we will find ourselves wanting to let someone know how the injustice alienates us. We need to do that work in the presence of the only person who will ever really understand: our beloved Saviour.

“I am thirsty”

5. SUFFERING AS THE FULL EXPRESSSION OF INCARNATE LOVE

It is a no brainer to say that Jesus experienced excruciating suffering on the cross. Physically he was taken to within an inch of his life by the Roman experts. He was then subjected to a process of dying that was known to take many hours, sometimes days of the most unbearable pain. The words from his lips that refer to Jesus thirst should provide the least surprise of all. The context of this statement speaks of the fact that Jesus knew everything had been accomplished and that there were prophetic references to the fact that his sacrifice would create great thirst (Psalm 22, 69). It would be hardly likely that he suddenly had a flash of remembrance and said the words just to satisfy a Bible scholar or three. There are around a thousand OT prophetic references to Jesus. Just think of what it would have been like for Jesus to have to remember each one and tick it off his list as it was fulfilled.
It seems to me that the context most strongly suggests that this simply referenced the humanity of Jesus and as such highlights the end point of the incarnate journey. “Knowing that all was completed” no doubt refers to the fact that whatever the mystery of substitutionary atonement, it had been completed. Having refused a drink that was offered previous to this, Jesus now accepted the taste of the wine vinegar given to him in a sponge. It would not have assuaged his thirst of course. It was a comfort to the Son of God who was about to invade death and hell for the one and only time…and take back the keys from their previous owner.
The important revelation of the cross at this point was the fact that even though Jesus indicated the deep physical abuse experienced on the cross, there was no blame, no recrimination. The reason for this was the fact that Jesus knew the suffering was working God’s redemptive purpose. We, likewise can embrace suffering when we pursue the will of God into various forms of suffering and hardship. We can fully acknowledge the pain but we won’t need to find someone to blame.

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”

6. TRUST THAT GOES BEYOND DEATH

Freedom from the fear of death is a profound experience. There is a “no fear” attitude that exists in some people, but the only reason it does is because they don’t value life. If you place no value on life, you won’t fear death, but for all the wrong reasons. The cross demonstrated the supreme value of life. Jesus died because he values every life. The price is paid for every life. Every life has a value and it is the measure of the life of the only Son of God. To value life that much and still not be afraid of death can only happen when one thing is true. Only when we have a trust in the sovereign power of God over and beyond death will be know this freedom. Jesus was going to the darkness of death knowing that his death was the will of his Father and knowing that beyond death lay victory. That victory was guaranteed by the sovereign power of the Almighty Father.
Someone once said, “If you want to know how to live, you’ve got to know how to die.” You will never embrace life with trust in the goodness of God if you can’t trust his goodness in death. Paul sought after this trust: “That I may know Him…being made conformable to his death, so that I might attain to the resurrection from the dead. The cross makes it possible. Only embracing the cross. Jesus said we would need to take up our cross daily. We need to live life through the trust that goes beyond death in order to do that. It was Paul who said, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.” II Corinthians 4:11

“It is finished”

7. TRIUMPH OVER EVIL
While it happened totally on the plane of human history, the cross is the only event that changed eternity forever. The Bible talks quite naturally about the twin realms of natural or worldly and supernatural or heavenly. Use whatever words you like and they till talk about the same thing: carnal and spiritual, temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly etc. Jesus death on the cross bound what was on the loose in the earth so that it was forever bound in the heavenly realm. He also loosed on the earth something that was loosed in the heavenly realm (Matthew 16). He bound the power of death and hell and loosed the power of life and heaven.
This is the triumph of the cross. The New Testament talks about it as a regal victory march:
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Colossians 2
We are called to live the life of heaven even though we are on the earth. We are called to live as a tangible prophetic testimony to the lifestyle of heaven. The cross gives us the power and the authority to do this. Once again we need to take up our cross daily and follow him in order to fulfill this prophetic calling.

MONDAY APRIL 10 BRISBANE - CANBERRA SUMMARY REFLECTIONS ON THE CROSSLINK CLUSTER MEETINGS

2006-04-11T06:17:00.000+10:00

Mark was at Geoff and Isobel’s place right on time at 6:15 this morning with Rob. The trip from Redcliff to the airport should be a very simple one with dual lane roads most of the way. The only problem is that you have to contend with all the traffic coming from the Sunshine Coast into the city and south across the Gateway bridge. According to the locals the traffic build up is getting earlier and earlier. We hit the Gateway Motorway before 6:30 and there were quite significant delays while traffic merged. Can’t imagine how people do this every day. Once we were down the freeway it started to move and we were into the terminal by a little after 7:00.

We wandered up and waited for Graeme in the Blue Room. When he came we did a bit of a general summary comments whip around. They are included in the list below. I kept looking at the departures board as the time got closer to our 8:15 flight. The instruction said to go to the gate but we assumed there would be a further instruction that would tell us that boarding had begun. The fact was there would be no such indication. I wasn’t about to miss the plane home and when Graeme and I got to the gate our names were being mentioned over the paging system. Shocker!!

On the way home I had the opportunity to speak with a young guy called Rowan who works for Doma Hotels. They are a local company and are expanding their facilities in and beyond Canberra. They run the Barclay and Pinnacle Apartment Hotels in Manuka and Kingston. They are also building a brand new hotel where the Macquarie Hotel was in Barton. He was a good young guy and there was plenty of opportunity to give him some information about a hotel that Jesus was building that had plenty of rooms. I must say I enjoy this kind of thing and hope that it isn’t a bad way to do business. When he said he worked for a hotel chain, I just said, “The bloke I work for is in the hotel business too.” It went on from there and we had a good laugh when I said I was doing a bit the same job as him. He was a sales manager who had been to a tourism exhibition to sell accommodation. I said that while I wasn’t the manager, I was part of the sales team for our hotel chain. I said we had a deal they could never match and much better room service. It was good fun and led to some more serious conversation.

Canberra airport. What a joy. I almost felt like kissing the ground. And that fresh crisp air. Nothing better. Rachel and Georgia were there to pick me up. Nola had some appointments so I didn’t get to see her till lunch time. She also had a commitment at lunch, so Nola and I had a lovely romantic lunch with one of her clients. There was a lot to do and I basically got right into it trying to cover all the bases for the next stage of operations.

SUMMARY

The idea of having cluster meetings of between ten and twenty leaders in a place close to where they live and work is of great value in talking over any issue whether it has to do with the Network as a whole or their own churches and ministries simply because there is greater awareness of the situation and greater opportunity to interact.
The Townsville meeting saw most of the leaders come for most of the time. The Brisbane meetings were attended by far fewer leaders and for less of the time. It is always hard to get a time that suits everyone, but I think if we were to do it again I would spend more time trying to negotiate the dates and times so that we could have greater and more consistent participation. The momentum of the gathering (if I can speak broadly in those terms) was built during the two days. The ones who were there for the whole time were part of that. People who came for a small amount of time, say, on the second day were not able to plug in to what was happening. It worked like a small group in that respect.
We are a Network, and everything that the “Network” does comes by way of an offer rather than an obligation. In the case of the Brisbane meetings it was obvious that it was viewed by a number of Crosslink leaders as either not relevant to them, unimportant or just not possible due to other commitments. It is a hard issue to balance, but I think we would be better served in the future to do more work in gaining broader ownership before we confirm the arrangement.
I think the fact that we tacked the two cluster meetings on the back of the One Heart National Consultation was understandable from the Townsville point of view (distance) but it definitely narrowed our options for gathering people when we came to Brisbane.
The meetings themselves were outstanding. We were presenting the issue of leadership arising from a commitment to New Testament references like Ephesians 2:20 and talking about building the church on the foundation of apostolic and prophetic ministry. The issues covered: What is it? How does it work? What does it mean for a local congregation? What does it mean for the church in a city? What does it mean for a Network of churches like ours? What are some of the historic pitfalls and warnings? In almost every discussion we were never asked to respond to the issue of whether apostolic and prophetic leadership should be viewed dispensationally (i.e. the apostles referred to could only be interpreted as the twelve appointed by Jesus and the prophets could only be interpreted as those mentioned in the Bible). That meant we were pretty much on the same page for most of the time.
Roadway, not parking lot. This was an image that received constant mention and reference. I think it came from some things that I had referred to at the Conference last year. It is tied to the discussion as to whether we are to be a reactive or proactive movement. When the Network started there was no doubt we were a parking lot. Churches and ministries were able to come and park themselves in the Network and we would provide a few minor mechanical services and some modest car detailing services. But we were not really moving anywhere as a Network. Everyone had their own individual agenda and we were serving that agenda. I now believe that if we were to continue to take that attitude we would miss the opportunity to serve the restoring purposes of God for the church in our nation (and beyond) according to Scripture. Who knows, in the end, what we might become. All I know is that we have an opportunity to witness the restoration of apostolic and prophetic leadership like few other movements do. We have nothing to defend and nothing to possess. Without starting to preach, this point was taken up very positively by almost everyone we talked with. There is much more to say about this of course, but these two cluster meetings paved the way for a much greater understanding of how we might carry this forward.
The sessions each day went from 9:00 or 10:00 till 4:00 over the two days. That seems to be enough time. I think it could be compressed into one longer day with some preliminary materials being sent to everyone and perhaps a preliminary discussion or two. The sessions were fluid. We had some teaching input to give. I gave some and Rob gave some. We had a lot of interaction and time for worship and prayer. The goal was to raise the issue and allow people to respond and to respond to their response. That worked really well. We didn’t provide a written review form but in each case there was very strong vocal affirmation.
We agreed to work on a follow up plan. With the Townsville guys we have arranged to work up a Skype conversation once every three to four weeks in order to review the ongoing actions and issues. I think if we were to do further clusters this technology could be used a way of preparing for the time and making the best use of it.

There will probably be other things to think of as time goes by. When we spoke at the airport before leaving for Canberra we agreed to think about presenting a more digested report for all of the people in the Network and of working on a gathering for the NSW guys at an appropriate place (say west Sydney) later in the year.

SUNDAY APRIL 9TH BRISBANE PEACE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, REDCLIFF

2006-04-10T11:31:00.000+10:00

The Redcliff peninsula has seen some quite startling Christian developments in the not too distant past. Chris Gabritt (spelling may be wonky) and his wife Gail were pastors of the Christian Outreach Centre here and developed a ministry related to Bill Hamon in the United States built around the prophetic. It wasn’t quite the Kansas City Fellowship/Mike Bickle thing that happened in the eighties, but it was significant by Australian standards. They developed a prophetic school here that saw about 8,000 students involved over the years. The church grew and grew and they built an auditorium that would seat around a thousand people and filled it often.

This large ministry in the relatively small peninsula city didn’t just cause a stir, it tended to throw the church (Christian congregations on the peninsula) into the usual disarray. This wasn’t just the fault of the COC. As always it was contributed to by everyone who made an unrighteous response. The COC became an island all by itself. It would be like an island with its own airport where overseas ministries flew in and out and where a whole industry built around the “tourist trade” of people visiting. There was the usual pride in the COC leaders and the usual jealousy and fear in the pastors of other churches, especially those whose people left to join the larger more prominent ministry.

The prophetic school saw hundreds of people trained with “prophetic” credentials but without a credible portfolio. It’s a bit like other large Bible Colleges that have large front doors but very small back doors. People flock to the college, but when they finish they have no where to hang their shingle and the church that runs the college has no exit policy. Churches around the nation began aligning with the church here and feeding conferences with their people.

I am not suggesting that all of this was bad, or even that most of it was bad. Most of it was good and the fruit of it was good. In the end the management was bad and finally the leadership fell into some sin and the usual thing happened. The leaders were almost beyond proper relational accountability and there was no adequate restoration plan. A lot of people got hurt and the local COC was decimated. A lot of the leaders of local congregations looked on either in horror or in judgment. People began to find other congregations to belong to but carried the hurt with them. The prophetic was dragged into the usual ecclesiastical mud and everyone headed for a cave to allow their wounds to heal at best and try and bury their shame at worst.

Mark Setch has been part of the healing presence of Jesus in this city. Even though he spoke today about the fact that he had pulled back from the prophetic just because of the experiences on the peninsula, he has a mantle of leadership in this city that is acknowledged and valued. Interestingly he felt led to lay that leadership down when he left the local Uniting Church and formed Peace Christian Church. For him it was just a matter of not wanting to draw any more attention to the separation than he could help. The decision he and many of the people made following the famous “Resolution 84” (decision by the Assembly of the Uniting Church to allow practicing homosexuals to be ordained) was reported in the local newspaper. Not harshly, but without any attempt to understand. You know what the press is like. The press “vultures” have a keen eye for anything that might potentially divide the community and they have an interest in creating a sensation. The bottom line is selling more newspapers which in turn means selling more advertising.

So Mark has kept a comparatively low profile. He has maintained strong contact with other pastors and there is a good set of core relationships. He has recently been asked to come back into leadership. In one way this is a great testimony to his God given role, in another he doesn’t want to see something remain that will get in the way of the greater thing God might want to do.

All that to say this: Today Peace Christian Church (approx 150 members) and the Peninsula Full Gospel Church (approx. 30 plus members) had their first service as a combined group. John and Julie have been interim pastors of this small group for years as I have written about before. We had a great meeting this morning. There was so much of a sense there that God was doing a new thing. It had very little to do with the fact that Peace needed a building to worship in and Full Gospel had a building they couldn’t anywhere near fill up. This was a symbol of the church in the peninsula being formatted by the Spirit to rise up and take the land. That may sound overly dramatic, but I hasten to point out that most invasions are dramatic. Even the gathering and training of the invasion armies is a dramatic process. What we saw was what the hearts of people were giving testimony to: the oneness of the Triune God being embraced by faith filled ordinary people.

I was going to preach a very safe sermon about staying on track, but the Holy Spirit took me to Haggai and I spoke about the former and latter glory of the house. It was a wonderful time and the heart of the people was a bit like I would have imagined the people in Haggai’s day when it says, “they came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God.” (1:14)

We didn’t get back to Mark and Kerri’s till after 1:00 pm and ate a very relaxed lunch till about 3:00. Rob was going to be preaching this evening. Graeme was preaching in Ipswich so we haven’t seen him since Friday evening. I got back to my digs and decided to go for a long walk. I have been listening to Jeremiah in order to become closer friends with the Lord through what is revealed of him in that book. It has been profound. I find myself walking along with my MP3 praying and almost involuntarily weeping at the hard heartedness of the people of God. I pray for us. We are like that people. This nation is like that nation. I pray that the people of God will not fail him and allow some “Babylonian force” to overrun the church and the nation.

I just kept on walking and didn’t realize how far I had come from home, so I had to step up the pace to get back in time to get ready for the evening meeting. Rob was preaching so all I had on my mind was the remnants of Jeremiah and a desire to pray for the people coming to the meeting and for the other leaders and Rob himself.

It was a significant meeting for a number of reasons: a. Rob was preaching in the city where a major prophetic ministry had first been opposed from within its own movement and then became ensnared in a whirlpool created by overstaffing, financial pressures and finally moral failure. He preached about the need for prophetic integrity. It was a foundational word. New foundation that is. It happened that there were six people at that meeting who had been part of the core team when that ministry was flourishing. One person openly challenged Rob on the issue of his statement of the need for prophetic integrity on the issue of the middle east and demonstrated that there were some unresolved issues and probably some theological differences at stake. At the end of the meeting we stood together and asked God that the pioneering work that had been done, and had foundered, would be rebuilt, not from the basis of a sectarian church with a deficient understanding of Biblical leadership, but through a church that Jesus himself would build in the peninsula. It was a powerful time.

Others were heading for the Coffee Club after church, but I asked Mark to drop me off at home. I was tired and also looking forward to getting on a plane home in the morning. As it turned out I began to mull over the three weeks I had just spent in all parts of the country and didn’t run out of steam till much later than I had intended.

Graeme had been preaching at a Crosslink church in Ipswich. He was using his brother in law’s car so he drove all the way to the Coffee Club in Redcliffe/Scarborough to connect with Rob, Mark and Kerrie and then drove back to Wayville Heights to sleep and return the vehicle. He has much more stamina for that sort of stuff than I have I must admit. Good on him for doing it. I won’t be catching up with him till we get together at the airport tomorrow morning.

SATURDAY APRIL 8TH BRISBANE MINISTRY AT RIVER CITY CHURCH, WEST END

2006-04-09T13:22:00.000+10:00

The Redcliff peninsula creates the north eastern tip of the city of Brisbane. Those of you who have been there will easily identify the long bridge that separates other northern suburbs from these. It is a relatively small municipal area that has been under some threat from the “big is beautiful” ideologies to be dissolved and merge with Pine Rivers or Brisbane Councils. Just where I am staying the house looks out across the water to Deception Bay. Along from here is a whole string of Florida style developments that have houses with water channels at the back so that people can have their car parked at the front and their yacht out the back. Some of the yacht’s are amazing.

Mark picked me up at about 9:00 am to take us to the city. It only took about forty five minutes on this occasion but would take much longer in normal traffic. The link road joins the main double carriageway road between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. It is part of the Gateway Motorway that takes you over the very impressive Gateway bridge and down onto the Gold Coast motorway. We headed for the city once we’d passed the airport and crossed the winding Brisbane River at the Story Bridge, then along past the Gabba. West End sits just south of the South Bank area where the World Expo was held and where there are all kinds of arts facilities and lots of places to buy lattes. The demography changes dramatically. Even though there is a great lot of development going on and apartments and other yuppie priced homes being built, West End still comprises a lot of government houses, boarding houses and the like.

Wayne and Jenny Spivey started running a soup kitchen out of the Seventh Day Adventist Church just west of the city (and very close to Suncorp Stadium). When they became filled with the Spirit they were more or less shunted out. By that time they had taken up the use of premises in West End. They use an Aboriginal Centre for their worship time. Because they read a lot of marginalized people they always have food as part of anything they do. Apart from the Saturday worship time, they have a welfare centre to the west of the West End main centre. It is a house not far from the river where they run street vans and clothing redistribution and the like.

I always like coming to this church. About forty or fifty people gathered there for worship and we sang worship songs to Hills DVD tracks. Jenny led the meeting. Jenny and Wayne and their two children had just been to Israel, Turkey and Greece in a tour with a hundred and fifty other people (but only two other Aussies) led by Chuck Missler. They had a great time but when they were at the Jordan River, their son Jaemin was baptized. In telling the church about this story they all gathered around and prayed for him as they would have done if he had been baptized as part of their own church family. It was very special.

One of the guys in the church is called Rodney. He has a modest mental disability. I’m not sure how it came about but he was in Vietnam for two tours, so it must have happened sometime later in his life. He has a very unfettered way of commenting on anything and everything and his soft nature and good humour make his contribution almost as priceless as it is unsolicited. I preached about the ever present help of the Father’s love based on Mark chapter three. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue where there was a man with a shriveled hand. Rob also shared a prophetic word and we ended up praying for a lot of people at the conclusion.

Rob and I were shouted lunch by Wayne and Jenny and went to the absolute original Coffee Club for the occasion. It is an Australian café chain started in Brisbane. I thought it might have been the original one so we asked and were told very proudly that it was so. We talked flat out over lunch and went for a wander down the street and back. Wayne is a deep thinking guy with a pure heart of love for marginalized people.

On one of the days of our meetings here we had come across the title of a book by Loren Sanford called, “Purifying the Prophetic” and there was a Koorong shop just on the other side of the Gabba, so we went over there and purchased a copy. We were also after another one called, “God’s Politics” by Jim Wallis (American Christian journalist and author). Ian Shelton had been reading this book following a session with Bill Hybels in Sydney recently where it was recommended. The subtitle for this book is “Why the American right is wrong and the left don’t get it.” It takes a new and I think refreshing look at where Christians should connect with the issues that get placed on our political agendas by the conservatives and the social liberals in politics. Even though it refers to the American scene, I think many of the points he makes about taking a Biblical view on issues rather than the ones often taken that simply shadow other secular views is important. He also proposes that in a lot of issues we should be thinking about what represents God’s justice and mercy not just straight morality.

We had to go into town to Dymocks for the second of these, so by the time we had done that and then the drive to Redcliff it was after five o’clock. We spent a bit of time with Mark talking about the merger they have just taken up with a Full Gospel church in Redcliffe. It came about in a left field kind of way. They were told the school they meet in was going to be refurbished because of problems with asbestos. When they tried to find another place to worship, they approached the Full Gospel church and discovered that the thirty people who still met in their building had no pastor and were being looked after by a loving but very busy guy in their church who was in business. He had been praying for Mark since he had heard of his departure from the Uniting Church and was asking God whether it would be in His purpose for the two congregations to come together and for Mark to become their pastor as well. Rob and I had a good time talking with Mark about the issue involved. He is a very wise person, but also full of faith and is able to take a journey down an uncharted road. Tomorrow will be the first time they have worshipped together and in the Full Gospel building.

Mark dropped me back to the Taylors and after a walk to the shops to buy a paper and a very nice evening meal with the Taylors I spent the rest of the night reading and praying and preparing for tomorrow.

FRIDAY APRIL 7TH BRISBANE CROSSLINK LEADERSHIP CLUSTER MEETING DAY TWO

2006-04-09T13:20:00.000+10:00

Derek Brown had phoned me wanting to meet up. Derek was in Canberra for a number of years and moved to the Sunshine Coast some time ago. We agreed to meet for breakfast at the Mall at North Lakes so Graeme was able to borrow a car from Mark for the day and we drove up together to meet him at 8:00 am. Derek has been developing a E-Newsletter publishing business and has been preaching stuff about the kingdom of God lately. He has always had a heart to reach unreached Aussies and used to publish a magazine called “The Alternative.” He is now going to publish it on the internet. He was keen to hear about the “Building Church Where You Are” stuff and also Rob’s work with market place people. All of that consumed a bunch of bacon, eggs and coffee and a bit more than an hour and a half. We finished up in time for the session with Crosslink leaders.

Today’s session was much more focused and had a great deal more momentum about it than yesterday. I can’t exactly say why, but we talked about the relationship between apostles and prophets and Rob did his great presentation on the Biblical models in both Testaments. We talked about the fact that if the church is built on the foundational ministry provided by apostles and prophets, then every expression of the church needs to have those ministries functioning at a level appropriate to the individual expression. For example: there must be an expression that belongs to a local congregation. There also needs to be leadership given to the church in a city. I also realized that if Crosslink Network was an expression of the body of Christ, then it also needed leadership from apostles and prophets. We began to talk with the leaders of the six churches represented there about their own congregations, their cities and then began to figure out how this kind of leadership might work in a network like ours. We also agreed that it needed to be a matter of exercising faith for this and making room for it. I am amazed at how some of these things have crystallized for me during these meetings. There was a lot of practical and helpful interaction going on here that was “scratching” in the right place. We finished up with a great time of prayer and worship.

After the meetings we went back to Mark and Kerrie’s place and talked some more, did some internet stuff and had tea together. Mark had been able to arrange accommodation for us with some of the folks in his church. I am staying with a great couple of people: the Taylors. Geoff is a retired ANZ bank manager and they are both extremely hospitable and we’ve had some great conversations together. Mark brought me over at about 8:30. I watched the footy for half an hour with Geoff before heading for the bedroom. I thought I was tired, but when I got unpacked I began to do some work on material Ian Shelton asked me to do on “The Church in the City.” I began to throw some dots and dashes together on my computer before I realized that it was after midnight. And amazingly cool for a place with the reputation Brisbane has for being sticky and warm. I heard that there has been snow around Canberra. Wow!

Today is Ben’s birthday (second son). He turned twenty five, and I gave him a ring in the morning while he was at work, and then again tonight as he was at our place with the rest of the family having a birthday party. I am really missing being there with them all and it makes me a little more eager to look for the plane flight on Monday morning to Canberra.

Tomorrow is ministry at a church in the West End of Brisbane with Wayne and Jenny Spivey. Rob will be coming but Graeme is meeting up with some of his in-laws and will be joining us on Sunday morning at Peace Christian Church here in Redcliffe.

THURSDAY APRIL 6TH BRISBANE DAY ONE OF THE CROSSLINK CLUSTER MEETINGS IN SOUTH QUEENSLAND

2006-04-09T13:14:00.000+10:00

Jenny Spivey called to pick us up to take us to the meetings at about 9:15 am. I had to do some radio programs before she came, so Graeme and Rob had to sit around listening to me going for it in the motel room. I was able to put six programs together with some minor and very humorous interruptions from the audience during the recording process. Even though I am modestly familiar with some technology it is a bit like flying. Every time I get in a plane of any size I marvel at the fact that a bit of metal can carry us through the air. Similarly I marvel that a funny little red sponge covered piece of metal connected to my computer can end up being broadcast around the Canberra region. After recording I was on the lookout for a broadband connection somewhere that would enable me to transfer the files to the ONE WAY FM hard drive in Fyshwick.

Jenny and Wayne Spivey are a great couple of people. They and their two kids provide pastoral leadership for a church that reaches street people and other marginalized people in the south bank part of Brisbane. They came out of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in West Brisbane and do a great job in very demanding circumstances. It has taken its toll on them and at times they have struggled to hold things together and to hold themselves together, but they are prevailing. I feel so much admiration for them and what they are doing. They live in Shailer Park, not far from where Natalie and Josh Shingles now have their house. I was hoping I might get to see Natalie and Josh before I go back to Canberra and we have a meeting to do with Wayne and Jenny on Saturday morning. They still have their church worship meeting on Saturday. It might have otherwise indicated a legacy from the legalistic side of the SDA church but that is so not the case with these guys. They are among the most un-legalistic people I know.

We found the Pathway Community Centre in Mango Hill. If you know Brisbane, this is among the northernmost suburbs of Brisbane. It is just east of the highway going to the Sunshine Coast from the airport (I think that would be the Bruce Highway). Mark Setch has a Crosslink church in the Redcliff area and Bruce Moore has planted a church in the North Lakes area. This is their territory. The community centre is a great place for what we wanted to do. It has meeting rooms of all shapes and sizes but is probably the most modern and technically advanced I have seen. For around $80 per day we have the use of a room that has every kind of audio, video or multi-media facility you could ever need. Rob was able to put up his excellent audio power point presentations on a large LCD screen on the wall with sound that any presenter would kill for. The fact that the centre is across the road from the Westfield Centre food court has a few advantages that will be obvious to anyone with an idea of what post modern culture values: lots of choices close at hand. Even those of us who have been dragged into the post modern world are able to cope with the pressure of such readily available choices: mainly good coffee close at hand.

There was once again a good gathering of Crosslink leaders. Herman Reuters was the only one down from Toowoomba. Wayne and Jane Dillon were there all the way from Cunnamulla. They had been in Toowoomba because of some treatment that Wayne had to receive so that was a blessing on the side for them and us. Mike Smith was there as well and it was great to see him after a long spell. Ian Campbell came with Mark Setch. Ian is the Director of the Natural Church Development research and consultant group in Australia and was able to bring us some very interesting statistical summaries about aspects of Christian ministry we were talking about, mainly in the leadership area. NCD is an amazing phenomenon. It was started many years ago by a German guy called Christian Schwartz. They have done something like 68 million individual Christian surveys of something like 44,000 (maybe wrong in numbers here) churches around the world. They try to measure the health of churches and base their ideas on the fact that healthy churches create healthy growth and unhealthy churches either don’t grow or grow in such a way that does not sustain growth. They build their data around eight characteristics that they believe are signs of health churches. I can’t remember them all but they cover things like: empowering leadership, loving relationships, need oriented evangelism, inspirational worship, life giving structures, something to do with small groups and….. (?).

Ian Shelton had talked with me about some of the results they had gleaned from across Australia and in Toowoomba. They work on a system of identifying the strongest and weakest areas and then providing tools to help churches lift their game in their weak areas. The assumption is that the weak areas are what limits growth rather than the idea that just keeping focused on strong areas. It is a good snapshot and we did a survey some years ago. Interestingly the factor which turns out to be the strongest in Australia (compared to other nations) is loving relationships (mateship). Just as interestingly, when Ian asked for the figures for all the churches in Toowoomba who had done the survey (only eight) the weakest link was loving relationships. It seems hard to reconcile that with what I know of Toowoomba where more than fifty of the more than eighty church pastors meet for prayer each Friday and where they have perhaps the strongest expression of unity in the whole of Australia. The other thing about Toowoomba is that they have the highest percentage of church going people in Australia (somewhere over 20% I think).

We began to share together and soon were engaged in good interaction about leadership and the functions that made leadership effective in keeping the church headed in the right direction. There was an interesting and engaging discussion as we talked around the issues raised by Ian and the question as to whether the NCD surveys were able to measure health by Biblical standards and success by Biblical standards. It was helpful not as a contest of ideas but as a way of clarifying just what it is that we are trying to do and where the co-ordinates are for churches in a network like Crosslink. Ian rightly observed that we are at a crossroads as a network and have not really found an identity.

One of the clear reasons for this has to do with my own approach to leadership in the network. It is a fact that I have formerly thought of Crosslink as something of a “parking lot.” It was simply a place where people could park their churches and receive some help getting patched up and helping them to get internally strong so that they could drive out onto whatever road they chose and do a good job. Some time during the past year I have become aware of the fact that Crosslink probably is a roadway for the constituent churches and ministries to travel along. It is probably a particular roadway, not any kind of roadway. It is probably not a narrow path that will exclude all but a few idiosyncratic misfits, but a roadway that has a set of coordinates designating where we are heading rather than a set of gutters indicating who is on or off the road. Maybe it is like a bunch of planes flying to a certain latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. I don’t want to lose my way trying to tailor a bunch of analogies that only produce more confusion, but I think there are definite coordinates.

Among those coordinates are the challenge of seeing apostles and prophets raised up to give foundational leadership for churches. Whatever expression of church we may be involved in at a given time, there needs to be people who know from God what represents the greater measure of the fullness of Jesus Christ and there needs to be people who can oversee the implementation of that process. The first of those is the function of prophets and the second is the function of apostles. I think we will have to keep on saying that we are not talking about offices with the title on the door, or business cards with the title under the name. I am convinced that such a process is neither wise nor practical in Australia. I do think a deliberate attempt to walk before God and cry out to him for those ministries to be unashamedly established is vital.

Well, we had a great time pushing the boundaries. Everyone had a go at sharing their hearts and insights, some fears, other bad experiences but always with hope for something Biblical and something with credibility. There is more to do tomorrow, but we got on the road (not to push the analogy into tedium). We broke camp at around four o’clock.

We still didn’t have anywhere to stay, and I had to get to a hot spot McDonalds to upload some radio programs. Mike Smith was keen to hang out further and Herman wanted to talk with Rob a bit more, so Jenny drove us to the closest McD’s and we all did what we had to do. You can say what you like about the fat content of a big mac, but the opportunity for a traveler to connect to the internet makes the golden arches a welcome sign. While we were there Graeme received a phone call from his brother in law in Wayville Heights who offered us a bed for the night so Jenny drove us there on her way home. She lives in Shailer Park (Shingles territory if you’ve just joined the journey) so it was good of her to take the slow road home.

Mark (married to Karen Hush’s sister) is a great bloke. He is a bricklayer by trade, but has all kinds of talents and abilities. They have bought a large two storey home on the side of a hill looking toward the city. There was a beautiful sunset happening when we arrived so Rob was out with the digital pumping images onto his flash card. Mark is currently restoring the house which they will eventually rent as two flats. It was still a work in progress but there was new carpet and mattresses on the floor so we were well supplied. A Thai takeaway and a few hours of conversation later we ‘headed for the mattresses’ (to quote from the Godfather and You’ve Got Mail). Once again I was dead tired but very fulfilled because of the distance we had travelled and the way we had connected with the guys in the meeting today.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 5TH TOWNSVILLE TO BRISBANE

2006-04-07T17:39:00.000+10:00

By 7:30 am I was packed up and waiting to be picked up by Wayne Crockford. Wayne is the chaplain at James Cook University and came from our church in Canberra to work here a couple of years ago. He has two kids and I hadn’t been able to connect with his eldest son, Joshua since I had arrived, so we agreed to have breakfast together.

Wayne’s story is one of some sadness, because it was due to a breakup in his marriage that he ended up coming to Townsville. After the break up in Canberra, Sally decided to move to Townsville with the two kids. It was a horrible decision for Wayne. To be separated from his kids by such a distance was unthinkable. So he packed up everything he owned and drove to Townsville to look for a job and find a place to live just to be near his kids. He connected with the Crosslink guys and Chris Ireland and Dave Frewin-Lord gave him a lot of support.

After some time had passed the position of chaplain at JCU came up. It is actually a position for a Multi Faith Chaplain. The way the story was told to me was that the University was looking for someone who was multi faith (that is a person who practiced a number of different faiths). When they found out the obvious (i.e. that people generally don’t practice Islam, Hinduism and Christianity simultaneously), they agreed to appoint someone who practiced one particular faith but was able to provide support for people who practiced the others.

Wayne was well suited to working on the University. He and a few other guys had started Students For Christ some years ago and had seen it spread to most of the University Campuses around the nation in just a few years. I know some Christians would feel that to take such a position is a compromise of your faith, but in reality it is no such thing. In fact, for Wayne it is and has been a great opportunity to minister Jesus to the students of other faiths who come to the University.

When I was in Townsville last year I stayed with Wayne. He had been looking after the two kids because Sally had moved somewhere up near Innisfail and the kids by that time had settled in to schools, churches and friendships in Townsville. He has done a great job in caring for them and they are doing well at School and going strong in the Lord. It was a joy to meet with Joshua once again. Somehow there is a bond between myself and them that grew from our previous connections, and I appreciate their trust.

We made a few stops at the shops on the way to the airport, but arrived in good time to catch our flight to Brisbane. The thing that makes flying bearable for me is the opportunity to connect with someone sitting next to me and on this occasion I found myself alongside a commercial real estate guy from Townsville. We connected really well and spent the whole two hours talking about property, family and Jesus in that order. He was an interesting guy who had been a bit of a high flying business man who had downshifted (to us the Clive Robinson, “Affluenza” term). He had been around the world on what used to be called the “hippie trail” in his earlier years and had a lot of interesting tales to tell, but ones that indicated his search for something more than just breathing and making money. As you often find, God was on his case through a guy who owned a business in the same building as his who was tentmaking in order to pastor a church in town.

When we got to Brisbane there was a breakdown in some kind of communication. There was no one to meet us and no arrangement for any kind of accommodation. We made a few phone calls and then found ourselves looking for a motel room somewhere close to the airport. We found one in Ascot and fortunately it had a system of wireless connection for our computers so we spent the afternoon doing email and related stuff. We were also able to de-brief fully on our two days in Townsville and prepare for the next two in Brisbane. The combination of all of those activities alternated from the time we arrived till after ten o’clock at night. As had been my experience with the One Heart guys, the opportunity to talk through all of the issues that arose each day and to extend them into the broader field of Christian ministry endeavour has been extremely useful. It represents a huge increase to my normal operation. Normally I would be travelling alone and the interaction would be between myself and the people/leaders etc. that I am visiting with. That is always good value. On this occasion there is value from two perspectives instead of one. As this trip has progressed both the One Heart team and the Crosslink one have been marked by a high level of loving commitment and open hearted servanthood. Unfortunately it doesn’t always happen among Christian leaders. We are often too prone to allow insecurity and other defects to lead to competition and cover up.
All of this is very much appreciated as far as I am concerned, but I am also aware that from the time I get up till the time I go to bed we are engaged in these activities and there is almost no respite. I am still surprised at how tired I get each night, but when I think about it in the light of what is actually going on it’s a bit like playing footy from the moment you get up till the moment you go to bed. I feel a bit the same way as I used to playing footy….really tired but greatly rewarded for being in the game.

DAY SEVENTEEN: April 4, 2006 TOWNSVILLE: DAY TWO OF THE CROSSLINK LEADERS ROUNDTABLE

2006-04-05T08:57:00.000+10:00

The first session of our second day started at 9:00 am blunt. Townsville culture is laid back and we spent the first twenty minutes getting gathered and started. Today we had a couple of extra people. Wayne Benn’s wife came (name??? once again a blank spot in the brain). Peter Patterson also came. He is the head of the pastors network in town but is also giving oversight to Matthew’s Church as one of the Board of Reference members. It was good of him to come. He is a great laid back kind of guy who is easy to like and seems to have a casual but distinct authority about him. We had to do a little backtracking just to get him oriented, but he participated with freedom and a good rapport. Rob Holmes began by sharing some features of the relationship between apostles and prophets. It was good stuff and came out of his own experience and from a study of the relationships in the Bible between people who represented those gifts in the Old Testament and New. We also shared our own journey of working together as a team (Rob and myself) and how that had developed and why it was helpful. He had some great insights from Acts 15 leading to the statement in Ephesians 2:20. There was some feedback and discussion about some of those things and we then launched into some discussions arising from the questions and issues we had put on a list the day before.

The first one was regarding the relationship between local congregations and para church ministries in a city or region. There had been some tension in Townsville in the way it happens everywhere, but this had been accentuated recently by the YWAM base pushing hard to have the Impact World Tour come to the city. This is a YWAM generated team that does outreach through the focus on some extreme sports people together with Christian rock bands and a few other attractions. It’s not just the fact that it is costing the churches $240,000 to run, but that it was introduced without the support of the full core leadership of the pastors network. It has been a bit divisive on that basis, but the program is very professionally organized and comes as a total package. I don’t know anyone who would say it is not a genuine gospel ministry. Its just that there have been some really bad experiences that we know of in both New Zealand as well as Australia together with some over-exaggerated claims about the results.

I spoke in response about the whole issue of para church ministries existing only because they are prophetic movements. I can’t think of one that is not a word from heaven to the whole church, bringing a message of something God wants to restore. Think of Scripture Union, Inter-denominational missions, Campus Crusade, Youth for Christ, YWAM; they all represent ministries that God wants to be mainstream church activities. As a result we have children’s ministry in almost every church due to Scripture Union, we have Youth Alive and its predecessors re-establishing teenage ministries of all kinds in most churches. We have missions teams and missionary involvement in most churches because of YWAM and the other missions organizations. There are not two kinds of churches (missionary church and local church) but one (church). So the para church ministries in my view are just different kinds of churches and should be regarded like that. Generally they don’t want to be regarded like that because they often draw from the churches, but they have their own structure and their own agenda. They only serve the whole church as far as it suits their primary and generally narrow agenda. I don’t have a problem with these groups. I just think if they were accepted as church groups and not ministries we would have to do some work to develop relationships that would work better.

Our discussion then turned to how the apostolic and prophetic worked into the life of a local congregation. We talked with the groups there about their oversight people and reviewed whether or not those relationships were adding value to the ministries. All of these discussions were important and valuable for everyone.

By three o’clock we had come to the end and we closed by asking the local guys to give some feedback as to the value of what we had been doing. All of them expressed huge recognition of the value of being in a smaller setting and being able to get into practical issues that gave them help along their ministry journey. This idea has been a very great success in everyone’s view. I will make a summary of the aspects of that at a later time.

After the session it was time for some sightseeing. Matthew took Graeme and Rob for a quick tour of the Castle Mount and the Strand. I had been there so I spent the time wandering around a few shops in a large mall.

We all took Matthew and Kathy and their two girls for dinner as a means of saying a huge thankyou to them for their generous and wonderful hospitality. They carried the organization of the Roundtable and did a great job with food and drink and the venue and all associated responsibilities. The venue was terrific. It was the local Salvation Army Centre. A great new building with excellent facilities and very suited to our purpose. Norm and Isobel are the officers there and are very much into the stream of working together for the sake of the kingdom of God. They were a delight to work with.

I can sense myself running out of steam more readily during these last few days. I’m not complaining about it because the whole thing has been of huge value in every way. I have gained immensely from the exposure to a wide range of ministry situations in all the major areas of the nation (except Sydney at this point) and when I couple that with this Crosslink stuff it multiplies the value. We haven’t really had a day without commitments since we started nearly three weeks ago and the constancy has been in the deep and earnest sharing going on all around the actual meetings.

Tomorrow we have no meetings. All we are doing is flying to Brisbane around the middle of the day. That might give some opportunity for a breather. I also haven’t really had the opportunity to keep up my exercise routine. I would normally go for a run when I am away like this, but for some reason my knee is not working properly and if I walk for more than a few kilometers it becomes painful and very weak. I guess the hot weather also plays up on an aging southerner like me as well. I hear that the temperatures have been down to zero in Canberra. That sounds really nice to me. Canberra sounds nice. It sounds like Nola, and the kids and grandies, and the church there. Lots to be thankful for and lots to look forward to.

DAY SIXTEEN: MONDAY APRIL 3 TOWNSVILLE: CROSSLINK LEADERS ROUND TABLE

2006-04-04T07:20:00.000+10:00

Today we began the first of two days of regional cluster meetings with Crosslink pastors and a few other leaders associated with them either as oversight or other. We planned this from last year in response to the need to ensure that the Crosslink Churches all have working relationships with apostolic oversight. It is also a time to pursue whether the network might push ahead to create some kingdom advance through the values they represent in a given area. It is a big call in a way. We are not a dispirit group, but we are a very different collection of churches with no designated common agenda. We had a discussion at the last Conference somewhere to see whether we were in reality a car park or a roadway.

If we are a car park, we are just here to allow churches to park themselves if they have no other place to park. It doesn’t mean the churches are going nowhere, it means that Crosslink just provides a convenient place for their national identity to sit. We simply provide a few services to keep them safe and maybe offer a car detailing service and minor mechanical repairs if needed (and I think if I go any further the analogy will get way beyond any usefulness).

If we are a roadway of some sort it means that God has brought us together, perhaps even in a Moravian-like way (the Moravians began as a bunch of refugees from religious persecution in the eighteenth century and found a place to stay on the estate of Count Zinzendorf and became one of the great movements of God and influencers of the advance of Christian purpose across a number of centuries), then our ad hoc beginnings may well be part of some greater sovereign plan to give witness to some spiritual values and the advance of the kingdom of God as a collective. Perhaps because we have nothing to defend and because we are no threat to anyone, God could use us to bear testimony to the values of an expression of church that is yet to emerge. Not to infer that it is a house church or new church as has been described by some current observers (e.g. George Barna and James Rutz). Not that at all, but we could hold a revelation of the kingdom of God that has not yet been widely adopted. We could hold a view of apostolic and prophetic leadership that has not yet been seen in the church. We could represent a commitment to missional identity that we have only seen glimpses of in the Western church. Or maybe its “Dream on Brian……”

Anyway, I don’t want to die with the song still inside me, or die wondering as the footy coaches like to talk about. I want to go there and see what might happen.

So we had a number of hours to talk about all this stuff with a very high quality bunch of people. I shared some of my observations about the Crosslink story. Everyone talked about changes that had come in their lives because of someone’s input that had left a deposit of the Word of God in their ministry. This is an apostolic function by the way and a prophetic one. Everyone was ready to share and we witnessed some sacred stuff that had happened in people’s lives. After that, Rob talked about what the apostolic and prophetic looked like and why what we have seen in the past has such gaping holes when it comes to an application of e.g. Ephesians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 12:28 and the like. We had discussion around these things and after lunch watched a video clip that pointed out some of the glaring holes in the community that need a word (action ) from heaven, matters of justice and mercy from God.

Rob Holmes mentioned a book that has been out for just a while that picked up some of this stuff and was talking about the same book as Ian Shelton had been reading on our way around the nation. Its called “Gods’ Politics” by Jim Wallis. It does contain some strong Biblical warnings about our propensity to take our cue from contemporary Christian culture rather than a Biblical and prophetic standpoint. We end up choosing a party policy rather than something that resounds with the cry of God’s heart for people he loves. Wallis says the issue is almost always justice, not moral values. He has some interesting applications of that and all of them are ones that we may not agree with, but the principle is still the same. It turned us to a time of prayer and we called on God to use us in the bigger purpose.

After the session Rob and Graeme and I found a place to drink coffee or a less addictive alternative and we did a review of the day and tried to set up some directions for tomorrow. That conversation went on till after 6:00 and we headed home, only to come right onto a car accident about a kilometer from Matthew and Kathy’s house. We had to give a bit or support to the people involved. No one was hurt, thankfully. After about fifteen minutes fire and safety and ambulance turned up (the tow trucks had been there for quite some time of course) but the police had not arrived by the time it was okay for us to leave. There had been a lane of traffic closed by the accident and it was on a long stretch of straight road so there was a need to slow down the traffic so that they could merge lanes. Graeme did a good job at that.

After tea with the Bolte family Matthew, Kathy, Rob and I had a long conversation about many issues that our hosts were facing in the city and beyond. Issues to do with the fragmentation of the prayer movement with the prayer for Israel group pulling in one direction and the Wagner and Co in another. There was yet another coming out of Britain and maybe one more that I have forgotten. They (rightly I believe) have some concerns about this and we shared some insights and tried to figure out where to walk on the road ahead. There was also stuff about prophetic ministry and prophets and leadership in cities and regions. We talked about para-church ministries and how they fitted with churches and how churches fitted with them. What they both represented. It was a very good and useful time. I am always encouraged when people who don’t collude find things in their heart that they mightn’t even be able to express fully, but that resonate with what God has been saying to others. The collective is always much more fun to gain clarity of understanding and strength of conviction than trying to get it all on your own. The trick is to choose the right collective….and I don’t just mean the little group of people who you know think just like you.

DAY FIFTEEN: SUNDAY APRIL 2ND TOWNSVILLE

2006-04-03T07:17:00.000+10:00

Matthew and Kathy’s church meet at 9:00 am in a Seventh Day Adventist conference centre auditorium. It is by the river and has air conditioning, which is always a bonus up here. It is called Hope Community Church and is built strongly around cell groups and community involvement. There is probably a little less than a hundred people who belong and they embrace a wide range of ages which is always a good sign. It has a very strong family feel about it which Matthew and Kathy have worked to produce. Matthew is a strong leader. There is no doubt about that, but he is secure enough to invest that leadership strength in empowering others. The meeting evidenced this as various people took leadership roles.

I met a young guy from Papua (formerly West Iryan) and a mate of his from southern Sudan. Both of these guys are here to study but live with all kinds of anomalies due to the horrible things that are going on in their nations. The Papua guy has been sort of abandoned by his government because of the turmoil in that country. His family are being persecuted for being Christians. He told me that the church in his region has to be united simply because of the strength of the opposition and he is saddened by the division he sees in the church here. We agreed that the church here is under similar attack, but via a very different means. But there is so little awareness and so little understanding of the need to stand together. This town has its own version of Baptists who won’t get involved because Catholics might show up, and AOG churches who won’t talk to other AOG pastors because of past experiences. We’ve all got examples of this and it makes my heart grieve every time.

I preached a message about staying on track, from Revelation 2,3 and it seemed to hit the mark okay. As per normal for me, we didn’t get home till about 1:00 pm and had time for a great family lunch. Just time for a nap before Rob Holmes’s plane was arriving, so Matthew and I went to pick him up. We had a cup of coffee and went off to Chris Ireland’s church meeting by 4:30. Chris is part of a church set up called “Good News Association” There are four churches linked by this collective. One meets in the morning with a guy called Wayne Benn. It is mainly families with young kids (masses of them). The second is Chris’s group which is the older group. Then David and Robyn have their service at 6:30 with mainly young people. There is another church in Mackay run by a guy called John Elias. He was there for Chris’s service and did a great job presenting stuff leading to the communion time. Rob also preached in this meeting from First Corinthians about unity in the body. He finished up by speaking a prophetic word about more cyclones and Lake Eyre filling up and the Darling system being flushed out. He challenged us to pray that this rain would come as a blessing and not as a destructive force. One of the guys from the church talked with me in a very affirming way and said that he felt the Lord had said the same things to him.

David Frew had picked up Graeme from the airport and it was good to see him. The last service followed on from Chris’s meeting and we were swamped by young people and the energy level lifted significantly for worship. It was a great service with a balance between being relaxed and yet wholeheartedly worshipping the Lord. Robyn welcomed everyone including the southerners. She said that I was a “father” to the network and that then precipitated comments from a few places abut whether I could be hit for some money. I responded by saying they were welcome to any of my debts they liked to choose. There were a few exchanges based on the fact that the Cowboys were on top of the table. I was glad to be able to report that the Raiders has won by a point last night.

Graeme preached a great message from Mark 2 and John 8. He sang this great a capela song as part of a prayer at the beginning. He also led a time for worship at the end to give people a chance to respond. It was a great meeting and a pretty full house.

When church was finished we all went back to David and Robyn’s for tea. Everyone was pumped with gags and lines that made the time really enjoyable. I started to shut down somewhere around ten o’clock and was glad when everyone headed in the direction of home.

DAY FOURTEEN: SATURDAY APRIL 1ST TOWNSVILLE

2006-04-03T07:16:00.000+10:00

Matthew drove me over to Mount Louisa a little after 7:00 am so that I could speak at a Men’s Breakfast that had been organized by a guy called Joel. He runs the men’s ministry at Mount Louisa House of Praise. Anne Harley is the pastor there. It is a Uniting Church with quite a history. Jack Frewin-Lord was the pastor of West End Uniting and began to grow significantly, especially through some hundreds of young people coming to Christ. They initially looked around for a warehouse in that part of town but were not able to gain the approval of council. They ended up building the facility at Mount Louisa and the church grew to around 700 people. Jack finally moved on and Mike Smith came. Mike and the leaders decided to leave the Uniting Church and had to walk away from the buildings of course. Only a small number of people remained. The sad thing was that Praise Chapel (the name of the church at the time) soon started to splinter because of some rather poor leadership decisions and because of a few strong ambitions on the part of certain individuals (no so much Mike himself, but others). Many of the people who used to belong to Praise Chapel ended up down the road at Calvary AOG (the largest Pentecostal church in town).

There were about fifty blokes at the breakfast. Joel, the guy who leads the group is a businessman in town who owns a number of stores called Overflow. These are like Warehouse and other similar stores. Everyone who comes to the group called MUGS (Men Under God’s S….?) [can’t remember what the S word stands for] gets an inscribed travel mug. They had blue or red to choose from so I naturally chose blue and thanked them for thinking of the State of Origin football games (NSW = blue) and pointed to all the other blokes who obviously supported the Blues because of their choice of mug. It always draws a reaction and offered the same opportunity on this occasion.

I spoke on the verse from Joshua: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” And there was a very significant response. I was able to lay hands on many of the guys at the end of the time as they responded to God’s challenge to fight for the purposes of God to be established in their households.

David Frewin-Lord was at the breakfast and I was going to spend the morning with him and Robyn, his wife. He is the son of the Jack I referred to and is the pastor of one of the Crosslink churches in town. He and Robyn have done a great job building a predominantly young church that meets in Annandale. He was not able to be at the meetings we were holding during the week so I was grateful for the chance to hang out with them. They have four boys from age twenty one down. He is a guy who services all the imaging equipment at hospitals and similar places. It is a high tech job and there are not many with the qualifications he has to work on the machines he works on. He has been doing contract work under his own company to this point and while it has worked well and given him the chance to work for the church on the average of three to four days a week, he has now been offered a full time job with Seimens, but will only be required to work about one day a week. The reason is that Seimens wants to expand their share of the marked in North Queensland and want to be able to say they have a full time support person here. So he is really a kind of advertising component. The down side is that because he is now full time, he has to go to training when they say. Still, it is a great provision and will allow them to do more for God. They contribute hugely to the church in the city and have a great heart for young people.

I came back to Matthew and Kathy’s after lunch and went for a walk. I just wanted to relax a bit and I am becoming better acquainted with Jeremiah at the moment, so walking enables me to listen to Jerry on my MP3 player. Matthew said that in the north of Queensland only “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun” but the heat wasn’t all that bad. I walked along a beautiful bike path right beside the river and there was often shade from the large trees there.
This evening I had dinner with Chris Ireland who is one of the other Crosslink Pastors in town. He is a great bloke and we went down to the Strand and ate at this café built out over the water looking across to Magnetic Island. Chris has been through some really hard times of late. Family breakdown stuff filled with all the usual tragic pain that can be avoided by some simple application of Christian principles and a little bit of faith. He has three (or maybe four) kids from age twenty four down who are still impacted by what has happened. Chris is a very accomplished musician and plays guitar, banjo and steel guitar (yes, country music thrives in this part of the world). He is into some alternative forms of music and plays in a band with an aboriginal guy. His church is small and he needs to do this to put bread on the table. He lives in a little house in the mountains south of here. It is truly an idyllic spot. I stayed with him last time I was here and we walked 18 k. up into the mountains the last day I was here. I was glad to have the chance to spend time with Chris. He is such a great bloke. He is a deep thinking person and very sensitive. He has worn this break up with great sadness and pain. After the meal we walked up along the Strand to where there was a rock concert with a whole lot of bands performing. There were a few thousand kids wandering around and one of the bands included one of his sons so we saw him playing. Chris went up to the front while they were playing to say “Hi” to his son. One of the beautiful things that happened was that when the band thanked the crowd of young people for supporting them, Chis’s son yelled into the microphone, “And I want to thank my dad for showing up.” Not every rock band member would have been free enough to say something like that.

DAY THIRTEEN: FRIDAY MARCH 31ST TOWNSVILLE

2006-04-01T23:08:00.000+11:00

The “Back to the Future” Tour Band played its last gig this morning. It was a seven o’clock breakfast with the pastors and one of the Mayors. When I got back to the motel room from ironing my shirt, Les was looking everywhere for his glasses. I thought I would help him but no matter how hard we looked we couldn’t find them. I had picked up my glasses when I got up and was trying to help this poor man remember where he had put his glasses. I could sympathize with him because I can put my glasses down and then forget where I put them. While all this sympathy was going on, I suddenly saw where I had left my glasses…..and they were still there. There was absolutely no doubt as to why it was difficult to find Les’s pair, because they were sitting on my nose. There is just no end to this strong bond of brotherly love we have. Les put it well by quoting from the experience of the early Christians in Acts: “they had all things in common.” He said I should feel free to help myself to his glasses anytime, as long as I told him where mine were.

There were between forty and fifty pastors at the breakfast. We had a good time hanging around with various ones. One of the guys from Calvary AOG (the largest Pentecostal church in town) reminded me that he had visited Dorrigo when I was there as the pastor. He was part of a Lay Witness weekend with a guy called Ron Jennings from Grafton. I can’t actually remember Jim, but I did remember the weekend. One of the husbands of a woman in our church gave his life to the Lord that weekend and we became really good mates. He knew a lot of people I knew, including a certain evangelist by the name of Dan Armstrong.

Ian shared a great word of encouragement that included some stuff about Toowoomba, but more to point out how important it is for the church to serve the city. He pointed out how our cities were filling up with family and community dysfunction and that they needed what only the churches could offer. I then responded to some of Peter Patterson’s opening remarks about the comparative success of the Townsville Cowboys and the Canberra Raiders by speaking about how blue was so much more powerful a colour than red (State of Origin). I asked if anyone knew how I could put some money into someone’s hand to make sure the Raiders won the next time they played the Cowboys. I think told them I was going to give an altar call to give opportunity for North Queenslanders to repent of their sense of superiority. It went on a bit like that in some great Aussie exchanges. It then spoke about how the city of Townsville deserves to see the fullness of Christ in this generation, and the only way they are going to see it is if the church becomes one.

After the breakfast and some packing up all of us One Heart people egressed to the airport to try and put some of our ideas together about the value of our trip and the things we had learned. Here are a few of the headlines:

· Unity cannot be a movement it must be a wholesome pursuit
· It is not really unity that we should seek but oneness (a la Jn 17)
· The idea of one church in a city or region is the most common Biblical model
· Churches in cities transformed cities and cities then transformed nations
· Nations must be won city by city.
· The major capital cities are not cities but metropolises. It is going to be counter productive to try and get a vision for a metropolis.
· We must concentrate our efforts on working together in smaller regions or municipal areas (I think Canberra could be thought of as five separate cities and Queanbeyan as another separate city).
· We need to pitch our efforts at gaining oneness and that must be qualified by the organic oneness modeled by the community of the Father, Son and Spirit. We must measure our success in terms of the kingdom coming, not bums on seats at church.
· We need to start with those who believe in building the one church in a city and embrace by faith the whole church, not try to involve people who don’t believe in “one church in the city” and end up compromising the only clear biblical model.
· We need to gain understanding of what the church in a city might look like from reading the New Testament and assuming city church where “church” is referred to, not congregation.
· We need to expect that Jesus will only reveal the “keys of the kingdom” to the “church of the city” that he is building, not to a particular congregation representing only a smaller part of the whole church.
· There is great, great value in going to where people are and listening to what is in their hearts rather than having them come to a conference in a single national location.
· We need to give more priority to seeking out the places and groups of people who have the vision for one church in their hearts and encouraging them.
· It is so, so, so easy for the vision for one church to be built in a city to be sacrificed on the altar of denominational pride, personal ego and on the false idea that a particular local congregation has some kind of sovereign priority. Leaders will have to make choices in these areas as to which “church” they really serve.
· There is clearly an idolatry that is associated with some local congregations and their identity.
· We have lived for 200 years with a sectarian model of church and it has failed every generation of Australians in every community. We must not continue to fail the people who are prioritized by God as worthy of his love (the lost) by using a failed model for another generation

Anne Harley came and picked me up from the airport. I had to do some radio programs, so I went to her church and used one of the rooms there. I didn’t have time to send them off before Matthew Bolte came to pick me up. He and Cathy are pastors of a Crosslink Church in Thuringowa (the other twin of the Townsville twins). Its called Hope Community Church and is a cell based church that has been doing really well. They have a great heart for relating to people outside the church and have done some terrific things around town. Matthew is also very much part of the church in the city pastors group.

We talked till tea time and after tea they had to go to a school music performance, so I read for a while and crashed into bed by nine o’clock.

There are no doubt other things that are important, but I will reflect on them further as the days move along. This trip has made me much more hungry to move around and seek out the people around the place who have this heart

DAY TWELVE: THURSDAY MARCH 30 DARWIN TO TOWNSVILLE

2006-03-31T12:29:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-30T17:19:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-29T10:38:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-28T01:01:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-27T09:07:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-27T08:26:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-25T12:10:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-24T08:14:00.000+11:00

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

2006-03-23T08:54:00.000+11:00

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.