For someone who is going through a rough time

I was reading Psalm 27 this morning. Gave me motivation to face todays trials! If you are going through a rough time. this is for you. Don’t let evil walk over you today! Be calm as a baby, cool and collected.

Psalm 27 – A David Psalm

1 Light, space, zest— that’s God!

So, with him on my side I’m fearless,

afraid of no one and nothing.

2 When vandal hordes ride down

ready to eat me alive,

Those bullies and toughs

fall flat on their faces.

3 When besieged,

I’m calm as a baby.

When all hell breaks loose,

I’m collected and cool.

Church Atmosphere

People are attracted to great atmosphere.
Flat white taste the same in almost every café, but I go to Starbucks/Columbus/Esquires and not Gr8KofeCafe (no such place) because of the atmosphere.
Church atmosphere is so important, but is often ignored.
Almost every time I ask new visitors to our church about their first time experience at LifeChurch, most of them talk about the atmosphere of the place. Hardly anyone talks about my preaching. Now that does not help my self-esteem as a preacher but I understand what they are saying.
You walk in to a restaurant and you smell the aroma of brewed Jamaican coffee or the T-Bone steak sizzling in the kitchen, but if the carpet is dirty, chairs are old and worn, girls at reception not paying attention to you, tables not wiped and clean, you wait for 5 minutes for a waiter, he then turns up rude and unprofessional….
I have already made up my mind not to have the ‘T-Bone steak.
As a preacher it is easy to serve a T-Bone steak sermon to diners who are enjoying the atmosphere of the place. They will gladly receive it.
Atmosphere is what people see, feel and sense. Leaders need to work hard in creating and shifting atmosphere. Remember first impression lasts.
What is the atmosphere of your church on a Sunday morning?

Volunteers Appreciation Night

 VOLUNTEERS: They are the greatest asset of any church. They are my heroes. These are the people who throw in their heart and soul to the mission and vision of the church. They sacrificially give their time, energy, money, and talents for the benefit of others. They serve with joy, faithfulness, and commitment. They have a team spirit with a ‘we can do it attitude’. Though having different gifts, our volunteers are of equal value, united around a common purpose. They have an “all for one, one for all” heart.

My wife and I have been so blessed to be part of a great team at LifeChurch. (I know I have said this before in many other posts. The truth is I am biased) We have achieved a lot this year because of their unwavering support and trust.

This coming weekend we are celebrating together. It is still a mystery to them what we are doing or where we are going (I think) but I am so looking forward to it.

If you’ve volunteered at LifeChurch in the past year, then you’re invited! (Seriously, you should receive an invitation in the mail / email by now. If you don’t, and you should, please give Jeanie a call at the Office (09 262 2754), because it probably means we have an old or incorrect address for you.)
We don’t want you miss out. I promise that you will enjoy the night. It is a 7 hour event so make sure the babysitter is organized.

How many churches do we need?

I facilitate the ministers fraternal in our community of Manurewa and I have been talking to a lot of pastors over the last 15 months, trying to connect and build relationships and see what we can do together as the Body of Christ in Manurewa. Its been a very interesting task. Some have welcomed me and the idea of networking with open arms some are not quite keen at all. Some sat on the fence for a while and now finally decided to join us. Praise God!! Acccording to my last count there are 71 Christian Churches in our community. Next year there will be 3 more new church plants in Manurewa. Talking to one of the ministers this year he commented ‘great to have you here in Manurewa, the more the merrier’. I remember saying yes to him but now I am asking myself do we really need 71 churches in Manurewa. Is it really true theat ‘the more the merrier’. 

Some ministers may not like this but I am starting to think that if we have a lot of  churches in an area and the physical, emotional, social and spiritual condition of the community is not changed then I don’t think ‘the more the merrier’ is the right attitude. 

The church, the body of the Christ and the hands and feet of God in this world must engage in redeeming and restoring people, the community. We are saved to do Good Works. Ephesians 2:8-10.

I am excited with the relationships already established with other churches in the area, we are able to connect, pray, share ideas and support each other. Now I think we need to move to another level of engagement!! Thy Kingdom come!!!

(Image by executableoutline.com)

Looking for the Perfect Leader Pt3

5. Comprehension of the Word

1 Tim 11:15. This is important. I think leaders must be able to defend the faith and help others grow in God. A good sound knowledge of the Biblical truths is vital, being able to defferenciate truth from false doctrines.

6. Compassion for the lost

This is the bottom line of everything we do in church and in leadership. Pointing the Lost to Christ. Every leader in the church must believe that he/she is placed in leadership to fulfil Christ Great Commission. A leader must show compassion for the lost by praying regularly for the community and constantly thinking ’How can I help someone step closer to Jesus’ 

7. Connected

This is more administrative but its crucial. Leaders must know how to stay connected with the Senior Leader and the rest of the leaders and his / her team. Nothing frustrates everyone more that leaders who don’t communicate and stay connected on a regular basis. In some business, weekly reports from each department to the CEO or MD is complusory. I don’t see any reason why church shouldn’t do that if we are serious about he business of saving the lost, growing the church, building the Kingdom.

12 Applications you can use

I use these regularly. They make life easier. Blessings 

 

1. FeedBurner – Great piece of software to track subscribers on my blog.

2. Bloglines – A must RSS feed reader for blogs and podcasts.

3. Xdrive – A free online storage up to 4 gig of free back up.

4. YouSendIt – It’s a great service for sending large files over the net.

5. YouVersion – This is a new one for me. Great tool. Good way to study the bible together with others online.

6. WordPress – Its the best blog software there is and its FREE. Great way to clear and share my thoughts and daily insights.

7. FREEFTP:  Its fast, easy and I think its reliable. I haven’t had problems at all since started using it beginging of this year to connect to my CMS.

8. Countdown Creator: Cool software for creating church countdowns.

9. The Springbox. This is a great little widget creator. I started using it last week to get feeds direct to my desktop You can also create your own custom widgets for anything.

10. Logmein: I can remote control from home, work, church anywhere. View or transfer files.

11. Instaverse: Quick Bible reference while surfing. Don’t need to open up a Bible program. Just cut and paste.

12. Firebox: I am a recent convert to firefox. It’s much faster and hassle free. Great addons too.

Technology & the Gospel

Well,  hi everyone,  its been a while since my last post. I have been having major technical issues over the last few weeks and believe it or not it is still not fixed. The ISP and the Host server have no idea whats happening, even my computer technician that costs $150 an hour was unable to locate the problem. I think there is a demon in there somewhere and as I said to my Host Server Technician. We need to do spiritual wefare over our IT because the devil knows that the children of God are now spreading the love of Christ through emails, websites, blogs, chat rooms, not to mention, facebook, twitters, bebo, wordpress, typepad, blogger, myspace, you-tube and so on.. Have you seen God-Tube. http://godtube.com. Crazy dude singing!

One of the values of Lifechurch is ‘innovation’ and ‘relevance’.  It is a mistake for the church to ignore technology and contemporary ways of  presenting the Gospel. We live in a modern world. It is a mistake and  sin for the church to be irrelevant in the ways we preach the Gospel. That sounds a bit harsh but I think we are all guilty of not communicating even though we are sharing and preaching or teaching. Paul says “Preach Christ by all means everywhere”. People receive information differently. I remember preaching at a Leadership Seminar two years ago overseas. Afterward one of the leaders said to me “That was hard to swallow”. Another leader came up to me so excited and said “man you really got, that was great stuff”.

I think it was Larry Norman who said ’Why should the devil have all the good music’. I say I why should the devil have all the best innovations and best technology. We need to be creative in the ways we present the truths of God. We should be ‘Methodists’. Lets hold on the Truths of God’s Word and find innovative ways to present them effectively.

Coming back to technology and the internet, I personally think it’s great tool to reach people especially the younger generation.

Find a creative way to share Christ. One of our leaders at LifeChurch creatively shared  the love of Christ on Valentines Day. She bought roses and chocolates for all her colleagues at work.

Be innovative today.

Goals for 2008

One of the leaders at LifeChurch asked me yesterday, ‘Pastor what is your goal for 2008?

Without hesitation or reservation I answered with excitement, ‘double the size of LifeChurch’.