Over the next 10 Days starting tomorrow, our Church will enter into a time of prayer and fasting. A time to repent, refocus and retune ourselves spiritually.

Fasting is a form of spiritual discipline that informs God that you are serious about repentance. Fasting is a significant part of your Christian walk just as praying and reading the Bible is significant. Fasting is for everyone who desires to draw closer to God.

10 Days of Prayer and Fasting is a time to get ourselves checked out.  The best analogy for me is like taking your car in for a service. The mechanic will change the oil, filters, tyres, check all the lights, seat belts, tune the engine, wheel alignment  etc… to make sure you are fit for the road. Its going to be another long journey this year, its vital that we are have a current spiritual Warrant Of Fitness, allowing God to change some stuff in our lives (repentance), remove old oil with a new one (fresh anointing from heaven)…….our lives are aligned to his will.

Three Areas of Prayer

1. Personal: Use the next 10 Days  to draw closer to Jesus. Use this time to allow God to examine you, then confess and repent of what may be keeping you from Him. Get ready to change.

2. Ask God to do something huge in our church this year. Praying the Prayer of Jabez!

3. LifeChurch Ministries:

• Both Local and Overseas.
• New Building Project
• Pastors and Leaders
• Kingdom Partnerships
• Servolution

Most of us will be doing a water fast. No food for 10 days except water. Others may opt to do a media fast including no TV and computer games. This will be best of the children. Including no movies or TV. You may want to fast from your cell phone, Internet or Social Media. Up to you!

Don’t forget to FacetheBook – read the Word of God in 12 months.

Pursue God!

I had two precious cameras that got stolen and that was the end of my photography career.

This year I have decided to revive my love for the art of photography.  Now with great digital cameras in market, its not so expensive anymore.

Here’s one of my assignments – using a tripod. I had hair back then – lol !!

I was at Sunset Beach with my family the other day. Had a chat to the Lifeguards about what they do each day. During our fun time surfing with the kids, the lifeguards rushed off for a rescue on the other side of the beach. It’s what they are trained to do each day – with huge urgency.

Got me thinking about what we do in reaching out and saving the lost. How much preparation, willingness and urgency do we place on it.

My desire is to see many lives touched and changed by the love of God. I want to see souls saved, especially this year. Let’s save one more soul for Jesus!

Photo: (I shot this one of  Nick & Dereck from LifeChurch. These young men are passionate for God and want to see many lives saved! Picture taken at Orewa Beach during church picnic).

Today I have been on my desk all day thinking, planning, praying and looking at the calendar. From the beginning of last year we declared 2011 the year of ‘Faith at another level’. After 12 months I can honestly say that it was definitely a ‘faith stretching’ year.

God enabled us to do so much. This year I’m open to more faith stretching opportunities. The need to pray is greater. Praying for wisdom and understanding. Praying for God’s favor.

10 Years: 2012 will be our 10th year pastoring LifeChurch. I can’t believe we are still here. Ane and I have learned so much right from day 1 and we are still learning how to lead. Some of the kids that were in our Sunday School back then are now our church leaders. Exciting times and greater things are ahead of us. We are blessed to have a great team of leaders and volunteers at LifeChurch who are so passionate about God and the Vision of the House.

I believe the best days of leading and pastoring are ahead of us.

New Church Building    We have bought a place in Manurewa. We will move into our new church home this year. Renovations will commence soon. Our new church home is right next to the town centre next to the red light street of Manurewa. Homeless people sleep on the front steps. A strategic location! We see a church that is open 24/7 not just Sundays.

New Frontiers:   This year we will sending missionaries to India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The message of the Gospel must reach the ends of the earth.

International Partnership:   Once again we will be hosting and partnering with some international ministries in the Great Commission. More on this later.

Servolution:    This year Servolution is spreading to cities and towns outside of Auckland. We were so blessed to work with 48 different churches and denomination right across Auckland in 2011. This year, more churches are coming on aboard to serve and share the love of Christ in our communities through simple acts of kindness.  Mark your calendar and get involved 23-25 March. Email: info@servolution.co.nz

Please pray and partner with us to reach Manurewa, South Auckland and the World with the simple message of Hope through Christ.

A small conversation

A small amount of money

A small amount of time

A small number of people

A small amount of skill

But with a BIG GOD!

Eph 3:20 He will take it to whole nutta level!

Don’t give up!

Pioneering is hard work. Leaving the comfort of the known and creating a path to the unknown is not for the faint hearted as my wife tells me all the time – Gods work is not for the faint hearted.

A Samoan proverb ‘Asa le gasu o le taeao’ – getting up early in morning to clear and plant the field. It is not easy, it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s wet from the due at night and most of the time you have to carve your way through the bush.

Those who come later will enjoy and reap the benefits of the farmer who consistently paved the way.

The success of the next generation in the things of God is largely depend on the work of today’s generation. I want the next generation to stand on the shoulders of today’s leaders so they can see further and farther, to have a wider perspective and see the big picture of what God wants to do in them and through them.

The Bible says that David served his generation then he died.

Advice to today’s generation – Don’t die without leaving a legacy.
Advice to the next generation – You are not suppose to fill our shoes! Fill your own. Start from where we left off.

No you haven’t!

There is an illusion most people are under.  “It’s all been done….!”

All the great ideas have been thought of or exhausted.  Hence, we settle for the status quo, an attitude of ‘go with the flow’, living in mediocrity and letting others do all the thinking for us.

God gifted every human being with a ‘brain’ for a specific purpose – TO THINK!

Our problem is we have been conditioned to contemplate within limited parameters set by our upbringing, education, culture,  community and so on.

When I read about the lives of people like Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, it just does not make any sense. These people were regarded as under achievers by society, soared big time. In fact they have done a lot of thinking for us. (I’m grateful)

I believe there is a measure of creativity in all of us. We have not run out of ideas. We just need to think, process, plan and commit to action.

Nothing good ever happens accidentally. Wishful thinking will get you nowhere, but to Wishful-land with a wish list. To become successful requires intentional strategic thinking, planning, and intentional actions.’

Ok, now I need to eat my own words. I have a lot of thinking to do over the next few weeks even more so, a lot of praying that my thoughts and ideas are aligned with the will of God.

Here’s my friend Pastor Julia Amosa’s response and excellent comment on practical ways we can all do to reach people.

Inconvenienced Me,

I have make a well calculated choice to start with ME.. Making friends with my neighbours one person at one time, share a brief faith hope love story with the person and invite him/her to church..this is friendship evangelism…then Christ comes easy to them, then all else make sense to them as far as the Kingdom of God is concern. Free of charge…

On my way to town, I stop at the bus stop at the corner, I pick up one person at one time and drop him or her to the train station or bus stop, the same thing, another friendship evangelism.

While shopping at the mall, I stop for a moment to help someone, sometimes I purposedly sit on a seat, someone always sit next to me and talk to me, another opportunity, By the end of the month wow wow wow. I figure out if 100 people in each church do this in a year most likely thousands will come to Christ…

Some have gone and visit churches on their own…

Here are some questions I ponder over and over again and i encourage all church leaders who want to influence their community to consider. Spend sometime to think away from the box and see what solutions you come up with? Hope you can share them.

1. How can the church be effectively relevant to the community it serves?
2. What are we doing as a church that we need to stop doing?
3. What are the problems of my community and how can we the church be the solution?
4. What innovative ideas that the church can use to reach people that are cost effective with high impact?
5. Do people get inspired on Sundays when they come to our church services?
6. How intentional are we as a church in the Great Commission? What’s our strategy?
7. How intentional are we as a church in discipleship? Is there a definite discipleship pathway for new believers?
8. What is the one main thing we believe God has called our church to do?
9. If you were asked to reach your community without any financial resources, what would you do different?
10. Define Boring?