Sunday Reflections

What a day! Seriously, there are Sundays and there are Sundays. There are Sundays as a pastor when you sit back and say, Why exactly do I do this??  Today was NOT one of those days. Four major events happened today at church:

 1. Kick off New Series for August: God Love & Sex

 2. Launch of New Series for Lifekids: Plane Truth

 3. BAF Sunday: Bring a Friend Sunday

 4. Communion

•  Here are some highlights…
• I started my Sunday @ 2:00am. Usually 3:00am but when you are about to preach a sermon on sex in church there’s no way you can have a deep sleep. 3 hours was enough I got up nervous and pumped at the same time. I usually get up have coffee and some biscuits. This morning I didn’t. I forgot! Honestly.
• 8:15 am walked in church. Worship Team, already praying. They put me on a stool with wheels and wheeled me in and told me to shout after a count of three. I did! great exercise to shout kill unnecessary nerves. 
• I struggled a little bit in the first service with my introduction. Preaching in Samoan on sex is not the most comfortable thing to do. It did eventually pick up. The adults were so accommodating!! I had no problems in the second service, except my sermon topic, ‘Satan’s Sex Education’, was SO HOT (literally) that I kept drinking during the sermon. My water had to be refilled!!
• Plenty of food for morning tea. Chicken soup – my favourite.
• Met a whole lot of new faces at church yesterday. It’s exciting when new people come to church. One guy came in to for the 9am service for the first time. He repented and gave his life to Jesus. He gave me a hug after the service and he was crying. He stayed for the second service. He came up for the Altar call. Gave his life to Jesus (twice in one day). After the second service he gave me another hug, this time with more tears.….he said, “I didn’t think church can be this great….I sang, I danced, I ate, laughed, I repented, I knelt, I prayed….. all in one day!!  I am going to bring my wife and kids next Sunday”.
• The worship was incredible!!!. Always great to see kids come to the front to worship. When we sang, “Moving forward” I felt great passion coming from the worshippers!
• The Worship Team did a fantastic job!! I thought the guitaring was exceptional yesterday!
• Altar call was given. We put Romans 12:1 into practice and symbolically. A lot of men came forward to present themselves to God as ‘living and holy sacrifice’: My heart beats faster when I see men respond to the Word. There is something about men admitting to their weaknesses and realizing their potential in God. To see men kneeling before God and crying out to him is POWERFUL!!
• LifeKids: what can I say!!!. The Lifekids Team took Children’s ministry to a whole-notha-level!!! New sound system, new stage, new look, new props, new curriculum. I am grateful to God for the people who give their time to minister to kids! They always miss out on what happens during the main service. BUT I think after seeing what they do……WE, the ones in the main service are Missing Out!! My kids said to me after church on the way home….Dad! Lifekids was great!! I was saying goodbye to some first time kids yesterday and asked them, …how Lifekids was!! The 4 year old said!!! Great and we love it. She then turn to her parents and said,….Dad can we come back to this church next week!!! Poor dad!! Under pressure to say yes in front of me.
• Big lunch!! Invited to Worship Team lunch. Great time with the team!! way to go Liz!! 
• Communion: always an emotional time for me. Can’t help being grateful to God. At Communion service we dedicated baby Salem!, our community clothing team and the bread team shared about what they do and how they are connecting and reaching the community. Great stuff!!
• 2 Singers: First time for the Taito brothers to sing together in church!! Watch these two boys!! Watch them develop and mature in their talent!!  
• 3 Young Preachers: I was so blessed! these young boys age 15 -19 preached with passion and conviction. They were funny and straight to the point. Huge potential. Amazed with their knowledge and ability to articulate. They only had one week to prepare and they did very well!! some proud parents last night. 
• I love this church! I love what God is doing in LifeChurch. I love what God has called us to do and as we say it all the time “The best is yet to come” and I can’t wait to see what He has right around the corner.

Weekend Reflections

Had an amazing weekend…here are a few of the highlights…

•  Friday Night – SWITCH crashed at our place…. editing movies for ‘ENDZONE’ till 6am. These people only slept for about an hour and they were up again for their breakfast briefing 7am. Committed and dedicated bunch of crazy youths. Woke me up 3 times but all good. The end result on was worth it.
•  Saturday met with our Board. Made some huge progress and Faith Decisions!! Announcements to be made later.
•  ENDZONE Saturday night was fantastic! Love hanging out with young people. Personally it helps me not to develop and ‘old spirit’ mentality. Keeps me fresh and intouch with this generation. EndZone climaxed with young people committing their lives to Christ. That’s the Purpose. Salvation! When our youth leaders shared their vision for SWITCH they stressed Salvation!! That’s a GOD vision!!  
•  Laine Sagala spoke a stirring Word Saturday night on “This Generation”. Great to see a lot young men responded to the call to make a stand for Christ and to reach this generation. Its healthy when more men respond to God and take ownership and leadership in their decisions and actions.
•  Spoke last Sunday on the “Presence of God’ (Isaiah 6). Worship yesterday was electric and the presence of God was evident in yesterday’s service. Its amazing when people respond to the Word of God. I think I am starting to believe what my friend Pastor Phil Richardson has been telling ever since he visited our church one Sunday. He said ‘You are the most charismatic non Pentecostal church I have ever seen’.
• New talent coming up!! Chris you have an amzing voice?
•  Sua Sagala preached an awesome Word on Gods faithfulness, God’s Grace and God’s Goodness. I touched on this last week in my sermon. Sua took it to whole nother level. Fantastic!  
•  There is nothing more rewarding to a pastor than to see people encounter God and walk with him passionately. I was encouraged yesterday to see that passion to pursue God in folks who came forward. 
•  CAN’T WAIT for next SWITCH Event………….I think its in September
•  Met yesterday with 3 young men I am mentoring in preaching. Their first assignment is this Sunday. They are excited and nervous at the same time. I see great ponetial in these guys!!
• Great lunch at Anes mums place. haven’t had that type of Samoan toonai (lunch ) for a some time!!
•  LOTS to do this next week… appreciate the prayers!  I will be focusing more on studying this week.

Sunday Reflections

• Kick off ‘One Prayer Series’.
• Title of my message in the first service “God is Faithful”.
• Second Service Pastor Kirk Pankratz from Church of the Harvest preached a powerful Word – ‘God is Hope”. Kirk is great communicator.
• Several people commented after the service
  • ‘Pastor that Word was for me’.
  • The Word was so powerful and so moving, I was in tears the whole service.
  • ‘I needed to hear that’. (first time guest)
  • ‘We needed that boost aye hon”! (a visiting couple)

• Saw lot of tears and repentance in both services.
• Tai shared her story yesterday. Tai is a young teenager who lost her only baby in a house fire Jan this year along with her baby sister and 2 step sisters. Amazing, powerful story of what God is doing in Tais life.
• Third Service of the day ‘Communion’ in the evening. I love communion services. We make it as less formal as possible,  family atmosphere. People are given the chance to share what God is doing in their lives. I saw something different in our young people yesterday. I think God is raising up a lot of young leaders and preachers.
• Preached about ‘Coming Together’ 1 Cor 11
• Spent a bit of time praying in pairs
• Praying and Ministering to our Senior Citizens and the sick.

SWITCH Leadership Boot Camp

LifeChurch is committed to Raising, Training, Empowering and Releashing the Next Generation of Leaders. 4:00am monday morning and SWITCH (LifeChurch’s youth ministry)  is on the road, from South to West Auckland.

Intercessory Prayer

 

One of the best advice I received from Pastor Tavale Mataia 5 years ago was “make sure you have praying intercessors instead of talking prayer meeting attenders”.

I’ve had some feedback on whats been happening at the intercessors prayer room on Wednesday nights. Wow….!! You guys are doing a fantastic work, labouring in the engine room.

As a pastor I so value your prayers for my family and our church…  

I said to our Intercessor Leader Salome Mitchell that this year we are going to ‘turn the heat up’ in our prayer. I used this list this morning in my prayer time and I want to share it with you so we can all ‘turn the heat up’

OUR CHURCH

Pastors Lui, Ane and family
Core Leaders & Ministry Team Leaders and their families
LifeGroups
Volunteers
LifeKids
SWITCH
Mission in Manurewa
Fill Every Seat
Increase
Greater Things

OUR NATION

Prime Minister
Cabinet & MPs
Mayor Len Brown
Councilors

OUR COMMUNITY

Manukau City
Local businesses
Body of Christ
Schools
Neighborhoods
Lost and hurting people that need Jesus

OUR FAMILIES

Healthy & Godly marriages
Children
Extended family

YOURSELF

Witness
Relationships
Business
Service
Personal Growth
Godly Character
Future

Mark 1:35 says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Weekend Reflections

Had breakfast with our leaders at our place 6am Saturday morning. That’s crazy…. Great fun… we probably woke up the neighbours…… time to catch up. Our guys are so pumped with what God is doing at church and our next season as a church.

Spent the whole Saturday thinking, preparing, studying, reading, praying…..……..

Sunday morning on the way to church I prayed, “Holy Spirit bring conviction to our hearts”

Overwhelmed with the presence of God during worship.

There was a great sense of freedom and excitement. During worship I looked behind me and on the bleachers!! What a joy it is for any pastor to see young people worshipping God HARD OUT!! Church is the place to be on Sunday mornings!!

Preached my heart out.  Spoke on the heart of Jesus for the lost and the role of the church as representatives of Jesus …..along those lines…… Initially I planned to preach on the ‘Christ in the Community’ but after Saturday …..in my sermon preparations it ended up in a different direction…  The Holy Spirit answered my prayer and definitely brought conviction to our hearts.

On Sunday, we also launched our new season of Outreach. 2009 we will only be doing a few ‘Bridge Events’

Servolution: 3 days of Serving the Community

$2 Christmas.

Weekly Bread Run – Free to Randwick Park Community

Rubbish Collection – monthly

Paint Out – monthly

Global Day of Prayer

Prayer Walk

Growth Elements

LifeWay Research and Dr. Thom Rainer were fortunate enough to be able to study 19 of the 22 fast growing churches and discovered four common Growth Elements

1. Pastors Set the Bar
Interviews indicate the churches have taken on the vision, priorities, and values of the senior pastor. Staff and lay leaders find it easy to follow the pastor. There are high levels of trust in these pastors.

2. Church Atmosphere
These churches are consistently described as “exciting,” “dynamic,” “energetic,” “upbeat,” “friendly,” “welcoming,” “warm,” and “positive.”

3. Evangelistic Appeal
Pastors indicate they seek to include the gospel in most, if not all, of their sermons. They stress the importance of preaching the gospel and providing opportunities for lost people to respond. More than two-thirds indicate they offer a public invitation at the end of every service. The others invite inquirers to fill out a decision card.

4. Intentional Outreach
The pastors are focused on reaching people for Christ. Whether it’s through focusing the content of sermons, planning the worship services, or simply the nature of church programming, it is clear that everything is designed with outreach in mind.

Source: LifeWay.com

Change!

What changes are you prepared to make for 2009. Change will always bring conflict. Whether you are making smaller changes or big ones, you will encounter oppositions.  If you are a leader making big changes for the future, make sure your heart is big enough to handle criticisms because you can’t change the future without disturbing the present.

God was about to make some huge changes in the lives of his people. So he told Joshua four times to ‘Be strong and of good courage’ in Joshua chapter  1.