so i was going to write a blog about confrontation and how there is a serious lack of it in the church i know this because i have been doing it for years and it has often felt like a very lonely, deserted spot to set out your picnic basket in a church congregation situation with the majority of people feeling the same thing, but everyone too afraid to speak up, or simply too lazy, [...]
last nite's enGAGE church gathering was pretty rad - i could 'do church' like that every week i think we knew we were going to have a smaller group (which for a small group can be daunting) cos of the student holidays and so i chatted to ronel who was worshippy leadering and she and arnie (no relation) chose to do some accoustic worship vibes which was great then for sun nite when i'd been [...]
i really enjoyed enGAGE (our sun evening congregation) tonite i was away for two days this week so didn't do my traditional thursday morning sermon prep and so yesterday (sat) i put some stuff together and it felt decent, but when i was looking over it today it suddenly clicked into place and i really felt super amped about it and then when i was preaching tonite i just had a sense of God telling [...]
if the church i am a part of is not reflecting Jesus to a considerable extent (who He was, what He taught, how He lived) then surely at some point i have to question whether it is church at all...
the conversation continues... copied this from facebook: Stew West: Hi, Thanks John for that, very cool - my heart still beats that story. Spot on! In response to some other posts. Some popcorn thoughts/reactions. I also think one needs to make a distinction between the word "church", as somewhere you go to o...n Sunday, verse 'being" The Church. I have also struggled sometimes, to point unchurched friends to some "sunday churches", because I didn't want [...]
i am not usually drawn into current world events to the extent that i research them and get quite involved - altho i do iafrica.com every day to keep up with what is happening in world, local, sporting and entertainment events - but for some reason this anne rice story has been following me - i found three links on her facebook page which i think are worth reading [while i 'get'/understand a lot of [...]
so i write a weekly email called thort for the week aimed at challenging people to live out what they say they believe and for this week i really felt like John Eliastam's comments on the Anne Rice note i wrote on Facebook really express well what a lot of Christ followers (and others) could well do with reading: In fact for this week’s thort let me use my former boss John Eliastam’s response to [...]
so last week at enGAGE (sun eve congregation gathering at stellenbosch vineyard church) we had over 40 people there including a bunch of first-timers and roymond preached up an elijah storm in his first ever preach on the firetruck in the desert and your buckets capacity... at the start of the service i challenged the congregation to be more committed in terms of choosing to hang with us more regularly (attendance can be a bit [...]
so i managed to track down the john ellis article that started all the 'fun' and am very much looking forward to having caffeine with the man when i hit durban this week to hear more of where his heart is (and cos, hey, caffeine!!) but i'm not too sure he is going to be poster boy for pagans anonymous just yet - also take some time to read some of the comments by christians [...]
so i quoted Anne Rice the other day and this is a further explanation of where she is at which explains it a little bit more - i really like her last line... [from http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/30/anne-rice-leaves-christianity/?hpt=Sbin] Anne Rice leaves Christianity Legendary author Anne Rice has announced that she’s quitting Christianity. The “Interview with a Vampire” author, who wrote a book about her spirituality titled "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession" in 2008, said Wednesday that [...]