6 With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does [...]
When last did you lament out loud? Anyone who knows me even just a medium amount will know, when they saw that cover pic verse, that there was a huge and loud BUT on the way. We love happy endings, hope-filled verses and to quote the promises of God to each other [even when we quote them out of context like Jeremiah 29.11 - i dare you to read the whole chapter and even just [...]
Last night was the Passion 2016 Worship Conference in Cape Town. Earlier in the day i had been at a significant meeting with the young folks from Disrupting Whiteness which i reflected on in this somewhat controversially titled post, 'Sodomy: A South African Love Story' which reminded us of an earlier definition of Sodomy which was that 'The people of Sodom pursued lives of careless ease and ignored the poor on their doorstep.' Which we see [...]
Today is known as the Day of Reconciliation. Although for most South Africans i imagine it is just seen as a public holiday. Someone's status caught my attention this morning and got me thinking, 'Imagine if in South Africa we started celebrating Day of Reconciliation in the way Americalanders celebrated Thanksgiving?' - now, as always, any analogy is as strong as the point it is trying to make so let's just ignore all the negative [...]
i was busy painting my block for the uThando leNkosi wall painting project as part of our 67 minutes and a bit for Mandela Day yesterday when things got a little interesting. A lady i had just met, assuming i guess, that we were a bunch of christians helping out with this project, decided to break some ice, by turning to those closest to her and asking, 'What church do you go to?' My friend [...]
Just over a week ago, tbV and i spent five days on two houseboats with about 20 incredible people, mostly younger than me. Here are some of the guys: We lived together, we ate together, we read the bible and sang some worship songs together, we confessed some struggles and some sin and prayed for each other, we sat in silence for three hours and were just still and knew that He was God, we [...]
You go away on a houseboat for a week, come back home, turn on your computer and it's like a paint factory sneezed all over Facebook. Or something like that. Actually the graphic on my buddy Steve Heineman's page expressed it best: And i think enough has been said from either side of the rainbow for me to need to add anything specifically about that, although i definitely have some deep sadness for some of [...]
It was the smallest of deals, it was quite possibly the biggest of deals. This morning i'd been asked to share a little about church at a house church meeting of a friend of mine - never met the group before and only knew the leader through a camp i spoke on last year for his youth. But i'd also spent the last few days feeling very challenged by the tragic events in Charleston and [...]
In Acts 7 in the bible, we read about the stoning of Stephen. Does anyone know what role Stephen had in the early church? Let me give you a clue: In Acts 6.5 we see him described as "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit". So what did he do? Are we thinking pastor? Elder? Worship leader? Let me give you another clue: In Acts 6.8 we read that Stephen was "a man [...]
SITTING ON THE EDGE OF THE TUB - by brett "Fish" anderson sitting here perched on the edge of this hot tub half in, half out struggling to rationalise my body's capability with the extreme temperature that is bubbling back at me but i've been here for a while and this water sure ain't getting any cooler am i getting any braver? and will i finally slide all the way in? hold that [...]
