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 [...]
"If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs and organise the work. Teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean." Antoine de Saint-Exupery
so i recently wrote a 5 part ‘reasons to hate Christianity’ blog series which was (for those who read it) intended to be a tongue-in-cheek statement on some of the basic things Christianity is actually meant to be about – things like love and forgiveness and looking after people in need which are all things that actually no-one in their right mind would hate... but yet people hate christianity and have issues with the church... [...]
in this amazing book 'Exiles' by Michael Frost i am reading i came upon this quote today by antoine de saint-exupery - 'If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs and organise the work. Teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.' if they build it they will come kind of idea - another move in the big what is church wrestling currently taking place [...]
i really liked what my buddy kleinfrans (yes, he's a giant with a name like that) commented on my recent 'reasons to hate christianity' blog series so i thort i would share it... its quite sad the way christianity is being perceived as a box of crayons. you look at the packaging (baptist/catholic/…) and you know exactly what colour crayons you are going to find inside. or at least that is what those that see [...]
wow. i am not a big cry'er. not because "i'm a guy so i don't cry" - just cos i don't cry really i love crying, i think it's really manly and necessary and releasing and all that so it sucks that i don't more often - i ask God from time to time to let me cry more but so far no good - last time i can remember crying was the second time [...]
do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good i really struggle to ‘get’ how people have such issues with Jesus-following when the basics of what it is all about is gems like that – love God, love people, look after orphans and widows, forgive those who wrong you, look after the land you’ve been given, share this love message... i do sadly understand how people can have issues with christians and a [...]
busy reading ‘Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture’ by Michael Frost and have little bits of paper and elastoplasts stuck within the pages where i really thort it was profound or spot on (if it was my book it would be folded pages but it’s not – it belongs to the theological library of stellenbosch which has absolutely no relevance so shut up already) and this was one of those pages: From the chapter [...]
last nite at enGAGE (our sunday evening vineyard church congregation weekly gathering) we held an open mic vibe not after ‘church’, not on a different day to ‘church’, not instead of ‘church’, but as church, and it was great it was a celebration of some of the talents and giftings that God has placed in different people in our group and so we sat around tables and munched on chips and sweets and spinach and [...]