If the variety and chaos and lack of aggression of the Traffic in the Philippines is the first thing that hits you as it did me, because of how in your face it is, the Hospitality and Generosity of the Filipino people will hit you in your heart. i have always found it quite a hard piece to navigate when time after time in my life it has been the poor who have consistently [...]
It's been a frustrating few hours arguing with people on Facebook around this statement i shared on Facebook: What if i am wrong? A number of people came on and defended the rich and tried to misdirect away from the problem and called me a lot of things, telling me how my line of thinking was responsible for more deaths than Hitler managed and so on. And it's super frustrating because a [...]
Let there be peace! Most weeks when life is not too crazy i send out an email message called 'Thort For The Week'. Basically a sermon/message/thought for the week that relates to God and following Jesus or wrestling with some aspect of faith. This week i asked my friend Ashley Visagie if i could use a Facebook status he wrote as my thort and he said yes... but when i looked up the passage he had [...]
As we continue to seek out A Carefree Attitude Towards Possessions through the lens of Ron Sider’s challenging book, ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ let me go back a paragraph to remind us where we are and then continue with words i hope you will wrestle with and share with your friends: = = = = = Matthew, Mark and Luke all recall the terrible warning: “How hard it is for those who [...]
Continuing the passage i am sharing from the Ron Sider book, ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’, i’ll back up one paragraph just to remind us where we were: = = = = = If there are poor people who need assistance, Jesus’ carefree disciple will help – even if that means selling possessions. People are vastly more important than property. “Laying up treasure in heaven” means exactly the same thing. “In Jewish literature, [...]
i have just started reading this book by Ron Sider who we got to hang out with a little bit during our time at the Simple Way in Philly a couple of years ago. Recently he visited South Africa and i got to hear him speak and thought it was high time i got hold of this book which has influenced so many people. This part i want to share is just from the Foreword [...]
So last night there was a game of football/soccer between Manchester United [soccer is one of my least supported sports but if i have ever supported a team it has been Manchester United... and then locally Kaizer Chiefs back in the day when Dr Khumalo played and i always back Bafana!] and Real Madrid in the Champion's League. Real Madrid won 2-1 but of course there was "that red card incident" with Nani getting sent [...]
my friend and bossman, Darin, shared some stuff on Saturday's Simple Way Conversations day on the theme of stewarding your treasures [your money and things] well in the world we live in... one really interesting thing he said which made me think was when he asked about the definition of poverty and said that often poverty has been defined as THE LACK OF STUFF? that's true, right? i'm sure most of us would agree... but [...]
continuing with some further thorts from psalm 22 'I will declare Your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him! Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel! For He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help.' [verse 22-24] [...]
and on to psalm 14: 'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God!" [vs.1] as Mr T's B.A. Baracus from the A-Team would say, "I pity the fool!" and that's an apt combination of thoughts. and 'pity' has such strongly negative connotations where what i feel when i look at friends lives who do not know God and are going through stuff and trying to carry it all by themselves is totally a [...]
