Thursday 26 June 2014

TeenStreet 2013 - Day 4 Review

As we get closer to TeenStreet 2014 we're taking a look at one day review video a week from last year's camp.  TeenStreet is held out on the Gatton UQ Agricultural College Campus and as you can see in this video is surrounded by some beautiful farm lands.

Day four is all about getting out into the local community with Hands and Feet! Each net group is assigned an activity that is out in the greater Gatton community. Last year there were some street bbqs and outreaches, nursing home visits, house repairs and environmental work.  In all we had about 200 people out in the community helping and serving. A great way to display this Gospel of Jesus we've spent the week learning about.


Tuesday 24 June 2014

The proper motivation for worship

Louie Giglio, Kristian Stansfield and Chris Tomlin all posted this on their Instagram feeds last week (all three are key leaders at Passion City Church in Atlanta GA).  It made me stop and contemplate how we approach worship - not just music but the intent with which we live our lives.  It's not a works based method of salvation.  It's not even a duty to do what is right.  No! Singing praise, and doing good is an opportunity that we may partake in because of the freedom we have in our new lives, in Jesus, and in honouring Him.


Monday 23 June 2014

Have you got moss on your butt?

What???

Watch this video from Ken Davis before you click away thinking I'm nuts...




So??? Is there any moss? Or are you active enough and following Christ's plan for you so that you're not left sitting around for too long?

---see Ken's blog here.

DWYL - Chapter 10

It's been a long journey, and we've come a fair way through this preaching/Bible study series at dBay Baptist. I hope the young people have been able to find tangible things to pull out of John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life" and have found ways to practically integrate some of the ideas from the book into their lives.

Piper's final chapter is his prayer for all those who have read his book.  A prayer that cries out the hope that no one at the end of their life would look back and say "I've wasted it."
O God, you know I tremble now for fear that many of the ones who call you Lord have made themselves the prize and glory of your grace.  How many, Lord have made your love a witness to their worth! Is then their joy a resting in your worth or in their own?  So many decades have gone by in which the constant message from the world, and even from some ministers, is this: that love means making much of man.  And so when men, with this assurance, ponder what your love might mean, they say the same: God's love means making much of man.  For proof they ask: Don't you feel loved when someone calls attention to your worth?
And I answer: Once I did. When life was better than the Lord, and not the other way around. There was a time love felit like this - when I could not conceive of any joy greater that the honor of my name. Whan I was so absorbed in me that it was inconceivable for joy to rise by my admiring rather than my being admired. Oh, yes, I've known what it is like to call the praise of men an act of love and justify this craving with the readiness to give the same...
But now (thanks to your might grace!) I see it is an imitation... Oh, what a history of deeds and revelation you have wrought to make yourself the centre of our joy and take back for yourself the place of honor in the world - to be the One your people treasure more than life... Oh what a grand design! To make our joy the echo of your excellence. To make our pleasure proof that you now hold the place of Treasure in our lives. The make the gladness of our soul the essence of our worship, and the mirror of your worth.  To make yourself most glorified in us, O God, when we are satisfied in you.  How could I, Lord, have ever been so blind to think that being loved by you means making much of me and not yourself?...
No, Father, love is this: At great expense you made yourself my glory and my boast.  The cost was infinite by which you made yourself the Treasure of my life. You sent your Son, the blazing center of your beauty and you love. You gave him up to mockery, betrayal, thorns, the whip, the rod, the fists, the mails, the same, and death. For what? To swallow up your wrath, and satisfy your righteousness, and bury all my sins as far as east is from the west and in the deepest sea, so that I might come home... This is your love, O God, not to make much of me, but do whatever must be done so that I waken to the joy of making much of you through all eternity.
~John Piper, DWYL, p184-186

Thursday 19 June 2014

TeenStreet 2013 - Day 3 Review

Camp is only 3 week away - so exciting. Hopefully you've all registered and are keen to go.

Lots of sport was played on day three last year, but as always the night ends with an amazing time in Throne Room. The heart of the music and speaking teams is to bring all the teens to the feet of Jesus, and let them sit there while He does His work in their lives.  We had an amazing acoustic/alternate music set up on day three, with heaps of percussion gear, a violin and a huge place to dance and worship Jesus.  All climaxing with the very thought provoking 'Declaration of Dependence'. It was pretty amazing!


Wednesday 18 June 2014

Traverse Blog Post: Why Brisbane Needs Gospel Events.

Dan Patterson is the director of operations at Traverse (an element of Malyon College aimed at Gospel outreach) and pastor at Ashgrove Baptist... and one of the smartest people I know.

He posted this morning in regards to the number of Special Gospel/Church based events happening in Brisbane at the moment, and why they are a good thing.  At times we feel flooded with events and we can create an almost consumeristic nature in regards to wanting one off events with big name speakers, musicians or pastors. Though we need to be careful of this, Dan outlines some really good reasons why these events are also good for Brisbane.

Have a read.

Also, consider going to, and inviting someone along to, these upcoming events


JOHN LENNOX EVENT: http://citybibleforum.org/city/brisbane/event/cosmic-chemistry-brisbane

MATT CHANDLER EVENT: https://www.mattchandlerinbrisbane.com.au/

Friday 13 June 2014

Contentment

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
~Philippians 4:11-13
In every situation to be content. I think that is the key to living a life worthy of the call Jesus places on our lives, and worthy of the grace that has been showed to us through His actions on the cross.   Paul knew what it was to be both rich and poor, hungry and full... and in both situations he was content.

Whatever situation you find yourself know that you can be content - there's no need to be jealous of someone better off than you, guilty because you have something other's don't or despairing because you feel you don't have what you deserve.  You can be content in all things through Jesus who strengthens you.

Thursday 12 June 2014

TeenStreet 2013 - Day 2 Review


Our day two last year was full of challenging testimonies of God's work around the world and our call to be part of seeing His kingdom come.

Wednesday 11 June 2014

DWYL - Chapter Nine


The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy... in this chapter John Piper gives a plea to this generation to hear God's call to lifelong mission work on the front line of those unreached by the Gospel.

Someone might say, "But isn't the Gospel about finding forgiveness of my sins and getting the hope of eternal life and being filled with the Spirit of hioliness and being changed into the image of Jesus so that I am a better mom or dad or son or daughter or friend or employer or citizen?" The answer, of course, is yes. But if that is all we focus on in our walk with God, we miss the big picture. We miss the bigger point of it all. We are like batboys at Yankee Stadium who think the great point of the World Series is to hand the players a bat.
I urge you in the name of Jesus to wake up, and enlarge your heart, and stretch your mind, and spread your wings. Mount up above your limited life - yes, a very important live, which God does not diminish - and see the great and thrilling big picture of God's global purposes for the history of the world that cannot fail... And as God gives you wings to rise up and see the world the way he sees it, many of you, I pray, will be loosened from your present situation - job, neighborhood, state, nation, plan - and be called to direct engagement in this great historic, global purpose of God as a goer and not only a sender.
~John Piper - DWYL, p163-164 


Thursday 5 June 2014

TeenStreet 2013 - Day 1 Review

With 5 weeks to go to TeenStreet 2014 I thought we could relive the awesomeness that was camp last year by watching a day review video each week.

So here's day 1 of TeenStreet 2013


Wednesday 4 June 2014

Tweet of the Week


God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that He was willing to take it on Himself.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Responsibility is right.

But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil.
Matthew 5:34-37
Such a simple thought, but one that seems to have to be stated again and again. If you're asked to do something (and you agree) or you offer to do something that lays a certain responsibility on you to do it.  Having responsibility is good and right, and something Jesus obviously wants us to engage in.

Monday 2 June 2014

Where's your focus?

I was looking through some old photos and found this one.  Remembering when my nephew, Nathanael, was a bit younger he was totally amazed by my camera.  We were sitting in a park having lunch and I had my camera sitting on the table.  Nae found the remote control for the camera and I remember getting home and finding over 50 photos just like this one as he kept pressing the button and enjoying the clicking sound the camera was making.

I was pretty much oblivious to what was going on, engaging in conversations with others and not taking much notice of what Nathanael was up to.

I laughed so much when I found all the photos though... and made sure I kept and posted one to always remember a special day with this special guy. I'm glad that even at that time I was focused elsewhere, Nae was intently focused on capturing the moment - it makes a great photo!

It made me think that those times I may be focused elsewhere, Jesus is always intently reaching out to me.  His cross means that His life lives through me, the Holy Spirit lives in me - my life is Christ's and there is an element where it is constantly focused like my nephew is in this photo... I just need to remember to focus myself too... or come back to the focus of the cross no matter where I wander to.

His grace is enough to constantly draw back.

Nothing too big to forgive.

Christians must have a unbreakable capacity to forgive.  Humans obviously don't have that, in our own strength sometimes things are done and we can't conceivably bring ourselves to accept an apology.  It is only in the light of what Jesus has done for us that allows believers to see that in their forgiven state they too can, through God's strength, forgive anything.
Walter Wink tells of two peacemakers who visited a group of Polish Christians ten years after the end of World War II. "Would you be willing to meet with other Christians from West Germany?" the peacemakers asked. "They want to ask forgiveness for what Germany did to Poland during the war and to begin to build a new relationship."
At first there was silence. Then one Pole spoke up. "What you are asking is impossible. Each stone of Warsaw is soaked in Polish blood! We cannot forgive!"
Before the group parted, however, they said the Lord's Prayer together. When they reached the words "forgive us our sins as we forgive...," everyone stopped praying. Tension swelled in the room. he Pole who had spoken so vehemently said, "I must say yes to you. I could no more pray the Our Father, I could no longer call myself a Christian, if I refuse to forgive. Humanly speaking, I cannot do it, but God will give us his strength!" Eighteen months late the Polish and West German Christians met together in Vienna, establishing friendships that continue to this day.
~Philip Yancey - What's So Amazing About Grace, p123
This is just one powerful illustration of how God's grace can bring about seemingly impossible acts of forgiveness.

I would hope that there aren't people who think I am unapproachable because they feel they have broken relationship to a point of no return.  Let me put it out there that I feel compelled to offer forgiveness to all those who ask, just as I feel compelled to ask forgiveness for the wrongs I have done.


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