iBelieve

These guys have entered into my radar via Vicky Beeching’s blog.  Human trafficking is real.  It is a cancer of the vilest characteristics that, in this day and age, the world has more slaves than at the height of the slave-trade pre-emancipation in the USA, and pre-William Wilberforce in Great Britain.  Hope for Justice exists to rescue people out of the slave trade, and to raise awareness of this issue.

Human Trafficking is the sale, transport and profit from people who are forced to work for others against their will. This trade in human life is taking place on a vast global scale and is the world’s fastest growing crime. The statistics are shocking.

• 1.2 million children are trafficked every year, one every minute
• The average age of a trafficking victim is just 14 years
• $9.5 billion is made through human trafficking each year
• The UN estimates that 80% of people trafficked are taken for sexual exploitation.

Are you shocked yet?  What are you going to do about it?

I plan on getting involved with these folks in order to take a stand against human trafficking.  We just cannot stand by and not ACT.  I cannot continue to call myself a Christian and not act for justice in the world.  If we want to presume to have God’s ear in prayer, we would do well to note that He has inclined his ear to hear the cry of the needy, the oppressed, the poor, the orphan, the destitute.  Yes, the Lord has positioned his heart to pay close attention to the heart-cry of the little girl who is forced to service the depraved wants of a brothel’s client.

Allow me to make a suggestion.  Let us join together and make a stand against this.  This, my friend, is the true Gospel – this is true religion, to make a stand and be a voice for those who do not have a voice.

I hope to be writing much more on this issue as I want to raise awareness in the West, was well as share on what we can do to put a stop to human trafficking once and for all.  I cannot stop and rest whilst there still remains one child without the freedom to be innocent.

"Because no-one is free until everyone is free"

Videos follow:

Let me know what you think.

I am a visual learner.  I need to READ things to learn.  Hands-on learning, for me, conjures images of grease-covered hands tinkering with engines.  No thanks. 

However, for those of you who learn better aurally, I have lately been using this site to engage with scripture in a way that is new and refreshing.  The Daily Audio Bible lets you cover the whole bible in a year through their daily Podcast.  I am finding the daily readings very refreshing as I can engage with scripture in a way that is totally different to how I normally "read" the bible.

These guys are also breaking new ground in terms of the way in which they are forming an online  community around the daily reading of the scriptures, worship and prayer.  Sort-of like a virtual prayer room.  Awesome!

This is what they say about themselves:

Daily interaction with the Scriptures is the heart of all we do.  A deep and abiding friendship with Jesus informed by the rich texture of the Bible is the reason the Daily Audio Bible exists.  We believe that it is fundamental to every believer’s healthy spiritual life that we be people seeking the counsel of the Bible every single day, that we be people who walk with God intimately and conversationally and that we live in community with one another.

Check them out – dive into the daily audio bible and let me know how it goes for you.

Peace out.

Where’s Joe the plumber in this?

We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture where we often exalt the superstar, at the expense of the regular guy. I am very concerned at how I see a lot of the celebrity culture infiltrating the church, especially in the realm of evangelism. I am standing for the regular guy. Regular is good. Joe the plumber needs to get a better rap in the Church, especially in the west.

Preach! – Just do it!

When we look at evangelism, we are often guilty of having too much of a  success-oriented view of evangelism and not enough of a process view of evangelism. We place too much capital of achieving the results, and its corollary fear of failure, and not enough on just doing it! The biblical idea of preaching, of evangelism, is much closer to the concept of just communicating news than it is to the idea of convincing someone to make a decision or accept a message. In fact, it is God’s job to convince, our job is simply to communicate and explain the evangel, the Good News. When thinking about what it takes to evangelise, think more newsreader, or anchorman, than salesman.

The Gospel is all about a King and his Kingdom

OK so you are revved-up and ready to just do it! You want to preach the Gospel….. you think you know what the Gospel is…..but do you? If we are to give ourselves to this business of evangelism, wouldn’t it make sense to actually know what it is that we should be communicating?

You see, “the Gospel” is more than a system of theology, more than a system of salvation. “The Gospel” was the word that was used to explain that Caesar was Lord, and that at his name every knee hod to bow. The Gospel was therefore a Good-news proclamation that Jesus (not Caesar) was Lord – that there was a new king on the block, and as King over all, He demands our allegiance, our submission, our obedience. You see, this good news is that your Caesar, that which used to dominate you, is no longer “lord” – there is a new King on the block, and He is GOOD.

At its very core, and true to the biblical story, “The Gospel” is the proclamation of that message that God’s Kingdom, or empire, has arrived, that Jesus vanquished all the powers of evil at the Cross and that, beginning at the resurrection of Jesus, God is in the business of fixing all of the world’s wrongs, wiping every tear and consoling all those who are suffering. He has now invited you to be a part of this revolution, this “setting the world right” Revolution.

And what does He require of us?

If evangelism is all about the proclamation of a king and his kingdom, then the requirement is that we embrace Jesus as such and submit to Him. We do this be believing in Him, thus our very faith in Him becomes this submission and obedience. That is why scripture speaks of the obedience of faith:

And this is His order (His command, His injunction): that we should believe in (put our faith and trust in and adhere to and rely on) the name of His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah), and that we should love one another, just as He has commanded us - 1 John 3:23 (Amplified)

The early Christians believed that rather than you, it was this very proclamation that acted as the means, the vehicle, of grace through which God’s spirit brought conviction to the sinner. If this is so, then the mere process of evangelism, the process of proclaiming the lordship of Jesus, becomes the means of grace through which God’s Spirit can act.

This weekend, at Living Waters Church, we will have with us Pastor Angel Nava, of Semillas de Vida, a dynamic church in La Paz, Mexico. This church has partnered strategically with Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church of Redding California. Semillas de Vida hosts one of Bethel’s Schools of Supernatural Ministry. The school is designed to raise up nationals in Mexico to begin to dream and to train them to bring revival and transformation to Mexico. They are seeing some phenomenal things take place. Graduates from this school are beginning to plant businesses, become missionaries, and move into places of influence. This base is becoming a place where people are being raised up and sent out. Angel is also emerging as a key voice of reconciliation, honour and unity among different streams, churches and ministries in Mexico, and beyond.

If you are in the area, come and join us for these meetings! Watch this space for some follow-up posts on these sessions!

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s book “Tribes” and have just been fired-up with its message of radically changing the rules of the game through the fluid, cause-based, leadership of communities that he aptly terms “Tribes”. Anybody who is involved in influencing the market of ideas, would do well to take this book’s central themes to heart. By the way, YOU are that person, involved in influencing the market of ideas. If you care about stuff, if you want to get things done, if you want to change things, if you use the power of words to bring about change…… then this message os for you.

If you are passionate about an idea, or a message, then there is a tribe out there waiting for you to take the initiative and lead. Your message needs you – your tribe needs you….. welcome to the new world.

Technorati Tags: Tribes, Seth Godin, Books, Viral, Marketing

The following email was sent to Gibraltar’s Minister for Family, Youth and Community Affairs, asking the Government to introduce a fast-track system for adopting children that are orphaned in disasters such as Haiti’s massive earthquake.

————

The Honourable J J Netto
Minister for Family, Youth & Community Affairs
14 Governor’s Parade
Gibraltar

Dear Sir,

Re: Crisis response protocol for adoption in Gibraltar.

It is with astonishment that we witness the scenes of devastation coming out of Haiti. every day. In times like these we all wish that there was something that we could do to help, and no doubt the typical response from our community will be to contribute money, energy and time to help the lot of those less fortunate.

Although I’m not aware of the intricacies of the adoption process here in Gibraltar, I am writing to ask whether the Government of Gibraltar has considered introducing a fast-track protocol for the adoption of orphaned children following a disaster such as Haiti. Parents who decide to adopt these orphans would be able to bring the child to Gibraltar under a certain protocol, that would relax any bureaucratic impediments and expedite the whole process.

I am aware that there may not be multitudes of Gibraltarians standing in line waiting to adopt orphans, however I am also aware that sometimes small but poignant gestures, such as having Government introduce the said protocol, will serve as a powerfully symbolic catalyst to motivate some to take action. Sometimes not doing anything at all can be the worst thing we can do.

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter,

I remain,

Yours faithfully,

John K. Baw

Clowning in Rome – Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer and Contemplation (By: Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Our cultures have pretty much put aside the values of solitude, celibacy, prayer and contemplation. As a result, we experience emptiness in our hearts and our relationships. Clowning in Rome will perhaps inspire us to risk to be touched by those in our homes and on our streets that we would rather put aside and forget. The homeless, belligerent, rejected, violent, lost, uncooperative, and vulnerable people are the prophets of today beckoning us to become clowns in the circus of life, where we foolishly squander our enormous energies of love and generosity. -Foreword (xviii)

… I [slowly] realized that in the great circus of [life], full of lion tamers and trapeze artists whose dazzling feats claim our attention, the real and true story was told by the clowns. Clowns are not in the centre of the events. They appear between the great acts, fumble and fall, and make us smile again after the tensions created by the heroes we came to admire. The clowns don’t have it together they do not succeed in what they try to do, they are awkward, out of balance, and left-handed, but…. they are on our side. We respond to them not with admiration but with sympathy , not with amazement but with understanding, not with tension but with a smile. Of the virtuosi we say, “How can they do it?” Of the clowns we say, “They are like us.” The clowns remind us with a tear and a smile that we share the same human weakness. -page 3.

photo credit: Himalayan Trails

Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth – 1 Corinthians 5:8

Talk to someone about what they think of the “Church” or of “Christians” and painfully often you will hear THAT word: “hypocrites”. Ouch!

It hurts me that people will often refer to Christians or the Church as “hypocritical”, sort-of in the same vein as one hears people talk about politicians, perceived by many to be milking the public purse for personal gain, or bonanza-bonus-taking bankers, who, many argue, are paying themselves huge sums out of money that they only have because they have mortgaged our whole economies for the next few generations.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, urges them to “keep the festival” of the (new) Passover, but to keep it in the spiritual sense, having Jesus as their sacrificial lamb that makes atonement for their sins. This festival of the Passover is the foundation of Christianity.

I will spare you the intricacies of Jewish Passover-observance, and the rituals of purging-out of yeast that goes with it – suffice it to say that Passover requires a cleaning-out of every nook and cranny of your kitchen in order to remove any traces of yeast – yeast is symbolic of sin and impurity. He then goes on to state that this festival is to be observed “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

Now here’s a thought: We place a lot of emphasis on keeping the festival with the proper truth (and doctrine becomes the rallying-cry for many movements, divisions and separations), but are we placing equal emphasis on keeping the festival, on being true Christians, with the quality of transparency and sincerity? Surely if the world sees the Church as full of hypocrisy, we need sincerity by the bucket load – for fail you might, but people will always appreciate you if something is genuine.

In Paul’s Corinth, it is said that it was normal practice for people selling earthenware to cover-up imperfections, cracks and crevices with wax, pouring it into all the nooks and crannies, and then paint-over the whole vessel. These were sold in dark shops, so the unsuspecting buyer got the shock of his life when a perfectly looking vessel was used to pour hot water into it – the wax invariably melted, and the water was spilled on the ground – and what looked like a beautiful earthen pot was therefore useless. The way to detect that the vessel was “sincere” was by holding-it up against a bright light, and the wax would let the light through in contrast with the opaque clay and all imperfections would be highlighted.

From this practice of filling-up cracks with wax, some say that we get the word “sincere” from the latin sin (without) cere (wax).

Here’s where this thought is taking me: I don’t want to appear as if I’ve got it all together, only to discover wax covering my cracks and faults. In 2010 I purpose to hold my own heart and life up to the “bright light” of God’s presence and have Him reveal all the imperfections, shortfalls, nooks and crannies. I apologize to you all beforehand if it isn’t a pretty sight, but when all is said and done I want to be part of the real deal.

photo credit: escapedtowisconsin

Just a couple of quick thoughts:

Spent the day with a friend that I had known as a blog/facebook/twiter friend for some years but only just met in real life today. Man the world of the Internet is great, but real-life connections are just so much better! It is awesome how we managed to cram weeks of conversation into several hours and yet found that we were very much on the same page in everything we talked about! A shared meal does more for fellowship and friendship than weeks of online interaction, but on the other hand new technologies are making connecting with people and ministering to them so much easier! It is an incredible time to be alive!

Last night I spent half an hour on the phone with some dear friends of ours who are in a time of transition in their ministry. They have left the familiar territory of their past denominational structures and have cast out into the unchartered and unfamiliar seas of what the Lord’s Spirit is leading them into. Exciting but terrifying all at once. They are relating with an “online/virtual church” community that is providing guidance and support to them during this time of transition. New technologies mean new ways of connecting with people and all very life-giving.

One story is of an online friendship that evolves into a real-life meeting and friendship, the other involves a transition from real-life church relationships evolving into having new online connections for ministry. The game is still the same, but maybe with these new technologies we have new tools in our toolbox that we should be using to maximum effect.

Movements have a cause. Their message behaves very much like a virus. I was intrigued about the guidelines released by Governments for containing the H1N1 virus, the virus also know as ‘Swine Flu’. These same principles that will stop viruses form spreading are the principles that will cause a movement to die out.

Viruses are stopped firstly by there being a mechanism in place to ‘catch’ or ‘contain’ the delivery of the message. If you want to quench the power of a movement, start to dictate how, when and in what way the viral message is to be delivered. Start to issue guidelines on what is appropriate and what is not, on who should be involved, and what the right ‘qualifications’ for the task at hand are.

Secondly you ‘bin’ it. You try and keep control over your message – keep it ‘contained’ in a secure and safe place.

Thirdly you ‘kill’ it by using a chemical agent that works anti-virally. When a counter-message is evoked, an anti-message, if you will, is spread, that has the power to totally undermine your movement and leave it dead on the water.

In many circles, churches have almost killed-off the raw power of the message of Christianity by doing just that. The ‘virus’ is ‘caught’ by insisting on qualifications for the job. Thus a whole clerical hierarchy has evolved and it ensures that only appropriate channels are used to deliver the message. Secondly, special ‘bins’ called ‘churches’ and ‘cathedrals’ are the only places authorised to house this message. Thirdly, an anti-virus is applied – a positive message (virus) of hope, love, and peace has been replaced by one of end-of-the-age-doom, of judgement and of performance against standards of behaviour.

This tragedy has seen the people of God transition from being the light of the world, to a community that shies-away from the world in order to avoid being contaminated with impurity.

God is now raising an end-time army of surrendered ones who have totally been infected with the virus of LOVE, and who are actively engaging with society in order to get as many infected with the same virus as possible.

Recently a bunch of dudes and dudettes from Living Waters Church invaded the Ipanema restaurant in Gibraltar. I am amazed at how important it is, for your movement to eat together! There is something about shared meals that is at the centre of life together. In our culture, a lot of important business is conducted over a shared meal (Of course, we call them ” business lunches”, just to give it that sense of importance, or maybe even a sense of grown-up-ness) – In other cultures, shared meals form the backbone of much of civic life, commerce and polity.

If you want to foster common bonds, a shared sense of purpose, and a sense of belonging, then eat out…. a lot. Please tell me that you heard this. It is so simple that it runs the risk of seeming trivial. Simple stuff is usually overlooked. Simple stuff is often powerful.

Mankind has a innate craving for belonging, especially for belonging to a mission that has a cause. When people feel that they truly belong, and form an important part of, something greater than themselves, then watch-out, you have in your hands the genesis of a world-changing and paradigm-destroying phenomenon. In other words, you have in your hands the basic ingredients that can change the rules of the game.

Your movement needs that fellow-ship. It all begins happens around some good food and a healthy appetite for your mission. Ribs anyone?

For the record: The obligatory evidence:

Last week we had the privilege of having Christen Forster visit us at Living Waters Church. I had met Christen last November at the Windsor Castle day of impartation and at the Under an Open Heaven conference that followed it.

This guy is an awesome teacher. We had four incredible meetings where we saw several people being healed and many others delivered from bondage.

The really cool thing for me however was when we dialed-down and just shared over a coffee or a beer. I was really struck about how similarly we are both wired. Time and again he would share his opinion on an issue, or on a particular way of interpreting a certain text, and it would be bang-on with how I tend to think.

We have big dreams here in Living Waters Church, and we are exploring ways of how Christen, and his team at River Church can be a part of this God-thing.

I was finally doing a bit of housekeeping on my Flickr account (Which I had abandoned for a while in favour of just using FB) and managed to organize some of the photos that I had of Living Waters Church going back to 2003.

Although it is by no means a chronicle of the church’s history – and although there are glaring gaps when a lot was happening and no photographs were taken – it neverhteless felt good to see a photographic timeline since 2003 – the various stages of our development and growth. I am a grateful man today to have been allowed to experience these baby steps and this growth.

Click here to view photographs

MORE LORD!

We have just finished a couple of days with one of my favourite people in the world: Pastor Tom Rowe.

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers – Malachi 4:6

When a person like Tom Rowe visits….. you sit down…and listen…. and take notes. That’s what 56 years in ministry gives you I guess….. the “gravity” to speak…. the “voice” that causes young hatchlings in ministry like myself, to take notes.

We tend to place a lot of currency on the polished dynamic young preachers and speakers. That is good, and they certainly have their place, but it is also high time for the Church to recognize spiritual fathers in addition to the vibrant and dynamic speakers. There is an anointing that wows you, and that is awesome….. and then there is also the quality that says “I’ve been there.” I have purposed in my life to pursue the powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit in my life…… I want to pursue it with passion, intensity, focus and persistence – what is the point of it all if I don’t? I also recognize the need to surround myself with “been there” people – “fathers”, like Tom Rowe.

During Tom’s visits I LOVE the word He brings. I usually say that his ministry is a deep well that I turn to often. However I also find myself wondering whether I end up gleaning MORE from our conversations during the margins of his visit – conversations over a cup of coffee, whilst driving, whilst taking a walk – than I do during his sermons and teachings, deep and rich though they always are.

There comes a point when a pastor becomes a pastor’s pastor – Tom is, for many, a pastor’s pastor.

Some time ago I wrote about the gray-hair test. These thoughts are resonating in me again. I proposed the following ministry timeline:

• Childhood to 30 years: These are the formative years where you get rooted and grounded in the motivations behind your mission, and also get competent enough to fulfill it in an excellent way.
• 30 to 50 years: These are the performing years, where the actual job is done and the mission is advanced during your tenure.
• 50 to 70 years: These are the mentoring years (Reference the gray-hair test), where you take young aspiring leaders under your wing and nurture and mentor them in order to reproduce yourself in them.
• 70 years and over : These are the legacy years. During this season in your life you’d better get real busy and write as many books as you can, recording your legacy for as many generations to come as possible. During these years you are a mentor to mentors, a pastor to pastors, and a much needed source of wisdom, guidance and inspiration.

Thoughts?

This is an interview with Bill Johnson on the 700 club.  There is a deep well of wisdom and experience here.  He explains what happened to him when he surrendered 100% to God when he was in his 20s.  When that happened he found that …….

1. Nothing else mattered
2. There was a hunger for the Word
3. There was a passion for people
4. Worshipping in His Presence
5. An increased responsibility to the biblical standards of displaying the life of Christ in POWER.

Discuss.

The biblical text is clear, it teaches us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17). Many think that this is not achievable outside of taking monastic vows and living a cloistered lifestyle. As for me, I believe that there is tremendous value in connecting regularly with the Heart of God, connecting several times a day – a rhythm of regularly stopping everything that you are doing and just concentrating on God’s heart.

Praying at fixed times during the day was by-and-large rejected by the Protestant Reformation. A the time, anything that smelled of Rome was rejected, with it the monastic movement and its lifestyle of the Divine Office – fixed-hour prayer. In my opinion the baby was thrown out with the dirty bath-water.

However, praying at fixed times during the day was not essentially a Roman Catholic tradition, although the monastic tradition had championed it and modeled it for centuries. Fixed-hour prayer was a Jewish tradition long before it ever became a Christian one.

Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice – Psalm 55:17

In the early church the tradition of praying at fixed hours throughout the day was continued to the point where we read in Acts Chapter 3 that Peter and John performed a miracle on a lame man when they were on their way to the temple to prayer “at the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1).

I have begun an experiment with this notion of praying at fixed times during the day. I am exploring whether this lifestyle can be pursued outside of the monastic tradition – more specifically, whether this is doable whilst holding down a job, having a family, studying for a degree and also Pastoring a church.  If praying without ceasing is in the book it is something that is not only doable but necessary. This puts prayer at the centre of life. Prayer now becomes something that cannot be appended onto a busy schedule but rather something that must take the centre and have everything else revolve around it.

For this to become sustainable in the long term I need to add fuel to my prayer. For this I am taking a leaf out of the monastic tradition and using the bible as a prayer book to mull over the sacred text, musing, meditating and savouring every word and then praying this all back to God.

If you wish to look into this further, my message included below of 30th August 2009, “3 Things to Stoke the Fire of Revival” touches on this issue as well as the power of joy and the power of thankfulness.

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Following on from my previous post – Please take a moment to listen to the following clip. I am interested in hearing your views on what does LOVE look like from a missional perspective in the West. I would really welcome your views either in the comments, via email, Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

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We must acknowledge that all suffering is valid pain. The suffering in rich nations is internal psychological pain. It is extremely relevant; it is deep. People feel it, and it is just as real as a bloated belly, people starving, or disease and death. If we are to be Jesus’ hands and feet, we need to care about the needs of others – internally and externally. The currency of love in the West is not always money, but it is always time and compassion.
[...] to heal an orphan spirit in [the West] takes love, compassion, a lot of time, and undivided attention toward one another.

Compelled by Love p.38 – Heidi Baker & Shara Pradhan

Local radio Station Radio Gibraltar interviewed Iwan Sahertian, Bass player of the Dutch band Syncopate, on 14th September following their performance here in Gibraltar. For those of you who missed the interview, click the player link below.

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