Heidi and Rolland Baker have been a tremendous influence in my life.  Through their book “Always Enough” my theology got rocked and my world got turned upside down!!!  Through rivers of tears and gut-wrenching experiences reading these powerful testimonies, I confessed that I did not have the gospel!!!!!  This was several years ago.  This has provoked me and sent me on a quest for MORE of God!!!!!!

Their ministry, Iris Ministries, have just posted their latest Newsletter on their website.  If you want to find out what Revival looks like in the African bush go no further…. Click here and let your world be rocked as was mine!!!!  You will never be the same again.

Gibraltar sports a town square officially called “John Mackintosh Square”. My grandfather’s generation called this square “el martillo” (the hammer) in reference to the auctioneer’s gavel, as this was the place where public auctions were held. El martillo was the place where my grandpa’s generation would meet, and solve the world’s problems over a cup of tea. We risk losing that in Gibraltar – the power of conversations.

Words have power. Words can create a reality into which we step and re-frame our understanding of world-views, situations, challenges and crises. We have the privilege, and the responsibility, to change the world. We work towards leaving a legacy for a generation that we will never get to see – a better world, a life that is enriched and where the summit of our achievement becomes the foundation stone of the next generation’s work. This cannot happen without conversations – without the power of words – indeed, it is contingent upon it.

We face global challenges that require global conversations:

1. Global warming
2. Poverty
3. Aids
4. Abortion
5. An undermining of traditional family values in the West
6. Conflicts and wars
7. The merging of an ideology of terror that risks moving into the mainstream of certain religions
8. An increasingly disenchanted youth in the West that is resorting to a culture of knives, guns and violence

Solutions to these challenges will emerge out of conversations – paradigms need to be redrawn; insights into problems will be revealed; new solutions to challenges will arise when these conversations take place. It is good to talk – we need to talk. It is time to speak into many of these seemingly intractable problems and challenges. We need to recover “el martillo” in our generation, a place where conversations happen….. and lives are changed.

Never has there been so much technology available for the propagation of conversations. Bloggers are becomingly increasingly influential in the political scene in the US, a testimonial to the power of words. They are now a force to be reckoned with, which any aspiring candidate ignores to his or her own peril. I love blogging, I love social media, I love conversations. Popular video websites such as Youtube have become a phenomenon and are uniquely placed to assist us in our endeavour (It has recently been reported that Youtube hosted 50 billion videos……..this month!).

I live for the day when these “new” media re-write the rules of journalism, television, education, and communication. I find it remarkable how a blogger can effectively shape the political discourse of a nation, tapping away on his laptop’s keyboard whilst having a latte at his favourite coffee shop.

The media is there, and the tools are there. Will you find your voice? Will you speak out? More importantly in any conversation…. will you listen?

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Conversations, Speech, Words

(HT: Scott Hodge)

I totally Dig Twitter!!! I am a Twittering fool. There, I said it. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows you to shoot out little and regular updates of what you are doing, thinking, etc. People get to “follow” you and your twitter updates (Tweets), and you “follow” others as well. Granted, a community will form around banalities, and I do not know whether that is a good thing or not - Tweets have recently included a guy live blogging about his airplane crash as it happened (link).

Twitter is a platform that is increasingly being used via 3G and via SMS texts, thus taking a “web” technology offline and onto the streets, where life happens. Your Twitter can also be integrated with other Social Media such as Facebook, BeenUp2, Myspace, and Plaxo, among others, so your tweets appear as Status updates on these other platforms.

Twitter will not replace blogging, it will save it. There is a certain Darwinian element to twitter whereby most of the junk that I am bound to spew out loud will find its way into several Tweets everyday, thus leaving serious blog content to find its way onto this blog. Whereas there is a slowing down in post-frequency, the content of these posts tends to be of a better quality. It weeds-out the rubbish, leaving the way clear for some serious blogging thought. I would not have it any other way.

Do you Twitter? If not, you should. Go here, open an account and add me.

Celebrating that LOVE found a way to break open the Heavens, and come and live humbly among us! Celebrating that a little baby born in a dirty stable represented the highest hopes for the human race. Celebrating that LOVE encarnate will always triumph. God’s good and perfect gifts are laid out ready for you to take them.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! - Matthew 7:11

Have a blessed Christmas.

We have just returned from a small but in my view extremely strategic gathering of people in Madrid Spain. Your Kingdom Come conference was organized by my peeps in Madrid, Centro Cristiano Cuatro Vientos, and the speaker was none other than Pastor Kris Vallotton, one of my heroes from Bethel Church. There were few in attendance, around 100, but the really significant thing for me is that the crowd gathered was a very homogeneous group of people – most share the same history, myself included, and we have known each other for years. Not your typical conference in that regard.

Kris comes at a time when most of the ones in attendance are either going through a time of transition, or are at a crossroads, in terms of pursuing renewal, revival, and the more of God. He ministered to us as if he had been observing us and taking notes for the past thirty years, and then speaking into our history, our circumstances, and calling forth our destiny.

Many words and promises were spoken over many there, and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry students that travelled with him were an utter blast to be around!!!!!!! I hope to be able to stay in touch with some of these folks and follow their progress from being students to being world changers and history makers.

We then followed this conference with two days of r&r in Madrid with dear friends. Much needed rest among great company.

This past Wednesday 10th December saw one of our favourite peeps in the world, Dalton and Vicky Jantzen visit us in Gibraltar. This guy baptized me 12 years ago in a swimming pool in the Spanish city of Seville, and although we have maintained contact through the marvel of the internet, we had not had face-time all these years.

We started off by just hanging out in Gibraltar, visiting different places and just catching-up on 12 years worth of water flowing under our respective bridges. One of the highlights of the afternoon for me was finding a monkey inside my car…… I kid you not.

In the evening we held a service where we worshipped together, cranked it up, and then Dalton ministered a good word on humbling yourself and going low before God that He may exalt you in due time. It was in this going “lower still” that God meets you and does what only He can do. This is like a passport application where you have to fill in what areas of your heart God needs to work in, in this process of humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God.

What I really appreciate about Dalton and Vicky is that they portray this sense of being real. I guess that living 16 years as a missionary in the jungles of Colombia does that to you. You lose the appetite to play religious games, and the result is a process where you have often gone before God and asked Him to deal with your own heart, and change it. In my friends Dalton and Vicky, the fruit of that process is evident.

Guys, if you read this, I want to say thank you…..for being you – I needed that.

In 1975 Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With a Mission, had lunch together. God simultaneously gave each of them a message to give to the other: “The culture is shaped by seven mind-molders or mountains in society. If we can influence each of these areas for Christ, we will win the culture of our nation.” Unfortunately, we have not been winning the culture since 1975, but losing precious ground.

Business.. Government.. Family.. Religion.. Media.. Education.. Entertainment

The above video clip touches on a message that has really been re-birthed in my heart as of late. These “mountains” represent spheres of influence that mold, or shape our culture. Whoever takes on these 7 mountains takes on the harvest of nations, and can really aspire to disciple nations. The Body of Christ has almost-exclusively focused on the “Religion” mountain, whereas our western culture is increasingly being shaped through the other “mountains”. It is time to change our focus.

But I must interject a small caveat here……….I have to be completely honest and say that in my reading of this subject, I am taken aback a little by some of the patronizing language coming out of some circles. The “taking-over-the-world” speak does not resonate with me at all ….. but maybe that is a thought for another post. What I really do witness to is the language that is proceeding from Bill Johnson’s pulpit that sees Christians as the salt of the earth who need to be sprinkled into situations and different contexts showing forth the power and wisdom of God’s Kingdom being at hand. Bill Johnson speaks of the importance of not approaching these “mountains” with an agenda to “rule” or “dominate”, but rather to go in really low and humble with a heart to serve and bless and further other kingpins’ agendas. Doors will open when people do not see you as a threat. Humility is so key in this message.

Back on the subject of the seven mountains of influence, I am seeing the mountain of business as a re-awakened dream in my life. In order to provide a little history, when I was a kid I wanted to be priest, or a businessman when I grew up. I believe that even at that tender age my two main areas of calling were already resonating within: church, and business (At six or seven years of age, and raised in a catholic home, I guess that becoming a priest was the closest my mind came to assimilating a call to the ministry). Many many moons later the calling to business was suppressed under a tonne of religious baloney, that only allowed for “ministry” within the context of “church” …. until a couple of words that I received recently powerfully shook this notion. In a “revival chat” video clip, Che Ahn (one of my favourite people in the world), mentions in passing, how people may be called to “multiple mountains” ….. that statement blew oxygen on the smoldering embers of a repressed dream…… that of succeeding in business. WOW! In the recent conference I went to in England he addressed this issue again and actually decreed prosperity and success over those who were called to the marketplace. I receive it all, enthusiastically.

So I guess that my horizons are being incredibly stretched here. On the one hand we are seeing awesome and mighty stuff starting to breakout at Living Waters Church…. and I say MORE! MORE! MORE! We are so hungry to see more!!!! On the other hand I am being challenged to pursue a calling in the marketplace…..and all I can say is MORE! MORE! MORE! I am hungry for more! Can God stretch out your horizons in such a ridiculous way that only He can have the slightest chance of fulfilling the dream? I am letting myself be stretched, and challenged. Bill Johnson says, “you know you have heard from God when the thought is so incredibly awesome and good that you could never have thought of it yourself”. All I can say to these two mountains is….. “here I am”…..”here I come!”

Please pray for me….. I am really getting messed up….. in a good way.

I have recently returned from a historic gathering of pastors, ministry leaders and national influencers that was held at the historic St. George’s College in Windsor Castle. A few months ago Jaydan was scouring the Internet and he came across this “roundtable”, and with the special speakers being Bill Johnson, Che Ahn, and John Arnott, it promised to be off the hook. The event was a 24 hour day of impartation and prayer for revival. At the same time a really prophetic guy at church kept on hearing and sensing the words “Windsor Castle” without even knowing that we were planning of attending. At that point in time I was sounding Jaydan out too in order to see whether he would join me as my associate pastor.

We promptly wrote-off and were just as promptly informed that the event was full, but we were welcome to attend the normal conference in Maidenhead that followed this roundtable. Not to be discouraged by a “no” we went ahead and booked our flights, and made our hotel reservations, really believing that God wanted us at that event. In the meantime all of our efforts, calls and emails kept returning the same answer - sorry, the event is full. I guess in the end God must have really liked our almost-foolish, child-like faith because not only did a spot become available for us to attend the event, but significantly, we were invited to actually stay overnight at the castle.

Just to be in the company of these men and women was in incredible privilege. It was mentioned at that event that the remains of an actual roundtable had been discovered in some archaeological dig in England. They had discovered that “parliament” was not a building where the Government met - Parliament was wherever the King went, and his roundtable of 300 to 400 knights went everywhere with him.

This roundtable at Windsor Castle was its spiritual equivalent. The times of impartation, teaching and prayer for renewal and revival in our land were off the hook, with vision imparted, dreams re-awakened, horizons extended, and possibilities becoming probabilities in this all-too-real unseen realm of the eternal.

We rounded it all off with a 3-day conference at Maidenhead that was awesome and was featured on God TV.

All in all we managed to make some really neat and strategic connections, and the seeds of some really significant relationships were sown there. We are really excited about the prospect of developing these relationships further and building something together.

Much has been happening at Living Waters during my blog’s lean-cows season. The most significant development by far is that I have invited two awesome guys to join me in the senior leadership team of the church.

During a church retreat held during the weekend of the 7th-9th November I managed to have a whole workshop dedicated to vision-casting and laying a chart for the church. It went really well. After sharing with the church the direction that I thought the church should be taking I invited Jaydan and Mario Gomila, a father and son duo, to join me in the leadership team. Between them they bring the fire and anointing of the Holy Spirit and also the gravity of experience. I am so privileged to have these guys on board!!! We are really fired-up with what the Lord wants to do here. You can meet these guys here.

The church then gathered around us and paid hands on us and prayed for us. It was an awesome moment for me. With this team in place I feel that Living Waters will now be able to expand its horizons in an unprecedented way.

After this session, during the evening we gathered to watch a DVD of a conference in Holland called “Heaven on Earth” which is organized by TRIN (Touch, Reach and Impact the Nations). This is the conference that Jaydan went to and received an impartation that really revolutionized our church! Well, it seemed like the Father was really pleased with what was going on there because He let it be known that He was pleased…. big time……. with the pouring out of His Spirit!!!! It was an awesome God-moment. People experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit personally!!! It was radical!!! It was extreme!!!! It was also so funny!!!! We had such a blast. On the floor, in God’s presence, I felt such a release that I had not felt in a long time. It seems that the mere fact that I could now share the burden of leading the church with a couple of other guys that I really respect and appreciate allowed me to let go and really enjoy God. From the looks and sound of it everyone was enjoying God too…… although the security guard did not know what to really make of it all.

Here is a youtube vid on the TRIN conference in Holland.

Hi blogosphere! I’m back!

After having sported a polished premium theme for my blog for a few months, I am temporarily reverting to the stripped-down basic white theme that I used to have previously. The reason for this is that my blog’s premium theme was so labour-intensive, with manual edits of several fields, and different image sizes need per post, that I stopped blogging altogether. It all eneded up like a massive website that needed maintenance all the time - not the sort of thing an overstretched guy like me wants. I need a cool, sleek, low-maintenance theme that I can just crank out posts and hang them there.

So….until such time as I find this uber-cool theme - or until such time as I employ an assistant that can maintain my premium theme for me I will be using free and simple blog themes. Over and out.

Friday is for friends here at the WildOx Blog, and so today we turn the spot light on Pastor Carl Thomas, of Revival Blog fame. Yesterday we managed to connect via Skype and we spoke for over 45 minutes!! We just clicked immediately in that, “It feels like I’ve known you for years” way.

Carl recently planted The Mission, a Spirit-filled, multi-cultural church in Delray Beach, Florida, and is going for it!  We managed to share a little on what God is doing through our respective ministries:

• We shared a little on our personal histories and it is funny how we seem to be at the same place insofar as this is concerned.
• There are big differences in the respective cultures where we are working, and therefore our approaches to church planting may be different.
• We discussed the value of Networking and discussed how we can help each other in this regard
• We shared on Revival-related stuff - that stuff just lights my FIRE! ….as it does Carl’s I can tell you that much!
• We then prayed for each other and it was really cool - here we were, connecting via the miracle that is Skype, and praying and speaking words of life over each other!!!! Is that cool or what?
• Carl is going to start a Revival Podcast soon (C’mon!!!!) so stay tuned to this spot!

I came away amazed at the fact that we are both in very similar places ministry-wise, despite being thousands of miles away and working in very different settings. We agreed to keep in touch this way - Skype really offers an awesome opportunity to network, share with and learn from gifted and talented leaders and church planters.

If you are a Pastor or ministry leader, you should be doing this too.

What would you say if someone in your town was refused a seat on a bus because they were “too black”? What message would you be sending the world if your city refused university seats on the basis of the candidates being “too black”? How about jobs then? Would you be happy if businesses in your area refused to employ people on the basis of the colour of their skin?

Are you angry yet? You should be! Randy Bohlender writes a disturbing post regarding adoption agencies who refuse placing unborn on their books because of their ethnicity, their skin colour, and how that may have a detrimental effect on their profits. Speaking of am adoption agency in particular he writes:

When the woman arrived, they realized she was Puerto Rican and much darker skinned than they expected her to be. The owner of the agency suddenly decided that the child would be ‘too black’ to find a home for. The owner refused to allow the social worker to pay for the ultrasound that the girl needed - it didn’t seem like a good investment for the agency - and the girl left, probably more afraid of having her baby than she was when she walked in. She was denied assistance because of the color of her skin - something that would be illegal to do if it involved a bus seat or a hamburger, but is perfectly legal in the adoption world.

Are the unborn commodities now? Are they chatels to be disposed of and sacrificed to our bottom-line, our convenience, or our expediency? At best, this is racism - at worst it looks very very dark.

The challenge, however is for the church:

Friends, there has to be a better way. This should not happen in any city in America where a church exists. When a pregnant young woman chooses LIFE, she should find help, not resistance. It’s no wonder 4,000 babies are aborted every day in America - in the short term, we have made death an easier choice than LIFE.

My question is, what are YOU going to do about it?

Read the full post here.

• Attendance was good. There were some new faces in the crowd this morning. Mainly folks who were checking us out. They got whacked, so hopefully they’ll be back for some more FIRE. Overall there is a sense of excitement that is just growing among the people.
• There’s this 6 year old fire ball of a kid in our church that is really being touched by God! He’s our very own FIRE BOY. He has just written a song (!!!!!) that we will probably end up using in our worship sets!!!
• Worship was awesome this morning - You really felt that the meting was a “thin space” where Heaven and Earth were connecting. I believe that the atmosphere that is created through worship is a catalyst for this.
• I gave a message on the New Wine that God is pouring out, and what the proper response of our hearts should be.
• After celebrating the Lord’s Supper we then released everyone into a time of ministry and prayer for each other.
• What started off just like any other normal meeting just took off! At that point the meting exploded as people were going after this thing with a passion!
• I am just SO EXCITED about what is happening in church right now - this is nothing short of the first stirrings of a revolution that will totally transform our city! Indeed, we can settle for nothing less when faced with the Cross and what happened at Calvary two thousand years ago.

Some photos of the service follow:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Friday is for friends here at the WildOx Blog.  We cast the spotlight on one of my favourite people on the planet, Pastor Kris Vallotton.  

I love Kris Vallotton. He must be one of my favourite people on the planet! I met him in 2005 in Bethel Church, Redding, California and the guy is so genuine! Pastor Kris is due in Madrid in December for a conference organized by my peeps at the Centro Cristiano Cuatro Vientos, and I am really anticipating awesome God-stuff breaking-out there.

He has written an incredible article on becoming an apostolic people that resonates so much with what God is laying on my heart lately!

Extending the Kingdom is more than just a humanitarian effort. Healings, deliverances, and supernatural encounters are called “signs” because they point to the fact that a hand has pierced the veil of a superior kingdom and displayed the wonders of His world. Miracles are simply the natural laws of Heavens world being superimposed over an inferior, earthly ecosystem.

This stuff just plain excites me! It makes my day! Go read the whole article on his website (link). He also shares on the benefit of hearing prophesies spoken over other people because like that you then have the opportunity of relating to that person and seeing that person as God sees him/her. If this is true then the implications of this are huge! It means that as an apostolic (sent) people, we need to shift the basis of all of our relationships (and all of our relating with people, institutions, organizations and Governments, whether they are nice or mean, dirty or clean) from what we think of them to what God thinks of them and sees in them. WOW. This is making my head spin so much that I think I’ll just sign-off for now and mull this over for the next few hours. You should too.

“Ten steps to a new you!” “Be transformed by the power of positive thinking!” “You can if you think you can!” Heard this all before somewhere? The self-help industry is a multi-billionaire one. I know, I contributed a fair amount of greenbacks to help make it so, purchasing the latest self-help books, manuals and programs. This industry plays on an inner sense that everyone has that they were born to be great, and that there must be more to life than this. To a certain degree the core message “you can be great” is healthy because I believe that you were born to be glorious. The method espoused is what I take issue with.

Lately I am being possessed by a thought. What if the answer does not lie within me? What if everything that I need, and everything that I desire for my life is wrapped-up in an event that happened two thousand years ago when a young man was butchered, crushed, and left to die, nailed onto a piece of wood? This may sound extreme to some, foolish to others, but I am getting to realise that far from being extreme, my comment above actually risks falling far short of what was accomplished on that remarkable day.

With the passage of time, we often lose perspective, and with a loss of perspective we often lose meaning. The Cross of Calvary was the place where salvation was purchased - sins were atoned for, and a way back to the Father was forged - and thankfully so. It was also the place where much more than this was achieved.

Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. -Hebrews 7:25

Salvation here is the Greek word “Sozo” and it means much more than just the salvation of your soul, in the technical biblical sense.

Sozo:
1. to save a suffering one (from perishing);
2. to make well,
3. heal, restore to health;
4. to make whole;
5. to deliver.

Salvation was bought at the Cross, and this salvation includes the technical biblical sense, as well as also including saving from suffering, total healing and restoration, and making complete and delivering from all evil. In short, Sozo means salvation, healing and deliverance. Not only can Jesus “sozo” (save, heal and deliver and restore) you, He does it “to the uttermost”, completely, perfectly, utterly. Are you seeing your healing being purchased at that Cross? Are you seeing your wholeness being purchased at that Cross? - physical wholeness, emotional wholeness, and spiritual wholeness?

I’m done with the self-help deal. I think I’m gonna go for the Sozo-help deal. Last time I checked I didn’t see me capable of helping me because if me had been able to help me, then me would never have been in a mess to start off with. I looked at an event that happened two-thousand years ago however, and I saw a man who took a Cross that I might take a Crown, he took a beating that I might take health, He bore ridicule that I might hear a “well done”, he was crushed and bruised that I might be rescued and recovered, and I saw that the punishment of my peace was upon Him.

Truly, there is only one step to a new you - look upon Jesus today, and on that Cross you will find a utter transformation deeper and more complete than any self-help could ever get you.

This evening the pastors of seven churches in Gibraltar met for a discussion with Dr Derek Copley of the European Evangelical Alliance to explore various issues related with the setting up of an evangelical alliance of Gibraltar. The meeting went really well and we have decided to go ahead with the formation of this. Initially five churches will set this up as founding members, and the other two will join subsequently when they go through the formality/protocol of consulting their leadership councils and/or denominational representatives. This is a huge step forward for the Gospel here in Gibraltar as the evangelical movement has never had one unified and recognized voice either in society nor in Government. We hope to raise the profile of evangelicalism in both these spheres.

In the photo you can see Dr. Copley seated on the bottom row - on the top row from left to right: Pastor Michael Mifsud (Bethel Christian Fellowship); Pastor Paco Baldachino (Evangelical Church of Gibraltar); Rev. Fidel Patron (Gibraltar Methodist Church); Pastor Sergio Revelli (The Cityline Church); Pastor Michael Aguilera (Newlife Church); Yours truly (Living Waters). Missing from the photo is Pastor Jose (Iglesia Evangelica Filadelfia) who had to leave prematurely for a meeting.

• Attendance was way up this Sunday. I was not able to get a head count but that was certainly the impression that I got from where I was. I suspected that come September, attendance was going to climb.
• For worship we only had Jaydan this week but he had his new baby with him!!!!! That new keyboard really takes sound to the next level at Living Waters!!! He had his old keyboard with him too and the combination really made it seem as if there were several musicians playing at the same time.
• Worship was militant man! I get the impression that in recent weeks we have been breaking new ground in worship. There is a discernible shift that takes place when God’s people go to war by worshipping the God who is great and greatly to be praised.
• I gave an exhortation on the atonement, and how the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross has bought us every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ – You can read/download my teaching notes here.
• Fatima as translating for me today into Spanish. Man, she is such a gift and provision for me on Sundays. I really feel blessed and sense the anointing flowing really well when she translates.
• I really feel that we need to reproduce her. We could do with a team of translators!!!
• I am now officially teaching in English every week now – we translate into Spanish. It works better for us this way from a Missional perspective. Gibraltar’s youth needs to be reached in English – this is not a political thing, it is a reality that we are addressing.
• After the talk we did something completely risky, innovative and new – we had a time of open prophetic worship where Jaydan moved in spontaneous song for a while and we prayed, prophesied, sung, danced and generally went for it!  I think that it went well for being the first time doing this. I think that the people did not have a grid to compare this to so they were a little bit unsure as to what they were supposed to do – if that makes any sense.
• I really feel like we are entering a time where we will move in greater expressions of innovation and creativity in our expression of worship – this will include the arts, and to this end today we had a local artist that has been coming to our fellowship recently set up his easel and just flowed prophetically during worship. I encouraged him to pursue this thing because I see a lot of potential in this expression.
• We had a testimony of a bro getting promotion at work this week and how this confirmed the teaching of this week with regards to trusting the Lord for Divine Justice.

Randy Bohlender of Stuff I Think fame has been at it again….he has messed with my head.  His message has really become a ‘mess’-age and now I am all undone…..all because he writes about the heart of an 11 year old….that actually lived out the gospel when he “stopped for the one”, and actually made a difference in the life of a homeless man.  Go over to this man’s blog and read ‘The Burrito Prayer Movement” where Randy marries the concepts of going for a deeper life with God, with social activism:

As long as I can remember, there’s been a disconnect between doing and praying. Churches had a tendency to lean hard one way or the other - activism or intercession. In connecting with a body of believers, you chose between addressing social ills or committing to going deep with God. It never occurred to us that addressing social ills might mean going deep with God or vice versa. We didn’t consider that to try to do one while ignoring the other was to be far less than Jesus told us to be.

WOW….a convicting read people….you have been warned.  Truly, small acts, done with great love, can change are changing,  the world.

I am no expert on politics in the US. Don’t get me wrong, I watch CNN, I read up on the candidates, and I am well aware that as America goes, so follows the world, in many areas of life.  Lately I have been following both candidates via the miracle of CNN and satellite TV, and I am quite amused about the whole elections “show”, and how the McCain/Palin ticket has stolen the thunder of the Democrats (Obama who?).

In Europe politics tends to be much darker than in the US - there seems to be a general pessimism here among the people that no matter who is elected, all politicians want to do is line their own pockets, or revel in the sense of power that the job gives them. There may be a sense of truth in that but I think Europe needs to discover the sense of public service, patriotism and pride in serving your country that the US has.

I read somewhere that every Presidential election since Roosevelt’s win over Hoover has gone to the candidate who strikes people as the sort of guy they’d rather meet for a cup of coffee or just to hang-out with.

I do not know if this has been scientifically proven but It would certainly seem to be the case in recent elections:

Clinton v. Bush (Snr)
Clinton v. Dole
GWB v Gore
GWB v Kerry

So, let’s apply this test to the current US candidates shall we? I shall ONLY be considering this test, and NOT the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, positions and aptitude for the coveted CEO of the world job.

• Barrack Obama has got the sexy factor, man. I mean the dude is REALLY charismatic. That goes a long way in the “cup of coffee test”. The guy connects with the average Joe sitting in front of the TV screen. I mean, he is Bill Clinton, in chocolate, less the sax.
• John McCain is not so charismatic - He looks like a grandfather figure - but man, the guy is a war hero! C’mon! In terms of connecting with the average Joe, he cannot beat Obama on the screen, but he performs really well in debates and town hall meetings.
• McCain would probably entertain me for hours with war stories and all of his experiences
• Obama strikes me (a total outsider) as the guy who would research me in order to know my likes and dislikes and then just talk about all the things he thinks I would want to talk about just because that would put him in my good books.
• McCain looks as if he is the real deal - what you see is what you get, he has gone through hell, has come back to tell the story, and he is not going to put up with your bull excrement.

I think that all in all I would probably want to have coffee with McCain in any event, if only for the quality and wealth of conversation to be had with him.   There you have it then folks - my predictions come November is that McCain will win the elction, only because I would prefer him in my house, over Obama, in order to have a coffee and a chat with.