The PASSION Blog

It’s funny how people think that because you have a feedback form on your website that they can speak into your life and ministry.

Yesterday I got some feedback about our church website. They thought as a church we were being deceptive because we used some clip art pictures of people on the main banner. They commented that we have a picture of the Pastor and his wife, but the rest of the site was being deceptive as we were not showing real people that attended the church.

Now I am all for website feedback - otherwise I would not have a feedback form - but to call us deceptive when they don’t know us is going a bit too far in my opinion. The person was within their right to put their 2 cents worth in, but calling us deceptive without knowing the full story…hmmm!

It is interesting to note that when I built the church website my intention was to use people from the church, but we were living in another city so it was a bit hard to take photos. My intention was to replace them when we got here.

In saying that though, anyone who has ever tried to take photos of people for a job knows just how many people don’t want their photos taken. It is very rare for someone to offer to have their or their kids photo taken for promotional purposes.

So yes by all means send in your feedback. But before you call us deceptive, please take a moment to think that there might be valid reasons to use a few clip art pics. After all, in the grand scheme of things it is such not a big deal!

I’ve been thinking a lot about organisation and structure lately. Structure scares some people and they feel constrained by it. While it makes others feel free as they know their boundaries.

One passage that talks about organisation I found in my Bible reading was in Acts chapter six. This is where they chose the seven people to distribute the food. The Apostles found they needed to devote more time to prayer and preaching and couldn’t keep up with the workload of the growing church. Hence the first Deacons were chosen

An interesting point from this is they didn’t just chose anyone to do this job. They wanted the right people that were made of the right stuff. The wanted people who were full of the Holy Spirit, above reproach from the people and displayed God’s wisdom. I think part of it was that they wanted helpers who the people were comfortable with, but they also wanted the structure in place to ensure the work was taken care of fairly.

As a Ministry leader it is good to know you have reliable people in your team who can take care of “business”. This helps you feel released to concentrate on the things you have to do. Organisation can frustrate and make some feel trapped, but it also has the power to release and free up when it is done correctly.

I think the key is to have structure and organisation in place, but to have the freedom and openess to the Holy Spirit to make adjustments as He leads us.

I saw something really funny on Friday morning before we left for Perth. At our local Home Hardware they have two really big blowup dogs on the roof. They are two Labridoor looking dogs. One light brown in colour and the other is black.

Anyway, a lady was walking her dog off the leash and it caught site of these two huge dogs on the roof of the hardware store blowing in the breeze. It was absolutely barking its head off at them. It ran forward to bark at them and got too close to the building to see them. Then it had to run back to the edge of the road, to catch site of them and began to bark again. It was one of those classic moments that you wish you had a video camera to catch it. I am sure it would have gone well on the Funny Home Video show!

Just had a thought. I hope my description makes sense and it didn’t come across as one of those “I guess you had to be there” type of things! Anyway it cracked us all up!

Hello all,
Last Sunday I shared on overcoming depression at church. This is something that I have had experience with personally and with those close to me. If you would like to have a look at the message the link is below.

Link to message http://www.passionaustralia.org/depressed.html

God Bless,
Dave

Well it is hard to believe that it is six years since we saw those images of planes flying into buildings. In some ways it seems so long ago, but in other ways it feels just like yesterday.

I still remember the feeling I had just before I found out. I had been at a friends house praying and then I was driving home. All of a sudden I picked something up in my spirit and just had to pray in tongues. I didn’t know why I was praying, but there was a real sense of urgency about it.

When I got home I couldn’t settle. I just had to pray and keep praying. Eventually I turned on the TV and there it all was. My sudden call to pray made sense. Seeing the first plane fly into the building seemed like a terrible accident. Then when plane hit the other tower, you suddenly realised something sinister was going on. As it turned out, it was something very sinister.

I think I was like most people. I knew this sort of thing happened, but I hadn’t seen it on this scale before and in a Western country. Prior to 9/11 I think we all thought that happens in far off lands and that is how they do things over there, but somehow this brought it closer to home.

For many of us it changed the way we live. Straight away the building I worked in became a fortress. IDs, boom gates, secure access floors and bag scanners became the norm. In some ways it made you feel safe, but in other ways I think it perpetuated the fear some people had.

For me, if I am honest, September 11 did knock me for a bit. I think it took off the rose coloured glasses I was wearing about the world we live in. I think I saw a glimpse of some of the evil we have in this world and just how many people just disregard human life. This took the gloss off me and some of my zeal for evangelism. It especially didn’t help that I lived in an area that was very multicultural and had many people there were the potential “enemy” the TV and some world leaders were talking about. Outreach suddenly became very hard.

Before long though, these feelings died down and I got back to the pre 9/11 days. I got back to seeing this as God’s world. That He is in control, even though some evil people do some terrible things at times, God is still on the throne. I got back to seeing each and every person as a someone made in God’s image and someone God wants to be in relationship with. I got back to seeing that even at our worst, God wants to forgive us and welcome us into relationship with Him. This rekindled my evangelistic zeal.

Here’s something I wrote a while back for another blog. I thought it fit in with the post below…

Recently I have been reading a lot about the Emerging Church. I have to admit that I have enjoyed learning about this new evolution in the church and I can see it has great potential.

Now for those who are not sure what I mean by traditional and emerging. In very general terms the traditional church revolves around its members meeting in a building on a Sunday for worship, teaching and fellowship. They might also meet during the week in smaller home groups. The emerging church seems to be more fluid and may meet in members homes. They try to model church on the early church in the Book of Acts and seem to have less structure and focus on relationships.

For me I can see that both forms of the church have their place and we must encourage both in their efforts. One or the other might not do things how we want or think are the best way to go, but I have to say that if God’s Kingdom is being expanded and people are building genuine relationships then more power to them.

My hope for the traditional church and the emerging church is that they will both work together and learn from each other. I would like to see the traditional church still exist and have a strong community presence, while having a missional type of focus that the emerging church seems to have.

My vision is that every street in Australia will have a “house” church that is focussed on reaching their own street. During the week the Christians / church members will open their homes to neighbours. They will minister to and try to meet their physical and spiritual needs of their neighbours. Then if someone is happy meeting in a smaller group that is good. If they are drawn to the larger Sunday church service they can be fed through into that too. Either way God’s Kingdom is growing and we are reaching people.

Here’s a thought I want to leave you with that I “got” a while ago when I was praying about traditional church and the emerging church…

I have a home phone that I use to communicate with people. I now have a mobile that I use to communicate with people too. Now that I have a mobile it doesn’t mean that I will get rid of my home phone. They both have their place and help me to reach people. The same goes for traditional and the emerging churches…they both have their places to reach people for Christ. The main thing is that people are being reached and disciples are being made.

Lately I have heard a lot from people who are wanting to go back to the times of the early church. They want to devote themselves to the things that the people of the early church did. Acts 2:42 talks about this when it says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer”. To me this is a good thing and I wish more people were like that.

However, at times I think we can go back to and view things back then with rose coloured glasses. We look back at the early church and think it was perfect. Now don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of good things about the simple way of doing things. I love the way they devoted themselves to the main things, but there were a lot of things that needed doing. Just look at the Apostle Paul letters to the various churches. They were written to straighten things out!

As current day churches I think we need to understand both the current expression of church and the church Acts 2:42 talks about. We need to find the balance of being a holy huddle and going out into the community to engage people where they are at. We need the holy huddle where we get together and encourage and have fellowship, but we also need to be out there and “Go” as Jesus commanded us to do.

Most importantly though, I think we need to be seeking God as to the type of church He wants us to be. Then and only then will we be most effective and be doing the things that last…that is making disciples of all nations.

I have been reflecting on something the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 lately. The New International Version says, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ”. The New King James Version says, “Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ”.

There is a real sense of “do what I do, as I do what Jesus did”. It is not “do what I say or do what I tell you to do”. Paul is telling us to follow his lead and do the things that he himself is doing. To me that is real leadership. It is living out what you believe and are trying to put in to practice yourself and then asking others to do the same.

It reminds me of when Jesus called the first Disciples. His words were just “Follow me…” (Matthew 4:19). Both the statement from Paul and Jesus were simple and to the point. They were just saying follow me and do the same things I am doing.

When I go into church today I am going to write 1 Corinthians 11:1 and Matthew 4:19 out and stick them on my wall in my office. That way every time I see them, I will stop and reflect on how I am going on following Jesus and following Paul’s example.