Hello all,
I really hope that you and your family have a great Christmas. Thanks for logging in this year and taking the time to read my reflections of faith and life. I hope you were blessed by them in some way.
God Bless,
Dave
I am reading a great book at the moment called, “Starting a house church”. I haven’t quite finished it, but so far it is a great read and makes a lot of sense.
It is amazing to hear of the growth of the house church movement around the world. In places like China, South America, Africa and even in many Western countries house churches are growing at phenomenal rate. In many places people are planting a house church and then in less than ten years they have 100 or more churches that have grown from it. Some have even planted 2000 other churches in ten years!!! In China alone they have 100 million people connected to house churches.
The concept of house churches is to meet in homes rather than traditional buildings. People interact in small groups usually up to about 15 people. When the group grows beyond the lounge room size they break and start another group. Each new church is a real church in its own right, but still is a part of the bigger network that meets as a whole from time to time.
The network places a lot of attention on following Jesus 24/7, on living their faith out in a natural way, sharing lives together in family type relationship, discipling the new believers and training future leaders to start new churches.
For me, this is one of those books that when I finish it, I will start from the beginning again. That doesn’t happen too often! If you would like to check out the book you can visit their website here
One of the things I try to do as I am getting ready for Christmas is to re-read some of the Christmas story. I usually look up some of the passages in the Bible and reflect on them. I thought I would include some of the ones I am looking at this year. If you haven’t got a Bible you can click on the links to open the passages on your screen.
Happy reading!
I recently heard about a guest speaker who came to a large conference to bring a message. People had come from far and wide to hear the speakers message from God. They paid their money, sat expectantly with their pens and paper ready to receive from God.
The speaker was introduced and made his way to the podium and began to speak. He said today’s text is from Luke 6:46. Everyone opened their Bibles and he read the text. With that he closed His Bible and walked off the podium. His message was finished.
Luke 6:46 says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?”
The people looked at each other for a while in shock that the message was finished so soon. Then they realised it was a message from God. A large number of people turned to God and apologised for not doing the things the Bible asks us to do.
Speakers like this are a timely reminder that sometimes we can get caught being busy while forgetting what the Bible tells us we should be doing.
I have added a new link to my links page today. It is a link to a discipleship booklet on Billy Graham’s website. It is titled, “Thirty Discipleship Exercises”.
It is aimed at giving new Christians a solid foundation to build their new faith on. It would also useful for anyone wanting to understand more about the Christian faith and living the Christian life.
Here is some information from Billy Graham’s website…
“Subtitled The Pathway to Christian Maturity, Thirty Discipleship Exercises is a study featuring 30 different topics with six Bible verses for each lesson. Topics include salvation, prayer, the Holy Spirit, discipleship, the Church, God’s forgiveness, discipline, love, humility, honesty, and 20 others.
Thirty Discipleship Exercises can be used for personal devotions, one-on-one discipling of a friend, or for small group discussions. There are instructions for how to use this material in each context, including instructions on organizing a small group and tips for small group leaders”.
The booklet is available for free in Adobe PDF on Billy Graham’s website or there are options to buy the printed copy. Here’s the link http://www.billygraham.org/SH_ThirtyDiscipleshipExercises.asp