I spend my days doing stuff for Soul Survivor NZ and my church "Blueprint" in Wellington NZ. I am perplexed, amazed, in awe of, and spend a lot of time thinking about this revolutionary called Jesus and what it means to follow Him.
Ok, the honest truth is that I cant dance... seriously. I went to salsa dancing classes once and wound up punching my flatmate in the head, falling over and cracking the face of my phone. I am destined for a life of white boy awkward dancing. But if that is my lot, I will dance like a white boy with all my might. Which is why this clip is just so encouraging. It was like looking in a mirror. Stunning
This is my friend Kieran's entry into a radiohead video competition, i reckon its pretty awesome. Im not to sure how to vote to help him win, so leave a comment if you can work it out. The compeition is running through the aniboom website
So below is the list of people that are subscribed to on my google reader blog reader thingee. I've tried to keep it pretty simple and actually try and engage or at the least read the guys on this list.
So there we go... pretty simple, and there are of course links that I follow through occasionally that aren't on this list. There are bunch of blogs that I used to follow that have ceased to be updated.
It looks like a great weekend ahead, ive got my flat warming (rockstar theme - I might just come as myself - hahahahahahahaha) a Soul Active event with the incredible guys from Churton Park serving their community, im going to Hutt City New Life to share, and then to Blueprint to speak at our night service. So ive taken today to retreat from Wellington and spend some time writing the three talks for the weekend and as per normal I find myself before this incredibly frustrating wall where I have all this stuff bubbling around inside and it is just such a mission to get it out on paper. Anyway, we battle on. Im going to be sharing a bit on some reflections on the relationship and interaction between worship and justice (not that you can really separate them at all - though I would contend we have somewhat) which are values that we really try and outwork within the Soul Survivor community. And for our Blueprint community I going to be speaking from Luke 17:11. Im really excited about the title of the message: "what leper are you?"
Havent posted a photo or anything like for ages on here so here is a random one from Singapore last week. Eating some Satay very late at night
I have inherited a love for all things gadgety from my dad (who cant go a couple of weeks without some new toy). In Singapore there are some amazing places to buy geeky toys, my favourite being Sim Lim Square - a mall that has about 7 stories of electronic stalls where you have to barter to get the best deal. Anyway, ive being meaning to buy some new headphones for the last while, and managed to pick up some in-ear Shure E2C s for an absolute steal. Im very happy, especially as they are very good at sound isolation and have a crystal clear sound. For a person who is half extrovert, half introvert and something of an audiophile, it is like a personal cave that I can carry around with me and jump into whenever I need some space or to work. Plus they are a cool new toy : )
So all I am doing is repeating everything Chris has said on his blog (its nice to have him back online)... but the two discoveries of the week have come from his blog and its all gold.
Firstly this awesome little tool that has made looking or photos very very cool.
Secondly this little article by Mike Pilavachi which is one I think needs to be read and taken really seriously... Our culture is saturated with the cult of celebrity. We are mesmerized by fame. There are a whole group of people who seem to be famous for just being famous! Magazines, newspapers and TV shows know that if they profile certain people their readership, or ratings will automatically go up. Andy Warhol prophesied in the 60's that a time was coming when everyone could be famous for 15 minutes. That bizarre scenario is virtually upon us.
The tragedy is that the celebrity culture seems to have infected large sections of the church. We get so excited if someone even vaguely famous comes anywhere near the kingdom. We not only attempt to co-opt celebrities from the secular world around us. We have learnt to do a great job at creating our own. Hundreds of years ago when I was in my teens the celebrities were the evangelists. Today it is the musicians, particularly the worship leaders. I am finding this increasingly disturbing. Obviously one reason for this is that I am not a worship leader! There is, however, a deeper reason. We will always have people to look up to, respect and trust. That is a natural and good thing. The cult of celebrity goes beyond that. The problem with raising others up and making them into hero's who appear extra ordinary is that it can disenfranchise the rest of the body of Christ. When we talk about this "great man of God" or that "anointed woman of God" we immediately create a distinction in the body of Christ. That has to mean that most of the rest of us exist on a different and lower plane to these "super apostles" as Paul would mockingly characterize them.
The truth is that we are all the same in the Kingdom. God delights to use ordinary, weak and broken people in his ministry. When we build up the few we inevitably disempower the many.
As we grasp this, we stop waiting for the guy with the great healing ministry to come and make us better. We stop depending on the visiting evangelist who comes once a year to save our town. We don’t wait for the person with the gifted teaching ministry to hear from God’s word and we don’t look for the person with the prophetic origami ministry to sort our lives out. We rush to listen to these people at conferences and queue to get the blessing when we should all be sharing in the ministry.
The other problem with the cult of celebrity is that it overlooks the fact that in the Kingdom there is only one celebrity, one hero and his name is Jesus. It really has to be all about him! He will not share his glory with another. We must repent of the idea that "if only so and so is at the meeting then amazing things will happen". No. The only thing we need is His presence. The only person who needs to show up is the Lord Jesus Christ. He and he alone makes the difference.
There’s a real danger in us pointing to one person, one place, one church or one event where God’s anointing is or through which God will change the world. The truth is the world was changed 2000 years ago by one man on a hill outside Jerusalem and every move of the Spirit since has been led by Him.
Our motto should be that of John the Baptist who said “He must increase, I must decrease”. John’s mission was not to promote himself but to prepare the way for Jesus. He recognized that the best way to ‘promote’ Jesus was to in a sense ‘demote’ himself. In an age of ‘self-promotion’, Christians are called to live in the opposite spirit. A spirit of ‘self-demotion’!
Over the last few years I have become a very minor and low grade christian celebrity. I hate it. It does no good for my pride when people treat me as if I am something. I love and need encouragement. I do not need people to think I am something I am not. Thank goodness because I get to live with me I know the truth. The truth is that I am just a lump of lard trying to serve the God whom I love and has shown unbelievable mercy to me. Some may say I have a poor self image to say that. No. I have a realistic self image.
When we put some people on pedestals, we do them no favours, we do ourselves no favours and above all we commit the sin of idolatry. We must repent. The only hero in heaven is Jesus. We must make sure he remains the only hero in the church.
This loosely connects with an ongoing joke about a fake book someone needs to write entitled: "Humility and how I got there" Here are a couple of chapters that we came up with (feel free to add some of your own) "Humility; some people have just got it" "What to do post "fruit of the spirit" "How my increasing helped Him increase a bit as well" "Shifting units for the Kingdom"
I'm in singapore with a bunch of worship leaders from around NZ at the moment, exploring how a resource called Worship Central could be utilised in NZ. We had a meeting yesterday with two great worship leaders, Tim Hughes and Al Gordon, and I think this ministry will serve many churches in time. Its great to catch up with a bunch of great friends from around the Asia Pacific and London, and I'm having lunch today with my mate Darryl who is over here training youth workers. It has being an incredibly encouraging and restoring trip so far, and I am finding myself with renewed pasion and vision for the different ministries I have the privledge of involvment in. At the same time I'm also missing my church family, and I can't wait to get stuck in when I get home. --------------------------
Im up in Auckland as we start our first Soul Survivor Roadshow tour. All the info about the events can be found on our website Im on blogging duties updating our website this month, so check out our news section for how things go over the next week.
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