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What Love Can Do 2012
23/02/12 12:40 View entire series at: Conferences | Events
Children's Ministry Conference
09/02/12 09:59 View entire series at: Events
There’s an exciting Children’s worker conference happening in Christchurch, here’s the details:
Unlimited 2012 Children’s Ministry Conference, Upsize Me!
Friday 9th March - Saturday 10th March (9am-5:30pm)We have upsized our speakers this year by bringing to you not only Tammy Tolman, but also Brendon and Cathie Clancy! Together they will help us focus on
‘up-sizing’ our personal relationship with God so we can lead our children in ‘up-sizing’ their commitment and journey with Jesus too.
‘Upsize Me’ is designed to inspire and equip you and your whole team, with awesome teaching, encouragement, ministry, networking and practical how to’s.
Up size in 2012 by kick starting yourself and your ministry team during this action packed conference!
Click here for info, rego and posters.
Letters To A Young Leader:
God loves your people more than you do
16/01/12 13:00 View entire series at: Letters To A Young Leader
Letters to a young leader is a series of leadership mentoring advice. It is written by Vic Francis who is the Chairman of the VCANZ board. Vic and his wife, Fran, pastor Shore Vineyards in Auckland and have four children.
Some things you need to know about God: God loves your people more than you do
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“I can’t invade other people’s lives and inject them with commitment . . . but God can.
My role is to relax,
be as real as I can be,
do the best job I can do at church,
and trust God to work in people’s lives.
What a relief it is to get off the throne of the universe!”
Judson Edwards
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I came back from my first missions trip in 2003 knowing my life would never be the same. I had spent a wondrous two weeks serving the underground church in China, experiencing the presence of God in a new way and was exhilarated by the experience.
As I walked with my wife Fran on the beach, full of a new convert’s zeal, I suggested that she, too, might like to go on a missions trip and that what had changed me was bound to change her as well. Her reaction was sceptical, unsure about this brash new urgency to save the world.
The following year, Shore Vineyards were sending a team to northern India to work among pastors in the Nepali-speaking areas of the Himalayas. Still excited about missions, I urged everyone in our church to take five minutes to ask God if he wanted them to go.
One person who did just that was Fran. She sat at a beach and in just a few minutes found her heart warmed towards this adventure, laughing out loud as she realised her recent reading of books by William Dalrymple and other writers on India was part of God’s very sneaky preparation of her heart.
She went on that journey and we have since then regularly done missions trips together. I’m not sure if she would say missions has changed her life. But it has certainly enriched it.
Five minutes is all it takes. We can preach the most inspired sermons, make passionate pleas for response and appeal to people’s emotions, intellect or better nature. But it’s only when God speaks that lives are truly changed. We, as the saying goes, can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make it drink. And that’s as it should be.
There’s a frustration in there of course, because often we believe a certain course of action could transform a person’s life. But we need to allow people to act because of their own convictions and their sense of the leading of God – not ours.
We need to trust God with our people. He loves them more than we do, he knows them better than we do and he has a plan for them that we can’t even begin to understand.
Of course we worry whether our congregation members will bother to take that five minutes to ask God if he wants them to go on the missions trip. But time and again I have been awed and honoured as I’ve observed the godly way people indeed seek God on big issues and the wonderful ways he answers.
Next entry:God will provide
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A Christmas Message
17/12/11 10:19 View entire series at: Lloyd's musings
It is God’s mercy & kindness that He gives us distinct markers which enable us to manage our lives well if we use them effectively. He gives us time periods – days, weeks, months, years and even decades – which allow us to make “mid-course corrections’ in our lives.
The 24 hour period is the most fundamental marker. We begin each 24 hour period (using the Jewish tradition of the day starting with the evening & ending in the evening) with rest and sleep which enables us to roll off that day’s events – some successes and some failures – on to Jesus to make sense of, and to celebrate and build on, and to mourn and repent of. It is significant that each of our days start with darkness and rest – just as the creation story starts with darkness, and the invitation of Kingdom life is to start from rest (Heb 3 & 4; Ex 33.14 “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”) When we wake from rest we align our day with what God would have us do, and go into the day to spend it well.
The other kind of markers God gives us are commemorations and celebrations.
Christmas is the Church’s celebration of the incredible entry of God Himself into the human race to effect a rescue. It was the stupendous act of courageous, humble sacrificial love for Jesus to leave the Father’s side, living in total perfection, to be born as a helpless human baby in “less than ideal” conditions. But what Christmas tells us is that God’s invasion has begun. His loving, benevolent rule in our broken and fallen world which is continually advancing through people like you and I.
So as you go to sleep on Christmas Eve, take some time to roll all your hopes and dreams on to the Saviour of the world – the one who “came to give life – life in all its fullness.”(John 10.10). And roll all your failures and disappointments onto the One who was & is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1.29) As you wake on Christmas morning you wake to a world – both global and personal - where you have a “friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Prov 18.24) Where you are in relationship with the One who created the world, and “will save the world” (John 3.17). Give the gift of your life to the one who gave you the gift of His life. He is looking for obedience from us – but not a compliance born out unwillingness – rather a surrender of our lives. We get to surrender to Love!
Then a week later another marker! As you go to sleep on New Years Eve, it is a wonderful time to realign your life. To ensure that the life you are living, is really the life that wants to live in you. It is a time to align your passion, and talents, and calling, and circumstances to living a life that makes a difference. When you wake on the 1st day of the new year, take time to be with your God, and ask Him to align your life with His plan for your life. Ask Him for fresh grace and passion for a new year. Ask Him to clear the way for you to live your life on purpose. And He is utterly, completely and passionately committed to working His fantastic plan through ordinary people like you and I. He brings us alive more than we ever dreamed possible.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a purposeful new year. I look forward to working with you again in 2012.
What should be on your bookshelf:
Desmond Tutu - No Future Without Forgiveness
05/12/11 19:38 View entire series at: What shoud be on your bookshelf
Perhaps, instead of wasting this recommendation by giving you all the review details that you can just Google for anyway, I will just sum the need for this book up with a simple, yet profound quote from my own life.
The setting is this: Myself and my friend, J.R., are having one of our infrequent coffee meet ups in a cafe in Auckland when this gem happened.
Me: “I have just been reading Desmond Tutu’s book, No Future Without Forgiveness” - it’s amazing.”
J.R. : “My mum says that’s not a book for every Christian to read - it’s a book for every human to read.”
She’s right, it is. That’s the end of this review.
No Future Without Forgiveness @ Book Depository
No Future Without Forgiveness @ Amazon
Letters To A Young Leader:
A relationship that grows
15/11/11 15:00 View entire series at: Letters To A Young Leader
Letters to a young leader is a series of leadership mentoring advice. It is written by Vic Francis who is the Chairman of the VCANZ board. Vic and his wife, Fran, pastor Shore Vineyards in Auckland and have four children.
A relationship that grows
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“Just as we cannot love without having had the experience of being loved,
so we cannot bring the water of life to others if our own spiritual well is dry.
This means we have to be intentional about finding opportunities for spiritual growth.”
Lawrence Farris
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I don’t have quiet times any more. There, I’ve confessed. It’s now public knowledge.
When I was a new Christian, quiet times were life-changing. The regular discipline of Bible reading and prayer filled my tank and inspired me day-by-day to live for Christ.
But over the years these times dried up as the Bible became less inspirational, probably because I had come to know it quite well, and my prayers became formulaic and dull. Eventually, despite some guilt, my quiet times slipped away. John Calvin wrote that “Our religion will be unprofitable if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners and transform us into new creatures.” Quiet times were no longer changing my heart, and so it was time for them to go.
But while quiet times are now a thing of the past for me, my relationship with Jesus is again growing stronger day by day. These days I don’t often read large chunks of the Bible, but I reflect more deeply on smaller passages. I pray less, but listen more; I strive less, but trust more; I know less, but am closer to the one who knows more.
And I don’t feel guilty about it.
I’ve been married to Fran for nearly 30 years. Over that time our lives have changed hugely – five pregnancies, four children, three births (figure that one out!), plus three churches, mortgages and life’s many adventures, do that to you. Our relationship has changed too – less intense and more secure; less striving and more content; less independent and more mutual. Relationships are like that. Unless they adapt from their early difficult-to-breathe stage, someone is going to burn out.
In a similar way, our relationship with God also has to evolve. Fran, a spiritual director, has great advice for people who have lost connection with God. “Are you still doing the things that used draw you close to him?” she will ask. If not, then resume those things and you will probably rediscover that precious relationship. But if you are continuing to do the things that used to work and are discovering they don’t any more, maybe God is inviting you into a new depth of relationship with new ways of growing in your love.
Bernard of Clairvaux in his famous sermons on the Song of Solomon identified this progression of relationship with God as going from the kiss of the feet to the kiss of the hands to the kiss of the mouth. Sixteenth-century Spanish saint Teresa of Avila, in her book The Interior Castle, wrote of an internal journey towards the centre of our being where Jesus lives.
Whatever language or imagery you use, we must continually seek new depths with God. And for pastors, whose lives are ones of regular depletion, this growing relationship is doubly vital.
Next entry: God loves people more than you do
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It's all in the mind:
Things to avoid
14/11/11 15:00 View entire series at: It's All In The Mind
It’s All In The Mind is a series of helping tools for doing pastoral care with people suffering from mental illness. It is written by Kirk Vette from Shore Vineyards Churches, who is a clinical worker for YouthLine NZ. Kirk and his wife, Caroline, live in Auckland with their three children and on his day's off you will find him sneaking off for a surf.
Depression - Things to avoid
Today, our blog post is a very easy one; the things not to say.• It’s all in your head.
• We all go through times like this.
• Look on the bright side.
• You have so much to live for why do you want to die?
• I can’t do anything about your situation.
• Just snap out of it.
• What’s wrong with you?
• Shouldn’t you be better by now?
Next week I will post some of the things that are important to understand from the side of the helper when working with depression.
Next entry: Things to understand
Subscribe via RSS Feed, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to not miss the next entry.Letters To A Young Leader:
He's constantly wooing you
09/11/11 08:00 View entire series at: Letters To A Young Leader
Letters to a young leader is a series of leadership mentoring advice. It is written by Vic Francis who is the Chairman of the VCANZ board. Vic and his wife, Fran, pastor Shore Vineyards in Auckland and have four children.
Some things you need to know about God: He’s constantly wooing you
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“You would not be seeking him or loving him unless you had first been sought and loved.”
Bernard of Clairvaux
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When going on a seven-day silent retreat this year, I determined I would read the entire New Testament during that week. I am a methodical person, and worked out that if I read 40 pages a day I could achieve my target easily. So on days one and two I laboured through Matthew, Mark and Luke – and, to be honest, was somewhat disappointed. Not surprisingly, I suppose, they all told stories I knew.
And then I got to the Gospel of John and my 40 pages a day evaporated. That day, I read a mere 18 verses of John chapter 1. I was captivated by the first five verses about God becoming flesh – it was as if I’d never read them before. I was heartbroken by verse 11 – “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him”. I was theologically stirred by verse 17 – “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Of course none of this was any newer to me than Matthew, Mark or Luke had been, but that day John stole my heart. As I discussed this with my spiritual director a couple of days later, I had a moment of inspiration. “Do you think God’s inviting me to a ‘John’ relationship more than a Matthew, Mark or Luke one?” As the words fell out of my mouth, I didn’t need her to confirm that God was inviting me to intimacy, closeness and love like I’d never experienced before.
The great 19th-century Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon talked of God “driving you away from the shallow waters and bringing you into deeper seas, where your nets shall bring you larger draughts”. Jean LeClercq, writing of the 12th-century Cistercian mystic Bernard of Clairvaux, says: “Jesus comes so that the soul will cling to him; he goes away so that the soul will call him back. He wants us to love him and takes certain steps to win our love: He gives himself so that we will enjoy his presence; he then leaves so that we will then long for it even more”.
God is passionately interested in a deepening relationship with you. He loves your labour for his kingdom’s sake – he’s called you to it after all – but never at the expense of his invitation for you to know him more.
And so he woos you constantly – by moving close and, at times, paradoxically, by moving away – always, though, inviting you to discover new depths of his love.
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Audio Resources:
Lloyd Rankin
07/11/11 07:47 View entire series at: Audio
Lloyd Rankin shares a terrific message of personal things God has been leading him in at the recent Grow gathering, What Love Can Do.
Click here to listen
To listen to all the resources from What Love Can Do, click here
Jesus - a murder mystery:
Making sense of the story
03/11/11 09:00 View entire series at: Jesus - a murder mystery
Jesus - a murder mystery is a series of strong theology and thinking for the resurrection of Christ. It is written by Tim Denne from Harbour Vineyard who in his spare time likes to read theology.
Making sense of the story
From the first sermons in Acts by Peter, Stephen and Paul, we can hear a simple message: you don’t have to understand atonement theory to come to faith in Jesus, but you do have to believe that he is alive. God can, and does, forgive on the basis of his authority; he is beholden to no one. And that is fine if that is all there is to the story – just a rescue (getting Israel to the Promised Land; getting us to Heaven). But the message is about more than rescue. From when God first called Abraham, the purpose of choosing a people was so that they would “do righteousness” (do what was right – Gen 18:19): live justly, demonstrate God, bless the world (Gen 12:2-3) and act like a light drawing others to God (Isa 42:6-7).
But they (and we) have to be righteous (in the right) to do righteousness (do what is right).
I believe the theories of atonement are right:
• when Jesus’ death is seen as being required for God to satisfy himself (to be utterly consistent and true to himself – for his name sake);
• To the extent that they portray God’s hatred of sin and his love for us; and
• When they note that the devil is defeated (via death & resurrection)
But they don’t tell the whole story. We get a much fuller picture of why Jesus died by understanding it as Jesus declaring that the story of Israel was being rewritten and coming to completion in him. The exodus from Israel and the coming to the Promised Land is also a picture of our rescue; the kingdom in which we live is, like the wilderness, “already and not yet” (they were with God but had not yet got to their permanent home).
By becoming the Passover meal, Jesus has started the exodus; he has rescued us from Egypt/sin; he is the manna for us to eat in the wilderness; he is the atonement sacrifice which was started in the wilderness for those already rescued as the means by which they could meet with God and deal with their sin; and he is the one who will guide us through to the end - the new Moses.
All of this is wrapped up in Jesus’ death.
Although God has absolute authority to forgive sin, he chose to deal with the problem of sin and death once and for all through Jesus – his death and resurrection – and in a way that is familiar to Israel and faithful to the story. This vindicates those who had lived faithfully to the old covenant and those who join under the new.
If I tried to summarise this, it might look like this:
The God who made the world and everything in it promised Israel that they would show what he was like and be good for that world, drawing others to him. Because of their inevitable failings, and to be faithful to his promises, God sent Jesus, who had always been God, as a person and to be Israel as she was meant to be, to speak and act with authority, and to suffer and die to show: God’s hatred of sin, his faithfulness in doing what was right (righteousness) and his love. Jesus rose from the dead to show that he was Lord (equal with God and fully in control), and as a first step and guarantee of the eventual renewal of the world so that it truly will demonstrate God and give him glory. God chose to use Jesus’ death-resurrection event to deal with sin and its consequences once and for all. We are invited to believe in who Jesus is (the living God) and what he has done, and to be part of the plan to bless the world, starting now.
That’s all for this series, I hope it has helped you in some way.
Will write again soon,
Tim.