Watch This Space

In December a whole lot of young people 200-300 will be going to Port Shepston on Dcamp. Leadership Training. 

I am running an IDT (In Depth Training). 5 days on poverty in South Africa. Watch this space to see young peoples responses.

Also I'll be running 3 workshops. 1. Jesus and Money 2. Jesus and Homosexuality 3. Evolution and the Bible.

For the Jesus and Homosexuality track I am hoping to bring in a Homosexual Clergy. This will be in the style of an interview and will be blogging on the whole thing

Watch this space as it will try and show you just how insightful young people are!!!

Hope In The Now

I find myself going through stages where depression flows from my soul and turns me into a crying and sad person. Vashti has been really good and has been supportive me through this....But it has left me in a place where I have been trying to find God. But not this footprints in the sand kinda God but a God who is in my struggles and is trying to walk next to me.

The more I realised this, I realised God is not in control of the world... If God was in control there would be no poor, no fraud, no separation, but God is not in control. But God is actively involved in his creation. So where is God in this situation?The more I've looked around I have come to see the denial of the truth by using Jesus as a cover up. Maybe if we actively searched God off our couches and salaries we would see that God is speaking to us in a far deeper and far more open voice than we ever thought possible. God is calling us to partner with God self in the world and be involved in bringing the kingdom on earth.

Just a note on this I have been offered the Youth Pastor position at Lyttelton Methodist Church and I have decided to take it.... WOOOO HOOO

Grace Beyond Our Expectations

So can you believe it.... I actually found a girl who like me back. This is an achievement :)
Anyway so its been a long time since my last post but I have been thinking allot. Is Jesus a God where we have to grovel at His feet? What the deal?? Do we have to sit and pray and pray and pray and pray to get anything? Why is it that we find ourselves almost begging God for anything. Where is the love? Where is the Grace? Truth be told I don't think I want a God like that. That in my suffering and pain, in a communities suffering and pain, in a countries suffering and pain, in a world suffering and pain, God is trying to teach me a lesson or I have to pray 70 times before Gods sectary Jesus lets God hear my prayer. Sorry if that is who Jesus is I think I am leaving the church.
However I came to a lecture the other day with this tension in side of me. The lecture spoke of the enlightenment. Now I understand the root of I generation. This is where the French Revolution started. It was a place that said what about my own good. I don't want to be a peasant I want to be something more. I am important and I........... I........... I............ I.............

Before this point, community was the most important aspect. The highest form of salvation was in the community. Jesus spoke into that... Salvation was a community exercise.

Which got me thinking on the lines of do I have to accept Jesus to know salvation?...To know grace?... Does Jesus's save me regardless of my verbal commitment? Is an individual commitment biblical?? or even Christian? Funny enough Jesus never has an alter call. Is what we have now in or churches a product of the enlightenment?My own conclusion is that, Grace is offered regardless, Heaven is available for all. That must be the greatest gift that Christ bestowed on us. Its not about growling at the feet of Jesus its about experiencing the Grace of God in the world. The opportunity to be saved, to repent, to have hope. This leaves humans with the task of not saving people.. We are not called to save people, we called to love and become like the master. Tend to the poor, Plead the case for the widow and the ultimate form of human tasks, to lay down ones life for the people we don't know.

I think we need a little more community in our lives

Prosperity Schools

I have lately been thinking about the prosperity gospel that seems to be touching the world of Christianity. It basically says that if you are poor it is against Gods will. The more you believe the richer you become. So some people have given their life savings to Jesus and have been left with nothing.However the main line churches are not innocent of this. They have these exclusive schools for the rich. The best of everything that the student needs at their finger tips. The catch you gotta pay R2000 minimum a month to belong to the school. How does this aid South Africa except aid the difference between rich and poor. The rich and poor should be separated because you are rich, you stay here and the poor are outside. You are better. That doesn't sound very Christ like to me. Seen's as the likely hood is that Christ could not read or write.
Is the gospel for the rich or for everyone? I heard of a school that put an underground sprinkler system in their rugby field. It cost R2 million. Sounds Christian to me?? (SARCASM)

Just A Quicky

I am on holiday.....and thought I would paste my marks..... Not bad for a guy who past Matric by 3%

Back To Freud

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock". FREUD

Are humans evil??? Are we bad??? That was the view that sparked the Renaissance and in the churches side started Martin Luther's movement into the Reformation..... The reawakening left people with hope, life and a new sense that God didn't want to fry people... How has do we see Ourselves now??? Freud in his wisdom and his experience of life became the father of Psychology and once you get past the part of all men wanting to sleep with their mothers, he was really quite good.... The sad part however is that he focused on the negative. The humans are bad and that psychology is extremely negative. I wonder if the world has adopted the same understanding??? Humans are bad. Further from that has the church fallen into the same mold?

Do we view people as bad?.

Some questions that have arisen in my mind lately....

Are we bad??

Does God want to burn us?

How do perceive our fellow human beings?

Are we living in the dark ages?

Why do we need to be saved?

What do we need to be saved from?

Who is Jesus in our context?

What is sin?

I am really just getting into the stage where I am realising God is love.... That means he doesn't wants to fry us..... People are good and beautiful and not just bad people. Yes we do bad things but deep down in us there is a beautiful piece of God trying to show itself to the world. God is love. We are so worried about saving people that we have forgotten that God is Love and he doesn't want to fry humanity.

I think that in some how we are fighting a battle in the church of the Mary's.

The church has had two Mary's..... And one has become predominant in Christian worship and the other has become part of a really lively discussion..... Which ever way you view them I think the church has taken the view of one. Mary Jesus's mother has the view of virgin, messenger, and almost perfection. I cant relate to that but the church has imposed this on people. This is who you must strive to be.....Perfection. But its left Mary Magdalene standing at the grave. She was a prostitute. Some scholars even claim that she was a high priest of a sexual religion around Jesus time. They get that from the way she cleans Jesus feet but yet she is the first one to see Jesus. She is the one that has been the worst off and yet is seen just recently to be one of Jesus disciples. A broken women finding hope and grace in Jesus. That I can relate to.

So often we accept people only if they belong to perfection... Jesus saw this that people are good. God is not out to fry us. Which leads me to my last question. If God is good is there even a hell??

The Church Vs. The Begger

I was sitting in my ethics class toady and I came across a thought and I thought that it was really some thing that could be taken a little further.

Church

• Relies on people to sustain it
• Beg for money
• Begs from a pulpit
• Sends food to the poor
• Talks about the poor
• Is Rich
• Teaches Jesus
• Lives in a house
• The world Passes By

Beggar

• Relies on people to sustain it
  Beg for money
  Begs from a traffic light
  Looks for food in where ever it can get
  Engages with the poor
  Is Poor
  Knows Jesus
  Lives on the street
• The world passes by

A minister said to me the other the day that

• When people look into the church what do they see?


• When we look out of the church what do we see?

Here are some questions that I think that are important

• What can the church learn from the beggar?


• How are they similar?


• How do we engage in that Jesus?