the irrelevance of standing under a chocolate.

i don’t understand chocolate – i know something about cocoa beans but that’s about it – possibly a glass and a half of milk in certain brands and a handful of raiSINs in other overly disobedient and retarded versions – and a bunch about it liking to stick around and be an accessory to your body long after the eating date (friends with unbenefits?) and also that when it goes white it is old (if it starts out white it is probably not as nice as any other form and so you’re in trouble already) um, and that the best possible melting mix in my travels is the following:

[serves two]

one slab of top deck (or more or bigger depending on how many people)

one or two bags of smartie eggs

a microwave, a microwave-friendly plate and two teaspoons (or more if more)

break the Top Deck into individual pieces and then break those in half – microwave for between 30 and 70 seconds (depending on your microwaver) – open, stir, microwave some more until the hint of meltage – the add smartie eggs – the microwave another 30 to 70 seconds then open stir and continue until melted

eat with teaspoons (while watching Survivor or in extreme cases, Amazing Race)

amazing! the chocolate, not the race although it is highly entertaining, especially when chocolate is involved in the challenges as it was that one time.

but give me a bag of cocoa beans, a great big…. tract of land, a shovel and a glass and a half of milk and i will have no clue – throw in a conveyor belt and a packaging machine and will i not still be useless?

[the answer is yes, yes i will]

so i don’t understand chocolate – i ‘get’ some of the concept behind it, i know how it affects me and adds to my life – but i completely love it (well maybe not ‘completely’ – definitely not more than the beautiful Valerie and probably only equal to a good gravy-covered pea-and-sausage-accompanied mash potato portion) and make the most of it (and occasionally embrace it when no-one is looking)

i love chocolate.

so what are you saying, brett fish?

well, i think it’s completely obvious what i am getting at but let me lead you there on the off chance that your mind is not as lateral thinking as mine own.

i love God!

EW: Give up on Keeping up!

another excerpt from Erwin McManus ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ – just buy it already!

‘And though i’m advocating our need to become a movement, I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up.’

then a little later:

‘The first-century church didn’t keep up with its time, didn’t spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first-century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not the runner up. And out of the church’s influence came the greatest art, the greatest music, and the greatest thinkers. Out of the church’s influence were born the cultures from which came Voltaire, Nietzsche, Einstein, Newton and Hawking, not to mention Jefferson, Franklin and Edison. The Michaelangelos and the da Vinci’s came right out of a context that Christ had radically shaped. I am not saying that they were all followers of Jesus Christ, but I am saying that they were all indebted to Him.”

and i just think this is solidly the key – the church should be setting the pace – one area where this is blatantly true to me and where God is calling me to be a voice is that of relationships – for too long the church has done relationships pretty much like the world has done relationships and hence we sit with the situation where the rate of divorce within the church is pretty much the same as the rate of divorce outside of the church. This is an absolute tragedy and the solution lies some part in us saying ‘waitasec, if we continue to do the things we’ve always done we will continue to see the results we’ve been seeing’ and start setting the trends and role modelling patterns of successful relationships [which are not easy – they require work and commitment and time and energy, but when you are married to the right person as i am then all of that is more than worth it and i deeply desire to serve my wife and love her and help her to be all she can be and to absolutely dominate in life] and becoming the benchmark, rather than sitting on the bench.

there must be more than this…

“I WANT THE CHURCH!”… “you can’t han-dle the church!”

“When those who hold positions of leadership in the church of Jesus Christ stand opposed to the very heart of God and refuse to submit their lives to His Word, it is the death of life in that church.” [Erwin McManus, an unSTOPPABLE force]

that is just so true. i have seen it and i have been on the receiving end of it. and it always comes down to “me me me me ME me” – and it shouldnt be a surprise i guess because we saw it modelled thru-out the Bible – a lot in the Old Testament by Saul and David and Solomon in different ways, but then a very much lot by the disciples as Jesus tried to show them a most excellenter way – constantly vying for attention and position, they missed the point again and again.

BUT when the Holy Spirit got hold of them, this all changed and so there is hope… for even the deadest of churches and leaderships, but it is going to take God intervention for it to truly happy – no program, no book or seminar, no interventional leader is going to break-thru the rot and debris to get to the heart of the problem. only God. thru His Spirit.

which means when we encounter this knd of attitude or lifestyle or me-eadership our response has to be prayer – calling on God to rescue His church. after all, He definitely loves it more than we do.

Hs church. His mission. His problem. But our opportunity to draw alongside and cry out for Truth and Love and Hope and Life.

highly recommended book read on the church…

‘”We’re looking for a church that meets our needs.” It seems like I’ve heard this one a thousand times. The phenomenon of church shoppers has profoundly shaped the contemporary church. The entire conversation is not about relevance but convenience. The focus is not in serving the world; the church itself became the focal point. Our motto degenerated from “We are the church, here to serve a lost and broken world” to “What does the church have to offer me?” This move has made the pastor the only minister, while making the members the only recipients of ministry. What is lost in the process is an army of healers touching the planet.’

an unSTOPPABLE force: daring to become the church God had in mind – by Erwin Raphael McManus

my tag team buddy Sean Du Toit gave me this during my year of not reading and so i’ve been waiting almost a year to start reading and i am only on chapter none (yes ‘Atrophy’ is actually called chapter NONE) but i am loving it – have been to Erwin’s church which meets in a popular club in L.A. called Mosaic and i have never felt so welcomed in a church before (really believing the people were genuinely interested and not just on meeting duty – my younger cool sister Dawn and i went about two years ago and three different sets of couples totally stopped us and chatted to us and helped us out and stuff) and they combine art and music and present culture media with relevance and Bible teaching…

but yes, you do want to read this:

‘The servng that we are called to requires contact. You cannot wash the feet of a dirty world if you refuse to touch it. There is a sense of mystery to this, but it is in serving that the church finds her strength. When she ceases to serve the world around her, she begins to atrophy.’

‘the church has become a fortress from the world rather than the hope of the world’

and this bit is hectic:

‘From athlete to actor, musician to politician, both those who advocate the heart of God and those who seem to war against Him have many times been the product of the Western church. The problem has not been that these individuals of significant influence were outside of the sphere of the church’s influence, but that, in fact, they sat in the centre of the church and remained unchanged at the core.

America’s best atheists are children of the church. It is rare to find a person who is a passionate enemy of the church who has never had contact with her.’

and as you look around the big churches in Cape Town and Stellenbosch you see and hear the same things – not saying that the churches are not involved in good things and in a lot of service (would be interesting to see what percentage of each church are involved in outreach/serving and how many are just there for the show) but it’s things like “good worship vibe”, “great preaching” and “good organised cell structures” or “cool people my age group” that are the reasons why people are being attracted to those churches for the most part – still have to hear “they have an amazing feeding scheme” or “kick-ass township outreach” as reasons why people join churches…

anyways, get this, read it, pass it on, do it.

judge not lest.

so i have decided to try and be less judging of people this year – i think a couple of times this last year it hit me how judgemental i have become – i don’t think i used to be that way but definitely an area i want to work on – i guess this last week nailed it home as i attended a funeral (my best mates mom in law) and a wedding (our wedding photographeress and friends of ours) and heard two people described as humble, non judgemental people… there is just something so attractive about being described that way… and more NBly, being that way and it’s definitely something i want to aim at in 2010 – not so much a resolution as a new years revolution one hopes (and i am that one!)

the preach at the wedding was by a dude who in the past preached one of the dodgiest sermons i ever heard – well maybe bad as opposed to dodgy – not the worst sermon ever which goes to guy-who-preached-on-divorce-at-a-wedding and went on and on about it and how it’s bad for the kids and blah blah blah tragic tragic downer of a sermon – a whole sermon on greet each other with a brotherly kiss – actually just incredibly random and i will never get those minutes of my life back – but yesterday at the wedding he preached one of the best wedding sermons i have heard – just full of life and truth and real and relevant and obviously well prepared as he had little gifts they had to open as he messaged (tbV’s favourite being the red and yellow cards to use in an argument) and so i went to him afterwards and told him and then chatted more to him and his wife at the after party.

there is a tendency to write people off and i think judging people really helps feed that tendency and i don’t think it’s ever (hardly) valid to write people off – i think i know that cos i have seen people write me off along the way and don’t want to feel i am worth writing off – and also i don’t think anyone wakes up in life and decides to be a chop altho some people do seem to graduate to that position along the way

so something about trying to see the absolute good in people and judging less and being a generally nicer person – and also gossiping less (wow, busy year ahead for me) – cos that is something else i have slipped into and i hate it and am not sure where it has come from. freak! there is a lot of horrible in me come to think of it. God, You and i have our work cut out this year. So empowered by being loved by a God who accepts me as i am in terms of loving me, but refuses to allow me to remain in that condition cos He constantly challenges me to be and do better and jump higher – may those all be categorisations of 2010.

the shiny colour and disease that is red

i have a friend called Roy (or Conrad Roy)

he is one of the new students who was in our church enGAGE this year and is now part of our leadership team for next year

i really like Roy, for a number of reasons:

he says ‘awesome’ a lot. now i don’t like it when people say ‘awesome’ a lot because i personally have reserved the word ‘awesome’ for God cos it seems a travesty when you say ‘God is awesome’ and then ‘that ice-cream is aswesome’ or ‘that hockey goal you scored last night, brett, was awesome’- it’s like you’re comparing God with an ice-cream – so for me i reserve the word ‘awesome’ for God. Roy uses it ALL the time and so it should really annoy me, but it doesn’t. because he is generally just so excited about life and everything in life that i think ‘awesome’ is his way of getting it out. and so his using the word ‘awesome’ is an expression of his zest for life and i LOVE his zest for life.

not only does Roy operate on a ‘glass half full’ way of thinking about his own life, but he will see his glass as full and overflowing and will look across and see your glass (which is smashed and lying on the floor) as half full and then offer you his. Roy has come and helped out my VOB hockey team a few times and is an amazing athlete (possible pole vault contender for next Olympicals) and i am not as good although have probly been playing the hockey of my life this last year and Roy has just been such a huge encouragement on and off the field and really helped me with my self-belief which in turn has helped me play better. in fact he set up my first of two goals i scored this season and was super stoked for me when i samessed him last nite about my second goal.

he is super animated when telling stories, especially bible stories which he starts acting out even without realising i think and is really fun to watch – again just his passion for the moment.

and he is super deep – still young and still a bit loud and can be distractive at times, BUT when he goes into the zone and starts speaking about deep stuff he has been thinking about in terms of life or God or church or sports for summer camp (which he is running – so amped to hang with him!) then he really is a deep thinker and you can see the quality of his realness.

so that’s why i like Roy (or rooi) – red spirited and highly contagious – and a definite leader in the future. And very privileged right now to get to call him my friend…

what grew and what needs to

so this morning at church we had John Scott from Scotland (yes, i know) at Stellenbosch Vineyard morning service doing a good solid preach about dreams (having them while awake as opposed to analysing the ones that happen while you sleep) and then doing some ministry time (praying for sick etc) afterwards

now i arrived at church early and got chatting to him which was really cool and i shared some of my struggling-faith-with-healing-related-things thing and told how a week ago i basically watched as my wife, TBV, cried herself to sleep cos of extreme headaches that i had prayed a LOT of LOTS of times for with seemingly no positive results… and how i believe God can heal but not so sure i always believe He will, or maybe ‘ever’ as opposed to ‘always’

and the crazy thing is it’s not an outright lack of faith thing cos i have faith for money – i have seen on a bunch of occasions God’s provision in the area of money and finances and so i think i can trust God for a million bucks (saw Him provide more for uThando leNkosi safe house a few years back) but struggle in the area of healing – and i am super overly tired of hearing other peoples healing stories which are always a friend of a friend’s friend… their cousin… or something…

so he spoke to me a bit and it was very encouraging but as we ended he said cool you’re gonna come up today and pray for someone’s leg to grow… and i was like wo how about i start with a headache and we work towards leg-growing (Val has headaches way more often than she has uneven leg measurements to my knowledge) although that bit was only in my head and he wasn’t prophetic enuff in that moment to discern that (or was he?)

so he preached a good preach and called people up who have been struggling with back or neck pain for more than 10 years (apparently on this trip he has seen a LOT of healing happen in more than 15/20 years conditions so has been specifically asking for those) and a bunch of people (5 or 6) came to the front to be prayed for and he looked up and caught my eye and said ‘come here’ (but in Scottish so more like cam hieare) and i whispered ‘oh crap’ (it’s okay, Charis wasn’t there) as i made my way to the front.

He made the first dude sit down and took both his legs and showed me how the one was slightly longer than the other – was marginal let’s be honest, less than a cm – so he’s like ‘do you see?’ and i’m like ‘um not really, i mean yes yes cool’ and he started praying and speaking to it and suddenly there was a kind of shake in the leg and it did move down a little bit, and then it happened again and the two legs were equal and the dude was saying that healing had occurred.

So pretty cool, but also the kind of thing i know i’m going to be able to explain away cos he had his hand under the guys legs and i’m trying to watch if he is pulling or adjusting or anything (not that this guy is like that at all – totally trustworthy, totally non-manipulative but still i look) and then he makes hold the next one and pray and then i think he walked away – and i prayed, and there was nothing… and then there was something – a jolt and the leg moved and seemed to jump down – and i think it happened again and then they were straight (also not huge difference at the beginning but some) and the person claimed healing…

The next person i prayed for my friend K-A came and prayed/watched and we saw nothing in terms of leg movement but the person claimed some healing and we prayed again a few times and he said his neck was totally healed which he’d been struggling with for years and his hip stuff was a lot better – so some definite healing and we got him to do some stretch stuff he couldn’t do beforehand and so somewhat satisfying.

And then the next guy we prayed a long time for and nothing happened. And John came back and prayed with us for him and nothing. Well nothing observable and he said the same pain was there (although did move his arms higher than he had at the beginning but seemed to suggest nothing had happened) although the one word i got while we were praying was ‘stress’ and when i shared it with him he related to it so we prayed into that but didn’t really see anything.

And then the guy some other people were praying for with as huge gap in leg length nothing much happened for and so people healed with leg growth, people healed with no discernible change and people not healed at all.

One thing John said before he left was that we must focus on what happened and not what didn’t happen cos it’s easy to look at the stuff that didn’t happen and go ‘well what the heck?’ which is what i tend to do… but for some of the people there, there really does seem to be a change from how they arrived to how they left and if the pain they have carried for years and years has gone then maybe, just maybe, it’s worth dealing with the frustration of seeing a lot of people not healed for the ones that will be.

“I do believe Lord, help me overcome my unbelief.” Mark 9.24