storing her money in the stomachs of the needy…

i am really enjoying the site common prayer which gives a prayers (or prayers) and sometimes a brief uplifting story – i struggle to spend much time in prayer myself day to day in terms of just putting time aside to really dive into God, but i have found this site helpful just to help direct my prayer times or get me started or focus more… i really enjoyed today’s story…

Marcella of Rome (325 – 410)

Marcella had an enviable life as the daughter of a prominent Roman family who married a wealthy man. But less than a year after her wedding, her husband died. She was given a chance to continue living in wealth when she was proposed to by the wealthy consul Cerealis. She chose instead to convert her mansion into one of the earliest communities of women, where she and other noblewomen used their riches to help the poor. Marcella said she preferred to “store her money in the stomachs of the needy than hide it in a purse.” In 410, when the Goths invaded Rome, they broke into Marcella’s home. When they demanded money, she calmly responded that she had no riches because she had given all to the poor. Though she was an elderly woman, they beat and tortured her mercilessly. Her attackers were eventually shamed by her piety and she was released, but she died within a short time. [http://commonprayer.net/]

…especially the line, “Marcella said she preferred to “store her money in the stomachs of the needy than hide it in a purse.”

great page to bookmark and check out daily, or even just from time to time, to assist your praying… [thankx lovely wife]

new favourite site…

if you haven’t yet, first read the previous blog link to the shane claiborne article on prayer – and then check out this site which appears to have a prayer or prayer list per day – i think this is going to be something that will help direct my prayers as i think i am a particularly bad pray’er and something like this to stimulate and direct and get me started might be just what the dentist ordered:

be checking of it out.

shane claiborne talks new slash old prayer [Relevant Mag article link]

‘Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explain why community worship and prayer—not just “action”—are so vital.’

take a read at some of the ideas that shane claiborne has on the importance and place of prayer in your community living…

stop cheating on Him

i had this epiphony in the shower the other day – if the only Bible’ing and praying you do is at your church gathering on a sunday once a week, then you don’t have a relationship with God, you have a relationship with church.

and i think that’s how a lot of people live – their spiritual life is their relationship with the meeting on a sunday

it becomes a little bit memento meets inception with a sprinkling of the matrix once you start arguing that ‘i am the church, how can i have a relationship with myself?’ but i think if you give it just a moment you will see what i mean, and then the next step is to ask whether or not it is you, and then if so, to stop it.

because it is destructive. to you. to the church. if you are not being actively in relationship with God every day every day, then when you meet together as the church on a sunday, you will not be equipped to bring a word of encouragement or challenge or a psalm or prayer or prophecy or ministry to other people and that, after all, is what church is meant to be all about – meeting together to equip, strengthen, motivate, heal, encourage for the purpose of heading out and being church for the rest of the week to those who will never set foot in one

i think it’s an even bigger danger for those in so-called fulltime ministry because you can feel like your focused ministry time (leading a cell, heading up a worship team, preaching, sunday school etc.) is your relationshipping with God, when it’s not

so this is for me. and for you. and especially during holiday time when so many of us go on holiday from God. just stop it. return to your first love. remain in Him. be still and know that He is God.

do it. just.

oncoming traffic and other near depth experiences

so ja, last nite we had a theatresports show at kalk bay which was all cool and delightful and a bunch of fun (except maybe the two quite morbid but particularly brilliant dramatic one minute challenge games we played – whole nother level) and then i started driving back home to the beautiful val as i do…

when i came to a roadworks part of the road but with no one manning (or womenning) it – now i had come thru it on the way to the show but not noticed anything particularly different from normal except that now it was a lot closer to the show venue than it had been months ago (good sign) and so i paused for a moment figuring out if i must go or not and then knda started to go but saw bright lights coming around the corner and so i reversed enuff for the car to get past and then i waited a while longer and nothing and then i was thinking of going and two more cars came around so now i was getting a little concerned – was this russian roulette night time roadworks dash? and why wasn’t i given a packaged rule book and matching arm tag to show i was competing..?

as i had built up enuff courage and after considerable gap of no cars i started going forwards again and again lights from around the corner and so i reversed and the guy in front was flashing his lights at me (how rude, and yet no flashbacks – ha! – to the time when i inadvertently turned into the wrong way of a two lane one way road system and thort all the cars flashing me were trying to warn me about the first idiot who i had come across who was on my side of the road) and he stopped next to me and told me that it’s a one way and then pointed to the signs…

the signs which if you can imagine me driving down a street are on my left (with an only left sign and a no right sign) parallel to the road… so for example, if i had been out of my car on the opposite side of the road and looking across the road i would have noticed them quite easily, but driving along the road with them passing me on the left as i faced ahead of me (for some strange reason i like to call not driving into things or people) they were less useful…

now there may have been some other signage somewhere else explaining the whole thing to me but it clearly was not very clear and i could have died and i don’t like the idea of that right now (don’t get me wrong, i’m very ready to die when it happens, but at the moment and especially with a beautiful but sick wife waiting at home for me, i’m quite fine with the living thing) and so i was a bit angry with the road and/or sign people…

the second one occured when i was on the orange river recently and we were nappy running sjambok and i got pulled under for what seemed like eight seconds too many and i wans’t convinced in that moment i was going to make it…

and the third was in Malawi in 2000 on DTS outreach with YWAM when we were woken up early in the am with our night watchmen having seen two crowds of mob with machetes and the like advancing up the hill towards our base right while i was in the middle of a crisis of faith and do i really believe this stuff or not…

turns out i do.

and near death experiences are pretty cool and highly recommendable actually (once they’re done – usually during them there are all sorts of issues like hoping you don’t need a fresh pair of pants anytime soon and so on) because they encourage depth. stock-taking. life evaluation… actually i think that might be why some people offer to drive with me from time to time – that and increased prayer life.. i’m just kidding.

or am i. you had a near death lately? any good consequences thereof?

26 september is pray for zimbabwe day – pass on…

i imagine most people in south africa know someone who is from or in zim and so the zim situation probly connects deeply with a lot of us and usually carries a despondent or powerless ‘what can i do?’ attachment…

well i got this email in my inbox this week and this is a way for the church to get involved and just exciting to know what is happening in the heart of zimbabwe as well – so i challenge you to get involved and actively put this day aside to pray for zim – then i challenge you to chat to your church leaders and see if they can have a time during the service on sunday to mention these pray pointers and to stand alongside the church in zim and pray for restoration and freedom and for the continued growth of the church

it is way past time…

Momentum is Growing in Zimbabwe

From all accounts the momentum is building for an incredible climax on 26th September in Zimbabwe. Plans are under way to gather people in 10 city venues and a whopping 100 rural venues on the 26th to call the Church to God, one another and the nation. Angus Buchan, a well-known evangelist in southern Africa, has agreed to speak at a gathering of Christians in Harare on Saturday 25th and to make an address at the main Harare venue on 26th.

Please pray…

* for the call to grow louder both within Zimbabwe and across the world
* for God’s Spirit to be moving to orchestrate breakthrough in an unprecedented way in Zimbabwe
* for the planning and logistics of all the planned gathering in Zimbabwe and around the world
* for the eyes of the world to be turned to Zimbabwe in order for them to see God bringing solution to a nation where everything else has failed and for His glory to be seen
* for Zimbabwe to be a catalyst nation for revival and restoration to sweep across Africa

http://www.lovezim.org

“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.