Tomorrow I have an early start. I am flying out to Sydney at 6.30am which is not a good time for me considering I'll need to leave home at 4am to get to the airport on time. But needless to say I'm not too concerned about that, I'm more stoked to be going to Sydney for the first time!
God has blessed me so much. I have been given an awesome opportunity to go over to Sydney to check out C3 Oxford Falls, Change (on Wednesday night), hang out with Josh Kelsey (who runs Change) and hopefully there will be a chance in there for me to get together with some of the worship musicians to bang heads and gain some wisdom from some of the experts. It's really exciting and I am so thankful and blessed to be able to do it! I'm looking forward to whatever happens, and it is going to be awesome!
I am so thankful to be able to play a part at such an amazing church here in Christchurch, and to be part of the C3 movement. God is alive, God is good, and God is moving!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday!
So it's been a little while since I last posted anything. And with that I realize that my initial dream of writing a new blog every day or two has possibly died. However, I am blogging much more regularly than I used to be so I think that is a good thing. I also think if I was blogging every day most of them would be pretty lame so it could be better quality wise if I blog less frequently. Anyway, moving on...
Today is Monday. We just had an awesome Sunday at C3 Church, Christchurch. I love my church so much, its a great family to be a part of. It is awesome to see it growing in both quantity and quality. Every week it seems we have a bunch of new people and the presence of God descends in a more powerful way than before. I love it!
I was lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to preach at our evening service last night, and it was just great. Our pastor had asked me about a month ago if I would do it and I said count me in! It is such an honor to get asked to preach, and this was a big deal for me. I have preached a number times in the past at Primal and at a couple of high school christian groups, but never at Sunday church. So this was the real deal, a big deal, definitely my biggest gig. I was pretty nervous.
I preached a message that has pretty much been on my heart for a while now. The theme for our Church this month is "Supernatural" and I based my message on the concept of worship and how it ties to the Supernatural presence and power of God. I believe with all my heart that worshiping God invokes the presence of God, and the presence of God invokes the power of God. I believe it is this presence and power of God that are vital for living out our lives as Christians and helping us become more and more like Christ. I also believe that the power and presence of God active in our lives is going to draw people into the presence of God, and we're going to see miracles as we are released into a life of worship.
I think that when we worship God with EVERYTHING, not just a few songs at church, but how we live our lives, the attitude behind our actions, aligning our lives with the Bible, that we have the power of breakthrough in every area of our lives.
When we worship God in our relationships, He blesses them.
When we worship God in our finances, ie tithing, being generous, He blesses our finances.
When we worship God with our work ethic, He blesses the work we do
When we worship God with our WHOLE LIFE, He blesses our whole life.
I believe that when Christians break through into a life of worship, we are opening up the door for God to come in and do the miraculous. I'm talking healings, deliverance, salvations, breakthrough, miraculous provision and more! And I believe that this extends beyond us, that when we open up that door for God, it will impact not only our lives, but the lives of our families, friends, workmates, classmates, communities, and our world for God.
Today is Monday. We just had an awesome Sunday at C3 Church, Christchurch. I love my church so much, its a great family to be a part of. It is awesome to see it growing in both quantity and quality. Every week it seems we have a bunch of new people and the presence of God descends in a more powerful way than before. I love it!
I was lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to preach at our evening service last night, and it was just great. Our pastor had asked me about a month ago if I would do it and I said count me in! It is such an honor to get asked to preach, and this was a big deal for me. I have preached a number times in the past at Primal and at a couple of high school christian groups, but never at Sunday church. So this was the real deal, a big deal, definitely my biggest gig. I was pretty nervous.
I preached a message that has pretty much been on my heart for a while now. The theme for our Church this month is "Supernatural" and I based my message on the concept of worship and how it ties to the Supernatural presence and power of God. I believe with all my heart that worshiping God invokes the presence of God, and the presence of God invokes the power of God. I believe it is this presence and power of God that are vital for living out our lives as Christians and helping us become more and more like Christ. I also believe that the power and presence of God active in our lives is going to draw people into the presence of God, and we're going to see miracles as we are released into a life of worship.
I think that when we worship God with EVERYTHING, not just a few songs at church, but how we live our lives, the attitude behind our actions, aligning our lives with the Bible, that we have the power of breakthrough in every area of our lives.
When we worship God in our relationships, He blesses them.
When we worship God in our finances, ie tithing, being generous, He blesses our finances.
When we worship God with our work ethic, He blesses the work we do
When we worship God with our WHOLE LIFE, He blesses our whole life.
I believe that when Christians break through into a life of worship, we are opening up the door for God to come in and do the miraculous. I'm talking healings, deliverance, salvations, breakthrough, miraculous provision and more! And I believe that this extends beyond us, that when we open up that door for God, it will impact not only our lives, but the lives of our families, friends, workmates, classmates, communities, and our world for God.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Socialism?
I wouldn't normally post something that got forwarded to me on my email, but I think this illustrates a good point. Don't start hating on me or trying to debate me because of it, just read it and think about it. I admit that it obviously was started by a staunch opponent of Obama trying to make a point, but its worth thinking about. We have seen what socialism has lead to in the past, and even if this is a made up story it is exactly how socialism (spreading the wealth) works
As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
This man is truly a genius!
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,
but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D!
No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on)
As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
This man is truly a genius!
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,
but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D!
No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on)
30th post WAHOO!
So I'm here writing my 30th blog post thinking about my life and stuff. It's been a wild ride over the last year since I started bogging. I try to voice my thoughts in a way that if people want to know what I'm thinking they can read it and if not they don't have to. So now my question is, what to blog about for #30?
I've decided to just talk about my life. I have been so blessed, God is good! He has always been with me, even when I maybe didn't realize it, and I have just been blown away at what He's been doing the last little while.
I'm still buzzing about "Empower Summit." The worship was amazing, and I was so honored to be able to serve in that. It has been awesome to see, this year especially, that all the struggle and hard work has paid off. Our worship sound at C3 Chch is developing into its own, we are seeing the presence of God more and more each service, and I am constantly blown away that God would use us to lead people into His presence.
I'm working hard at Polytech in my final semester of my Diploma in Civil Engineering, and I have been applying for jobs. Things are exciting, as there is a lot of interest in graduate Civil Engineering Technicians (which is what I'll be in November), and lots of careers nights and meetings in the coming weeks with Engineering firms. I'm hoping to land a job pretty soon! I'm praying and believeing God is going to open and shut the right doors and I'll end up in the position He wants me in, so thats exciting!
At the moment I'm working on a sermon about Worship. I'm going to be preaching at our Sunday night service in the next few weeks, and our theme for the month is "Supernatural." I believe there is great power in worship and I have a heart to see people released into a life of worship that goes far beyond attending Church. So I'm basing my message around worship and the supernatural power of God and how they go hand in hand. Should be a goody. I'm also going to be preaching at Primal in a few weeks time, so there's a couple of opportunities coming up for me to step out and preach the gospel which is exciting. I love it!
Thought for the day (blog):
"God is good - ALL THE TIME"
He really is. It takes faith to claim this over your life, but trust me, when you put God in His place as Lord, He proves to you how awesome He really is!
Praise God!
I've decided to just talk about my life. I have been so blessed, God is good! He has always been with me, even when I maybe didn't realize it, and I have just been blown away at what He's been doing the last little while.
I'm still buzzing about "Empower Summit." The worship was amazing, and I was so honored to be able to serve in that. It has been awesome to see, this year especially, that all the struggle and hard work has paid off. Our worship sound at C3 Chch is developing into its own, we are seeing the presence of God more and more each service, and I am constantly blown away that God would use us to lead people into His presence.
I'm working hard at Polytech in my final semester of my Diploma in Civil Engineering, and I have been applying for jobs. Things are exciting, as there is a lot of interest in graduate Civil Engineering Technicians (which is what I'll be in November), and lots of careers nights and meetings in the coming weeks with Engineering firms. I'm hoping to land a job pretty soon! I'm praying and believeing God is going to open and shut the right doors and I'll end up in the position He wants me in, so thats exciting!
At the moment I'm working on a sermon about Worship. I'm going to be preaching at our Sunday night service in the next few weeks, and our theme for the month is "Supernatural." I believe there is great power in worship and I have a heart to see people released into a life of worship that goes far beyond attending Church. So I'm basing my message around worship and the supernatural power of God and how they go hand in hand. Should be a goody. I'm also going to be preaching at Primal in a few weeks time, so there's a couple of opportunities coming up for me to step out and preach the gospel which is exciting. I love it!
Thought for the day (blog):
"God is good - ALL THE TIME"
He really is. It takes faith to claim this over your life, but trust me, when you put God in His place as Lord, He proves to you how awesome He really is!
Praise God!
Monday, August 10, 2009
What an amazing weekend
Wow. That's really all I can say. I just had probably the best weekend of my life. It was amazing. GOD IS GOOD!!!
My church, C3 Church Christchurch, was hosting an event called 'Empower' featuring Ps Tim Hall from Adelaide (in Australia) and Ps Wayne Peat from Howick (in Auckland). It was a powerful weekend, I was blown away by the power of God more than once. We saw people healed, delivered from demonic spirits, receiving words of prophesy, the gift of tongues, and so much more. But the thing that blew me away most of all was the presence of God in the midst of all our meetings and services.
I was leading worship for the whole weekend. We only had a 4-piece band for the weekend - Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass and Drums. We were lacking things like Keys, lots of singers, an extra guitar or two, but it didn't matter. In fact, I think keeping it simple made it that much more special - it was possibly the most powerful worship I have ever been in, I really felt the presence of God at another level.
I saw so many Supernatural things this weekend. I saw people healed, delivered, receive gifts of the spirit, and so much more, and I am still buzzing with the excitement of having an encounter with God! What really set the tone for me was the worship - there's nothing better than a large group of people worshiping God, united and passionate.
I think Ps Wayne Peat said it best - worship brings the presence of God, and the presence of God brings the power of God.
We saw that in a huge, awe-inspiring way over the weekend. My heart is more on fire for seeing people released into worship than ever before. It's vital that we break through into the zone where we're worshiping with ALL of our heart to His glory, because that is where we will see God's presence fall among us, and that's where the power is, that's where lives change, that's where the miraculous happens. Without that, we're just a having a good old sing-a-long at best.
And it starts outside of Church meetings. I have really been challenged by this lately. Do I set aside a good amount of time DAILY to seek God through Prayer and reading His Word? Am I really praying "fervent, effective prayers" (James 5:16) for my Church, my City, my family, my classmates, my friends to have an encounter with God? Or am I just cruising through life, taking the easy way out? Do I really have the heart for the lost and broken people that God cares so much about? Or am I way too concerned with me?
God is an awesome God. What will it take to get passionate about Him? I have been so guilty of having an apathetic attitude, and it's totally not cool, that's not honoring Him. We need to stand up, seek God above all else and let Him reveal His glory to the world through us.
We have the hope of the world, we have the answer, let's live every moment of every day FOR HIS GLORY.
My church, C3 Church Christchurch, was hosting an event called 'Empower' featuring Ps Tim Hall from Adelaide (in Australia) and Ps Wayne Peat from Howick (in Auckland). It was a powerful weekend, I was blown away by the power of God more than once. We saw people healed, delivered from demonic spirits, receiving words of prophesy, the gift of tongues, and so much more. But the thing that blew me away most of all was the presence of God in the midst of all our meetings and services.
I was leading worship for the whole weekend. We only had a 4-piece band for the weekend - Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass and Drums. We were lacking things like Keys, lots of singers, an extra guitar or two, but it didn't matter. In fact, I think keeping it simple made it that much more special - it was possibly the most powerful worship I have ever been in, I really felt the presence of God at another level.
I saw so many Supernatural things this weekend. I saw people healed, delivered, receive gifts of the spirit, and so much more, and I am still buzzing with the excitement of having an encounter with God! What really set the tone for me was the worship - there's nothing better than a large group of people worshiping God, united and passionate.
I think Ps Wayne Peat said it best - worship brings the presence of God, and the presence of God brings the power of God.
We saw that in a huge, awe-inspiring way over the weekend. My heart is more on fire for seeing people released into worship than ever before. It's vital that we break through into the zone where we're worshiping with ALL of our heart to His glory, because that is where we will see God's presence fall among us, and that's where the power is, that's where lives change, that's where the miraculous happens. Without that, we're just a having a good old sing-a-long at best.
And it starts outside of Church meetings. I have really been challenged by this lately. Do I set aside a good amount of time DAILY to seek God through Prayer and reading His Word? Am I really praying "fervent, effective prayers" (James 5:16) for my Church, my City, my family, my classmates, my friends to have an encounter with God? Or am I just cruising through life, taking the easy way out? Do I really have the heart for the lost and broken people that God cares so much about? Or am I way too concerned with me?
God is an awesome God. What will it take to get passionate about Him? I have been so guilty of having an apathetic attitude, and it's totally not cool, that's not honoring Him. We need to stand up, seek God above all else and let Him reveal His glory to the world through us.
We have the hope of the world, we have the answer, let's live every moment of every day FOR HIS GLORY.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Busy
Life is really busy for me at the moment. Mainly because I'm in my final semester of a Diploma in Civil Engineering and hence inundated with school work, but also because I run the music team at my church, and we have a great event coming up this weekend, the Empower Summit.
I really love having stuff to do, and I do enjoy being pretty busy. But I don't really love getting slammed with everything at once. For instance - I have been working on stuff for the Empower Summit for about a month now. I get a couple assignments a week or two ago. Then about 5 more. Then they're all due by Friday afternoon which is when the Summit begins. On top of that there is an Engineering Expo at tech on Friday that I'm hoping to get to so I can meet some engineering firms and hopefully score a job before I graduate. So I'm madly rushing to get assignments in early, finish my cv, go to meetings and band practices, be a good husband and still have time for God and time to chill out.
Hahahaha.... oh man. So busy right now. But it's all good. I'm healthy, alive and pumped for the Empower Summit this weekend. It's going to be an awesome weekend in Church!
I really love having stuff to do, and I do enjoy being pretty busy. But I don't really love getting slammed with everything at once. For instance - I have been working on stuff for the Empower Summit for about a month now. I get a couple assignments a week or two ago. Then about 5 more. Then they're all due by Friday afternoon which is when the Summit begins. On top of that there is an Engineering Expo at tech on Friday that I'm hoping to get to so I can meet some engineering firms and hopefully score a job before I graduate. So I'm madly rushing to get assignments in early, finish my cv, go to meetings and band practices, be a good husband and still have time for God and time to chill out.
Hahahaha.... oh man. So busy right now. But it's all good. I'm healthy, alive and pumped for the Empower Summit this weekend. It's going to be an awesome weekend in Church!
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