SCRIPTURE: Psalm 72
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Give your love of justice to the king, O God, and righteousness to the king’s son. Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly. May the mountains yield prosperity for all, and may the hills be fruitful. Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy, and to crush their oppressors. [Psalms 72:1-4 ]
A prayer of Solomon, appointed as a leader over the nation of Israel.
Facing that daunting task, he desperately seeks God’s help and guidance and wisdom and blessing.
What did you pray for when the Lord appointed you as a leader of something?
What strikes me here is his heart for justice, especially for the poor and needy; and what alarms me is how in time he looses his way as a leader – despite God’s help. Continue reading a leader’s prayer

You are building a relationship with a non-christian, one that is genuinely reading the bible to understand better what you believe. Things have been going well, they are getting a positive sense of God’s love and Jesus’ mission. But then they happen along 1 Samuel 15, and crash into the opening words:

Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ [1 Samuel 15:1-3]

They are horrified – even the innocent? How does this fit with a loving God, how does this compare with Jesus’ mission? This sounds like ethnic cleansing?

How would you respond? How do you deal with challenges like these?

This past Sunday a group of us walked and prayed around Bolton C. Falby Public School.
I have been enjoying it on my own, by it was an even greater blessing to do so as a group.
I thought about the people of Israel marching around Jericho, but was not praying that the school walls would come crumbling to the ground.
But there are walls that need to come down, spiritual and social and emotional and racial walls.
And not just walls in THEIR hearts, also in OUR hearts.
We were reminded again that “these people” are not a project, that we are not their liberators parachuting in to help or fix them.
They are people with dignity, people deserving of respect, people who need God and Jesus just like we do.
They are our brothers, our sisters, living in a broken world with us, needing God’s forgiveness, God’s hope, God’s help, God’s Son, God’s Spirit – just like us!
This is an opportunity to be blessed together, to grow together, to be empowered together! Continue reading more prayer walking

“I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.” – Napoleon

As followers of Jesus Christ, living in this world— which some seek to control, and others view with despair— we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
These are the opening words of the Contemporary Testimony, a expression of faith adopted by the Christian Reformed Church.
I recently used some sections of this Testimony in a gathering, and had a number of people express interest in getting a copy.
Its worth reading!
Here is the link to the full document.

“Why do the Christ-centered spiritual movements in the East and developing world seem so much more vibrant than the church in the west? I found an inverse correlation between material possessions and spiritual vitality; the poorer the people and the less they relied on things money could buy, the more vibrant their spirituality. The more a group relied on dedicated buildings, professional clergy, sophisticated programs, and other religious accessories, the less spiritually alive they were. In the area of religion, less is more.”

[The Way of Jesus, Jonathan S. Campbell, p.16]

Here is an ode to teamwork…

In recent years churches have worked hard to be “seeker-sensitive”.
That is, to remove all the unnecessary hindrances and roadblocks that would keep non-Christians from feeling welcome or from understanding what was going on.
Like churchy or in-house language or dress-codes or cliques or ignoring visitors or reserved seating or unwritten rules or negative, judgmental messages, etc.
So long as the necessary parts of Jesus’ message are communicated, and it isn’t watered down too far, this seeker-sensitivity is, in my opinion, a good thing. Continue reading a seeker-intensive church

I find myself with mixed feelings about this book.
It was inspiring, and I found it challenged me to be more intentional about how I lead, and more passionate about why I am leading.
There were many points where I found it clarified my fuzzy thinking and leadership practices. Continue reading “Axiom” by Bill Hybels

Leaders, don’t ever apologize for the strength of feeling you have for the vision that God has put into your life. Don’t hide your feelings about it. God meant for you to feel as deeply about His vision for you as you do about anything. I mean that! Anything. Paint your God-given vision for family, friends, colleagues, and total strangers, if they will listen. Paint it as colourfully and passionately as you can! Just get it painted so that people’s hearts are stirred enough to shout, “Count me in!” (Bill Hybels, Ax-i-om, p.31)