Something from service last Friday. This seriously blows me away. I’m so proud of the young men and women I get to serve with - the gifts are great and awesome, but it’s the commitment to live a life to honour God and build His house that is truly phenomenal!

Anyways, check out Mei’s post and the item!

His bride is still alive…

This makes me happy!

For my delinquent friends who keep asking for the ‘sex talk‘.

Honestly, definitely the hardest and most uncomfortable thing I’ve had to teach or preach. I was over the moon to finally have preached it!!

But once again I’m blown away by our church. The response to God’s Word was unbelievable, especially at the altar call! The reward of seeing lives encounter God trumps my pain of preparation and stress big time!

Finally, a disclaimer. I wasn’t graphic, but there are some adult themes! (and many inappropriate comments / stupid jokes I wanted to cut out… but then I would have like only half a sermon left)

(Update: the first file was somehow stuffed before. Should be fixed!

Last night at the end of the sermon, I challenged our church to go on a 21 day media fast.

Why?

1. Because we live in a sex-obsessed, sex-crazy, sex-saturated world

2. Because our personal purity goes beyond our technical virginity.

3. Because our devotion is dependent what we feed on.

4. Because our today matters in light of our tomorrow

Joshua 3:5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.”

I believe with all of my heart that as a church, we are in the season called preparation. God is preparing us for our tomorrows. That is why we must sanctify our todays.

How does it work?

Pretty simlpy: turn away all sources of media that infiltrate worldly values into our spirits and feed on the things of God to develop our devotion and prepare for our tomorrow.

For me: TV, movies, secular music, radio

For some of us it may be: magazines, websites, novels

I will still be: using email, MSN, internet etc

Remember, the point is devotion. It’s about feeding the right part of us.

Enjoy everyone! Can’t wait to see us on the other end (2 Jan!)

Preparing for that ‘awesome’ sex talk this Friday, I’ve been doing my research.

Anyways, here’s something from notes a friend sent that won’t get preached this time around, but blew me away big time and brought heaps of convictions. It’s addressed to single young women:

-          What does a potential mate look like?

o   Spiritual maturity and Christ-like character

-          He’s going to be the spiritual leader of your household!

o   Strong family background (or at least the desire to develop one)

-          You don’t just marry him. You marry his whole family! Make sure he’s committed to being the best husband and father he can be, regardless of the examples he’s had.

o   Financial responsibility

-          He’s going to be the financial provider for you and your children someday!

o   Vision for the future

-          Someone who has a general idea of God’s plan for his life, and has a plan for how to get there.

-          Compatible vision.

-          As his wife, you are pledging to be his helpmate and to go wherever God guides him.

-          Interests to flow in the same direction.

Meetings must be measured by movement

That means, eventual action or fruit. More on this as I post the rest

The running joke of the season with some good friends is that I am getting really, really good at going to meetings (it has become the first thing to ask for some when they call / sms - “hey, are you in a meeting?“). Since taking on several new responsibilities this year, the amount of meetings I have to attend and chair have increased many-fold!

It’s no secret that in the life of any organisation, meetings can expend an incredible amount of sideways energy (i.e. pointless & undirected). They are both a blessing and a curse. A good meeting is the catalyst in advancing God’s Kingdom in incredible ways; it re-energizes team members and creates an incredible sense of movement within the organisation. Just a few of days ago I saw how a few hours of meeting together turns a team around as God’s vision kicks us all in the butt (in a great way) - all without even opening a bible or doing anything so-called ’spiritual’.

A bad meeting, however, is the exact opposite. It drains vision, discourages key team and sucks Kingdom resources into a black hole.  Often times it’s not too long before members begin to dread attending meetings. Not because they are too long or require too much hard work, but because it’s so easy for them to slide into unnecessary complexity and ineffectiveness.

I have to admit that in seasons past I have at times secretly enjoyed meetings a little too much (haha). I enjoyed the false sense of productivity and fruitfulness they brought without me having to do a whole lot of actual ‘work’ - if we are sitting in a room, talking about ministry and investing time in it, by default, we must surely be getting somewhere right? Not necessarily.  Often times of late, I have smelt a bad meeting from a mile away (and have been guilty of holding some of those!) and am learning to differentiate what makes a good meeting and a bad one.

As it stands, I no longer have patience for ineffective meetings when there is real, Kingdom work to be done. Making sure meetings are necessary and fruitful is becoming so unbelievably important to me.

By the end of this week, and not including pastoral meet-ups / shepherdings etc, I would have spent a whopping 27.5 hours in ministry meetings alone (it’s also a heavier season as we close up ‘08 and plan for ‘09).

I did a rough breakdown of the types and purposes of meetings this week:

Brainstorming / Off-site - 12.5 hours

Problem Solving / Decision-Making - 6 hours

Debrief - 4.5 hours

Check-in / Informational - 2.5 hours

Training / Team-building - 2 hours

With facts like this, I’ve gotten desperate at learning how to do good meetings! I think I’ve put together something good and useful for some of us from various sources (like this blog, this book, Patrick Lencioni the genius, bad experiences, good experiences, feedback from key team). Over the next week or so, I will endeavour to post it up here. It’s by no means exhaustive, but I hope it will make the 2009 ministry year as effective and as God-honouring for us as possible!

Every community has sacred words that need to be learned

Leonard Sweet

Been chewing over this thought as I’ve had (and made) opportunities to meet many key ministry leaders from across the church in every service. We’re in such a great church full of great people with great hearts, yet it’s so evident that there is still volumes for us to grow. I’m convinced that there are ministry cultures and values we need to further instill and heat up in so many different areas.

Some questions I’m asking:

What are our sacred words? What should they be?

Are they communicating the right values? Are they building Kingdom culture?

Do every level of our organisation and ministry teams understand these words in the same way? Are those words and values and cultures being learned across the board?

A mate of mine is sending me a series of his very keen observations. Pretty interesting stuff I think.

Observation #1:

The people in Ablaze who are the most shrewd with their money are often the most generous.