Tuesday, March 19

Tag: discipleship

The Royal Law
Leadership, Personal Life, Uncategorized

The Royal Law

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing right. James 2:8 NIV The ROYAL law - to love others, whoever they might be, from whatever background, broken, whole, … this is dignity, this is carrying ourselves with honour, because we give honour.  There is no more supreme act of faith. When we love someone as ourselves we are showing 'royal' behaviour. It's supreme, it trumps all other behaviours, it is how disciples show the world that we are followers of Jesus, by our love for one another. It is how our communities discover a love that is beyond normal. I like to put it like this, we are here to be the hope on every street. How can I be hope to my street?  By being the pastor to my street - given the royal law, o
Personal Life

Thrive : Connect. Grow. Serve. Disciple

It would be the desire of every one of us to thrive in life. It would be the desire if any pastor to see the members if their church thriving. To thrive is to do life well. Not that life is well all of the time, but that our navigation of life is done well. So therefore, it is possible to thrive in adversity as much as in times of ease. As a community of believers there are 4 active things we can do to help us thrive in church life. 1. CONNECT. To connect is to engage.  To engage is to plug into that which has life, health and future in it.  Connecting with God and His Word through connecting with Church and His people is Godly vitality to us.  To connect to a weekend service every week, to engage in a connect group and church community of youth, young adults, a community of me
Personal Life

Be kind to those you lead!

He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him! Psalm 61:7 The New Testament writers would join in with David with one voice declaring the virtues of grace and truth.  Without truth there is no need for grace, without grace, Truth has no soil in which to grow. David treated it as a huge honour to receive mercy and truth.  He knew the power of both.  Truth is God's unrelenting absolutes wrapped in the most incredible person, Jesus.  Which is why Truth does not feel like a rod or a law but strength and power, revelation and insight. David also knew mercy and truth as a sign of promotion. If you are promoted to a point where you have a choice as to whether to show mercy and truth or not to those you lead then that's an honour. Rather th
Personal Life

#ALLIN PEOPLE

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out WHERE IT IS DEEPER, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”  Luke 5:4  Jesus is the master at leading us to places that require us to step out.  But He does it for good reasons, He is looking for us to make a huge catch.  We limit our possibilities by staying within the zone we are familiar with. Its when we live an 'all in' sort of life in God, taking those fearsome steps that we find ourselves highly fruitful. Here are 8 characteristics of those living an 'all in' sort of life: #ALLIN people follow the EXAMPLE of Jesus Jesus was Himself a #ALLIN person, fully surrendered to His Father.  He even got baptised when He of all people never really needed to - so much was He wanted to demonstrate He was 'all in'.  He ra
Personal Life

The Power of Following

Jesus told us not simply to go and make converts but to go and make disciples.  A disciple is a follower.  Paul here reiterates the same concept directly to the Christians in Colosse. There is a huge revolution that takes place in your heart when you first receive Christ, the old life is gone, the new has come, salvation becomes ours.  However, for a revolution to continue we must continue to follow. Two things are needed in order for us to be following:  we need a leader (otherwise who or what are we following) and we need to take steps (otherwise we fall behind and can no longer see the leader). WE NEED A LEADER Paul said "Imitate me as I imitate Christ".  That means that whilst disciplers are extremely important in our lives, their role is still to help us imitate Christ,