Day 11 - 28 Day Challenge

Encouragement

Not sure if it is just the UK but cynicism seems to be king. Our media has a build them up knock them down type of attitude. Criticism comes easy but in chapter 11 we are introduced to a great man who goes against the flow. Barnabas was a man whose life was marked by the most precious of gifts - encouragement.

23 As soon as he arrived, he saw that God was behind and in it all. He threw himself in with them, got behind them, urging them to stay with it the rest of their lives. 24 He was a good man that way, enthusiastic and confident in the Holy Spirit’s ways. The community grew large and strong in the Master.

What an incredible description of Barnabas. We all love it when someone encourages us. It makes you feel a foot taller. Sadly so often we (me especially) fall into criticism.

Someone once said we should catch people doing good not just when the do bad. Have a Barnabas mindset today, catch someone doing something right and tell them.

Potty Training

Tony Morgan took a session at Church Solutions Conference yesterday and his long time friend Tim Stevens’s blogged about the session. You can read his thoughts here. (Don't you just love the Internet - you can get the inside track on a conference that happened half way round the world sipping a coffee in Starbucks)

One quote Tim mentioned was "Are you going to focus on changing nappies or potty training".
This really hit home with me. As a church we are going through a Spiritual Life Survey organised by Willow Creek. Many churches around the world are now involved in the survey. I am looking forward to seeing the results for MKCC. (If you attend MKCC click here to complete the survey, you will need 30min or so)

What many churches have found is that instead of developing strong, co-dependent, mature Christians who take responsibility for their personal spiritual life they have helped to produce Christians who don't know how to invest in their own spiritual growth and have become disillusioned and dependent.

I think Tony’s quote gets to the heart of the matter. If all you do for a baby as it grows is change its nappy and you never challenge it or help it to poop for its self the future is not bright. Sure it is easier in the short term to just stick a nappy on and send the baby to bed. The harder route short term is to work with the toddler through bed-wetting and other accidents. It takes time trouble and patience and very often it’s frustrating but we all know it’s the right thing to do.

Discipleship takes discipline but its worth the effort.

Day 10 - 28 Day Challenge

Getting God's Attention

(V4) We all like getting the attention of someone who is important to us. If a spouse, parent or friends is attentive to us we like it. Sometimes we will even go out of our way to attract attention. (Even by doing bad things sometimes) To get God's attention surely must be important to us. Here we get an insight into what brought Cornelius to God's attention.

It was not great preaching or an act of heroism it was "Prayers and neighbourly acts".

Traditions or God's will

This is another pivotal point in the history and development of the church. Were they going to hang on to the past and their safe Jewish traditions or were they going to embrace the future and God's mission to all mankind. It would seem that it was a difficult transition to make because God had to do multiple miracles through different people placing all the pieces in the jigsaw to make sure they all got the point. God's mission was for the world not a select few.

What traditions and mentalities do we have to address on our mission to the world? What is God speaking to us about and are we being stubborn?

No hero worship

(v26) Seems like the tendency to hero worship was alive and well in the early church. The church has never been and never will be about a select group of specialists, Senior Pastors, Elders, Ministry team etc. It is about ordinary every day believers who are passionately committed to a relationship with Jesus.

My Prayer

Lord help me to live for you and not for anyone else and realise that you put a high premium on simple kindness.

Sad Day

As of 21:30 last night my lovely MacBook Pro is broken and I am having to revert to a PC of all things for my blog.

This came as a shock to me and being without my long time friend is difficult.

Thinking of going for counselling!

Lets hope Core Solutions can heal it!