God’s Bathroom

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” – Revelation 3:15-16

You know i would have thought that God’s order would be Hot, then Lukewarm then Cold, but obviously not, God’s preference is Hot or Cold but whatever you are DO NOT be Lukewarm, do NOT be a mixture of Hot and Cold.

 In a nutshell God is saying Go All out For Me, or just run as far as you can and enjoy what the world has to offer you, but whatever you do, don’t get into a place where you think you are doing Me-related stuff and still embracing the culture of the world.

 <To Be Continued>

The Phrase That Gets You Heaven

Luke 23:42 ‘Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

A familiar scene… the muscians are playing softly in the background your head is facing down, you can hear soft murmurs of prayers and tongues coming from people near you in the same posture, a gentle plea comes across the speakers ‘…every eye closed, every head bowed…‘, you know what’s coming ‘…if there is anyone here tonight…‘ wondering how many hands tonight… if any? ‘…needs Jesus…‘ the Pastors voice is inviting ‘…at the count of 3…‘ here we go ‘…raise your hands so i can pray with you…‘ and then, the sightings ‘…yes thank you, yes sister i see you, thank you, yes you in the back, yes thank you brother, Amen…‘ and lastly ‘…Church, why don’t we all stand up…‘ the Salvation Prayer ‘…and repeat after me…‘

I mean no disrespect, i say the above with a lot of tongue-in-cheek.  You see a while back a friend once told me that the salvation prayer is not found in the bible and it’s a man made vehicle, and that saying the salvation prayer … Lord I thank You, I’m a Sinner, I repent, Please forgive me, Help me to Be like You and it’s other variations will not get you into heaven.  Now maybe it’s not news for you, but it was for me.  Up till then i always thought that after that prayer you’re all good and set to spend eternity with God.

But after considering what she told me and looking at the people of the bible that actually went to heaven, i must admit, i did not see any salvation prayer going on at all.  And before you slam me and tell me ‘Why am i writing this, what’s the point, you are going to be stumbling a lot of people, are you saying that all those who go has gone before and said the prayer are not going to heaven?’… hold up, i admit there is a correlation between the number of people who have said the salvation prayer and the number of people who will be in heaven, BUT i also cannot deny the fact that the number of Salvation prayers said is going to far outweight the number of people that will be in heaven, on the grounds that it’s not a formula of spoken words that will get you there but rather it’s a change of what’s going on, on the inside. 

And if you’re like me, there are people close to me who i really crave for them to know Christ but i’m dumbfounded about what to say or things to do to ensure they are spending forever in heaven.  And just as the Salvation Prayer is not going to get you into heaven, NOT saying the Salvation Prayer doesn’t mean you WON’T get into heaven.  And to me that’s great news because I don’t need to always be chasing the end goal of making a situation where i have to point blank make sure they say ‘Those words’ after me.  

I’m  not buying out of the evangelistic thing, far from it, but i do feel more released to know that God can (and maybe even rather) work through the testimony of my life fully displayed for these people to start thinking, ‘What is so different?’, ‘I wonder if i can have that.’, ‘Maybe this whole Jesus business might be real’, ‘…Jesus you really there?’. 

So what’s the dividing line? I’m not sure, but for starters we all know ‘It’s only by Faith’ and unfortunately faith is not something that we can say outloud, yes we can see it’s effects and fruit but as with many aspects of this relationship with Christ it’s not what we do or say on the outside that causes change to happen but it always starts with something on the inside.

Luke 23:42 the words of one thief that was hanging on another cross besides Jesus, wasn’t anything and i’m pretty sure won’t be anything that would be said during an altar call, but Jesus answered ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise’. 

Salvation is something that happens within, and not a set string of words that once spoken outloud gets you your ticket.

Which means the only person that i can be fully sure of, 100% whether or not they are going to heaven, is really…myself.  And all i can do, is as much as i can, in the capacity given to me,  to give others the best opportunity to ask Jesus themselves ‘…remember me.’

Being Nice and Christian Don’t Actually Mix

Sunday best, false smiles, empty words about how the Lord is good, ending conversations with people you don’t really care about with ‘Take care, i’m praying for you’.  Really now, if that’s what this whole business of christianity is about than, i need an out - fast.  Ok just kidding, but i think you know what i’m getting at.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you are sitting within the comfort zones of christianity then can i implore you to go and do something good that’s going to make your heart beat faster and your skin temperature go up, because you’re unsure about the outcome.

Understand that chasing after God, doesn’t mean you become the most liked person on the face of the Earth, or the biggest push-over this side of the globe.  (It’s your sin that Jesus took away not your backbone)

Go and make a difference in this world that is going to bring some wanted and unwanted attention to you. 

If it’s one thing i DON’T want anybody to even CONSIDER writing on my tomb stone is ‘Here lies Andrew – He was a nice guy.’  If so, then i would have missed totally in becoming more like Christ.

Don’t believe me, go read up about what happened to the guy who started all this, what society crucifies a man for being ‘nice’?.

Start doing things that are going to put you in the line of fire….darts.

Friends – The Importance Of…

Nearly 7 years ago, I walked the halls of a Military Institute, and hanging on the wall of a particular stretch of corridor was a picture that would never fail to catch my attention, but it wasn’t the picture that drew my eyes, but rather the words that accompanied. They read “Show me the leader, and i will know the men, show me the men and i will know the leader.”. At first glance it just seems to be another form of army propoganda but if you sit down and actually peel away the military terms and context you will find a universal God ordained law of ‘We are influenced whether we like it or not by the company we keep’.

There are 3 fundamental things that will ultimately shape a persons life.

1. God.
2. Their Family.
3. The Friends they hang out with.

The first two you can’t choose, they’re a given. But it’s the 3rd that can either make or break a person.

“Show me who you place your Faith in, show me the environment you grew up in, show me the company you keep and i will know the type of person you are and where you are heading in life.“

<To be continued>

Have a look at  your friends, how do they make you feel?  What situations do you find yourself in when you’re around them?  After meeting them do you have thoughts of ‘Urgh….maybe that wasn’t such a bright thing to do….hmmm….wish i didn’t say that’ or do you feel uplifted, encouraged, thankful? 

What do you guys talk about?  Does it stop at shallow banter and laughs?  Or are you able to traverse the entire spectrum of being a person, where you are able to be shed tears, be angry or roll around the floor, cheeks aching from laughing too much?

Choose your friends wisely, too often we want to constantly hang around those who make us feel good, make us feel like we belong, make us feel ‘accepted’ but it’s got to go deeper then that.  A friend will be there with you through the laughing and the fun times, but a great friend will also be there for you when you going through the rough times, a great friend will also be the type of person who will willingly sacrifice their time/resources when you’re in need of them.

And those are the people you need to start doing life with the most, i’m not saying we neglect everyone else who doesn’t make the grade, but we all should have some God fearing friends in our lives that we are hanging around with the most.

I don’t know the formula of how to GET this God fearing friends but i do know the hall marks of a great friend that we all should have a few of :-

1. You guys have fought, bickered, raised your voiced at each other and then reconciled.
2. You don’t feel like you can’t cry infront of them.
3. You know if you tell them something in confidence they will keep it in confidence.
4. You are comfortable with correcting behaviour and mindsets with eachother.
5. You know the family members of your friend, your friend doesn’t have to be around for you to engage in conversation with their mum/dad/siblings.
6. Before meeting up you check to make sure you have no other appointments for the next 4 hours.
7. You can call up each other and ask ‘You free?  Shall we do this?’ and the response is ‘Sounds good, meet you in 30′.
8. You can ask that person if there’s a certain questionable part of your behaviour that needs changing knowing that their response won’t leave you feeling guilt, shame or condemned.
9. In 50 years time they can write a biography about you.

There are other hallmarks that i’ll add later but for now we need a few friendships (3-4) that have the above traits in them.  Sure, have as many friends as you want but start building into a handful of them, get yourself an inner circle of like minded people that aren’t just chasing the next relationship, better paying job, next thing to buy but looking out to live their lives for something that will outlast it.  A bunch of people that are willing to live their lives as a ransom for others, able to live for God and yet able to be real with eachother, people that know ‘who’ they are, rather then people who are building ‘what’ they are.

This whole friends business is really too big for me to fully work out at this point in life, but i hope you can chew over what has been said (as will i) and let the heart of it all sink in – that we are designed to be relational and we like it or not are influenced by those we spend time with, so if that’s going to happen then i better make sure that the influence, influences me for the better.

[And for me I can only but thank Him for surrounding me with friends that will walk through life with me through the ups and the downs, those who share the good times with me, those that speak hope and life in the down times, and those that call up to chill with me through the cruising times.]

Signed, Sealed… Delivered

I was never big on Museums or the arts, i could never understand why a piece of paper with a bunch of colours placed on them and then signed with the name Van Gough or Da Vinci could fetch millions. It amazes me how we devote huge resources and real estate to display the works of art created by certain specific people in history. All because of the signature that is stamped onto the artwork. A label that distinguishes the sculpture, a unique flow of ink that relates the painting back to a single person, to tell the rest of the world that this right here has their signature on it, and it is theirs.

It seems that the signature a product carries, can and will effect it’s intrinsic value.  And I’m not here to slam any product names, because i own and prefer to lean to those ‘bigger’ names due to the quality and workmanship that the signature is supposed to carry. But what i would like to do, here and now, is to make known another signature that we easily overlook, a sign that tells us we all have intrinsic worth and value.

And that worth and value is ironically found in the emptiness of your hands.

Your fingerprints, a signature that distinguishes you from the 6.5 billion other people in the world, a message that screams out ‘You are not a product of a puddle of goo that slowly evolved into you today’ you were uniquely and intentionally designed by me, and i have put my signature in and on you, that i don’t have a rubber stamp that i use to sign off many documents but i carefully by myself pick up my pen and write my name on you.

So if you’re like me, sometimes you have your down days and you get slammed because you try to stand for something that this world doesn’t embrace. But in those times, maybe have a glance at your finger tips and be reminded of who you are and who you belong too, and that you don’t need the opinions of others to determine how successful or how valuable you are.

Sometimes all you need is to look through the emptiness, the brokeness, the hurt and the pain and be reminded that you matter, you are valuable, you have a destiny and you are His.

First 30 of Service

Something that has constantly been in the back of my mind, is the mission of the Worship Team. What is their objective in the scheme of a church service or any situation that calls for the playing of God centred songs? And I’m not just talking about the guy who leads a team of 4 backups, 2 electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, a bassist, keyboardist and drummer but also the girl who is impromptu asked to do a few songs before the AGM meeting starts. What is the thing that she should be thinking about as she does a mental scramble to try and remember the chords to a song that she just sung in her quiet time the other day?

Ever since I got into the worship ministry the few years ago, I was made to accept that the worship team is there to ‘Lead others into the presence of God…the Holy of Holy’s…the Inner Courts’ and that was fine I got on board with that, it wasn’t until a few years later that I heard a preacher (Can’t remember where or who) say ‘Who are we to think we can lead others into the Glorious presence of the Almighty God?’ and that totally stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t a case of ‘Ohhh I’m so unworthy, the blasted sinner i am’ and then step off the worship team, no, it was more of an opening of my eyes to see the Biggness of God and a recognition of my smallness of ‘Yeah, who really am I to think that I can jump up on stage with my team on Sunday and tell the congregation Come on board the Worship Train, next destination Inner Courts Station! WOOOO WOooooo!’

And so I was left with no choice but to put aside that idea – Worship Teams are great, and there’s nothing better then being in a place where i can shout out ‘In my life be lifted high’ to overdriven guitars, a rocking bass, and a drummer going all out, and music was and still is God’s idea, so what was His intention when He prompted the first bunch of people to gather in His name to sing?

<To Be Continued…>

The next idea that i embraced, took me many many months to put into words and that was ‘The mission of the team was to create a distraction free atmosphere that was condusive for God to move in the peoples hearts’. This sat better with me because it wasn’t about me getting into the presence of God anymore, but it became about God getting into my heart, getting into my pastors heart, getting into the guy at the back who slipped in 2 minutes after the worship started because he just doesn’t want to be noticed.

There were two things i liked about the above mission statement, and that was 1) Perspective – Everytime i got on stage and remembered this mission, i was humbled by the fact that He found ME, even before I knew the words to Amazing Grace, or John 3:16 God found me. 2) Choice – God has never and won’t ever force his way into anybody’s heart, He may knock a bit harder but He will never step in uninvited, He leaves us the choice to say, ‘Not today God, I’ve got too much on my mind, I’ve got a massive problem that i’m figuring out, sorry maybe next time’. It’s this latter part that was where the difference stood out enough for me to take notice and it also answered a nagging question “If we are leading people into the Inner Court’s how come there are a few people that look like they want to get straight to the sermon so they can leave ASAP.”

You see i believe that no one would consciously reject God, so how come not everyone in the congregation get’s a piece of God during the worship? May i propose that it is a matter of where our focus is, and in a worship context as the band rocks on, our focus can be on stuff that has happened during the week, the stuff that is GOING to happen in the following week, or a huge variety of other things that take our focus, wrong chords played, volume too loud, volume too soft, ‘what was that prayer?’, ‘Oh look He’s wearing that shirt again’, ‘Surprise surprise SHE’s late AGAIN’, ‘Oh my goodness who is that young lady that just walked in with Darren our Youth leader?!’ and the list continues, sure on the outside our hands are lifted, and our mouths are singing in tune to the song but our mind’s attention can be on a million other things, all except on the one that really counts.

So, our congregation has a million and one other things their focus can be on, alright, lets eliminate the ones that we can control, Team…let’s make sure the sound is good, let’s make the songs flow, make sure we’re tight, anybody playing too loud – pull back a bit please, drummer don’t speed up as we move into the high chorus, at this point of the song we’ll go into free worship using 4/5 chords, watch out for my hand signals guys etc etc and that’s why teams need to practice. Bad enough, that the people who have to rise early on a sunday morning with their minds being flooded with distractions from the word ‘Go’, have to sit in a service where there is enough ‘distractions’ coming from the team, to make the holiest tone-deaf person cringe.

So this was great, in order to achieve this mission, we’d practice hard, made sure the songs were sent out early so the team was familiar with them, laugh when a wrong note was played, went hard and jumped around during praise, and go out to eat together. As a team we had it all going for us, we were friends who were genuinely concerned for one another and we had confidence and trust in each other, on and off stage.

But as great as we were as a team and trying to get the condusive atmosphere going, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that i may have been missing something alot more fundamental.

And two weeks ago, i think i found it…

<To Be Continued>

I now believe that the objective of any worship team is to “Make Gods’ voice louder then any other voice”. It is all about letting the congregation meet with their maker. Not by ‘moving’ into his presence, or creating the atmosphere to ‘allow Him to move’ but to drown out the voices of ‘upcoming exams’, ‘oustanding bills’, ‘annoying noises’, ‘wrong chords played’, ‘family problems’, ‘relational issues’ so that His voice becomes clear because all it takes is for one word spoken by Him for a good thing to happen inside the hearts of the congregation.  Am i sure? Yep, It worked for Job, he had plenty of other voices coming at him when he lost everything and when he reached the point of breaking suddenly God speaks and if you notice his circumstances don’t change immediately but his attitude and heart sure does, all because God spoke and he heard.

Am i saying that we can only hear God when music is played? Nope definately not, He continually speaks (it’s just those other voices that can drown Him out), but there is something in music that can point a person away or towards God, making His voice heard clearly and above everything else, or drowned in the swathe of voices that the world has to offer.

So what constitutes as another distracting voice? I don’t have a complete list yet and it will change from setting to setting but in a worship team context I can name a few to get you started – Song selection, volume too loud, too soft, wrong vocal pitching, wrong chords, song arrangement/dynamics/transitioning etc, all these seem superficial but every worship team should take note because they are some of the biggest distractions that can occur in a worship setting.

So that’s it, you have read countless lines for me to tell you that ‘When a worship team gets on stage, their task is to make God’s voice louder than every other voice’, but, Andrew, that’s so obvious, yeah Amen to that, now go try it remembering it changes from setting to setting there is no fixed formula only guiding principles. Next time you are up there for service ask Him, ‘Father what do we need to do to make you heard?’ And then make sure YOU listen and then go for it!

Lift Him up high, lift him up loud.

 

 

The Red Words

So here i am joining the ranks of countless others with their own little piece of internet real estate. 

If you’ve come to find out about my day, where I’ve been lately, the latest gadget I bought, or where I had an awesome meal, you will be disappointed (Msn me if you want to know ) instead what you will find here are some of my thoughts about God and the things of God.  (Ok so you may find out a bit about my day as that’s usually where these thoughts spring from, but it’s not the impetus of this blog).

I’m someone who likes to think alot and I find myself thinking alot about cause and effects, observing people - their actions and words and seeing their effects but I’ll be the first to admit that although it’s pretty easy to see God in hindsight and get a feel of His sovereign plan, trying to understand why He orchestrates or why certain events happen in the world is pretty elusive.  I may not fully understand now, but I do know everything makes sense, every life lost, every heart broken, every victory won, every constant in the universe, every sub atomic particle zipping around a probability cloud, every opportunity to do good, every decision to do evil I’m pretty sure they all make sense, but the catch is we gotta look at it from God’s perspective. 

The thing is we’ve picked up so much baggage from the going’s on in the world that our views are filtered and coloured to the point where most of us, either become angry/fustrated at God or just sit in the area of well God is God, but I strongly believe that there is a much more relevant God at work here, someone who is alot more intentional, that He is just not all Holy, sitting up there waiting for the second coming but really wants to see you and me, live the dream that He has for us here and now, and He puts us in the front row of lessons and principles that if we took time out to consider and come to some conviction about, we’d go through this life with much confidence in the One who the world laughs at but needs the most.

So here I am, hoping that by sharing my thoughts your inputs will allow me to consider things that I myself may have missed through my filtered view.  Think of the ‘God Thoughts’ not as messages, sermons or devotionals but rather as an idea i’m bouncing off you to see if it sits well with you too.

Oh and if you’re wondering where the name of this blog derives itself from, go and have a read of the Gospels, it’s everywhere .

Save The World.

17/05/07