Posts Tagged ‘nablopomo09’
2009 in review
Posted on: December 22, 2009
- In: my life | thoughts
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So I was trying to remember 2009 so that my last post of the year chould be a review of sorts…but I really couldn’t remember anything.
So then I went through my facebook photo albums and the ones that stand out the most are (in no particular order):
1. day in the park/beach – in Jan, Brett decided that for his birthday celebrations he was going to help out with a take-the-kids-from-an-orphanage-out-for-the-day-to-the-beach-and-love-them-day thing…and he invited people to go and help out, and i went, and it was awesomtastic. then in april and again in november some people from our church organised a take-the-kids-from-an-orphanage-out-for-the-day-to-the-park-and-love-them-day thing and once again i decided to join in. and again it was awesomtastic. i’m not the most kid-friendly person in the world…like, i would suck at being a kindergarten teacher, but i really do enjoy spending time with kids and just loving on them and making them feel wanted and loved and adored and listened to and whatever, even if it was for one day atleast they got to feel special.
2. vision k/youth/scripture union camp – as i said, i would suck at being a kindergarten teacher. and i would probably suck at being a middle/high school teacher as well, but if i had to choose, i would go for the middle/high school age group. so i’ve talked a bit about my exploits with vision k this year, and i may have mentioned the scripture union leadership camp as well – can’t remember, but yea, both of those and the youth group at my church have been highlights in my life this year. i truly do enjoy hanging out with youth and finding out where they are and if possible helping in their journey towards adulthood. i’ve been through the teenage years myself, and sometimes i still act like i’m going through them, and i remember how hard it was for me, so any help i can give someone else…
3. turning 25 – i liked turning 25. scary, yet…super cool. like i felt like i was finally an adult in a lot of ways. turning 26 is not scary, but it feels kinda sucky, don’t know if i’m going to enjoy it much.
4. namrock/baptism – so wrote a lot on namrock, and wrote about getting baptised. and definite highlights they were.
5. worship team – lots of memories. lots of laughs. lots of growing. thankfulness.
6. http://tsholo.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/worship-setlist-september-27-2009/ – i’ve been to PE quite a few times, and i always…well, i guess hate is a strong word but…well, it’s the right word. i always hated it. i was ok with like 2 days, but after that i was ready to leave. this year my dad moved to PE, then my sister also moved there. at the end of the year my lil bro is also moving there. so it will just be me and my mom in the western cape (sadness). but yea, the visit in september was so awesomtastic, i didn’t want to leave. and i’m looking forward to visiting again first week of next year…and throughout 2010. PE Love!
7. flatmating – had a super awesomtastic flatmate this year. i learned a lot from her and i totally appretiate the flatmate she was and all the talks and all the laughs and discovering “The OC” together and our late night dvd’ing and sms’ing each other from the other side of the wall and the sharing and all of it, it’s been great Lindz, will miss sharing a flat with you.
8. music and friends – the south african music scene is wow! and it’s even better when it’s live, and it’s shared with friends. new altum, flat stanley, just jinjer, aking, gravity wins again, straatligkinders, irvine, lua union, the lottery tickets, heldervue, black markets riots, 3rd world spectator, saint fearless, the rescue, tree63, the arrows, bed on bricks – just off the top of my head. memorable moments also include: being kidnapped and forced to go to the beach at 2 am when i was working the next morning, sneaking into the botanical gardens after it was closed and having a photo shoot after making a 20 minute video of us talking nonsense, TEAM AWESOMTASTIC, awesomtastic enGAGE dinners at Ginos and awesomtastic cricket watching at Ginos, SUPER inappropriate conversations and the birth of SOKs…and so much more…I really thank God for friends!
and then two more not in the photo albums, just to round it off
9. blogging – nablopomo(?) was really good for my blogging…blogging everyday for a month is not easy, totally respect those who do it year round. good and challenging. blogging has been so good for me though. it’s been a place for me to just spill what’s in my head onto something else and just get it out of my system so that it doesn’t take over. so thank you for reading.
10. God – lots of up and downs, lots of screaming and shouting, lots of late night pop-corn and cookies and ice-cream (He loves those), lots of laughing, lots of reminders, lots of fulfilled promises, lots of pouring on of LOVE, lots of us time, too much ingnoring from my side, lots of forgiveness, lots of convictions, lots of happiness and joy, more love and more reminders, lots of blessings, lots of breathe, lots of guidance, lots of mercy and grace, more love, lots of comforting, lots of more reminders for/to hope, lots of everything. Everything and LOVE!
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and one more that had nothing to do with me but stands out this year was the wedding of the fish and TBV…read about it here.
Sacred vs Secular
Posted on: August 19, 2009
- In: being Christ-like | my life | NaBloPoMo | thoughts
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1. This is my 31st post in a month…yes, I did…31 posts in 31 days. I really admire people who blog everyday (where do you people come up with stuff to say?). Anyway, I’ve decided that I will not be posting everyday anyway, I will post when I have something to post…maybe I’ll revert back to my once a week posts…who knows…
2. Got nothing to say today so I pulled one out of the archives. I wrote this one a couple of years ago…and since then I have met kindred spirits who also believe that Joshua Davidson is Lord of all, and that we need to stop labeling things as sacred and secular…He is Lord of my life when I’m at cell group as well as Lord of my life when I’m at work and even Lord of my life when I’m at home watching TV…Brett is actually doing a mini-series on it in his “Thort For The Week”…an email he sends weekly challenging peeps in their Christian walk.
Anyway, here goes…
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Here’s my problem: I like rock music. Yea, I know – black rock chick doesn’t make sense (but that’s another topic for another day). Anyway, lately I’ve been getting sermons from everywhere I turn and everyone I talk to about how rock music is the devil’s music. As a Christian you shouldn’t listen to rock. It doesn’t matter if the lyrics are good and they glorify God, as long as the song falls under the genre of rock, you shouldn’t listen to it, much less sing it.
My thoughts on this: yes, maybe Lucifer may have been the angel of music or whatever, but who is the original creator of music? (John 1:3). The Psalms tell us over and over again to praise God will all different kinds of instruments and nowhere in the bible does it ever exclude any genre of music. There’s probably someone out there who could use the bible to prove me wrong and prove that certain music is “ungodly” but I guess I feel that if God didn’t want me to listen to it he would convict me about it.
In conclusion: I guess I don’t believe that there is such a thing as the devil’s music (Colossians 1:16, 20). All things, even our creativity or artisticness, belong to God, but like anything else we fallen humans with the help of Lucifer, have made it something ungodly.
I think, or have been told, that I’m slowly becoming a liberal Christian. I don’t know what that means exactly but I think it means that I don’t like labels like secular and sacred and other such labels that are there to measure how much more “God-approved” something is over another. Humans come up with all these labels and I don’t agree with them. If that is what being liberal is then, yea, I guess I kinda am.
Humility…false vs true
Posted on: August 18, 2009
- In: being Christ-like | my life | NaBloPoMo | thoughts
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“in true humility, consider others better than yourselves” – the Bible
true humility: i think the concept of humility has been misunderstood around Christian circles. i know i’ve definitely misunderstood it. i don’t think it helped to grow up in a culture of “children should be seen but not heard” mentality…or just growing up in a home where all you got was critisism and never praise (ie you constantly had your faults pointed out, but you were never told “good job” or “i’m proud of you” when you did good). So i’m dealing with this – figuring out what true vs false humility looks like…what God meant when he said we should humble ourselves…that whole “blessed are the meak” thing…you know?
And well, this is what I’ve got so far:
humility ->
what it is not
- looking down on yourself
- telling God he did a crappy job with you
- telling God he made a mistake with/on you
- focusing solely on your weaknesses and beating yourself up (or actually, down) about them
(Joshua Davidson was humble, and yet He was well aware of his divinity and his place as God’s son)
what it is
- the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc (online dictionary)
- being able to set yourself aside for the betterment of others (wow, that sounded smart)
- being able to see both your strengths and weaknesses and accept both
- not judging others when they fail to meet your expectations
(phil 2: 3, 8; luke 6: 42; romans 12:3)
false humility, i think, comes in two forms
either you drive yourself down because you don’t think you are deserving of good stuff or you talk yourself yourself down just so that other people can compliment you and make you feel better about yourself
true himility is knowing your strengths, and using them to help others who might be weak in those areas, and knowing your weaknesses, being able to ask for help, and working to improve those weaknesses instead of running away from them
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so, not looking down on yourself…hmmm…
i’m still working on accepting the good, which i wrote about at some point here…and i’ve come to the conclusion that it also includes accepting compliments…which is super hard for me to do. when people give me a compliment i want to follow it up with a “but…” (eg complimenter: “you sang well tonight”; me: “yea thanks, but there was that one note…” or “thanks…i guess it was a bit better than i did at practice…oh wow, practice sucked…let me tell you in full detail the sucktacularness of my singing at practice”) – in other words, i tend to take the focus off the compliment and focus on the negative…or if i can’t do that, i drive the focus off me and onto someone else (eg complimenter: “you sang well tonight”; me: “yea thanks, but did you hear Ronel, she led so well tonight…like she was on point for every single song…”)
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i love being a member of the “worship” team. however, i hate the sound of my voice and thus end up singing very softly and it kind of becomes a “why are you even here?” type of deal…i don’t know if the other members are all thinking it, but i definitely am…and i’ve thought about quitting dozens of times, but then i know i’ve quit singing dozens or times in the past and only end up going back to it and so trying to stop the cycle. anyway, the biggest reason why i want to quit is because I feel like i’m letting people down…i feel like i’m using up this mic space that someone else could be using to actually do something.
but i love singing…and i love worshipping God through singing…but i don’t have to do it from up front…right? but on the other hand, God said if you don’t use the talents he’s given you he’ll take them away right? (parable of the talents)
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last night we were talking about father wounds (issues caused by the fatherless generation) and one of the things that stood out was how those with these wounds tend to feel one or both of the following: 1. never feeling good enough, 2. running away when the going gets tough, and leaving things half finished. I’ve written about the first one before cos I knew that that’s where it came from…but the second not so much…i think that will be the follow up to this post…so stay tuned.
One Remaining Breath
Posted on: August 17, 2009
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I actually meant to post a different song on here today but then on Saturday I went to check out a performance by this band and fell in love with them again…the passion in their music and the belief in what they are saying…I was blown away.
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Title: One Remaining Breath
Artist: New Altum
Album: Grace Forbids a Hopeless Case
Year: 2008
He felt the weight of a thousand waves crashing overhead
His heart was right but body so frail
The shore had called his name
NO, not this time
NO, not ever
The oceans voice rang clear
The deafening silent depths
As water filled his lungs
He loses breath
With nothing left to hold
He clutches to his chest
With one remaining beat
And one remaining breath
A spark has been lit
In his eyes a grain of hope
As he takes the line I cast
Faith will stir in him to breathe
The breath of trust
He felt the weight of a thousand waves crashing overhead
His heart was right but body so frail
The shore had called his name
NO, not this time
NO, not ever
The heat of the fire will burn
The water off his chest
The dryness of his tears
And calmness of his breath
Trust will conquer
He held his head up high
And rose above the see
With fire in his eyes
A spark has been lit
In his eyes a grain of hope
As he takes the line I cast
Faith will stir in him to breathe
The breath of trust
[this is your chance to be part of something right now]
He will rise tonight
He will rise above the sea
With one remaining breath
One remaining God
He will rise, with his head held high.
Reads of the week 4
Posted on: August 15, 2009
- In: likes | NaBloPoMo | Read Of The Week
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The Jesus Needs New PR is a whole series of blogs so didn’t have as many blogs to link this week…and I decided to add some quotes…hope you enjoy
http://moralfibre.co.za/blog/2009/08/prayer-gets-a-make-over-dear-god/
http://www.thechurchofnopeople.com/2009/08/five-people-who-wont-kill-your-church.html
http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2009/08/375-forgetting-who-we-are.html
http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com/
quotes from sex week blogs on Jesus Needs New PR…
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Matthew interviewing Rob Bell
MATTHEW: If humanity is made in the image of God then what does sexuality say about our Creator? What part of God might it represent?
ROB: I’m compelled and fascinated with Trinitarian theology, which insists that God is
an endless self-giving community of sacrificially creative loving “oneness” in which the members of the Trinity move around each other, serving and deferring to one another so that the other may thrive. The church fathers called this “perichoresis” from which we get the word “choreography” or “dance.”
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Opinion on Is Masturbation Sin
Ecclesiastes 9:10 is not a pro masturbation passage even though it says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” – Tal Prince (www.talprincelive.com)
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quotes from mission year blogs
“who my heart loves is up to You, because You own my heart and You teach it to love and You love through me.” God loves everyone and if He lives in us, then like 1 John 4:12 says, “His love is made complete in us.” and “perfect love drives out fear.” 1 John 4:18 – Stevie Neale
“It’s a good thing the Spirit intercedes on our behalf, stepping in to protect us from what we think we want and helping us not to settle for what we think we need.” – Shane Claiborne
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random quote
What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. – Dave Barry
living it out…finally…but not
Posted on: August 15, 2009
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i finally went to the street evangelism thing…that’s why i was unable to blog on wednesday night…i went to work, then from there went to cell group, then went to the evangelism thing…except no evangelism took place…and got home pretty late…and way too spiritually/emotionally broken/wrecked to even turn on my pc.
this was a note written by brett about the evening, i’m brain-dead today so i’m just going to copy and paste what he wrote
“we had Ephesians cell where we Ephesian’d (it’s a verb) and that was pretty cool too – spent a lot of the day reading Ephesians commentary and found out some very interesting things i was not aware of like a letter that starts ‘I, Paul’ has questions about its authorship and might have been a ‘to the church at ______’ [insert name here] epistle that got passed around. That around 75 verses of the 144ish are found or very similarly found in the book of Colossians. interesting stuff, and good Romany Creams oh yes.
and after that a bunch of us headed out to our vineyard society office which we have converted to a 24 hour boiler room so all Christians worldwide have the opportunity to come in and pray there anytime (and a bunch of them from other church denominations do which is absolutely great – yes i think i’m done with great/grape, failed experiment!) for the purpose of listening to God (and worshiping cos Stephen brought his guitar) and then heading out to pray for/love people if we felt He was leading us to.
in some parts of the world and the country it has been called doing a treasure hunt, a term i really don’t like especially cos when i originally heard it it sounded like this fun funky gimmicky thing all about the me who was doing it – hey for a laugh lets pray and get clues from God and go out and pray for the people God leads us to. then i watched this interesting/challenging/encouraging/mind-opening movie called Finger of God and in one part a bunch of students embarked on a treasure hunt, but the way they described it it sounded all about what God was doing and they were just wanting to go out and love people, and be obedient, and that did sound good to me.
so me and the beautiful Val and stephen and tsholo and emo kev and roy and kim and andrew went to the office and worshipped and listened to God. it was great.
we didn’t get any specific images or clues that led us out but i heard God speak to me a lot. mostly through a bunch of Bible verses people have written all over the walls (on paper we put for them to do thusly) and i felt strongly that God was telling me last night was all about me (well us) but not in an ‘it’s all about you’ way but more a ‘hey let’s hang – i need you with me before i need you going out and doing stuff’ and just an immense desire to pray a lot (i love praying but i often struggle to pray and especially a lot)
the biggest desire, which i know has been my personal desire, but which i strongly suspect is God’s as well, was just imagining Christians from all over waking up or leaving wherever they were and just arriving at our time of prayer (altho after 8 more we probly would have had to leave) which then became the grass area near Mugging Bean – just Christians being drawn to a central spot and engaging in heartfelt spontaneous worship, and then maybe going out and loving and praying and changing the town. and so that became the focus of my prayer for a long time – God unite your church, break through denomination, break through style, break across culture and just bring singleminded Christians together to worship you and love this town. it was pretty intense and i think i would dig to call an all nighter prayer time there sometime soon for that very reason. Stellenbosch still sadly has quite a divided church.
and so God spoke to us and through us and we worshipped Him in known song and made-up song and it was really a great time. at the beginning we decided that we would wait on God but if He didn’t tell us to go out we wouldn’t and that was really cool. we are meeting every week at 9:30pm there and anyone is invited to join us and it’s all about listenng to God, waiting on Him and being obedient so maybe next time we’ll go out, that was not really the point. we met with God. He confirmed His love and calling of us.
it was a great day.”
my comment on the note was that i have also been thinking about the all-night prayer thing and then Michael-John said the same thing…so maybe God’s trying to tell us something
also, if you’ll notice, Brett’s on his tip about the Church unity again, as i talked about on tuesday, he’s very passionate about that.
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the thing i took out of the evening was how it’s not so much about the doing…it’s about obedience. when God calls you to go, you should go. i was willing to go that night if he had told us to go…and i think, or hope, that was pleasing in his sight!
he is the answer
Posted on: August 13, 2009
- In: lyrics | my life | my stuff | thoughts
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(partly inspired by what this world needs by casting crowns)
I used to think that it was all about me
I only lived to satisfy my needs
Thought I was the playwrite and director
Till the truth was revealed and i fell to my knees
it’s not about me
he is the answer and I am not
before the question is even asked
we already know
that he is the answer
all for the glory of the risen king
who died for my sins so willingly
i laid my life down and took up my cross
and followed the one who has set me free
it’s not about me
he is the answer and I am not
before the question is even asked
we already know
that he is the answer
Lord, that you would use me
that you have a part for me in your plan
Father, to see your kingdom come
yes Lord, i surrender my life into your hand
it’s not about me
he is the answer and I am not
before the question is even asked
we already know
that he is the answer
dreams…the while sleeping kind…
Posted on: August 13, 2009
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short and sweet today…had something else planned for yesterday but then never got around to posting it…will get to why on friday…normal thursday blog will be up later today…
without further ado…
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I hardly ever dream…well, actually according to experts I dream every night, i just don’t remember the dreams…but in June I had this one really good dream…in July I had the same dream from a month before 3 nights in a row…in August (this month, the last 2 nights infact) I had the same dream again…well, no, it was not the same dream but kind of a continuation of the previous dreams…and i remember everyone of them…interesting to say the least…
now, i would say those dreams were good…seriously – I woke up happy on all those occassions…and then when fully awake, i realised that it was all a dream and it will never happen in real life. And that wasn’t good…not good at all…pretty sad actually.
so what makes a good dream…one that makes you happy while you are dreaming, or one that leaves you happy when you wake up?
i wish dreams came true…well, the ones i choose to come true…like i wish i could pick and choose which ones i want to come true…and i guess you could work at making them come true, but sometimes they depend on other people and so you don’t actually have a say in whether they come true or not…i digress…
Anyway, yesterday someone said [speaking about God] “He dreams dreams for you”…bam! I was super stoked…and i know God doesn’t sleep so I know it’s not the while sleeping kind, but He has dreams for me…he has included me in his kingdom plans…He dreams dreams for me, and his dreams for me are so much bigger and better than anything I could ever dream up! Now that’s a good dream!
Love it…
who/what is enGAGE
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a bunch of people who believe in and are aiming to be:
[1] Fully devoted Followers of Christ
[2] Growing in Community
[3] Giving Generously
[4] Witnessing Unashamedly
[5] Worshipping Passionately
[6] Serving Purposefully
The name enGAGE reminds us that church is not that meeting that takes place on a Sunday but it is a body of believers and the four focus points of enGAGE are to:
Engage with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Engage with the Bible – reading, knowing and doing
Engage with each other – the community of believers, building and living in authentic relationship with each other
Engage with society – people outside of the church, showing them God’s love and grace and pointing them to Him.
(from the enGAGE website)
why the capital GAGE in enGAGE?
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American spelling of gauge…as in to measure…so the name reminds us that “we are constantly needing to Gauge/measure where we are in life compared to where we should be and continually trying to narrow that gap”…we should constantly be measuring ourselves against Joshua Davidson, cos as his followers we are supposed to be trying to be more and more like him daily. “This is a journey we are on, together in community”.
(quotations from website).
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what sets us apart?
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the “broken, but beautiful bride”
Brett loves the saying “Jesus is coming back for his bride, not a harem”. There is no such thing as Churches, it’s all one Church. Anyway, he’s really passionate about bringing together the bride…and he’s somehow managed to rub off that passion on to our congregation. We are all about bringing together the whole church, not just our denomination. We love doing the stuff with other congregations in Stell/Cape Town/Somer Set West…like worship events and camps and stuff like that where we bring together the whole church and just celebrate and rejoice and be the bride together.
We have come across opposition of course, as Jon Acuff said, “only ordinary things ever get full consensus from people. Doing something extraordinary should never make complete sense to everyone in your life”, but we are slowly building bridges, maybe not as the congregation per se, but as individuals from our congregation who see the need to fellowship with other followers outside our little circle…the church is being A Church!
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one of the dudes from our church once said that the thing that sets us apart is that we are the “earthy church”…meaning we are down-to-earth. Vineyard (the international denomination one) has a thing against titles…i mean we have pastors and leadership people but we don’t have titles for them like deacons and bishops etc…we are all members of the church and each member is called to take part and minister and lead and stuff.
for instance we encourage people to share verses or messages or whatever that they feel God is laying on their hearts during worship or whatever and as Brett often says, we are all part of the priesthood so therefore we should all be praying for each other, laying hands on each other, baptising each other, ministering to each other, etc.
In fact, during the preaches there’s often inside jokes and back-chatting and adding on and questionning and aswering each other…interesting services I tell you.
we are also very much about being real…like really real…like confess your sins to each other real…from the pulpit if you feel it’s necessary (and by pulpit I mean the stool that Brett sits on during the preach…hee hee). We hang out together a lot…like outside of church…so it goes without saying that we will turn to each other for accountability and prayer and holding-each-other-up-ness, so it’s very important that we are real with each other and talk to each other and share real stuff.
we believe Christ calls you as you are…not a fake, seemingly perfect version of you…but the raw, broken, failed you. Come to the cross broken – no dressing up, no band-aids – he can’t heal you if you pretend you don’t need healing.
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why i love my church
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we believe in prayer
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there’s been a couple of times where i’ve been in the car with friends and someone tells us of a need or prayer request or whatever and we just pull the car off to the side and pray for them and minister to them right there and then.
one of my youth peoples got stabbed this past week and he came through to church on sunday evening so at the end of the service a bunch of us gathered around him to pray for healing
we believe in living out the stuff
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a friend was telling us of financial troubles and another friend said “well we’ll keep you in prayer, but in the meantime is there anything we can help with practically right now?”
we read a book in our cell about getting out of the pews and actually doing stuff which led to things like starting up “kinetic love” – an outreach group which also started up the 24-7 prayer room – and selling of hotdogs to the homeless…
we are a super funny bunch of crazies
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some of my favorite enGAGE quotes:
“i don’t want to be controlled by my scarves”
“shut up christian and go read your bible”
“every time i have a conversation with a girl i think she’s either going to laugh or fall in love with me”
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one last thing for those who live in Stellies
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wednesday nights 9:30 pm we meet in the prayer room (Neelsie, room T-29 i think, 4th floor in between the loos and TBT and across from the habitat for humanity Shack) and we have a time of prayer then we go out onto the streets and talk to/pray for/minister to people we meet. Great time of kingdom-come type stuff…please join us if you can/want to.
speaking of prayer room…for those who haven’t been there…it’s a room dedicated to 24-7 prayer…it’s open all the time and you can just pop in there and say a prayer if you wanted to.
Clouds
Posted on: August 10, 2009
- In: likes | lyrics | NaBloPoMo
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Title: Clouds
Artist: As Cities Burn
Album: Come Now Sleep
Year: 2007
Is your love really love
Is my love really love
I think love isn’t love
Unless it’s love to the end
Is your god really God
Is my god really God
I think our god isn’t God
If he fits inside our heads
