Posts Tagged ‘TBV’
Thoughts on singleness revisited
Posted on: February 1, 2011
- In: my life | thoughts
- 4 Comments
“want to find romance? commit to asking a girl out once a week (talk to henry cloud if you think that’s too much) or, if you’re a girl, put yourself on a dating site on the internet and say yes when you get asked out” – don miller
i read that and thought “don, are you out of your mind?”.
i then posted it as my facebook status and got the following comment from val (of tbv fame): “a couple of months before starting to go out with brett i decided that i was actually going to start saying ‘yes’ to dates – even if i thought it really wouldn’t work or i wouldn’t enjoy it…it was good for me to a. start giving guys chances, b. get over the fear of awkwardness on a date, c. realise that a date was not saying i wanted to marry the guy (i.e. i kissed dating hello!) i did go on some very awkward dates and had some times of literally having nothing to say to each other, and said yes to what i thought were dates but later turned out not to be and that was hard and dissapointing and i got hurt…BUT, when brett asked me out, i said yes even though a couple months before i would have said no because 1. he was way older and 2. i was nervous. and that didn’t turn out too badly”
and for those who don’t know them, when she says “didn’t turn out too badly” she means “we ended up getting married and being all happy and couply and making T think ‘aw, i want that’”… 
my friend Andy then commented “I definitely agree with Don Miller! It makes sense. To find ‘romance’ one needs to be in contact with members of the other sex, and that’s not going to happen if you shut yourself off from meeting those members.” and seeing that Andy has been in a relationship for like, i don’t know, 10 years with her boyfriend – including a year of long distance – i think she probably knows what she’s talking about when it comes to relationships.
3 short months ago, i wrote this post. and i meant every word of what i said. even that part with all the senarios which lead me to hate being single. what i failed to mention was that i was totally thinking of a specific person when i wrote those. so yea, i was, and am still, in this weird “i love being single but…” mode because of him.
anyway, in blue like jazz – which i absolutely loved! – don miller says something like (i’m too lazy to get the book so i’ll just paraphrase) “if you like a girl you should let her know. even if she doesn’t feel the same way, you’ll never regret stepping up. i’ve also learned that if the girl says she doesn’t like you back you should stop riding your bike past her house”. lol. anyway, does that apply to girls as well? if you like a boy, should you let him know? i’m not saying ask the guy out, just, you know, let him know that you are interested, and if he’s also interested then his interest would be welcome…or something…
so, should i tell the guy? or should i just sign up for an internet dating site?
Holidays: December 2010
Posted on: January 2, 2011
so i left stellenbosch on December 24th at 1am. my sister and i got into a car with a perfect stranger supposedly going to PE and headed west. “what? but PE is east…” you say, and you are right. we later found out we were first going to cape town to fetch his friend, but there was a moment there where i was like silently freaking out on the inside. anyway, stranger’s name was Giovanni, and his friends name was Sizwe. so yea, my sister and i were getting a lift to Port Elizabeth with two random guys we didn’t know. i call it adventurous, my parents call it naive. either way, the roadtrip turned out to be awesome! the guys were super funny, mostly gentlemanly with a not so gentlemanly conversations (about girls) thrown in here and there. we left CT at around 2 am and at around 5 or 6 as the sun was rising we stopped at a very deserted beach and got in the freezing water for a minute and then played catch (or hit tsholo with the ball as it is sometimes known). got to PE at around 8 am i think, and said goodbye to the guys.
the rest of the day was filled with visiting relatives and doing last minute christmas lunch food shopping and cooking up a storm. we didn’t do christmas presents this year, so no mad rush for last minute presents. i just got something for my sister and my brother.
woke up early morning on the 25th and went to church. really enjoyed that. then came home and had a fabulous lunch. then i went out for a walk. i think i was gone for about 2 hours, and everyone except my brother only realised i was gone when i walked back into the house. my sister thought i had been sleeping and my mom and dad thought i’d been watching tv in the next room. how sad is that. at least my brother realised i wasn’t around 
and that was my christmas.
on the 26th, the siblings and i decided to go to the fair. but then when i got there i realised that i didn’t really feel like being there so i started walking back home while they faired it up. then i realised that just near the fair there was a street market vibe thing happening and so i went there and found a used book vendor. i snagged me two “new” books and headed home to read. it was quite a long walk, but it was along the beach so that was cool, though by the time i got home i was too tired to read, so i just vegged in front of the tv and watched mk.
on the 27th, my sis and i woke up, cleaned the whole house, then went on a mission to find sushi. i had been seriously craving it and my sister had never tried it but i’d been talking about it so much that she decided she had to try it. according to my twitter peeps the best sushi in PE is at Fushin (central) but since my parents are anti-sushi, they weren’t willing to give us a lift into town so we decided to find something walking distance. first we went to john dory’s but i didn’t like the place…seemed too…chain restauranty for my liking…didn’t feel sushified. so then we went to the boardwalk and ended up at 34 deg South. they have a cool sign at the entrance that says “warm beer, cold food, terrible service, welcome” or something like that, and i thought that was funny so we went in. our waiter was sooo cute…his name was josh…and he was super sweet. the wine was great, the service was not so great (we had to wait forever to get seated, eventually seating ourselves and then wait forever to get a waiter to come to our table but once he did come he was awesome and kept coming over every 10 minutes to check if we were still ok), and the food took like at least an hour to make (really? did you go catch the fish yourselves?) and josh kept coming over to apologise…so cute! anyway, the food wasn’t amazing. i would go back there though just to chill and have a glass of wine, but not for the sushi. so basically we went sat at a restaurant for 2 hours for ok food. lol. afterwards my brother joined us and we went 10 pin bowling – which was so much fun. seriously enjoyed hanging with my siblings…they are a very funny pair.
on the 28th, i woke up early and headed to the beach. spend around 3 hours there just sitting and watching the waves, the other beach visitors, the surfers, and a pod/school/group of whales/dolphins/something that swam by…was super cool, but not close enough to see them too clearly…also, i don’t know how to differentiate between the fins so don’t know what it was that swam by…assuming it wasn’t sharks though cos the surfers stayed in the water. i got back home, cooked, showered, repacked and headed for the bus station.
that was followed by a 12 hour bus ride to Durban – arrived at 9am on the morning of the 29th. got to Durbs and got a lift from my friend Rasta-Kev (who does not live in Durban as i found out) to Howick. got to midmar dam and set up my tent, found out that i really didn’t need to be there that early because the volunteer tasks had already been mostly taken and so hung out for a little bit with one of the security guard ladies then went into my tent and slept. woke up just in time for a volunteer braai, which was cool…met people, ate food, then went back to sleep.
the 30th started with a 7:30 am volunteer meeting. i should explain the volunteer thing. i went to midmar dam for arisefest – a christian music festival from dec 30th – jan 1st – and i volunteered to help out with…whatever they needed helping out with. ok. so the meeting was basically to remind everyone of the duties they had signed up for. i was signed up for the merchandise tent, but it wasn’t going to be open for a while so went back to sleep some more. eventually i woke up again and went to help out with the setting up of the food tent. then afterwards i went to help out with merch tent but there were too many people in there so i was told to take a break, which left me with nothing to do, so i roamed about the dam then hung out with another of the security ladies (they were super friendly…i think they felt bad for me cos i was always walking alone) then went back to my tent until the acoustic stage started. oh yea, i also ran into Brett and Val in the food tent and then they left to go find their sleeping place or something. anyway, the acoustic stuff was pretty cool…enjoyed sitting in the sun listening to live acoustic music…and getting a shout out from versus the wolf .
after the acoustic set chilled out until the main tent stuff happened, which is when my friends (Madeleine, Louise, Ashanti, and Drew) arrived so i chilled out with them for a bit as well, then helped out in the merch tent. after my slot i went and listened to some music and then headed to bed.
31st started with a 7:30 meeting again, followed by more sleep. woke up again and headed to food tent and met new people and played cards. then headed to acoustics and listened while running around helping out where i can. went to go get lunch and ran into my friend katie and her friend roxy then hung out with them and the other peeps until the main tent stuff started. later i worked in the merch tent and got to hang out there with the VTW guys… after that, went back to more music and brought in the new year with worship – awesomeness! lots of dancing vibes after that, then went to sleep.
woke up the next morning (2011 woo hoo) and all my friends deserted me. so hung out with roxy and her friends and played 30 seconds (so much funny) then got a lift with roxy to katie’s house in PMB where i took a looooong bath and a nap, had lunch, then they gave me a lift back to Durbs to catch my bus. a 26 hour bus ride later i was back in Stellenbosch…so very tired. took another loooong bath, ate dinner, and slept.
and that was the end of my holidays. 10 days. short, but packed. fun was had. music was had. loved it.
i wrote about the musical side of arise here and here. and there’s also this post and this one also on arise…sort of.
Reads of the week – 2010 – 15
Posted on: May 1, 2010
Blogs of the week:
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Pray, think, wish, cross your fingers (Paramore – Hayley Williams – @yelyahwilliams)
A blog post: as a child i wasn’t… (Jesus needs new PR – Matthew Paul Turner – @jesusneedsnewpr)
I want to be first, I want to be last (Jesus needs new PR – Matthew Paul Turner – @jesusneedsnewpr)
Why I’m not a Christian (Tripp Crosby.com – Tripp Crosby – @trippcrosby)
On freedom day (They’re tapping all the wires but it looks like they’re tapping their feet – Lize Kay – @lizetheunicorn)
The Vision (On afternoons and coffeespoons – Valerie Anderson – ?)
Does God have a specific plan for your life? Probably not. (Donald Miller’s Blog – Donald Miller – @donmilleris)
Quotes of the week:
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“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” – JK Rowling
Faithfulness…or something like it…
Posted on: March 23, 2010
For the fellow blog-carnival’ers: I had a tough time coming up with something to write on faithfulness. Someone mentioned in one of the other posts that these days “it’s become impossible to define the word without invoking its opposite“. In the end I decided to use someone else’s writing. This was written by my pastor Brett on marriage, and I think, although it wasn’t talking about faithfulness as such, it’s appropriate.
For the non-blog-carnival’ers: This post is part of the One Word at a time blog carnival where we are working our way though the fruit of the Spirit. Check out more posts on the theme of “Faithfulness” here.
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Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness, a covenant between radically different persons, male and female; and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chosen, a covenant between radically different partners. – Rowan D. Williams
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November 13, 2009
so TBV (the beautiful Val, my lovely wife) and i arrive at a pastor’s breakfast this morning and as we walk upto one of the pastors there he looks at her and says says something along the lines of, ‘So you have to put up with this hey?’ or some other kind of jesty vibe dunno-what-to-say-so-let-me-open-my-mouth-and-see-what-spews-forth witty reparte’… he was trying to be funny and it was fine… but a little while later they were introducing some new people to the meeting and the one dude’s wife was there for the first time and when she indicated she was with him an ‘oh shame’ or something emanated from someone’s mouth…
no big deal right? just a joke.
i have heard weddings where the pastor or best men make jokes like ‘marriage is like a phone call in the middle of the night – you get a ring and then you wake up’ and a hundred variations of that.
it’s just a joke. lighten up. it means nothing.
but actually i feel very strongly that it may mean quite a significant lot!
in fact for my wedding to TBV 4 months ago (this wed) we banned people from any negative wedding humour saying that for our special day we only want to hear stuff that builds us up and blesses and speaks hope and so on for the future.
if we look at the statistics (not a big statistics fan but these ones are pretty sound whichever way you look at them) we see that marriages as a whole in South Africa (and the western world at large) are not doing so great – in fact we are doing badly – as a nation we suck at marriage – and taking it further if you look at the stats of Christian marriages here they are no better – pretty much exactly the same as non-Christian marriage stats… as Christians we suck at marriage…
could it be that to some part where we curse marriage (in jest by little comments we make and insinuations and jokes breaking down marriage) verbally that curse takes up home in our lives (an invited guest)?
i am not saying that negative jokes/comments about marriage are the reason for our high divorce rate. but i am saying that i don’t think they are healthy and that they start to imprint the smallest suggestions or hints of ideas that we may later cling to as truth. and that can have disastrous results.
a marriage does not end in a moment – it is eroded over time – like water from a waterfall flowing onto rocks below that have become smoothed with age, gradually worn away again and again until they are no longer there.
and so i strongly urge you to speak blessing into your relationships and over your relationships and especially into/over other peoples relationships. speak life into them and not even a hint of pulling down. marriages and in fact all relationships are difficult enough (constantly under external attack) without us adding anything to make them even harder.
let’s FIGHT TO REVERSE THE NORM!!! we made bold declarations at our wedding that we want our relationship to succeed and that we hold ourselves accountable to all our friends and family who witnessed it and that we see them as being responsible for assisting us in living out a good and Godly and positive and role-modelling relationship.
relationships do work. marriage can succeed. But it’s largely about being intentional and persevering and fighting for and loving (with Christ’s self-sacrificing love) and doing that day after day after day – killing compromise and pride and dealing decisively with anger and selfishness and more.
my name is brett FISH anderson and i am VERY HAPPILY MARRIED to THE BEAUTIFUL VALERIE and i will fight for that as i choose her again every new day. how about you? let’s do this thing!
by Brett Fish Anderson
Dec ’09 – Jan 10 holidays
Posted on: January 19, 2010
- In: likes | music | my life
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Dec ’09 – Jan 10 holidays
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Holidays started at 5pm on December 22nd – last day of work for 2009. On the 23rd I moved my stuff out of my flat, but didn’t have keys to my new flat yet so I stashed my stuff in the Anderson’s garage…yay for church being church! then my sister and i boarded a bus and drove 12 hours to Thaba Nchu in the Free State to my grandmothers house, which is where i grew up. so many childhood memories…and yet my small little town keeps growing and i barely recognise some of the places anymore…guess that’s what happens when you don’t go home in 5 years. we spent Christmas in the Free State surrounded by my grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc…then on the 29th we boarded the bus again and headed to Howick, Kwa-Zulu Natal for “Arise Fest”. It should have been an 8 hr journey, but because of delays ended up being 14 hrs…oh, and actually the bus only took us as far as Peitermaritzburg (mouthful) and then my friend Katie picked us up from there and we went with her to Howick.
i generally don’t celebrate new year’s day/eve/whatever…for me it’s just another day/eve/whatever. i was born on april 4th, therefore for me the year ends on the the 3rd and starts on the 4th…of April, that is. i actually just prefer sleeping on the 31st rather than doing the whole count-down thing. i don’t mind going out on that night…but then it’s like a normal going out night. well, this year Arise Fest – a christian music festival – was organised from Dec 30 to Jan 1st so I decided to go because i’m a live music junkie – turned out to be the best thing i could have done. i was introduced to much new music…and they were all south african musicians/bands. anyway, i think i’m gonna take a break from buying international music and get more acquainted with the local scene.
as i said, it was a christian music festival so most of the bands i’d never even heard of…no christian music stations in my town…and they are local so they don’t get any airplay on TBN. i decided to go cos John Ellis (formally of Tree63) and New Altum (one of my favorite bands right now) were playing, but i was genuinely and pleasantly surprised by all the talent that i encountered. i’ll list the bands at the end of this post. Arise Fest was organised by Arise Ministries who apparently do a lot of youth events in KZN…check them out if you live in that area. anyway, so we brought 2010 in with worship, and i hope to daily live in worship till there are no more calendars to buy.
on Jan 1st we went with Katie back to her house for breakfast and oh my stomach! i usually don’t eat breakfast, but on that day i ate! such a feast! thank you so much to the Wirth’s for their hospitality and the lifts from the bus station to howick, and back again. again with church being church…love!
ok so noon’ish we boarded the bus once more and headed back to Free State. got there in the evening, went straight to bed and woke up to a very rainy, wet morning so stayed indoors the whole day. the next day – the 3rd – we loaded up the car and began our 9 hr trip to Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. I then spent the next few days either sleeping, reading, or on the beach watching surfers do their thing. was super awesome. i have to say, Summerstrand beach in PE has sealed it’s place as my favorite beach i’ve been to so far (side note: summer strand beach? summer – english; strand – afrikaans for beach; summerbeach beach? and why the double language? anywho…) the highlight of PE though, has to be when I got to watch my cousin and his band (New Afro Teens) open for an international artist – Puff Johnson, whom I don’t know but apparently she’s big on the R & B scene…but yea, my cuz (Melikhaya) has a VOICE!!! Talent in that kid! Anyway, early on the morning of the 10th of Jan my mom and I packed up our bags, said goodbye to my dad, sister and brother and headed back to the Western Cape, she to Cape Town, I to Stellenbosch. another 9 hr trip – of which I drove 6 hrs. I then moved some of my stuff into the new flat, met my new flatmates and…well, the rest – as they say – is chemistry.
List of Bands from Arise Fest
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the more church-worshippy vibes
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John Ellis (love love love John Ellis live, he makes being on stage look fun…but then he dissed me and my sister in front of hundreds of people – not cool, Johnny, not cool)
5 Fold(have heard Brad Klynsmith’s solo stuff before and still love “let me found…” and “Majesty”)
Hilton Greig Band
Harbourlight (bagged me a new autographed cd and they provided me with a soundtrack to my drive from PE to Stell)
Tomfoolish
Tracing Sunday (lead singer/guitarist is also lead for Arise Band and was main organiser for the festival if i’m not mistaken)
Arise Band (played us into the new year which was awesome. i would have been bummed if they had stopped to do the countdown cos…worshipping is so much more yay than changing a calendar!)
the more hardcore stuff
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New Altum (bagged me a pin…and a future_glasses tank – read about future_glasses here)
Truth Revealed
Show and Tell (the event managers had to stop their set cos things got kinda out of hand in the mosh pit and things were being thrown and hecticness)
for the less hardcore rock lovers among us
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Coals of Juniper (instrumental)
Scarlet Hill
the Ranks (bagged me a new t-shirt)
jersey
for the dancing fools
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superlative
Cr8 (dj)
and the hip-hoppers
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Remix’d
The accoustic sessions:
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Arlyn Culwick (accompanied by Stephen Wirth) – Arlyn’s voice is UH-MAZING!!! Wow! Also, got a cd of him covering Donovan’s “Young but growing”.
Miles – his guitaring left me speechless…oh my wowness!!!
Molly And I – who were also the Ranks, with lead/drummer switching and bassist and keyboardist switching…classic.
Crossingpoint (another hardcore one) was on the line-up but ended up not playing because the first night things went on way past the planned stopping time (i heard some people from another camp next to us came and complained about the noise and the lateness)…but it’s all good cos they sent me a tweet and apologised for not playing (shweeet!!!)
- Did I leave out anyone?
Anyway, I tweeted about Arise as much as I could and took as many pics as I could before the battery on my phone gave out on me so if you’re on twitter search for #arisefest. I also posted a few pics on my flickr page.
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.
Vision K Camp 2 – 2009
Posted on: December 16, 2009
- In: my life | thoughts
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I promised a post on this a while ago, then I forgot, then I was asked to write an article on it for the VK newsletter…so here’s what I wrote.
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On the 30 October, 2009 we loaded up the buses once again and headed to Groot Wintershoek to another Vision K camp. Groot Wintershoek is quite a drive to get to but it’s so worth it. The campsite is on top of a mountain…no cellphone reception, no tv, no traffic…just peace and serenity. And the caretakers of the campsite were also very cool – very hippy-like and all about recycling and preserving the earth and such – and they were also extremely nice.
Anyway, we had a group of 22 learners, 4 VK facilitators, Brett – who leads k-talk, a spin-off of VK where he meets with those learners who want to once a week to talk about God, spirituality, religion, whatever – and his wife Valerie, our 2 international volunteers who help out with the admin side of VK, and of course Lizelle and Erlo helping with the meal preparations (a couple of the students actually wrote a rap song for Lizelle and Erlo to thank them for the meals…that’s how good the food was).
The topics discussed on the second camp of the year are spirituality, morality and ethics. We discuss what they are, how your morality and ethics are formed and how religion and culture influence those. Basically it’s a time for the learners to do some soul-searching and look at what they believe and why they believe the things they believe…so the point is not to tell them what to believe, but rather to get them to think through their belief systems and worldviews.
One of the highlights of the camp is that the facilitators meet with each individual learner and give them personal feedback, as in which areas we’ve seen growth throughout the year and where we think they still have some growth potential. As it’s not something i thought about through the year, when we were doing the “reviews” it was the first time i actually took a step back and thought about where the learners were at the beginning of the year and where they are now. So. Much. Growth. And that, for me, is what makes VK worth it: seeing that there has been a noticeable growth in the individuals life throughout the year.
We ended off the camp on the 1st of November by going to swim at a beautiful natural pool near the campsite…and for the learners who come from a township where there are no public pools nearby, swimming is quite a treat. So the camp ended with lots of smiles, from both the leaders and the learners…doesn’t get any better than that!
Please do stop by FredMcKinnon.com for more setlists and sermon recaps from around the world…
Morning
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Come now is the time to worship (Brian Doerkson)
Alles vir my (Afrikaans) (Retief Burger)
Dula le rona (Sotho) (Paul Mpete)
Desert song (Brooke Fraser)
Give us clean hands (Chris Tomlin)
All who are thirsty (Brenton Brown/Glenn Robertson)
How deep the father’s love for us (Stuart Townend)
Firstly let me start by saying how much I love the fact that I live in a country with 11 official language…and how much I love going to a church that realises that and attempts to worship in different languages!
Ronel led worship this morning – was cool having the evening guys leading in the morning service…well, i thought it was cool. Morning service crowd has quite a different vibe from the evening service crowd so it’s very cool for me whenever we do stuff in the morning or when the morning service people visit the evening service.
Speaking of different people doing stuff together, Chris (the pastor) spoke on the church of Acts (chapter 2) in his series of church being community. He talked on unity in diversity…so basically people who are different coming together as one. The term used in the old testament for the trinity is also the term used in the whole the man shall leave his mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one…how cool is that. As the church that is the picture we are supposed to present…different people from different backrounds/ethinicities/tribes/tongues/etc coming together to praise and worship him in our togetherness…living together, sharing together, praying together, showing the world real unity/peace/love…
The vineyard church is very big on the theme of “everyone gets to play”…basically, we have pastors and leaders and etc but everyone is gifted in some way and everyone has a role to play in the church…the pastor has his part and each congregant has their part…if one person doesn’t do his part, we all hurt as the church.
Chris also touched on the church of acts vs the church in Paul’s letters. He talked about how the church in Acts was how it was the intended model (Acts 2: 42ff) and the church in Paul’s letters was the remedial model…the one that God allows because we live in a falled world and get things wrong and etc…and there’s a place for both…but sometimes we get so comfortable and dependent on the remedy that we can’t get back to normal…let’s leave the remedy and get back to health…to realising that church is not the building…we are the church…we are all part of the priesthood…we all have a part to play.
Evening
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For the evening service we had planned to go to the beach and have a jam sesion picnic there but the wind forced us to change our plans. We ended up going to play bingo at a local pub/bar/place and then after that we went to Brett and Val’s place and had game night with crumpets…and lots and lots of laughs…
Love my church family!
Your name is holy (You are the sovereign I AM) (Brian Doerkson)
Better is one day (Matt Redman)
Facedown (Matt Redman)
I love your presence (Darren Clark/ Jessie Lane)
I am a huge fan of God moments. This morning Chris “the pastor” was supposed to speak on community…he’s doing a whole series on it…but then God took over the service and did His own thing. Chris went up during announcements and (while shaking) told the congregation how angry he was about how Christians are ok with settling. He said he was angry with himself and us about how we settle and we grow comfortable with sin in our lives…we compromise…we work on the stuff that others can see, but the internal stuff (pride, holding on to hurts, unforgiveness, etc) we just let fester and we don’t deal with it. He was so angry he decided to take a moment to cool off. Brett went to up and he was supposed to go do announcements about youth stuff but then he ended up giving a 15 minute mini-preach about how we have compromised and accepted the world’s view of relationships. Stats say that the divorce rate between Christian couples and non-Christian couples is exactly the same…yet we as Christians know that marriage is an earthly example of Christ’s relationship with the Church…so what are we saying about our relationship with Christ? Are we displaying the love of Christ?
One topic that has been discussed a lot this past week by Brett and Val is little comments that, although they are meant as jokes, they are very likely to cause “problems” in marriages. For example, people who refer to their wives as “the old ball and chain” or something similar…if my (possible future) husband called me that, it would hurt and I don’t think it would be displaying his love to me, which might lead me to become less amped about loving him. Also, what picture are you presenting to the young men around you who may be thinking about marriage? And yes it’s a joke, and it may be funny, but it may also cause hurt. Marriage is a beautiful thing (picture), but if we keep tearing at it and making fun of it, it may lose it’s significance, it’s beauty, it’s meaning…and that, inho, is one of the main causes of divorces today.
Evening service is taking on a different look as most of the students have finished for the year and have gone home…so it looks less like a service and more like a gathering – no music, no formal preach, just a “hey let’s get together and worship differently”… We had around 15 people tonight and we sat in a circle and pretty much discussed the issue of building each other up and blessing each other instead of ripping into each other and making those jokes that may seem innocent but may also break the other person down unintentionally…so basically continuing the morning’s talk but with a focus of us as a congregation rather than marriage context. We pretty much realised that course talk (Ephesians 5) can lead to hurt, e.g. if you make a joke about someone and they take it the wrong way. And also, even if the other person takes it as a joke, if someone else walks by, not knowing the context of the joke or the relationship between the joker and the jokee, will the words of your mouth speak blessings or curses to them…will they see the love of Christ in your words?
So basically lesson of the day: watch what you say. Build each other up. Verbally bless one another.
Such a super awesome day!
For more setlists and sermon recaps go to FredMcCommick.com…
