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Rob's Blog
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Church Life
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Monday, 20 February 2012 13:02 |
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 I was reading Acts 2:40-47 the other day. Allow me a quick sketch the ten point skeleton of it:
| Those who received the word were baptised |
(people got saved, repented and wet) |
Continually devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching and fellowship |
(Bible study and hanging out) |
| Breaking bread and prayer |
(communion and prayer meetings |
| In one accord in the temple |
(larger, unified expressions of the church) |
Divided what they had among them
as anyone had need |
(generosity and sharing) |
| Breaking bread |
(mentioned twice, I never noticed that) |
| From house to house |
(house meetings or cell group) |
Ate their food with gladness
and simplicity of heart |
(sharing meals and the KISS principle) |
| Praising God |
(gotta have worship hey?) |
| Having favour with all the people |
(yes the outsiders were afraid of them) |
I don't know what your history has told you. Maybe you are all for mega church, or building oriented church services feel toxic to you. Maybe you love house church, simple church or you've left all together - just out there on your own. But as I read Acts 2, I am challenged. To whatever extent this represents a valid picture of "church" it represents a great template to compare ourselves against. So how are we doing?
At Storm Harvest we meet every fortnight from house to house. The other weekend is supposed to be family based worship/prayer/bible study. We've got a Monday night Bible study and a Thursday for the kids at high school. Prayer meeting Wednesdays. So what's missing? I reckon we lack communion (though recently God commented that we do "the eating and fellowship" pretty well!) Got that covered. The congregations in my town suck at doing stuff together (but are super good at synagogue style service). So far we've experimented pretty heavily in community and living together - having all things in common etc. We're also pretty short on favour with "those outside" and seeing baptisms (only had one last year). There's work to be done for sure. How about you?
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Family Life
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Monday, 06 February 2012 12:46 |
 This weekend my family trekked up to Parksbourne to my brother's 80 acre farm "Billabong Gap" to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents. My brother keeps cattle on the surrounding paddocks, and works in town. My business partner Jaemin Frazer works from the nearby city of Goulburn. If you can imagine an old homestead, extended over the years, with wide windows, green gardens, trellised vines, an orchard, a courtyard with fountain... something lifted from the pages of "House and Garden"
50 years married (and 75 years of age) is nothing to be sneezed at. Try these figures for a start:
- 52% of people who get married end up in divorce.
- 50% of couples married today make their 15th wedding anniversary (26% of all who marry).
- 10% of those couples make their 50th wedding anniversary (2.6% of all who marry).
Indeed we found it remarkable to look at the three sons - each married in their 20th year or beyond, with grandkids ranging from 25 to 5 (12 in all) who are just now coming into the age of marriage themselves. Nobody was saying it was easy. In fact mum and dad's memoirs of their happiest moments over 50 years were often interrupted with stories from the boys about funny and horrible things that had happened to us as we grew up too. (Just ask me why none of the three boys like or drink strawberry flavoured milk anymore after a long car trip one summer). All in all it was a wonderful time of family and celebration. |
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Spiritual life
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Sunday, 29 January 2012 17:26 |
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 The first sign of Summer Camp 2012 was the arrival of port-a-loos. Then came a delivery van with vegetables, and a call from the butcher to come get boxes of meat. 30 young people (aged 15-30) descended upon Salt Clay Road to set up tents, bedding and bring equipment for the service day on Sunday. Needless to say, it was a full house - with the Hefren family and us making 45 in all.
The theme of the weekend was the Heart of David - and I taught from the overview stream of the Davidic School of Ministry. We looked at the way in which the heart, ministry, throne and kingdom of David prefigure or model the heart, ministry, throne and kingdom of Christ. Look at some of the connections:
• Jesus is the son of David (Acts 13:22/Isa. 11:1,11).
• God established an everlasting covenant with David in Christ (2 Sam. 7:4-17/Isa. 55:3)
• The church is the restoration of the tabernacle of David (Amos 9:11/Acts 15:16).
• The key of David is in the hands of Christ (Isa. 22:22/Rev. 3:7).
• Jesus sits on the throne of David (Luke 1:32/Isa. 16:5).
• David's government is ever increasing and has been placed upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ (Isa. 9:5,6).
This was a wonderful time of teaching, discussion, debate and prayer. In the evenings we gathered for ministry and worship. On Sunday many arose early to work on community service projects - mowing, weeding, building & babysitting. Meals were made and taken as a community. Probably the thing that blessed my heart more than anything else was the way the younger ones - some of my kids and some of Dean and Sue's kids stayed in the teaching sessions and participated. |
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Ministry Travels
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012 09:23 |
 Over the weekend I attended the 60th birthday celebration of a dear friend Alison Papenfus. Alison's house backs into Constantia Kloof, a valley in the Randburg - a rocky outcrop of ironstone above Johannesburg. On her roof is a garden with magnificent views. My bedroom was beside the garden. (This will become important toward the end).
Party planners set up a huge, multi poled tent over the garden with tables for sixty guests. The guests started arriving at 5.30pm, were seated in the street outside the house at tressel tables laden with canned goods, dry foods, plastic bags and instructions to pack them. Doctors, lawyers, missionaries, pastors & students; black, white & indian; Jew, Muslim & Christian side by side making care packs for the poor.
It made me weep. All was to be donated to at risk children, or taken across the border to Zimbabwe. It reminded me of the Scripture abou throwing a party for those who could not pay you back (Matt 14:13) and the Proverb about lending to the poor (19:17). The party was a beautiful time of friendship, celebration, mission and conversation. I crashed into bed after midnight - once the tent was clear of guests.
At 3am I was shocked into consciousness. There was a bang, an explosion that sounded like a waterfall being thrown against a wall of glass. A shattering boom whose volume was physical. Light filled the room. The atmosphere sizzled and tingled with electricity. It appeared that the house - the tent and my bedroom had been struck by lightning! |
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Ministry Travels
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Sunday, 22 January 2012 13:45 |
 Today Nicholas, Vulindlela and I drove 2 hours up to the Magaliesburg Ranges, a granite mountain range cut through with deep canyons (kloofs). Our destination was the Sparkling Waters Hotel and Spa, the pick up point for our eco-tour. The hotel was replete with Blue Gum and Lilly Pilli burdened with fruit. How Australian!
The tour guides gave us a safety briefing, loaded us onto transport vehicles (buckies) and drove into the canyon area criss-crossed with high speed zip lines. A civil engineer has set up five such zipline (foefie) locations around South Africa. This one is set in the ancient Ysterhout Kloof.
Eleven platforms have been built against the cliffs and rock faces with the distance across the canyon from 45-165 meters. The canyon walls drop 40-50 meters to a creek, bursting with fig trees, lantana, protea, palms and other canopy trees. We dangled above or shot through them as we crossed the canyon. It was a stunning opportunity to celebrate God's creation, and read John Dickson's new book "humilitas". |
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Ministry Travels
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Friday, 20 January 2012 08:03 |
 I'm here in Johannesburg South Africa meeting with the international board of the Davidic School of Ministry, and some of our up and coming teachers. Alison Papenfus (head of Storm Harvest Africa) is our host. DSM has been around since 1998 and has taught leaders in one form or another since then. At first it was weekend intensives, then correspondence courses; we've been embedded in Bible colleges and even run a full time course in India for a few years.
Now we're starting a new round of efforts. We're taking the Cert. IV (one year full time) course and making it available in Zimbabwe in two locations; for David Beevers and Vulindlela Ndlovu to run it over eighteen months. So we've been bashing the curriculum into shape, making sure it crosses over cultural barriers, in a language everyone can understand.
Vulindlela, who is running the pilot program in Beit Bridge (a border town in Zimbabwe) said to me today, "I never imagined that I could find something in the Kingdom of God so fitted to my dreams, so exciting and fulfilling." Teaching, equipping, challenging the current culture, helping others is really lighting his fuse - and I'm glad.
Lyn Keating, Dean of Students commented, "It's really satisfying to see at least one graduate become a facilitator." You see Vulindlela is the only one of nine pastors who took Lyn's facilitator training 2 years ago to have come this far. I felt the same way about her: student becomes teacher, there's nothing better. |
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