God Sightings

This year in my Small Group we started this thing where we would spend time after dinner and before our Bible study sharing our God Sightings, our God Moments from that week. For some of the group this was really hard. Each week they would have nothing to share... they really struggled to see God in their everyday live's, and many of them had long given up any hope of encountering Him in the Bible. And it got me thinking... how do you help people see and encounter God. So... when I saw this Bible and Companion Small Group Guide I got excited!! You can either buy the NLT or NIV version of it and it comes with daily readings of the Bible and 52 Small Group Discussions - a whole year's worth of material!

Here is the advertising blurb that got me hooked - I really want to buy this!!

Once you’ve seen God at work there’s no turning back.

You’re about to be transformed...to see the world through new eyes. To experience God - every day!

Use the God Sightings NLT One Year Bible and God Sightings One Year Companion Guide to...

Engage with the Bible in a fresh way--looking past the pages to God Himself.

See practical ways God is expressing Himself in your world--and your life.

Capture your thoughts, feelings, and insights--and build your faith.

Grow closer to God as you grapple with eye-opening, life-changing questions.

Plus - you’ll be amazed! You’ll actually watch God at work in your life. Not because He's suddenly shown up - but because you finally have eyes to see...and at last you’re looking!

Check out the link: www.mygodsightings.com

"...tinkering with the existing model of church...will not save the day."

Excerpts from a Conversation with Allan Hirsch

Up to this point, church has been a means to an end. We've operated from what I call a Christendom paradigm or an institutional paradigm. Ever since Constantine, who gave us the institution, we've seldom been able to see the church outside of that paradigm. And so you have the high church going into Protestant churches and traditional into contemporary, but all of them are really variations of the same paradigm of church, the institutional paradigm. I'm not saying it's all wrong. But if we think that simply rejiggering the same old paradigm is going to solve all our problems, I think we're going to be very disappointed. We need to change the paradigm. We need to fundamentally shift the way we think about church.

The contemporary church is an example of the institutional paradigm. Basically, it's still an attractional model, which only works with people who are like us. The people who come to our churches speak the same language, follow the same socio-economic route-basically, they are like us. Their normal form of engagement is attraction.

The attractional model can work well when the people we're trying to attract are within the cultural distance of the church. But when everyone is moving further away from us culturally, it's not going to work. Because what you do then is extract people from their environment and then inculcate them into a different environment. If we assume that people have got to come to us on our cultural turf in order to hear the gospel, we remove them from the natural cultural environment from which they were extracted.

Most of our churches are aiming at the 40 percent of the population that's within the cultural distance of the church. And attractional churches will work for 40 percent of the population of America. (That doesn't mean attendance-wise; it simply means that 40 percent would consider that kind of church because it's like them.)

The problem is that 60 percent of the population is left out of the equation. And increasingly, that 60 percent is more complex and more diverse. Therefore, when you do pull them into an attactional church, you socialize them out of their context. As a missional church, we need to go to them.

Church attendance is in decline, so the church, being the agent of the gospel, needs to find a way to speak differently and to innovate new forms of church. We certainly have to come up with different, more innovative forms than what we have currently because more of the same isn't going to get the job done. So we've got to find what I call a missional or apostolic imagination and find our way back to a more innovative form of church again.

We need to take a lot more risks. We've got to be more innovative. I mean, innovation requires risk. Mission is a risk; it's out of the eye of safety and comfort. I think we need to simply follow God. We've got to read our Bibles again. Jesus ultimately doesn't call us to a safe and secure life. So where did we get this notion that we're meant to be safe and secure, tucked away in the corner? Risk is bound up with leadership; good leadership is the practice of taking risks.

Full article available at Life Tree Cafe

Love this Look!

I am SO loving the high-waisted jeans with a white shirt look! Kinda 70's! I want!

Mustard Pants

Loving this look: High Waisted Mustard pants, Singlet & Wedges. The red glasses complete this outfit! Photograph from The SartoriaList.

Blake's Boyfriend Blazer

So apparently Blake Lively and I are the same height - 5ft 10. Tall girls rock! (Especially when they wear heels!) I am loving her Boyfriend Blazer combo's. Very cool!

Latest Read: So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore

Did you know, many people are leaving "Church" as we know it, not because they have fallen away from God - but to FIND God and experience a real relationship with Him?

This book is really challenging but is definitely a MUST read, especially if you've ever had the feeling that there has got to be something more!

Here are a few quotes:

"As fun as it is to enjoy large group worship and even be instructed by gifted teachers, the real joy of body life can't be shared in huge groups. For its first 300 years, the church found the home the perfect place to gather. They are more suited to the dynamics of family, which is how Jesus described His body."

"...the time I spend in regular body life I want to spend face-to-face with a group of people. I know it isn't popular today where people find it easier to sit through a finely (or not so finely tuned) service and go home without ever having to open up our life or care about another person's journey."

"Ultimately what matters most to me is not where or how they meet, but whether or not people are focused on Jesus and readily helping one another on the journey to becoming like Him. Meetings are less the issue here than the quality of relationships."

Totally recommend this book! There is so much thought provoking content I'm going to have to read it again just to process it all properly!

"So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore"

by Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman

My Etsy Wish List...

So... in anticipation of Summer I have found a collection of bright coloured vintage skirts and dresses on Etsy! My favourite!!

Scooter Love!

'Roman Holiday' is my all time favourite Audrey Hepburn movie! I love the whole 'escaping the palace, disguised as a commoner to have adventures in Rome' plot! I'm seriously thinking about getting a scooter this Summer. And Tauranga, NZ is just the city for it!

What fun!!! Bring on Summer!!!