Well it is 10 o’clock and like i said i have faithfully returned to the free internet which seems to be less crowded since more and more planes are flying off, to do a final posting. It’s great because the actual store that runs this has closed but the net is online 24 hours and with no workmen breathing down my neck and with less people in the airport i think i can go a bit more than the recommended 15 minutes.
Well for the past 2 hours i, cant, seem, to remember much of it. That’s pretty bad. Hmm i think i went to the toilet a couple of times and the last thing i remembered was that i started reading my 2nd book about small groups and got about half way through. Its a fairly easy read but its full of juicy interesting ideas and challenges and things i never thought about. The one thing i have been very interested by is a recent chapter i read one What is one word you want your church/LG to be associated with. It gave a few examples like worship, evangelical, doctrinal, recovery (helps with the poor) etc and it gave few examples of world-wide coporations that have this one word association thing the favourite being Starbucks = Coffee.
What is one word that i want Ablaze and Voltage to be associated with? Honestly i do not know yet but i’m gonna have a think through, feel free to add ya ideas lets make this a community event yea! haha.
Well on the note of Ablaze i would like to share a moment that really brought me to tears in the most random of moments (also so i dont have to bare the embarassment of having to speak this out loud). We finally got across the China boarder and we caught out bus to Kaiping (the city near the village my grandmother was born in) and i was having a sleep and due to the craziness of the road rules that are oddly organisised + the crazy driving of our bus driver i was abruptly awoken by a great big leap into the air almost falling of my seat.
I was then awake and hillsong was playing on my iPod, i immediately thought of how much i missed coporate praise and worship with ablaze and soon i began to just think bout the sheer potential in our current people in ablaze and soon enough God showed me a vision of a stadium full of young people praising and worshiping God. At the point i fell in love with Ablaze again. I fell in love with the people, the vision, the community, the joy, the challenges, the messages, the genuiness (if thats a word), the potential, the unquieiness of every single person but most of all the love for God that POURS out of every single member. I shed a tear and it really made me realise how much i appreicate and love being in the House of God and how as Bill Hybel and Nick love to say how the church is truly the HOPE OF THE WORLD. I thought about the people i wanted to reach out to and thought about the people that each and everysingle one of us will reach out to. I finally accepted the fact that one day i will not know everysingle person personally (although thats not gonna stop me trying) but that humbled me and made me realise the full potential that is within the church!
My prayer is that every single one of us will take on God and will not be afraid of what is to come because that shows that we are moving in the right direction that the unknown is where we should be headed… why… becauser we should always be stretching ourselves. Another story from the boundaries book is about a business man who says this If there is not one point everday where i am scared stiff then i am not stretching myself enough. Challenging ay… of course it needs wisdom.
Can’t wait to get back home and right now i will be heading to gate 71 which is a heck of a walk! to await my flight.
See you all very soon and i cannot wait to hear about what God has been doing in just this week. I seriously feel like i’ve been away for MONTHS!!! and that i’ve missed a million LGs and ABS and HANG OUTS and EVERYTHING
SEE YOU GUYS VERY VERY SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
