Bottle

 Oh Church! Uncomfortable wooden pews, old men with bad breath and more nose hair than Chewbacca, sermons that would successfully put an insomniac to sleep and people speaking as though they are from the 15th century. No wonder so many people don't go.
 I never used to go to church willingly as a child and so it was a no brainer for me when I was finally old enough to make the decision to go.... or to not. When I finally decided to give church a second chance, I was 17 and on the verge of migrating to Australia with my family. My mum had always told me if I ever moved anywhere new, that church was a good place to meet people. And that's pretty much how it started for me, new country, no friends, what else did I have to loose? I still remember that first Sunday morning service, as we walked up to what I was expecting to be the cliché old school church building, in fact turned out to be a renovated industrial warehouse. And wait! Did I just see someone under fifty willingly walk into the same building? As I continued into the building, I was surprised to see many young people mixed among the oldies. The other thing I remember about that first Sunday is how friendly everyone was. They were young, normal and friendly and so that met the criteria for my friendship check-list. And so now nine years later, church is still a huge passion and portion of where I choose to spend my life. It's where I have met lifelong friends, It's where I met my beautiful wife and its where I hope for all of my family to grow up.
 In a book I read recently called 'Courageous Leadership', the author Bill Hybels writes with such passion about how God instilled in him that the church was not just another religion but 'the hope of the world.' When we study God's vision for the church, it becomes very clear that being the hope of the world is exactly what God had in mind for his people to be.
  Think of the church like a glass bottle shattered into many small sharp pieces, think of all the potential damage it can cause, the cuts and scars it creates if left broken and unattended to. Let's not waste time making the mistake that church is the remedy for fixing the brokenness in the world, only God can restore what is broken but he will do it through us the broken pieces. I am so grateful to God that he sent Jesus to collect those individual broken pieces that make up the church, and in a way that only He could achieve, repair and mend those pieces back together to create a vessel that can carry hope to others who are also broken and in need of repair. We carry a beautiful message in a delicately restored vessel.

2 Corinthians 4:7 (New Living Translation)

 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

Here comes the bride

 One of the main themes that runs through the Bible is God's great love for the church. The church is described as 'the bride' and the Bible goes into detail of God's love for His 'bride'. When it comes to marriage, attributes such as commitment, romance and meeting the needs of our spouse before ourselves are vital to the health, strength and longevity of the relationship. We must approach church in the same manner, understanding that what we put in is more important than what we get out. It is unhealthy to constantly be the consumer in a marriage and in the same way it is wrong to expect that all the love comes from the church but none of our love returns. That is not love!
 The Church is a family and families are made up of beautifully unique people who love each other in spite of their imperfections. They may have arguments but they reconcile, they love and support each other through thick and thin. People say that church does more damage than good to people, and I can't defend every church family in the world because every family is different. However these differences result because of upbringing, culture and what resources they have at their disposal. Do these families set out to create hurt? I don't think so, but families always live out of their core beliefs, and so the sooner we create bridges rather than barriers between these beliefs the better. So what can we do to love and accept the church? How can we help her realise her potential beauty of becoming the 'hope of the world'?

1) Be there

 I once heard a preacher say that if you stand in a garage all week it doesn't make you a car, the same can be said about going to church. Attending church doesn't make us more or less Christian than other people, it was never meant to be about trying to score brownie points with God through regular attendance. But 'being there' puts us in a position to hear from God, to see other people's needs and most importantly to meet those needs. Planting our lives in a church is much like a tree planted in rich soil. Trees don't grow well in unhealthy soil so it is important that we are planted in the rich soil of church. Trees don't move around they stay in the same place week after week and by doing so, they are able to let those roots grow deeper and deeper into the ground. As the roots grow deeper and wider into the rich soil, it allows the tree to absorb more nutrients from the ground, grow, and produce delicious fruit. So make every effort to stay planted in good soil!

2) Pray
 Prayer has the power to shape every area of our lives. If we are sick, we pray, if we are worried, we pray, and if we are in need of answers, we pray. When we pray for areas of our lives intentionally with a genuine heart, God begins to move. Praying for your church should be as high a priority in your life as praying for yourself and your family. We especially need to pray for our leaders, pray that they would have great wisdom and vision for the church, that they would hear clearly from God, and that God would bless their health both physically and spiritually. Throughout the new testament, the apostle Paul prayed for the church, that God would give them grace and peace, that everyone would live in harmony with each other, that they would discover more of God's incredible love. Imagine how much more our churches would flourish if we started to work towards this kind of church through prayer!

3) Unity
 Unity is simply being united in one cause, the dictionary also uses words such as, 'harmony' and, 'togetherness'. The Bible says 'where there is unity, God commands a blessing,' the problem is a lot of the time we aren't nearly as united as we need to be. Our level of unity is not how we are we are in public, but how we act behind closed doors. What we say and do privately is a huge indicator to how united we really are with our church family. I know disunity is very easy to fall into because we all have different opinions on what works and what doesn't, but I think the essence of the unity we are to strive for in our churches, is sweetly captured in the passage below.

 

1 Corinthians 12:25-26 (The Message translation)  

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

Bottle

 Last week I was about to write a new blog on a particular topic I had in mind, when suddenly I felt so strongly that God wanted me to write about how much he loves the church and how much he longs for us to see it through his eyes, not our own. I wrote this blog with many people in mind; people who have never been to church, people who have walked away from church due to many factors ranging from hurt to loss of faith, and people who are still attending church but have fallen out of love and are thinking of leaving. 

  We are all essentially a message in a bottle, the bottle may be cracked, but the message that the bottle contains is the real remedy to our life and I pray that you would take that message into your heart and then take it into the world around you.

Wake Up & Follow Your Dream

  The other day I was getting Frankie ready for a bath. As I was getting everything ready I asked Frankie to put some clothes away in her room, she trotted off enthusiastically on her assignment relishing the great responsibility placed upon her shoulders. After a few minutes had passed I realized two things, Firstly, Frankie had not returned from her simple expedition, and secondly it was so quiet I could have heard an ant fart. Every parent knows when it comes to children that silence and absence can potentially spell disaster. As I investigated Frankie's strange disappearance I discovered that she had come mightily close to 'mission accomplished', before becoming slightly distracted by (in her own opinion) the world's best hair ties!!!!
 Have you ever had a goal or dream before becoming distracted? Perhaps you wanted to pursue a career path but something came up. Have you dreamt of being free of debt for a long time with no evidence of things improving? Are you always wishing that you did more for other people but never seem to find the time? My dream is to help people see and find God by living a life that attracts people to God rather than repel them. Be it through generosity of time or money, or befriending the unfriendly or some other crazy idea I haven't come up with yet. Do you have a dream? How big is it? Do you believe you will ever reach it?




Why Do we need a dream?
Dreams are beautiful! A dream is a possibility, and a possibility is a hint from God that we must try to pursue. Not having a dream is like being a jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and going 'where the tide takes us', it may sound cool but in the end it just ends up washed up on a beach being poked with a stick by a four year old boy. The great thing about a dream is the journey, achieving a dream is about more than what you accomplish, it's about who you become in the process. If you don't know what your dream is try this; think about what you are good at and what you are passionate about, then write down a dream so big that it makes you hungry to go for it. Hunger is important when you are going for something, hunger is like fuel in the tank of a car, the less hunger, the more likelihood of a breakdown on the way to the destination. A dream is a combination of what you are passionate about and what you are talented at. Combine love and skill and you're going to get a masterpiece!

What do we do when the dream seems far away?

Keep going! If you know that you are running after the right dream don't stop. Sometimes when we are on a journey it is easy to become exhausted, sometimes it's even easier to turn around and go back to the start. Starting something is easy, finishing requires a lot more work. When we are feeling discouraged or weary when going for a dream, we need to find something inside of us that picks us back up and moves us forward again.You may succeed if someone else believes in you, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself. 

 The following story teaches us the importance of moving no matter how slow a dream may be in arriving.

 'In winter a snail started climbing an apple tree. On his way up, a worm poked his head out of the tree stump and said,' you're wasting your time going up there mate, there's nothing to eat up there.' The snail replied,' I know there's nothing there now, but by the time I get there, there will be!' The best thing to do when the dream is taking its time to arrive is keep focused on it. The saying 'keep your eyes on the prize' is used a lot by athletes because it motivates them through the mundane days of training when victory still seems so far off. So before we give up on a dream it is worth remembering that quitting says more about who we are than where we are in the pursuit of our dream.

How Do I get closer to a dream?
If you are anything like me you may find sometimes the scale of a task is so huge, that it becomes intimidating even just trying to figure out where to begin. I learnt a great lesson on the first day of my electrical apprenticeship which serves to this day as a great key to obtaining a dream. As I walked through the factory past huge pieces of electrical equipment, I became overwhelmed by the hundreds of wires hanging out of pieces of equipment that people were constructing. I thought to myself, 'how do they know where to start wiring one of these things?' A tradesman who picked up on the 'I'm way out of my depth' look on my face advised me to, 'pick an area and focus on it until you have finished it, then move on to the next part.' I believe that the greatest enemy to starting to go for a dream can be not knowing where to start. This is usually created when we look at the big picture rather than the steps it takes to actually get there. Another of my dreams is to write books, when I did research into the process of publishing a book, I became overwhelmed by how unqualified and inexperienced I was in comparison to the internet community. Rather than let it put me off following that dream I decided to start developing that area of my passion by starting this blog. Don't let discouragement stop you from doing something. The timing for our dreams are never perfect, so we might as well start now. If we don't, then next year we will be a year older and not a step closer. All dreams are out of our comfort zone, Leaving that zone is the price we must pay to achieve them.

Taking the first step
I once heard a preacher talk about momentum. He spoke about how a freight train may be slow in gaining speed, but once it starts to gain more and more momentum it becomes very difficult to stop it. Don't visualize yourself pulling out of the station, picture yourself zooming down that track at full speed on the way to the destination. Change is not created by what happened yesterday or what 'might' happen tomorrow, it is created now by how you walk away from this blog-floating like a jellyfish or racing down the track like a freight train.

I really recommend a book on the subject of dreams that inspired me for this blog called 'Put your dream to the test' by John C Maxwell. Check it out or let me know if you have read it!

Daddy

Frankie Dorothy Nott

 As a father there is nothing that resonates in me more than my love for my beautiful daughter Frankie. One of the most rewarding feelings I experience as a Dad is when Frankie returns the love that I so desperately desire from her. Just a simple kiss, or hug or if she just says my name brings me more happiness and life than anything else on this earth. You really can't un-love your child because they are part of you, they are part of your DNA, they're your flesh and blood and to not love them is to not love you.

 Recently Frankie started to develop her own 'free will.' What this means for me as a Dad is that Frankie has the choice to show me how much she loves me ........or not. A few weeks ago I was coming home from work so excited to see my girls. When I saw Frankie I squatted down to her height and opened my arms waiting for her to run into my arms and give me a kiss with those beautiful, tiny, soft lips. Instead she preceded to slap me in the face and say 'no, no, no.' To say I felt rejected is an understatement. Luckily this doesn't happen all the time and just the other day I received a much better 'welcome home daddy' reception. 

 Lot's of people view God as a distant father. The kind of dad that never says 'I love you.' The kind of dad that never has time to hang out with his children. The kind of dad that is angry and inconvenienced by simple requests like 'help' and 'can you come play with me?' 
 Have you ever seen one of those movies where a rebellious teenager says how much they hate their dad? Then you meet the on-screen dad and he's actually a really awesome guy trying to do the best to win his daughter or son's affection. That's us! Ungrateful, un-accepting and unaware of how desperate God our father is to show his love to us. Much like the loveable on-screen dad, the bible paints a picture of a dad way different to what most of us may be used to hearing about; 

'Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father." 

There's two beautiful thoughts for us to take out of this verse;

1) God has adopted us. Adoption is a process of being chosen. To be adopted is to be accepted, even if your previous family history records only rejection. Nobody accidentally adopts someone, it's an intentional process. The fact that the word 'adopt' turns up in the same sentence as God and You should give you some scale to how unique and special you really are. The creator of the heavens and earth chooses you! God has invited us to be his sons and daughters and if we accept we become 100% part of his ever growing family, no strings attached.

2) God is our daddy. The word 'abba' is from the aramaic language and can be translated to mean 'papa' or 'daddy', it literally represents a child like love for their dad that anyone can relate to. It's a term a child uses when they adore their daddy. It's a term that a child uses because their daddy is a place of love and acceptance.It's a term a child uses because they know their daddy is a place of safety.

 Take some time to think about this; you matter very much to God and he chooses you all the time, every time because he loves you as a daddy loves their child. So the next time God kneels down and opens up his arms waiting for you to run into his embrace, you have a choice. You can either slap him repeatedly in the face and say 'no, no, no.' Or you can start a journey of knowing a perfect Dad who will always look out for you, cheer you on and smile every time he thinks of you.

Frankie and the most proud 'daddy' in the world

  

Being A Christian, Not A Salesman

Have you ever one day been walking down the road and suddenly you see one of those charity fundraisers? Despite their warm approach you see this as an opportunity to be the most anti social person you could ever be. You might avoid eye contact or even cross the road, doing everything humanly possible to avoid the sales speech. You know it’s a good cause. It will change someone else’s life, it might even change yours! Or perhaps you have had an unexpected knock at your front door; you wonder ‘who could this wonderful person be!?’ As soon as you open the door your heart sinks as you are greeted with a clip board and ID tag

around the neck of a hopeful, unfamiliar but friendly face.

In this day and age, people are not after a salesman. This is why we are so unconvinced by politicians when they kiss babies or make a ‘promise’. We see straight through the latest celebrity visit to an orphanage in Africa knowing ’they’re just doing that for publicity.’  We don’t like things being sold to us, we want to choose to do something, not be persuaded. My reasoning is that if I want something I’ll go looking for it myself thank you very much! I don’t need a salesperson to try and sell me a new internet provider, if I’m unhappy I will look and find one myself. I don’t know how effective sales people are in their attempts to gain new customers, but one strategy I do find to be effective forms of sales are adverts. 

Adverts work because:

1.  They set out to be attractive.
2. They don’t over complicate the details. They tell you what the product is, where you can get it and why you need it.
3. They aren't overly intrusive, if you don’t like an advert on TV you mute the sound or change the channel. If you’re not interested in the catalogue, you throw it in the bin. However if you are interested, you’ll keep that catalogue or rewind the TV just to re-watch the advert and get all the details of how to obtain that product.

 Our goal as the church is to go and make disciples, to do this we must eventually present Jesus to people, so how do we do this without becoming plastic and artificial?

 I once read on another blog something very thought provoking that asked this question, ‘How many things are Christians known for that they shouldn't be known for ?’ A very good question because when I put myself in the shoes of my work mates I realized that they through their own experiences with the church/Christians and a combination of media stories, some that are utter rubbish and sadly some that are true, obtained a very poor picture of who Jesus really is. Play the word association game with a church hater and they’ll probably use words like ‘judgemental’ and ‘hypocritical’. As sad as this all is, God has not called you to fix everyone’s hurts, or correct other people’s mistakes. What he has called you to do is represent him how he should be represented.

 To ‘sell’ Jesus to people does not require a clipboard and ID tag, it doesn't require you to go door to door with a script trying to sell to an unsuspecting victim. All it requires is being on display in a way that shows that God is amazing, he’s done great things in your life and he wants to do great things in other people’s lives too.

Jesus said it like this, ‘You’re here to be a light, bringing out the God colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don’t think I'm going to hide you under a bucket do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you on a hilltop, on a light stand - shine! Keep an open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God.’

(Matthew 5:14-16,The Message translation)

I like how Jesus relates a faith that gives light to the our surroundings. Imagine your faith as a light bulb and then with an honest heart, assess how brightly that light bulb shines during the week. I'm not just talking Sunday at church, not even just Monday to Friday 9 to 5. I mean all the time. Can I encourage you that increasing the brightness of your light is actually very simple. It’s about being open. It’s about being real. It’s about taking an interest in someone’s life. It is really as simple and beautiful as asking someone at work how their weekend was, learning the name of their spouse and kids and taking a genuine interest in their life. When you next go to pay for groceries I challenge you to look up and smile at the shop assistant whilst asking ‘how’s your day been?’ It may not add much to your day, but trust me it’ll add heaps to theirs. Small acts of love built up over a period of time have a way of transforming a person’s perception of the so called Christian you claim to be. I used to believe for a long time that if I could just say the right words, if I could just win the lunch room debates, that people would finally accept my invitation to church. I now know that God would like to see us all live by this famous quote, ‘Preach all the time, if necessary use words.’

Dan