Category: Jesus

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Praying for the World (Cup)

I used to worship soccer. That’s dumb. Worshipping soccer is as foolish as worshipping a scarecrow in a cucumber field. I’ve been getting fairly excited about the 2010 World Cup. Almost too excited! To help keep things in perspective I make it my aim to pray for both countries at half-time of each game I watch. The World Cup is an opportunity to learn about 32 different countries and work out how to best pray for them.

If you’re a Christian. Here’s some ideas for prayer during the World Cup

  1. At half time. Pray for both teams. Don’t pray for one team to win, pray for stuff that matters in the big picture of eternity.
  2. If you’re on twitter use this hashtag #Praying4WorldCup to share what you’re praying and encourage others to pray with you.
  3. Spend some time on Wikipedia learning about the countries
  4. I’m currently preparing a very brief guide with one thing to pray for each team. I’ll post it here when it’s finished. EDIT: It might take a bit long, so maybe not.
  5. If you have Operation World, keep it near the TV
  6. Check out The Joshua Project for stats on unreached people groups in the world.
  7. If you know missionaries or some of the needs in any of the countries, share them in the comments below.
  8. EDIT: New idea – check out the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students website www.ifesworld.org

GROUP A: France | Mexico | South Africa | Uruguay

GROUP B: Argentina | Greece | Nigeria | Korea Republic

GROUP C: England | Algeria | Slovenia | United States

GROUP D: Germany | Australia | Serbia | Ghana

GROUP E: Netherlands | Denmark | Japan | Cameroon

GROUP F: Italy | Paraguay | New Zealand | Slovakia

GROUP G: Brazil | Korea DPR | Côte d’Ivoire | Portugal

GROUP H: Spain | Switzerland | Honduras | Chile

Check out the Latest #Praying4WorldCup tweets:

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Never Be Destroyed – Daniel Part 1

Here are the opening two verses of Daniel chapter 1: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.” (Dan 1:1-2 NIV)

It sounds terrible! God’s holy city, Jerusalem, has been taken over by the Babylonians. They’ve taken all the bling from the temple of God and carried it off to the temple of Babylon’s gods. Where is God? Is he still in control? Does he still rule? Or has he lost his power?

One of the main themes throughout the book of Daniel is that, despite appearances, God is still in control. Human kingdoms come and go throughout the book, but “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.” (Dan 2:44).

We’ll meet Daniel and his friends as they seek to live as God’s people in a foreign, sometimes hostile, land. They have some wild adventures with lions, fiery furnaces and some crazily vivid visions & dreams.

The world of Daniel is not unlike our world. As we see the hostility (and even the impressiveness) of the world around us, our belief in God can easily be challenged. My hope is that this blog series on Daniel 1-7 will help teach us to live wisely, while we wait for the return of our King Jesus and his kingdom that will never be destroyed.

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Good times in Tamworth

On Friday night I MC’d the Re-generation youth event with Will Graham in Tamworth. Will preached a great sermon urging people to stop going the wrong way and start following Jesus. There were about 600-700 young punks there with 130 praying to become Christian!! So exciting. I had a really good time hanging out with Will and his buddy Jamey Wooten for lunch on Friday. Great guys and really encouraging hearing their stories and being encouraged by their faith in Jesus.

It was likewise good fun hanging out with the 3 bands: Jonnday; Chasing Bailey; and Compliments of Gus. They were all very good. Highly recommended!! (Keep an eye out for some of them in Free Music Friday)

Props to Dave Buster. He’s 18 and doing a gap year with St Peter’s Tamworth. He did an incredible job organising the night. He’s a young punk doing something.

See below the jump for tweets, pics and some video blogs from the trip:

Continue reading “Good times in Tamworth”

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The HSC Lockdown 2010

Youthworks, Crusaders and Scripture Union all run great study camps for year 12 students preparing for the HSC. They all include solid, disciplined blocks of study throughout the day, with a bit of time to reflect upon God and life after school. SU haven’t been running them for as long. Theirs are unique in that they are spread throughout Sydney and NSW and they are non-residential (which = way cheaper!).

Check out the website to find the nearest HSC Lockdown. If you’re a Christian student, this could be one of your last opportunities to invite your non-Christian friends along to something. And remember there’s more to life than the HSC!

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The most humbling, human-pride smashing message in the world

Josh Harris has posted an excerpt from his book Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters on Humble Orthodoxy (read my previous posts on this subject). In the post he speaks warmly of the way his friend Justin Taylor has embraced humble orthodoxy. If you haven’t heard of humble orthodoxy, it basically means – don’t be an arrogant Christian jerk. I need to hear this, maybe you do too…

Here’s a snippet:

Genuine orthodoxy–the heart of which is the death of God’s son for undeserving sinners–is the most humbling, human-pride smashing message in the world. And if we truly know the gospel of grace it will create in us a heart of humility and grace toward others. Francis Schaeffer, a Christian writer and thinker from the 20th century, modeled this kind of profound compassion. He genuinely loved people. And even as he analyzed and critiqued the culture he did so “with a tear in his eye.”

That is humble orthodoxy. It’s standing for truth with a tear in your eye. Telling your friend living in sexual sin that you love them even as you tell them their sexual preference is disobedient to God. It’s remembering that angry, unkind, opponents of the gospel are human beings created in the image of God who need the same mercy God has shown you.

Read the rest here