Something's brewing in the atmosphere...

 

A month ago tonight I found myself preaching in a church in Nelspruit to an audience that rounded out at just over 600 in an atmosphere which had nearly close to everyone present believing that anything was possible and that we were truly born to change the world. That night, huge faith stirred between preacher and audience as the life of God rose up within us in a significant way. People turned their lives over to Christ without much human prompting, repentance ran true, tears of joy and acceptance flowed strongly, blind eyes, deaf ears and other various healings of physical ailments were heralded without laying on of hands, and an uncommon unity that bypassed racial, economic and social lines was caught as something that looked extremely like the revivals of old was happening before our very eyes.

 

After 31 days of pondering this earth shaking night and the JobiJol camp as a whole, my heart has settled on five ingredients that contributed to what God did and is continuing to do. This is not an attempt to conjure up a recipe, but more just recognizing the fingerprints of heaven that are quickly becoming stronger and stronger.

1.       Missional friendships

-represented at this 4 day camp were multiple churches and personalities that came largely from the greater Johannesburg area but also from Nelspruit, Durban and Cape Town. This wasn’t a forced attempt at unity but rather the result of different layers of friendships that have been built over the last 4 to 5 years (and some longer). The camp, which happens every year in the December/January slot has gathered a momentum not because of strategic meetings, an organizational mandate or clever marketing but rather because of men and women whose hearts beat for the same thing, devoting themselves to building intentional friendships with the King and His Kingdom at the centre.

2.       High value of the bible

-What we are learning more and more these days is that God is faithful above all else to His Word. And with that as a cornerstone in our belief system we are beginning to have the audacity to believe what He says! So high on our agenda is to follow Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “preach the word” and to do so with a faith, knowing that “his word does not return to Him void."

3.       Recognizing the anointing of the Holy Spirit

-We didn’t all fast for days on end leading up to the camp. In fact, I came straight from holiday. But we are quickly understanding that the heavens were opened not by our pleas and rain-dances but by Jesus’ blood, never to be shut again. When Jesus declared that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you”, he might as well have shouted the child-hood adage of “OPEN GATES!” That Sunday night, a friend (Craig Herbert) and I met at our parked car to change shoes for the meeting, but quickly recognized that the Holy Spirit was stirring something special in our hearts. The shoes were abandoned and we prayed. Bold prayers. Open heaven type prayers. The Holy Spirit was with us, and we expected “to receive power.”

4.       A response of worship

-In every session of the camp, including the last one, the preaches culminated in us landing in worship. Or should I say taking off again in worship. It wasn’t a pre-camp decision but God so shifted our hearts from looking to push people to an emotional response, or to a manipulated altar call moment, but rather to recognizing that God was present and he was at work in the hearts and lives of the people there. It was in the worship that healings happened. It was in the worship that hearts were saved, that rejection was broken off, that the Holy Spirit filled people, that sin and addictions were broken, that lives were forever changed and commissioned. When Christ is lifted up all men will be drawn to Him.

 

 

That weekend in early January has left me indelibly changed. Grateful but not satisfied.

I love moments like these.

I love doing high ministry moments with mates like these.

But more than that, I love the momentum that these four days up country have created in me, in my peer group and in a generation who are beginning to respond to the something that is brewing in the atmosphere. 

Can you feel it?

NCMI SA Equip (Part four)

3 things that may have escaped your attention during worship at this years SA Equip:

1. Jono Warmington forgetting to switch on his amp
-picture this...opening night, Cornerstone Church bursting at the seams, the masses pushing right up to the stage counting down (almost to the state of delirium) with the countdown on the main screen, the kickdrum and bass come in right on queue, crying babies go unnoticed, every eye is excitedly rooted to the stage AND...worship leader Jono Warmington realises that his Vox AC 30 amp which is being mic-ed in the backroom had been forgotten to be switched on!

2. Stage dives on Night two
-On Friday morning, Grant Crawford and a panel of interviewees attempted to ask the question, "what does success look like?". Probably a more pertainent question after Thursday night's wild worship would have been, "what does a successful stage dive look like?". And I would have been the first to put my hand up in shouting out the answer, "anything except Werner Derckson's!"
After the usual fare of Bruce McAlpine and 5 excited teenagers (averaging 50kgs each) leaping off the stage into the outstretched arms of the seething crowd, a moment of pure joy was when Werner (not the lightest guy) prepped himself like an olympic athlete for his assault on gravity. The corporate groans of apprehension from the rest of the worshippers was only matched by the fear in the eyes of those who were going to have to perform a modern day miracle in catching the jump. That not one of them backed away shows that Tyrone Daniel's message of being Partners and not just Friends had truly hit home!

3. The red-hot worship of the Son of God
-for three days, over 5000 hands were lifted and +-2500 voices were raised, as together we exalted Christ Jesus. From all cities and towns from around Southern Africa, from churches big and small, black, white, rich and poor, young and old, the worship of our King became our common language and theme. This is the heartbeat of our lives and our mandate. Worship, that is not contained to a moment, to the church walls or to a certain key or style, but discipling nations to bow their hearts and bend their knees to the One and Only.
"Mission's exist because worship does not" (Matt Redman)
We've always known this, but something of this was recaptured in our hearts this past week.


Flight tickets to Joburg from Cape Town and back: R1800
Food for the week: R450
Buying that pretty girl a coffee: R10
Moments like these: priceless

NCMI SA Equip (Part three)

Thursday was a good day.

 

 A morning filled with moustaches and Mexican gang terminology (Terry Kreuger), New Zealand accents and distasteful All Black references from Bruce Benge and rounded off with the stories of plane crashes and fearless courage from Hennie Keyter, I joined the chip and dip queue for lunch with a heart stirred afresh as well as with the very unsanctified thought of who I would least like to meet in a dark alley out of the three morning speakers. 20 minutes later the stirring had become more of a heart-burn as I ate my salty lunch way too fast, but I digress.

 

By the time 7pm rolled around and the countdown clock moved swiftly to zero, the prophetic voices were released to fearlessly declare new seasons and unmarked paths as well as to remind us of God’s original intent. Gill Patterson, Ash Bell and finally Mike Hanchett masterfully lead us through a very organic evening of refreshing and empowering. Definitely an unscripted evening, but the fingerprints of heaven were all over our gathering as the Spirit of God moved amongst us.

 

As Tyrone and others have echoed on numerous occasions, we are through transition and God has us in position. And if Thursday was a day of increased positioning, I have no doubt today we are ready to be launched.

 

And in terms of the dark alley question, I polled extensively (three guys nearest me at the time) and we all agreed that we feared Terry Kreuger the most.

That moustache alone would kill you.

 

NCMI SA Equip (part two)

3 things to bring you up to speed about night one...

1.       It was FULL

-upstairs, downstairs, the side hall, the mom’s rooms and even the floor space at the back was filled with lines and lines of people crowding into Cornerstone Church. And this was only just  Wednesday night!

2.       It was LOUD

-it’s always a great indicator of the temperature of hearts when the band are being drowned out by the passionate voices of the rest of the worshippers. Fresh new original songs were picked up on quickly and belted out with gusto while old favourites stirred hearts once again. The floor and roof was rattling and our souls rejoiced.

 

3.       It was UNIFIED

-agendas, histories, regions, individual church issues were left at the door as from the get go we set our eyes corporately on the object and the subject of our worship, Jesus.

 

“What unites us is not just our purpose, but chiefly it is our captivation with our King”

 

And if you missed last night but want to sound as if you were there, then make it a priority to throw in the phrase “it’s go time” into as many conversations as you can.

NCMI SA Equip (Part One)

 

I remember it just as if it was yesterday.

 

 Every year the announcement would go out at church for leaders to register for “Bloem”. The fact that a city was being referred to in its shortened state as a simile for a 5 day leadership conference was not lost on anyone. As the announcements became more frequent in the lead up to the September school holidays, so too did the increasing rate of the church’s excitement. The 7 hour drive in convoy from Durban on the early Monday morning, the bets being placed on who would “open the batting” in the first session, counting down the times someone said the words “in our togetherness”, Dudley Daniel’s insistence to “avoid fame like the plague”, massive choirs, Mimosa Mall hangouts with our best mates from around the country who we saw only once a year and all the way through to the inevitable and yet heart stirring culmination with “Be thou my vision”, “Bloem” never failed to leave an impression as we all left determined to change the world.

Now years later, the journey continues after many mountain top highs and valley lows. The venue has changed, fresh voices have appeared, new songs have been written and we even have had to become used to new terminology (“Equip”). But the mission and very heart-beat of the motley group of men and women who come together in friendship and mission from all over the globe under the name of NCMI remains the same. For the King and His Kingdom, we still believe that the local church is the hope of the world, the nations are our inheritance and He will not return until every tribe, tongue and people group have heard.

 

This is what courses through our veins!

So once again we gather “in our togetherness” in the third term holidays. But this is no mere conference or inspirational get together. We gather to be scattered afresh with the Gospel at our centre and with the nations in our line of sight.

As Alan Frow year in and year out fearlessly declared all those years ago, “we will go for the sake of the cross, we will go for the sake of the lost”

(NCMI SA Equip 2012 - 3rd -5th October at Cornerstone Church in Joburg)

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