Southern African Adventures

Here's a quick fire update of where I am and what's happening:

Landed in Harare yesterday after an incredible nine days in the Namibian capital with the local church All Nations. Preaching, building relationships, outreach events and mass school assemblies were the main building blocks of the time there, and significant and lasting fruit has definitely begun to flourish from it.

And now for the next week I'm back in H town where it's non-stop action with The Base Church (worship training and a family camp) as well as speaking at Dare2Serve's 9941 The Event conference. This conference which kicks off for three consecutive nights from Thursday is hosted at the local entertainment hotspot 7Arts and is expecting teenagers and young adults from around the city to pour in. I'm landing the conference on the Saturday evening (coupling with morning sessions with our very own Japie Swanepoel) after one of South Africa's top bands, The Arrows, have finished up rocking their set. It's lining up to be an incredibly explosive time!

With all this and more on the go, please keep praying for Gospel advance and momentum building opportunities as we continue to remind ourselves that we are here to build a nation and not merely just bless it.


For further updates, follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/GabePhillips23) or on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/gabe.phillips.102?ref=tn_tnmn)

The nations are our inheritance

We believe at Life Changers that when Jesus said "Go and make disciples of all nations" in Matthew.28:19 He ws not just making some metaphorical point, nor just an inspiring charge to those within earshot or in close proximity. We are firm and unwavering in our belief that God's original and ongoing intent is for the nations to be OUR inheritance.

With that being said, God is opening doors for us as a local body to partner more and more with God's great story of redemption here in Cape Town in winning our city as all of us embrace our call as modern missionaries, as well as in an ever increasing capacity translocally (just a fancy way of saying into other nations) through permanent relocations (Gavin and Ang Benjafield to Amsterdam; Ben Gerber to Bangalore) alongside various short-term trips.

Over the next fort-night or so, I will be heading into Windhoek in Namibia to an influential church called All Nations before taking a team into Harare in Zimbabwe where we will be with The Base church, and coupling it with a youth conference hosted by the non-profit organisation Dare2Serve. Although only a few of us are able to go in on this occasion, we are being sent in faith from our local community and base and therefore this is something we all partner in and all reap the rewards from.

The nations are our corporate inheritance!

How can you partner with us and begin to lay claim to what is rightfully your inheritance? Let me suggest three ways:

1.       Pray for us

-Pray for safety, opportunities and open hearts as we preach the Gospel, build and strengthen relationships and learn.

-send any prophetic words to gabe@lifechangers.org.za

2.       Join us on one of our next trips

-Get a passport, start saving, plan your leave around one of the trips, start reading up on the history and contexts of the countries we go to

3.       Sponsor someone else to go

 

       -Speak to an elder about the who and the how

We are a pilgrim people, and whether at home or in foreign lands, let's keep our hearts inextricably tied with the mission of the Gospel....to seek and save that which is lost!

Top 10...reasons to be excited about this Zimbabwean trip

Between the 21st June and 4th July we embark on another trip North of the Limpopo. Here's 10 reasons why this one will be incredible!

10. First-Timers

-Taking a team, the majority of who have never been out of the country, on a life-changing 2 weeks that will enlarge, challenge and shape their hearts all the more for the bigness of God’s beautiful story of redemption

9. Beit Bridge

-Coming face to face with every Limpopo River crosser’s arch nemesis. Queues, queues and more queues, it’s bureaucracy  at its best (worst?). A worthy opponent to anyone’s patience

8. The Base Church

-An NCMI church that is pioneering new God adventures in the city of Harare, the country and excitingly other nations. Great to partner with them

7. Pizza Inn

-The best pizza south of the equator hands down. Not to mention that I once was their poster child as a redheaded Peppi the Pizza Boy (but that’s a story for another day)

6. Rob Chifokoyo

-Pioneer of the organisation Dare2Serve (under the Miracle Mission umbrella) who serve orphanages, old age homes and street children as well as empowering and inspiring the church of Harare. Privilege to dream with their team and be inspired by him.

5. CD’s on endless cycles of repeat

-3 days travel there, 3 days travel back. Enough said

4. Youth Ablaze Outreaches

-5 nights in 5 outlying rural towns, wild worship, declaring the Gospel and seeing momentum launched as we head to nationwide youth camps in the near future

3. Late nights, (very) early mornings

-Mission trips are not for the feint-hearted. Sleep-ins are a thing of the past.

2. New and old friendships

-Travelling and ministering with over 60 people from Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban as well as numbers from Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare, this one’s the biggest yet

1. The Gospel changing lives

-no matter the cost, the leave taken, the administrative organisation, the emotional and physical output, there is nothing that can replace the joy of seeing the Gospel impacting lives and nations.

We go for the lost, the last and the least. We exist for those who are yet to believe.

Welcome to Zimbabwe

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to head back to the country north of the Limpopo where I was born and raised up until half way through my teenage years. This was the second time I was going “home” in the last 8 and a half years since the Phillips family traded in the working out of ever increasing prices for ever decreasing amounts of supplies for the more stable South African rand (purely a move made out of fear that our lack of simple mathematic skills would cost us dearly in the everyday routine of adding some more zeroes to the exchange rate).

But almost a decade on, my heart was filled with huge measures of excitement as the plane landed in Harare, with me an older skinnier twenty something year old carrying a new currency and a renewed love for the people and church of Zimbabwe.

The week long visit had two purposes. Number one on the agenda was to speak at a week long A.C.E (Christian education system) convention where hundreds of high school aged students along with their teachers and parents came together from all parts of the country to have their annual week of sporting, musical, dramatic and academic competition. My role was to preach each night at the evening rallies.

The second reason was to continue in building relationships with men like Rob Chifokoyo (pictured here) who runs a non-profit called Dare2Serve which we partnered with to run a conference that ministered to several hundred people in Harare last year and who is presently in the process of implementing our model of Swop Shop which has worked so successfully here.

I also spent some time with various people from an incredible local church there called The Base who we are hoping to be linking and partnering with more and more into the future. The six months in between my first and second visit to this church has seen it move into their new building and almost double in congregation size. This local church is not merely surviving in the testing times they find themselves in, but absolutely thriving! They have decided to believe God and to trust Him for not just a safe, neat congregation and not even just their suburb or city. This is a church whose mission statement and heartbeat is “to be a gateway to the nations!” Any people who have set their hearts on a heavenly kingdom and are pursuing the width and breadth of the Call like they are will always catch my attention...and the favour of the Holy Spirit for that matter!

Check these links out, start praying and saving and join us later this year in Zimbabwe as we too aim to be a people who pursue the nations, the broken and the lost (your and my inheritance) with people of similar hearts! I believe our future lies with people like these...and this is just the beginning!

Dare2Serve: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dare2Serve/234595256603066

The Base Church: http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheBaseChurch