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)

(Follow me on twitter for live tweets - https://twitter.com/GabePhillips23 )

9941 The Event Highlights

Here's some highlights of the 9941 The Event, the conference we were involved with in Harare a couple weeks back. People responded to the Gospel, the Church in the city was commissioned and we had ALOT of fun. The Gospel can not be contained!

Home sweet home

Back two days in chilly Cape Town after quite a substantial stretch in the somewhat warmer and drier climates of Namibia and Zimbabwe and I’ve already got my famous lists going. Here’s my top 5 reasons why I’m happy to be home.

1.       Clean clothes

18 nights away, 6 different places to sleep, a very full schedule and a small suitcase leads to the need to have my skinny jeans and limited amount of secret socks washed farely regularly...and when you’re constantly on the move in foreign homes, the smell of Omo is a very welcome sight!

2.       Ster Kinekor

With the majority of cinemas shutting down in Zimbabwe due to the skyrocketing prices and burgeoning  piracy market, just the knowledge that I can go watch the latest Hollywood fare with popcorn and coke in hand puts a smile on my face

3.       Photo’s on facebook

As with most events these days, everything is put on mainly so that you can tag yourself in all the facebook photo’s afterwards. I particularly like the picture above cause it reminds me that popular South African band The Arrows opened for my preach last Saturday night. Doesn’t happen too often!

4.       Life Changers

The oft quoted, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” was definitely not first penned knowing that it would ring ever so true in my heart! But everytime I’m away from home base I am reminded what an incredible privilege it is to be a part of this beautiful local church here in Tableview. A church rich in resources, wealthy in community and overflowing with raw love for her King, Life Changers are a people that are truly supernatural!

5.       Planning to go again

The nations are our inheritance. The nations are OUR inheritance. I want to go again and again and again...and I want  more and more people to come with me! So start saving now...and then you'll be able to start writing your own top 5 lists!

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)

Namibia Part One

I've been in Windhoek for just four days so far, but my penchant for making lists has already kicked in. Here's my top 4 things of interest up to this point:

1. The weather
-After 6 years in Durban's hot and sticky all year round humidity, and now three freezing cold and wet winters in Cape Town, the incredibly dry nature of Namibia has lead to a permanent blocked nose and a desperation for Nivea body lotion to keep my skin from becoming even more gaunt and wrinkled.

2. Volker and Esther Backhaus
-This couple have been married for 41 years and have lead All Nations Church here in Windhoek for +-35 years! Fresh out of bible college they took over the leadership of this local church and have since lead it from being very reserved, congregation lead and very fearful of the Holy Spirit to  where it now is a wild people who embrace the call to the nations, the Holy Spirit and an eldership lead body... and it is still pioneering new and fresh Gospel inspired initiatives. A model example of faithfulness and the oft quoted phrase, "there's no such thing as retirement in the Kingdom of God!"

3. Double morning meetings
-With the city closing down most evenings, this local church decided that growth would come with having two morning meetings instead of pursuing an evening congregation. For them this means having short and sharp services (an hour each which makes 30 minute sermons a must...yes, I did manage this. A modern day miracle!), mainly because they place a huge emphasis on the community aspect of being the church. Neither the sermon nor the worship are held as the high point of their reason for gathering on a Sunday, but each are given equal value linked with their connecting with each other after each service. Their conversations around coffee and hot chocolates were louder than the worship times!
Or is it all worship?

4. The high schools
-Have had the privilege of preaching the Gospel at two local high school assemblies the past two days. Both had the marks of being very prestigious institutions once upon a time, but now have been left largely uncared for and untended. But what the grounds lack in upkeep, the students certainly make up for in character and manners. Having to address 900 and 600 teenagers from another nation and culture is particularly daunting but the incredible amount of respect and attention I was given was almost supernatural (or maybe it was because it was the first time they'd been publicly spoken to by a red head?). But even better was their response! Many saved, and lives dramactically interrupted by the Gospel. This is what I live for!

Here for 5 more days and trusting for ever increasing fruit, deeper relationships...and to buy more moisturising cream!

Thanks for praying

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!

A Zimbabwean Adventure (Part One)

Over the last two weeks I have ended each day closing my eyes in seven different beds, in 6 different cities and towns , including one very restless night on a cold, hard floor in Chinoyi. As I write this particular blog in my own warm bed in Cape Town tonight, the memory of the +-90 hours in a car, back of a bakkie or squashed amongst music equipment and baggage as we travelled close on 6000kms already seems a distant memory. The hundreds and hundreds of people that we spoke to, hugged, touched, prayed for, preached to, worshiped with, played with, fed and clothed seem light years away as I draw my curtains on a quiet Tableview cul de sac. The amount of speakers, cables, guitars, drums and the like that were loaded onto bakkies, offloaded, carried into rural settings, plugged in, fixed, tweaked, restrung, equalized, unplugged, carried and loaded back onto bakkies (often in the dark with the only light being from a solitary torch or cellphone) are mainly brought to mind as I casually switch on and off my television, kettle and bathroom light.

The dust, the sweat, the tears, the seemingly endless hours at the Beit bridge border have come and gone and life returns to a much more comfortable and normal hum drum pace.

Or was the last fortnight a small taste of what life really could and should be like?

"O God, rip from me a desire for comfort, a desire for mere earthly pleasures, a continual craving for worldly treasures. Whether on foreign soil or daily-chore-bound, let the memory of Christ’s passion burn brighter and brighter still"

(Check out the next few blogs for Stories from our time in Zimbabwe)

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