Benefits of being alone

In our present day culture we are constantly bombarded with blackberrys, I-phones, apps, facebook notifications, DSTV on demand, pvr, tweets, blogs, I-pads, sms's and ringing phones. Alongside this is the endless desire to either be planning, being at or posting pictures of the social events that clog up our google calendars.
We are a people who hate being alone!

With that in mind, here are a few lessons I'm learning why it is sometimes "good for man to be alone"


Benefits of being alone:

1. Reveals muddied motives
-with the absence of earthly voices around you, and without the constant checking of the social media approval ratings, being alone gives God the opportunity to reveal whether we are motivated by man's applause or heaven's well done

2. Reveals scaffolding
-while christian community is essential it must never be central. How quick are we to surround ourselves with support systems (which don't necessarily have to be just bad things) other than throwing our full weight upon Jesus. Being alone highlights our imbalances

3. Reveals broken cisterns
"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."Jeremiah.2;13
-Being alone shows the cracks in the cisterns I'm drinking from

4. Opens our ears to the Father's voice
-He loves speaking, we're just not good at listening. He loves speaking, unfortunately so do we. Stop trying to be interesting and start being interested. Being alone inclines our ears heavenward and closes our mouths

5. Gives space to deal with and learn from the past, take stock of the present and dream for the future
-Being alone gives us honest perspective

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to be alone with God and pray."Luke.5:16

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!

Your roots Are Showing (Part Two)

This last fortnight’s series, “Your Roots Are Showing”, has been an incredible journey and defining period for us as a community of faith as we have dug down a little deeper into the very root system of who we are. Beginning with God’s original intent of intimacy, influence and inheritance found in our primary texts of Genesis 1 and 2, we then finished week one in chapter 3 of the book  of beginnings where our devine DNA and desires was distorted by the second preacher to become weaker and yet still controlling passions for sex, sleep and success.

Week two saw us launch into Acts 2 as we rapidly glanced at how this thing we call church was birthed. Contrary to popular belief, the church was not launched after much deliberation by grey haired men in stuffy windowless rooms surrounded by piles and piles of doctrine and creeds.

No, the church that the gates of hell will not prevail against, was birthed in fire and drunkenness that took weak, fearful men and women out of hiding in a second story room and onto the streets of Jerusalem with utmost courage.

We also see from this passage that the Holy Spirit was poured out not for feel good, bless me club meetings but for the mission! To give weak, cowardly people like us a boldness and power that is not of our own but that would be used also not for our own fame but the fame of another. Which brought us to our landing point: The church was birthed for Jesus.

What began in Genesis.2:7 with a kiss will culminate in a wedding. Jesus is coming back for a bride, His bride! We believe that this whole thing called humanity and creation was a glorious setup for Christ to be glorified. And as John Piper writes, “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him”. Or as the ancient creed says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”

These are our roots. And as we said often over the last couple of weeks, our roots determine our routes. What began with Christ will end with Christ.

He is our proclamation.

He is our preoccupation.

Our roots are showing more and more, and our routes have never looked more exciting!

http://www.lifechangers.org.za/sermons/your-roots-are-showing/

Your Roots Are Showing (Part One)

A few years ago, I went through this strange phase of being embarrassed of my red hair.
Strange, I know.
But for a period of around 10 or so months I would dye my glorious ginger locks a dull and deathly boring black. Now, this isn’t that weird a phenomenon for teenagers just out of school desperate to express themselves, but it becomes peculiar when you remember that I have a paler skin than the entire cast of Twilight. And unfortunately I don’t sparkle, so without my red hair I’d disappear into a hazy background in the majority of photos. So for all intents and purposes, 2006 was a quiet year on my Facebook timeline! That being said, things got a whole lot crazier when my natural colour started to push its way back to the fore after a few weeks after the dye process! I moved very swiftly from having a goth-type look to having an absurd tiger effect going down.  Looking back, it was all very embarrassing.

It’s with this unusual trip down memory lane that we kick off our two week series “Your Roots Are Showing” at Life Changers in the evening meetings. For too long the church, the “ecclesia”, the called out ones, have been duped by the second preacher who introduces his lying self in Genesis 3 and who continually distorts the word of God to us and sends us on a lifetime of retreat, religion and cover ups. Over this fortnight we aim to remind ourselves of our roots and to begin a journey of removing the metaphorical dyes that we have allowed to discolour our lives.

Stick around on this blog as we expand on this and check out the sermons of this series on our Life Changers website if you want to join us on this journey.