The Same Message…Regardless of Who’s Listening.

The Bible would have to be one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented books available today.  I guess that should be no real surprise though when you consider it has been one of  the number one top selling books of all time.  I have so many conversations with people who think they know what the Bible says, but really have absolutely no idea.  There is a misconception that the Bible is simply a rule book for religious people.  A list of holy do’s and don’ts for those “poor unfortunates” who believe in it’s “fables” and “fairy tales“.  And those poor unfortunate believers then use that same book to judge others who don’t.

Unfortunately, this has so little to do with the actual content of the Bible that it’s not even funny.

I don’t see the Bible as a rule book at all.  I see it more as an owners manual.  I have a very nice SSV Holden with a V8 engine, a car that is designed for a certain level of performance and to live up to certain expectations.  For example, I expect that when I use the windscreen wipers to clean the windscreen, water will squirt on the window to enable them to clean it properly.  But I have to refill that water from time to time and to do so requires that I know where to put that water.  I can’t just open the bonnet and put the garden hose into say, the oil cap.  To do so is going to cause thousands of dollars worth of damage.  How do I know where to put that water to get the best out of my windscreen wipers?  By reading the owners manual.  The owners manual was written by the manufacturer to ensure that all owners of their vehicles know how to use them as per their intended design, thereby getting the best out of them.

Well the same can be said of the Bible.  We have bodies and lives, that a manufacturer has given us.  And to help us make certain we are getting the absolute best out of them, He gave us an owners manual that contains all the information we need to ensure that we know exactly how to do so.  Who could possibly know better than the designer and manufacturer how to use anything the best way?  If we want the best results in our Holdens, we read an owners manual written by Holden.  Well if we want the best results with our lives and bodies, we should refer to the manual written by the one who designed them and gave us life.

His name is God and the manual He has given us is called the Bible.  In consultation with that manual and with the writer of that manual, we can be shown how to live this life we have been given to the absolute fullest possible potential, the most rewarding way possible.  No one knows this better than He does…no matter who claims what!

Religion may have put a lot of people off the reading of the Bible and the relating with God with all it’s “You’re not worthy” stuff, but let’s have a quick look at what the Bible says Jesus came to preach:  Ephesians 2: 17-19 says “And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him, we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”  Most religious people would read that as “He preached peace to those who were near, but judgement to those who were far off, for they would surely not have the same access to God the Father that we do”.  But that is clearly not what it says.

Jesus message was one of absolute redemption for all.  It is a totally inclusive message (all of humanity) with a totally exclusive method (Himself).  Jesus is the only possible means to salvation and restored relationship with God the Father.  There is no other way…but fortunately, this way is incredibly simple. All we have to do is “believe and receive“.  Believe in Jesus and what He has done for us and then receive the free gift of life that He has made available to us.  As we walk daily with Him, He will instigate the transformation of us into His own radiant and glorious image.

I truly hope that you have had an encounter with this very personal Jesus and are walking with Him daily and experiencing this wonderful transformation. There is no more rewarding way to live….This is the BEST!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering A Legend And A Gentleman…

Just over four years ago, I was asked by one of my uncles to travel to Adelaide to spend some time with one of my cousins.

Mark had been unwell for some time in an encounter with Jack The Dancer and Uncle Graham was thinking a little longer term than just this Earthly life. He wanted to know that Mark’s eternity was in safe hands.

I flew to Adelaide for a day with my mate Dave Williams and we spent the most part of it at Flinders with Mark and also had some great time with his beloved sister Annette.  Precious times indeed.  We chewed the fat for a bit, talked about old Planet Square gigs and good times, Morgan trips and all the usual banter with many questions like “Beer?“.  Unfortunately, the hospital policy didn’t enable us to partake of such an invitation, yet the invitations continued to flow.

After a while, I asked Mark how his cancer was going and he informed me that he knew this was a round he was going to lose, but he was doing his best to keep everyone else’s spirits up about it all.  I asked him if he had given much thought to what came next, and if he was OK to talk about it.  His face lit up and he said that he would love to talk about it.  From there, we got straight to the point as he brought up issues like Heaven and Hell and asked what I thought.  I gave him a very quick run through the good news as explained in the first few chapters of the book of Romans.  Basically none of us qualify on our own and none of us can achieve or earn eternity with God, but God has chosen to give it out freely as a gift to any and all, who accept the free gift of salvation through the provision of His Son Jesus Christ.  We did a ten minute comparison of religion v’s relationship…talked about how religion wants us to try harder and be good enough and sin less and all that, but how relationship is more about us walking with Jesus and letting Him affect and shape our lives through daily encounters, conversations and impartations.

There came a point in the discussion where Mark’s whole face changed…there was faith in his eyes…and he told me that although he hadn’t been a very good “God botherer” going to church all the time and doing all the right things, he did know and trust in the person of Jesus Christ.  We talked about that as the only Biblical distinction and qualifying factor and that as long he had a personal relationship with Jesus, Mark’s observation of religion was really not at all important.  I asked him if he was willing to put his trust for the future in Jesus’ hands and thereby have a certainty about his eternity and he said he absolutely was.

Mark also expressed his frustration that no one had ever showed him this gospel (good news) truth so clearly before.  Although brought up in a number of churches, he had been left thinking it was about religious performance and that he was simply not good enough.  He thanked me for taking the time to visit and to present the truth of scripture to him and told me to please make sure every one else got to hear the truth like that so they too could accept the free gift available to them through Jesus Christ.

Annette and Dave rejoined us after that conversation and Dave commented on the totally different atmosphere in the room when he returned…he said it was like a different room and a different person.  Although Mark was facing physical death, spiritual life had entered the room!

Sadly Mark did leave project Earth a couple of weeks later, but here is what his sister Annette recently shared about that time:

When my precious brother took his last breath four years ago today, we were shattered and grief stricken. This was the worse moment of my whole life. We sat together, still arm in arm, crying and trying to absorb the reality of what had just happened. After about 20 minutes I rang the bell and the night nurse came into the room. We went outside into the courtyard under the full grown english plain trees and sat waiting for our family to arrive. It was a very hot, still, balmy night around 1.30am. As we sat waiting, I looked up into the tops of the trees. The moonlight was twinkling and dancing on the leaves and I saw a wind swirling around and around in the tree tops. It was so beautiful and to my surprise, I felt a calm peace and serene joy come over me. I sensed that the wind was a free spirit that had just been released, sawing high, ecstatic with such happiness that he’d never know before. Free from the pain and horror, he was now serenely happy and in a perfect state of being and knowing, that he had never experienced on earth before. He was on his way to that eternal perfect place we can only imagine and hope for. My precious brother was on his way home.

Mark is sadly missed by so many, but we very much look forward to seeing him again soon and being greeted by a smiling face, pointing at the person next to him and saying something like “What the hell took you so long? Beer?” There goes my hero…but keep it cold, I’ll be there soon!

To Equip Or Not To Equip…

If you’ve been to any public meeting at Extreme Life lately, you will have heard us mentioning the NCMI Australian Equip coming up from the sixth to the eighth of March.

If you’ve been around a little while you know exactly what an Equip is all about, but for many who have only been around a little while, you may be wondering what it is all about and whether you should be considering going to it.

An Equip time is all about “equipping the saints for the works of ministry” (as per Ephesians 4:12).  It is a time when we will have the opportunity to sit under teaching from the kinds of ministries mentioned there in Ephesians 4.

Extreme Life is in a very real and active partnership with a translocal ministry team with an apostolic and prophetic heart.  There are many such teams all around the world but the one we are linked with is called New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI).  I don’t use the term “partnership” loosely either.  We work very closely with these guys in the leading of our local church, involving them in all our major decisions and constantly seeking the guidance and perspective of those on that team that have a wide range of experience and many, many years of successful ministry behind them.  We also get behind what they are doing around the world, sending people and other resources to help with all kinds of projects with the aim of producing fruit for the kingdom.

For more information on partnering with such a team, feel free to read this fantastic blog entry written by Steve Sudworth: http://churchplantingnow.blogspot.com/2011/12/relating-to-ephesians-4-team.html.

So, the Australian Equip is a time when we have the opportunity to gather together with other churches from our nation that also partner with NCMI to receive their input into our lives and churches.  An Equip is not a conference with guest speakers that we have invited because their big name will attract a crowd.  The ministry and input will be from Tyrone Daniel (who leads the NCMI team and resides in the USA since leaving Australia to plant a church in Denver, Colorado), Ron Larson (who leads The River Church in Kansas City) as well as other members of the NCMI team based in Australia and possibly some from other parts of the world.  We will also have Aiden and Elouise Whitaker with us (they are part of Grant Crawford’s amazing leadership team at NCF in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa).  We structure it like this so that we are equipping the local churches that are represented with those who have a genuine understanding of our DNA as well as a heart to genuinely partner with those churches rather than having a guest speaker who comes in, speaks and leaves and no real relationship is formed or sustained.  Further relational growth is made possible by the willingness of these guys who have travelled in from overseas to get into the local churches that invite them to minister there too.  We at Extreme Life have Aiden and Elouise on Sunday March 4 and Ron Larson on Sunday March 11.

Again, it is all about equipping the saints for the work of ministry.  The guys are not just bringing their favorite sermon or their pet topic or just coming to promote the sales of the latest book or CD.  It is not about just providing some loud voices with big audiences, it is about those with experience sharing their experience and knowledge so we can all function more successfully.  The Biblical pattern for those who are fathers (whether speaking naturally or spiritually) is to show how it’s done, then to help us do it and then to let us go and do it.  The Equip times give an opportunity for some of the showing and helping and so we can all go and do.

I know that life is busy and we all have a host of reasons why we just can’t get to such a time.  But if you are part of Extreme Life (or another church that partners with NCMI) I really want to encourage you to pray and ask God if he wants you to go.  If he says no, then it’s settled.  But if he doesn’t then the action really starts.  You see, just because he wants you to go, that doesn’t mean it will be really easy and you won’t have to do anything to get there.  You will need to go to www.ncmiequip.com.au and register.  That will involve some financial cost.  After that you will need to organise some annual leave or arrange for your business to run smoothly without you for a few days, arrange a plan for your kids, arrange accommodation and transport etc.  All of which may involve some inconvenience or some cost (whether financial or personal).

So many times over the last nearly 20 years, Nicole and I have found that the Equips (formerly know as LTT’s for Leadership Training Times) have fallen at the worst time of year for us for whatever reason and we have had so many reasons why we couldn’t go.  We have been the Uni students at the start of a new Uni year, we have been those that have just started new jobs and have no annual leave yet, we have been the new parents with a baby and then with a baby and a toddler or two, we have been those who have just started a new business and simply those who don’t have the time or money to get to something like this.  But we have got to every one of them over that whole 20 years.  Some have been a bigger faith exercise than others, but I can guarantee you that none has been easy.  Once we made the decision to go we then took hold of the challenges, exercised our faith, payed the price and saw it through to completion when we arrived for day one.  In 20 years we have made it to these things every year and at most of them we have actively served at either on a worship team, administration team or general serving team.  We have even made it to a number of overseas Equips over the years, some of which have some amazing stories of their own.

Has the investment been worthwhile?  Absolutely!  Which is why yet again this year, we are paying the price and organising ourselves and our family so we can be there and serve and participate with all we have.

If you would like to go, make the decision, register, then make whatever plans and arrangements you need to (keeping in mind that it will not just come easily and you will need to exercise some faith in this process!) and I will look forward to an amazing week with you there.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Days Off And A Holiday Project…

Some time ago I was looking for a hobby to help me keep my mind off work and on something constructive on my weekly day off.

Being a very keen drummer, it seemed only natural to find something that involved one of my very favourite past times.

I headed in to Noise Music and acquired an old traded in drum kit that I modified into a practice kit for myself (see pic of original project).  Quite happy with the end result, I gave it away and set out to find another one.  As I took on more projects, my confidence grew and I found myself getting more and more adventurous in my attempts.  A joint effort between myself and Noise managed to find some manufacturers shells on Ebay that were used for displaying available finishes.  As such, they were not drilled and were in the perfect condition to be used for whatever we wanted.  So I took them to see a good friend of mine that has a huge industrial saw, and he cut them up into various depths for me so they could be made into snare drums (various snare photos).

Having enjoyed some success with some snare drums, I set out to renovate and restore a Premier Artist Birch kit I also managed to acquire from Noise Music after another great mate of mine had finished using it as a teaching kit (See pic LTTN Kit).  Once finished with that one, it went to Life To The Nations, a church in Melbourne lead by more good friends, Matt and Elodie Doty.

Something I have always wanted to do though, was to restore an old vintage kit…enter the Star (See Star pic).  Star drums were around in the sixties and later became known as Tama.  The particular kit I managed to secure was from about 1964.  It was a bit of a mess, but nothing my newly learned skills and quickly growing confidence weren’t willing to have a crack at.  So I stripped the drums back to bare shells, sanded the old stringy wood to a super fine finish, re-cut and hand sanded the bearing edges and re-wrapped them in a lovely finish from Jamminsam.com.  All the hardware was cleaned , polished and replaced and finally some lovely Fiberskyn heads were fitted to finish it off “old school” (see pic of restored Star kit).

A number of kits have been refurbished since.  Some added to my personal collection, some sold and one or two given away.

All of this to say, that recently on my holidays I was quite keen to rip into another project and dug up enough parts to bring this little beauty to life (see pic of holiday snare).

Not bad for a couple of days R & R I have to say…sounds great too!

This is definitely a hobby I intend to maintain, firstly because it is the first one I have ever had that has actually put any dollars back in my pocket and secondly because I thoroughly enjoy it…both the process and the end result.  I get such a sense of satisfaction every time I finish every part of the process, acquire a new skill and particularly when it is all finished and I get to hear it.  What a way to spend the odd day off…at least until I get a new murdercycle anyway!

I may post some pics of some more projects another time, but enjoy this gallery for now.

Hello And Welcome…

Hi, this is my new blog page.
I have primarily set this up so we can link it to the Extreme Life web page so that the notes I used to write on the Extreme Life Facebook page can be made available to a wider reader base than just those who use Facebook.

Our web team are currently working on that, but I may write on here from time to time anyway, so that there is some active content once that link is made.

For previous thoughts and comments, check out the Extreme Life Facebook page and go to the “notes” tab.

Cheers,
Paul.

Extreme Life And Ministry To Our Women…

OK, here’s a topic that has come up a few times over the years I have been here in Warrnambool, so it’s time it was explained for all to understand. 

The issue that has been mentioned to me a number of times is the one of pastoring the women in the life of the church.

I have been told things like, the women have no one to pastor them because the pastors won’t meet with them, that women aren’t valued in the life of our church, that women can’t be leaders in our church and a few other misconceptions.

 

Firstly, let me just say that I am married to a woman.

I love her, live in the same house as her, sleep in the same bed as her, share a bathroom with her, have had kids with her (which involves a certain degree of physical interaction people!)…my point is that the leadership of Extreme Life does not shy away from or have a lack of respect for or a disregard for women in any way at all.

All our pastors/elders are married to women for goodness sake!

We value, love and respect women including and starting with our wives.

 

Secondly let me clarify that any of our pastors will meet with any of the women in the life of our church.

There will be some parameters to that meeting…

For example it will not ever be alone.  

Either their husband or our wife or another leader in the church will also be in that meeting.

This is a matter of sexual security.  You see I don’t ever want any of our pastors to be asked to justify a one on one meeting with a member of the opposite sex and they are found to have no way of proving beyond any doubt that the meeting was all above board.

I don’t want any of our pastors to ever be caught in a position where some one else can’t verify that the meeting was exactly what they said it was.

So many pastors from around the world are no longer in ministry today because a one on one meeting with a member of the opposite sex deteriorated into a relationship that it should never have become…(or there was an accusation that it did that could not be absolutely refuted).

We will completely avoid that by ensuring that all meetings between our pastors and the women of the church always have a witness in the room to verify the nature of the entire meeting.

If any accusations or questions are ever raised, they will be answered by simply producing the witness that was there at the time.

 

As far as women not being able to be leaders in the life of our church…allow me to remind you of a wonderful woman called Melissa Passlow.

She is a wonder woman raising two kids and running a business while being a valued and faithful contributor to the life of our church and an ordained member of our deacon team.

She prophesies, preaches, leads home group meetings, has assisted with youth, JaM and many other areas within Extreme Life.  

So I guess that ends that myth.

 

As far as it being difficult for women to be pastored in our church, maybe we just need to understand God’s ordained structure a little better.

I will never go directly to a married woman in the life of our church and try to pastor her.

Because God has set a husband in place in her life and it is his role to pastor her.        

I can think of specific examples where my pastors have come to me and pointed out areas in my wife’s life that needed adjusting. 

They told me and expected me to fix it…because God made me her first pastor…and YES, before I was a pastor in the church.

They also expected that I wouldn’t go to my wife and say “A pastor has pointed out this issue and asked me to fix it“.  No! They expected me to take responsibility for my family.

I got to address it and pastor or lead my wife through the issue.

 

This is exactly how we aim to do it at Extreme Life.

So every married woman in the church, has her very own full time pastor living right there in her house with her.  If she is not being pastored it is not the fault of the Extreme Life pastors, but that of her husband who is obviously not leading/pastoring her.

For us to bypass a husband is to step outside of God’s authority structure and that is asking for trouble.

For unmarried women, they are either still under the authority of their fathers or if they have left home, they are the authority and we will speak directly pastorally to them.

I can think of so many examples where stepping outside of these parameters has lead to disaster and we aim to honor this God ordained structure at all times.

 

This is not because we don’t love women, it’s because we do!

We are doing our best to ensure that every safe guard is in place for our women to be well ministered to, well loved, well provided for, well cared for etc…by raising up their husband as their first pastor and the priesthood of all believers that form our local church.

This also ensures the absolute sexual purity of all involved in any ministry with members of the other gender.

 

Also, any of the pastors/deacons wives or female deacons would be more than happy to meet with any women who felt they needed to meet with a woman in leadership to discuss their needs.

 

We do very much love and value women in Extreme Life and honor them as God’s precious daughters.

I hope this helps clarify for those that have asked the question or not been sure of why some things are the way they are.

Celebrations?

At Extreme Life, we call our Sunday meetings “Celebrations”.

The reason behind this is that we come together to celebrate the amazing reality of our position in Christ and all that flows from that.

The gospel of the Bible is all about Jesus Christ and what He has made avaialble for all mankind.

There are no exclusion clauses for those who have sinned extra badly or are from poorer families or have a particular type of sickness or any other issue.

The Bible makes it clear that the true gospel is all inclusive yet totally exclusive.

This means that redemption is available to every single person on this great planet…but only through the forgiveness made available by Jesus Christ.

If we are pinning our hopes on anything other than Him, then we have some tough days ahead.

We are currently working through a series from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which addresses many false religious ideas and notions.

The Colossian church had adopted a syncretism of Greek philosophy, Eastern philosophy, Jewish legalism, pagan astrology, mysticism, asceticism and whatever else they could possibly wedge in there.

They were trusting in the stars, the observance of holy days and religious festivals and listening to the advice of some straight out weird people.

They weren’t denying Jesus Christ, but they were clearly diminishing Him in the adopting of other idols.

Practices that are still evident in the modern church today!

Paul’s advice to them was to disregard all the man made religious rubbish and rely totally on Jesus Christ and the word of God.

Then to live a life that was reflective of His life.

To love the way He loved, to worship and pray and serve the way He did.

When we bring our Christianity back to this level, it is very easy to come to one of our Sunday celebrations and actually celebrate.

We should be the happiest people alive, because our hope is set 100% in the life of some one else…Jesus Christ!

Yet week after week, we see some people come in looking tired and grumpy and we are forced to brace ourselves as the barrage of negativity is about to attack.

To make it even more confusing, often the same people can be seen in other contexts during the week, seemingly perfectly happy and loving life….work that one out!

Life does not always hand us the best possible set of circumstances…that’s just a fact.

Our kids will get sick from time to time, our budgets will be tight at times, our cars and household appliances may even break down all at once and need replacing…all of which I have had to face personally in the last few months…yet the truth remains that both my eternity and my current position within the family of God remain completely unaffected by such things.

These are not secure because of my circumstances but because of my belief in and acceptance of what Jesus Christ has made available to me.

He has also made it completely available to you…have you believed and received?

If you have, please feel free to come and celebrate this amazing reality with us on Sunday…with your party attitude, not your religious disposition.

And if you haven’t, feel free to drop in and investigate…but leave your cynical, judgemental attitude somewhere else because we are there to PARTY and no one takes their grumpy head to a party.

  We come together to celebrate and to experience LIFE!

Misguidance…

One of the coversations I seem to keep having with a small number of people is when they come to seek “guidance” for their life choices.

They present their case and then inform me of the choices they have made and then spend a whole lot of time tyring to justify those choices.

 

The problem here is that what they are seeking is my approval for their poor choices.

Poor choices either are or often lead to sin.  And those seeking my approval for these choices often leave quite disgruntled when I won’t give my approval…(not that my approval for poor choices should matter much anyway, they’re still a poor choice and my “approval” will not change their outcome).

They confuse approval with acceptance and often accuse me (and other leaders in our church) of not “accepting them as they are“, when in fact we do accept them as they are, but we don’t approve of their choices to stay as they are.

Because we love people, we want them to make good choices and to grow in their spiritual maturity causing their lives to become more fruitful and profitable in every way.

 

Contrast this with those that come and explain a situation and present some options they are considering and ask for perspective.  This is a far better way to handle choices.

 

Elders (pastors/bishops/ovseers) or deacons can, and will happily give their perspective with regard to your life choices and situations, but we cannot give permission or approval (or disapproval) if your choices have already been made.

A perspective is simply a different point of view.  

We may be able to see your situation from a different point of view (an external one to the situation) and be able to point out some benefits or issues and obstacles that you can’t see from your point of view.

This new perspective may assist in the actual making of a decision…which obviously can’t help if decisions have already been made and we are just being informed.

 

As far as seeking approval for poor choices goes, Proverbs 21:30 says “No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord“.

This simply means that if the decision we are trying to justify contradicts the word of God, no amount of “wisdom” or prayer or counsel or advice or opinion of your leaders is going to make that choice right or acceptable or change the outcome of it.

What God says stands regardless of anything anyone else says.

 

Life would be so much simpler if we would just honestly and openly weigh all our decisions in light of God’s word even before seeking the counsel or perspective of others.

Remember too that Proverbs 21:2 says that “Every way of a man seems right in his own eyes“.

This is a good reminder that once we have determined some options that don’t violate God’s word, it’s a good thing to have a look at our situation and possible choices through the eyes of another.

 

I cannot tell you how many times the perspective of one of my leaders has saved me loads of money and saved me from doing something dumb that I will regret for years to come.

 

It all comes down to being humble enough to ask before we make a silly decision and then go looking for someone to rubber stamp it and make it “okay“.

 

Read and study Proverbs and teach it to your kids, it is a well of life!

How Will They Know?

Extreme Life is an amazing church!

It is not like any other church in Warrnambool and is even unique in the wider spectrum.

God is doing something that is meant to be different because there are many different kinds of people thatALL reflect something of His image.

We are not all the same, and can not all do church the same.

We are not trying to be different, we just are because it’s who we are.

 

In this difference, we face something of a publicity crisis.

Most people outside of church life, hear the word church and picture an old, gray haired minister with steel rimmed glasses who is utterly boring, has no style or charisma whatsoever waffling on inside a big, old, cold building that echoes his waffling for what seems like eternity.

They think that walking through a church door involves a time warp, stepping back to at best the seventies and and worst the eighteen hundreds.

 

Yet strangely, Extreme Life has a facility that is utilizing some of the latest technology in ventures like web streaming our services around Vicotria and to Hong Kong every week, video presentation with multiple plasmas, HD projection, a state of the art HK Audio PA system that out shines anything else in Warrnambool (including in all the pubs and clubs) and our lighting is always improving as budget allows.

 

Our kids are some of the happiest church kids I’ve seen anywhere inthe world.

Steve and his JaM team do an amazing job of educating our kids in the ways of the Lord in a relevant and fun way that is inspiring our kids and causing them to not want to miss a single week.

They LOVE it!

They also have live worship, integrated video messages and encouragement as well as real Bible instruction.

And they are learning the same sutff we are…they don’t follow a “kids program” they follow the preaching that we are hearing in the church.  How good is that!  They will be grounded in some great truths and miss many of the life mistakes we had to make learning how to live the hard way.

 

BUT…

How will anyone in Warrnambool know any of this…UNLESS WE TELL THEM?

We need to be letting people all around town know about what an amazing church we are.

Encouraging and inspiring them to come and have a look and see for themselves.

Let’s not take it for granted and keep it to ourselves, let’s let everyone know.

 

We even have meeting options for those who don’t like it loud, smoky and with moving lights etc.

That all happens in our 11am meeting, but our 9am meeting is probably one of the quietest times of worship in any church in town and yet still has the fullness and professionalism of an awesome worship team.

 

And yet, if we don’t tell anyone…they won’t know!

I really want to encourage you to let people know how good Extreme Life is!

Most of them already know that Jesus is amazing and have no problems with God…

Their issues lie in those that represent Him…the church.

We need to let them know that ours is well worth their time to come and have a look.

 

Good luck, I look forward to meeting some of your friends and family.

Glaze Is For Doughnuts!

 

I have recently been hearing a lot of comment about our church.  Much of it from people not actually in our church.

Something I encounter very frequently when speaking to people in Warrnambool that aren’t in our church is “Oh I used to go there“.

As soon as those words start coming out of a mouth, you can see the glaze forming over the speaker’s eyes.

The glaze of disconnection, the glaze of “I am no longer interested in this conversation“.

The problem is that there are so many people around town that used to come to what we used to be, but they still think that we currently are exactly what we used to be.

Well I have news for them…WE ARE NOT!

 

A church by it’s very nature of being a group of people being lovingly transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, cannot stay the same as it always was!

If we are the same as we always were, we are actively resisting the transforming work of Jesus in our lives.

And if we aren’t resisting Him, we are changing.

If we are all changing individually, then as a group the same must also be true.

 

We are changing, we will always be changing until we are transformed completely into the likeness and image of Jesus Christ.  The passion lies in the desire to be just like Him.

 

I would sincerely like to encourage the many in town who “used to go to that church“, to examine yourselves instead of assessing us based on years old information and opinions.

We are not what we used to be, and in the future we will not be what we are now.

We have grown and developed, matured and have continued in the process of transformation.

And will continue to do so until the transformation is complete.

Have you?  

Isolation from the body is NEVER God’s answer to our problems.

Healing is found in a healthy body not in isolation from one.

Imagine if our organs decided to remove themselves from our bodies because they considered the body to be unwell…the organ would wither and die because it was designed to function inside the body.

The body is one of the descriptions Jesus used frequently to describe His church and you as a believer in Him are designed to function within it.

 

I would like to invite all those who “used to go to that church” that are currently going to no church, to re-evaluate your position of submission.

If you realise that you have given up the regular meeting together as some were in the habit of doing and you would like to rectify this situation in your life, please feel free to phone our church office and ask Steve for an appointment to meet with one of the pastors here to evaluate whether you can walk this amazing life journey of Jesus following with us.

 

I look forward to meeting some of you soon.