"I’d like to extend to you a blessing as you enter this year. I want to bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. That you may know today that you are God’s beloved. And that you are loved with a love that will never ever let you go. That God knows you by name. That God holds out a crucified hand to you and says: ‘Will you take it?’

I pray that God will bless your spirit with a new responsiveness to life and to God and to Jesus and to the movement of the Spirit. I pray that God will bless your mind with new clarity, new clearness, and new abilities to think and to put things together, to connect ideas.

And that Jesus will release you from forces of darkness, despair. That God will bless your emotions and cause them to come alive again - the good emotions of joy, and peace, and deep love, and hope, and faith. I pray for that.

I pray for God’s blessing upon your bodies, that there will be new vigor, and vitality, and energy. That God will bless you with that. And that God will bless your relationships and where there is pain there will come new insight and faithfulness. That there will new intimacy, and closeness, and friendship, and community. I ask God to bless you with that.

That God will bless your work that you do in the world. That it will make this world a better place, it will put things together again, it will serve people. I bless your work in Jesus’ name.

I ask God to bless you with a new aliveness to creation – to the sky, and to the grass, and to the mountains, and to the rivers, and to all the insects, and the birds and the animals, and the dogs, and especially cats. I ask God to bless you today.

To bless you. And I speak that blessing to you in the name of Jesus Christ. May the joy of this God, the joy of the risen Christ be with you.
Amen"

(UIT: 'Op soek na Community' op 17 January 2010 deur Trevor Hudson)

Kort die kerk ’n 'reboot'?

TEO Webdiens van die Fakulteit Teologie van die Universiteit van Pretoria - http://teo.co.za/artikel As openbare go

Dit het in 'n tuin begin. En saans teen skemer het die ontmoetings plaasgevind. Daarna is offers van eerste opbrengste gebring. Na 'n sondevloed, 'n altaar met brandoffers. 'n Droom het 'n klippilaar-ontmoeting na 'n huis van God laat vernoem. Daar was 'n ark wat in 'n pelgrimstent, wat as tabernakel bekend gestaan het, geswerf het. Om ontmoetings toeganklik te maak op jarelange reis. Later 'n tempel in 'n hoofstad. Daar was musikante in grotte, profete op berge, leiers onder bome en mismoediges langs fonteine.

With The Da Vinci Code poised to go from bestseller list to the big screen on May 19, pastor and writer (and Sojourners board member) Brian McLaren talks to Lisa Ann Cockrel about why he thinks there's truth in the controversial book's fiction.

What do you think the popularity of The Da Vinci Code reveals about pop culture attitudes toward Christianity and the church?

"Toe vra Jesus vir die twaalf: 'Wil julle nie ook weggaan nie?' Simon Petrus het Hom geantwoord: 'Here, na wie toe sal ons gaan? U het die woorde wat ewige lewe gee. En ons glo vas en ons weet dat U die Heilige van God is.'" ~ Joh. 6:67-69

Die boek, The Da Vinci Code, skop af met die volgende stelling: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate". Dit sê met ander woorde vir jou dat jy te doen het met 'n stuk historiese waarheid wat in 'n fiksieverhaal vermeng is.

‘n Paar gedagtes gedeel met leierskap

The Gospel is the core of Christian living. It has within it a contemplative dimension. This dimension is God’s invitation to every human being, through Jesus Christ, to share God’s very nature. It begins as a way of listening with ears, eyes and heart. It grows as a desire to know God and to enter into God’s love. This is made possible by a dying to the self that becomes an emptying to God and experience of God’s love.

Redes vir 'n groot gemeente

1. 'n Groot gemeente is skriftuurlik
   Die eerste gemeente het begin met 3000 lidmate (Hand 2:41).  Die gemeente het gegroei totdat daar omtrent 5000 families was (Hand 4:4).  Ons gemeente was in 1991 ± 150 lidmate.  Ons het sedert daardie tyd bly groei en is vandag ± 3500 lidmate.
    
2. Ons glo in groei