The Faithlife Study Bible

The Faithlife Study Bible is the world’s largest, most advanced study Bible. With three layers of study notes, over 400 photos, videos, and infographics, the ever-expanding Lexham Bible Dictionary, and much more.

The Faithlife Study Bible is the ideal tool for digging deeper into Scripture and integrates seamlessly with Faithlife groups that you can create so that your Christian community get get into the Word. You can explore the Bible’s passages, create group reading plans, and share notes with your Faithlife groups. 

“If the Word of God nourishes the soul, trains the mind, and is used by the Spirit to transform our lives, then what a priority it should be for those of us who trust in Christ to devour the revealed word of God. Logos has removed every obstacle imaginable with the Faithlife Study Bible. The commentaries, videos, articles, maps, and graphs take you as deep as you want to go while being easy to navigate. The Faithlife Study Bible is a steroid shot in the arm of reading the Bible through in a year.”—Matt Chandler

The developers of Faithlife are giving away 2.5 million copies of the Faithlife Study Bible! It’s available on your iPhone, iPad, Android device, or Kindle Fire, or online at Bible.Faithlife.com. All you have to do is download the app on your mobile device and create your account. Once you have the FSB app, share it with all your friends—dig deeper, together. 

If you’d like to be part of a Faithlife group in Invercargill then drop me a line or leave a comment…

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Food for thought…

Did you know that more than 80 percent of those who call themselves Christians read their Bibles only once a week? And that’s usually on Sundays, at church. They come to church to get their spiritual fill, and then snack on devotional tidbits for the rest of the week (if we’re lucky). Food for thought…

The following excerpt is from ‘The Divine Mentor’ by Wayne Cordeiro. It left me wondering how the church is faring in the whole area of discipleship, life groups and Bible Reading; as well as how well am I doing in this area personally…  

“What would the people in your church look like if they snacked on meager food morsels during the week and ate only one good meal on the weekend? You know the answer, don’t you? You’d find yourself surrounded by emanciated, gaunt people in desperate need of nutrition.

And how would these undernourished believers fare against a demonic adversary? Can you imagine how this army would look? You’d see threadbare skeletons with hollow cheeks and sunken eye-sockets, lined up like phantoms. Weakened by famine, that shriveled militia could barely stand at attention; each would struggle to find strength to keep his or her bony frame upright.

Could this ‘army’ conquer an opposing foe? No way. No earthly general would send them out to fight.

Well, then, how about the army of the Lord? What of those who gather on Sunday mornings? Are they spiritually nourished to fight the battles ahead? Considering what most members of God’s army subsist on – an occasional tidy snack from a devotional book and perhaps an average-sized meal on Sundays to satiate conscience – you’d have to conclude that God’s fighting force has some serious training to do.”

This is something that we all need to start looking at seriously; both individually and congregationally as we grow in our faith. Especially when we consider that the Word of God is food for our souls.

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Have we lost our way…

I wonder have we lost our way (organisationally and individually) as the demands placed on us as Officers have a detrimental affect on us doing what we were called to do…

I was reading Acts 6 this morning and after some time of contemplation I feel that we could well be neglecting the importance of the word in favour of doing good works…

“It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The New International Version. 2011 (Ac 6:2–4). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

When I look at the responsibilities I have as a Corps Officer: Spiritual Health & Well-being of those attending the Corps; Independent Living Unit’s Referral Officer and ensuring the well-being of those onsite and ensuring that their units are in a good state of repair; Director of Community Ministries in a suburb that has seen a huge spike in the amount of assistance given to clients due to earthquake related issues and general life struggles; Youth Pastor to a growing group of young people who only this week had to come to grips with a major incident at school; Future Planner, as we look to the expected growth of our area in the next few years; Administrative Maestro ensuring that the accounts balance and that the statistical reporting is up to date; Business Entrepreneur – ensuring that our Family Stores are generating enough income to support the local mission to name just a few. And what’s more this is just a small Corps.    

I’m just a tad concerned that all of the above responsibilities are taking precedence over my Officer’s Covenant…

MY COVENANT – CALLED BY GOD to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as an officer of The Salvation Army

I BIND MYSELF TO HIM IN THIS SOLEMN COVENANT to love and serve him supremely all my days, to live to win souls and make their salvation the first purpose of my life, to care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable, and befriend those who have no friends, to maintain the doctrines and principles of The Salvation Army, and, by God’s grace to prove myself a worthy officer.

Done in the strength of my Lord and Saviour, and in the presence of the Territorial Commander, training college officers and fellow cadets.

All too often there is an expectation placed on us that we need to do all this and more! Yet the Bible is quite clear that we are to pass many of these responsibilities on to others so that they can use the abilities, skills, talents and gifts that God has blessed them with.

Are we in today’s world of “ministry jobs” to loathe to do this or are we afraid of passing on this responsibility to those that are not fully signed up…

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The Leadership Challenge…

Its been a while since the last Leadership Challenge and part of the reason behind that is because we have had a few leadership challenges of our own to deal with. However, it has been said that “Leadership is about commitment and discipline” and the thing is we are all leaders to some degree.

If you’re a parent, you are setting an example for your children; if you’re a teacher, you are setting an example for your students; if you have a job, you influence the people that you work with.

Leadership is about influence and you have the most influence with the people closest to you. Which means that we all have a minimum requirement to lead ourselves well before we can effectively lead others well.

Over the past few weeks both Annette & I have been encouraged to look after ourselves by getting some supervision and/or counselling to help us through the challenges that surround our appointment. And I’m the first to admit that this is something that I haven’t been very good at cementing as a part of my ministry – But I do recognise its importance and the reality that I need to create a strong cohesive support network around me.

If we are to follow “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership” as laid out in James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner’s book “The Leadership Challenge” which are to: ‘Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart’; then we need to put something in place that will enable us to achieve the commitments that we have each made to see this thing called Leadership (Officership) through.

And for those that see this whole area of ‘Supervision, Counselling and Mentoring’ as something new you are very much mistaken!

It is a Biblical process that Paul espouses through his writings to the early church. Read for yourselves his letters to the church of Corinth where he instructs the church in its areas of weakness; or to the church of Thessalonica where he encourages new people to the faith in their trials. Or what about his Pastoral letters to Timothy & Titus where he gives specific instructions to them on how to develop leadership.

In each case Paul is encouraging commitment and discipline, as well as reflection, evaluation, supervision. He is, through writing the letters supervising, counselling and mentoring others so that they will be built up in the faith; so that they will be able to persevere; so that they will be able to attain the crown that has been set aside for them.       

Leadership is a choice! We each face leadership opportunities every day. And we all need assistance in how we respond to these. So I encourage you as one leader to another if you haven’t got a strong cohesive support system in place with trusted colleagues, supervisors, mentors and counsellors – Get some!

You can either rise up and accept the challenge supported by others, or you can try and make it on your own. I know which I’d prefer – Because I’m committed to the long haul, remember we are running a marathon not doing a sprint…

I’ve adapted snippets from David Hill’s Review of ‘The Leadership Challenge’ in this blog.

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Leadership Network, Nvader & Fresh Expressions

On Thursday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a Leadership Network meeting in Spreydon Baptist.

Leadership Network is an organisation that is being developed by former Senior Pastor Murray Robertson of Spreydon Baptist church. The vision of the Leadership Network is to encourage pastors, elders and other church leaders in the development of effective missional churches throughout New Zealand.

At this meeting we were introduced to the opportunities and challenges that two large churches within Christchurch have experienced due to the recent Earthquakes which have well and truly blurred the lines of denominational differences and shown that collaboration between churches is not only possible but beneficial to the health and well being of the church as a whole.

Prior to the earthquakes the senior pastors of Spreydon Baptist and Grace Vineyard had met to discuss ways in which they could together reach out to the city of Christchurch. The earthquake has very much sped up that process and now not only are they combining for evening services but Spreydon has, after substancial damage to Grace Vineyard opened up their office space and building for them to coexist in the same church complex for the time being.

At the meeting we were also introduced to Nvader which is a Christian-based non-profit organization whose purpose is to effectively combat the commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children by facilitating their rescue and the prosecution of the perpetrators responsible.

Nvader founder, Daniel Walker, has twenty years law enforcement experience. Daniel spent four years working undercover in more than a dozen countries documenting cases of human trafficking on behalf of two international human rights organizations. His efforts have resulted in the rescue of many hundreds of women and children as well as the successful prosecution of many traffickers.

You can read about his journey and the case for Nvader in his book, God in a Brothel.

We were also introduced to ‘Fresh Expressions’ which encourages new forms of church for a fast changing world, working with Christians from a variety of denominations and traditions. The initiative has resulted in hundreds of new congregations being formed alongside more traditional churches.

For more information check out the link to an introduction by Graham Cray.

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The Leadership Challenge…

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading a classic book on “Church Growth” written by C. Peter Wagner called ‘Leading Your Church to Growth’. In it are many pearls of wisdom that are just as valid today as they were in the mid 80’s (YES! The book is already almost 30yrs old for those of you that may have studied it in Bible College or the like…)

As many of us approach the Mission Review & Planning stage I wonder how you have gone about setting your goals – The Author tells us to ask ourselves this question:

What do you think God wants your church to be five years from now?

And yes I know it is a question that many of us may struggle with as it is highly likely that we will be moved on before that – However the question is still vitally important!

If we as leaders within the local church have not looked at this question and ascertained what God’s vision is for our place, then we have missed the boat – Because ultimately it is not about us… “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)  

Some might argue that it’s not my role to set the vision it is the peoples – that is a cop out according to C. Peter Wagner. You have been given the mantle of leadership and you need to be acting on it, because as John Maxwell states in many of his books ‘everything rises and falls on Leadership’. 

C. Peter Wagner goes on to say that ‘it is a sad day for many a church when… no more plans for expansion have been drawn.’

We as leaders need to be constantly looking to the possibilities of what could be because ‘The faith of the church is never larger than the vision of its pastor.’ (Rick Warren)

I pray that we as church leaders would catch on to what God would have in store for our churches and then believe by faith that through Him all things are possible and work towards the completion of those goals…

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