STOKE IT UP! 24/7 Prayer @ College

Part of the college deal down here is that we all get a 'responsibility' to look after, like the media gear, the costume room, the junior youth group, music etc... Mine is with the Prayer Team, so we're right into it from the start of the year... 3 MONTHS of PRAYER!!!! I'm pretty excited at the sheer challenge of a community praying for that long, but a bit bummed that I'm going to miss most of it because I'm in Darwin then! Part of the vision for this prayer is to STOKE IT UP!!!!

If anyone is into prayer and geographically close to college, then give the college a call (or Amanda or I - if you have our numbers!), and come and pray at the "Armoury"!!! We'd welcome some integrating with the wider Salvo world and it would be a great encouragement for Cadets and staff to continue STRONG in 24/7!

"Don't burn out: keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder." Romans 12:11-12

TSAASTTCGFC - Grand Final Challenge, an update

Well things are progressing well, then bam!... its the final day of the challenge!
I won't provide a comprehensive list, but here are a couple more things we got up to:

• Pete blogged recently about evangelising a prank caller, next time one calls, try it! (Or maybe you could get a telemarketer saved!)
• We've had the privilege of collecting heaps over this past week, 4 attempts with 614 (Melb Central and Southern Cross Stations), we didn't get confirmed amounts, but each day my tin was packed to the limit with notes and lotsa gold, I pray that money will see people saved through 614!
• In a recent outreach night, Steve put Pete and I on the line when a gangsta-kinda guy came to 'preach' at us about the Salvos, we had 2 minutes each to share the gospel (which he agreed to listen to... yeah!), we didn't see any radical salvation that night, but on my parting handshake, I slipped the guy a little gospel of Mark - he thought that was hilarious and kept it - heres praying the gospel will stay with him till Jesus gets his heart!
• Collected $696 for Carlton Corps at Lygon Court shopping centre (nice), as I was collecting a uni student set up a henna tattooing table (henna - temporary painted tattoo). After my shift I asked her to paint me a cross and the words "Jesus Saves", to my disappointment, she said she'd especially love to write those words on my arm... turns out she's a believer! praise the Lord! Now I have a ready-made evangelistic opener, lets see some people saved this week!
• Prayer-walked the Collingwood area with Xander and Pete, along the way we met a guy from a past outreach in the park. Made a meaningful contact there, also prayed for rain.... since then we've received a healthy drenching!!! ;o)
• Freedom Friday last week we saw 4 College-mates meeting in the 707 prayer room. A time of focussed prayer and great mutual encouragement to continue the fight for freedom!
• Last night had an awesome night out with some mates of ours, I'm believing for the next Gowans and Lllarson!!! Candidates papers are getting sent their way today! whoo!

Well thats some of the cool stuff we've been up to for the kingdom! By the way, I'm loving the challenge and the way it has given me an opportunity to push forward in the fight! Maybe this should be a year-round focus to get us active in prayer, proclamation, evangelism and building character! I don't really care about whatever prize the challenge-winner gets, I care more that I've been challenged to reach my world for Jesus and in doing that, the prizes are fully eternal for myself and the people I've had the awesome opportunity to reach out to!

If you're interested in doing the challenge with your young people over the summer break - which I highly encourage! (its heaps better than sleeping in and playing the PS3/Xbox!), you can find the official list at the armybarmy blog in the 16th Dec post (thanks Steve!).

TSAASTTCGFC (Grand Final Challenge)

I think a few people already know about the Grand Final Challenge presented for this final 3 weeks of college. Basically we're challenged to form teams of 3 and choose tasks to complete out of a range of different options, there's evangelism, personal growth and other variations of Christian mission, ministry & formation (even the kooky stuff! hehe). I'm proud to say my team is made up of Pete, Xander Coleman and myself. We're pumped for the challenge to reach more people for Jesus and dive deeper in our personal commitment to the Lord!

Thus far our challenge tasks have included:

• Ridiculously early prayer (2-5am) - God used that time for empowering, edification and some serious intercession!
• Fasting (we chose to go a 'Freedom Friday' this week)

Since this is only the beginning, we're just getting warmed up, but we're praying to see some serious spiritual fruit out of this exercise. Praise the Lord for the challenge, it's certainly stirred things up!

So you think you can PREACH?

Macleod last night, 5 preachers "pitted against" a congregation of young people in a battle for Salvation & Holiness....

Preachers drew a preaching topic out at random and had five minutes to prepare before letting loose on the young people. Topics and Preachers were:

Alana - Trinity
Amazing for a first-time preacher! She had a go at a tough topic and ripped through it in record time! Keep an eye out for this young woman, she's got it!

Pete - Salvation
Shared his extreme passion for souls from a passage in Luke 4 - the bit with Jesus reading from Isaiah. Challenged the youth to lay down their sin before God and step into new life with Christ!

Jo - Worship
I brought a notebook with me to scribble notes on, as I opened it, found I'd scratched out some notes & bible verses on worship ages ago! (praise the Lord!). Preached also from Isaiah 58, using an out of tune guitar as an illustration for our worship being out of tune with God's desire for worship!

James - Holiness
Typical of Jamsie to get his favourite topic! This crafty guy organised a 'backing track' with the band, rocking it out with some holiness passion and laying down truth so thick we didn't know what hit us!

Tish - Choices
Man this girl has a seriously quick brain! She chucked in about 15 verses on choices and gave us the low-down on our choice between wisdom and foolishness.

The "all-in challenge" saw all 5 preachers up the front backed by the band, and being led by the Spirit in challenging some radical response. Tell you what, we saw some serious sanctification happening at the foot of the cross! A massive night for youth, by youth (yay Sarah McIver! love you!), this definitely has to be done again and reproduced across the world!!!!

CONNECTIONS 07!!!

Off to the first of many Connections 07 meetings today... (my first Officers Councils! yeah!).
I hope you've signed up to be a delegate, but if not, there's plenty of events you can rock up to at no charge. Check out the Connections page here. Make plans to be at the march, its gonna be awesome!

Well thats it for now, things are looking good here at college, the Heralds are mega-pumped for their commissioning and the Witnesses are just loving the ride....

See ya there!!!!

Uniform vs. Uniformity?

PETE : AARON : XANDER : JAMES

What an awesome bunch of fired up Salvo guys! I love that all of them are in uniform, but they're all different!
This was taken at the Prayer walk (@614) about a month ago, but I recently spent some time with them at 'Go For Souls!'... an AWESOME time! People were getting saved, we were prophesying over each other, tons of prayer for others and the lost and the Revolution band went nuts for Jesus! The Holy Spirit was really moving (you know what happens when the Holy Spirit moves... oh yeah!), heaps of people were challenged that weekend.

There's nothing like spending time with people who get you fired up for Jesus! ;o)

GO FOR SOULS - this Friday & Saturday

A local Evangelism-focussed conference - you'll find Passion, Direction, Fire, Equipping, Worship, Teaching, Zeal, Challenge, Empowerment, Vision... all THIS Friday and Saturday at Plenty Valley Salvos (cost - $10), give James a call to find out more - 9436 4681 (ask for James).

God is gonna start something huge...

How good is God!

I have way too much to write in this blog!!!! God has really blessed the socks off me! Last week was some AWESOME ministry with the kids and people out at Rochy, I was in my element and God was doing a good thing through the mission team! We had a great time.

The news today is mind-blowing (a new TP in Dec 2007), what is God up to???

Whatever it is, the Lord is getting things moving and I hope this momentum keeps up. I've had a read of the TC's dream/vision document (check it out here) and it was like fuel on the fire, I just want to get at missioning, visioning, leading and being with the people.

Our ATP Gregory Morgan has a great excerpt in JAC (from his thesis) about re-focussing educational strategy. I've pasted in a couple of my favourite quotes:

"We believe that the best educational theory confirms the fact that people learn best when learning matches the life experience of the learner. The idea that students are blank slates that come to be filled with knowledge is bad theology and even worse educational philosophy. Therefore we try to bring the experience and the learning moment together. (Frost and Hirsch 2003: 221)"

>> No one is a blank slate, everyone has experience, info and opinions to share. When it comes to cadets I think we should find ways to share our gifts and expertise to teach each other, a shared - not imposed - learning experience. For me, I've found sharing in group ministry is one of the most rewarding and richly educational experiences for me to date - experience and education.

"Do we want and need people who are socialised and identify strongly with others trained for ministry? Or do we want and need people who are socialised to society and identify with the community to which they are called in mission and ministry? A Christendom model of church can entertain the luxury of a separate class of people defined by status, however a missional church needs leaders who understand the genuine need for incarnational ministry."

>> I'm hungry for some incarnation, some community contact with the people I'm called to reach!

"[Mr.] Banks and others who share this view want the learning community of theological schools extended beyond the campus gates so that students, faculty, and administrators might experience their ministry in the context of God’s classroom – the world. Access to this world-oriented classroom would occur not after one’s degree is earned, but during the process of one’s education. The spirit behind this missional approach to theological education is found in the text of John 3:16… The context for theological education is not restricted to the classroom, but encourages us to be in the world at the same time. (2002: 54)"

>> Amen - Lord, bring it on

What've you been up to lately?

The past two weeks have been tough in many ways, a violent attack of the flu meant I was sleeping at least 12 hours a day, rapidly falling behind on my assignments and locked away from the world in 'self-quarantine'.

While I was in recovery, I had opportunity to do a bit of 'light' reading, and for me, the raw fire of early Salvationist writings was just the thing I needed to keep my fighting spirit alive whist in a germ-induced haze. Summing up my feeling at that time was this quote:

"Nothing demoralizes salvation soldiers more than inactivity."

- William Booth

I was physically inactive at the time, but have recently felt missionally inactive because of the constraints of college and my increasing hunger to be doing the work of Christ. Putting my personal feelings aside, I think of how many soldiers today seem to be demoralized (have you noticed an 'air of discontent', holy or otherwise, which pervades the air around many soldiers?). Is it as William Booth said, that inactivity is the root of a demoralized fighting force? I believe that if we only engaged our soldiers in vital Christ-centered mission, we would hear much more rejoicing and less 'muttering' amongst the ranks. As a friend said recently, "every person can do ministry, if they can do something, they can do ministry... even baking scones or moving tables".

Let's ask ourselves - What is it I am doing? What action does God require?

if in leadership, what is it we are asking our soldiers to do for Christ?

Let's not be an Army that used to be a movement, let us share a Holy Spirit-inspired vision that will inspire our soldiers and our Army, to move today.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov 29:18a), lets not allow people to perish for our lack of vision, or lack of action!

SALVATION... SPIRIT... GOT IT??

Do you ever wonder if people really know what it means to be saved? As a Christian who is still young, but has learnt a few things along the way, I am starting to wonder if we're getting a little bit mushy around the edges with our definitions. Lately I've been Blog-hopping in Salvo circles, going to a lot of classes at Salvo college, some at Whitley too and generally having chats with different people.... and you know the more I hear, the more confused I get. I'm the kind of person who likes to keep things simple (I didn't say anything about clean or neat!!!), to have truths in my life that are unchanging.... God loves me, my husband loves me, the sun will rise, I'm living life for Jesus, that kinda stuff.

From all different sources I'm starting to hear some warped things

• people mixing religions the same way they mix drinks (being a Salvo, I don't know how to do either!)
• people watering down what God requires of his kids (evangelism, passion, growth, commitment)
• people forgetting what being a Christian (or a Salvo), is really about (saving souls... anyone??)
• people thinking that you have to 'make it' as a Christian before you can do ministry (just live it and do what the Holy Spirit says!)

I want to hear some more Catherine & William Booth's around, some more Samuel Logan Brengle's stirring the place up, some Isaiah's and Paul's getting in your face with the real deal!!!! Catherine Booth was one smart and spirit-filled lady, she didn't beat around the bush, she let everyone know what the truth was and then challenged people to think about it... what a woman of God! In her "Aggressive Christianity" sermons/book, she provides some pretty hard-hitting definitions of what Salvation really is... and never tries to water it down, in fact she expands on it so much that your head almost explodes with the force of truth in it!!! (Read it! I dare you..)

The thing that is frustrating me to the point of screaming - is the stuff I'm reading in these books (add "Revolution" and surprise, "The Bible"), holds answers for the kind of Christian I KNOW I want to be, this is the mission I want to live!!!! the conviction I want to have!!! In these books I see a passion so far beyond just 'really liking' something... there's a passion in there that threatens to be an all-consuming desire of your life! (Oh, Lord make it so!)

I want to see a passion with legs, walking around the place and stirring things up!!! I want the Holy Spirit live and active in more people's lives, to the point where they're so passionate they seem nuts!!! Anyone else want to see another Pentecost??? Please if you have influence over the spiritual lives of others, I implore you....

DON'T REST UNTIL YOU HAVE THIS PASSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR YOURSELF!!!
THEN LET IT SO INVADE YOUR LIFE - THAT YOU WILL ALLOW IT TO SPILL IT OVER ALL THOSE AROUND YOU!!!

How can we be happy with second-best, when we could have life in abundance through the Holy Spirit! Don't allow your Christianity to be watered down, get the Holy Spirit now... just ask and see what he will do with you!!!

"In the last days, God said, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

In those days I will pour out my Spirit upon all my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy." ACTS 2:17-18