Thinking 'out of the box' for churches

http://www.rethingkproject.com/

"Theran’s ministry calling is to communicate the reality of God’s Kingdom using creative forms of media. His desire is to stand in the gap between the church and the world - the creative and the boxed - the academic and the popular."

So are we boxed and academic - or are we a church that will open new doors to 'the world' using creative forms - so that the unsaved can be drawn in and be introduced to the full love of the Father?

I believe our calling is to train up our congregation into discipleship, spiritual growth and to having the mind of Christ in spiritual maturity. But we also have a calling to reach 'the world' and that may mean re-engineering /recreating how we do things in 2010 compared to how we did outreach in let's say 1980.

I know the traditionalists will shout - 'compromise'. But if our church is filled with Christians and
not unbelievers I think there is a gap in our thinking. We can pay the missionaries to go into Africa - or we can take being mission minded as reaching out to the community of lost around our churches and how we are going to do that in new and refreshing ways.

Any ideas?

Food for thought for our evening services.

Homework Centre and Library

We are trying to open a HomeWork Centre and Library for the children in Pretoria West. To achieve this we are appealing for school text books, study aids, reading books, encyclopaedia - printed and digital. Plus we need a computer with DVD drive, a scanner printer and if anyone has a small - photocopy machine it will go along way to assisting the children.

Moving venues takes Faith

Faith is such a strange idea - it literally means believing in something you can't always see but you know in the supernatural, spiritual world - it exists. It cannot be worked out with mathematical calculations but for those who discover it's power, it is a portal to a new experience, and once you have tasted its fruit - nothing else will satisfy.

We have started to move our church to a new venue as the old one has been taken back by the Department of Education.

We began with zero finance to do this, a deposit to cover the new venue and our retiring pastors accounts to furnish for one more month. The new venue costs R6000 compared to the old one of R1100 per month and I just trusted God. "Father if this is your open door - give us wisdom".



Teens, young adults and adults all gave up hours and hours of free time to clean up what used to be a very dirty and badly kept factory on the first floor of an old building - our new venue.







God honoured our faith and some of the finances suddenly started to come in from donors - as we need close to R20 000 just to make the vision we have for people in Pretoria West a reality every little bit helps.
Maybe one day someone will say -'I have money to spare, here is an extra R10 000 monthly' ($1000) - then we will realise our soup kitchen, Adult education reading and writing centre for the illiterate and homework centre with a library for those kids and teens who are less fortunate who come to our church. There is a public library but it will take them about 1 hour to walk there and most cannot afford public transport, plus its not safe for smaller kids as there are unscrupulous people out there who abduct small children to kill for muti. (suppose to be magical medicine to cure impotency, AIDs, wife problems, unemployment etc - here in Africa people believe and trust in any demonic source of power except the one God who loves them and is the answer to all their needs).


You may ask what has literacy training and feeding people got to do with religion. Well nothing but when it comes to Christianity that is a different matter all together. You can't tell someone Jesus loves them and then not help them with their basic needs they need to survive physically and grow spiritually.

So now I just trust the spirit of the Lord to work in the hearts of people to release the fiances or physical goods like chairs, taps, water pipes etc we need - and that is called faith. Its not just sitting around hoping - its asking, looking for the best, cheapest suppliers with Gods guidance and its trusting His children to respond as well.
As our Teddy Bear class sings, 'Faith is just believing what God says He will do, He will never fail us, His promises are true.' PTL

Rats and other things in our Sunday school

Rats of course stands for Radically Altered through Salvation - and they were my Sunday school class. [I say were because the Lord called 6 new teachers - setting me free to start other children's ministries]. Here is a picture of them at my house. None of them can swim - but they loved the water.

They were made up of 1 white and 14 coloured and black children - who speak mainly Afrikaans and just could not get on with the rest of the group s0 I took on the challenge and formed a separate class with them. We ran for 3 years. Two moved up to Youth this year, and two others were able to integrate into the main class - that is victory for His Kingdom.

Here is teacher Shandre with one of the Rats and a Sunday school child, these kids are so hungry for love and hugs although its hard to work with them because they are very unstable and can lash out at the drop of a hat. I don't think kids are born dysfunctional and anti-social - I think family life makes most of them that way and those adults are going to stand in judgement one day. So when we are teaching children we need to take time to reach into the family homes as well.

Home visitations is considered old fashioned - most people just sms or email their children on birthdays, but what most curriculum that we get from overseas and what our big mega churches in the rich areas that offer training forget, is that like it or not - this is Africa and only a very small portion of black disadvantaged children have cell phones, even less have computers and the majority have no clue what Internet is about.


Visiting in homes can mean your car will get stolen, you may even get attacked by abusive parents - its a whole new ball game here. So to get to know the kids better I started taking them on outings. The first time they were really scared - being taken so far from their 'home ground' we only travelled about 6 kilometres away but that was enough for them.

Took them to the museum - they did not know what was going on - it took some time to persuade them that stuffed animals are in fact dead - once they clicked - oh boy. I had my hands full teaching them 'we don't touch, sit on or move the exhibits'.

Of course this takes money, money we do not have in our church, but planting life skills and experiences into these children's lives and trying to use the Love of Jesus to turnaround some of the damage done in their young lives makes it worthwhile in the end.

Choosing a Mission Field

I was at a conference today called 'Catch the vision for 2010'. The speaker was very much like our normal motivational speakers but he spoke about the church and how to reach out. His church and those he highlighted earn thousands of rands in collection, sponsors, big business etc and as a result they have schools going, building churches in previously disadvantaged areas, training up people, reaching into universities and even church planting in Lesotho.

So many people want to be missionaries in distant lands. Even here in South Africa people will tell about how they are taking the 'Good News' to the squatter camps, how they are funding missionaries to go into darkest Africa to bring the news of Jesus to those that are lost.

I applaud them - being obedient to the Word of God, but what fascinates me is that on their doorstep was our little church and we were part of their group. We are located in a semi-industrial area, - we call it our mission field. Around us are people living below the breadline, grannies (white and black) living in garages, children living without hope, people without work, single mother families squashed into tiny rooms a little larger than two beds width. Hungry people. Displaced refugees. Street Children and child prostitutes.
Did they ever hold out a hand to uplift their poorer brothers in the Lord - not once. Did they know about us - yes but maybe because we don't run in a squatter camp we don't qualify for aid.

Thank goodness our Lord is bigger than these mega churches. Every Sunday we get just enough money in to feed our children that are hungry before they attend Sunday school. The poor or elderly get given a food bag once a month. One family crawls into the big skips and with garden gloves dig out tinned food that is still ok to eat. They wash off the vegetables, even sell second hand clothes and feed our needy brothers and sisters immaterial of the colour of their skin.

When we find someone needs clothes - we ask every one we know and we cloth them. If we see someone in the Sunday school (45 kids) or youth (42 kids) needs clothing or stationary or schools we either supply from what we can get from our poor congregation or we ask our richer friends. In the end the kids get money for their school outings, food on the table, beds to sleep in, fridges to keep food in, Sunday school curriculum and visual aids - God supplies it all through His children who have heard our cry for help.

So what do we still want to do:-

• Start a homework centre for kids in the surrounding community with internet, printers, a fully stocked library. People who can assist with teaching extra maths, science etc. Here we would also feed the children - spiritually and physically.
• Reach into the surrounding schools with full time workers - taking the Good News to the children on our doorstep
• Run a Holiday Bible Club, Youth Camp and Alpha every year financed by people with a heart for the lost right here in the city.
• Bus in and run a weekly social event for senior citizens with people who can assist with hair cuts, pedicures and manicures.
• Start a soup kitchen 7 days a week staffed by people who need work
• Start a Operation Employment to type CV's, do skills training, run a free personnel job finder but to name a few.
• Have NIV bibles for everyone in the church and for the new people still coming in - run ABET classes if they cannot read it.
  

What do we need. Well we are moving into a new venue. Used to be a small factory - money is always useful but we actually need

• carpets to cover the floor for the Sunday school and youth. To cover the wooden pallets that will make a low stage.
  
• About 2000 face bricks to create Sunday school / youth church classrooms.
  
• Curtains and chairs.
  
• Stationary, bread, food for our Sunday school kids in need.

So if you are looking for a mission field - how about coming to visit us, see what we are about and then choosing ours!