End Year Celebration 2013

 

As an Every Nation family we believe in building the church not on full time staff members, but on the people, the volunteers!

Each member is called to be a disciple and to make disciples. Each member is called to be a minister of reconciliation. The work of the full time staff is to equip the members for the work of ministry (Eph 4) and that is exactly what we see - people in love with Jesus and passionate to see others added to the Kingdom.

Every Sunday the power team pitches up at 06h00 AM to set up for the service. Then the last people to leave to leave again are the volunteers...

So every year we celebrate the people who make church possible. We organize an evening to honour God for what has happened during the year and to celebrate every disciple maker and every volunteer!

It's an evening where we put on our party shoes and celebrate life together! Celebrate the life that is in Christ!

 

 

 

 



Eldoraigne in progress....

We have been intentionally reaching out in Eldoraigne for a couple of months now and I must admit that it is a bit more challenging than I initially anticipated. In Olievenhoutbosch you could walk into someone's shop/business or even their home and start a conversation - in Eldoraigne I'm afraid that if I walk into an accountants office I might walk out with a bill =)

 

As I mentioned in one of the previous posts we started with an action cricket team to start building relationships with the people who stay in the area. In this we have seen and learned a couple of things: We definitely need to practice our fielding; there are MANY lost people at the indoor sports arena; people are much more open and hungry for truth than what we think and if we want to reach lost people with the gospel - we have to be intentional in reaching out to them!

 

During our first week we had a girl join us on our team (because we had a shortage of female players, so Riëtte engaged with her and invited her to join the team) and she has been an integral part of the team so far - playing every game! We have been trusting for an opportunity to reach out to her and bring truth into her life and after one of the games I had to drop her off as her boyfriend played action cricket at a different venue. During the drive she asked my what I did and I explained to her what I do and also why I do it - that society is broken and needs to be restored into God's original image and purpose. She then said that her life can testify of that - of the brokenness. In the end In managed to share the essence of the gospel with her and she is so open for truth and basically said that she needs someone who can disciple her. So Riëtte will follow up with her - but I am just so thankful of how God opens peoples' hearts to receive truth!

 

One of the teams we played against also had 2 people get injured during one of our games. The next week both of them showed up with crutches to support their team. After the game about 3 from our team just asked if we could pray for them. Corinne (the girl from the above paragraph) asked if she could also stand with us when we pray!! They were really thankful and we trust that a seed was sown into their hearts!

 

The lifestyle approach is definitely slower than standing on the street corner, but through this we are seeing how God is the orchestrator of salvation, how He draws people unto Himself. We just need to continue to be bold in living Christianity and grabbing hold of the opportunities God creates where we can share the gospel!

Kathu Establish Training

The Establish Training is a follow-up training to the Engage Training we did back in August. The passion in the hearts of the people in Kathu is seeing many being reached with the gospel! As they are being added into the Kingdom their is a need to see them being established in Christ - discipleship - and that is what the Establish Training is all about...

 

During the weekend we had most of the core group from the training in 2012 taking part and it's great to see they still remain hungry and still remain incredibly teachable! We got clarity on their current discipleship culture and from there we worked towards unity on the what, why and how...

 

The what is what we want to do - build a discipleship culture

The why behind it is because Jesus is the only one who can change a someone's belief system from which their can be a holistic change in the person's life.

The how is the meet of the training. How to build a discipleship culture that will overtake the existing culture in the community so that God will be honored.

 

After the weekend there was an alignment from the leadership to the members in unity on how they will make disciples. The Monday after the training I already received a call from one of the guys who attended the training to just tell me how he has already applied what he has learned and how he is excited to see how this will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God!! 

 

 

Olievenhoutbosch Church Plant

 

 

As I am no longer actively involved with the Olievenhoutbosch Church Plant, I though it would be good to give an update on what is happening with the team...

 

Johan and Estie Visser, who are now heading up the church plant, have got a team together from people within the Centurion Congregation who also have a passion to see the community of Olievenhoutbosch impacted with the gospel. They have a group of about 10 people as part of the team...

 

What has been happening in Olieven these past couple of months have truly been amazing. Many new people have been added to discipleship groups and some of the groups have grown to maximum capacity =) Lois (in the picture below) is close to starting his own connect group which is a massive testimony to the work that the team has been doing in Olieven!

 

 

 There have also been many testimonies of healings taking place as they step out to pray for those who are sick. When Jesus preached the message of the Kingdom healing the sick was an integral part of it - he demonstrated the Kingdom to people and this is exactly what we see happening in Olievenhoutbosch!