I had one of the saddest and most frustrating conversations of my life at The Gathering’s Soup Kitchen last night.Frustrating because it was of a theme that keeps rearing its ugly head, and sad because we the church are responsible.
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The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
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Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together -
The Gathering -
Baptisms at The Gathering -
Preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen -
Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
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Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng -
Thankful Thursdays -
HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
Staying fit as a family -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
It's twenty years ago this month that we made our first move in to overseas mission as we went to Tanzania for an initial two year stint. Just under a year later we resigned out in the field, were treated appallingly by the organisation we were serving with and ended up staying with some Catholic Fathers at a nearby Seminary. The last group of people I expected to be genuinely Christian turned out to have a greater concept and handle on Christian basics than the organisation we had served with. Still, that's a long time ago and much water has passed under the bridge since then.
After a day of Homework Club admin, it's great to have 32 letters about to be delivered to various families in Firgrove telling them that their kid has secured a place for 2018.It's been a great journey since we set out in January last year with 12 kids and not really knowing what the Homework Club would look like. Here we are a whole twelve months later and we're setting off with 32 kids and looking to expand it to 48 sooner rather than later.
Please stand with us in prayer as we believe that The Gathering will grow through this outreach into the community.
For our Silver Wedding Anniversary last year I wanted to give Paula a gift that would last but also one that had a cost, not a financial cost, but a personal one. So, starting on our anniversary last year I gave Paula the gift of letters. No, I didn't give her the alphabet, though it would have been cheaper, easier and a whole lot quicker. No, what it actually meant was that I committed to writing to her every day for a year, sending her a letter or a card. Some letters would be posted, some I would hand to her and others were left somewhere for her to find. I know I missed a few days but looking at the little mountain of letters and cards I know did my best. But more importantly, it was a huge blessing to me and a great lesson, but more on that in a bit...I have to say it was a lot of fun. It was great to rekindle the letter writing skill (we used to write to each other constantly before we got married), especially in this age of connectivity and constant social media interactions when pens are rarely required. The whole experience was enjoyable and the highlight was intentionally setting aside a few minutes each day to write a letter or card. It meant that for a few precious minutes all I had to do was think about Paula and what I wanted to say to her.
Those were treasured moments!
Planting a new church is never easy and doing it from scratch is tougher still, and at times it's easy to feel down and like nothing is going to plan. Those negative feelings can be especially tough to deal with when growth is slow and commitment of some is sporadic at best.However, as one persists and remains faithful in prayer, things begin to turn and whilst I don't think church planters ever have that feeling of "we've done it" things do seem a lot more positive through faith and prayer.
We seem to have been celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary for a while now, but then again, why not?! It's quite a milestone and one the world would like to have bet against. We often laugh about the fact that someone (who shall remain nameless) gave us six months when we announced our engagement. 24½ years later we hope they feel differently.In many respects we always believed we would hit this milestone and carry on way past it, but in other respects we're more than amazed that we've gone the distance so far.
To say that we'd have gotten this far without our faith would be foolish, all honour must go to our Lord for sustaining us!
So we've renewed our vows in St. George's, the church we were married in all those years ago. We've been to Paris for a week to celebrate on our own in style and now we're enjoying some special time at home with our boys, who think we're ancient because none of their friends' parents have been married for anywhere near as long. Oh the joys of being older parents!
Yesterday we had the privilege of attending the Hillsong Leadership Network Open House. We always find these times very inspiring and uplifting. In fact, they're so full and packed that to quote Steve Penny (yesterday's speaker) we just feel the need to "sneak off to our cave" afterwards to digest all that was said.We really value the input and support we receive from Hillsong, we know some local churches are threatened by them but their fear is baseless. How can anyone be threatened by a church that uses the tagline: "Championing you & your local church"?!?
We were a little bit early when we renewed our vows two Sundays ago, our Silver Anniversary isn't until the 14th of September, but the opportunity was too good to miss what with us being back in St. George's for our last Sunday. We had a great morning and must thank St. George's and the Rev Mandy Carr for allowing us to hijack the bulk of the morning service to do this!
It was also a great privilege to celebrate with some truly special friends, we know many couldn't make it and we missed you, but we're thankful to those of you who were able to join us.
I had the privilege of speaking for a few minutes and I did say that we should really call this "a celebration of Paula's madness" having put up with me for 25 years.
We're delighted to be able to reveal our new home for The Gathering!This is the Shell garage in Firgrove and the location fits so well with three prophetic words we've held on to over the last year.
Firstly, we had a word about moving out of Macassar High School, we didn't and we were tipped out!
Secondly, we had a word about moving to the outskirts of Macassar. Well Firgrove is most definitely on the outskirts.
I loved every minute of being back in Zim, despite the constant power cuts, water shortages and shocking roads. I loved how the locals don't waste their time complaining and moaning about how bad it is but rather get on with life. I loved every minute of being back there because it made me realise just how much of my heart I left there when we were thrown out in 2003.
For most of our time in mission we've been involved in sowing seeds and rarely got to see the fruits of our labours. This is why I'm so thrilled by what I'm seeing in Zimbabwe.This morning I went to River of Life Westgate, the church we were instrumental in planting back in 2002 with a team from River of Life Mount Pleasant.
Those were exciting times as we gathered at Westgate as a small team with a giant vision to see a church planted and a variety of social outreach projects established.
I'm not a journaling kind of person and keeping a diary of any kind is something I'm appallingly bad at, so when I came across the idea of a Blessing Jar late last year I thought it was a great idea and was determined to give it a go.So here's how it works... each time you receive a blessing from God, no matter how big or small, no matter how important or trivial it may seem, you write it down and pop it into the blessing jar. Then at the end of the year you revisit the jar and the blessings it contains.
It really is that simple!
The joy of this is that there are so many blessings that you've completely forgotten about, and it is truly a joy to look back on the year and remember just how blessed you were.
They had so much fun doing it and on being unable to decide who should top the tree off with the angel they chose to do it together.
Nice one boys!
Just got to say what a great morning it was with Tree Of Life again.It is such a privilege to see guys who have been stifled for so long finally spreading their wings and learning to fly again!
This morning Chris brought a word and it was brilliant. What an encouragement to see folk stepping out into new things with Jesus. I've never heard Chris speak like he did this morning but I know that as a church we are going to be hearing a lot more as he flies in his faith.
So Harold Camping and his sect have come up with a convoluted mathematical formula to determine exactly when the day of judgement will be.
Forgive me if I'm wrong here but...
I kind of thought that if one genuinely seeks restoration of friendship then one needs to acknowledge that friendship has broken down. If one acknowledges that friendship has broken down one needs to acknowledge that one played a part in that breakdown. If one acknowledges that one had a part to play in that breakdown then one needs to express a degree of sorrow or remorse for their part in that.
Surely then, if one then sits there and claims "I feel I have nothing to apologise for!" then clearly one is not genuinely seeking restoration.
As I say, I may be wrong, but I'm very open to discussing it. Share your thoughts in the comments box below.
I kind of thought that if one genuinely seeks restoration of friendship then one needs to acknowledge that friendship has broken down. If one acknowledges that friendship has broken down one needs to acknowledge that one played a part in that breakdown. If one acknowledges that one had a part to play in that breakdown then one needs to express a degree of sorrow or remorse for their part in that.
Surely then, if one then sits there and claims "I feel I have nothing to apologise for!" then clearly one is not genuinely seeking restoration.
As I say, I may be wrong, but I'm very open to discussing it. Share your thoughts in the comments box below.
The high just gets higher as today we're off for two nights without the boys. We're sloping off to our favourite retreat in Pringle Bay whilst the boys will be in the very capable hands of
I'm also looking forward to a meeting on Friday. Whilst it's not a meeting I particularly want it should be a time of laying to rest a lot of the nonsense of the last few months.
To top it all off I've been invited to preach again and am really looking forward to it on Sunday. That'll be twice in a month which is a bit of a novelty.
Bring it on!
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