It's A Force For Good Too!

Well we just finished our series at church called My Lame Sex Life. We spoke on Porn - its far reaching effects and how to cope with it. In a weeks time you will be able to get the resources by following this LINK

Here are a few of the highlight statistics on Porn:

• The Porn industry makes US$56Bil p.a.
• The average age of a persons first contact with porn = 11
• US$3bil is made on child porn
• 1000's of porn sites target kids by having name pages that are mis-spelt kids cartoon characters
• 800 000 people are illegally shipped across borders each year in the slave industry... the majority of these are used in the sex industry
• 47% of Christians admit that porn is a major issue in their household

The internet has certainly been taken advantage of by wicked people...
but it is also a place of much good! One such sight is freerice.com
Here is an excerpt from their site's FAQ:

Will the rice I donate make a difference?

The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it. According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children. To a mother or father watching a loved child die in their arms from hunger, the rice you donate is more precious than anything in the world.

The site uses a fantastic win-win model:
You play... and increase your word knowledge
those in poverty benefit 20 grains of rice for each word you get right!

Don't wait another second... CLICK HERE to give it a go... and make a difference in someone's life!


Let me know what you thought!

PS: If you know of other similar sights please do let me know!

Porn Stats

What a great day! I was the celebrant at a wedding and then had our awesome youth ministry called Elevate tonight. It is such a privilege to be able to have such a role in people's lives.

I thought that in todays post we'd take a fresh look at the stats on porn... its a bit of a pandemic really. But stats can be quite dry and boring... so heres an attempt that XXXCHURCH made at spicing it up. Click HERE to check it out.

Let me know your thoughts : )

Tommy's Porn Testimony

I have had a few requests for the Tommy testimony that was supposed to be on my post: Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag. Click HERE to see Youtube version.

I just found another great blog called: Stuff Christians Like... Here's a few sentences to wet your appetite : )
There are 12 billion reasons for me to write that sentence and 2 for me to not write it. The two are my in-laws, as this is bound to be the kind of post you hate for your mother-in law to read. And the ladies in her bible study aren't much better. But
So click here to read the rest of this really good post...


Lastly if you haven't checked out the website on our church series called My Lame Sex Life then click HERE

It's Time To Spruce Up Your Vision

Vision casting is a key component to leading. In hearing many messages from some of the world's best Christian leaders... they always say that their fault is not declaring the vision often enough. Simply spending a week or two declaring your vision will NOT cause it to become apart of any one's fiber. They key is repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition...

But what if you don't have a vision statement... or your current vision statement is a dud? Well Strategy Central have a few idea's for us... read on:

Got a vision statement? Sure you do. Happy with it? Probably not. Just a guess...but it may not even be your vision statement. Might be a slightly doctored version of another organization's statement.
Click HERE to read the rest

For All The Preachers In The House...

I have such a great privilege of being able to communicate to large groups of people. I absolutely love it and know that I'm bang in the center of God's will for my life when I'm doing it.

I'm always keen to sharpen my communication gifting, so I thought that you too might enjoy this post by Pastor Steven Furtick. Click HERE to read his post entitled: Bring Your Best Every Time

What would be your top 3 tips for communicating / preaching?

A Saving Perspective

As you know, we have been doing a series a Eastside Church called My Lame Sex Life. This past Sunday Ps. Simon spoke on the 'language of lust'... he had an absolute cracker of a thought:

How can we stop lusting after others... and fantasizing?
We need to place people in context!
We need to see them as daughters, sisters, brothers, fathers...

1Ti 5:1-2 CEV
(1) Don't correct an older man. Encourage him, as you would your own father. Treat younger men as you would your own brother,
(2) and treat older women as you would your own mother. Show the same respect to younger women that you would to your sister.


How have you found victory in this area? I'd love to hear your thoughts : )

Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag

In gearing up for my message on 'Porn: Whats the big deal?' which I will speak at the conclusion of our series entitled: My Lame Sex Life (check out www.mylamesexlife.co.nz)... I thought I'd show you Tommy's story (you can find more these stories at XXXCHURCH)

Challenging Quote

"The absence of risk equals the loss of the prophetic." Joel Holm

The Bible in Lego

Hi to all my readers. I must apologize that I have have been absent... it has just been one of those weeks.

Tonight we had Part 2 of our My Lame Sex Life series in the 6pm service: We had guests Pastor Wayne & Pastor Ruth Swift. They were an absolute hoot and had some really great thoughts. Hopefully by the end of the month our new web site will be launched with all our podcast ready to roll. In the mean time though you can check out the web site: www.mylamesexlife.co.nz

I am constantly amazed with the Bible. No matter how many times you have read it... you always get new and fresh revelations.
God's Word brings life... healing... it calls things that aren't as though they were...
And now... it even comes in lego! Click HERE to check out the bricktestament.

Let me know what you thought!

PS: Don't forget that you can subscribe to this blog... thus taking the hassle out of having to find it on-line each time. Just check out the right hand block. : )

10 Questions And More

Well, life sure has been hectic over the past few days... but very very exciting too!
Sunday we kicked off our series in the 6pm service at Eastside Church called My Lame Sex Life... you can check out the web site by clicking HERE (www.mylamesexlife.co.nz)

I am really excited about the series. As soon as our new web site is launched you will be able to get the podcasts! I'll keep you updated!!!

Then on Monday evening I went to the first UNITED VISION OF PRAYER meet at a hill over looking our city. 11 of us spent an hour praying for our city. It was so awesome to see the young people's hearts growing for their city. Watch this space, cause this monthly prayer meet is going to go through the roof!

Then today I met with 4 other core churches from the Vision Youth Network that I run... and we began to plan for our first city wide event... exciting! God is doing something special in our land of Aetoroa (New Zealand).

Check out an exciting international prayer event HERE to be run through the local church.

Well enough about this excited cat... let me leave you with a phenomenal set of 10 questions for evaluating yourself as a team leader that I got from LifeChurch.tv's blog. CLICK HERE to check it out.


Let me know what you thought : )

How To Deal With Criticism

If you're alive you're familiar with our subject on this post... criticism.
While we may have had many an opportunity to have to 'deal' with criticism being leveled at us... it doesn't necessarily mean that we have handled it really well.

As you know I have been reading the book unChristian, and they gave me a few idea's for this post.

1. Respond with the right perspective

Isn't it amazing how Jesus never seemed overly perplexed when He was faced with criticism.
In fact Jesus taught in the beatitudes that we should consider ourselves blessed when criticized for righteousness sake.
Paul counted it a privilege when criticized and persecuted to be connected with the name of Jesus.

2. Redefine

When Jesus' critics tried to set the agenda in their criticism Jesus redefined what the boundaries of the debate / criticism were really about.
'Shouldn't the sabbath be kept holy?'
"Of course they should be... but for what reason?"

3. Walk a mile in their shoes

Jesus always discerned what people's underlying motives where. Was the person just being hostile and self-righteous... or was this coming from a place of hurt? After all, hurt people... hurt people!

4. Focus on what you can control

While most people shake with anger when criticized... instead of being concerned with what has been done to you... one's focus must be upon what is happening in me!

I have always found it interesting that Jesus taught us to bless those who criticize and persecute us. But when we pray for our critics ... something happens on the inside of us. Our focus switches from ourselves and what has been done to us... and we begin to experience true love and compassion for our critics.



I'd love to hear your thoughts about how you have personally handled criticism in your life : )

Vision Flows Down From The Top

I've been preparing for Sunday's message as we kick off our new series called My Lame Sex Life. So my brain is a bit too tired to come up with a post... so I'll link you to a phenomenal post by a great young Pastor.
By the way... why not check out www.mylamesexlife.co.nz

If you have been in leadership for a period you would recognize that one of the greatest challenges we as leaders face is to keep people focused on the vision. Steve Furtick of Elevation church writes on this topic in another great post. I have given a one liner from his post and then a link that you can click to listen to a 25 min streaming audio message.

Understanding and passing the vision down from the top may be one of the best things we do as a church...

CLICK HERE to listen




Let me know your thoughts on how to pass on vision to those you lead.

You Get What You Expect

So on my first day back at work I was whisked away to a one day conference... it wasn't Bill Hybels but Paul De Jong. I had a throughly great time!

I have just come back from a leaders life group. Out of everything we do... this is my favorite time... just getting to hang out and connect with our great leaders.

In our youth department staff meeting I really challenged our team about the power of our expectations. I love this quote that I got to share with them:

Both he who expects great things of others and he who expects little, will receive what he expects. Anon

A test on the power of our expectations was done using 2 sets of 36 rats and 36 students.
The first group of students were handed a rat and a maze. They were told that the rats were 'super-maze' rats. They were told that not only were these rats the very best, but that their parents had been champion maze rats. The students were then given the challenge to train the rats for 30 days to see how fast the rats could get the maze.

The second group of students were also given a rat and a maze each. However, they were told that their rats were 'maze-dumb'. They had always been useless and so were their parents. Although the researchers weren't expecting much the students were to train their rats and see what times they could come up with.

Now the 72 rats were all chosen randomly, and the information that the students were given about the rats was all fictional.
Can you guess after the 30 days what the performance difference was between the 2 sets of rats?

It couldn't really be all that great right... I mean, its not like the students could tell the rats that they were smart or dumb.
Well the result might astound you... the difference in performance was 200%!

The expectations that we hold... are so powerful! Are our expectations lifting people... or dragging them down?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

Rocky On High Standards by Ps. Steven Furtick

I have to be totally honest... I'm quite cheesed off. Its 1:30am and I just can't get to sleep... and I have to get up for an early 6am start. Such is life I suppose.

Tomorrow i head off to Auckland for a 1 day Q & A seminar with Ps. Bill Hybels.... what a treat! I'm sure you'll see a few posts about that one.

Any ways, I wanted to share a great thought from Ps Steven Furtick of Elevation church. The topic is on having excellence... and not settling for mediocre. Now i know that the word excellence carries a lot of baggage with it... so don't bail out on me here... follow the link and you won't be sorry!
CLICK HERE to read the post.

This is a subject that I battle with. I suppose its all about making the jump from being mates with those your are trying to influence and being their leader. It can be a difficult step to make... but a very necessary one if we are to grow past the 100 barrier.

Let me know what your thoughts are on this subject!

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