Palmerston North

Last weekend we spent time with Pastor Russell and his team at Salt Church in Palmerston North. Braden shared with the youth on Friday night, with the young adults on Saturday night and to the Sunday morning service. It was a great weekend with the team there and there was a great feel of community.

We had a great time catching up with the youth leaders, Kent & Div, the young adults leaders Brad & Ruth and the Pastors of Salt. They are all doing an amazing work in Palmerson North.

Wanganui

We spent a weekend ministering in Wanganui at Pastor Iliafi & Fia's Faith City Church. We were at the youth camp on Friday night with Ben and his team and also on Sunday morning in both services.

It was great to be a part of what they are doing in Wanganui for a weekend.

In our down time we took Kaira to a park where there were slides, swings, and water fountains that she could run through. She had a lot of fun and got more and more confident with the water.

We had a great time everyone there and were looked after very well.

The Olympic's Dirty Secret

The 2010 Winter Games are on at the moment in Vancouver and are a bit of fun to watch. I particularly enjoy the double men’s luge which is a minute and a half of adrenaline and intimacy that takes on a new twist in spandex.. The Olympics are usually a time when countries compete in friendly bouts of athletic tests and citizens cheer them on. Even when countries might bicker politically (or militarily), the Olympics is a place for peaceful coexistence through sport. Believe it or not, the Olympics is actually a hot-bed for human rights violations. Here are some highlights from article in Relevant.

Recently groups have begun to highlight a dark side to the Olympic Games. Sex trafficking rises exponentially at international sporting events like the Olympics. The number of human trafficking victims almost doubled in Greece the year of the 2004 Athens Games, and still hasn’t returned to pre-2004 levels.

International sporting events are particularly insidious in the sex trade industry, as it makes it easier to bring visitors into the country who may be unwilling victims of the sex trade. This coincides with an increase in demand for prostitution and “other forms of sexual exploitation” by attendees. Though a disturbing truth, it is inescapable in a year that will see both the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. (Already, a couple in Wales was arrested for running an expansive prostitution ring of young Nigerian girls, an operation they intended to move to South Africa in time for the World Cup.)

Roughly 800 are enslaved in Canada’s sex industry at any given time, the majority of which are young women between 12 and 25 years of age. An estimated total of 8,000 females become victims of this inhumane system every year in Canada alone, a number that is expected to grow in 2010."

There are some organizations that are combatting this mentioned in the article.

Here is another article that mentions for the last Football World Cup in Germany an estimated 40,000 prostitues brought in for the sporting festival! While prostitution is legal in Germany, many women (and girls) do not choose this as a prfession.Every year some 500,000 people are smuggled illegally into the European Union (EU). Nearly 90 percent of them are trapped into sexual exploitation agaisnt their will.

A Picture of Faith from Charles Blondin

I like this picture of faith that comes from the life of Charles Blondin.

Blondin was born Jean François Gravelet-Blondin 28 February 1824. He was a French tight-rope walker and acrobat who performed amazing feats around the world that always attracted large crowds of people.

He was especially famous for his crossing the gorge below Niagara Falls on a tightrope. This he accomplished, first on 30 June 1859.

The rope was 1100 feet (335 m) long, 3¼ inches in diameter, 160 feet (50 m) above the water. Carried out the crossing a number of times in front of huge crowds, always with different theatric variations: blindfold, in a sack, on stilts, carrying a man (his manager, Harry Colcord) on his back, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette.

On one occasion at the Niagara Falls Blondin trundled an empty wheelbarrow across the rope, and all the spectators cheered. He then placed in the wheelbarrow a sack of potatoes and repeated the feat. Then he asked the crowd, “Do you believe I could wheelbarrow a person across the tightrope.” Everyone cheered and shouted that he could. He then asked for a volunteer, “Who will be that person?” The crowd went silent. No one offered to get in the wheelbarrow. Nobody put their belief in Blondin to the test.

Faith requires action. Intellectual belief in God is not faith. Real faith means that we will act out our faith on a daily basis. Faith is getting in the ‘wheelbarrow’ and trust in God completely.

Faith

I have been speaking recently about real and active faith. For those who have heard these messages, the following are some more references and thoughts to follow on from my preaching:

Abraham
Genesis 11:27-32 ‘This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no children. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.’

We know that Abraham is an example of great faith. According to Genesis 12 he leaves his home, in obedience to God and just goes, towards a land that is yet to be revealed. Howvwer, in the previous chapter we learn that Abraham’s father terah was also supposed to go to the same place, Canaan. Did he have the same opportunity as Abraham to be the father of a great nation and fall short of this? Did he fail to walk into everything that God had for him?

In fact it is an interesting question to ponder. Was Abraham the father of a great nation because he was the only one chosen, or because he was the only one who responded? Will we respond to whatever God has called us to do, or will we settle like Terah?

What caused Terah to settle? Here are 3 possible reasons for camping at Haran

1.Fear
Gen 12:6 "The Canaanite was in the land".
We can settle where it is safe.
2. Sorrow
Haran had died. Perhaps Terah’s sorrow meant he no longer wanted to continue.
3.Satisfaction
Maybe it was the fullness of Terah’s home, that made him content with partial obedience whereas Abraham was prepared to abandon everything because he was not satisfied with Sarah’s barrenness.

Hebrews 11

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews gives some ideas of what constitutes faith:

Faith Is Rational
By faith we “understand” that the universe is not self-existent; rather, it was designed by the Creator (v. 3). The notion that one cannot be intelligent without being anti-religious is a myth propagated by those who hate God. Logic and faith are companions.

Faith Depends upon Revelation
The Lord speaks to us (Heb. 1:1).

Faith Involves Trusting Our Maker
When Noah was warned of God, though he had never seen a flood, he prepared the ark (v. 7). Abraham left Chaldea “not knowing whether he went” (v. 8). Clearly, trusting the unseen God is a vital component of true faith.

Faith Is an Action Word
Faith is not merely intellectual assent, faith must have action. By faith Abel “offered” a sacrifice (v. 4), Noah “prepared” an ark (v. 7), and Abraham “obeyed” the Lord (v. 8). Faith, divorced from obedience, is dead (James 2:26).

Faith Chooses
It chooses the spiritual over the material, the eternal over the temporal. Moses chose heavenly riches over the treasures of Egypt (v. 26).