Jesus' Arms and Legs

Hey Everyone,

Well, Sunday was a big day. First we had Jeremy and friends in the morning and then the Worship Experiment in the evening. Big congratulations must go to Matt Adams for this initiative. The worship was amazing - I had some significant time with God! A few words came out during the worship too, which were encouraging to us as a church.

At prayer meeting this morning, Charlotte Booth told me about a dream she had last week which I think is for us as a church:

In her dream, she gave birth to a baby. The baby had a well-developed body but the arms and legs were underdeveloped, and this worried Charlotte - she called the doctor and asked him if the baby needed some more time to grow in the womb before it was ready to come out into the world. But the doctor was not worried.

As we prayed about this dream, it became clear that the baby was The Tribe, and that while we were healthy as a body, our arms and legs were underdeveloped. The arms and legs represent our service and ministry to the world - us being the arms and legs of Jesus - his work in the world.

This seems to fit with what God was saying last week about wanting us to "grow up" into maturity. God wants us to grow in the area of serving the world and being his hands and feet - being Jesus to the world. This was very much in line with what Jeremy challenged us to do - to go out and invite people just as Jesus did. It also is encouraging for the direction we are heading in as a church with our 'Outward Sundays'.

It also seemed in the prayer meeting that God was again calling us to be single-minded; to have him in first place in our hearts and not to have something else to be our 'idol'. In particular, some verses out of James seemed very relevant:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?

(Jas 4:1-5)

We always need to be reminded that we can't proclaim Jesus as Lord to anyone else, if He's not Lord of our own lives. This is a real challenge to me too.

A few reminder notices:

1. We collected the LinkNZ offering for the expansion of LinkNZ on Sunday. If you made an IOU, please bring it on Sunday or get it to Steve Thawley somehow. Also, if you would still like to give to this offering, there will be an opportunity to give to it on Sunday.

2. The men's breakfast is on again this Sunday - all men, come along at 7.30am for a great breakfast and some great time together as men. Ladies, we appreciate you letting your husbands out to this - we appreciate this time together.

3. Gifted parties is on tomorrow (Wednesday) night. $7 - painting canvases. Don't miss out!

Finally, I have started this blog as a way for us to keep the conversations going about what is happening at church. Please click on comment at the bottom of this message and leave a comment. This comment will be public and will be visible to everyone, so please don't write anything you aren't happy for the whole church to read! But let's start a conversation here - respond to what I have written or make observations of your own, but why not use this as a place for us to "talk" as a community about what is going on.

Have a great week. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday. Remember, Sunday's aren't quite as good for us when you aren't there, because you are part of our body - we belong to each other.

Ben