1Peter 3:15 says: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”.
We spent a bit of time discussing this scripture and discussing answers to questions that we might get asked about our faith. Hearing everyone’s take on explaining their faith was a wonderful experience – see the teaching page for a pdf file that has our questions and some answers.  We hope they help to equip you in being prepared to give reasons for the hope that you have!  If you’ve got some further thoughts on the questions, why not leave a comment on this blog?
We also briefly reviewed the Vineyard 5-step prayer model developed by John Wimber - that’s also posted on our teaching page.
Finally, we’re serving at the local primary school market this weekend - a great chance for us to say thanks to the school for being so open for us to use their facilities - will be a great time (click here for further details) - hope to see you there!

Funny how words come with their own hand luggage.  On Sunday we had a discussion around the “going” aspect of our call as a church.  Understandably, words like “mission”, “missional”, “outreach”, and the “e” word - “evangelism” came up in conversation.

Those of us that have been involved in churches over the years will have heard some or all of those words used in various ways, and will have thoughts and feelings associated with them - some good and some bad (what did you think/feel when you read these words just now - do they excite you, or scare you?).

Getting past the words, John reminded us that “going” is about just being who we naturally are when we’re with other people, letting them see the Jesus-influence in our lives, and being able to engage with them if they want to know more.  How we engage with people will come out of our personality and our heart.

We have a “going” opportunity at the end of October when the school we meet in holds a market day on a Sunday morning.  Over the next few weeks we want to explore what this means for us as a church - if we’re to be involved, what is it that God wants us to do?  What is the heart behind what we do?  What legacy do we want to leave behind in the community as part of our involvement?  The door seems to be open for us - how do we naturally and supernaturally walk through it?  How can we serve our wider community?

We’ll be praying for God’s heart, wisdom, and guidance as we discuss what “going” and this particular open door means to us - and just maybe - He’ll be working in our hearts to redefine how the “e” word makes us feel.

Don’t you just love it when God turns up and hangs out with us?  On Sunday Cherie followed on from last week - & unpacked trust, dwell & delight (from Psalm 37:3-4) - some keys to walking with God in the “not yet” times…
Trust in the Lord & do good: Who does God want to be for me in this time?  Seeing more of His goodness, His kindness, His overwhelming love, His grace lets us get a bigger picture than the problem and we begin to see differently. Our perspective changes.
Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness / seek safe pasture: What is it that I am carrying that feels heavy and I can surrender to Him? Matthew 11:28-30 says it this way: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me.  Watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”  Let’s learn from Jesus - think about matching His unforced rhythms of grace and surrendering what we feel are our burdens to Him.  He will help change our position to one of rest in Him.
Delight yourself in the Lord” How do we delight in Him?  Here are two aspects - thanksgiving and praise. Whingeing doesn’t work - I’ve tried it!  Probably will again unfortunately - but when I remember to set my face to being thankful even in the midst of loss - my prayer life changes, my perspective changes and my position in God seems to be more vibrant.

We finished with these prayers - perhaps you’d like to pray them too…:

• Holy Spirit come and bring a fresh picture and image of who the Father is for us.
• Let us walk with You closer and surrender our hurts, our rights to You, come and bring your goodness to our heart, soul and spirit.
• May we grow in being thankful to You and become better, not bitter. We name our losses and give them to You.
• Holy Spirit we welcome Your presence in to change our hearts in the midst of our circumstances.  We want to go on a journey with You.

It’s tough sometimes when things don’t work out quite how we planned or our prayers (often of “God, please rescue me”!) don’t seem to be answered.  Part of the mystery of the “not yet” of the Kingdom of God.

Following on from the last couple of weeks, Cherie shared some thoughts with us on Sunday as an entre, asking “How can we walk in authority in the ‘not yet’ times of God?” and “what is God’s agenda in these times?”.

We discussed that instead of “help just get me out of here!”, perhaps a better question to ask is “God what are you doing and how do I walk with you in this time?”.  Maybe God is using the circumstances we find ourselves in to build something deep inside us - a greater intimacy and relationship with him.  Walking with him through the circumstances may ultimately be better for us than asking him to remove us from the circumstances - though quite possibly harder in the short term!

Psalm 37 speaks to what we may want to focus on these times:
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness;
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

We’ll be unpacking these more next week - stay tuned!

Over the last couple of months we’ve been considering the question of God healing today - looking at bible stories in Matthew, and watching John Wimber’s (Vineyard founder) testimony.  This week we spent some time chatting about what we thought and believed - with interesting discussion.  We discussed three questions, and looked at the tension between God’s kingdom being present now, but not yet:

1) Can God heal today? The answer was a resounding yes - we believe that he’s still in the business of healing people - spiritually, emotionally and physically, that he’s willing and able to heal, and has the authority to do so.

2) Does God heal today? Tougher question to answer this one! We told stories of our experience of God healing - freeing a paralysed arm, an abused woman’s life completely transformed, a hard drive resurrected (after being certified dead!).  Does he always heal? No. Why? Part of the mystery that is God.  Sometimes God allows in his wisdom what he could easily prevent in his power. 

3) What do we want to see / what part do we play? Jesus healed people out of compassion for them - what a great place for us to start. Seeing healing may be a by-product of the primary call to care for people and show them God’s love.  Jesus also did only what he saw the Father doing - perhaps we need to try & discern what he’s doing a bit more so we can pray more effectively?  But sometimes, faith just looks like us doing it - being a people who pray ”in-season” and “out-of-season”. 

Now but not yet… John reminded us that the fullness of God’s kingdom and power has been present since Jesus walked on the earth, but that we don’t always see it amongst us. There’s a whole pile more in here to unpack, I’ll leave it to John to teach and blog on this in the weeks to come - stay tuned…

What’s your experience with God healing?

Starting this week we’re aiming to blog weekly a brief summary of what’s gone on the last week in our BVC Village gathering (on a Sunday morning)    These will all be filed under the “Village” category, so you can easily find them from the categories menu on the left of the page. 

We hope this helps you to connect in with us, even if you can’t make it to the gathering.  Feel free to leave comments / questions / corrections etc (we recognise this will be one person’s take on what went on…).  Enjoy!

G’day!  Thought I’d give you a quick tour of the website, and give you a spot to post any comments / suggestions / improvements / questions for clarification etc.  This is still a work in progress, but most of the content is now posted.  Please feel free to leave a comment - that’s what this is all about.  ”Continue” below for the tour…

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