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Episodes
Monday Jan 30, 2012
Monday Jan 30, 2012
30th January 2012
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G’day and welcome to Partakers Thinkspot on Monday, the 3oth of January 2012. Please do feel free to download or listen to the audio mp3 file! Recently on one of our local health walks in the countryside I was in conversation with a knowledgeable chap who had seen an interesting programme on television about birds and was bursting with interesting facts to tell me of this amazing bird called a swift. He then passed on some interesting facts about them which I want to share with you today. Swifts are amazing birds, and here are some reasons why! We shall think about them and then learn some valuable truths from their habits. 1. After leaving the nest where they hatched, they'll keep flying non-stop for three years! Isn't that amazing? 2, They even eat, mate (at high speed in what are known as screaming parties) and they even sleep in the air while flying! they can actually 'snooze' with one side of their brain resting while the other is working, and then switch to the other side. Isn't God's creation incredible? 3. Also some of 'our' swifts migrate from Great Britain as far as South Africa for winter. How fantastically strong they are though small. In addition they are the fastest bird at level flight. (up to 70mph). Sometimes they are mistaken for a swallow. Their shape is similar 4. The parent birds gather insect snacks for their chicks, carrying as many as 1,000 at one gulp! How dependant the chicks are upon their parents to care for them. 5. Swifts also choose to live in our houses and churches - they squeeze through tiny gaps to nest inside roofs. God has indeed provided for all his creatures. I was astounded as I was being told of the incredible abilities of some of these smallest and the youngest of these creatures who fly with amazing strength and skill, do incredible things while flying with accuracy to distant parts and have utmost confidence in their parents to supply all their needs. In case you didn't take it all in the first time let me repeat these amazing truths. Swifts neither touch the ground or tree or building for the first three years of their lives!. They keep flying eating, mating at high speed and even sleep in the air. Summing up they can feed from their parents who gather insect snacks for their young carrying as many as 1,000 at one gulp. The young have absolute confidence in their regular meals being supplied to them. Neither do they worry about their living accommodation as to where they live or the size of their home. They slip between very narrow gaps contentedly. What an example for us who believe in God and want to be active with and for God. Always we want to move forward making every moment count for God with the abilities He has given to us and not giving time to consider where our next meal is coming from, where we shall live or stay overnight etc. In our Bibles we find Jesus certainly is the best example of this kind of life.(Matthew 8:20;) "The foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." "I must do the works of Him who sent me, while it is day said Jesus, the night comes when no one can work" Jesus never wasted a moment. God has promised to meet all our needs as we 'fly' with Him and 'seek' to do his will. One day when Jesus was talking with a Samaritan woman which was surprising enough to his disciples for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans, they said "you must be hungry" he replied that his food was to do the will of the Father who had sent Him and to accomplish His work." (John 4:32) He went on to say he had food the disciples knew nothing about. As we look at these examples of God's extraordinary creation we are reminded that God is looking for a faithful people who will be diligent in service for Him. God's people should aim to be single minded in their lives putting God first in all things and desiring His will above their own in every instance. Following in His footsteps. Jesus followed that maxim every day. He had no home to call his own but spoke of swallows, swifts and other birds having their nests but he had nowhere to lay his head. And although he never 'flew' he certainly was always on the move. He was up extremely early each day to pray for the needs of the day before going early in the morning to the temple to meet and talk with people and it wasn't to discuss the weather! He spoke of heavenly food he lived on when talking to his disciples when they were concerned about him missing a meal. Like the swift getting through many miles in travel he must have covered a lot of ground in three years accomplishing enough to fill a library of books with his activities and the many transformed lives through his ministry. (Read John 21) The way we live our life is important but......Remember that Jesus has first to become our Saviour and only then our example.Joy’s Prayer
Dear Lord, It is with wonder we look at your marvellous universe full of wonderful and so varied creation. From the splendour of mountain grandeur to grassy plains that can stretch for miles and miles to the small and larger animal kingdom as well as beautiful birds that fly across your majestic skies sometimes to be seen by the naked eye full of planets stars and moons. You are an amazing God and we do glory in your name and your mighty power and wisdom and your own incredible design of earth and sky. We praise and delight ourselves in your goodness to us and especially for Jesus our Saviour Lord and Friend. Thank you Lord for the privilege of living in your world and for all its benefits. We love and adore You Amen.Right Mouse click to save this as an audio mp3 file
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Sunday Jan 29, 2012
Sunday Jan 29, 2012
Glimpses 54 - Roger and Margaret
This is the story of how God took two ordinary people in the last years of their working life, into a situation which was challenging, rewarding and exciting! You can listen to this story below!
For the next 6 months, every Sunday, Roger will be sharing with us some studies he has prepared in the early life of Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in Luke 1-9. We have titled this series "Luke Looks Back" and it will be starting Sunday February 5th 2012. Thank you
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Monday Jan 23, 2012
Monday Jan 23, 2012
23rd January 2012
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G’day and welcome to Partakers Thinkspot on Monday, the 23rd of January 2012. To help you into a new week, Jim shares with us about Job (a man of integrity), suffering, compassion and Gladys Ayleward! View the video or listen/download the audio mp3 to see what Jim has to say! Joy’s Prayer Lord, we are often complaining when we have nothing like the experiences of Job or others like Gladys Aylward to compare with. Forgive us for our moaning and grumbling. Help us to see as the scriptures say our 'light afflictions are but for a moment ' . When we think of Jesus and His sufferings for us we are put to shame. Thank you we have such a wonderful God as indeed You are to comfort us in our afflictions. “Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all His benefits who forgives our iniquities, heals all of our sicknesses and diseases and whose mercy ,reaches unto the heavens. ...Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, serve the Lord with gladness” Lord help us to do this for Your names sake AmenRight Mouse click to save this as an audio mp3 file
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Friday Jan 20, 2012
Friday Jan 20, 2012
Friday Prayers
20 January 2012
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Order of Service!
Opening prayer
Praise time
Prayers for those grieving and lonely
Prayers for justice and peace
Prayers for those facing challenging situations
Prayers for churches and Christians worldwide
Prayers for healing
Time of silence for your own prayers
Benediction
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Thursday Jan 19, 2012
Thursday Jan 19, 2012
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Thursday Bible Quiz
19 January, 2012
5 questions!
1 minute!
Are you ready?
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Monday Jan 16, 2012
Monday Jan 16, 2012
16th January 2012
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John Bunyan
Amazingly expanding ministry
Last Monday we looked at John the Apostle on the Island of Patmos and how although hindered in his preaching God allowed him to be placed there by his enemies for another purpose, to receive the Revelation from God of the end times which would be recorded permanently in Scriptures for the world to see for all time. His ministry was amazingly extended through prohibition. So today I want to remind you of another great Christian who was put in prison for preaching the gospel in the open air and overnight behind bars received a revelation by way of a dream which he transferred to a book which has become a best seller next to the Bible worldwide. His name is well known, John Bunyan formerly a tinker by trade from Bedford and the author of Pilgrims Progress. Pilgrims Progress is a fantastic book to accompany the Bible on your bookshelf at home. With amazing dexterity John paints word picture after picture of the Christian life from the seeker to the finder, to the sharer of his faith to the persecuted for his faith. It is full of the adventurers of a man who begins his journey leaving his home and family with a heavy load on his back representing sin and his deep longing to be rid of it. In his hands he has the Book. He comes to Evangelist who points to the house of the Interpreter (The Holy Spirit) who shows him the way to the Cross where there is a bottomless pit in front of it where when Pilgrim looks to the cross, his heavy load disappears down the hole gone for ever. Then the journey really begins with all kinds of people to be met on the road to death and glory. Some are planted by God and some by Satan. Now his name is changed from pilgrim to Christian for he is transformed. This book is still a best seller today and multitudes have been helped by this incredible dream translated to paper so we can read it and benefit from it. His ministry also was amazingly extended by prohibition. The point I am making again this week is that if you are a Christian and your path to Christian service has been hindered or you are pushed aside for another to take your place or because of your age don't think your ministry is finished. Again, If Satan isn't opposing your ministry then you probably are not where you are meant to be. Sometimes what appears to be a blocking of your path or something evil happening in your life may well turn out to be an amazing step forward for you into another more meaningful and fruitful ministry. Remember God is sovereign over all. We should never forget that. Satan has power, but God is way over the top of Satan and even uses Satan's actions to eventually further His own glory. He alone is Almighty. Keep your eyes fixed upon The Lord. He will never, no never be thwarted by our enemies.Right Mouse click to save this as an audio mp3 file
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Friday Jan 13, 2012
Friday Jan 13, 2012
John RW Stott
Pioneer Outreach Worker
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I have reposted this on Friday 13th January 2012, as it was on this day a Memorial and Thanksgiving service was held at St Paul's Cathedral, London...
Introduction
G'day and welcome to Partake! Tonight I want to give a reflection somebody who is indeed a servant of the Lord and took great delight in all of Scripture. That person, is John RW Stott. By necessity, this is just a very brief introduction of the life of Reverend John Stott, and I concentrate mainly on his role as an evangelist. John Stott holds that he is more "an activist than a thinker", which is certainly evident in his ministry as a pioneer outreach worker. From the evidence of his life, we can see that has indeed fulfilled this thought.
Life and ministry summary.
John Stott was born 27 April 1921. to Sir Arnold and Emily Stott. John Stott became a Christian as a schoolboy at a youth camp led by Eric Nash. Nash discipled the young Stott post-conversion with letters over a five-year period, encouraging and rebuking. This was good groundwork for the future ministry of Stott. Graduating from Cambridge University, Stott was ordained in 1945. Initially as assistant curate at All Souls, Stott served as Rector from 1950 to 1975. His role since has been as Rector Emeritus. At All Souls, Stott instituted home groups, workplace ministry, student outreach, prayer meetings, lay evangelism, Guest Services and new believers follow-up. Catherwood comments that Stott's expository preaching was a "new phenomenon" in the Anglican church. Michael Green calls him "the nations most gifted evangelist at the time." He was the evangelicals' prime mover within the Anglican communion, showing that someone could be both evangelical and Anglican. He has conducted over 50 missions to universities in Britain and abroad. Stott is also the author of over 40 books.
Pioneering Outreach Worker
The impact Stott has had on Christianity in Britain and abroad, can not be underestimated. Despite facing calls to leave what some evangelicals called an apostate church, Stott refused by saying that it was better to fight the evangelical cause from within the Anglican church. He has spurned the opportunities for "promotion" to archbishop. He has eschewed the offers of luminary evangelical theological colleges of Moore and Wycliffe Hall. His reasons for not accepting these varied, however it was more due to his humble nature. Stott appears never to seek honour for himself, but rather to deflect it upon Christ.
Stott's Outreach Theology.
Stott's maxim is "Balanced Biblical Christianity" or BBC for short. Through this, social action is interminably linked with evangelistic outreach. Fred Catherwood cites Stott's observation regarding Luke 16:19-31, that the rich man was punished for "being scandalously indifferent to the poor around him". While the majority of evangelicals tried to categorize evangelism and social action differently, Stott did not. Stott's evangelism formula is evangelism equals gospel plus social action, which is evident in Acts 6.
Local Outreach
We only need to see the changes he made at All Souls, to observe his biblical convictions regarding outreach. Stott exemplifies innovative evangelism, unafraid of new methods, whilst sticking to the biblical Gospel. Green attributes this to an openness to the Spirit's working. Guest services of this type were almost unknown before the 1950s, according to Green. Today it is almost de rigueur for churches to have regular Guest Services and for new Christians to be followed up and discipled. When Stott started them, it was a new concept. The service focused on a single point - to present Christ to those who don't know him. The church members were actively encouraged to bring non-believers to these services, and hence lay evangelism was in action with training provided. Until Stott came along, evangelism was seen as the job for the ministers, pastors and professional Christians. Stott sees Christ as the master of Christians and hence, Christians should obey what Christ has said. Ergo, Matthew 28:18-20 was for all Christians and not just ministers. It is this motivation of lay people that helps see the Great Commission being fulfilled. As for the nurture of young Christians, Stott believed new Christians should also have some form of training in Christian belief. Hence the birth of ‘Nursery Class', where new believers were given three months training in their new faith. Invariably, these new believers were also taught in evangelism and helped with the Guest Services.
Global Outreach
Stott founded the Langham Trust, which arranges for solid theological training of Third World church leaders. London Institute for Contemporary Christianity seeks to help people to relate Christ to the contemporary world. Another Stott founded organization, Evangelical Literature Trust, distributes books based on solid theology to church leaders in needy countries, financed mostly to on his books royalties. These groups marry Stott's activist mentality with concern for Christianity and social action evangelism.
Twenty First Century
For church leaders today, there is much to emulate in Stott. Stott has an accountability group to help him make ministry decisions. Leaders should be prepared to talk to others about their biblical beliefs, with people from all theological persuasions. Stott has shown that if we desire the Father's will, have Christ as our centre, the Holy Spirit guiding our steps, the Bible to hand, combined with an attitude of love, then we can argue our evangelical position against any other theological position. Whatever our ministry is, we can continue to give the church fresh impetus in evangelism. Twenty-first century Christians should be prepared to use innovative outreach, without Gospel compromise. Whereas Stott could rightly assume that most of his congregation had some bible knowledge from Sunday School, today that is not an assumption we can make. With the fall in Church attendances, society now is much more oblivious to the character of Jesus. With the advent of multiculturalism came a pantheon of religions now in Britain. These two things combined have seen the ‘Jesus consciousness' of Britain fall since Stott's day. It is a challenge to us to raise this ‘Jesus conscience'. To do this will require Spirit-led innovation and willing leaders.
However...
However a warning to be heeded. In Why I Am A Christian, Stott writes regarding CS Lewis' conversion, categorically claiming this to be Lewis' Christian conversion. However, if we follow that reference, it actually refers to Lewis' Theistic conversion. Lewis' denies it was a conversion to Christ. Lewis states his actual Christian conversion was some time later. If a non-believer was to have read Stott's book and follow the reference, that non-Christian may actually think a belief in God is enough to be a Christian, and then stop reading the book. We know this is not what Stott subscribes to. Therefore as leaders, we need to constantly review what we write and say, so that nobody can be led into error through us. He has also recently courted controversy by saying he is agnostic towards a literal view of hell and eternal suffering and leans more towards a view of annihilationism where the soul is destroyed. For this he was heavily criticized by Christian leaders the world over and supported by others.
Conclusion
John Stott's life exemplifies radical outreach and innovation, blended with a desire to serve Jesus Christ as Lord. He is truly one of the twentieth centuries master servants of Jesus Christ. To the staff and many members of the congregation of All Souls Langham Place down through the years, he is simply known as "Uncle John". He is unique in the Anglican church in that he has always been associated with the one church throughout his life and ministry. In 2006, When on his way to preach at All Souls, John Stott fell and broke his hip. This saw him announce his retirement from ministry at the age of 86 and he now has moved from his Central London flat to a retirement village for Anglican Clergy in the south of England. Time Magazine in 2005, named him as one of the 100 most influential people of the Twentieth Century. As we have seen here briefly, he was certainly one of them, and it is all to the glory of God that He raised up his servant, Uncle John.
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Thursday Jan 12, 2012
Thursday Jan 12, 2012
Thursday Bible Quiz
12 January, 2012
5 questions!
1 minute!
Are you ready?
Monday Jan 09, 2012
Monday Jan 09, 2012
9th January 2012
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Recently I was reading Paul's letter to the Philippians and in particular Chapter 4:8 "Finally brothers whatsoever is true what ever honourable, whatever just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."The night before last we heard in the early hours of the morning the horrendous sound of a howling, powerful wind which was causing insurmountable damage to properties around us. I fully expected to see all kinds of damage to my own property when I woke the following morning. In particular a fence between my house and my neighbour which I am responsible for (I rent the property). I almost didn't dare to look out of my bedroom window early next morning when although still blowing strongly but not at gale strength I was relieved to find the fence still upstanding.
An hour later my neighbour knocked on our front door explaining that her other neighbours fence had blown down and a large tree in her own garden was uprooted and now leaning on the bottom of my fence. They had contacted the Housing Association from whom they rented and presented the problem to them. They were coming to look at the damage later. Proceeding down the garden shortly after I discovered that my large tree , (approx. 4ft across) was now being pushed by the other tree onto my shed. I actually could see the amazing movement of this huge tree swaying from its base at ground level and felt the awesome power of the movement.
Yes I knew something has to be done to improve the situation but as I reflected upon Philippians 4:8; I had indeed something worthy of praise to thank God for and to "think upon" What was that You ask? As I thought about it I saw that the neighbours tree pushing against my fence was actually strengthening it and preventing it from blowing down as if a mighty hand was holding it in position. Indeed it was if we believe in the sovereignty of God in all things. I know things do not always work out like this for any of us but I am simply emphasising the kind of thing we can rejoice and praise God for rather than take things for granted which usually mean we say things like "How lucky I was and pity about the neighbours fence."
There is always something we can be thankful to God for and offer praise isn't there? Not forgetting to pray for our neighbour of course.
Dear loving heavenly Father, How wonderful to know that our times are in your hands and that you have amazing resources including knowing us all so intimately that You know our needs before they even arise. From eternity to eternity you know all things. How safe it is for us to trust you and give ourselves fully over to you and praise you for what is past and trust you for what is to come. Forgive our doubts and please calm us down when extremities come upon us. You are fully aware of what is going on in your world. "You see everything nothing is hidden from your eyes" Hebrews 4:13; Lord, we feel so helpless at times, so it is comforting for us to know these things and share them with you in prayer for You understand us completely. Amen.
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Friday Jan 06, 2012
Friday Jan 06, 2012
Friday Prayers
6 January 2012
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Order of Service!
Opening prayer!
New Year Prayer!
Confession
Thanksgiving Prayers
Prayers for jobseekers and workers
Prayers for those grieving
Time for your own prayers/petitions!
Closing prayer
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