Cool Quote…
Saw this at a baptist church downtown (Dufferin & Bloor)
“When the world is at its worst, the chruch needs to be at its best”
Saw this at a baptist church downtown (Dufferin & Bloor)
“When the world is at its worst, the chruch needs to be at its best”
Just wanted to say that I had a cool opportunity to speak at Westedge Community Church in Mississauga today. It’s a great church that’s only 6 years old. Jon Osmond is their lead pastor and he has a great team of people working along with him. I also did some music for them a few months ago and have visited them on and off in their short history.
It’s great to see a community of believers doing well and growing in their local area. I’l be praying that God’s Kingdom keeps impacting Mississauga through Westegde.
Check them out at ‘www.westedge.org’
I was away with my wonderful family last week. No cable, No internet, No Phone…Just Family, a cottage and books.
I finished or read:
“Simply Christian” from NT Wright. I can’t get enought of this guy. This book is a concise understanding on what it means to be Christian. Beautifully written. It brings the reader back to basics that have been lost as well as opens us up to a fuller understanding of what God’s intentions are with humanity. My favourite phrases are: ‘…putting the world to rights’ & ‘…God’s space and our space converging…’. Very worth whatever price you pay.
“Night” from Elie Weisel. This book won him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. It is a diary of sorts about his Auschwitz experience. It’s a short but compelling book that opens ones eyes up to what happened. I couldn’t sleep the night I read the first half. The images were not leaving my mind. It’s amazing to see his response to GOD both during the story and then in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Both raw & sincere.
“Eat this Book” from Eugene Peterson. This is an exposition of John’s Revelation words from the Angel to ‘Eat the Scroll’, the bible. It reminds one of how far we’ve really moved from scripture in our life and the life of the church.
“The Rest of God” from Mark Buchanan. I only read part of this book and decided to put it back on the shelf for reference. I’ve come to realize that Mark is a hit and miss writer. His first book, “Your God is too Safe” is his best work by far. His second book on “Heaven” was not worth buying. His Third book, “The Holy Wild” was also good, and this last one is a stretch. It’s 200+ pages on understanding the Sabbath. He should have made this a 100 page book and it might have been better.
Just thought I’d let you on what I’ve been reading.
Ya I know, I’m ranting about Woods again. I gotta say that it was great to see him come back with this Major Win at the British Open last weekend. There were the emotions, the great play of course, the eagle ‘2′ with a 4 iron and simply getting the job done. But…the coolest thing I noticed during the open were tiger’s comments on his play. He always (more often than not) uses the word ‘we’ to describe his play. ‘We’ played well, ‘we’ managed the course, ‘we’ pulled it of. He is referring to his Caddie, Steve Williams as well as his coaches. It’s pretty cool to see the greatest player ever acknowledge the importance of team and community, especially in an individual sport such as golf.
I think we can learn a whole lot from this in relation to most area’s of life, especially church work. I’m so glad to be part of a great team at CLC (Christian Life Centre). My lead pastor, Mark, is so great to work with. He acknowledges my gifts and the gifts of our team/staff and allows each of us to do our part for the purpose of serving our church and community with excellence. Unlike golf, there are no Million Dollar paychecks coming our way if we win or do well, but there are a whole bunch of people in our city that can experience the life changing message of Christ if our team works together like a well oiled machine (or healthy body - to borrow from the apostle Paul - 1 Corinthians).
Even Tiger Woods knows that their is no “I” in team. I want to do what it takes to always be part of or lead healthy teams for the sake of God’s Kingdom moving forward on Earth.
Here are a few people I’ve had the priveledge of teaming up with in small or large ways over the years:
Joseph Manafo Sr. (Dad, Leader, Pastor, Mentor)
David Manafo (Twin brother, Musician, Friend)
Domenic Ruso (Drummer, Theologian, Friend)
Aaron Holbrough (Creative Genius, Teacher, Friend)
Domenic Femia (Theologian, Pastor, Friend)
Mark Macknight (Pastor, Friend)
Luc Lombardi (Theologian, Friend)
Phil Aud (Musician, Friend)
Rick Manafo (Brother, Musician, Golf Partner)
David Bonfa (Guitarist, Comedian, Friend)
Janet Manafo (partner in crime, wife, love of my life, awesome mom, creative genius, best friend)
We continued our ‘walking in the Son’ series this week and actually got into 1 John (where we’ll be all summer long). It’s amazing what you can get from 4 verses at the start of a small book. These letters are reminders to the readers of who Jesus and what we become through life in him and in his community (the church). John gives us an indication of what the these letters will entail. He starts this letter as he does his gospel by using 3 very powerful words - “in the beginning”. He says these in reference to Jesus. Like his gospel, John here helps the reader understand Jesus’ pre-time life and existence. When you connect 1 John 1:1, John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 you can fully appreciate the divinity of Jesus Christ and understand that he was fully involved in creation (cf. Colossians 1). John also helps us get Jesus’ humanity by saying that he saw, heard, looked at and touched the Christ. He then reminds us that out of relationship with Jesus comes relationship with His followers. Finally, John reminds the reader that both relationship with Christ and His church should result in (complete) Joy. Joy is not something you can buy or sell or acquire, but only something that is received from Jesus. It’s a soul possession.
I’ll try and keep you updated on this series as it develops…walk on!
What and ending to the 2006 World Cup. Italy and France battled pretty good. I think Italy played better the first half and France the Second as well as the Extra time. In the end the final was decided on penalty kicks. I’m very happy the team I was routing for won, but felt for France, especially because of the way Zidane (their best player) exited the game. You can read the sports pages for yourself to see what happend. I can breifly say that he lost his temper for one reason or another and was given a red card (which gets you ejected from the match). All in all, Italy played much better defence and was able to pull it off.
The other great part of the day was Tiger Wood’s come back from a bad first round to finish second in this week’s PGA event. It’s a great way to prepare for the British Open (3rd major of the year) which is coming up in 2 weeks. I wanted to let you in on a great comment he made on Wednesday in his pre-tournament press conference. After being asked about Phil Mickleson’s failure to finish off the US Open a few weeks ago and lose on the final hole, Tiger had this to say,
(quoted from www.tigerwoods.com)
Q. Will Phil be able to brush off what happened to him at Winged Foot?
TIGER WOODS: I don’t know. More than likely to stay competitive you have to, especially in our sport. In our sport we fail more times than we succeed. Failure is a part of our sport; that’s just the way it is. You pick yourself up off the ground and you have the next week to play. If we had a percentage very similar to baseball, if you put a .300 in your winning percentage, you’d have one hell of a career. But that’s normally not the case. Your winning percentage is a lot lower than that, and you have to deal with losses quite a bit. It’s nothing new to him, nothing new to any of us. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, come back out the next week and play.
This a great lesson for anyone who strives to succeed. I think in most things we do, if we can deal with failure, we will succedd more. Those who dwell on the past and the flunks without learning from them and moving will never progress in life.
I started our “walking in the Son” series (from John’s leters) this past Sunday. The first ‘talk’ wasn’t even from John’s letters. We journied through the scriptures to see what is has to say about ‘walking’ and found some neat things.
Walking is primarily an image/anology of living. Not just living, but living with or for someone or something. We divided our finds into 3 phases and here they are:
1) Walking with God. We found that many characters in the Scripture walked with God (Enoch - Gen 5; Noah - Gen 6…). This basically explains their relationship with Him. They lived a life concsious of his pressence and friendship in thier life. In Micah 6:8 when Israel asks the all important question, “What do you want from me God?”, the answer comes back in a very simple from, “Act justly…love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. It’s pretty amazing how God desires to have relationship with us. He initiates it and it’s up to us to respond.
2) Walking like God. People in relationship naturally rub off on each other. As our characters and personalities connect we some how transfer vibes and emotions and even characteristics. My grandfather used to say, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”. I’m thinking that if God is your friend, then who you are should eventually start to reflect who he is. We’re challenged in various parts of scripture to live (walk) like God (or in his ways - ref: Deut 5:32-33; Joshua 22:5; Colossians 3:12-14). Walking like God or Jesus (same character/being) is a natural response of being in relationship with him.
3) Walking for God. When you start to follow Jesus as Saviour and Lord, not only does your heart and mind transform, but so does how you spend your time and energies. Living for God is simply another stage on the journey of faith we are on. As we walk with him and eventually like him, we begin to realize how vital it is to live for him. Althrough Scripture we are commissioned and called to serve the world in which we live. This happens by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the confused and broken and leading people to the God that you walk with everyday.
Ending again in the words of Bono (U2) “WALK ON”
Italy is one game away from reaching the World Cup finals. So far so good…I hope they can beat Germany. It’ll be their hardest test yet. This has proved to be quite the tournament. Most of the ’round of 16′ matches were great and so have the ‘quarters’. England (my second favourite pick) is out. It was an unfortunate end, but they really squeeked by any way. Brazil is out…which sounds good for now, but France is picking up some major steam. I am concerned, however, by some of their comments after the game. It’s almost like they (France) really had no asperations to get this far, but now they’re getting into it because they beat Brazil.
One more week. Let’s see what happens.
FORZA ITALIA!
From http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/
Thought it was cool enough to have on 2 blogs…
“So hey what have you been up to lately.”
“We’ll believe it or not I am into reading.”
“Really? Reading what?”
“Well, I am growing my spirituality.”
“So, what are you reading?”
“Well I am reading the Bible. And let me tell you, that guy can write!”
posted by Ben Witherington at 11:37 AM http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/
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