Simple Church

News from Jakarta

This is an email received regarding the school…

Hi Stuart,

After make the payment and get the keys from the owner of the property, we plan to move right away so by early of September we start the school in that place. After we move, we can fix the floor and the wall in the place we’re using now not too hurry so the result will be good and wouldn’t disturb the children that’s why we need also the money for the furniture because we haven’t any furniture for learning activities except the cubical offices for 6 students and few shelves. Right now we have 15 students so we need 9 cubical offices more and 15 chairs.

I’ve upload some pictures of Safari Blessing Trip in the blog www.xogen.blogspot.com and still uploading some more. I hope by tomorrow it will finish so you can look the program that we made lately. We plan to make this Blessing Trip every month.

We’re really blessed for your support in the school and the students really overwhelm with the joy and the fact that God is answered their prayer miraculously. Do you know, the students have been praying for the new place for the school for 1 year, and ever since they heard God is answered their prayer though they haven’t seen the place yet, they keep giving thanks to God every morning in the assembly.

Thanks again, Stuart!

God bless you

Eddy

Two Great Messages from NT Wright

Take some time for a view of the Kingdom of God that may surprise and encourage you…

Resurrection and the Future World
http://resources.coths.org/sermons2007/20070317_lecture1.mp3

Resurrection and the Task of the Church
http://resources.coths.org/sermons2007/20070317_lecture2.mp3

(Just copy and paste the web address into your browser)

Stuart

pricesatnvc

Hi nvc Partners
We’re now coming up to our fifth Sunday with the church here at Nakasi and over a quarter of our time has already gone.
Campus Crusade have been helping the church to get out into the local community by giving away copies of “The Jesus Video”. Early in July 10 teams (around 24 people) distributed copies into over 160 homes and ten days ago we tried to revisit them and talk about their responses. However we were only able to get back to about 40 homes and 10 of those need to be re- visited again because we only had 10 people on the team. Most of the people visited were very interested to talk more, quite a number asked us to pray for them (mostly for illness in their families), and 15 chose to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. It’s a good strategy, but we feel so overwhelmed by the opportunities. Campus Crusade have now totally handed the follow up to our church and only the surface has been scratched and there are so many people out there waiting for us to return and talk to them as promised. The statement “such a huge harvest of interest, but so few workers” has never seemed so relevent to us.
We are concerned to notice when responding to needy people there is often an assumption that if you trust in the Lord, then he will heal you. We know this happens in some cases, but not always, and sometimes God chooses to answer our requests in ways, or at times, that we don’t necessarily want or expect. So we need wisdom in presenting needs to our God, who wants us to give him the desires of our hearts, and supporting people through the outcomes of that – whatever they may be – with integrity.
There’s been a lot of illness around – mainly flu-like but we are so thankful to have avoided it ourselves so far. This has meant quite a few have been absent from church gatherings so the turn-outs have generally been low on quantity but good on quality. We have had some wondeful times getting alongside and sharing with people.
There’s a good core in the youth group but they seem to have lost focus and motivation – so we are planning to meet for them to have fun and play well together while they learn and grow in their relationship with God and each other. Rob’s well established title of “the creative treasure hunt expert” put them in a situation they have never experienced before. It was so funny watching them, and giving advise, on how to solve these obtuse instructions on how to find the next clue and finally pieces of the treasure map. the exercise was used to teach some helpful lessons about how we journey through life with others. For next meeting we plan to use the movie “Paying It Forward” to encourage them into some world changing thinking.
On Sundays we have been sharing the preaching and working through themes on the purpose of the Church. The services are very different mainly because worship is difficult without good musical leadership. The only musical instrument they have is a set of drums which they are still learning to play and those who lead the singing are not well equipped for it. However the young people in particular are very responsive to learning new instruments and new songs and we are trying to steer them in new directions. We have noticed what we think are some “God-incidents” pointing towards acquiring some more appropriate musical instruments and teaching/training people to use them well.
The women have been in the habit of meeting together on the last Sunday of the month in a small group after church – so when this happened last week, we decided to create small group meetings for the men and the youth also – they responded well with discussion on Loris’ message, some sharing, and praying for one another. Although the church has structured some small group meetings during the week there is still a lot that can be done to build relationships within the church community and with neighbours. There was a women’s group meeting at the church on Tuesday mornings but after two weeks of only one lady and her daughter turning up, Loris suggested meeting in her home instead. That ended up in very significant ministry with that woman’s mother, her mother’s neighbour, another neighbour with that neighbour’s mother and daughter as well. Get that!! Tomorrow that group will move to another home with at least two other church women involved.
Over the last few weeks we have been guiding the church to appoint a new team of church leaders for the Nakasi Church as well as nominating a trustee for the Fiji Community Churches of Christ. That process culminates in some voting next Sunday morning and we are praying that the people will be led by the Lord in the way they vote because these will be the people who will help to shape the future of the Church here in Fiji.
We thank God for our relationship growing with Eliki and Lata nearby in Narere. We not only find them mentoring us well, but offering us good resources for ministry in this area. Their work is based on a strong Sunday School that sees not only large numbers of kids turning up each week, but their parents as well. We are hopeful that they will guide us in the development of Sunday School, Youth and Music ministry at Nakasi.
A highlight of last week was a surprise visit to Vani, our house-girl of 20 years ago, and her grand-daughter Joanna, who was only three when we last saw her. Loris had written to tell her we were coming, but she never got the letter. All she could say when she saw us was: “I could just punch you!” Lots of laughing and old stories and still lots more to tell when we meet up again in a week or so.
We have been very encouraged by the expressions of your support that have come, often at the times when we needed a bit of a lift – and we thank God for that. Would you also join with us in thanking God for:
- The homes we have been welcomed into, and the openness of people living here to know more about Jesus;
- Good health and a refreshing couple of days away a week ago when we escaped for “time-out” down the coast;
- Supportive relationships we are finding to encourage us and steer us in the right direction.
Please also pray with us for:
- The appointment of enthusiastic and godly men and women to lead the church here;
- Relationships within the church to grow really well – strong, healthy and close; including between the four couples pastoring in our churches;
- Persistent illness in the church and in the neighbourhood and how to serve well in this context;
- Loris also needs relief from being viscously targeted by mosquitoes who seem to be attracted to her.
We have also become burdened to make the words of the simple little song – “Let There Be Love Shared Among Us” our prayer for Fiji -”May now Your love sweep this nation, Cause us, O Lord, to arise Give us a fresh understanding Of family love that is real Let there be love shared among us …”
Please join us in praying that the Church of Fiji would have a fresh understanding of what it means to live a life of love that would bring about a change in this nation.
Thankyou for your partnership with us – we also have conversations with God for you.
In His Strength,
Rob & Loris

Loris Price

Greetings from Fiji

Does “Missional” Fit With “Doin’ The Stuff”?

We talk a fair bit these days about being “missional”.  In fact, being missional explains a lot about the “network” idea at Network Vineyard Church.   But we are also part of the Vineyard movement, and seeing God do powerful things is part of our DNA … ministry done with an expectation that God will do the same sort stuff that Jesus did; ie. “doin’ the stuff”.

This post at Scot McKnight’s blog has a go at aligning “missional” with “doin’ the stuff” and is worth a read.

News from Kiev

“Hello Everyone at Network!

Yesterday I met Katya and spent the morning with her.  I gave her the money from the love offering for Nikita…..she was so overwhlemed- she had no words, and she was crying and I was crying and she said to say thank you to you all.  She is so amazed that people from so far away woudl want to help her and her family.

She explained that she was so desperate and I was the last person she emailed for help after trying everyone else she knew- she prayed and my name came into her head….i had only met her once and she felt very awkward about asking and did not think anything would come of it.  She said that she feels afresh the love of God for her family even though Nikita has been worse lately as treatment had stopped.

Thank you for enabling me to have this amazing experience of sharing God’s love with her….in the end, with extra money coming in, God provided the entire $2000US they needed so it is wonderful for them.  Thanks to everyone who helped to make this happen.

Please pray this week as our team heads to Novograd Volynski which is one of the orphanages we work in….it is a difficult place to be and we need your prayers!

Love to you all

Kirrily

Men – If you are brave…watch this message

http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/marriage-and-men

By Mark Driscoll

Thanks from Kiev!

Hello dear Kirilly!

When I had read your email I started crying and thanked God that He is faithful to those who love Him. The news is just amazing!!!! I even can’t express how happy I am!!!

For me this money is God’s answer to our prayers! I even couldn’t imagine that for Nikita’s rehabilitation course God would provide money from the opposite part of the world!!! This is a real miracle for all our family and opportunity for Nikita to go to rehabilitation centre. We had to come there April 23, but because of no money we stayed home. After receiving your email, Kirrily I phoned to this centre and they proved our coming to the rehabilitation course June 17-June 29.

I want to thank you, the pastor of your church and every person from your church, Kirrily, for their big loving hearts to people, who they even don’t know, but wanted to help. I can’t find words to express all feelings inside of me: thankfulness, joy, hope… Your help and care is like a new weapon to our daily battle with Nikita’s disease.

We are very weak in our situation with Nikita: we are often lack of time, financial and moral support, the ignorance of our Government of the problems of children with CP and rejection of children with CP by healthy kids and their parents. But God is always strong, when we are weak. God is the only hope in the life of our family, and only God gives us strength to make the next step and not to give up.

Dear friends from Australia! We were waiting for help from God and He answered through you! You gave us an opportunity to make a new step in Nikita’s treatment. May God bless you abundantly and give you and your children good health and may He bless your church with every blessing He is having.
We will remember you in our prayers.

Katya, Kostya (my husband who doesn’t speak English but is the biggest optimist of our family), Nikita (who is sleeping nearby) and Veronika (who is interrupting my thoughts constantly by playing with the computer)

Kirrily, We’ll be waiting you back in Kiev. If we can help you somehow here in Kiev it will be a great privilege for us.

The Two SW’s in J City

We are having a really profitable time here in “J City”. It is amazing to be seeing the Lord bring us together with people who have such a similar heart and style of ministry as us at Network.

Yesterday we visited the school run by Eddy and Febry and it was an truly remarkable to see the level of discipleship that is happening with the 13 children in the school. Yes it is small in numbers and there are a couple of practical blcoks to growth but an amazing job is being done, with a vision to see a new generation of leaders rise up in the nation.

Today, spent the day with leaders from Eddy and Febry’s church. They were ready for us to teach but in reality they have so much to teach us. We met in a Dunkin Donuts store and just did our thing with people around. In fact, all of their church meetings happen in public places and when they notice others watching they just invite them to join in!

Tomorrow we are off to preach at their church, again in a public cafe and then tomorrow afternoon we head off to visit Michael P for the remainder of our trip. We will be going out with him in his street ministry as well as meeting with the partners of Opportunity International to connect them with the garbage slum we have visited.

Pray for us that the Lord’s favour will be upon us as we establish these relationships and plan our future partnerships with one another.

Stuart and Steve