Family

God loves family.

In my city, Port Elizabeth, there are many churches – many different spiritual homes made up of families – spiritual families and God loves us all!!

No matter your denomination...God desires to inhabit us and be in our midst!!

This was now so evident in my life as my phone just rang and I got to speak to my own dad, just a short nonsense conversation of how are you and some other random babble but how good it is to hear the voice of a father and wow, how amazing to hear the voice of our Heavenly Father.

So with all of this laid out – my heart is just to say, honour the spiritual home that God has placed you in and realise that there is family in your midst. Seek out your leaders and the rest of your family (congregants) in your church. When you start going astray, realise that leaders and our family members are gonna get stuck in...why...well who in their right minds wakes up one morning to discover missing family members and then does not go after them!!

This process of walking out a relationship with Jesus can sometimes be a tricky one – and I had to chuckle a while back when I just felt in me that usually we ‘warn’ people about Jesus, in the sense of really just His life story spent here on earth and then eventually having to depart earth; but Jesus, far above anyone else was totes excited as He knew that we would receive the Holy Spirit and sometimes we treat Holy Spirit with much clever euphemisms and lotsa nervousness – when I actually felt it’s more that we need to ‘warn’ people about church...now with beads of sweat running down your face, let me unpack this rather quickly, cause I dig local church.

Church 101

“...cause I dig local church.” Because this is my blog, inevitably you’re gonna get some of my personal insights and thoughts. My statement about loving local church is rooted in a deep desire and faith that I would love to see the whole of my city, Port Elizabeth come to faith in Jesus Christ – tomorrow hopefully or as soon as possible!! So with this kinda miraculous expectancy comes a logistical effort of desiring strong Spirit ravaged (or filled) church families in and around my city – cause when all of us are now serving Jesus it would be lekka to have some places to fellowship. With that said, how gnarly would it be to worship Jesus in a mosque perhaps...just saying or whatever else.

But church is, yes – you and me – everyday life as we are temples of Holy Spirit and how awesome that is that God’s presence is no longer restricted to a building etc. but yet we have church buildings and praise God for that. Now it’s just up to you to define your church building or where you and your ‘family’ come together and fellowship.

But how do you define your natural family? Your house...no, cause you and your mom, dad & siblings are still a family wherever you might come together or even when you are apart. But most families do have a home and it’s in this place that a lot gets dealt with.

Coming back to that earlier illustration of waking up one morning and finding ou-boet is nowhere to be found, one becomes suspicious and will go after him or her etc.

The case may be that your family member is hacking in some areas and just needed to get out or has become rebellious and so decided to abandon the family and casually strolls along to go find another family...YOH!!

Serious kinda stuff – is this the love of Christ??!! Pack up and off you go when life gets tough...

You see readers :-) Christ is not confined to a building but He is very present when we meet. So yes, you will find Him in a building and at the same time on the street, homes, cars, work places...you name it. So that’s not the issue here – the simple yet catastrophic issue is the one of family and as mentioned before we form part of spiritual family’s fellowshipping in churches.

So what’s the big deal then...

...God has created you for fellowship. He has made you so awesome that He wants to share you with others. All that awesomeness deposited inside of you needs to come out and reach out to others, whom at the same time are probably just as nervous and sometimes insecure as you are – but why should that stop you? Your life is not a performance; you are not being weighed up daily and then given a pass or fail. At the same time stop looking at others and thinking yeah, he gets it right all the time...he probably gets a ‘pass’ everyday – don’t put peeps on pedestals from which they will topple off of.

You are uniquely you and designed for intimacy and fellowship with God – for His great pleasure and then He was so excited to show off, He somma knitted you together in your mother’s womb and something like 9 or so months later you got released into a world that God wants you to change and rip it up for His Kingdom.

You have a purpose!! To fulfil that purpose God placed people around you and you will find a lot of them in your local church, your spiritual family in your spiritual home!!

Don’t resent them, love your leaders and honour them. Grow up as a son, adopted into Christ’s family and watch how Pappa draws the leader out of you. Enjoy the ‘organic’ process – it takes time and is well worth it. So when the paw-paw hits the fan and you are feeling stretched, you will stick around because it’s family you have around you and not some religious organisation.

Also when you have had it!! and you pack your things and wanna go and okes call you back and try and instil discipline that you don’t dig your heels, but rather let go and watch how when you empty yourself and rid yourself of all the junk...that God restores you to wholeness and surprise-surprise, He reached out with His long Daddy arms and uses other sons and daughters to be His hands and feet – this is the love of Christ, found in spiritual families and homes all around the world...so please don’t take church lightly or an optional extra, it’s God’s very expression of family on this earth.

If it’s still hard for you to comprehend, just start calling it HOME. That’s what I did and something happened in just that simple acknowledgement for me. My home is Harvest Christian Church (PE), but I just simply call it home!!

Wherever God has called you too...make sure it’s home :-)

On the road of discovery

I dunno about you guys, but I am always keen to look back and just see where things started – it just makes me so much more amped about the outcome and in this instance the outcome will be each and every day for the rest of my life!! Woohoo :-)

Misty Edwards sings a song called Favourite One on her ‘Always on His Mind’ album...today is one of those days that I am affirmed (just once again) that I am His favourite...ha ha and so are you!!

So, some of Ryan’s HIS-story 101:

I grew up in the NG Kerk (kerk = church), I could just have written NG Church, but that would be the same inexcusable mistake as asking for a cup of red-bush tea...no!!

I am not proudly Afrikaans nor am I proudly English, just in the same way that someone whom is mute is not proudly...uhm...silent!! But then you may say it’s about a culture and not the actual language...well the bible literally only allows me to boast in my knowledge of Christ. So I will boast in my Kingdom culture and the language of heaven is love!! Boom

Ooi...back on track here...so I was chillin in NG till I was approx 10 years old. At that stage I was being educated at Dale Junior – a very English (language) school and so my Afrikaans was diminishing at a rapid pace. Friends of mine, their dad was a pastor at a really happening church in King William’s Town and so I decided to go check it out...yay...and so I started attending the Friday night youth and Sunday services!!

Now I am gonna try my utmost best to unfold all the crazy happenings and how things came together!!

First things first...a WARNING from a more mature member of my family...no names or titles mentioned. But this specific person, let’s call her granny, warned me many years ago - after her attending a Hatfield (Pretoria) service – against the ‘happy clappies’!!

I mean, being in traditional/orthodox/yada-yada-what-will-man-think church being told when to stand, sit, kneel etc. being exposed to okes just busting out lifting an arm, then both...then kinda co-ordinating your legs to move and throw in some mild hopping...which become jumping, clapping, laughter...smiling...it’s just too much.

Its like ‘video killed the radio star’ all over again!! We had something that worked, it was plain and simple...I happen to enjoy my suit and tie, thank you very much. Then all of a sudden people come to church barefoot wearing all sorts of colourful clothing...and start expressing themselves. Did you not receive the memo that all emotions were supposed to be left at the door...now you are causing my mind to stumble and all sorts of creative thoughts are flying at me!! Bummer...

So, what does Hatfield and clapping have to do with the price of eggs...read on:

Firstly, let me say – I am humbly appreciative of my upbringing in the NG Kerk, if I were to start dissing ministries then I would implore you to leave my blog asap. I am a man that still fervently desires to preach and even when God starts using me in that I know that even I won’t always get it right and so I look up to men of God – great men of God...okes who at the end of this blog I will mention and honour, men whom have played a roll in my life to date, cool so we sorted...no hating allowed...just love!!

Two weeks ago (Sat, 19 May 2012) I had the great honour and privilege of visiting Mark and Vanessa Manley’s home. Mark is a great man of God whom I had just met that evening and we started talking about all sorts of things churchy. A long way down the conversation I dropped the fact that I was born and raised in King William’s Town and Mark asked me which church I attended. I replied the Good News Christian Church!!

Wow, then Mark told me how him and his wife were involved with the youth there at one stage – having up to 300 youths!! I couldn’t believe what he was telling me...apart from the 300...we were in the same church back then, kief!!

He informed me about the involvement of Ivan Vorster in the planting of the church. Ivan is a significant name to me as he was involved in planting and leading Harvest Christian Church, my home church.

Ivan was from Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria – they are a massive congregation with a bible college etc. we also have them to thank for a man such as Greg Timms who used to be a pastor at Harvest till 2008/2009 until they emigrated to the USA.

The pastor of Good News at the time I came around at the age of 10 was Roy Buck. Roy and his wife Elise had twin boys – Jonothan and David whom were friends of mine and we were in the same grade.

I remember those Sunday mornings at church so vividly. It must have been around 1995, deliverance happened almost every Sunday. I was new to all this stuff bru, watching with bright eyes as congregants would hit the floor hissing and going crazy, the pastors would jump in and after a while all the commotion was over. Our praise and worship times were insane...laps around the church is all I can remember. Almost every Sunday just running around that church...having fun praising Jesus!! Awesome...I was in the middle of a revival and I didn’t even know what that meant but hey, I was present!!

My mom would drop me off at church, stay a little while and then have to leave to attend her church. Poor dear, every time she walked out on a Sunday morning she would be followed by keen ushers offering council to her exit...I love Christians...not wanting anyone to miss out.

After some time though as my mom would leave she would notice people still arriving for church...this was quite confusing as the church where we came from was strictly only one hour long and you dare not arrive late – agreed, this is good stewardship...but my mom got wind of this and slowly but surely starting migrating towards the charismatic’s...for almost no other reason but that you could arrive late and nobody would even notice...remember, we were all too busy doing laps around the church and going off like mad men!! Unfortunately for me...this meant arriving a tad late and missing out on half my holy exercise routine :-)

Funny fact is that till this day, my mom still attends a charismatic church but in East London (Abbotsford Christian Centre) – our new home city – and still, come 9am (church starting time) we are still battling to leave home!! Ha ha...note to any pastors out there wanting some church branding tips – advertise that you can arrive late and nobody will ‘skeef’ you out. As for me and my household (one day)...we will arrive on time!!

Your local church most surely has a prayer time before the service...GO...get stuck in and get involved. Most young people in the church today complain that they never get to hang with the pastors and see them as way up holy beings...get over yourself and go to where they are...in the pre-service prayer meetings!! You may tune me and say that’s not the best place to network...well you might be surprised, just check it out!!

Fast forward...last night (Sun, 03 June 2012) my pastor was preaching up a good storm, Pastor John Scholtz (I love this man to bits) and somewhere in the sermon he whipped out a prophetic word given over Harvest on 01 January 1990 by a another pastor...Roy Buck...wow, I got goosebumps and heavy emotional thinking hectic, how things are just so inter-connected!! The word was insane. In fact we still refer to that word quite often at Harvest, not as a whole but rather the image of us being a ship...yoh!!

So ja...thats kinda all the content I had lined up.

The connection for me is quite simple and God ordained – granny (not her real identity remember) warned me against the happy clappy Hatfield like folks...today I find myself in one very happy and oh-so clappy church planted out of Hatfield...oops, sorry :-)

Secondly...could it be that my God was preparing my heart long before the actual date of my salvation for what I am walking in now!! Yes!! Men like Roy Buck and Ivan Vorster (whom I have never met) were so pinnacle in planting seeds in the ground work that they were doing and I was busy being planted into that ground...thirteen years later I came to know Jesus in Harvest, in a home so similar to my very first charismatic experience. I sit back and wonder - wow Lord, I am about 3 years older than most of my friends...why, and He answers like this – because I am alive at the exact time that he ordained me to be!!

Thank you Jesus!!

Just one last man’s name that I want to mention is Pastor Marius Gradwell (Abbotsford Christian Church) – never in my life before have I sat under the teaching of such a true, humble and genuine guy. You are always well prepared and you overflow with God’s wisdom.

I am the man I am today because of great men of God!! Because I never came as a surprise to God but He formed me in His perfect timing and from the get go, He has been setting me up...setting me up for glory!!

Amen!!

Love Ryan