preaching...

On Sunday it was turn to preach. I think it went well, had some good feedback. I didn't really think that what I felt God wanted me to say would actually match up with the scriptures chosen for the day in the Lectionary, but strangely enough - it fitted with the all of them !! Something I gather is fairly unusual...haha.

I'd wanted to talk about 24-7 prayer, but God quickly changed that, and although inspired by IAM10, I spoke mainly of gospel. I went through how the gospel transformed the lives of the first disciples, and what their take on the gospel of Jesus was - encountering Jesus meant a whole life change, their worlds got turned upside and they found themselves living lives the way God always wanted humanity to live. God's dream in Eden became a reality for the community of Jesus followers, living life in complete contrast to the ways of the empire, living for a different Kingdom, a Saviour of the world - not Caesar, but the Messiah - Jesus!

It was fun, but you never really know if this make a real difference with people. The challenge was to receive Jesus' embrace and experience this life transformation, to live to change the world and turn it the right way up - which to me was pretty full on, but I had some folks come and say how 'nice' it was!!

Oh well, we can but try. And I prayed that God would bring us through our wilderness, a wilderness that ends with his embrace, that he would sow these seeds deep within our hearts, to grow and nuture them, that his Kingdom may flourish, that Heaven may come to earth.