Here is the greatest misconception about worship today: It is something that the band does.

Here is the greatest Bible truth about worship:  It is something the entire congregation does.

Sometimes the world culture can bleed into the church. So , many people go and ‘watch’ the worship team worship on a Sunday.

Like secular culture, we can end up watching a few celebrity Christians worship on the stage and feel like our job is done.

Here’s the thing: Worship is not a spectator sport. It is a full fledged contact sport. So you have to get in the game.

Concert worship: Watching, viewing, standing still, disengaged.

Congregational worship: Participating, singing, lifting hands, clapping, engaged.

Worship – it’s less about Christian rock stars and more about you engaging in worship.

Front page headlines in the news right now is a tragic story of a lady and her daughter.

Here’s the story:

• Mum has diabetic daughter
• Mum prays for healing
• Mum refuses medical treatment
• Daughter dies
• Daughter would have lived with basic medical care – fluids and insulin.

Isn’t it amazing how much somebody’s theology matters.
Incorrect thinking = incorrect actions
Imbalanced doctrine = imbalanced decisions

The Bible talks about healing, it talks about faith. But does this not sound more of extremism more than faith? The question is this: is there a more balanced way to handle situations as this?

What do you think? Add a comment and give your thoughts.

The government’s response in many countries worldwide to the the financial crisis has been a stimulus package. Without commenting on the political side of this, the foundational thought of where this comes from originates in economic principles. Basically, more money to go around is a good thing for the economy.

But my very simple thought is that it is interesting that all around the world, in the toughest times, governments are giving money away. Why is this? Because if economies seize up there is less for everyone.

Our entire world functions on giving and receiving, now we exchange goods and services in-between those two things, but at the heart is a flow of giving and receiving.

Sometimes the first thing to go is what we give away to God and others, and the last thing to go is what we keep for ourselves. Generosity finds a more balanced level than this.

To thrive in life is to be generous!

If we shut down generosity in our lives then we simultaneously shut down our capacity to receive. We also shut down our capacity to help others. And we shut down our capacity to be used by God.

Generosity is at the heart of life, whether it is an economy, a company, a friendship, or a family. How can you be generous today?

If you are in the Brisbane area, I want to have coffee with you.

I’m a church planter because I believe in the power of pioneering. There is something special about being a part of starting something brand new.

To prove it, I’ll meet and have coffee with anyone for the next 30 days who is kind enough to hear me out on our vision for our new church – Lifeplace. I know, kinda out of the box a little. But what have you got to lose? The coffee is on me Plus, I’m a nice guy!

Maybe you just have questions about church in general, and you’d love to sit down with a pastor and discuss them. Maybe you haven’t been to church in years and you want to hear what’s different about Lifeplace.

Or perhaps you are interested in actually being a part of starting something brand new. It could even be that you know someone who might be interested, so spread the word.

I so believe in what we are doing that I will meet with your mum, your aunt, your brother, your husband, anybody with a pulse!

Please email me: info@lifeplace.com.au The email comes directly to me, and I would love to meet you.

Go ahead, shoot me an email now. Cya soon over a latte!

(If you’re a girl and would prefer to meet with my wife, Cindi, we can do that…)

We have been looking at how to thrive in any situation. Sometimes nature shows us some interesting lessons.

For example, there is a place in the world that nothing thrives. In fact, there is a place on earth that is so un-thriving that there is no life form. Where is this place? The Dead Sea.

It is also the one place that does not give out, it only takes.

There is no marine life in the Dead Sea. The high mineral and salt content of the waters make it impossible for fish or plants to live. Water flows into the Dead Sea from streams and rivers, but does not flow out.

The lesson it teaches is simple: If you want to thrive then you must learn how to give. This is the principle of generosity.

The Thrive series continues this Sunday!

Tonight, Wednesday 13 May we start our new midweek meeting – Equip.

It starts at 7pm. The address is 37 Scrub Road Carindale.

Can’t wait to see you there!

The Lifeplace podcast is now available!

Just click here and it will take you to the podcast. You need Itunes. If you do not have Itunes, it is a free download. Just click here to download Itunes.

Also, you can access the podcast link anytime from our church website.

Be sure to subscribe to it. It’s free and it means it will automatically download the latest message.

Be sure to give it a good rating and write a review too! Thanks for the support.

Think you need a lot to achieve a lot?

Not always.

Faith in numbers is often faith in the wrong thing.

No doubt God wanted to teach this lesson to a young man names Gideon in the Bible. He was just starting as a leader, and he was not only drastically outnumbered, but also suffered insecurity due to repeated failures.

Here’s how it went down. His army is outnumbered. He only has 32,000, and he is up against an enemy of over 100,000.

10,000 leave him. He’s left with 22,000. Most of those are probably wondering if they made the right move to stay faithful as the odds have just gotten worse.

By the time the battle comes only 300 are left.

And here’s the thing – it was God that whittled the numbers down.

Why did God do that? What was he trying to teach his new young leader?

Perhaps something along the lines of faith in God, not faith in numbers.

It is a good leadership reminder to business owners, managers, supervisors, pastors, volunteers, and workers – don’t just look at the numbers, look to God.

If you are outnumbered, outsized, and just plain outdone, then with God history is in your favour!

It’s a great question: What’s the most important thing to you in a church?

We have a new poll on the right side of the blog. Click your answer! Have fun.

Psalm 92:12-13    The righteous thrive like a palm tree and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they thrive in the courtyards of our God.

There are 2 primary pictures in this Psalm.

Number 1 is the tree: That represents your life.
Number 2 is the environment: “Planted IN the house of the Lord”. The environment represents the context of your life.

So you have your life. And the context of your life.

The Psalm marries these two together. So there is this bond, this relationship between your life and the environment in which your life is planted.

Now, let’s go deeper. The Bible is then specific about the environment. It specifically names exactly where to be planted to thrive the most. Where is this place? The house of the Lord, which is the church. Let me show you the Bible connection between house of God and church:

1 Timothy 3:15 I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

You cannot disconnect thriving from being planted, and specifically being planted in a local church family. Psalm says the righteous thrive when they are planted in the house of the Lord. Being planted is one of the essential keys to growing in life.

Are you planted in your church?

What really makes people satisfied with their lives? Amazingly, the secret may lie in a person’s ability to handle life’s crises.

These are the conclusions of a study of 173 men who have been followed since they graduated from Harvard University in the early 1940s.

The study, reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, noted that the one potent predictor of well-being was the ability to handle emotional crisis maturely.

Source: Today in the Word, November 2, 1993

Although this study was done in the 40’s, it certainly speaks into the current financial crisis that is hitting countries, economies, and households worldwide.

This Sunday we are continuing our series, “Thrive – 7 keys to succeeding in any situation.” Come along to hear more!

One of the biggest myths about faith is that it is reserved for professional Christians who have it all together.

Hebrews 11 is the hall of fame in the Bible of people who had faith. Interestingly, they all operated in very tough situations and crises.

Faith was designed in the laboratory of heaven for crises situations.

On top of that, in Hebrews 11, these people were everyday people. Not professionals, not pastors, not celebrity Christians. In essence, faith was most powerful in the hands of amateurs, not professionals.

Feel like an amateur as a Christian? Then faith is for you.

3 practical keys to using faith:
1.    Trust God even in hard situations
2.    Discipline your thinking to have a “good report” on life
3.    Read and repeat faith building scriptures.

This week we begin a very exciting chapter of our church.

Life Nights will be the first phase of what will eventually evolve into our small group ministry.

At Lifeplace, we don’t just do events. Rather, we embody our core values and vision. Since relationships and community is very important to the kind of church we see, Life Nights are a reflection of that.

In Acts 2, we see that the first church met together in corporate meetings like we do every Sunday. They also met together from house to house. Both environments where important to them, and this becomes our blueprint of church today.

So, starting this coming week, we are launching “Life Nights”. They are going to be a lot of fun, and everyone is invited.

Life Nights will be very casual, relational, light hearted, and of course food will be provided.

You have 2 to choose from every fortnight. I will personally be leading both:
1. Sundays @ 6pm (52/184 Redford Rd Manly West), or 2. Wednesdays @ 7pm (17 Condong St Mansfield)

So take your pick of what works best for you.

My hope is that one of these nights will work for you. We have also added the full calendar for 2009 to our website under “upcoming events”.