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Family and Friends Newsletter

Look    Up   

Family and Friends Newsletter

🏹From John

Hi everyone,

One of my inspirations for mission work is a guy called Loren Cunningham who

founded the YWAM  missionary organisation. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission. He is my inspiration because of a number of reasons. I want to highlight  three of them here.

💫He uses real life, first hand experience. My heart cry when it comes to Christian testimony, is to be able to relate it to practical everyday living. In his book 'Is that really you,God?', Loren shares real life actual experiences.

💫He highlights both successes and failures within his Christian journey. It has been my  experience that along with successes also come failures. Loren does not omit to include in his book, accounts detailing  personal failure(even self inflicted) and the lessons he has learnt when gradually pulling himself back after a setback or even setbacks.

💫He includes inspiring accounts of answered prayer that give Glory to God! Those    accounts which unashamedly, point to the goodness and faithfulness of God, have become 
my favourite portion of Loren's account of his missionary journey. They have inspired in me, faith in the greatness of God and His ability.

This is my very first newsletter since relocating to Southbourne near Bournemouth, Dorset County, a South Western coastal town of the U.K. I will seek to follow a similar trend as highlighted above, sharing  from a) Real life experiences that I hope dear reader, you can relate to, b)Secondly be transparent in sharing about my successes and experiences of failure!😂 c)Thirdly , I really look forward to inspiring with accounts of answers to prayer. 

🏹🏹🏹There are three main Sections to this letter. The first is Destiny Signpost part 1, which is below  and is basically personal reflections of mine garnered from attempts to process what is going on in fulfilling a call to missionary vocation. This one is called :

🏹The place of Geographical Locations in the Process of Divine Guidance.

🏹The background to this particular study is based on everyday experience. Have you wondered why the same person could vary in levels of productivity and a manifestation of personal potential from one physical environment to the other? I have wondered about this characteristic of individuals as well as sociological groups of people. Why we are influenced by variations within different physical environments for example. Because I really don't want to distract from what I set out to examine in this sign post which is ' Geographical Location and Divine Guidance' I am going to redirect my post to scriptural illustration. 

🏹In reflecting on the incidences of Divine Guidance and Geographical Location, my first illustration is of a man by the name 'Abram

🏹The place of Geographical Locations in the Process of Divine Guidance.

🏹The background to this particular study is based on everyday experience. Have you wondered why the same person could vary in levels of productivity and a manifestation of personal potential from one physical environment to the other? I have wondered about this characteristic of individuals as well as sociological groups of people. Why we are influenced by variations within different physical environments for example. Because I really don't want to distract from what I set out to examine in this sign post which is ' Geographical Location and Divine Guidance' I am going to redirect my post to scriptural illustration. 

🏹In reflecting on the incidences of Divine Guidance and Geographical Location, my first illustration is of a man by the name 'Abram': 

Genesis 12:1 Now in Haran the Lord had said to Abram,“Go away from your country,And from your relativesAnd from your father’s house,To the land which I will show you; 

🏹So in the first evidence of Divine Guidance which Abraham, the Jewish and Arab 'Great grand' patriarch received, we have a very clear example of Divine Instruction to make some changes in Geographical location, from 'Haran' to a yet to be revealed location:' a land that I will show you'.

🏹What was Abram's response to the Divine Instruction he had received? He complied.

Genesis 12:4 So Abram departed in faithful obedience as the Lord had directed him; and Lot his nephew left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 

🏹 Sometimes whilst reading such an account, it is possible we could assume that in the case of Abram, obedience to Divine Instruction, was second nature 'easy pizzy' 😀but certainly not in our case! 

🏹We are easy to recall our modern day concerns and our very complex lifestyle, certainly our commitments to our jobs, family, denomination, extracurricular social engagements that we have, and in so doing are prone to thinking that whereas it would  have been relatively easier in Abram's case to migrate, we certainly couldn't! Even when there is the clear evidence of Divine Guidance involved!(part 2 in the next issue of Look Up)

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🏹 Successess and Failures😩😩😅

Uploaded videos (playlist)

My Faith, Civility, Culture and my personal views on sexuality.

About an hour ago, I watched a video Clip by Steve Chalke founder of Oasis UK Trust on the subject of Inclusion. Steve made a number of points. Among them, he felt that there were issues of a Pastoral Care nature, that he considered even more important than resolving the theological arguments in favour of or against gay marriage. My interpretation of  what Steve was saying is, he had now decided to opt for inclusion , by extending recognition and endorsement(matrimonially) of  gay married couples in order to be in a 'legitimate' position to offer them Pastoral Care.

Background:
In a previous Facebook timeline posting, I made remarks along the following lines:

1. Whereas I agreed with a number of things Steve Chalk had said on the video,I disagreed with the main emphasis in his 'version' of inclusion. The issue of  marriage for a lot of individuals was a question closely linked with their faith. To them, faith their belief in God(deity), was a very sacred aspect of their lives and was closely linked with upholding certain moral principles. Their belief was not necessarily as a result of arriving at a set of logical conclusions, but it was often the result of first hand experience of  God in their lives. Perhaps through a crises event.
2. For such individuals, and I 'd like to include myself in that category, whenever there are issues to be resolved , the avenue for doing so is through directly consulting God within the privilege of prayer in order to receive a direct response form God. THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY HAVING A LIVING FAITH. Now if Steve had confidently argued that he had consulted with God in prayer, and God had made him aware by 'private revelation' that he could endorse and perform gay marriage, I might have disagreed, but atleast I would have to acknowledge it was between him and God. Again an issue of personal faith.
3. I disagreed with Steve because he did not do the above(no 2). Instead he cited external influences such as impending Government legislation, and the reported experiences of individuals whose rationale for committing suicide was due to the rejection and the abuse they had become victims of , due to their sexual orientation. Steve then echoes the often rehearsed argument that if the church 'changes' or becomes more inclusive, then at least it will be meeting it's pastoral care obligations to the gay community more fully. In disagreeing with Steve on the issue, I did not highlight my views on gay marriage per se, however, I took issue with Steve's position that expression of faith had to be shaped or modified as a result of external factors such as the timing of Government legislation or the personal experience of individuals. 
4. I made the point that faith had to be politically neutral, it had to be independent of all such interferences. If it weren't of a more sustainable quality than that, then faith could not possible grow, and we might as well redefine our faith as faith in man, faith in the christian church, faith in government and not faith in God.
5. I also cited my own experience as a 22 years old Pastor in Ghana, West Africa. Christian churches at the time were under a lot of pressure, nationally. The military Government at the time was trying to stiffle ideological, political, socio-cultural dissent. On a local level, I was a visible target because my congregation rented the same premises as the Community Public Tribunal. As a result, I was summoned to the local Commission For the Defence of the Revolution(CDR) office. The 'interrogator'(only way I could have described him) was openly hostile to my faith and what he thought we represented as a Christian church. After asking me why we were promoting a 'western style' faith(being a Christian in his opinion was non-African) instead of an African traditional faith, he issued me with an ultimatum:We were to justify our existence in the Community(show evidence of this) and he wanted me to submit my weekly sermons to be screened for dissension before delivery. 
6. Those were very stressful times in Ghana for holding on to our faith. But we addressed the issues with God in prayer, of course I did not submit my sermons for screening, knowing fully well that the CDRs acted for the government which also had a very appalling human rights record at the time.   

Today I'd like to move things a little bit further from simply reacting to Steve Chalke's video statement.

(to be contd)

Famous And Historic Greenwich Slideshow Slideshow

Famous And Historic Greenwich Slideshow Slideshow: TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Famous And Historic Greenwich Slideshow Slideshow ★ to Greenwich (near Winchcomb). Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor

Keeping Your family together when your marriage is falling apart

http://constanceahrons.com/the%20good%20divorce.htm