Where's your focus at?

Over the last while I've picked up on something among some of my Christian friends that has got me asking where are they putting their focus when things get tough, as well as when they are away from their connect group/mentor/church community when things get tough. Prayer requests get sent out asking that we pray they resist temptation, Facebook chats have similar requests and have statements of, "I feel far away from God because I'm not meeting with other Christians", Facebook status imply the same thing. After noticing this for a couple of months now I started wondering where are these people looking? To God when they are faced with temptation, or life is a bit stormy or if they are looking to other Christians.

I think that it is important for fellowship, doing life together, building each other up and loving and caring for people and being loved in return  which comes with being apart of a community. I also think that it is very important to be apart of a community where you can learn how to love, be loved and to be built up. We are called to be apart of a community Hebrews 10:25 "Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." God wants us to meet with other Christians, to share with them, be encourage and to encourage others, but he also wants us to lean into him when things get tough. 

Matthew 11:28 says "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." This is Jesus telling us that he is the one to look to when we are burdened and he will give the rest that you need. Yes, your friends and community can encourage you but you need to lean into God and trust that he will see you through this, he will give you the ability to face the temptation. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind and God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." I've experienced this in my own walk with God, when I've been tempted to give into the feelings of despair when life is tough or when something seems better but is so wrong and I've chosen to look to God, he has been faithful in helping me out and also giving me the peace that is needed in the situation.


In conclusion... I think it's important to be open and vulnerable with your community, to ask them for prayer and encouragement when you're struggling but you also need to look to God, you need to rest in him and trust that he will help you resist all temptations, to bring  you joy and to sustain you.

Your community can only build you up, encourage you and pray for you.. God can bring you what you need in the situation.

Kx

A little bit of community

Last night was the first cell group of the term. I was like super EXCITED for it last night.

Dave and I had been speaking about community and what it means to us and then somehow we got the idea to do a thing at cell group where we can build community, share about community/fellowship and get people to be real and to share a bit with each other.  We then thought communion would be something awesome to include in the evening, because not only does communion represent the last supper and what Jesus did for us on the cross but it also represents community and fellowship.

I got the "Messy Questions" as I call them from Mel, they're actually called "Honest to God questions".  At the start of the evening everyone chose a question form the bag and we all had to answer it.  Some of the questions are light hearted questions and others are pretty deep.. by some random chance we all ended up choosing the deeper questions. It was pretty funny. 

One of the questions that we had to answer was; "I wish people my age were more..." It was pretty interesting how everyone who is in my age group, 25 - 30 all had the same answer.  We are all very different, in different friendship circles and from different lifestyles, but we all said that we wish that our friends were more focused on building real friendships with their close friends, spending quality time with them.  We all agreed that we live busy full lives focused on everything else that after a while we reach a point of, "I haven't seen my friends in a while". We also agreed that we don't really hang out as much as we used to, and that we don't have deep, real conversations with our friends anymore.

.... It was somehow pretty epic that this question came up during "Messy Questions" because it links to the topic.


Dave gave a short talk on communion, why we do it and how it was done back in the bible times before we ate bread, cheese and drank grape juice.  While we were eating and drinking we had a small amount of discussion of fellowship. 

The thing about communion that is blowing my brain at the moment is that back in the day the disciples not only broke bread to remember what Jesus did for them. They also came together as a community with friends, family and fellow Christians and shared a meal with them. During this time they spoke about the things that were going on in their lives, they were real with each other, they encouraged each other and prayed for one another. 

It blows my mind that the simple act of communion can mean more that just remembering Jesus, it also serves as a reminder of how we need to be living like Jesus.  We need to be loving and accepting of everyone - being willing to share a meal, opening up "our homes" to people and getting real with them and allowing them to be real with you.

This is HUGE in my head at the moment! It also challenges me to be more real and it gives me a desire to want realness from my friends and the people I encounter in life.  I want real community and fellowship with people.

We ended the evening with everyone sharing where they're at, what happened during the holidays and gave prayer requests if there were any before we went into a time of prayer.

Last night was really awesome, God was awesome. He just showed up and filled the room with his presence and created a space for the evening to be a success.  Dave lead the group really well and his talk on communion kind of blew me a way a little.  It was also really cool how everyone opened up and was willing to be vulnerable and share during the Messy questions and during the prayer requests. It really feel like last night was fundamental in the building of a safe place for our cell group to share things with each other without feeling like they are being judged or rejected.

xKx

Ladies Tea

Yesterday we had a ladies tea at church. 

All ready and waiting for the ladies to arrive with their YUMMY treats.

When Terri announced in church that we were having another tea about a month ago, I told her that I would do the flowers for her again.  I asked my mom to phone Flowers For Africa and ask if they would donate some flowers.  They said they would either donate some or I would have to buy them for R5 a bunch.  On Saturday morning I went to fetch 15 bunches of flowers. They were all daisy type of flowers and looked half deead, but I thought that I would make do. I paid for them and as I was walking to my car, the guy carrying the box said we have more returns, wait here. He grabbed four bunches of flowers and went to the truch and returned with four bunches of roses. 

The GIANT box of flowers from Flowers For Africa

The roses from Flowers For Africa

 I decided to try and use my new LUMO pink food colouring as icing for my standard cupcake recipie. I put a rose on the top of the each cupcake and they looked STUNNING.  I suprised myself with how nice they looked. 

CUPCAKES

 At 3pm the tea kicked off and 30 ladies form church arrived.  We had an AWESOME afternoon of fellowship, laugheter and fun. 

After the tea, we had 10 bunched of flowers left over. Terri and I decided to go around the area and put the bunches of flowers at  peoples front doors. We drove around Constantia, Bergvleit and Plumstead and where we saw a house without walls or a gate we stopped the car, jumped out and put a bunch of flowers outside the door.  

I hope that they bring some joy to the people who find the flowers outside their houses later that day or early this morning. 

xKx