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645 News (April 7)

END of 645news@blogspot.com
This is the final post of our blog. There have been 305 posts over 2 years. Thanks to all who have read. From next week the new 645 website goes live. All the news for our community will be found there.

FINAL WEEK of LUKE'S Gospel
We end our mammoth series in Luke this Sunday. We will reflect on Jesus' vision for life after his resurrection. Read Luke 24:36-53 in preparation. Come early. Catch up with old friends, meet new friends

THIS Sunday -Barefoot bowls!

Meet at 4pm, cost is $12
We will meet at Northmead Bowling Club on Windsor Road at 4pm, take off our shoes and bowl! We'll spend time together, have a beverage and relax. Put it in your diary now!

645 Article of the Week
This week we posted an article on the radical effects of the resurrection. It's a hard read but worth the time. Read, ponder and feel free to post your thoughts as comments to the post.

Have you missed these BLOGS?
Download LAUNCH Talks
Rev Writes: A final word from Lewis'

645 Rosters April/May

Food for thought: 645 Article of the week

The Radical Effects of the Resurrection

John Piper

Sourced from here

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. . . . Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” . . . But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:19, 30-32, 20)

Paul ponders how he would assess his lifestyle if there were no resurrection from the dead. He says it would be ridiculous—pitiable. The resurrection guided and empowered him to do things which would be ludicrous without the hope of resurrection.

For example, Paul looks at all the dangers he willingly faces. He says they come “every hour.”

On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. (2 Corinthians 11:26)

Then he considers the extent of his self-denial and says, “I die every day.” This is Paul’s experience of what Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” I take this to mean that there was something pleasant that Paul had to put to death every day. No day was without the death of some desire.

. . . with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea . . . 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:22-28)

Then he recalls that he “fought with beasts at Ephesus.” We don’t know what he is referring to. A certain kind of opponent to the gospel is called a beast in 2 Peter 1:10 and Jude 10. In any case, it was utterly disheartening.

We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. (2 Corinthians 1:8)

So Paul concludes from his hourly danger and his daily dying and his fighting with beasts that the life he has chosen in following Jesus is foolish and pitiable if he will not be raised from the dead. “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” In other words, only the resurrection with Christ and the joys of eternity can make sense out of this suffering.

If death were the end of the matter, he says, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” This doesn’t mean: Let’s all become gluttons and drunkards. They are pitiable too—with or without the resurrection. He means: If there is no resurrection, what makes sense is middle-class moderation to maximize earthly pleasures.

But that is not what Paul chooses. He chooses suffering, because he chooses obedience. When Ananias came to him at his conversion with the words from the Lord Jesus, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” ( Acts 9:16), Paul accepted this as part of his calling. Suffer he must.

How could Paul do it? What was the source of this radical obedience? The answer is given in 1 Corinthians 15:20: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” In other words, Christ was raised, and I will be raised with him. Therefore, nothing suffered for Jesus is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

The hope of the resurrection radically changed the way Paul lived. It freed him from materialism and consumerism. It gave him the power to go without things that many people feel they must have in this life. For example, though he had the right to marry (1 Corinthians 9:5), he renounced that pleasure because he was called to bear so much suffering. This he did because of the resurrection.

This is the way Jesus said the hope of the resurrection is supposed to change our behavior. For example, he told us to invite to our homes people who cannot pay us back in this life. How are we to be motivated to do this? “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).

This is a radical call for us to look hard at out present lives to see if they are shaped by the hope of the resurrection. Do we make decisions on the basis of gain in this world or gain in the next? Do we take risks for love’s sake that can only be explained as wise if there is a resurrection?

Do we lose heart when our bodies give way to the aging process, and we have to admit that we will never do certain things again. Or do we look to the resurrection and take heart?

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

I pray that we will rededicate ourselves during this Easter season to a lifetime of letting the resurrection have its radical effects.



Pastor John

645 news (March 31)

Good Friday AND Easter Sunday
There is a great chance this weekend to remember Jesus. Good Friday (9am) we will be reminded of the cross, on Sunday at 6pm we will celebrate the resurrection. Read Luke 22:66-23:49 & 24:1-35 in preparation.

Sunday 11th April - barefoot bowls!

Meet at 4pm, cost is $12
We will meet at Northmead Bowling Club on Windsor Road at 4pm, take off our shoes and bowl! We'll spend time together, have a beverage and relax. Put it in your diary now!

645 Article of the Week
This week we posted an article by Charles Spurgeon on disobedience to the gospel. A challenging reminder of the command to believe and obey the gospel and the penalties of not doing so! Read, ponder and feel free to post your thoughts as comments to the post.

Have you missed these BLOGS?
Download LAUNCH Talks
Rev Writes: A final word from Lewis'

645 Rosters April/May

RevWrites- March 28

Today is the last Sunday for the Lewis’ at Northmead and Winston Hills Anglican Churches.

As we leave we are filled with enormous gratitude to God for all the joy and growth we’ve had among you over the last 6 years. We have learnt so much among you in that time. From our families we’ve learnt perseverance and faithfulness in the face of busy stressful lives. From our seniors we’ve learnt a genuine humility that puts the needs of others before their own. From our children and youth we’ve learnt a passion to act and change to be like Jesus. From our Young Adults we’ve learnt a delight and joy in serving Jesus together. It’s not like we weren’t aware of these things before, but seeing them displayed in your lives has given us great encouragement.

So our parting encouragement to you all is to keep on loving and serving Jesus together. I know this sounds obvious but in Sydney you (along with all other churches) will be under constant pressure not to do this.

Firstly, our culture will gently but mercilessly push you to settle for a lukewarm Christianity. We’re all so busy and stressed just doing life in Sydney that without realising we have less and less time and passion for Jesus.

Secondly, under that kind of pressure the temptation will be to circle the wagons and protect what we already have. So we work hard at maintaining ministries and structures that serve Christians but we become increasingly irrelevant in our community. They are able to do life without every seeing the need for Jesus.

These challenges require you to be bound together in prayer and service of our community. These challenges require you to take bigger risks and make more exciting mistakes than ever before. The perilous state of lost and the glory of Jesus invites and demands no less!

James, Jane, Jack and Harry

Food for Thought: 645 Article of the Week

Disobedience to the Gospel
Charles Spurgeon
Sourced from HERE

"But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?'"(Romans 10:16)

Man is the same disobedient creature under all dispensations. We bemoan his rejection of the gospel, and so did Isaiah, who spoke in the name of the whole company of the prophets.

It is one of the greatest proofs of the depravity of man's heart that he will no more obey the gospel than the law, but disobeys his God, whether he speaks to him in love or in law.

When any receive the gospel it is a work of grace: "the arm of the Lord is revealed." But when they refuse it, it is their own sin: "they have not obeyed the gospel."

It is not optional to men to accept or refuse it at pleasure. "Now God commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). He also commands them to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).

To refuse to believe is to incur great sin (John 16:8).

There is a death penalty attached to disobedience (Mark 16:16).

It is so put:

1. To secure the honor of God. It is not the offer of an equal to an equal, but of the great God to a condemned sinner.
2. To embolden the proclaimer of it. The minister now speaks boldly with his Master's authority.
3. To remind man of his obligations. Repentance and faith are natural duties from which the gospel does not exonerate a man, although it blesses him by bestowing them upon him.
4. To encourage the humble seeker. He must be at full liberty to believe in Jesus, since he is commanded to do so and threatened if he does not do so.
5. To suggest to men the urgent duty of seeing to their soul's welfare. Suicide, whether of the body or of the soul, is always a great crime. To neglect the great salvation is a grave offense.

The gospel is set forth as a feast, to which men are bound to come under penalty of the King's displeasure (Matt. 22:1-7).

The prodigal was right in returning to his father; and if he was right in doing so, so would each one of us be in doing the same.

645 News (March 24)

645 this SUNDAY
It is only 48 hours before Jesus will die on the cross. This week we eat the final passover with him and his disciples. Read Luke 22 in preparation. Arrive early, catch up with old friends + new friends.


Version 3 of 645 Rosters (April/May) HERE
This Sunday: NAC Farewell for James Lewis (12pm at NAC - bring your own picnic)



645 Article of the Week
This week we posted an article Sherry Williamson on forgiveness. She reflects on the situation in Uganda.Read, ponder and feel free to post your thoughts as comments to the post.

Have you missed these BLOGS?
Download LAUNCH Talks
Rev Writes on the offertory bowls
Prayer Table request (21/3)

90 Seconds with Mike A

90 Seconds with Mike from NACVID on Vimeo.

Prayer Table request updated

Sunday:
"Please pray for a family in Indonesia. The wife P was struck down with dengue fever recently. On Saturday (20/3) her condition deteriorated and she was flown to Singapore for treatment. Please pray that she is completely healed. Pray for her husband and kids as they trust the Lord in this very hard time."

Tuesday
"The latest info is that P has been discharged from hospital. The husband and one of the children also had dengue fever(however both now recovering). There were no serious complications. Lots of people have been helping them out. Praise God for answered prayer

645 Rosters (Mar-May) VERSION 3a

Updated Rosters till end of MAY. PINK indicates a change. Please let us know if there are any issues or changes. (troy@nac.asn.au, ed@nac.asn.au)

Food for Thought: 645 Article of the Week

As we forgive
Sherry Williamson
Sourced from HERE

Seven years: the biblical time of restoration, freedom, and jubilee. Seven times 70: the number of times Jesus told Peter to forgive his brother. Seven years, seven months: the time that Angelina Atyam’s daughter Charlotte was held captive after the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) abducted her and 138 other girls from a Catholic boarding school in 1996.

Sevens surface as a motif throughout the transformation of “Mama Angelina” from a soft-spoken nurse-midwife and mother of six to an international activist seeking the release of all Uganda’s abducted children.

Atyam’s daughter was among an estimated 35,000 youth, some as young as 6, that the Ugandan government believes were abducted by the LRA during nearly 20 years of fighting. From 1987 until a ceasefire was signed in 2006, the LRA used children as human shields in battles with government troops. Boys were forced to become soldiers; girls were enslaved as “wives” to rebel leaders.

The path Atyam pursued to negotiate the children’s release -- and to further peace and reconciliation within her country -- was inconceivable for many other parents, but she was resolute. Guided by the Lord’s prayer, she and other parents of abducted children began to pray for forgiveness of the rebel soldiers.

“The lives and work of Angelina Atyam and [Sudanese] Bishop Taban are examples of what oases of hope look like in a broken world,” says Emmanuel Katongole, co-director of the Center for Reconciliation and associate research professor of theology and world Christianity at Duke Divinity School.

“In listening to the stories they have come to share, the question for us is: ‘How do you create and sustain lifegiving possibility in the midst of war, violence, poverty, and hatred?’”

The abduction
In October of 1996, Mama Angelina, as she was affectionately known, was working as a private nurse-midwife helping usher new life into the world. Her husband had a good job, and the couple’s six children were all in school. The family home in Lira hummed with daily routines.

But the family was awakened at 6 a.m. by a neighbor pounding on their door. During the night, LRA rebels had stormed St. Mary’s Catholic boarding school, where their 14-year-old daughter Charlotte was a student, and abducted the girls.

“I screamed and fell down,” recalls Atyam, bringing a slender hand to her chest and apologizing for momentarily being at a loss for words. “I saw the fear in my husband’s eyes. He was talking, but I couldn’t hear a word he said. Our other children were afraid for their sister and their own lives.”

When a friend arrived and began to pray with the family, Atyam remembers that a sense of strength and calm came over her. The feeling continued to sustain her as she and her husband rode with other parents to St. Mary’s, 10 miles away in Aboke parish. They found the children’s books, shoes and clothing scattered on the ground, Atyam said. “Parents were wailing, ‘The children are all gone.’” The dormitory windows were broken, smashed by the rebels to reach the girls huddled inside.

The parents learned that Sister Rachel, the petite but formidable nun who was the school’s deputy headmistress, and a male teacher had followed the rebels into the jungle. When the pair caught up with them and pleaded for the girls’ release, the rebel commander wrote “109” with the tip of his rifle’s bayonet in the dust. That was the number of girls he would release.

When the headmistress continued to argue for the release of the entire group, he threatened to kill them all. She left with 109 girls, the words of those left behind echoing in her ears: “Sister, please, I’m sick” … “Sister, I’m the only child of my parents”… “Sister, I have asthma” … “Sister, they will rape us,” followed by the girls’ screams as the rebels kicked and beat them. The next day, the headmistress arrived at the Atyams’ home. With tears running down her cheeks, she told them that Charlotte had not been among the girls released.

“I think that Sister died inside that day,” Atyam said. “Only half her soul was left, and she never recovered. Every time we later met, the tears would start to flow. I would try to get her to eat with me because I knew she couldn’t eat and cry at the same time.” News later came that the rebels had marched most of the remaining school girls into neighboring southern Sudan, where Charlotte would be held captive and brutalized for the next seven years.

The Lord’s prayer
Atyam and the parents of the other 29 girls started meeting weekly at a local church to fast and pray for their children’s release. No amount of praying seemed to lift the parents’ burdens. They had agreed not to conduct their own searches at the urging of the boarding school’s deputy headmistress, who feared that might upset negotiations she had begun after getting little assistance from either the local police or the Ugandan government. “I was confused, bitter, and very deep in my heart I was thinking, ‘How do I avenge this?’” says Atyam. “Yet we
continued to pray and call upon the LRA to release our children, protect them,
bring them home, and make peace again.” That is, until a priest was leading the parents one day in the Lord’s prayer.

When they got to “Forgive us our sins,” the parents suddenly stopped. They could not say “as we forgive those who sin against us.” Realizing that they were asking for forgiveness of their
sins, yet could not forgive the rebels for stealing their children, they filed silently out of the church. “We went back home to examine ourselves and our communities,” says Atyam. “What was it that was burning -- the anger, the bitterness, the corrosion of our souls? We had put a curse on [the rebels], but we actually had put one on ourselves.”

Atyam remembered the lesson of Matthew 5:23-24. Before you offer a sacrifice to God, put things right, or the sacrifice is useless. “We needed God, so we decided to put things right,” says Atyam. “That prayer was a revival in our lives…praying for those who wronged us became our sacrifice.”

When the parents met to pray the next week, a transformation had begun. As they prayed to forgive the rebels, their sorrows began to lift. They decided to share their gift of forgiveness, first with other people in their community -- and then in neighboring districts where other children had been kidnapped -- by organizing meetings to tell their story.

‘Bullets have no eyes’
Many who heard the message were incredulous. “Angelina, what planet are you from?” cried out a blind woman from a nearby district whose only son had been abducted. The rebels had forced the clinging 8-year-old from her arms with fire, and then slashed her with a machete and left her to die. “Don’t you know what the rebels did to me?” she demanded. “Must I forgive?” Atyam’s answer was a resounding “yes.” Unless the parents practiced forgiveness and sought a peaceful solution to the conflict, they would destroy what they most wanted back -- the children. “Bullets have no eyes,” she explained to the woman. “In the field, bullets would not know if a child was abducted or volunteered for the rebel army. War would destroy all these children.” She continued to spread the message of forgiveness. When she learned that the well-known rebel commander Rasca Lukwiya was holding Charlotte as his “wife,” Atyam went a step further.

She traveled to the neighboring village where Lukwiya’s mother lived, determined to convince the woman that she was ready to forgive him, his family, their clan and their tribe, which she held responsible for beginning the civil conflict. During that visit, Atyam began by telling Lukwiya’s mother, “I know you have nothing to do with the war and want your son back.”

“She didn’t find it very easy at first, but then we embraced and wept. We were reconciled,” said Atyam, who felt as if a heavy burden was lifted from her heart and soul. “I could go back, pray, and call upon God for what I wanted from him.”

Energized by their witness of forgiveness, the parents launched the Concerned Parents Association (CPA) to advocate for the release of all the abducted children in Uganda, the peaceful resolution of the armed conflict, forgiveness of the LRA and increased awareness of the plight of children in war everywhere. As co-founder and president, Atyam would become a midwife to a vision of a new future of reconciliation and peace for her country. She started by taking CPA’s mission to radio and other media, and to rebel and government leaders, including the Ugandan president. Eventually, she traveled to Europe and the United States, where she petitioned the United Nations to intervene, and in 2002 addressed the United Nations Security Council. While the publicity raised sympathy for the children’s plight, it also drew the rebels’ ire. In a matter of months, rebel leader Joseph Kony made Atyam an offer: In exchange for ceasing her advocacy, the LRA would release Charlotte.

Atyam agreed to consider the offer if the LRA released all 30 girls from St. Mary’s. The commander refused. And so did Atyam. “It was as if God had knit the parents together to become one big family,” said Atyam, who agonized about her decision. She hoped that Charlotte, whom she later learned had sometimes been beaten in response to CPA’s advocacy, would forgive her. Atyam’s own family was appalled, but for her there was no other choice. “Somehow all those other children had become one in Charlotte. We could not pull the one away and leave the rest,” Atyam said. That would have betrayed CPA, a group with hope and vision that they could not afford to lose for the sake of thousands of missing children, she said. “All those children had become my children.”

The escape
As years passed, Atyam continued to lead CPA’s efforts and to wrestle with God over her daughter’s captivity. “You are mighty, you are ever present, you can do anything,” she cried out one night in 2004 as she sat on her bedroom floor. “It is written in the Bible that the seventh year is the year of freedom…the year of all good things. Lord, we know you don’t change, but have you changed today -- because seven years have elapsed, and my daughter and the other children are still missing.” Three days later, Atyam received a telephone call that Charlotte, then 22, had escaped with her toddler and was safe at a Ugandan army camp. When they met, mother and daughter ran into each other’s arms. “We couldn’t talk,” Atyam said. “We just held each other and cried for a long, long time. She is the Lord’s answer to my prayers.”

Atyam eventually found Charlotte’s 5-year-old son at one of the camps established for the one million Ugandans displaced during the civil conflict. The boy had fled the rebel camp during an air raid, convinced that his mother and baby brother had been killed.

‘Give me the heart to forgive’
Today Charlotte is studying hospital management at the University of Health Sciences in Kampala. She says she prays for God’s grace “to give me the heart to forgive. Every time I see these people walking freely on the streets, I feel like I need to kill somebody. And then I say, ‘God will not forgive me unless I forgive them.’” Charlotte says she is proud of her mother’s work to free her and the other abducted girls. “I thought she made the right decision,” she said of her mother’s refusal to stop her advocacy work in exchange for only Charlotte’s release.

And she wonders why God brought her back home safely when so many others died. “I just ask him to help me be a servant at his feet and serve my people. And it won’t be about me any more. I know God needs me to do something, but I don’t know what.” Now Charlotte is free to find out.
As for her mother, Atyam continues to advocate for abducted children with the Concerned Children and Youth Association (CCYA ), an offshoot of CPA started by the siblings of abducted children. The next step toward a peaceful future for Uganda, Atyam said, is to help children and youth transform a culture of war and violence to one of peace and reconciliation. The community based CCYA works to promote peace, unity, and social and economic empowerment with more than 500 children and youth abducted during the conflict.

“It is not easy to forgive,” Atyam says. “We have struggled to find peace in Uganda since 1996. We prefer to cling to bitterness, but bitterness is corrosive. Like a container filled with salt, it will destroy everything because the Lord cannot forgive us if we cannot forgive others. Life is wonderful if we let God heal us.”

RevWrites- March 21

One of the most impressive things about NAC has been the willingness of the members to consider the needs of others before their own needs. This is clear evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.

This willingness to look first to the needs of others has been most evident in our older members. Time after time our older members have led by example. They have given way and given up the things they loved. And all for the sake of those seeking Christ or new to faith in Christ.

I’m sure that, being human, there have been times when they’ve given way through gritted teeth. Nevertheless, they’ve cared enough about others to look first to the needs of those others.

For many years we have cared about visitors or newcomers to encourage them to ignore the collection plate when it is passed round. We recognise that many people outside the church often view churches as only interested in their money. So we’ve tried to dispel that impression by telling them to “simply pass the plate along.”

I don’t know where the collection plate originated. The practise of passing the plate seems to have been there a long time. But it might not be that old. In England, where the C of E is the established church, most churches were centrally funded in some way or other, and most still are. So they don’t depend on weekly collections. In the US, the collection plate seems to have been introduced in the 19^th century.

At our Annual Meeting last night we heard that the Parish Council and the Parish Leadership Team have agreed that we will stop using the collection plate. Over the next six months we will talk about why we have made this decision and invite your feedback and provide time for discussion.

One major reason is that most of our giving is now received electronically. More and more of our members are giving by bank transfer. There are good reasons to encourage this way of giving. One is it ensures people act responsibly and faithfully by giving even if they’re away.

Of course, members of NAC will still be able to give directly each Sunday if they don’t want to use bank transfer or some other form of direct giving. We will need to work out some way to enable these members to give envelopes or even cash! I don’t think the wardens want to refuse to receive cash, although I can tell you funny stories where people have refused cash, even large amounts of it.

This all has to be worked out together over the next months. We are good at managing change. We are good because of the deeply ingrained willingness of our members to look to the needs of others. We will work this out together too. In fact, I look forward to it so I might see the deep character of NAC at work once more. It will cause me once more to thank our Father for changing us more into the image of his Son.

Neil

645 News (March 17)

645 this SUNDAY
Jesus is in Jerusalem and spending some time in the temple. This week he talks to the disciples about the temple and the future. Read Luke 21 in preparation. Arrive early, catch up with old friends + new friends.


Don't FORGET
This Saturday: Mission Prayer Breakfast (7:30am at Church)
This Sunday: Conversation hour with James Lewis
Sunday Week: (28-3) NAC Picnic Farewell for James


645 Article of the Week
This week we posted an article by a different Sydney Minister on dealing with some of the very challenging commands in the Old testament. Read, ponder and feel free to post your thoughts as comments to the post.

CONNECT GROUPS
Are you in a Connect Group? Join one today. Talk to your friends or a leader at 645 and join a community group of young adults who want to meet Jesus.

Have you missed these BLOGS?
Download LAUNCH Talks
Rev Writes on Easter
645 Rosters (March-May)

RevWrites- March 14

Easter is almost upon us. What are you planning to do with it?

There’s plenty of choice!

1. Start praying for one or two specific neighbours now. Pray that God will speak to them over this Easter. How will he do that? The same way he always does – through the gospel. How will they hear the gospel? That’s where you will need to come in. Why? Because they’re your friends! Pray every day until you invite them that God will make them say “Yes” to your invitation.

So what will you invite them to?

2. Good Friday church.

Both NAC and WHAC are holding Good Friday Services. Both will be visitor friendly. Both will present the gospel. If your friends are there they’ll hear the gospel and God will do what he always does – either save or condemn. The gospel always does that.

3. Good Friday afternoon.

Take your friends to St Andrew’s Cathedral for the Easter Convention. Google St Andrews Cathedral for details about John Woodhouse speaking on The Atonement and the Next Generation.

John, Principal of Moore College, is one of the clearest Bible teachers I’ve ever heard. Even if your friends don’t go you can choose this option as a good way to spend Easter.

4. Easter Day Church.

Again, both NAC and WHAC are holding Easter Day Services. NAC both morning and afternoon. Read what I said above about Good Friday. It applies just the same.

5. Invite people over for a meal.

It’s a really long weekend and a great opportunity for hospitality. Use it for developing relationships with non-Christian friends. Next year they might accept your invitation to church if they value your friendship. But you’ve got to work on it. Of course, prayer is important. See point 1 above.

6. Invite people to go out with you.

A movie, a meal out, putt-putt, a picnic on the beach… But see points 5 and 1 above.

I’m sure there are plenty of other options. But all will require us to take some initiative, to be proactive. We must start with prayer. And in our prayer we must ask God to actually do something. That’s what prayer is – asking God to do something. Saying something like, “Dear God, I pray for my friend Rupert,” isn’t actually praying/asking God for anything. Ask God to make Rupert accept your invitation. Ask God to make Rupert’s heart soft to the gospel. But ask God to do something.

You can be sure God will answer your prayers and manage his side of things quite well. But then we need to manage our side of things. We’ve got to do the inviting.

The gospel always works. We need to have our friends hear the gospel.

Neil

Food for Thought: 645 Article of the Week

Stone to death the rebellious son?
Andrew Katay
Sourced HERE

On Sunday, we had a go at tacking the issue of how to handle the parts of Scripture that are least comfortable! We showed a clip from the West Wing, which has Jed Bartlett challenging a Republican broadcaster on a bunch of Old Testament laws that call for the death penalty. And then read Deut 21, which has the same thing. Here’s how I approached it – any thoughts?

it seems to me that there are 3 things that we have so say about this:

The first thing is that there is a profound concern for what Moses calls the reality of the evil in your midst, an evil that needs to be purged. We find it very difficult to have any sense of evil except in so far as we suffer; we know that the earthquake in Haiti is a form of evil, natural evil, in the sense that we have a deep gut sense that things ought to be different, the earth should not shake and destroy us like that. But, as a culture we find it almost impossible to articulate evil in moral categories which requires that something be done about it. And in this, we are morally poorer and weaker than these Scriptures. What Deuteronomy’s fierce and violent laws teach us is that evil is real and it is deadly. It is real because the holiness of God is real, an objective supreme standard against which our actions are to be measured; and it is deadly in that evil is depicted as releasing the powers of death in the midst of the community, a power that can only be kept at bay by an equal power, that is by an equal death. The one thing you know when you deal with Deuteronomy is that disobedience to God is not something to be laughed off, not even something to integrated into your life as a mistake, not something merely to be regretted but moved on from. It is an objective reality, a transgression against the law and holiness of God, and it stands against you as the power of death released into your life, and can only be purged, cleansed, dealt with effectively, by an equivalent power. And this is something that we must never give up on.

The only alternative is the moral relativism of Dawkins and his crew – they deny the deadly objective reality of evil, and instead redefine it as the subjective product cultural standards, fluid and flexible and ultimately without consequence, except perhaps evolutionary consequence. What’s interesting about that is the glorious contradiction of a position which on the one hand denies objective moral reality, and on the other hand, criticises Biblical faith with moral outrage, suddenly not nearly as interested in the cultural standards of the Bible as it should be. No, the first thing to say about these laws is that they teach us that disobedience to God is a deadly reality. It’s the first, but as we’ll see in a moment, it’s not the last.

Second, and although a smaller point, also challenging, one of the things we see here is the the communal nature of this community. Personal matters, even matters that are as intimate as marriage and family, are not just personal and are certainly not private, but are included in the life of the community. That’s why personal actions provoke community response, especially personal evil actions which release the power of death in the life of the community. We drink the milk of an ideology of individualism, where the possibility of seeing the community implications of personal decisions and actions is almost impossible, let alone the setting to one side of the personal for the sake of the community. And one of the challenges for us here is to question that ideology of individualism. What Deuteronomy says is that your actions and decisions, your time, your money, your gifts and abilities, your capacities, your problems – they are not merely your own; they belong to all of us, the way that they do in a well functioning family. And if anything, the new covenant only strengthens this conviction as we are sisters and brothers to one another because we are children together of our Heavenly Father.

Third, and most importantly, Jesus fulfills this law – what does this mean? It’s a very slippery word, ‘fulfill’, and can be used to cover a whole multitude of confusions. What it means here is this – what Moses could not see was that the evil would never be purged from Israel’s midst. There might be sacrifices of atonement from day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year, but they would never actually do the job in a transformative way. It was only Jesus, the Son of God, Messiah, who could do that; God himself bearing his own wrath, God himself purging our sin, God himself under our curse. He went where not even the worst criminal was to go, v. 22: 22 When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession. God demands that sin be purged, God demands atonement, and God provide atonement, his own Son, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. What Deut demands is not watered down, not explained away, it is fulfilled, fulfilled to the absolute limit. When God came to his world, he came not to mete out the judgment on human evil, but to bear it.

You think Deut is bad – brutal, violent, intense? It’s nothing compared to the cross – an utterly innocent man, though of course that’s far too thin, the Son of God, God the Son, the one through whom the worlds were created, the one through whom that Roman soldier who nailed him to the cross was created, utterly sinless, the only one who ever lived from whom no sin ever needed to be purged, the Beloved of the Father – that one went to the cross. And it makes no sense whatsoever unless you get the spiritual reality which underlies Deut’s commandments to purge the evil from your midst. You’ll never understand the cross, you’ll never cling to the cross, you’ll never love the God of the cross, unless you see the reality which Deuteronomy reflects.

645 News (March 10)

645 this SUNDAY
Jesus is in Jerusalem. We spend a few days with him seeing what he has to say. Read Luke 19:49-21:4 in preparation. Arrive early, catch up with old friends + new friends.


New 645 Rosters
March to May Rosters (Version 2) online HERE. If you would like to serve at 645 on a Sunday Night then click HERE and give this to one of the leaders at 645.


645 Article of the Week
This week we posted an article by a Sydney Minister on how to think of Church in Sydney. Read, ponder and feel free to post your thoughts as comments to the post.

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