Here in London we have a goal for this Christmas: To raise £7,000 towards the work at the “Village of Hope” in the town of Grabow, outside of Cape Town in South Africa.
This money will go towards three key areas:
£3,000 towards the foundations of much needed new volunteers accommodation
£3,000 towards the annual support of London-sent full-time staff Daz & Lise Muir
£1,000 for new playground equipment for the AIDS clinic children based on the Village of Hope.
Can you / your church / company join us and give towards the HOPE CHALLENGE and make a significant difference to the AIDS affected kids this Christmas? Come on, together we can make a difference – for giving and other details check our website here. And check out this video that I took when Ali & I visited the VOH a year ago…
By the way: From our regular offerings received Every Nation Church London will match the first £3,000 given towards the goal. Over £1,000 has already been received by mid November, so come on, get creative and GIVE HOPE!
PS – If you are doing something special (Like the moustaches growing in the Stratford congregation!) – let us know with a comment below, or on my FaceBook.
Last Sunday our new preaching series called “Crossing Over” launched with just great all round services in all of our London congregations. The message was about REVELATION: How and what the cross reveals to us about God. In our Hammersmith congregation I focussed on the cross revealing that:
God loves unconditionally
God is THE friend and Saviour of sinners
God is ALIVE!
This revelation has the power to change so much in your life as you begin to understand how much Gods loves you and what he did for you, and that His cross was “vicarious”, meaning that “it was an act on behalf of another” – in this case you and me and every human ever. Download my message and PowerPoints here
This Sundays Crossing Over message is about the VICTORY of the cross. I’ll do the first part about Christ’s victory on the cross, and Ali will do the second part looking at how we can live in Christs victory…
Come and hear and experience how you ARE more than a conqueror in Christ!
Today was a great day at Every Nation London as Siku (He’s one of Britain’s leading comic book creators and conceptionalists, and creator of the Manga Bible, amongst many other achievements) illustrated the message by painting on three canvasses – photo’s below. I met Siku a few months ago when I took my daughters to a manga drawing workshop which he was running. (Where Abby won the prize for drawing the best Manga face, and I won the prize for drawing the best Manga dragon!) I love seeing peoples gifts used to the max so in our brief discussion there agreed to meet and explore how Siku could use his art and theology to communicate in different settings, both to Christian audiences and for evangelism. Well, today was the result and what I believe will be an exciting journey of his gifts being a huge blessing to the church and the Kingdom…
He shared some rich truth about the God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, and the God we can come to now through Christ, revealed in Hebrew 12. In Exodus 19 God speaks and the people don’t understand, but through Christ we now understand Gods message, and we are encouraged to “come boldly with perseverance.” For the sake of this post, I’ll just quote a couple of the scripture references below, and a few photo’s showing the sequence, and let God speak to you through His Word illustrated…
Exodus 19v16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently,19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him… Exodus 24v17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.
Hebrews 12v1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a greatcloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.2Let usfix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… 18You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm… 22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly… 28Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,29for our “God is a consuming fire.”
PS – you can see more of Siku, including an interview about his work, at our CANVAS evening for the arts on Saturday 21st November – details here – invite your friends!
Today at our morning service I announced that our finance board is preparing to make an offer on a building in North End Road W14 for our Hammersmith congregation! OK, the building isnt actually on the market yet with a definite price tag, so we need some serious favour and are simply asking you to PLEASE PRAY for this opportunity:
That doors would open according to Gods will
That we’d have planning permissions favour with the local council departments
That as a congregation we will have the vision, faith, and sacrificial service and giving to boldly step into this opportunity if this door opens for us.
Pray for experienced & qualified volunteers to take their place on the team as the project unfolds
Pray for wisdom to commission the right professionals required for the project.
Pray for the financial provision & plans
Pray that whatever happens, we will continue to make disciples of all nations…
We have done all necessary preparations and are convinced that this building will be an ideal base for all that we feel called to do in this part of West London. The vision is to develop a high quality community, youth & worship centre which will be an ideal base for effective service and ministry to continue fulfilling Gods plans for us. It will be an incredible blessing to the community, to young people, and to our church family in London and beyond.
A few details:
112-114 North End Road W14 – identified by Continental Coachworks business on top floor, behind The Carphone Warehouse.(Please don’t all try to go inside!) It’s about 150 meters from the West Kensington Underground station (It doesn’t come up clearly on Google maps)
Over two floors, about 15,000 square foot total floor area
Rough initial total project costs for purchase & redevelopment will be between £4-5 million.
We are probably looking at an auditorium with seating capacity of about 400, with additional large community centre / youth facilities. (So with multiple weekend services we can grow to many times our current size – while we continue to plant ten other congregations around the greater London area!)
As I said, we are convinced that this could be a very suitable property for our purposes, and we will therefore be approaching the owner with an offer to purchase. So please join us in prayer for favour with God and with man.
Thank you for joining us on another chapter of this great God adventure!
Know anyone who would benefit from doing the Alpha Course ? We have a great team running the course starting with an Alpha Launch cocktail party on Thursday 17th Agust at our cool no93 venue, then it runs there for 10 weeks (including a free meal each week!) – you can join anytime although the sooner the better … all details on our website here.
I’m inviting you on an August attitude adjustment journey… with Phlipn’ Attitudes from the book of Philippians.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5)
On each of the first four Sundays in August at all our London congregations we’ll look at a key Christ-like attitudes found in the book of Philippians. We’ll also have a daily dedicated Phlipn’ Attitudes blog with a daily devotional where we’ll work through the whole book of Philippians from beginning to end considering the subject of Christ-like attitudes. Check the Phlipn’ Attitudes blog out here, and why not set up a feed to get this daily devotional direct to your inbox or Facebook.
And for fun, here’s our video invite below… can you guess who came up with the title of this series…
PS – I’ll probably not post much except some personal stuff on my blog here for August – so go’n get some Phlipn’ Attitude somewhere else…
I’ve had a week of so many confirmations that this is a word in season. So many people needing to Battle to Build. Some quiting their dream, some going off track, others fighting for it. You must fight for it…
Paul reminds us that “You are Gods building” (1 Corinthians 3:9) – God has a plan for your life, and if you get that God-dream for your life, you have to learn to hold on to it and to fight for it. Recognise that you have an enemy, and that if faith in Christ is your foundation, then you are more than a conqueror. You CAN stand through the storms that come from within & without, with your life counting for Him. Read the full context of the above scripture here, then say “ouch!” followed by: “I need to battle to build.”
In this 3 Part series we’re going to see that there’s only one foundation on which to build: Christ. And using one of the great Old Testament builders as an example, we’re going to learn that to build is going to take amongst other things: REVELATION (of the plan, and the Planner), REMOVAL (you cant build on rubbish), RESTRAINT (empower your yes & no’s), and RELATIONSHIPS (there are some battles you are just not going to win on your own.) Nehemiah knew that its one thing to be moved to want something, but its a whole other thing to battle till you see the fulfilment, and he knew that uou have to fight for it.
In the end, when all the dust has settled on this life, there’s a great promise for those who have built right: If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. (1 Corinthians 3:14)
YOUR BATTLE TO BUILD… Sunday 5th, 12th, & 26th July @ Every Nation in Hammersmith & Slough
We had our summer staff barbeque yesterday. As I heard someone say recently: Its one thing to have a “dream team,” but whats even more powerful is “a team with a dream”…
I sure thank God for each of our amazing team members here, who sacrifice hugely in many ways to support and empower our volunteers & leaders to fulfil our mission to “make disciples of all nations.”
From left front to back: Dina (finance), Lydia (youth), Tami (Hi!Team/Kids), Andrew (Finance Director), Jon (Youth), Tosin (Campus), Stephanie (Pastoral/Outreach), Jenni (Pastoral), Javed (Campus), Simon (6PM Pastor / Engage/ Partnership ministry), Charl (Pastor, Brentwood in Oct), Yvette (Slough pastor/Begium), Dan Smart (Pastor, Hammersmith), Richard (Partnership ministry), Me, Amanda (Pastor, Hammersmith), , Traci (Pastoral), Greg (Operations, Stratford), Ali (Senior Pastor), Graeme (Hi!Team /Kids), Dan Lees (Central Services Operations), Trevor (Pastor, Slough/ Belgium), Gerald (Kids)
Missing from the action due to holidays (yes, we allow a few of those now and again!) are Andrew & Berna (Pastors, Stratford Congregation), Michelle (Worship Stratford) , Darren (Operations, Hammersmith) – (Jacqui Parker finished up at the end of June – thanks for your contribution Jax)
I’m super passionate about a new 3-part “Your Battle to Build” message series I will be preaching in July at our Hammersmith morning and 6PM services… Here’s a plug for it from outside our Every Nation church in Washington DC where I attended our North America conference this week…
Sunday 5th – Part 1: A great building starts with a “Revelation”, and don’t forget to remove the rubbish…
Sunday 12th – Part 2: You’ll never build much without “readiness” & “Restraint…”
Sunday 19th – We have Tim & Maz Walker from the Thembalitsha Village of Hope as guests in Hammersmith am service
Sunday26th – Part 3: There are some battles you’ll never win alone, and there are some things you’ll never build alone…
1 Corinthians 3:10-11 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Nehemiah 4:17 Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon.
Posted by weckleben 
Last Sunday our new preaching series called “Crossing Over” launched with just great all round services in all of our London congregations. The message was about REVELATION: How and what the cross reveals to us about God. In our Hammersmith congregation I focussed on the cross revealing that:
Posted by weckleben 
I met Siku a few months ago when I took my daughters to a manga drawing workshop which he was running. (Where Abby won the prize for drawing the best Manga face, and I won the prize for drawing the best Manga dragon!) I love seeing peoples gifts used to the max so in our brief discussion there agreed to meet and explore how Siku could use his art and theology to communicate in different settings, both to Christian audiences and for evangelism. Well, today was the result and what I believe will be an exciting journey of his gifts being a huge blessing to the church and the Kingdom…
Posted by weckleben 
On each of the first four Sundays in August at all our London congregations we’ll look at a key Christ-like attitudes found in the book of Philippians. We’ll also have a daily dedicated Phlipn’ Attitudes blog with a daily devotional where we’ll work through the whole book of Philippians from beginning to end considering the subject of Christ-like attitudes. Check the 
Paul reminds us that 
