The folk at Christianity Explored are going strength to strength with their resources for evangelism and this new iPhone app is in a league of its own.

• Its clean and fresh, with a contemporary design and format that is accessible to people used to excellence.
• Has all the benefits of their website content on your iphone.
• Answers to the simple question about What Christianity is.
• Videos of people answering tough questions. Really helpful stuff.
• Clips from a wide variety of people who’ve come to know and love Jesus for themselves. Powerful stuff.
• This material is succinct, relevant and most importantly biblical truth!
• PLUS easy access map to see where you can go and sign up to the Christianity Explored course.

This is just another reason why the Christianity Explored course is such a great evangelistic course to run at your church. The support resources are unrivalled. The DVDs are well produced (I like DVDs because I feel it allows people to disagree with content more and really thrash about ideas).

Anyway…

Why not download the app, use it with your friends and family and be sure to rate the app on iTunes. Show a little love to Christianity Explored, they deserve our partnership in the gospel!

You find the people friendly.

You come back a second week.

You end up having dinner with the friendly people after.

You miss a week.

You come back for a third time.

You actually found the sermon interesting.

You hear about [insert evangelistic course name here] that the church is running.

You sign up and attend the [insert evangelistic course name here]

You begin to see how Jesus & Christianity seems to make sense of the world.

You get a bible given to you from your friend.

You understand more of the sermons preached at Church.

You miss a week at church to go to family dinner.

You read the bible most days.

You tell your friend who brought you first to church: ‘I prayed for the first time this week… I can’t believe how much sense Jesus makes, thanks so much for bringing me along to church’

You choose to join a mid week bible study group.

You love Jesus.

You get thrown a curve ball at work, its really stressful.

You love Jesus but realising the more life needs to change.

You’ve been coming to church for 4 months now.

You don’t even care now the taunts from your family that you are ‘a good church goer now’.

You don’t feel like you are chasing after something when you drink, you just drink a glass now because it’s refreshing.

You realise the way you have been living for the last 29 years has had the wrong focus all these years.

You know of the freedom that comes with being a ‘child of God’. You now the love and security that only can come from God.

You keep finding amazing things while reading the bible and have heaps of questions.

You get thrown another curve ball this time its concerns with your family.

You begin to find your non-Christian friends difficult and selfish.

You wonder whether they were ever your friends in the first place.

You feel like you don’t know the people at mid-week bible study well enough yet to share with them the trouble going on…

You know Jesus’ forgiveness well.

You are convicted you should really forgive [insert name of family member] for the hurt they have caused over the years and currently.

You struggle to cope with the stress at work.

You struggle to really surrender all things you’ve enjoyed freely for the last 29 years.

You wrestle every morning with the stress of your family.

You pull out of mid-week bible study to begin to cope with the demands of life.

You go to dinner for your twin brothers birthday instead of church one week.

You haven’t been to church in 6 months.

You are still friends with the friend that took you to church, but you find it hard to talk about what’s going on with your faith.

*Based on a the story of a friend of mine. Join with me in asking God to hold on tight to them and the many other wandering & lost sheep.

“Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me”
-Robert Robertson 

• TIP #1:   Share what it is like to live as a Christian:
• Ask yourself regularly ‘how does my faith in Jesus put perspective on my everyday activities and attitudes’?

• TIP #2:  Be honest about the joys, the struggles, & the benefits
• Ask yourself regularly ‘What is God teaching me through this experience?’

Example from my life…

“I’m learning lots about myself lately… I’ve realised that pride is a massive issue for me? And I hate it… You see, I was encouraged by some friends to “think” about a boy as “potential” but I found ti so hard to consider it because I thought I was better than him and that he would be batting far above his average. Turned out this guy and I became good friends and I began to crush on him, only to be turned down by him, cause he didn’t like me. I was hurt, insulted and so humiliated: to be turned down by someone you think you are better than. This attitude stinks… pride is disgusting. What makes me better than someone anyway. Yuck. Pride is really quite ugly!”

I used this experience to show my unbelieving friends my sin. They thought I had every right to think of myself better than others, and thought I was being too harsh on myself. But God hates pride, it’s ugly. Great oppotunity to speak gospel truth in the everyday.

She wrote:

Art is extremely personal. I like to think of art as a visual diary. Whether the artist intends it or not, when you see their art in the best possible way, you get to see another dimension of them that you may have not known before. I was surprised to catch myself learning new things about each of the artist involved in this project. In a way, I was experiencing the benefits of doing Art in Community…Through the gift of art, we related to one another in a different way.

This is one of the reasons we (Church by the Bridge) hosts I Heart Kirribilli Art Exhibition and Prize. We want to know our neighbours in Kirribilli. We want to know what our neighbours think about the suburb they live in. More importantly we want to SEE what the visual diary of Kirribilli. What the community loves, experiences and knows about Kirribilli.

This year we are inviting Artists to create “AN INTRODUCTION” to Kirribilli. If you had to explain or introduce to a stranger on the street, the suburb of Kirribilli (her people, character, profile, charm), what would you say?

We are pleased to introduce two new categories this year: Graphic Design & Poetry/Prose. (unfortunately this will mean sketch/drawing and fashion will not be prize categories in 2011)

Check the website for more info (Dates, Terms & Conditions plus the online Entry Form etc)

For more about Art in Community from Jenny – click here.

Jesus’ interactions with the crowds in Matthew 9:35-38 motivates us to open our eyes to see the crowds around us and also to open our hearts to see them with the heart of God:

“When he saw the crowds, he [Jesus] had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Jesus is filled with a tender concern for the crowds. Jesus saw that they are stressed, vulnerable, pressured, deceived, leaderless, disorientated and powerless!

Often we associate this description of desperation with the materially poor and vulnerable in society. Rarely do we associate such desperation with in our professional, geographical, social or familial networks. We are so readily tempted to think that our friends are all right, comfortable, and in need of nothing, for they are decent people, with nice homes, beautiful clothes and good careers! But Jesus sees them differently. He sees their spiritual brokenness. Do you? Are you filled with compassion for them because they too are harassed and helpless?

All people, whether rich or poor, need to be looked upon with the compassion of Jesus, this includes those you know and even yourself! Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, in New York once said:

“The more you see yourself as spiritually poor and the recipient of God’s wonderful grace the more your heart is going to go out to the poor. When you look at the materially poor you know that in a sense you are looking in a mirror.”

The compassion of Jesus is a great leveller. Without it we lose the sweet humility of sharing the treasure we have so freely received. With it we can loudly sing & declare:

“everyone needs compassion, the kindness of a Saviour”.

For Christ’s Fame,
Hayley Neal
(Community Pastor)

Do you see them through the eyes of a:

Fashionista– “They make me look bad. If I was to include them in my life, it will reflect badly on me… they don’t suit my image.”

Economist –” Nope can’t do that! They will take too much time, too much money, too much effort, for very little return, they are not a worthwhile investment.”

the Moral Police (Pharisaical) – “Can’t believe they drink so much, I don’t even understand why they think that is enjoyable…”

When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus’ interaction with the crowds in Matthew 9:35-38 supplies us with great motivation for evangelism and helps shapes the way we do outreach here at Church by the Bridge :

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Like Jesus, we should see the ‘crowds’ and have compassion on them, whether they from in Kirribilli or our personal lives.  It is in the contexts of our many outreach initiatives – such as Playtime, Kirribilli Kids, Community Lunches, I Heart Kirribilli, Simply Christianity and other courses, Fitness mornings, Carols Under the Bridge, and even our weekend services – that we can better see, know, love and share the gospel with our neighbours and friends. All of these activities are intentionally created to help us build genuine relationships with the ‘crowds’ and the success of them relies on each of us playing a role.

Instead of just bringing in the ‘professional-up-front-evangelists’, the Billy Graham‘s or our own church pastors, the majority of evangelism will actually be done by all of us, as we together live out 1 Thessalonians 2:8 :

We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

I am convinced, that as we faithfully share the gospel and our lives with those we know and are yet know, we will be a church marked by rejoicing. For what praise ought we to give God when we continue to witness His work in bringing the crowds to receive the gospel and to join in with us living for Jesus and loving like Jesus?

For Jesus’ Fame,
Hayley Neal
(Community Pastor)

* this was written for the weekly newsletter that we print to hand out as an insert in all the bibles. this is 1 out of 2 in a series.

People are held captive to these things that they love – because what you love ends up owning you. We are sadly mistaken to think that wealth, health, success, wisdom, marital status and/or beauty can bring us lasting fulfillment. There is though a love, which when it ends up owning you, bestows liberating freedom, true meaning, and genuine salvation.

When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd….  deceived, slaves to sin, spiritually sick and injured, and in desperate need of binding up, comfort, care, salvation.

Is this how you look out on you congregations and the world around you? “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Listener “Wooden Heart” from Nathan Corrona on Vimeo.

WOODEN HEART (sea of mist called skaidan)
We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
and since that first breath… We’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
and it’s not only when these eyes are closed
these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will…
so I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors
but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we rememberI am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
we all have the same holes in our hearts…
everything falls apart at the exact same time
that it all comes together perfectly for the next step
but my fear is this prison… that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we rememberMy throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we’ll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because are church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

credits from Wooden Heart Poems, released 06 July 2010