Tuesday, December 22, 2009

"People Give Themselves"

A minister, last night, described to me the swift decline of a local Church. He said the decline kicked in when the Church sold its manse / rectory, and invested R1.5 million. Nothing else changed. But with that much money invested, people stopped giving. He said, "People give themselves when they give money. When they don't give money, they don't give themselves, and the life goes out of the Church." He gave the example of another Church, which similarly found itself sitting with a very large amount of money. They spent it liberally, and retained their life.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Another New Church

I was rather surprised to see, yesterday, yet another new Church plant in our "Atlantic Area". It is a Seventh-Day Adventist Church. In a previous post, I referred to more than 20 Churches on our small patch of ground (probably closer to 30) -- an area about 6 x 1½ km (4 x 1 miles). OBSERVATION: What is it that draws so many Church plants to our (urban) area? Most of them fail -- if failure means that they are ultimately not self-sustaining. Yet this need not mean that they do not bear valuable fruit. Maybe the Spirit knows that this is what we need here. See also Atlantic Area Churches.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Leukaemia


It was a traumatic week for me, not to speak of wife M. She was diagnosed with leukaemia, in an advanced stage, and immediately commenced chemotherapy. She was to be admitted to hospital today, yet they sent her home before the day was through. OBSERVATION: I was very upset, cancelled all my appointments, and asked someone to be on standby for my Sunday service. The photo shows M. at the Mt. Nelson Hotel, where she invited me recently to celebrate my completed M.Th.
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NOTE: The above diagnosis turned out to be mistaken. It is myelofibrosis (bone marrow cancer), which regrettably is more serious.