Quick Message from Pastor John

A Tribute To David Greenow

My uncle David Greenow was more than an uncle. He was a mentor, he was a huge inspiration and example and I always felt privileged just to know him, let alone be his nephew! His qualities are well known – humility, grace, wisdom, godliness and gentleness.

His apostolic gifting and anointing was carried with seriousness but not religiousness. He always arrived in my life at important times, at the right time, to bring a word in season. He was there at my ordination as a minister and prayed over me.

He prayed with me when I was going through the darkest period of my life and he talked me through the transitions of my life. I especially remember talking to him when I was struggling with the transition to becoming  Senior Leader. He articulated what was happening to me and helped massively in my understanding of what I was going through. His prayers and prophetic and apostolic input have dramatically impacted my life. When he said he was going to pray for me I knew he was going to pray for me and I felt the effect.

He was always positive, always interested,  self deprecating…I would talk to him about writing a book about his life and he would seem amazed that he would have anything to say !! I will be indebted to Uncle David for his love and friendship and massive influence in my life and my families life. I will miss him greatly.

He was a gift to us all and a gift to the church at large and he is now enjoying his reward. What can we take from his life as an example and inspiration to follow?

1/ Love God
I knew that Uncle David had a living vibrant relationship with Jesus. His ministry and his life flowed from his walk with God daily. I am challenged to spend time with God and let my life flow from that.

2/ Love People.
Uncle David loved people of all ages. He related to people in all walks of life and I never heard him criticise or speak negative about anyone. I am challenged to love people, believe in people and do what I can to relate to people whoever they are and wherever they are at.

3/ Love the Church.
David Greenow loved the church, whatever group or denomination, he loved people who gathered together to praise God and ‘be’ the church and because of this he had huge respect across different church groups and was able to speak apostolically into many situations. I am challenged to love the many aspects and facets of the church, the bride that Jesus died for.

One of the meanings of the word ‘legacy’ is ‘gift’. David Greenow was a gift to us all and he left us the gift of his influence and inspiration.

Acts 13:36 “For David, after he had served his generation by the will of God, fell asleep….”

Let us serve our generation well. That is how we honour David Greenow and our Lord Jesus Christ.

John Greenow
Senior Pastor

What If The World Could Just Love

Some thoughts from the first message we heard in this series…

What if we could understand more about the dimensions of God’s love, then maybe God could do anything. The key is to stay planted on God’s love. Remember that in Romans 8:38-39, Paul reminds us of this incredible fact

‘I’m absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us’.

When we are filled with the fullness of God, life looks and feels different. Fullness and the love of God are connected and they impact us in 3 ways….

1. No fear [1 John 4:17-18]
Perfect love casts out fear.
Fear and faith cannot work together.
2 Tim 1:7 tells us that we do not have a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind
Don’t be driven by fear but instead increase your circle of love, help someone, live out an act of kindness.

2. Loving Others [1 John 4:20]
Test the love of God by loving others.
We cannot say that we love God, yet hate those that we do life with.
Is it really that simple?

3. Obedience [1 John 4:14, 15-21]
Obedience is the turbo-boost to love.
Keep His commandments.
If we can do this then Jesus tells us the His Father in Heaven will love us and He will reveal Himself to us.
It seems like it will make life a much fuller life.

What do you think? How easy or difficult is to live from a position of love? To live filled with the fullness of God?

Get Ready For Sunday

Hi everyone, I wanted to share my heart before this Sunday. I love Spring and I love the turning of new seasons. There is always something to learn from change and transition. Spring means new life, new hope and the story of Easter, and more light! I love lighter evenings and the opportunity to get outside more.

Spring is also a season for planting. Obviously I am not a gardener or a farmer but I do know that much.

As you know, I have been teaching and preaching a lot about the importance of alignment and fighting for our destiny as individuals and as a church family. I actually believe that when we align ourselves to a ‘house’ that God connects our destiny to that house. Alignment with the Lordship of Jesus means alignment with his body and the expression of his body through the local church. (Psalm 92:12/13) “Those who are planted in the house will flourish”.

I believe that we are entering a new season of growth and momentum. We are seeing more people respond to Christ, the presence of God in our services is increasing and there is a greater passion and expectancy in us as a people.

This Sunday is the official start of Spring, when we ‘lose’ an hour of sleep but we move into a natural season of more light! As a church we have called it a day to ‘spring forward’ into a new season for you and your family and for us as a church.

This Sunday we will plant some ‘seed’ into our future as a church, we will pray and declare God’s promises over us as a church family and we will stand in faith with you to see growth and increase.

Growth can’t happen without sowing. Faith is our journey, Faith is our history, but historic faith is not enough we must have living faith. (The Bible says in Hebrews ‘The just shall live by their faith’)

So I am asking you to prepare your hearts for this weekend.

• pray for the weekend services, for growth and increased momentum and for salvations in the house of God
• Be intentional about who you can bring. We are seeing people respond at all our services on Sunday’s at the moment. We want that to continue and be ‘normal’
• Ask God what you will give into our ‘spring forward offering’. We want to line up together and see the scales ‘tip’ in our favour
• Remember we will be giving a portion of our offering into Hope City Church Frankfurt as a seed into the Nation of Germany and because we believe in the vision of Siobhan and Steve Bullock in Frankfurt and Hope City Pastors Dave and Jenny Gilpin
• Be expectant and come early to the Services. I know we have technically ‘lost’ an hour, but when we start strong with a sense of expectancy and faith and we are all together it is so powerful! You may need an extra shot in your coffee but its worth it!
• Come with the things that you are believing for. We want to stand together and believe with you as our church family, to see a new season of growth and change for you.

We love you and can’t wait for Sunday .

John and Lisa

Please also pray for Lisa and I as we are travelling to Shropshire on Friday / Saturday to be with Ps Daryl Williams at Riverside Church Burton-on-Trent (part of the GBC family). We will be travelling back on Saturday night so I will definitely need a coffee on Sunday am!!

A Leadership Thought…

To become a better leader requires a willingness to develop greater self-awareness. The ability to question yourself, to be honest with where you are in comparison to where God may want you to be. This is more than just inward reflection, this is the ability to know that you need to change and have the courage to change.

David wrote in Psalm 26:2 ‘Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind’ while Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?   We are often great at knowing another persons ‘area for improvement’ but are not so willing to carry out the same examination of ourselves. But we must.

We can lead others only as far along the road as we ourselves have travelled. It is only right and proper to expect of others only those things we are working towards ourselves. J Oswald Sanders puts it this way ‘The way we employ our surplus hours will determine whether we will develop into a mediocre person or a powerful person.’

So here are some questions to help you examine yourself…

• How is your leadership journey looking?
• How you making sure you continue developing as a leader?
• What are you reading? A leaders reading is the outward expression of their inner aspirations.
• You may have been willing to pay the higher price to ascend to leadership but are you willing to continue to pay the price to stay there?
• Are you being faithful in the exercise of your gifts?
• How have you grown in being a disciple?

Why not make a decision to intentionally grow yourself. Pick one thing that you can do & commit to do that one thing for the next few weeks, not for any great revelation or change but because it’s the right thing to do. Be a leader who grows, you and others, not just someone who turns up and does stuff. That’s one of those difference markers, it will make you a better leader too.

Influence 2012…Your Stories

INFLUENCE 2012 has come and gone. What an incredible time. Here are some of the thoughts that were spoken over the weekend…

1. Jesus never allowed his emotional life to dominate His spiritual life

2. Jesus was about doing good not feeling good

3. How you are feeling is not changing how heaven is listening

4. Celebrate the disciplined ones that just get on with the Christian walk, not just the wild ones that see incredible change

5. We are called to make disciples not Christians

6. We will mess up but mercy disarms the executioner

7. Destiny is a quilt not a patch

8. Heaven may be silent but it’s not deaf

9. It’s okay when you don’t know. Don’t try and force it, just stay there until

10. God will winnow your life. He will throw it up into the air, blow his breath through it and clear away some habits, some people, some chaff. Just let him do it.

11. Don’t go back to what you know but step out in faith, that’s what activates and pleases God

12. Church is a place full of ideas

13. It’s not what we have but what we do with what we have

Would love to hear what you thought. How have you been challenged? What if anything might you do differently from now? Leave your thoughts in the box below…

Day 40: Living With Purpose is the Only Way to Really Live

“David served God’s purpose in his generation” [Acts 13:16] What a statement about King David.

With all of David’s faults, sins that he committed and glaring weaknesses, God said that he was a man after his own heart.

That is why we are on the planet and that is why you were born in this generation. If God had planned for you to live at any other time he would have made it so. You are not coming back as an animal or as William Shakespeare, you are here to serve your generation.

Living life on purpose is the only reason to live. Living a purposeless life is the saddest waste of life there is. Our mission is to live on purpose and you can start today. Whatever has happened in the past, your life begins when you connect into the designed life God has for you…

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone”. [Ephesians 1 :8-10 Message Version]

To help us find out how to live on purpose here are some great questions from Purpose Driven Life to answer . It would be a great thing to ponder these questions and pray over them and then go ahead and dive into God’s purposes for you!

What will be the centre of my life ? Who and what will we worship?

What will be the character of my life ? This is the question of discipleship and growth.This is a lifetime of building to becoming more like Christ. Let’s keep going!

What will be the contribution of my life? This is the question of service. Use your ‘SHAPE’ to discover how God has wired you to make a difference.

What will be the communication of my life? This is about our mission to unbelievers. We are called to be good news and bring good news to our world.

What will be the community of my life? The question of fellowship. We are called to love the body of Christ and invest in our church family.

All these questions are vital to help us understand our purpose. There is no other way to live. Purpose gives us meaning. Purpose gives us hope. Purpose gives us energy to be what God has called us to be. Let’s keep God at the centre and let his purposes be worked out in our lives.

Day 39: Blessed Are The Balanced

It’s one thing to start something but another to finish it. I don’t want to hear the words spoken about me “He was a good starter”, I want to hear “He was a good finisher”.

It takes effort, determination and commitment to stay on track. We are called to run a marathon and not a sprint.

Part of the course is investing in the lives of others. Paul said to Timothy “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others”. Reproducing myself in the lives of others is an obligation but also a privilege, we then run the course together and the baton is passed on.

Bringing balance to my life is not just learning from my own experiences but also the experiences of others. Proverbs 24:30-32 talks about passing by the garden of a lazy person, seeing it overgrown and it’s walls broken. It also says ‘when I saw it, I reflected upon it, I looked and received instruction’.

I need to evaluate how I am doing on the course that’s mapped out for my life.

Q. How are you evaluating your course?

Day 38: The Great Commission is my Commission

What on earth am I here for? This has been the focus of the last 37 days. Discovering our purpose, learning about who we are and the role we have to play for God.

There’s a fine line between becoming a world-class Christian or a worldly Christian. One group is made up of all those who understand that they have been saved to serve, while the other is full of those who are saved, but still very self-centred, and that is easy to do.

It’s a privilege that God would include us in His plans. That His commission would be our commission. To fulfil that commission we can’t continue living by trying to get God to just meet our own personal needs but by placing Him at the centre of our lives and having a willingness to lay it down for others.

It takes a shift. In thinking, yes, but followed closely by action. When we change our thinking we change our behaviours. When we change our behaviours we can bring change to our world. That is what we are here for – bringing change to people, to our world.

The challenge is to think about what we can do. In a world with so many needs it can all seem somewhat overwhelming at times but we MUST get involved – start with your own family, your local church but always looking beyond that too – there are plenty of people around the globe that Jesus wants to be found.

The Great Commission is your commission and doing your part is the secret to living a life of significance.

Day 37: God Wants to Say Something to the World Through Me

We all have a voice. The question is, what are we saying? Is it something of substance or just a lot of hot air? After all the world is full of noise. We must make sure that what God wants to say through us comes through loud and clear.

Your story might not seem much to you but to those who may hear it, the story could change their life forever. Never dismiss all of those things that God has done for you, no one can argue with a changed life. Think about where you were and where God has brought you. It’s an amazing story worth telling.

Be ready to share your life lessons. We learn things all the time – successes, failures, how we handle money, disappointments we have faced, as well as moments of pure joy. Write some down and discover what God is teaching you, extract lessons from everyday experiences.

Get excited about your Godly passions. We are all uniquely shaped to make a difference, to extend His Kingdom further. Not everyone will be as passionate about the same things as you, but most people are willing to listen to passionate people, and more than, listen to people who live out that passion too.

Never miss the opportunity to talk about your faith, the Good News of Jesus. Is anyone going to be heaven because of you? As you reflect on your personal story, who does God want you to share it with?