I was totally struck this morning by an incredible passage in Isaiah (40:1-2)…

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
That her sin has been paid for…

You know what? No matter how long I’ve been following Jesus I am always so stoked to be comforted by God. He spoke to the Israelites as a woman, tenderly and graciously. He declared a time when all the sins of humanity would be satisfied in Jesus Christ and he would comfort us.

As I read it I remembered the moment God spoke to me when I was living totally against Him. He spoke my name when I had chosen not to listen. It brought me to tears remembering how graceful He is.

This passage is just before the one John (the Baptist) quotes in his declaration of the coming Kingdom. Jesus came and is coming again. We are living with sin for only a short time longer now before our world is renewed and those in Christ will enjoy His fruit like we never have before.

I pray that today, whatever your doing, you remember what God has done for you. And find a second wind, a passion and a renewed excitement about what’s coming for us in Christ.

Strahan.

Last week I went to Palmerston North with Greg to visit a few churches, see what he does and get a feel for the network. It was awesome.

I was praying before I left and I felt like God spoke a scripture to take with me, maybe a word for someone else, or maybe a word for me. It turned out both in the end. It was Isaiah 43:19;

“See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland”

It’s an incredible scripture, spoken to the Israelites in a moment of hopelessness after they had been over run by the Babylonians. In a barren situation where by all appearances God seemed to have deserted them, he in fact promised them something completely new. It reminds me of that Kevin Prosch song we sing here a bit ‘For he has wounded us, but he will bandage us’.

God has a way of speaking into the dark places and bringing new life. Even when it feels and looks like no good thing can come out of us or our situation, Christ brings out new streams.

On Sunday night, Greg shared that the word for “new” in the Hebrew is “chadesh”. It means to restore, to repair, and to renew. And he felt that the scripture is a word for Edge.

The chorus of the Kevin Prosch song is ‘he will come to us like rain, spring rain’. It’s hard sometimes to believe that God can create streams in the desert, and yet we the Church have Gods Holy Spirit, and we are the river God has sent into a thirsty world.

God is our spring rain, and in him we are the worlds. It’s exciting to know, that for us and for the world, God is doing a new thing.

Strahan.

Some of us love to talk gardening, some of us don’t – as Cindy demonstrated a few weeks ago! Those of us that do got together last month at Linda’s place for the first time to chat, eat some AMAZING baking, and have a nosey around her garden. It was great to spend time with like-minded people and share some green-fingered wisdom.

This time we are meeting at Lisa Smith’s sprawling West Auckland home for more of the same goodness. So bring your gardening tips or questions and something yummy for morning tea. If you have any seeds or anything else you want to swap or give away, bring them along too. We’ll be meeting there at 10.30am.

For details and directions on how to get to the Smith’s, contact Strahan at the Edge office.

Beks D

Well School’s out for the holidays, and the last 4 weeks have seen the Bible unpacked as a Narrative that we are invited to find ourselves in.
Eugene Petersen said, We are part of a holy community that for three thousand years and more has been formed inside and out by these words of God,words that have been heard, tasted, chewed, seen and walked. Reading Holy Scripture is totally physical…one of the early rabbis insisted that the primary body part for taking in the word of God is not the ears but the feet. “You learn God”, he said, “not through your ears but through your feet: follow the Rabbi”

Our engagement with the Bible is not limited to our ability to ‘read and understand’ but requires the whole of our sensory being.
It can be read as a History book, full of interesting facts and information, and it can be read as a Story for Formation, one that not only speaks ‘to us’ but also speaks ‘for us’.
In the words of a famous Church Father, ‘We start (read) with our Mind, and our mind descends to our Heart’
Don’t just Read the Bible, Eat it! (Revelation 10 v 9-10)

We talk a lot about Community. It’s one of the Church’s favourite words! And we do it well, but it’s incomplete if it doesn’t include genuine relational involvement with those who live and work around our family home.

City Lights is one of those wonderful opportunities to engage with the community
around us, and do it together. It might involve a paint brush, a broom, spade and a lawnmower, but if it’s a job done that makes someone elses life easier, then it’s got to be a good thing.

Someone old and famous said, ‘Preach the Gospel, and if you have to, use words’.

Great gospel weekend Edge.

Check out the photos above…

We are half way through this Lent Season. How are we doing?

Everyone brings something unique into this 40 days of prayer and fasting, so now is a good time to reflect, look back over the past 20 days, and then ahead as we begin the journey towards Easter – Passion Week, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.

We experience Lent individually and as a community, and will culminate this season together during our Easter
Festival weekend events…..watch this space for more.

Geoff ‘Jolly Ole Santa’ and Lisa Smith are having a party.

For all those who are interested they would like to invite you along to a Christmas Day BBQ at their house – in the glorious province of Kumeu. Proceedings will commence some time in the late afternoon, and run right through until it finishes…

If you are interested then please give them a call: 027 276 5525 or 021 035 6939.

Here’s a few words from Blair Franklin (Edge’s resident poet) about a new People Group he is starting up in the new year, which goes by the name Local.

The core of this group are restless to extend our Christian faith out into places where there are lots of people who don’t know Jesus. So this group was started really with a focus on reaching non-Christians. We’ve found in the past that groups of Christians who meet together and who are genuinely interested in sharing their faith with those around them, can potentially help people come to know God.

For instance, I helped run a Christian group at University a couple of years ago. A number of our group got to know a Chinese Law Student called Ling. She had a genuine heart after truth. We advertised our meetings and she came along one day. Not long after she picked up a little New Testament Bible. She started reading the words of Jesus, she was basically overwhelmed by the Christian message, and read the whole New Testament in a weekend! After that she came along to our group for the rest of her time at University. Now she is part of a Christian Church in Auckland, and attends with her husband and daughter. She runs the Chinese fellowship part of their Church and works as a lawyer in the central city. Yah!! We want more stories like this.

So a focus of the group will be on communicating the Christian faith with those who do not know Jesus. We’ll look at different ways of doing this i.e. some Christians prefer direct styles of communication, whilst others take more subtle approaches such as building friendships and serving. Every once in a while, we’ll probably hold some form of event using imaginative forms of communication to present the Gospel.

As well, we are a People Group – plenty of hang outs, Bible devotionals etc. We’ll seek to build a group which is warm and friendly, and which encouarges and nurtures each person in their faith walk. We’ll spend some time looking at issues that are particularly relevant in contemporary society such as decision making, entertainment culture and expressions of gender etc…

Love to see you if this is your gig.
Blair Franklin

“The light of the world is Jesus” Hive Celebrities … good times!!!