Resonate Mystery HUB

Tuesday night is Resonate HUB. (Whats HUB you ask? The third Tuesday of every month all the Resonate connects get together and hang out:) ) This time is our mystery HUB! Its going to be a crazy fun night - Resonate style!!

So a couple of things you need to know:

We are meeting at church at 7pm on Tuesday night. You need to bring $5 and make sure you don't eat tea before you come:) This will be a great night to bring your mates to as well!!

See you there!!

Winter Blast

Summer was a blast and winter is all set to be too!! Join us for our Resonate Winter Blast - 2 days in the amazing Queenstown filled with snow, God, coffee, mates and hanging out!!


Important Info

Dates 13-14 August 2011 (its a Sat/Sun)
Location Lakeland Park, Kelvin Heights Queenstown
Cost $60 (includes transport, accommodation etc)

What to Bring: We are staying in the GORGEOUS chalets at Lakeland but you still need to bring a sleeping bag, pillow and stuff to keep you warm.
Clothes (always a good start!), Bible, pen & paper, water bottle, toiletries, money for lunch on Sunday, coffee and snacks during travel & anything else that you may think you need:) Leave behind the drugs & alcohol. Also bring pizza toppings for our Pizza Fest on Sat night!!

Leaving Invercargill Christian Centre nine AM on the Sat (meeting at 8.30AM)
Returning Sun night (time dependent on coffee stops -but in time for the evening service)

Quick lowdown on events:
Sat - Leave for QTown where a meriad of fun and chilling out ensues
Sat Evening - Pizza making fest (bring pizza toppings!!) Resonate bonding, God time and craziness!!
Sun- Hang out in Qtown - go out for lunch (bring money for this!!) more fun and chilling!!
Travel home with plenty of coffee


Registrations and payment need to be into the Church office by Thursday 11 August. See Shan more for more info to register. Email to shannon@christiancentre.org.nz

Its gonna be a BLAST!!

Pearls & Sundae Lovin'

We are relaunching Resonate Girls connect on a new night at Jess's sweet new pad and its gona be awesome! If you are between the ages of 18-30 years in Invercargill and are looking for an amazing young adults ministry then you should check us out! Resonate Girls is an awesome place to come and meet other like-minded crazy cats who are on fire for God and discovering what it means to walk out their journey as the incredible and beautiful woman God has created them to be!

Pearls and Summer lovin' is going to be a fun night of ice-cream madness and girlie goodness, so bring along your friends and some ice-cream toppings! We have the gorgeous Carol Chin Poy sharing some pearls of wisdom - she has an incredible testimony and has a heart to see women empowered and embracing who God created them to be. She runs the Eve-olution Womens Ministry at the Invercargill Christian Centre and is not to be missed!!

For more info about Pearls & Sundae Lovin' or Resonate Girls feel free to email me @ shannon@christiancentre.org.nz

Fuel Conference

Wow how to describe Fuel Conference? I have once again been wrecked by the amazing love and grace that is to be found in Jesus, and challenged beyond belief about my time here on this earth and what I choose to do with it!

Fuel Conference is our annual youth conference here at the Invercargill Christian Centre and unlike most youth conferences which have a strong leadership focus, ours is purely Holy Spirit. We had the incredible Ps Caleb Murdoch of Elim Christian Centre in Auckland as our guest speaker. Ps Caleb has an amazing passion for things of the Spirit and a desire to see young people impact their world for Christ. He brought a message that showed the supernatural power and importance of Gods Word - a huge challenge for those of us who aren't avid Bible readers!

More than 100 people attended Fuel and it was so amazing to see young teens - some as young as 12 and 13, losing themselves in Gods presence and embracing all that He has for them. Below is a snippet of some photos to give you an idea about the happenings over the weekend. If you couldn't make it this year them make sure you get along to Fuel 2012!!

Enjoy

Cam rapping it up - BOOM! Worship was off the hook!

Worship was so powerful!


Shanan our illustrious MC

Tim from Timaru!! Tim is the youth pastor at the Elim Church there and boosted down to Invers after his own youth on friday night. They saw over 50 young people give their hearts to God, AMAZING!! Hes a young guy but we learned so much from his servant heart in the time he hung out with us.


Ps Caleb Murdoch preaching at Fuel. He carries an amazing message!



Hope you enjoyed these!! See you next year at Fuel!!

Summer Blast - Yes it was!!

To sum it up Summer Blast could only be described as one word - EPIC!!

We had such an amazing time - big fun, big sky and even bigger God. A huge ups to the awesome people who helped make it happen, and to everyone who came.

Below are just a few pics from our night under the stars. When I get hold of them I will post some of the others:)

Trying our hand at Curling at the Indoor Rink in Naseby - was so cold I got an ice cream headache!!
Our illustrious leader Ray getting his curling on.

A bit of volleyball action in the campsite.

Our campsite when we slept under the stars - no pics of the stars but the incredible beauty won't be forgotten!!

Becca chilling on top of Dinosaur Rock

Bet you wish you made it now!!! Don't worry - we have Winter Blast coming up in August! See you there!

Shan

SNOW!!!

We've been turned into a winter wonderland! Things are a little crazy at the moment - this is the 3rd day in a row I have been holed up at home due to the crazy weather! Snow in September - its a first for me after 8 and a half years living in Invercargill.

But what an amazing thing it is. I absolutely love snow and have always felt ripped off in winter here because we don't normally get anything decent here. I grew up with snow days from school, power cuts cooking on the fire in the dark and a tonne of afternoons in the freezing cold skidding round on the motorbike and sledging. But now we have it!! Wahoo!

Church has been cancelled all over the city because the roads are too treacherous for travel, the Stadium in town - our provinces pride and joy, had its roof collapse under the weight of the snow and more rough weather is yet to come in. With all this crazy happenings not only here but throughout our nation - flooding in the north island, crazy winds in Auckland, tornadoes and the massive earthquake in Christchurch many peopleit is encouraging to know that we do not have to be afraid or live in fear because we have Jesus.

It says in the Bible (yes I am actually going to mention scripture!) that God is our refuge and so we should not be afraid.

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging" Psalm 46:1-3
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, My God in whom I trust" Psalm 91:1-2

Even when the world around us is falling down and unpredictable we can rely on God. Place our faith and our trust in Him and we do not have to worry - we are in Gods hands. I'm not sure about you, but I would rather place my faith in the One who is unfailing than anything else!

Branded Take Over

Branded was an absolutely phenomenal weekend just held at Southlife Church, Dunedin. For those of you who have never been or heard of it, Branded is the Acts Churches NZ South Island youth conference.

One of the things that came through strongly was a new focus towards young adults, 18-30 year olds, recognising that often we find they enter into this stage of life only to become old and boring. Hope no one is offended by that!!!

But really its true and its one of the frustrating things I have seen happen continuously over the past 7 years I have done Resonate. People are all excited and passionate about making a difference for God and living a life of significance but only until they graduate. Once that happens its time for them to "grow up, get a haircut and get a real job." Their new focus finding a spouse, getting a good job, and having babies. Don't get me wrong, these are all good things (and I have them too), but suddenly they are too old for being involved in youth or jumping up and down a little. I don't know about you but I think that sucks!!! I so don't want to live a boring life where I do what society says I should be doing at this stage of my life.

In fact I want to be living a passionate life, be significant for God in reaching a generation and be able to look back at the end of my life and have no regrets, no "what if " moments.

We often look at youth and talk about how alcohol, drugs and sex are such a distraction for them, pulling them away from their Purpose in God, but in realilty the white picket fence can be just as distracting for us young adults.

My challenge to you is to don't become so focused about the things this world says are important that you forget about the call and purpose God has placed within you.

Something to consider

Well so it's been a little while since I have posted - sorry for being so slack!!

Life for the average Reson8r has been pretty busy, and I have been no exception. Between work, study, family and church it's difficult at times to take a few moments for myself let alone jump on the computer and write about how busy we are!! But it has got me thinking.

How often do we actually take the times to appreciate the little things? Sounds cliched I know but in all honesty I find that sometimes I get so busy doing the work for God that I forget to actually spend time with God. Which is crazy because when you love someone and are in relationship with them then you should actually want to spend time with them.

Imagine being best friends with somebody but you don't actually talk to them, hang out them or even answer the phone each time they call you.

In fact you ignore them completely - except maybe when your world falls apart and then you need a shoulder to cry on. But you still consider yourselves to be best friends and believe you have an amazing, understanding, loving relationship because you just happen to do things on behalf of that person.

Lets be honest , real relationships don't actally work that way. But yet how often are we like that with God?

We spend so much time doing stuff in His name, and for the church, but in essence we are so far removed from God it's not funny. We don't hang out with Him, we don't talk to Him unless we want something and we certainly don't listen when He has something to say. Would we even recognise His voice at the other end of the line if he called?

There is a saying my old youth leader used to have - "If the devil can't make you bad he'll make you busy." Often we allow our busyness get in the way of whats really important - RELATIONSHIP.

I don't know about you but when it comes my turn to go hang with Jesus in eternity I want to know that I am going to be hanging with my best friend, not a random accquaintance. I don't want to get so hung up on serving Him that I forget to know Him.

What about you? Do your priorities lie in the doing of Jesus or your relationship with Him?

Revival Pics

OK guys so as promised here are a few shots from when we had Roy and Melanie Fields here the other week. It was a phenomenal time of worship and God really switched something in the Spirit. It was like taking a 60 watt light bulb and then shoving 2000 volts of electricity through it to see what would happen - things will never be the same again!!!!

SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE

Singers Band in Worship
Worship led by Roy Fields. You can't really see but Church

was PACKED out.

Pastor Ian (with Dayle in background) deep in worship

SUNDAY EVENING SERVICE

Love this shot!!!! Resonator Lulu and members of the ministry team during the evening service.

Southern River pastor Danny Steel (centre) responding to a call for healing while Melanie Fields (right) prays.

Melanie Fields praying for people during an altar call.

Associate pastor Grant hanging with his kids after the evening service. (It was 11.5pm and they just got their second wind!!)

Let us feed u!!!!!

Hey Guys,

Yep its here again! The Resonate $2 Student feed. If you haven't worked it out by now it gonna be a regular occurance - like real regular, like every 2 weeks, fornightly or bi-monthly (however you want to look at it!)

So get involved!! Tell your class mates, your workmates, your neighbour, your nana, WHOEVER!! Bring them along and enjoy our scrumptious, yummy (and may I add healthy - who would a thought it was possible to taste good and not make you rot?)

Just make sure you let us know you are coming - we would hate for you to miss out!!

Just do it

Today I am the queen of procrastination.

I have a mountain (unfortunately not really an exaggeration!) of work that I should be doing, papers, figures and text books all over my office, assignments due in, and goodness knows what else but it is all very important & I am avoiding it all like the plaque.

I fell asleep on top of my desk before and considered as I awoke in my pool of drool that I lock the door, turn off the light and curl up under my desk (out of site in case anyone walks past cos oh my gosh how embarrassing!) and go to sleep.

But I didn't. I kinda wish I had. Maybe I wouldn't be so tired now. or maybe I would have be busted and looked like an idiot!

It has been 3 hours since I was last productive in my work today. In that time I have checked my facebook and bebo, looked at the comments on my photography website, had lunch and then something else to eat, said hi to Phil in the tech cafe, pondered over the new bilboard outside SIT (which featured Phil in make up- ok so it was for Cats) checked my facebook (cos a lot can change in 20 minutes) paced in my office, peeled an orange, drank 3 bottles of water and subsequently visited the loo a lot more than I would have liked (and probably more than the people whose offices I have to continuously walk past to get there.)

So. yeah I got a lot done today.

So you're reading this and going well if you have work to do and its important then why don't you just do it? Why are you on the blog?

Good point......

But no, I have a reason for being here (ok so to begin with I was reading a friends blog and then I thought I should see whats been happening here and well ,you get the picture..) This has got me thinking though - along with reading another awesome blog post yesterday Be strong and courageous (http://www.mnssams.blogspot.co.nz/) Why do we always put off the things we know that we should be doing? Likes of our homework or doing the dishes or changing opur undies (hey I don't have a problem with it! Its good to be clean). Think about it. how many times this week have you procrastinated? How about today? was it worth it?

If we can so easily put off the little everyday things, the ordinary things, then how do we react when God gives us something big and extraordinary to do? Will we recognise the significance, the priviledge , how amazing it is that He trusts us - you and me- with something lifechanging for us and others!

But how would we treat it? Will we have to tell God sorry we are unavailable because we are behind in our homework, the house is dirty and we have yet to change our undies - can He call back later at a more convenient time? What if there is no convenient time because we put off so much of the small things that we don't get time for the big stuff? What if its only a split second of a window of opportunity? What it we miis out? What if we aren't prepared?

And if we can't be trusted to do the small things, is our character ready for the larger ones?

hmmmm... interesting thoughts.

I think its time I did some work:)

[RT: edited so spaces were littler... love you honey...]

Church in the future...

What is church going to look like in the future? I stumbled across an article saying that there is an Anglican minister who is currently being ordained in order to serve at a parish in Second Life. Crazy! I always thought that it would be something that us raging pentecostals would be responsible for...

The link is Let us pray in online world

Update!
Oh, ok, I did just find a couple of quite interesting churches already represented. Check out the following...

Religion in second life
ALM Cyberchurch
Living Sounds

To be honest, I'm not ready to go there just yet (as in have a completely online ministry experience), but it may just be a matter of time. In the meantime, blogging and social networking are my tools of choice for online ministry.

Letting Go of Our Sins

Some days, I just feel so unholy. (I know, great first entry on the Resonate blog. :P I am sure I will soon hear from Ray if this is not theologically sound!)

And I feel far away from God. I am a Christian who has experienced enough of God to know that life without God would be meaningless for me. Yet, at times I just feel totally unworthy and that makes me pull away from Him. Read on if you can identify with this, because at times like that, I cling on to the things that I know deep down, and that helps me through. I hope it helps you too.

It is a vicious cycle - in moments of weakness I sin (judge others, gossip, act self-centred, lose patience, rage, you name it...), then I feel guilty about it and avoid God (as if He didn't already read my mind as I thought all those terrible things!), then I miss out on my quiet time with Him, then it's all a bit awkward from then on, and I gradually just drift farther and farther away from Him. And without Him, you see, I am weak. And moments of weakness become the norm.

Times like that, I think... God, if You have really forgiven me, why aren't You talking to me? Why won't You just tell me that everything's okay?

Usually, after moping for a while, I pause for long enough to hear His answer: You already know that I have forgiven you. You just haven't soaked it all up yet. You are losing sight of what you know to be true because of the guilt that you feel. I'm telling you that everything is okay - you just aren't listening. It is you that won't spare me the time of day to listen to what I have to say to you. Get over it!

Which reminds me of a story I heard in my old church in Auckland... (If you've heard a slightly different version of this elsewhere, it's because this is my version, recreated from the bits that I remember.)

There was a bunch of sinners registering for kind of an... absolution conference, where they would pay their dues for all the things they had done wrong. At the registration booth, they were given one of those stick-on name tags where they had to write not only their names, but also why they were there. After that, they went round the room introducing themselves.

"I'm John, I'm a murderer." John bowed his head in shame.

"I'm Lucy, I'm a thief." Lucy looked glad she was after John.

"Sally... an adultress." Sally could barely say the words.

And so this went on. Eventually a man without a name tag stood up and said, "My name is Jesus, I have not sinned."

"What do you mean you haven't sinned?" asked the organisers in a rage, "What is your name and what have you done? Where is your name tag? You need to register and you need to say what you've done wrong."

Jesus walked around the room and took the name tags off all the sinners there. He stuck them on His chest, one by one. And He said, "My name is Jesus, I have not sinned. Here are my name tags. My name is John. My name is Lucy. My name is Sally..."

Fundamentally, we sin and fall short of His glory. So try not to sin. But when we do, we need to get up, get right and move on. We need to see that it isn't enough just handing over our name tags to Him - we also have to stop calling ourselves names.

Sin separates us from God because He is holy. That is the whole reason for the Cross! But a sin committed, and left on its own to grow into a festering wound of guilt, really has the potential to damage our relationship with Him. Once we repent, that's it - we really have to let God deal with it - we really have to let God.

Reson8rs Podcast: Christianity as a Counterculture

Hey,

As promised, here is a podcast of the Christianity as a Counterculture message which I preached @ a youth service late last month. It's a little raw, but hopefully you get the overall idea. Any feedback greatly appreciated (how else am I going to get better?). Anyhow, here it is...


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Subscribe to the semi-regular, mildly worthwhile, Reson8rs podcast :)

blogs4god is awesome!

Hey reson8rs,

The recent Christianity as a counterculture post has just been listed as a popular post on the blogs4god website. In their own words they are:

a semi-definitive aggregation of of Christians who blog. This 'democritized' user-based ranking system differs from a 'Yahoo-like' hierarchical system in that submitted posts are then voted on by other blogs4God registrants. It is the hope that this free, 'digg-like' service will provide the Christian blogging community with a showcase of the best content that can be heard above the white noise generated by the blogosphere on the whole.

It's exciting because it means that some of the stuff here may actually be worth reading and sharing :). Anyway, if you're looking for quality Christian content, and a useful networking tool, go and check blogs4god out, and join. While you are there, add me as a friend, and if you dig what's being written, then vote so we can keep gaining exposure.

Reson8rs @ the ends of the earth, changing the world around them...