Danger Danger

[With apologies to Fight Club] The first rule about Contend is that you don't talk about Contend. The second rule about Contend is that YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT CONTEND! Lol. I was going to blog about the amazing time we had on Friday night when Gary Rumbold came to speak to nearly 40+ guys about the challenges of remaining sexually pure in this corrupt and polluted world, using his own life experiences as illustrations, but in view of the rules about Contend, I'd better not! We did have an excellent time and I believe that his talk was recorded. It's worth a listen but is not for the faint-hearted.

What I wanted to touch on today, at the start of this wonderful new week of Kingdom living, is the truly outstanding time we had in yesterday's meeting. I know that sometimes these phrases are completely overused in Christian circles but I can honestly say that it was one of the most powerful times of meeting with God I have had for along time. Gary stayed over on Friday night and joined us to speak God's word and minister life to us as a community of believers during Sunday's meeting. Here are a few of the highlights...

1. Enter The Throne Room From the start there was a real sense of expectation and excitement from most of the people. We began to sing refrains that reminded me of the activity of heaven (Revelation 5:11-14) and there was a strong sense of the majesty of God and how we needed to press into the Throne Room.

2. Spiritual Gifts Gary began to sing prophetically and I felt this was a real turning point in the meeting: it's like we opened the door to something even more powerful. Did you hear the response from the people? It is always a good sign when the congregation begin to get behind something and from where I was sitting I could hear all the people behind me singing their hearts out. Did the angels join with us? We also heard the spoken prophetic gift in action as Gary and his colleague John prophesied over us as a Church and over Neil, Wendy and I. All of these words have been recorded and when John has read them I will put the relevant ones up on this Blog for you. They resonated with much of what we have already heard and confirmed out sense of God owning who we are and what we're doing.

We also experienced some powerful times of singing in tongues. This much misunderstood (and in some quarters, much maligned) gift exploded into the meeting and what I noticed was how it drew people deeper and deeper into worship; their focus was turning away from themselves and onto Jesus.

3. Danger! Danger! Gary's preach is now available on the website/itunes for you to download (http://www.bristolcommunitychurch.org/podcasts.asp). I thought his visual aid was very helpful and the content of his message echoed with so much of what has already been taught in the Church. This is always a good sign and I think this is why we get on so well with some of the Kingdom faith Team - they have very similar values and revelation to us. The core of Gary's message was about God bringing all areas of our lives into alignment and how we must co-operate with that and not stray into the 'Danger Zone'. He fleshed this out a bit, looking at what some of those specific things can be and what we need to do about it. It's a great message, go and listen to it again!

4. Visitors We are getting a lot of new people coming through the doors of the Church. Wasn't it great to see virtually every seat taken and the Bourne Chapel full? There were plenty of visitors there yesterday and as I looked out across the Church it encouraged me a great deal to see new faces wanting to meet Jesus and move forward in their lives of faith.

So much more happened and this Blog entry is already really long. I'm going to sign off now. I hope you get a flavour of what happened and the truly awesome time we had together. Watch this space for a synopsis of the core prophetic message from the morning.