On Thursday night we had a get together with the ministries of KBC. It was a really fruitful time hearing about the different ministries around the place. Also, it wasexciting to share the room with so many incredible leaders who are energised by stories and experiences of what Jesus Christ is bringing about by his Spirit in our community! Thank you all for your prayers and involvement in our various areas of ministry. May our family continue to be shaped and shifted by the insights and burdens God is faithfully placing in our hearts and on our minds, which point toward His Kingdom that has come and is coming.

Blessings, Naomi Compton

The poet William Arthur Ward said:

 “I will do more than belong – I will participate. I will do more than care – I will help. I will do more than believe – I will practice. I will do more than be fair – I will be kind. I will do more than forgive – I will forget. I will do more than dream – I will work. I will do more than teach – I will inspire. I will do more than learn – I will enrich. I will do more than give – I will serve. I will do more than live – I will grow. I will do more than suffer – I will triumph.”

 Mike Enright

We all occupy a space.
A space that constantly shifts, redefining itself.
Beginnings and endings.
Changes and transitions.
Some personal, some global.
How do we occupy the space?
Who are we in the space?
Who are we chosen to be in the space?

Naomi Compton

Kia Ora everyone.  

 A question has been echoing in my heart over the past few weeks. What does it mean for us to love each other, the way Jesus asks us to?  Here are my thoughts.

 Yes it means caring for and serving each other, sacrificing of ourselves and putting others first.  But I have been challenged in my belief that says ‘that’s enough.’ I think that’s only half the job! The other half is harder than the first, and it has been something that the youth ministry of KBC have entered into wholeheartedly after a breakthrough Easter weekend.

 God calls us to be open and vulnerable with each other. We bless others when we let them in and allow them to journey alongside us. I cannot truly love you, unless I permit my walls of strength, pride and “I’m alright” to be broken down. We actually love others when we let them into our struggles, show them our weaknesses and put ourselves in their hands. 

 God has been moving in the youth ministry and we have seen incredible breakthrough of some of the defences we have put up to protect us from the world. This hasn’t fixed any of the problems we struggle with, but it does allow us to journey alongside each other, to help and to be helped, both by God and by one another. “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” Proverbs 27:17.

 We value the input of all members of this community and would love to include you in our struggles. Please come along tonight at 6.30pm and hear some of the hearts that have been changed over Easter.

 Arohanui , James

   Today, we commission Naomi Compton as KBC’s new Associate Pastor, and we also welcome Naomi and Mark into the membership of the church. We will hear a brief summary of the story of how we as a church came to call Naomi to this role, and Naomi will respond by outlining her sense of call.  Naomi and Mark will both make promises to God before us; and we, as a body of God’s people, will also makepromises together – to God, and to them.

 This is a significant and exciting day for us all. A day for celebrating the way God has led us to this point, and for giving thanks to Him for the gift He has given to us in Naomi and Mark; also, a day for looking forward with faith, expectancy and enthusiasm to what He is going to lead us into together. 

If you are here today particularly to share in this occasion with Naomi and Mark and to support them, a special and warm welcome to you

Baptism

Two people have approached me wanting to get together and discuss Believers’Baptism. I’m planning to lead a few discussion sessions looking at what the Bible teaches about baptism, what the significance of baptism is, who should be baptised, and so on. If you are interested in finding out more about baptism, please let me know – I’d love to talk with you too.

As we journey through LENT, the six week period leading up to Easter – traditionally a time for Christians to think about the cross, the cost of discipleship, confession, repentance, self-denial, commitment to Christ – here are some thoughts to ponder:

Each Day Fall in Love

Somewhere each day we have to fall in love with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. That’s where most of the world is trapped and doesn’t even know it.

The world’s been in love with death so long that it calls death life. It tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, by creating parties where there’s no reason to celebrate…. Yet the only way to experience joy is to give yourself to reality. Joy comes after you go that extra mile and offer yourself first-thing every day.

Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fall in love. Then you’ll see rightly because only when we are in love do we understand.

In the Midst  -  Henri J. M. Nouwen

We no longer have to ask ourselves if we are approaching a state of emergency. We are in the midst of it, right here and now, and we expect the future to mirror the past … It is in the midst of this dark world that we are invited to live and radiate hope. Is it possible? Can we become light, salt, and leaven to our brothers and sisters in the human family? Can we offer hope, courage, and confidence to the people of this era? Do we dare break through our paralyzing fear? Will people be able to say of us, ‘See how they love each other, how they serve their neighbour, and how they pray to their Lord?’ Or do we have to confess that at this juncture of history we just do not have the needed strength or the generosity? How can we live in hope so as to give hope? And how do we find true joy?

Year-ending, Year-beginning                                        by Elizabeth O’Connor

New Year is a time for reflection on the year gone and the year to come:

 What took place in your home relations? Your work relations? Your church relations?

 What events in the larger community of city, country and world most captured your attention?

 Who were the significant people in your life? What books and art instructed your mind and heart?

 Did you create anything this year? Did you make any new discoveries about yourself? How were you a gift last year to a person, a community or an institution?

 What was your greatest joy in this year gone? What was your greatest sorrow? What caused you the most disappointment? What caused you the most sadness?

 In what areas of your life did you grow? Were these areas related to your joy or your pain?

 What are your regrets? How would you do things differently, if you could live the year again? What did you learn?

 Did you have a recurring dream? What theme or themes ran through your year?

 Did you grow in your capacity to be a person in community–to help bear others’ burdens, to let them help bear yours? Did you have sufficient time apart with yourself?

 Did you root your life more firmly in Scripture? Did you grow in your understanding of yourself? What was your most important insight? Did God seem near or far off?

 How do you want to create this new year? What kind of commitment do you want to make to yourself?  Your community? To the oppressed people of the world? How do such questions about commitment make you feel? Angry? Challenged? Hopeful?

 Who are the people with whom you would like to deepen your relationships in the year to come? Do you have relationships that need to be healed? What can you do to heal your own heart? What can others do to assist in your healing?

 Is there a special piece of inward work that you would like to accomplish?  Is there a special outward work? What are the goals that seem important to you? What are your hopes? What are your fears? What are the immediate first steps that you can take toward the goals that seem important to you?

 Spend time in prayer, and give thanks for all the events of the year gone, and ask that the God through whose fingers they were filtered will continue to bless them to your use. They are now the bread of your life–part of all that you have to share with others.

   Here we are again – another Christmas, the end of another year … We all say it all the time, but it does seem that time is going by faster and faster! Or maybe that is just an aspect of getting older!

   I’m writing this on the day some people are expecting the world to end. If you get to read this, we’ll know they were wrong! As we come to the end of another Advent season, and celebrate another Christmas, it’s important to remember that Advent is not just about focussing on the coming of the baby born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, important though that is. The season of Advent is also about the Bible’s promise that Jesus is coming again. There is a “second advent” to look forward to with hope and joy. That baby, that resurrected Lord of all, is going to return – to bring history as we know it to its climax. And the timing of that is in God’s hands – “no one knows the day nor the hour …”  What we do know is that at that point, “every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.

   Meanwhile, our task is to partner with the Spirit of God to bring His Kingdom on earth – to see His will being done here as it is in the heavenly realm. As we celebrate again the wonderful, astonishingly good news of the Christmas story, and as we come to the end of another year … let’s commit to being Kingdom of God people in 2013 – until He comes!

   On behalf of Lorraine and our family, I want to thank you for the privilege of serving and ministering with you all during 2012 – a year which has certainly had its challenges. We really appreciate your love and support and encouragement, and our prayer for you is that you will experience the deep love of Jesus for you at Christmas, and be really refreshed and renewed over the holiday season.

 In Christ’s love,

Mike Enright