Life Changers » Fusion

All in a days work…

gabe — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:14:24 +0000

Just climbed into bed with weary legs and a very tired body but with a heart that is oh so full! This is a quick note to just explain that Friday nights at LCC are not for the feint of heart…youth leadership arrived at 5pm to set up and pray, hung out with 20 kids from our community (xbox, pool, foosball, jousting), sat and listened to a preach about what a great treasure we have in jesus, prayed for each other, hung out some more, dropped the majority of the kids off at their homes, came back to tidy up, helped set up some of the new sound and multi media equipment for Sunday and then capped it off bu eating macdonalds burgers together until 1:45am…and did I mention that one of the youth gave their hearts to jesus as well as a couple recomittments? All in a days work…

Incredible leadership team, incredible group of young people…Incredible God.

Now all thats left to do is set the alarm…

…for sometime tomorrow afternoon!

Breathe in deeply…

gabe — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:25:59 +0000

A young boy walking through the woods one day, met with an older gentleman who was renowned for being a great man of prayer. After exchanging pleasantries, the boy asked the man if he would teach him to pray. The words were barely out of the young boys mouth when the older man pounced, swiftly pushing the boy’s head under the surface of the water in the well that they were standing next to. Despite the boys desperate attempts to free himself from the old man’s grasp, he was resolute in holding the boy’s head firmly underneath the pool of water. As the young boy began to lose all hope of ever breathing another breath again, the old man hauled him back onto the forest floor above the water. Cool oxygen filled his lungs deeply once again. Once he had coughed and spluttered and regained his breath, the boy angrily demanded why on earth the old man did that to him. The old man’s reply was simple: “When you are as desperate to pray as you were as desperate for breath just now, only then will I teach you to pray”

Day One of fasting and praying almost complete…

Midnight meanderings…#2

gabe — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:47:45 +0000

Driving everyday to LCC along the r27, I am still getting a massive kick out of catching my morning’s initial glimpse of Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain. I’m not 100% sure if “glimpse” is the correct word in attempting to describe something as large and over-bearing as our city’s “defender”, but it is almost an impossible feat to find the adequate terminology which would convey it’s impressiveness…so I’ll stick with “glimpse” out of sheer laziness if you don’t mind. Anyway, I digress. What I am trying to get at is that the mother city is quickly growing on me. I’m not sure if it’s in the fact that the mountain frames nearly every aspect of city life, whether it’s the extreme friendliness of the Life Changers people or if it’s just in that I can drive recklessly in traffic and just shrug my shoulders and point to my Durban number plate when anyone hoots angrily at me! But whatever it is, I’m already finding Cape Town to be a pretty pleasant place to live.

However, being a relative new-comer, I have found there has been a few hiccups in my translating of the Cape Tonian dialect, so in order to save anyone else any miscommunication blushes, I felt compelled to share a couple of my discoveries on a few very common words and phrases that one new to this city may not understand straight away:

“Lank” =adjective describing any situation or circumstance that is in extreme in quantity or nature *use in a sentence= “it is lank hot today”

“Decent”=word used to give your agreement when involved in a one-sided conversation (often accompanied by vigorous nodding)

“You want to go for coffee?”= sentence loosely translated as, “I have something serious to talk to you about”

“Please come to our house for a meal (steak, pork chops, prawns)”= sentence not heard nearly enough

While, the new “language” barrier may be providing some confusion to me, the Lord’s voice is still very clear. Life Changers Church is at a pivotal place in its history, and I (among alot of others) am becoming more and more convinced that we as a church have a massive role to play in determining our city’s future. As the calendar flips over onto the final week of January in a couple days time, we are embarking on a church fast. My desire is that during this time, God’s voice would be heard louder and clearer than ever before as we put our ears close to his chest, to hear his heart beat. As someone famous once said (I forget who at the moment), “I want to hear him when he shouts…I want to hear him when he speaks…I want to hear him when he whispers…but most of all, I want to hear his heart beat”.

This next week you won’t need a dictionary or thesaurus to understand what God’s saying to you…all you need is an empty stomach, an open heart and a listening ear.

“Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1.Samuel.3)

Gabe Phillips

Midnight meanderings…

gabe — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:02:28 +0000

The clock next to my bed ticks over to midnight and that officially means that I’ve been living in the Mother City for exactly a week now. In the early hours of last Thursday morning, my dad and I pulled out of my home in Durban, car packed with all my worldly possessions and with my mom waving teary eyed behind us as I began the great adventure to Cape Town. This first adventure lasted approximately three minutes and a massive two kilometers before I was back at my gate running in to retrieve my forgotten tooth-brush. Then it was back in the car, reversing down the driveway going through the farewell routine again. A day and a half, 45 brownies, 1756 kilometers, 7 toilet stops and 103 pot-holes (yes, we did count them) later, I arrived triumphantly into my new home town!

As I look back over those two days in the car, I feel it necessary to bring to your attention some of the vital lessons I picked up over the course of the journey and I hope that they will be of some benefit to you. In no particular order, here they are:

Make sure you have enough snacks packed
Driving a four gear Toyota Corolla at a consistent speed of 120km’s per hour makes you go through a lot of oil
Driving a four gear Toyota Corolla at a consistent speed of 120km’s per hour can also be quite a loud experience…solution = turn up the CD player
Make sure you have enough snacks packed
After 12 hours of driving almost non-stop in excessive heat is not the ideal time to forget the punchline of a joke (sorry dad!)
Make sure you have enough snacks packed
Take time to observe the incredible scenery along the way
Don’t observe the scenery while trying to over-take a truck on a blind-rise (sorry again dad!)
When stopping to use a lonely garage’s bathroom facilities, always, always take your own toilet paper
Make sure you have enough snacks

I hope that my travel hints prove to be helpful as many of you plan your journeys into the future.

But in all seriousness, my eventful journey to Cape Town by car may have come to an end but now the real journey begins. My home is now at Life Changers Church in Tableview and as excited as I was to begin the drive at 4:30am with my dad last week, I am 100 times more filled with anticipation for what lies ahead into the future as we embark on this journey together. Thanks for letting me get in the proverbial car with you. It’s time to start the engine and let the journey and adventures begin!

And as Nissan famously say, “Life’s a journey, enjoy the ride!”

Gabe