Us, Jesus, Jairus, the bleeding woman, David and Tim

Dear everyone.  Today I (Erna) am not attending any sessions.  Have a bit of work to do and want to spend some time with Jawé.  That explains why I'm writing the post again. :-)  Thomas still needs to tell you about the Bible study he and Anton went to on Tuesday, but he can do that when he writes the next post...

We started off Wednesday by talking about things that might derail your CP (church plant) project.  The top 3 things that stood out were: 1) Inward focus - when your CP stop begin Evangelistic, stop having an outward focus.  2) Overstated sense of who you can reach - be careful not to make too many adjustments to reach people you can't reach, and in that, NOT reaching the people you can!  3) Unhealthy definition of success - you must ask the right questions to measure the success of the CP.

The next session was about Mercy and Justice.  Just a few key points from this session... 
- The gospel must influence our reaching out to the poor.
- See the image of God in other people.
What also struck me was the story about Jesus brings the daughter of Jairus back to life, but on His way there, heal the bleeding woman (Mark 5:22-43).  So we know Jairus was a very important man.  In contrast, the women in those days were not important at all - especially this woman - all her money spent on trying to be healed.  What does Jesus do?  He makes a very public deal out of this woman's healing and her faith - she needs to be brought up.  But regarding the miracle or raising Jairus' daughter from the dead?  He only takes her parents and his 3 disciples into the room - a very private healing - and told them not to tell anyone.  Jairus needed to be brought down.

Next we listened to Elise Chong (the Executive Director of Hope for New York - http://hfny.org/) about the non-profit organisation, Hope for New York.

Wednesday was also great because David Strain (he was the minister of London City Presbyterian Church when we lived in London and is now a minister in Jackson, Mississippi) came to NY for a missions event.  We spent the whole evening visiting and had such a wonderful time!

Dinner with David Strain.

Thursday morning we talked about the issue of difficult conversations.  A very good and practical session - learned a lot.  Actually I think this will make a great session at a marriage enrichment course! :-)

Self packed lunch on Broadway (street).

Thursday afternoon, Tim Keller (senior pastor of Redeemer), had a session with us on Gospel Spirituality.  It was a good session where we learned lots of things, but I think one thing that stood out for me, was something he said regarding our idols (the things or people that are more important to me than God.  He said we must ask ourselves: "How can I treat God this way (not loving Him enough, not honoring Him, not putting Him first) if Jesus gave His life for me?"  Maybe take some time and think about that...

Gospel spirituality with Tim Keller.

Greetings, until our next blog post...