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The Desert Road Appeal would like to thank Dan Martin from Helix – iT for their generous donation of an apple iPad. The iPad will help us collect donations as we are out and about in our “Pavement Float” so…… look out for us!

The Desert Road Appeal took a significant step forward yesterday with the launch of our “Pavement Float” which is designed to raise awareness, collect donations and help myself and Robbie train for the big event in September.

Here we are ‘hitting the streets’ in local Boronia on Sunday morning…

Philip Clayton from http://www.bigtentchristianity.com/

…Haitians have a saying that translates to “God gives but he doesn’t share” but means “God gives us enough, and it’s not His fault if we don’t share with each other.”

Desert Road Appeal update:

Starting the rigorous training schedule that will be needed to hit the mark for the Nullabor challenge!

What is the Desert Road Appeal?

Check out the Desert Road Appeal fb page @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Desert-Road-Appeal/137521122967697?v=wall

Desert Road Appeal update::

Robbie and I would like to thank all our amazing sponsors who helped us create our masterpiece - the Desert Road Appeal - Pavement Float. Hope you like this ‘inspirational’ video of our best efforts. The finished product will be unveiled soon.

Thanks to:

• Commercial Metal Products Bayswater
• Signarama Boronia
• Eastern Auto Paints Bayswater
• Bunnings Bayswater

for all your generous support.

What is the Desert Road Appeal?

Check out the Desert Road Appeal fb page @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Desert-Road-Appeal/137521122967697?v=wall

Most of us are aware these days that the traditional Western Church has lost its primary position as the dominant Christian presence in the world. In fact the Western Church has been described as a church in crises and one that is seeing many Christians exiting traditional churches churches from one week to the next. 

According to David Bosch however, a church in crises is …not such a bad thing!

The church has always needed apparent failure and suffering in order to become fully alive to its real nature and mission”. And for many centuries the church has suffered very little and has been led to believe that it is a success. That there were so many crises free centuries for the church was an abnormality. Now at long last, we are “back to nornmal” … And we know it! And if the atmosphere of crisislessness still lingers on in many parts of the West, this is simply the result of a dangerous delusion. Let us also know that to encounter crisis is to encounter the possibility of truly being the church. The Japanese character for “crises” is a combination of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity” (or “promise”) crises is therefore not the end of opportunity but in reality only its beginning (Koyama 1980:4), the point where danger and opportunity meet, where the future is in the balance and where events can go either way (Bosch, 1996: 2).

What opportunity awaits the church in Australia? Is the fact that people are moving away from one expression of church culture a bad thing or is it an opportunity for the church to rediscover a revitalising new energy?

I have been searching for the right words recently to share with people who ask us why we are different, why we care and why we are helping. (That is as long as we are different, do care and are helping. L)

I read some great words in the ‘Leadership’ journal while on a break at Tabor earlier this week. The article was featuring churches with a focus on justice. One of the churches was doing a great work in Darfur in Sudan, building schools and systems to provide clean water and sanitation.

The pastor tells of sitting with a group of Muslims just after the completion of a school. “Their question to me was, ‘Why are you doing this? You’re the church.’ Now by this time we had been working there for three years… before the question was ever asked. We can’t preach the gospel there, but we can demonstrate the gospel, and this question gave me the opening to say, ‘As a follower of Jesus this is what we believe… that God loves you and your situation is our situation.‘” (Leadership, Summer 2010: 30).



What a great way to give the reason for why we do what we do. Because God loves you and your situation is our situation. I can hear myself saying that to people. I could say that.

As you do the Lord’s work amongst the people in your community. What words do you use to tell them about the hope that you have?

I was laughed at recently! No new occurrence by any means if you know me (LOL), and of course it was justified too!!

As a group of friends, we were sitting around talking about predominantly ‘MY’ frustrations with prayer. I revealed how my frustrations had built up to such and extent that I had decided to prove or either disprove the effctiveness of God in relation to scientific cause and effect! YEH!!

The ‘experiment’ involved me initiating ‘a prayer’ that was specific, measurable, and time sensitive (borrowed a few pointers from creating SMART goals – didn’t I!!), writing down the date prayed, when I think it should be answered and whether I think God deserves an extension if it’s not!!

Now you may laugh at my pseudo-scientific approach but how often have we gone the other way and just fired off a random missile, not knowing if it landed or if it did where it landed and what effect it had. I know because I’ve fired off plenty!

Even though humorous, my frustrated effort was in fact grounded in faith……and theology.

See if we believe that Jesus is Lord and follow that statement through, then that is something akin to the belief that we live on a spherical earth instead of a flat one. Now that of course is scientific fact and universally accepted (except maybe by a few floaters – LOL). However, only 500 short years ago the discovery was brand new for Copernicus and the world at the time. To some the discovery was received with wonder and amazement to others it was received with abject horror and in disbelief! The discovery was however proved to be a reality as more scientific evidence confirmed that Copernicus was right!

The reality of a spherical earth revolutionized travel, commerce, communications, weather, everything. Most profoundly however, it effected the human psyche irreversibly. A new reality was instituted yet a reality that had always been.

This discovery by Copernicus ushered in the great age of discovery as man took unprecedented scientific leaps forward. The name given to this era is evidence enough “The Enlightenment”.  This immediately saw a rift develop between the scientific community and the “religious” community as people more than ever believed in themselves as the author of their own destiny.

The insinuation that grew out of this period was that science and God don’t get on!

Now, jumping forward into my lounge room sitting in the midst of my frustration, it occurred to me that God and science are in fact compatible. More than that, rather than just withstanding scientific scrutiny, science is yet another means of glorifying God.

Jesus is Lord and scientifically, the evidence should attest to this truth.

What I’m proposing is to test the hypotheses ‘Jesus is Lord’ scientifically just like Copernicus had to test his hypotheses of a spherical earth. Either it is or it’s not – there’s no cop outs. There’s no… “well the earth behaves in mysterious ways…LOL”.

So Lets start the experiment:

Hypotheses: Jesus is Lord over disease (Even a brief skim of MMLJ makes this a tenable assumption)

Equipment:

• An active disease process in a human being.
• 4+ People to pray.

Process:

• Actively pray against the disease process in the authority of Jesus as Lord in the above human being once a week for 30 days.

Evaluation:

• Evaluate whether the disease is still present after 30 days.

Possible outcomes:

• Jesus is Lord over disease.
• Jesus is not Lord over disease (i.e the world is still flat)
• Error related to process.

This is where it starts and  If I’m right, science will glorify God, not undermine Him.

It may look slightly irreverent but hey I’m banking on God liking the fact that we’re taking Him at his word.

Don’t you think that after the initial shock of his discovery, Copernicus basically just looked forward to his theory being proved more right. Each subsequent discovery glorified his initial hypotheses. Shouldn’t we look to science to do the same for the God who created it…I mean supposedly!!

If you want to be surprised again by our beautiful planet. Click on this link… Beautiful

Beautiful Earth – Beautiful God

Joseph Prince continues to glorify the finished work of Christ and states that God doesn’t give you sickness to teach you a lesson!