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Sunday 04 June 2017

Today is the day on the church calendar where we celebrate and remember the first Pentecost - the event we are named after! The birthday of the church where the Holy Spirit was poured out in power to equip the disciples of Jesus for the mission they were called to. Power and boldness for mission. A deeply transformational experience that changed those disciples for ever. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead, now poured out.
But that's not just a historical event. It's an ever present promise for us today too. We are called into mission and the equipping power and boldness is poured out by the Holy Spirit on us too.

Be Bold and Courageous

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Sunday 21 May 2017

Over 25 times the Bible commands us to be bold and courageous, the reassuring news is that each of us have been born with this capacity for courage.  The challenge is that we are called to grow it - and that growing in courage is the virtue that determines our life's legacy.

"Courage is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.  Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss."

Spiritual Parents

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Sunday 14 May 2017

One of our privileges as followers of Jesus is to ENCOURAGE - install courage into others - we won't always know what is going on for other people and where they might need a top of encouragement from us to face their world.

There are three components of Spiritual Parenthood:

1.      Spiritual Depth - recognising that our ability to influence and minister to others is the quality of our personal relationship with God.  Jesus recognised this as he rose early to pray, as he cultivated connection and as he taught his followers to do the same.  Our ability to influence and grow others is dependent on our connection with God.  And this is a continually growing and deeper walk - as a Spiritual parent, you need spiritual resources, and Jesus shows us the only place to get them is from God.  You parent out of your own relationship - you share with others out of the overflow of what God is doing in your life.

2.     Submission - the ability to parent others comes from our core commitment to submitting to the will of God - in the natural parents set aside their personal agenda for the greater good of their family.  That's what we are called to do for those we spiritually parent too - to set aside our own personal desires and ambitions for the purposes of blessing the people or group we are called to lead.  Spiritual parents submit to God's authority - that God has dibs and say on what we do with our time, energy, money - like Jesus in the garden, when faced with the cross he says - if there is any other way... lets do that, but above all Your will not mine.  We are called to follow God and model that submission to God's leading, directing and priorities.

3. Sacrifice - leadership and influence doesn't mean you get to boss people around - it means you get to serve and sacrifice for others!  Spiritual parents lay down their lives for those they lead - they give blood, sweat and tears in the middle of relationship not just advice and technique from afar.

Jesus Grew

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Sunday 30 April 2017

We spend some time thinking about the special and unique role that we are called into in creating a community that inspires our children and young people as they grow in life and faith.

One of my favourite church celebrations are dedications - because they capture one of the powerful roles that we as the church community, whanau are called upon and privileged to provide. And I want to ground this understanding this morning out of the book of Luke. These few verses capture the first 30 years of Jesus' life, it's only 12 verses - yet within them we find the role of the nuclear family, the extended family, friends & the church community displayed.

Hearing God's Voice

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Sunday 23 April 2017

Today we are unpack the topic of “Hearing God’s Voice” - at CNL we talk a lot about the two key questions that lifelong learners of Jesus ask… “What is God Saying to Me?" and "What am I doing about it?”.  But this assumes that you are hearing God speaking in the first place, so today we unpack the why, what, where, and how of hearing and my prayer is that you will be encouraged and equipped for your own walk and to speak into the lives of others.

How do we hear God?

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SUNDAY 24 MAY 2015

At CNL we consistently ask the questions 'what is God saying to me? and 'what am I going to do about it?'. In this sermon, Amy unpacks what it means the question before this: 'how do I hear from God in order to know what He is saying to me?'

We hear God because He loves us and speaks to us. We can't conjure it, but we can position ourselves to hear? the issue isn't is God speaking, but are we able to listen?

2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 1:20, Hebrews 8:10-11, Acts 18:1-3 and 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 
Read all verses here