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Kaleidoscope 2011 Report Back

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written by Tanya de Ruig

Kalos (the root word of kaleidoscope) in Greek means beautiful; that was the theme of this year’s Kaleidoscope Women’s Conference: She’s beautiful. The women looked beautiful, the hall looked beautiful, but what God did at the conference was beautiful. Women were set free from rejection, jealousy, fear, hopelessness and their value was restored as Jesus revealed himself to all the women. He showed them how beautiful they are inside and out in His eyes. This freedom lead to unabandoned worship and a new revelation that a woman’s call and purpose is to advance God’s kingdom.

Download the recordings of the messages here.

 

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Exchange: 7 October – Impacting Those Around Us

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Written by Julia Taylor

The Exchange, a forum where business people can be encouraged in the Kingdom and learn how to be more effective in taking the Gospel into the marketplace, takes place every month on the first Friday of the month. This month (which took place on 7 October) saw Llouella Humphrey share and encourage us.

I always look forward to the monthly Exchange meetings, whether there are speakers from within or outside of Cornerstone Church. I always expect to encourage others, to be encouraged and challenged in my way of thinking. The October Exchange did not disappoint.

Llouella said that in order to BE a person of influence you need intimacy with Jesus and allow Him to influence us, as David in the Old Testament did. We are to influence and impact those around us, especially in the marketplace. She quoted Kenneth Meshoe (president of the ACDP): “Always persevere. There are people whose lives are waiting to be effected by what God has placed within you.”

Definitely a word in season, and it was good to be reminded of this again as I write this. It was also a very valuable and meaningful time of fellowship. Thank you to all the organisers!

The next Exchange meets on 4 October at Central Cornerstone. It starts at 6 for 6:30 and ends at 7:30. We usually advertise the event in the notices during our times together or keep your eye / ear on our relevant communication channels.

EQUIP SA 2011: A Wave is Breaking

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Written by Ryan Peter

 

 

EQUIP South Africa 2011, which took place last week (28 to 30 Sept) at Central Cornerstone, was simply amazing. For three days we were able to absorb the teaching, heart and envisioning of guys on the NCMI team. As in the words of Mpho Ntuli at Cornerstone, something shifted.

Resources

A quick word on some resources. Jakes Olivier from Solid Ground church live-blogged each session with notes and so on. Read the blog for more details on each session.

The EQUIP SA Twitter account (@NCMIEquipSA) live-tweeted each session as well. The tweets include some interesting quotes and notes. Read the #EQUIPSA Twitter feed and scroll down to read the quotes.

Recordings of all the sessions are available for download at the equipsouthafrica.co.za website.

My attempt at a summary

Wednesday night, when things kicked off, was a real party as we headed straight into passionate worship to our King. Tyrone Daniel shared later around the central theme for the time, which was “Follow the Life”. What does it mean to follow Jesus? What brings the life of God? What kills the life of God? And what should we focus on? The central theme throughout the week is that it really is all about Jesus – the King and the Kingdom – and when we lose sight of Him, replacing Him with ideas, manuals, and whatever else, we will not bring the life our cities and nations desperately need.

The next morning, Ron Larson from the U.S. reiterated the focus on Jesus, saying we need to become Jesus freaks again. Perhaps the best quote from him was: “we don’t need another manual, we need emmanuel (God with us).” We can get so easily caught up in other things – even good things – that distract us and keep us from Jesus, the very source of life.

The break-out sessions on Thursday morning focused on the prophetic and evangelism. These were much more practical sessions and I attended the prophetic session. Mike provided us some real practical ideas in how we can increase the prophetic in our lives and become more accurate and more sensitive to what God is saying. It was challenging and encouraging.

Thursday night was a real break-through night with a prophetic focus on God wanting to lift off the restrictions of our lives. For many it was a key time as we sang “let it rain” and God challenged deeply. Last night at Central many testimonies were shared on the different things God did over the EQUIP time and Thursday night often came up as the night when chains were really broken and lots of healing took place.

Grant Crawford shared on “Born Again to Live”. His source text was Judges 3:12-30 and he likened how the text can be used to show Jesus and also you and I, how we are to approach the challenges we come up against. The keys here were how your attitude can shape your inheritance, letting God define your inheritance, how God intended for us to work, how we need to live with margin and that we should know that God really does want us to inherit. A key quote for me was, “This is good theology: God is happy.” Profound when you think about it!

On Friday morning, Ashley Bell from NCCB felt it good to share some of the prophetic words for where we are going in our togetherness with the NCMI team and Bruce Benge shared a word about being thirsty. Are we thirsty in our busyness? Are we thirsty for the right things? Are we thirsty for Jesus? A vision will only carry us for so long. We need Jesus. It was deep in its application.

Then there was a kind of question and answer time as Ashley ‘interviewed’ Tyrone and Mike Hanchett around a prophetic word he received over a decade ago around where God wants to take us. There was a lot said and many things clarified. Anyone with questions around NCMI, how we relate to the team, what the team is about and where it’s going will find tremendous value in this session.

The break-out sessions were worship and evangelism. Unfortunately, I had to head off to work at this time but the live-blog link above and the downloads at the EQUIP site will provide all you need there about the session.

Things rounded off really nicely on Friday night as there was a prophetic re-envisioning, especially for older guys – a sense that God was saying there is a huge inheritance for them. Greig G shared a lot around church life – planting, watering, and trusting God to see growth. Many pastors are tired and this was a fantastic encouragement around how it’s God who is building His church, and only God brings life.

To summarise even more

It’s difficult to translate into a few short words everything that actually happened at EQUIP. It was a move of the Spirit, that’s for sure, but that can make it difficult to communicate. Bullet point lists, although helpful, just don’t seem to do the time justice. Talking about prophetic times in a few short sentences really doesn’t convey how God touched, challenged, healed and restored. Mentioning how there was a real sense of unity doesn’t quite convey how relationships were deepened and strengthened.

Perhaps Ephesians 4, which is about how the apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors and evangelists equip the saints for the work of the ministry, is the best way to summarise what happened at EQUIP. It wasn’t just about giving us knowledge but about deepening our relationship with Jesus and our relationships with each other. Eph 4 says that the equipping of the saints builds “up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of he fullness of Christ… [as we] grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

I really did feel a building up in love over this time. And so did plenty others. Just check out some of the awesome testimonies at the #EQUIPSA Twitter feed!

PS: More – and better – photos will be posted soon!

Ukwakha Isizwe’s HArt Day Centre on the Radio

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Written by Ryan Strydom

Zelda with the Our Community Voice team on Radio Today

Ukwakha Isizwe’s HArt Day Centre, a home for street children, was recently featured on Radio Today, which broadcasts on 1485AM and nationally across the SADC sub-region on DStv Audio Channel 169. Zelda Cronje, who helps run the home and is also part of the overseeing team of Ukwakha Isizwe, the umbrella organisation that covers a number of social justice initiatives that Cornerstone is involved with, was interviewed.

The interview took place on a show called Our Community Voice and it was hosted by Brendon Burmester and Elaine Thorne from the I Love Kensington Association (ILKA). Our Community Voice broadcasts every Wednesday at 11:30.

It was great getting this coverage for HArt and Ukwakha Isizwe. The podcast for the show can be downloaded at this link (scroll down for the show dated 21 September).

The show aims to encourage a sense of community, raise general issues taking place in communities living in greater Johannesburg.

Pebbles Fun Day Sept 2011 Photos

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Written by Ryan Strydom

 

   A great time was had by parents and kids alike at the Pebbles Fun Day on Saturday 10 September where there was lots of great food, ice creams, candy floss and cake! Plus a ton of fun sports and activities like a fishing stall, jumping castles, face painting, paintball, and the ever-popular friendly farmyard. Above are some photos to show how much fun was had.

This was Pebbles’ main fund raising event for the year. With funds raised at last year’s fun day Pebbles were able to purchase a new microwave, CD players for the classrooms, carpets and many other necessary items. The aim this year is to purchase new equipment for the playground.

Pebbles sends out a big thanks to families who have been so generous with donations. Enjoy the photos!

Great Time in Tanzania

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Written by Ryan Strydom

Marcus and Craig recently returned from the Tanzania EQUIP time which was very well attended with over 200 leaders from 75 relating churches, some from as far away as Kigoma (the EQUIP time was in Mikumi which is in Central Tanzania whereas Kigoma is in the far western regions).

It was a fruitful time and saw new relationships begin to form. The guys were able to begin connecting with a Maasai pastor who ministers to several churches in the central Tanzanian area and is looking for closer relationship, being quite keen for us to do training in his churches.

Two couples and a single fellow were released onto the East African trans-local NCMI team during the EQUIP time as well.

Some of the ministry highlights include Keir Taylor’s training where he picked up on evangelism and spiritual giftings, while Emanualle Nazzi (a pastor we work with from Tuscany, Italy) ministered excellently on heart issues. There was also some discourse around how churches relate to trans-local teams which was very enlightening for the local guys and quite effective.

After the EQUIP time Marcus and Craig went to Dar es Salaam (Pugu Hills) to join with Martin Ubwe who was facilitating outreach meetings. Martin is a pastor of a church there and is also on Team. It’s a very strong Muslim influenced area so there weren’t many visitors but there were lots of healings, which was encouraging. The major part of the ministry there was focused on boosting the local church (Martin’s church) and it was effective in doing that.

It was a great time of encouraging and strengthening our brothers and sisters in Tanzania! And the food was great!

Farming God’s Way Taught in Maputo

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Written by Alan Gardner

A wheat field

Recently a team of us visited a couple at Ricatla Seminary in Maputo (Lee and Margret) who have committed to teaching Farming God’s Way (FGW) there for the next five years. It’s a very exciting venture because they have a captive audience for three years while the students are there studying.

One of the subjects the students are learning is FGW borrowed from the South African Theological Seminary (SATS) and they are rolling it out over a number of years. Of course this year’s third year students won’t have the full teaching but they would have at least planted their own Well Watered Garden before they go back to their respective congregations.

Lee and Margret have also committed to visiting the various students in their home locations once they have graduated to encourage them with their extension into their respective communities. Plus, they are busy planting the first comparative garden which consists of nine Well Watered Gardens each with different inputs and ranging from the African Way through to God’s Way.

They were very encouraged by our visit and our interest and we got to help with the Monday and the Tuesday teaching. Looks like a good platform from which to leapfrog into the various communities, we will be watching them closely.

I’m hoping to visit them again before the end of the year.

Click here to download a free study guide from SATS for Farming God’s Way.

Uptown Karaoke Photos

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Written by Ryan Strydom

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A few weeks ago it was Karaoke time at Uptown on Friday night and it was a ton of fun. The girls were really showing up the guys in the singing department. Some of the songs sound great when you’re singing them on your own but put yourself behind a microphone and add the pressure of some competition and things change!It was a fantastic and super fun way to spend a Friday evening. Due to popular demand there will be another Karaoke time soon, but in the meantime here are some of the photos that were taken.

Uptown Sundays Going Well

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Written by Wendy Herbert

Just over a year after Uptown started in the heart of the Joburg CBD a second meeting time was started. The decision to include a Sunday morning meeting was made in order to accommodate those that are unable to get to the usual Thursday night slot.

Different meeting times allow for more people to be part of our community and continues to establish us in the heart of Braamfontein. Our Thursday night meetings remain a highlight in the life of Uptown and we’re always surprised at how lively and colourful the people are that God has brought in.

Sunday mornings have been going for a month and although they are not as full as our other meetings they have been a wonderful success. We have been grateful for the help Central has provided in getting us kitted out and training us in sound and worship.

Please keep us in your hearts as we live our dreams in the city!

Some photos and a small write-up of Uptown’s Karaoke evening this last Friday will be posted tomorrow.

The South Side Launch

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Written by Barrie Knox-Davies

 

It was a morning packed with excitement and enthusiasm as members of Cornerstone gathered at 8am sharp to set about getting the South Side venue ready for the service that was to start in two hours time.

Never was the saying “many hands make light work” more true than when referring to the venue’s heavy gym artillery – punch bags, mini trampolines and aerobics steps were all shifted and shunted around, partitions were assembled and blinds were raised to create the spaces so familiar to a Cornerstone meeting environment.

Very soon an auditorium took shape with the smell of freshly brewing coffee filling the air. Boards directing potential first timers and existing Cornerstonians were placed on all the right street corners – you wouldn’t have been able to miss the venue even if you were stumbling along the straight and narrow.

As 10am drew nearer so did many cars and people. Laughter filled the air and there was a real buzz. Pizza arrived too along with biscuits, chocolate brownies, cookies and coffee. The fellowship was thick with people easily mingling with strangers, making the most of the occasion to get to know each other.

The meeting got underway at 10:20am with praise and worship having a flavour of its own – something of Cornerstone, but songs and words adapted to suit the South, to much amusement of both the regulars and the fringe.

A prophetic word was shared calling the “valley of dry bones” to arise and mobilise into a great army. Marcus built on this word by emphasising that this work builds on that which existed before Cornerstone saw this prophetic vision, and that Columbine Road is like a river flowing down into the valley, with many different streams flowing into one – symbolic of the rising up of God’s people as one, moving towards the common goal of seeing the lost saved and preparing the Bride of Christ.

Marcus went further by calling all the people over 35 years of age to come forward – and then they prayed for all the younger generation seated / standing in the rows, saying that the older folk were there to raise up this generation to go beyond that which the older generation had achieved so far.

The meeting ended around 11:30am and with continued enthusiasm and fervour a number of people stayed behind to assist with restoring the venue to its former state – that of a gym aerobics / boxing studio.