Scripture reference: Ephesians 3:8-12 (NKJV); Ephesians 4:11-15 (NKJV); Romans 12:6-9 (NLT)
Hallelujah. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Woo! Glory to Jesus. God is good. Oh, glory, glory, glory. Well, I’ve got a presentation to give you but this spirit of praise, I feel like, you know, we’re doing church this morning. We’re doing church. It doesn’t matter what’s coming. We’re doing church this morning. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Well, before you sit down, I would like you just to welcome everybody here. Just say, “I’m glad you’re here today. Pay attention.” And you can say to somebody, you know, “If you are sensitive to strobing lights, put your glasses on.” And then you may be seated. Hallelujah.
Well, we’re on a journey to new discoveries. For a long time, the Lord has put it in our hearts to be about crossover, and we’ve been talking about crossover reset. Hey, by the way, how do you like the chairs you’re sitting in today? They feel a lot more comfortable, don’t they? Amen. Hallelujah. Well, we are in crossover, we are in reset, and we’re following the plan that God has for our lives. So, this is probably the most exciting thing that you and I can do. It’s to follow God. It’s to follow His plan for our lives. It’s to do what He wants us to do, not what we want to do. So, if you’re going to hear some new things, and I hope you do hear some new things today, I ask you to have open hearts, open minds, and be ready to let the Holy Spirit speak to you about what God has for us as a ministry.
You know, the Lord some time ago gave me this word, ‘Journey to New Discoveries’, and it’s quite interesting that Brother Jerry’s whole theme of his ministry is ‘Adventures in faith’. And so, we’re all about having adventure. Adventure is the spice of life. Don’t you think? It just adds that little bit of spark to life, adventure. I mean, sometimes we want to control everything but actually it’s the unexpected things that sometimes add the spice. So how about us being ready that God can add spice to our life, cause us to have an adventure? Amen.
I’m going to read to you Ephesians chapter 3 verse 8 to 12. 8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ. Listen to this, 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church. So, the whole intent is that the Church would reveal the wisdom of God. The Church would reveal the wisdom of God. 10…might be made known by the church, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Heavenly places. We on earth are supposed to demonstrate the wisdom of God to all beings, all creatures everywhere. Everywhere. 11 According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him (Ephesians 3:8-12 NKJV).
Because we have this mandate as a Church. Let me tell you, all of you here this morning gathered together, looking all fine, full of the joy of the Lord, you are representing the wisdom of God to all beings in the universe, to the glory of Jesus. Amen. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11, 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12 NKJV). So, God has given some people a special set of accomplishments or assignments that we have to do. That is to teach the Body of Christ, impart a spirit of Jesus to the Body of Christ so that the Body of Christ can become what it needs to become. 12 For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12 NKJV). So, the work of ministry and the work of the Body is together. It is the same, it comes from the same source. 13 Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, that is to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. In other words, there’s going to be so many different versions of Christ and of church life, and we should not be swayed by those different things that pop up from time to time that seem to be the real thing. That seem to be in vogue. We are not supposed to be swayed by those things. 14… by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ (Ephesians 4:13-15 NKJV).
I mean, Ephesians, the book of Ephesians is amazing. It talks about Jesus and His love for the Church. It talks about His relationship with the Church. It talks about what we represent to Him in the universe, and it talks about how He wants us to become what we must become. The book of Ephesians. Now when we all come together like this and we’re all participating in church life, whether you are attuned to this or not, whether you fully receive it or not, this is true. When you were born, you were not an accident. You were born into the body that you occupy because God wanted you to be born. This is a true thing. And when He put you in the body, He also gave you certain things that He could use in you. For what purpose? Just what I got talking about in Ephesians. For what purpose? So that when we bring our gifts, and we all mature each other, edify each other, we become what God wants us to become as a whole church.
Question; can we become what God wants us to become if we don’t bring what God has put in us to the Church? No, we cannot. Because number one, when we bring it, we develop. Number two, when we bring it, other people develop. Without us developing each other, we cannot become what we must become. Right?
Romans chapter 12 verse 6 says, 6 In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you (Romans 12:6 NLT). Just by the way, all of you can prophesy. When you speak the future of your life according to God’s will, you are prophesying over your life, with as much faith as you can. Amen. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. 9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good (Romans 12:7-9 NLT). Praise the Lord.
Pastor Sharon and I have been in the ministry, as pastors, for about 24/25 years. As people who are operating in their gifts, I have been doing that pretty much all my life, but we have been in church for some time. I do not think we have to talk about our past record to go into the future, do we? Hey? I mean, we are here because God has blessed us, and God has anointed all that we have done. So we are here because we have obeyed Him every step of the way. Things that God put in my heart that I’ve written down, and if you go to the website and you go to the document or the book; ‘The Witness’, you will see that everything that’s in that book has been documented for the last 20 years. What we are living in and what I’m speaking to you about today is not new. This is just some new ways in which God is going to use us. But the foundation of what we’ve done stands, will stand until Jesus comes. Praise the Lord. Because the gifts and the callings are without repentance. And so if He’s called us to do something, it’s because we can do it. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have called us. Amen. So I’m going to talk about our church assignment and some words that are going to come on the screen, and we’re going to talk about that for a few minutes.
This has not changed. Our assignment as a ministry is to promote the life of God to advance the Kingdom of God. This is what we’re all about. Promote the life of God to advance the Kingdom of God. And if anybody stops you in the street and says, “Hey, what’s your church about?” Then you can say, “Promote the life of God to advance the Kingdom of God.” Come on. Say it with me: Promote the life of God to advance the Kingdom of God. Isn’t that what Jesus actually came to do for the Father? Come and promote the life of the Father to advance the Kingdom of the Father. So this is biblical.
Our mission is to touch, teach, and train all people in the greater city of Witbank and everywhere. Hallelujah. Enjoy a positive life experience in every aspect of living through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and community. These are headlines. Everything that I’m saying here applies to all the departments of our ministry, everything that I’m saying here. If you read The Witness, you will find out that in Missions, in Bible School, in church, in Education, in everything that we do, all of these words are there. The vision is set out, there are goals to the vision, you can read them. Amen.
I want to just make a comment to you about; Touch, Teach, Train, and Transfer. And, I’ll get to that in a minute but this has a large part to do with where our ministry is going for ultimate impact.
If you don’t know this, and I would like you to memorise this, be able to say it, our main three qualities. Again, this has been written about our ministry that the Lord gave me 20 years ago. It’s been on paper like this for 20 years. Our core values are: Quality; creative, purposeful, and excellent standards that endure. Sometimes you set an excellent standard, and you don’t always have the means to achieve it but it doesn’t stop you from trusting God, and speaking out the standard that you wish to acquire. Right? I think we’re pretty much starting to see the standard emerge. Quality; excellence that endures. Not just something you can do something that’s excellent for a year or two, and then it disappears. The important thing is that it must endure. Healthy; emotional, spiritual, relational, and then later on, the Lord added this to me, physical health and productivity that promotes a positive experience. You know, I’ve grown up in church all my life, and I’ve watched many pastors, pastors’ wives, preachers’ children, I’ve watched congregation members, by their millions leave churches because they burn out. Why do they burn out? Because there’s a big vision, there’s a big goal, and it’s about numbers. “So we must measure the numbers.”
Well, when I really began to seek the Lord about it I said, “Lord, is it all about numbers? Was it all about numbers to You?” And He said, “It’s never been about numbers to Me. If I wanted numbers, I would have chosen more than 12.” So what it is all about, it is a healthy relationship. It’s a healthy life. So, even though we press for excellence and quality that endures, we cannot ignore that we need to remain emotionally healthy, relationally healthy, we need to be spiritually healthy, and while we are in this vessel, we’ve got to be physically healthy. Come on. So that is why we don’t push numbers as our main headline, we push a walk with God. Because if we do that, then we can get everything, and do everything that God needs us to do.
Stretch. If we just become comfortable in all of our emotional, spiritual, and relational comfortness, then we are also not going to be doing well. We’ve got to keep stretching. Stretch; for better ministry, stretch for a better community, and stretch for Kingdom-minded results. Do you think that we are living in these values? If you look around you, do you see these values at work? Then these values are not just something that was written 20 years ago, these values are the fabric of our life together. So we will continue to live in these values for limitless imagination. Amen.
So, the words, again this was written 20 years ago. Just me and the Lord sitting, writing, writing as it flowed in my spirit, words that define this ministry. The words are: Trust. Mutual Respect. Teamwork. Empowerment. Risk Taking. A Sense of Urgency. When the Holy Spirit moves on us to do something, we must have a sense of urgency to do that. Continuous Improvement. A Commitment. And Customer Satisfaction. Now, you might say, “Customer satisfaction? That doesn’t sound very congregational.” No. No, it’s intended not to be congregational. It’s intended for us to see everybody as somebody, that is an end product of the gift that God has put in us. So, it doesn’t help that we think we’re doing okay. The measure of what is ‘doing okay’, is what other people think. So you might think, “Hey, I’m really expressing the love of God.” If other people don’t know it, then you’re not doing it. Right? So, it’s to the satisfaction of other people. Amen.
And so on that score, ultimate impact, we’ll talk about the four areas.
Again, at that time, the Lord gave me these four pillars or these four ways that we will touch people or we will impact people’s lives. So that is: Touch friends. Teach followers. Train fanatics. And Transfer to the faithful. Also, transfer to fathers but sometimes people can be faithful but not yet be a father. But Touch friends. So if you want to know anything you just have to remind yourself about the four T’s. You have tea in the morning, tea at mid-day, tea at lunch, and tea in the afternoon. The four T’s. So every day, you can remind yourself, “My early T is to Touch God, my next T is to follow God or to be Taught by God, and the next T is to be in my Training, and the next T is to Transfer it to somebody else.
So if you’re thinking about what our ministry is all about, it’s how we do it. We Touch, we Teach, we Train, and we Transfer. That’s really what we do. Now as time has moved on, you know, it’s become clear to me that covenant is the bedrock of everything we do, and if we hold true to the values, and if we hold true to what God has called us to do, we have to make adjustments. We’ve got to change. And so this morning is about change. Are you all ready for change? Hallelujah. Change for ultimate impact.
When you walked in this morning, you would have received a little booklet, kind of. It’s just a bunch of cards. And these cards have on them major, like headings, and you will see that one of the cards is, let me see here, is ‘Explanation,’ then you’ve got ‘Serving,’ then you’ve got ‘Teaching.’ Oh, looks like this is Romans 12. So this is designed for you to find yourself here, open the card up, tear it out, fill your name in, and say, “I think this is my gift.” And then we will be able to start working with you in the ministry according to your gift. So when you leave, you should be tearing one of these cards off with your name and your contact details on it so that we can follow up with you.
Hey. I promise you, we’re not going to come and club you to death to get you involved. We’re also not going to hound you if you say, “I’m not ready yet.” or “I’ve got other things.” But this just gives us an indication of how we can access your gift and use it for the Kingdom of God. Will you guys fill at least one in? If you don’t know, fill one in and say, “I’m not certain.” And then we’ll contact you, one of the pastors will contact you and have a conversation with you about what your gift may be and how we can use it. Are you good with that, church? I mean, we’ve got to start somewhere. This is somewhere to start. Right? Everybody needs to be active in the church for the manifold wisdom to be shown to the principalities and powers and the rulers of this world. We’ve all got to be busy. If we just stay at home and do nothing, then it’s just nothing. Amen. Are you ready for it? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Now I asked my team to do a video clip for you that I think is really something special. They’ve done an amazing job. Natasha, thank you. Tishri, thank you for the sound. Matt, all the people that worked with me; Jessica, Caitlin, all of them that have worked on this project with me. Thank you. Of course, we’ve put a lot of hours into referencing materials, referencing people, doing many different things, and, I thank all of them for helping us get to this presentation today. But for the moment, enjoy the video.
[Ultimate Impact Limitless Imagination video playing]
How many people in the world do you think need Jesus? Millions and billions need Jesus. What is something that we are called to do? Touch people. So we can’t compromise the standard of the church. We can’t compromise the life of God, can we? If we compromise the life of God, what is it that people will find in us? They can’t find us the same as everybody else. They have to find us like Christ. They’ve got to find us with substance of Spirit life. So we have a mandate that Jesus gave. Remember, Jesus had 12 disciples, and very early on in the ministry, He sent 12 to go and preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out devils, and to take nothing with them and let others provide for them.
He then sent 70 out, then He sent another 120 out. Then before He left to go to heaven, they were all together, and He said, “Now go wait in Jerusalem until power comes upon you. When the power of the Holy Ghost comes upon you, you must go and preach the gospel and make disciples of all men in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of the earth.” So it means you start somewhere and then as you allow God to reveal Himself to you, you go to the next place and the next place. And so that didn’t all happen on the day of Pentecost. Some people might think that God changed the whole world on one day, on the day of Pentecost. He didn’t. He changed the lives of a 120 who immediately had 3000 people converted, and so the process began of changing the world, but it took some time.
So we are going to obey God, and we are going to touch as many people as we can touch. And through today’s presentation, I trust that you will welcome the journey that we are going to embark on, to touch as many people in the world with what God has done here, as we can. And so, we are going to have untracked church services. These untracked church services are going to be on a Sunday afternoon at 5 o’clock. We are going to practise for 3 months here in the auditorium starting the beginning of October.
And so we’re going to make sure that we have all the auditorium upgrades. If we need more air conditioning. How do you like the sound this morning, by the way? It’s quite stunning, isn’t it? We want to have better sound, we want to have better lighting, and we want to do things in the next 3 months that are going to make sure that we have an auditorium that can and will touch the world.
We’re also going to have foyer upgrades, and our intention is, the Heritage of Faith Hall that’s next to the foyer, we’re going to break the wall out and make it one very large room. And we’re going to upgrade the kitchen at the back there so that we can facilitate a lot more people coming into the ministry.
We’re going to upgrade our multimedia capability, and we’re going to have the best. I think we already have, but we’re going to continue to do Sound and Song. And if we’ve got to sing songs that everybody else in the world knows so that they can feel comfortable coming to the church, we will do that at 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Why 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon? Well, because Sunday mornings, this is going to continue to be Believers Meetings. We’re going to have the Holy Spirit continue to flow in our meetings. We’re going to allow the gifts of the Holy Spirit to flow. We can speak in tongues as much as we want. We can do whatever we want as disciples, but according to Kenneth Hagin, we need to have Evangelistic Meetings, not just Believers Meetings. And so we are going to have Sunday afternoon services at 5 o’clock, they are going to be Evangelistic Meetings. Praise the Lord. And we are going to do this for ultimate impact.
So part of what we have to do is we have to upgrade our Heritage Community Centre for many different reasons, part of which is that if people come here on a Sunday afternoon and they bring their kids, and they bring families here, we need to be able to incorporate them, bring them, make them feel comfortable. So the house across the road, it’s been a long journey but we have bought the house across the road, and we think we’ll be able to start upgrading it and making sure that all of it comes together, and is what it needs to be within the next month. And all the stuff that has happened, all the legal things, will be done and dusted, and we can then go in and make it be what it needs to be. So we will upgrade that so that we can start marketing or making it known to the rest of Witbank, and the rest of the world that they can join us at 5 o’clock. Can you also tell me what time zone America is in if we start at 5 o’clock? It’s everything from 12 o’clock to 9 o’clock in the morning in America. Huh. I wonder if that’s a surprise to God? Well, maybe not. You’ll see later. Praise the Lord.
So we are not only going to upgrade the Community Centre for Sunday events, we’re going to upgrade the Community Centre because we need to have a place where our children can grow up in the ways of God, not the ways of the world. That they can be educated with their parents, and they can be educated together so that we have a group of kids, a group of people that are solid powerful citizens on the earth, in the Kingdom of God. Amen.
I just had it in my heart because I saw the BELA signing announcement this week on Friday, and we will advise you as a church what that means, and we’ll have a special meeting in weeks to come. We’ll have a special meeting where we can advise you on what the BELA Bill signing means to us and to everybody else because it has a big impact on children everywhere in South Africa. Amen. How many of you know God’s on time with this? He’s not behind time. We are on time with this. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. We serve a living God, a dynamic God, Who’s always interested in what’s going on here. Glory. And in everything we do, we need to have limitless imagination.
So, we have always been a Missions-minded ministry. One of the 3 legal entities that God had me start and register in the year 2000 was the 3 entities of Church, Missions, and Education. And so we are going to put our focus on Global Missions, not just Cross-border Missions. One of the big changes we’re going to do, is we’re going to have a high priority on a mission field that God has given us. The mission field is the United States of America. And so many people think, well, “America doesn’t need missionaries.” America is the place that sends missionaries. Well, if America was so good at doing things, then it wouldn’t have been in such a mess. And if you don’t know what a mess America is in, then you’ve been sleeping. I’ll tell you, there are representatives from the European Union and that community, United Nations, that have sent representatives to America to help Donald Trump get elected. Because their whole thing is, ‘As America goes, so does Europe, and then the rest of the world goes.’ And if you don’t think that abortion rights have not been exported to the world from America, then you’re again, you’re asleep. If you don’t think that all of the sexual depravity, and all of the fantasies, and all of the loose morality of the earth hasn’t been exported from America, again, you need to wake up.
So, you know what we have here? I’ve pinged some of the young people here. What we have here is not easily found in America. We have a true Ecclesia here. So what is it that we will take to America? Ecclesia. The power of God. The life of God. So I don’t want you to think that when I go to America anymore, I am going, and I have no reason to go and to serve Brother Jerry. But isn’t it amazing that I did serve him all these years and now God is saying, “Let’s go and serve America in a different way.” Of course, we will have Africa Cross-border Missions and they will continue and I’ll talk more about what we have in mind for that. Because we want to start a School of Missions that we can have here in South Africa but also in the United States of America, a School of Missions.
Remember, we have a 24 month goal, 48, 72 months, and then a 10 year goal in increments of 24 months. It’s 5 cycles of 24 months for the next 10 years. So we’re going to insert a sense of urgency about what we’re going to be doing here, so that we can get this done for us and our children’s children. Amen. So that we can have ultimate impact.
Instead of having Cross-border Missions once a year, and we are going to revive Cross-border Missions but we are going to focus more intensely on local outreaches. We will use some of the vehicles that God has already given us; Chariots of Light, Slipstream, as a conditioning community set of activities. We will use those things to involve ourselves in community projects. So, we have done this before. Chariots of Light, for example, has gone to an orphanage, and we’ve taken both goodies to play with but also eating stuff and practical things that an orphanage might use. We have done that with Chariots of Light where we’ve gone there to minister and bless orphanages in the greater city of Emalahleni. So, we already have Spring Valley as a mission field. In Spring Valley, we feed about 70 people 3 times a week in Spring Valley. We have a community centre where the kids can go and play safely. We’ve got different things that go on there that we have built for them. We’ve turned our church hall into a place where kids can come, and learn, and have schooling.
So, we are going to do much more of that as local outreaches. Why? Well, because as people come in from the outside and they come on Sunday nights and they find out, “Hey, this is a wonderful church here.” Then they’re going to say, “Well, what do I need to do next?” We don’t want just them to keep coming to church as the next thing. We want them to get active and touch the world as the next thing because then as they’re doing they’ll get taught. And then as they’re taught, they’re going to get trained. And when they get trained then transfer happens. Right? Hallelujah.
So we will have education and training as a bedrock of what we do, and we will have crusades not in the sense of going in, and having a soccer stadium or something like that but we will have crusades that we will go into various places, in partnership with other ministries. Our Heritage of Faith Bible Institute partners that we’ve had for many years, we will work with them in the communities that they are functioning in, and we will be more active in local outreaches. Praise the Lord. What do you say, church? You’re ready to get busy? Amen. Because we want to have ultimate impact.
Of course, this is something that has already touched you. It’s already well implemented in our ministry; iXchange Life Internship. This is an important component of what we need to do and keep doing in the ministry. So we are accessing MiXchange Business, and I’ll talk a little bit about that. MiXchange Business is, and I’m grateful that we have a partner in the ministry who’s made an office building available to us, Light Industry Commercial. And that should be up and running within the month as a fully kitted out place where we can develop business in the church in the iXchange community. So, if you’ve got a business acumen or a desire to do business and you’re not called to the ministry, we are going to expand our capability to leverage the gifts in iXchange and let them thrive in business.
It’s already happening like that, for example, we have different businesses in the ministry that have already contacted us on different projects that they’re doing or needs, and requirements that they have for administration or for some technical capabilities. So some young men that are that way oriented have gone and helped some of the business people in the community to install projects. We’ve had business people that have required administration resources, leveraged our young people to go and help them for short term projects, and we trust that this is going to take off and do better. Hallelujah.
iXchange Life Internship is going to focus a lot more on the business component of it. Also, we have a strong 25 year registered Heritage Foundation that is a non-profit company. It’s a public benefits organisation which allows any individual and business to donate money to the foundation and have a hundred percent tax refund. So instead of giving money to the tax man, you can give it to the foundation. And the foundation will support the MiXchange Business Hub Incubation Centre, amongst other things to be able to help young people and people, everybody in the ministry. If you want to develop your business stuff, we’re going to do that with you and for you. Bear in mind, whatever we do here, we’re going to have a greater touch component everywhere in the world. This is just the starting point. God has always known what He’s doing with us. It’s a starting point. So we need to do community upskilling and you know, some people with hospitality can be involved to host young people that need to be here. That’s already happening in the ministry. But young people that need to be here. Lots of skills get activated. Right? Because we have limitless imagination.
Many of you have been to the farm and have seen pictures and videos of the farm. Well, I, after so much searching in my heart about it, I believe the Lord wants us to have the farm. If for some reason there is a way that this one farm that we have in mind doesn’t come into our hands, for whatever reason, God will have another answer for us. But I don’t believe that we need to take our faith off the pedal to believe God for the farm because it will allow us to grow veggies for us. “Well, Pastor John, why do you want to have a farm to grow veggies?” Well, if you know that so many of your sicknesses and diseases can be healed by eating healthy food, not Woolworths food. Yes, I said it. Actually, most of that stuff is picked before it’s ripe, it’s heavily chemicaled. There’s lots of chemicals on it, and by the time you eat it, most of the nutrition has gone from it, but you’re buying very good looking food. What we need is healthy food, not good looking food. Amen.
You know what we want you to eat? We want you to eat the food that the worms like and the flies like. You know, not the food that flies and worms don’t want to eat because they’ve got to try and munch through the chemicals, and die in the process. And then we must eat that food, and then what happens to us? We also die in the process. So, I mean, it might sound like a little thing but wouldn’t it be amazing if there are people amongst us with green fingers, people that love the earth, love to do stuff, and they can get out there and grow our veggies. And you can buy veggies from MiXchange Business, and you can eat the healthy stuff that you need to eat so that your body can be what it needs to be. Come on, church. Hallelujah.
Of course, that’ll allow us to do skills development in many different ways on many different levels. Then the farm can be our missions development campus where people can come from around the world onto the campus, get trained to be missionaries, go Cross-border Missions into Africa, and go back to whichever country they come from, activated and inspired as missionaries. Amen. It’ll allow us to have camp meetings and, of course, employment opportunities because if we combine limitless imagination and ultimate impact we go somewhere.
You might have thought I’ve practised this presentation before. So we will focus, as a strong component of our ministry, always to live in health. Slipstream is a vehicle for that. Health Xchange. I just want to tell you a little bit about Health Xchange. Hein and Jeanine are heading that up. It’s part of what their gift is. They’ve started an E-commerce website, and they will be making, from the MiXchange Hub, they will be making very good and healthy products available for you to buy through the E-commerce online trading that you can do with them, buying. And, we are starting this venture out so that we can have better products for better health amongst our people. Hallelujah.
And of course, if you come here on a Tuesday afternoon and a Thursday afternoon, there are some people here that are training us in functional fitness. Most Tuesdays and Thursdays when I leave here I can hardly walk. And it’s not just me, it’s the young people too. And often they come here on a Wednesday morning and they’re [Pastor John demonstrates being stiff from physical exercise] and then I see them sit down and when they sit down, they go [Pastor John demonstrates someone sitting down with stiff legs], when they get up [Pastor John demonstrates someone standing up with stiff legs]. You know because we train hard because we want to remain fit and strong. Because how can we have limitless imagination if we’re not healthy?
And this is an area where we are going to have some significant changes because we are going to move from live Bible School training to facilitated Bible School training, and facilitated online training. So, this is my last slide. I’m going to just tell you a little bit about this. If people come to church, and I’m going to just incorporate the whole ministry. People come to church on a Sunday afternoon, they get switched on to God. How are we going to preach to them? If I teach them, you know; ‘The devil wants to come and eat your lunch.’ And someone starts screaming in the church, and I’ve got to cast out devils and demons and everything like that, you know, they might not come back next week. But I do want to teach them something that will begin to activate their spirit. For example, if I start teaching them, and others that God is going to use to teach this stuff. It’s not just going to be me, it’s going to be the other gifts that God has raised up in the church. I want to teach all of you, for example; ‘How to have godly conversations or meaningful conversations.’ ‘How do I talk to my wife?’ ‘How do I talk to my friends?’ ‘How do I just talk to people in life?’ You know, if you go into a business setting and there’s a whole lot of people that are swearing and a whole lot of people that are talking trash and running people down; ‘How do I talk to them?’ ‘How do I identify or not identify?’ ‘How do I relate to them while they’re talking that kind of language?’
So for example, one of the topics we’ll do on a Sunday afternoon is; ‘Have proper meaningful conversations with people who don’t care what you believe.’ Come on. So, if you’re having conversations with other Christians, how do you make sure that your conversations are orderly, they are healthy and holy, but they also don’t make you seem like, holier than thou. Right?
So on a Sunday afternoon, if we talk about conversations, if we talk about leadership, we talk about business, we talk about things that are important to people out there, I’m sure you’re going to want to hear it. Don’t you? And I’m sure that you would want to invite friends to that kind of meeting because it’s going to last an hour and 15 minutes. Hallelujah. And then we’ll be done. And by the way, this can be an outreach to the whole world.
But so we have to make space, and as I’ve mentioned, we’re going to upgrade our room at the back there. So we have to make space and so one of the things that we’ve realised since COVID, is that we have a lot of Bible School campuses that have been with us for 20 years doing Bible School. Unfortunately, most of them are unable to continue to pay their tuition fees and to do all the things they need to do. It seems that there are individual students that want to continue, but not necessarily because the campus is unable to hold the substance of what we stand for as a ministry and as a Bible School. So we are transitioning from that onto a more online, more facilitated like we do the 3rd year, a more facilitated form of Bible School training. We will start doing things like podcasts and different teaching and training environments and subjects so that we can start to do everything that’s not just about our local ministry, but it has a global impact. We are preparing. If some of you were here 3/4 years ago, I forget when we built the stage. If you remember, I was using a language 4 years ago that said, “We need to have a platform that is a worthy platform for the message that God wants to bring to the world.” So that platform is not just this platform, it’s not just this stage. That platform is the whole ministry and all of the areas that we are involved with. Amen.
So, we have prepared a meal for you today. There are different booths at the back there and in the foyer that you can stay and enjoy some food and enjoy some fellowship and talk about this presentation today. Amen. Because we are set for ultimate impact and limitless imagination.
Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I pray and I trust that today, you see everything that God has for us. That you will be fully, completely engaged in the future of what God has for us and the platform that He’s given us. And I trust that everything that you’ve seen, you can go back to YouTube, and you can watch this presentation over and over again.
I trust that you will do that so that you receive it fully in your heart. Message Moments this afternoon, we will, depending on how the Lord leads Pastor Sharon, she may open it up to have some comments from you all about what you’ve seen today. Otherwise, if you don’t have anything to say, she’s going to teach again. Some of the most impactful teaching that allows you to have limitless imaginations on things that God has for us.
Do you understand that I put the scripture up there, Ephesians, that says, “That our God is able to do abundantly more than we can ask or think?” That is the imagination that God has placed in us that when we are connected to Him, that we can live in His imaginations, which are limitless. We live in His imaginations. We don’t use our own imagination. He gave us an imagination that His imagination can be in us. You understand, of course, that when God made Adam and Eve, and He said to Adam and Eve, “Name all the animals.” He didn’t have them physically formed and had Adam and Eve just give them a name so that the dictionary could be full of names.
You understand that when He, God gave His creative power into Adam and Eve and He said, “To have dominion over the earth,” and He had them name the animals, it was out of the imagination of God that was in the imagination of Adam that these creatures were birthed. He called them into being by Him creating them with the power of God, he had dominion over them. Hallelujah. Because the creature can never be greater than the Creator. Amen. So my time in front of you today is done. I trust you enjoyed the presentation. Didn’t the team do a great work today of helping me put the presentation together? Amen. Praise the Lord.
So, today is a day that is a marker day for us and I just want to declare over you that you will receive everything that the Lord has given to us as a ministry. You will receive it, you will incubate it, you will allow Him to speak to you. Don’t forget about your cards. Put your skills on there so that the Holy Spirit can reveal to you how you can work on the gift that God has given you, how you can work.
I pray and I trust that you will be fully activated in your gifts so that not only can He bless you as you give your gifts, but you can be a blessing as you bring your gifts. Did you get that? Not only will He bless you because you give your gifts but He will bless you because you bring your gifts. Hallelujah.
Your blessing is directly connected to you bringing your gift to the Church. The Church is directly required for you to be released into your gift. There is no corporation out there, there is no sporting body, there is no entertainment body, there is no arts and performance related organisation out there, there is no anything out there that can release your gifts the way the Church can release your gifts. God ordained it that way in the Bible. He didn’t say, “Take your gifts to the world and when they see what your gifts are and you give it to them that then you will be able to bring it to the Church.” No. The Church is a requirement for your gifts to be released, then you will know how to take it to the world because then God blesses it. That’s very different to the way most people think about it. But this is the way that God ordained it. Amen.
So, I pray that the food is blessed to your body, that when you eat it, it will be healthy and if I could cast the calories out of it, I would. But, there are some very nice things there. Very good food that our team, together with Lorraine who supervised it, thank you, Lorraine, and thank you to the team that is going to serve you and has made it. I pray that it will do your body good and the fellowship around food will be sweet. And all of you said? Amen. Thank you for coming to church, everybody. God bless you.
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