The PASSION Blog

A little while ago I wrote an article in response to a question someone I know asked me. It was, “What do I do when God doesn’t heal me?” The article seemed to offer some comfort so I put it on this website as I thought it might help others too. Looking at the stats shows it has been very popular and has been viewed thousands of times.

Recently it had a spike in visits again. I am not sure why, but I thought I would highlight it again for those who might not have seen it. It you are suffering and healing has not come, I hope it helps in some way.

You can view it here http://www.passionaustralia.org/whenGoddoesntheal.html

I am currently going through and reviewing the articles and other pages on our PASSION website. I felt it was time to update some of the pages and cull some of the older articles. One of the pages I have had a look at was our evangelism tips page. It lists our top five tips that have helped us in sharing our faith. I thought I pass it on as it might give you some suggestions that would help you in your efforts. Here’s the link to our “evangelism tips” page.

Every week or so I have a look at the statistics for visitors to the PASSION website. I do this to see how many people are visiting, what country they come from and what they are looking at.

Recently I have noticed that a lot of people are looking at two articles I wrote in the last couple of months. One is titled, “Being a true disciple of Christ” and the other is “Living the new life in Christ“. Most people seemed to have found these articles by searching Goolge.com and typing in things like “How do I really follow Jesus?” or “What is a real disciple of Jesus?”

Seeing that people are searching these terms is really encouraging for me. It shows that people are really serious about following Jesus and they are wanting to find out how to do it “better”. It also encourages me that people are surfing into this website to find some of the answers.

Now stats are not the be all and end all of seeing if you are effective in your ministry. However, they do give you a good idea of what people are looking for and how they get to your site.

Just for interest sake our other top pages are “The PASSION Blog”, our “Peace with God” page and our “Palm Downloads page”.

I have added a new link to my links page today. It is a link to a discipleship booklet on Billy Graham’s website. It is titled, “Thirty Discipleship Exercises”.

It is aimed at giving new Christians a solid foundation to build their new faith on. It would also useful for anyone wanting to understand more about the Christian faith and living the Christian life.

Here is some information from Billy Graham’s website…

“Subtitled The Pathway to Christian Maturity, Thirty Discipleship Exercises is a study featuring 30 different topics with six Bible verses for each lesson. Topics include salvation, prayer, the Holy Spirit, discipleship, the Church, God’s forgiveness, discipline, love, humility, honesty, and 20 others.

Thirty Discipleship Exercises can be used for personal devotions, one-on-one discipling of a friend, or for small group discussions. There are instructions for how to use this material in each context, including instructions on organizing a small group and tips for small group leaders”.

The booklet is available for free in Adobe PDF on Billy Graham’s website or there are options to buy the printed copy. Here’s the link http://www.billygraham.org/SH_ThirtyDiscipleshipExercises.asp

As Sunday is a day where many people stop, relax and meditate on God, I have included the links to some of the major church denominations on our links page.

I only started attending church in my early 20s after never really being a church goer. Over the years I have found a number of blessings from attending church.

• A place to receive positive input and encouragement
• A place to find a support network for times of need
• A place to learn about God, the Bible and my faith
• A place to serve God and the local community
• A place to find friends
• A place to pray and be prayed for
• A place to worship God
• A place to where I found the purpose for my life

If you would like to access the links to the various church groups in Australia, you can click here

Hello all,
I wrote another short message today. It is titled, “Lessons from David in Temple Building”. It is a bit long for my blog as a post so it is on my main website.

Link to message in html

God Bless,
Dave

I’ve been thinking a lot about organisation and structure lately. Structure scares some people and they feel constrained by it. While it makes others feel free as they know their boundaries.

One passage that talks about organisation I found in my Bible reading was in Acts chapter six. This is where they chose the seven people to distribute the food. The Apostles found they needed to devote more time to prayer and preaching and couldn’t keep up with the workload of the growing church. Hence the first Deacons were chosen

An interesting point from this is they didn’t just chose anyone to do this job. They wanted the right people that were made of the right stuff. The wanted people who were full of the Holy Spirit, above reproach from the people and displayed God’s wisdom. I think part of it was that they wanted helpers who the people were comfortable with, but they also wanted the structure in place to ensure the work was taken care of fairly.

As a Ministry leader it is good to know you have reliable people in your team who can take care of “business”. This helps you feel released to concentrate on the things you have to do. Organisation can frustrate and make some feel trapped, but it also has the power to release and free up when it is done correctly.

I think the key is to have structure and organisation in place, but to have the freedom and openess to the Holy Spirit to make adjustments as He leads us.