New Year Challenge

Ready or not, 2009 is practically here! Interesting how as soon as you leave high school, time begins to really fly! I like this quote by Charles Lamb, ‘every New Year’s day is everyone’s birthday’. I guess he meant we all have a chance to change; to leave the old behind and start with a clean slate. To cut off from old toxic ways and to make new life-giving decisions. Thank God for the New Year!

It’s in that spirit that I’d like to invite you to join me in my New Year’s resolution. To read through the New Testament in the first three months of the year! I’ve done this before and was really blessed by the practice.

The daily readings will be anywhere from 3-6 chapters and should take around 15-20 minutes. So there’s definitely a time requirement. The plan is spread over 5 days of each week though, so there are two days to ‘catch up’ in case you fell behind somewhere! My plan is to read the daily section each morning during my Quiet Time and then meditate on/pray about the one thought that stood out while I read.

So… I’d like to invite you to join me! If you’re interested, please download the reading plan from here. It’s in pdf format so you might need to download a pdf reader if you don’t already have one. And if you're willing to take the challenge with me, I'd greatly appreciate your letting me know. Please leave a comment on this post!

Happy New Year!

Reflections of A Couch Potato

This has been a great year. And as it comes to an end, I have much to be grateful for. God has been gracious to me and 2008 will certainly go down as one of the most memorable years in my life so far!

Met a friend from the Coast who’s here on vacation; its funny how in Dec, Coastarians come to Nairobi for holiday, because the Coast is so hot and crowded - on account of all the Nairobians being down there! Am glad we got out before the crowds descended. This week I’m taking it easy at home with the family, sleeping in, and learning how to be a couch potato. I enjoyed watching the Village Christmas concert on different TV stations. If you missed it, you can still catch it on Wednesday 31^st (KBC after 6pm).

Speaking of TV, our daughter church Mavuno Downtown (MDT) also got some great press on the KTN news this last Sunday, as well as a fabulous article in the Daily Nation.

I am grateful to God for the wonderful family, friends and congregation He has blessed me and my family with. Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a memorable Christmas and a purposeful and prosperous 2009. Thank you for the part that you have played in our lives!

Village Christmas

This Saturday at the Mavuno Dome, don't miss Mavuno's annual Christmas concert. Doors open at 5pm and show begins 5.30. Please come and bring all your friends. I suspect you'll be glad you did!

Oh and tonight (Thu 18th), Atemi's concert at the Carnivore begins at 7pm. Hope to see you there...

Christmas Controversies

2000 years ago was born a man who arguably became the most controversial figure in history. He was controversial while he lived and remains so to date. I bet you this month as we remember his birth that there’ll be the usual news articles giving some brand new ‘evidence’ that that he was married to Mary Magdalene or that some church or political leaders made the whole thing up!

The message of Christmas is not conventional. Not quite what I’d make up if I was trying to get people to believe a yarn I made up. A girl who claims to be a virgin becomes pregnant. The baby she’s carrying is apparently God’s son, the True King. This is not just blasphemous to the spiritual leaders but treasonous to the political class. He is born to a poor family and grows up in a small town. He later receives a death sentence and is executed for being a public enemy. But not before causing quite an upheaval!

I sometimes wonder whether Jesus stirred up some of the controversy on purpose. Apart from healing sick people at inappropriate times, he often ruffled religious sensibilities by claiming to forgive sins. He attended parties so much he was referred to by the religious elite as a glutton, and he hang out with all the politically incorrect people. It drove his critics mad to no end that call girls and corrupt government officials liked being around him.

I believe though that there was good reason why he deliberately went against the grain. Sometimes we church-folk get so comfortable about religion we need to be shaken up. We forget to ask the real questions. We focus on non-issues. Why they sing certain songs or why the sermon was a certain length and why that guy was wearing dreadlocks in church and how dare that girl wear a tight dress.

Meanwhile, the good news remains un-preached to the poor, captives remain un-released, the spiritual blind remain blind and the downtrodden in society remain oppressed (see Jesus’ controversial mission statement in Luke 4:18. His life was completely other-centered!)

Has the church that seeks to represent Him become so predictable and uncontroversial that we’re in danger of becoming completely irrelevant to this generation? Are there some controversies that we need to start to deliberately engage in? Not merely for controversies sake but in order to get us out of our comfort zones into focusing on what’s really important?

I wonder….

December...

Had a great weekend. It’s always good to come back to Mavuno and Pst Esther Obasike did a great job with a message about Christmas and forgiveness. Then on Sunday evening, we attended the concert of the year, as Kanjii launched his new album ‘Stories’. It was a phenomenal event that set a new standard for concert excellence. We were tishwad by the sound, lights, video displays, and the ambience. And of course the great music that addressed the themes of everyday life ~ love, marriage, money, politics, paying taxes etc. Thanks Kanjii & crew for creating wholesome entertainment for our generation that isn’t lewd, suggestive or X-rated.

Speaking of great entertainment, I can’t wait for Aaron’s concert tomorrow evening at Simba Saloon as well as our Village Christmas concert on the 19^th & 20^th at the Dome. Please come and bring a friend.

I love December!

This morning, I met with a group of men at 5am in a men’s-only prayer event called Gideon’s Torch. This spartan, no-frills, weekly event held at the Mavuno Dome is a great time to connect with other men and to pray together as well as get prayed over. Last one for 2008 takes place next Wednesday and if you’re reading this and you’re a man, consider yourself invited.

The Night The Heaven’s Smiled

So… I completely missed it because I was in Mombasa and apparently the sky here is completely different. But last night, residents of Nairobi were treated to a rare sight; Jupiter and Venus aligned themselves above the moon’s crescent to form a heavenly smiley face. I saw the pictures - amazing! Though I don’t subscribe to horoscopes, I have several guesses as to what the omens signified. It probably had something to do with our government intervening (finally) to keeping maize meal prices affordable. Or maybe it was about fuel pump prices finally beginning to inch lower! Wow… talk about good news to all mankind (at least of the Kenyan variety!) Now imagine what would happen if our MP’s finally did the right thing and paid their taxes. And not in 2012!

Okay… time to end the daydream. Apart from the heat (34C and about 1000% humidity), Mombasa is quite the place to be. It seems everybody is heading this way; traffic’s picking up, prices rising ~ it’s the annual high season. Lots of reasons to smile for local business as guests pour in from all over.

Our days here are sort of predictable. We wake up around 8am (would sleep in much longer if we didn’t have kids), have a leisurely breakfast, read newspapers and generally relax as the kids play or watch a movie. Oops… before you know it, it’s already lunchtime! After lunch, we pile into the car and go swimming at Mombasa Beach Hotel. The kids stay in water for as long as we’ll let them. Today we got to hang out at Mama Ngina Drive afterwards and drank madafu (coconut juice drank with a straw straight from the coconut) and cassava crisps (drenched in lemon juice and chili). Definitely a must-do if you’re in Mombasa. Mmmh… there’s quite a lot you can do/eat here that actually doesn’t cost that much.

All too soon, its home time. 8.30pm and the city looks like it’s just waking up. Only in Mombasa. The kids are already asking ‘Do we have to go home?’ ‘Ever?’ ‘Can’t we just live here?’

Sigh… maybe we can hold on to that daydream for a few more days…