Instead of having our usual Wednesday evening, our Community Group met at Rainbow House, a home for up to 12 abandoned children in Goodwood. Afterward, one of our members remarked, “I think we got more out of it than the kids!!”

Our group loved the experience and have decided to make Rainbow House a regular once a term visit. We are reminded of how much love we experienced as children from our parents and want to be able to help these children experience some of that love.

Way to go Southpoint, you ROCK!

John

John and Becky got the opportunity to talk a bit about MarriedLife Live recently on CCFM. They also get to share some insights about why every marriage deserves more…

Click below to listen to that interview..
Download audio file (CCFM_MLL_Interview.mp3)

If you have not got your tickets yet or you’re still thinking about getting your tickets, then go here to get them now! You don’t want to miss out!

Oh and did we mention that this event comes with some great coffee AND desert!

Handling money and giving (Tithing) is a matter of:

1. FAITH – God doesn’t need your money. He owns everything. But we give first because it takes faith to give first and God wants us to trust Him. He tells us in Proverbs 3:9-10
   “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops and then your barns will be filled with overflowing.” We give first and the blessings of God follow. Click here for a story of how this principle has radically changed someone in our church’s life by learning to give first.
2. HEART – God doesn’t want your money, but He does want your heart, and the Bible tells us that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. When you are not giving, your heart is not in what God is doing and that makes us sad and it will make you sad too.

So with this in mind we wanted to give an opportunity for everyone at Southpoint to begin tithing – so on Wednesday night at Overdrive, our vision night, we launched the 90 Day Tithe Challenge and this is how it works:

1. Make the commitment to give 10% of your income to Southpoint Church for 90 days. You may do so online, by envelope available at Guest Services table, or by cheque.
2. Fill out & sign the card – available for download here or at the Guest Services table on Sunday morning.
3. Turn in the card with your first contribution in the offering buckets.
4. Reference your tithe with a ‘90′ before your surname so we can track it effectively e.g. ‘90Smith’.

We commit to you that if you tithe for 90 days and God doesn’t hold true to His promises of blessings, we will refund 100% of your tithe. No questions asked. Our mission as a church is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Part of growing is learning to trust Him with our finances; thus the 90 Day Tithe Challenge.

If you are currently giving less than 10% – continue giving your regular amount with your regular reference. But we challenge you to complete the card and tithe the remaining percentage separately with the ‘90′ reference so that we can track these extra monies.

‘I am the Lord All-Powerful, and I challenge you to put me to the test. Bring the entire ten percent into the storehouse, so there will be food in my house. Then I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with blessing after blessing.’ Malachi 3:10

As I look back on 2009, I am amazed at the road God has brought us down. Many people gave generously to Mountain Move and we were able to create some really great and comfortable environments where MORE people were able to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. Our numbers show about a 60% growth in Waumba Land, 30% growth in UpStreet, 200% growth in Inside Out since it began and a 10% growth in Adult worship attendees. We also added 11% to our community groups and have about a 30% increase in the number of giving units.

This is phenomenal growth and stands us in great stead for the Open Road in 2010.

The promise the Lord gave us from Isaiah 54:2 is still front and centre ( 2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”).

The leadership is unanimous in its decision to hire Mutualpark for another year and we feel that we are now hitting the OPEN ROAD and will gather momentum. (Isaiah 57: 14 Someone says: “Build, build! Make a road! Clear the way, remove the rocks from the road my people will travel.”)

The “BOAT LOAD” of fish is coming!

John Hastings

A video showing some of the environments that Southpoint caters for

And if they are unable to make it, or you can’t (like maybe you are in Chile for a gap year) there there is an awesome online service at lifechurch.tv

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcryPN2i7_Y&feature=player_embedded]

You may have wondering what it happening with regard to the Church’s name change, why it is necessary and possibly why has is suddenly become necessary?

We did go through a process of accepting suggestions and many were received. But maybe the question of “why?” was not answered adequately.  Here are the main reasons why we as a church are going to be renaming ourselves:

1. IDENTITY We are a new church (as defined by Vision and Values). We get people coming to our church, thinking we are still like the old Stellenberg Chapel and they leave after one week. WHY? We are not anything like Stellenberg Chapel.
2. We have MOVED in location. Most North Point partners and churches we consider our mentors, have a simple location oriented name (e.g North Point is a place, Buckhead is a place, Stellenberg Rd is a place, we are no longer there!) Mutual is temporary so we wont be called Mutual church. Stellenberg is better known in CT as a northern suburb and there is a huge church (7000 people) there – we have the same name, although there’s is usually referred to in Afrikaans it still is confusing to people and will become more confusing as we grow bigger and our influence extends to other parts of the city.
3. INFLUENCE: We have moved in area of influence, we attract many from outside Pinelands and we want this to be so. We want our name to suggest a wider influence than Pinelands. We see ourselves as a city church and not a suburb church.
4. INTERPRETATION: We don’t want a name that is open to interpretation – like Vision Church or Vibrant Life church – as people will interpret the name to mean something; sometimes good sometimes bad
5. COMPLICATION: We will avoid difficult names. Names taken from Hebrew or other languages might be cool to seminary grads and artistic types but if it’s hard to understand or pronounce people may feel stupid trying to say it.
6. LEADERSHIP NOT DEMOCRACY. We are not going to go with public opinion, although we sought ideas from the public. But we have decided to ask the opinion of some of our major stake-holders who hold leadership roles and are devoted volunteers.
7. ASSOCIATION: We are unashamedly a North Point partner and where we are today has a huge part to do with their influence, so we will be promoting this but North point or South Point or any Point including No Point will probably not be in the name.

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvissa/

Dear Mr Pastor

Hey there Mr Pastor, I heard you were writing letters this week, and hey I heard they were to the President, but I never get taken out of this room so I don’t know who that person is but I do know you, and you stand up in front of me every Sunday and you speak like you know it all, so I figure your probably the guy I should send my letter to! Can I tell you a little bit of my story?

My week goes something like this:

• On Monday someone sat on me and they learn about how to make better investments.
• On Tuesday it was someone who learned about how to get along better with his workmates.
• Wednesday was executive day and this guy squirmed like crazy because the company shares were hitting rock bottom.
• Thursday was a free day.
• Friday was another businessman learning how to improve his sales.

So you can see it’s a pretty busy week.

On Saturday there might be a wedding or conference or something, but my brothers and I always chat excitedly about the next day because SUNDAY is our best day by far!

On SUNDAY we wake up really early – a bunch of very excited people come and pick me up and set me out in a nice neat row. It’s by far the most fun day, because they have really great music and what’s really cool is I get to listen to two practices before they start and then twice again after that.

Then they get these really cool videos they show before the band cranks up, and …then this guy speaks:

• Sometimes he’s a little boring and the person in my seat falls asleep.
• Sometimes the person squirms like crazy cos he talks about money.
• Sometimes they cry because the person suddenly hears that God loves them and from what you say they realize God knows them and cares for them.
• Sometimes they are happy because they find answers to their marriage, or their relationships or their finances or their business.
• Sometimes they are really quiet and still because God is speaking to them.

Every week you talk about the forgiveness of sins and receiving eternal life, and every week I so hope that the someone who sits in me will pray to receive these incredible gifts of infinite value, but as of right now I have only heard some of my brothers talk about it.

In comparison to that all the other stuff that happens here is really insignificant, and I would be so thrilled if just once someone who sits in me receives eternal life.

After a Sunday my brothers and I are stacked up again and we speak excitedly about what happened in your service but one Sunday night we were really glad and then we were very sad.

We were glad because we heard that about the 1.1, oh  it might be 1.2 soon …yeah millions of rands your people gave so that you could create a really irresistible environment for people and kids to visit. We were totally honoured to think that you guys were wiling to pay so much for us, but when you speak about eternal life and what you are offering we understand completely why you would pay that much!

But what we don’t understand is why a huge number of us were unused that week and that makes us really sad.

We really hope that this will change because we really like it when people use us and pay for us, but more importantly we know also that if no-one sits on us then they missing the chance to have their life changed forever.

We love Sundays, the music, the happy volunteers, the videos and the message;  so please tell the people to bring some friends next week.

Signed
The Unfilled Chair

[Photo Credit: jhonnyt]

We are about Life Change; the change that needs to take place in a person’s life that brings them into a ever closer relationship with Jesus Christ.  This is illustrated in our vision

• Intimacy with God
• Community with insiders
• Influence with outsiders

Investing in someone does not mean evangelizing them so that they are saved before being invited to Church, it means winning their trust and the right to invite them. This provides the platform for people to find Christ and grow in their Intimacy with God, and has the added benefit that they will begin that growth with a strong step towards Community with insiders because of your investment.

Currently at the new venue we are in a great position to  cater for many new people because of the empty seats as well as the wonderful services now available (more space to the Children Ministries, classy bathroom facilities, parking and air conditioning)

Together with the Church you can work towards playing a huge role in bring your friend, neighbour or family member to Christ. Invite them to the awesome, dynamic and irrisistable environments and God will do the rest.