Here is a little more info from the MarriedLife website which, if you haven’t yet, should check out sometime..

MarriedLife Live is an event created for couples to encourage and empower their marriages. The two-hour program includes music, creative programming, and a relevant message. Each event is centered on one of our six MarriedLife Essentials:

Trust God – I need to let God have control of my life.

Hurry Home – I will make our time together a priority.

Cultivate Communication – I should understand before I can expect to be understood.

Nurture Romance – I need to remember that YOU have certain needs.

Celebrate Differences – I will love you even if you never change.

Finish Together – Because I will stay with you, we can work out anything.

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

I’ve been running the business since 1998 and for most of that time cash flow was an issue. It’s not that the business wasn’t doing well, we were generally growing in excess of 15% per year and our assets always exceeded our debts. But we were always short of cash – it was always tied up either in stock or in debtors and the end of the month was always a trying time. We spent a lot of energy balancing who we should pay next.

I tried a number of different solutions. I had be taught early on to avoid sureties – which basically means that you can’t get an overdraft. So I brought in partners – they’ve been great but there’s a limit to which you can keep asking for investment without paying it back. I read a book that showed how to use credit cards to raise capital – and before I knew it I had in excess of R100k in the credit card capital in the business – but the repayments just added to the overheads!

As a family, we have always been pretty regular at giving, but about 5 years ago Joy & I started to implement the principles laid out in the financial teaching (living with margin) received at Southpoint Church in a bigger way – and it showed in our finances. Joy had been challenging me for some time about giving from the business – and eventually I decided to listen & try it. The decision was made more complicated by the fact that some of my partners are not Christians; but we committed to give away at least 1% of our monthly turnover.  At the point when I made this decision we were not making a profit. It was a step of faith.  It now compares to approximately 10% of our profit.

I don’t know how God does it, but within the year we had paid off all our credit card debt, we were able to pay out our first dividends to shareholders in 10 years, our suppliers are all paid up on time, we sit with cash in the bank in excess of the next months overheads – and we have over R100k in savings!

God had spoken to me about being a conduit – everything we have is His and He is looking for channels to feed His blessing to others. However He can only bless others through us if we keep the conduit open. Water will only flow through a pipe if it’s not blocked. If it’s blocked the water in it will gradually become stagnant & the pipe will rust.  And it’s all about trust – having the faith to step out and just do it, even though everything around us screams that it doesn’t make sense. This is God’s economy – to this day I can’t explain how He does it – but He does it.

Simon

When I sent the above to confirm the facts and get permission to share it, my friend said I must also include this:

Thanks for the story of ‘me’, but will appreciate it if you also make mention of the little guys, who, two weeks back were in the very front row of the church singing their hearts out and of the one in particular who was ‘keeping time with the drummer’. He was so in the ‘thick of it’, it touched me deeply enough to bring tears to my eyes. These little guys could easily have been wishing they were outside somewhere kicking a ball around, or participating in some other form of sport rather than attending church. If this indeed was their secret wish, then it certainly did not manifest itself in their body language. In this modern day and age with its attendant distractions and temptations, it is so heartening to observe the joy our young people derive from attending church.

Permission granted to tell the story.

I am praising God because He can bring healing and hope to individuals of any age. I am so privileged to be able to serve with Him with such a great team of staff and volunteers at Southpoint Church.

This week I was reminded of that when a group of people from North Point Community Church sacrificed hugely to come to Southpoint church simply to pray/connect for one week. This they did.

On Sunday following the week of prayer someone commented that there was an “anointing” about the service — which simply means there was something special happening between the communicator and the listeners — God’s message was hitting home in unusual ways! It was true! The response and show of hands at the end of the sermon indicated that a battle was won in the hearts of men and women. We had prayed with the North Point group for this to happen and it did!

Another thing we prayed for was for the GIVING in the church to be increased. He did that as well! The last week of March was a huge week financially.

They also prayed for Metro Kids (MK) and Camp Sonshine. This week MK had a bumper crowd (1200 kids) and God supplied Camp Sonshine, through North Point and Southpoint, a much needed Wendy House for the kids before winter.

To the North Point Global X team…thank you. Thank you to Traci, Brian, Bri, Scott, Darryl, Brad, Mary, Mara, Dana, Emily and Shawnie for praying and connecting with us, as well as honouring the volunteers.

To Southpoint people – thank you for joining in! God is answering our prayers. God is winning the battle of Southpoint, God is winning the battle of the church as He wins the battle for the souls of men and women! Who would imagine that a group of people would sacrifice their vacation, their money, and their comforts to travel 10,000 miles to another part of the world, just to PRAY? Seems ludicrous! Except if you know that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers and through this brings about what we cannot do. Let North Point people travel here again to PRAY, let Southpoint always be a “House of Prayer”. Why? That pastor I previously mentioned was me, and that young restless man was Nathanael, my son!

John Hastings

Kevin September Story and Baptism

Michelle Otieno Story and Baptism

Gavin Taylor – Story and Baptism

Is it not encouraging to see the evidence of Invest and Invite working in people’s lives?

Alice Black – Story and Baptism

Amy Le Roux – Baptism from Southpoint Church on Vimeo.

After visiting South Africa, Kendra from our partner church, posted a great blog re the amazing work that Sonshine Kids Africa is doing labelling Allison and Liz as real heroes, and who would disagree? Check it out at <http://insidenorthpoint.org/kids/2010/03/03/real-life-heroes/> So I thought I would share a little video I made of our heroes, not the best but I don’t think it is bad for a first try! You see, Jesus had to give up His life for us, and there are Christians in the world today who are losing their lives for their faith, but this is not so for us as we live in relative peace. None the less, we still battle for the souls of the many people who live in the same house as us, next door, in our neighborhood or in our city. A real life and death battle. So when these heroes get down on their knees and plead for the kids that they will meet again on Sunday, when they are that familiar face that is reassuring kids of Gods great love and grace, when they show up with a friendly smile for the person who comes for the first time or if they give of their time to press some buttons or move some furniture so that those who visit will feel comfortable to come back; they are fighting a real life and death battle. These are people who have a story to tell of how they were broken and dying, but who have experienced Jesus on a personal level and have found hope and restoration for the most impossible situations plaguing their souls. These are the soldiers of God, ambassadors of the God of the impossible, and these are just a few of the 150 odd that make Southpoint irresitible.

Southpoint Heroes

James and Janet Senior

I just read an article on a blog written by one of the Media guys at a fairly large US Church in which he celebrates the work of the guys just like ours who do so much weak in and week out. I thought I would share it with you here.

If you are a volunteer (tech or otherwise) in any of our environments , go and check out the article here, he is talking about YOU.

God bless and thanks for being involved.