Acts 20:32 “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

I remember as a young disciple working the night shift as a security guard reading “What’s so amazing about grace?” by Phillip Yancy. I had not fully understood the principle God’s of grace yet and that book totally blew me away! This is the meaning of the word grace: overflow, extra, bountiful. God is full of grace and mercy but also in all things. He didn’t make one star; He made billions of stars. He didn’t make one type of food; he made millions of flavours in incredible abundance. He didn’t make one kind of flower; he made thousands of species. God is graceful in power, in wisdom, in detail, in creation, in glory, in mercy and in all ways! A good book can really open your eyes to a great principle!

A couple of months later I attended the “Pass the Torch” conference in Toronto with thousands of Canadian disciples. I remember seeing a hundred singers singing with all their hearts to a crowd of thousands by torch light in a massive darkened room at the Canadian conference centre. I remember being struck at how the unlimited power of the grace of God had saved all these souls. It didn’t just “save” them, it also brought them together in perfect harmony and joy. That was the night I got truly “got” what God is trying to do through the church and it made me zealous. Grace had attacked.
Grace is a bankrupt student finding a lottery ticket. It’s a repentant murderer being freed and given another chance. It’s a friend forgiving a betrayal. It can build you up and give you an inheritance; it can give you unlimited chances to change. When grace attacks nothing stays the same.
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Holy Tribe of Light I

About two years ago I wrote this article about how awesome it is to be part of the family of God! As I wrote in that article its so hard for us to understand the unity of the church because of the atomizing individualism of modern western society that many of us come from.

Even though its hard for us westerners to understand its true that most people in the world today are born into a working tribe or closely knit extended family. Why? Well with 30% unemployment on average in the undeveloped world you simply need a to belong to a tribe to survive. If you have a job one week out of four your happy to push your money in towards the leadership of the tribe because the weeks your not working you know some food and shelter will come your way. This shocks us as westerners but its how most people in the world survive! If you don’t know that the early Christians lived the same way understanding the bible is going to be hard!

Today, instead of joining a family and a Kingdom as the early Christians were doing, millions simply “subscribe” to an empty “Christian philosophy” of life and maintain their selfish individualism. Even as disciples failing to understand the concept of the Christian family and tribe, as many of us do, leads to tons of unnecessary pain and provides too many opportunities for Satan to divide us. Every disciple and especially every leader in the church needs to understand what we are as a family.
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Acts 19:8-10 “Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

This is an amazing passage about Paul overcoming obsticals and opposition to preach the Word from the lecture hall of Tyrannus! Over two years the offensive and jarring message of the cross was preached to the whole province of Asia!

Today, after lots of prayer and seeking advice, I’ve started up a “cyber” lecturehalloftyrannus at www.lecturehalloftyrannus.org. Its a “wiki” website which means that selected contributors will be able to store and manage knowledge and teaching on all kinds of different topics some of the catigories so far are: Discipleship | Leadership | False Doctrines | Biblical Doctrine | Events and Calendar of the Church | Organisation and Offices of the Church | Law, Finance and Administration | Health and Safety | Marriage and Parenting | Bible Studies | Recommended Books and there will be more in the future!

The format of the articles especially where confronting false teaching is going to be the Maxim Potapov Theological school of “asking the right questions” and “finding the right answers”. So instead of just a linguistic “lets look at the greek” approach each false doctrine will be broken down into a series of offensive questions. The combination of right questions and right answers will prayerfully really help disciples to be able to refute false doctrine and save more souls!

In keeping with the Proverb 14:23 “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” this wiki style knowledge management and teaching site will allow myself and others to cover more ground and stop going back over false teachings that we’ve dealt with in the past. Mere talk leads to poverty and so we need to be sure the website does not degrade into a mere “information” site but maintains its fruit bearing, disciple edifying capability!

Please consider becoming a contributor!

Love,

Tim