Everyday Encounter

We are standing on the edge of a brand new year – and a brand new year of Encounter. I have to be honest and say that I’m getting a little bit excited at the prospect of us ’standing on the edge of something large’… – that is, that in this new year we will see God at work both amongst and through us at Encounter, and on the bigger scale throughout our country. It’s time that we woke up and realised that with God we are always standing on the edge of something big – something much bigger than us. Everytime we come in to His presence or Encounter Him we are a part of something huge! And everytime we come together to worship Him we are part of something MASSIVE as we join with the voices and actions of many other christians all over the world and the COUNTLESS angels worshipping in heaven!
It’s 5 days to the first Encounter of 2007 and I just want to encourage all of you who are reading this to PREPARE for a new year of meeting with God by getting everything in focus and in the right perspectives. That’s why I’d like to encourage you to do something a bit different that carries your encountering of God into everyday – rather than just when we meet together on Fridays. Wait for it…

Ok so here is the idea – I want to encourage you to take part in a fast (or partial fast!) of something that isn’t food for a week. It doesn’t matter if you miss doing it this week running up to the first Encounter – you can do it at anytime.

So basically what you have to do is pick something that takes up some of your time or that you might focus quite heavily on – and either reduce how much you do that or totally stop it for a whole week. The idea is that you spend the time you save by not doing it praying, focusing on God or worshipping etc. – An example might be that you spend a lot of time on MSN or Bebo – so you might want to restrict how long you spend doing that each day or else not use them for a week. Maybe you spend all your free time playing sport/computer games or texting/phoning people – again you could reduce and/or replace these activities for one week of worshiping and refocusing on God.

Drop us a comment to let us know what your ‘fasting’ from and how your getting on! We will hopefully get a 7 day ‘Focus List’ up on here ASAP so that you have something to chew over on each day that you are fasting!