Is God Dead?

GOD'S NOT DEAD
We live in a day and age where many people, especially young people from the so called "Western" society asks the question, 'Is God Dead?'

My answer is off course an emphatic NO. And there are many reasons why I have no doubt at all that the God of the Bible is alive and is seeking to have a loving relationship with all of us.

The reason why I am sharing this, is because our church is currently busy with the Sermon Series called "God's not Dead", where we are tackling some tough topics such as "Real Faith isn't Blind", "Good and Evil are no Illusions", "There was a Beginning", "Life is no Accident" and "Jesus and the Resurrection".

I am preaching this coming Sunday (17th of August) on "There was a Beginning" and I want to ask you to please pray for me, trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide me in both the preparation and the execution of the Sermon.

Here is a sneak peak of the type of arguments I will be using in the Sermon which proves that a creator had to bring life and the universe into existence:

The Cosmological Argument

BOYS HIGH
Furthermore, I am very excited to share that our ministry to the 300+ boys in the Boys High residences is going extremely well! We kicked off the God's Not Dead Sermon series there as well and on the first night (3 August) 33 of the boys committed their lives to Jesus Christ! Furthermore, myself and four other leaders from our church are already starting Connect Groups with most of them, to ensure that they can grow in their relationship with Christ. Here are some images:

Myself Getting the Details of the Boys who Responded to the Gospel

One of the Connect Groups I Started #Selfie

Another one of the  Connect Groups I Started #Selfie

KRANSKOP 2014
I went to serve at the annual Gateway Kranskop Youth Camp from the 1st to the 3rd of August. On the Saturday evening 30 teenagers responded to the Gospel and I had the privilege of helping to share the salvation message with them and to help ensure they understand what it means to be saved and to follow Jesus.

Small Group Discipleship and Worship on top of Kranskop

Myself with 2 Powerful Leaders (Morne & Bertus) who Helped Minister to the Teenagers

CAMPUS LEADERS
In Every Nation, when we speak of Campus, we refer to both Schools and Universities. In July, we had a strategic campus leadership meeting, where we shared vision and goals for the rest of 2014 to more than 30 Campus (i.e. Schools and Universities) ministry leaders! It is very exciting to see so many leaders stepping up to advance God's Kingdom by reaching the next generation!

Myself Transferring Vision at our Campus Leadership Meeting

Eugene Transferring Goals at our Campus Leadership Meeting

FINAL THOUGHTS

With this in mind, I want to leave you with this final thought: If Christians keep on making disciples, and raising leaders, we will plant more churches and ultimately, advance God's Kingdom!

I want to thank you on behalf of both my wife and I, for your love, prayer and support! It is because of your partnership in this ministry, that this could all be possible!

Can Teenagers Preach?

This past weekend we had our Elevation Services. In other words, the teenagers in our church preached, did announcements, lead pre-service prayer, did a dance, basically took the lead and organized both our morning and evening services!

It was amazing!

Can teenagers preach? Absolutely...!

For too long have the church said that they value children and believe God can use them, but almost never give them the opportunity to actually minister! This needs to change... and we believe slowly but surely as Every Nation we are moving in a direction where our words and deeds show that we value children and teenagers.

We need to empower teenagers to minister the Word of God. We need to give them platforms to excel in what God calls them to do. Allowing our teenagers to "take over" our services is just one way we are doing this.

Imagine someone believed in you enough when you were thirteen, to give you the opportunity to preach to hundreds? You would probably be extremely inspired and you would start to believe that when people say God can and want to use you, He really means it!

1 Timothy 4:12-13 - Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and teaching.

May you be encouraged to see that there are young people stepping up, to make disciples and advance God's kingdom!

Here are a few photo's taken during the services:

Myself introducing Rosinah (13) to do announcements

Stedman (17) sharing a testimony of how God is using him to impact his friends

Martin, one of our new leaders, sharing how God is opening doors for us to minister at Boys High

Trisha (15) preaching a message about the life of Peter

Here is a short video of the whole church, even the older generation, supporting the teenagers by joining with the "Monkey Dance". Creating an environment where every generation feels welcome.

 Thank you for everyone's support and prayer!

Blessings,

Phil

#imagine

Imagine more than 7000 teenagers coming together on one weekend in two different locations to worship God and become equipped for ministry...

That is exactly what happened on the 21st to the 23rd of March 2014 at Cape Town and Pretoria when the first, of hopefully many more, #imagine camps were launched!

Teenagers from different schools and churches came from across the nation to join the #imagine experience. Elevation, our Pretoria Every Nation Youth Ministry, also joined the Pretoria #imagine camp and had an extremely blessed time!

It is amazing to see so many teenagers, with heaps of joy and passion, as an united body of Christ, coming together with one main goal, to honor and praise Jesus Christ! What is also very exciting to see, is that many of these teenagers have an eagerness to not just experience the Gospel over a weekend, but go back to their schools, families and communities and practically live out the Gospel with the help of their local churches.

I am personally being blessed so much by other Youth Pastors and 'Dominees' ministering in Pretoria working at different churches and denominations, who wants to take hands in making disciples amongst the teenagers of our City!

Please pray and trust with me, that the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom on how to work together as different local churches and align our vision for our City, with the main aim of honoring God and advancing His kingdom!

Once again, thank you soooo much to everyone who is blessing and supporting me through finances and prayer and enabling me to minister to the teenagers of our country!

Here are some photos from the #imagine experience, enjoy!

Impacting Schools

We are very excited about the open doors God has given us to minister to teenagers within various High Schools of Pretoria and I would love to share some testimonies with you. Two weeks ago we got an open door to minister to all the boys that stays in the hostels of Pretoria Boys High School, every Sunday evening. There are +-300 boys in their hostels. We are very excited about this opportunity and I want to ask you to trust and pray with us that many of them will have an encounter with their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are also trusting that God will guide us to the right boys to start Connect Groups with, whom we will disciple and raise up as leaders, who can then disciple their friends around them.

Soutie preaching to the young men at PBHS!

At Waterkloof High School, we are also very excited about the fact that some of the students are starting a Waterkloof Praise and Worship Band. At the moment we need some adults to help guide them, but we are trusting that the band will come to a point where it is run completely by students in the school!

The Band!

Students passionately worshiping God

Once again, thanks for all your love, prayer, support and input! Don't take for granted the part you play! You helped making all of this possible!

I'm Married!! And more...

Friends, Family, Colleagues,

It has been a while since I have updated this blog, and I sincerely apologize for that.

But it is my pleasure to announce to you that as I am typing this today, I am typing this as a MARRIED man!

During the month of December I had a few days of leave from work which was mainly spent on catching up with my studies for my BTh degree, since I can only study part time through the rest of the year. But fortunately I also had some time for quality time with family and friends. And off course, Maryke and I had a marriage that needed to be arranged!

The month of January feels a bit like a blur...  Work kicked off at quite a rapid pace. Mainly because of extreme preparation and planning for our Youth Ministry in 2014. One of the weekends in January I took my whole Leadership Team away for the weekend for vision casting, strategic planning etc. (I will share more on this at the end of this post). Also in the mix was my bachelors which included a whole day of intense cricket (and some eggs being thrown at me...thanks guys...)!

And then came the big day! 1 February 2014. The day I got married to my lovely, beautiful... wife! Yes I said it, my WIFE! Maryke Pretorius.

After the wedding we went to Zanzibar for a week for our honeymoon. What a blessing it was!

To end off, I will post a photo of  Maryke and I at our wedding, then a photo of us at Zanzibar and a photo of my Youth Ministry Leadership Team 2014 and finally I will end off by posting a small chunk of what we as the Youth Ministry Leadership Team are trusting for, for this year.

 

 The final image is my Youth Ministry Leadership Team on our Strategic Planning Break-Away Weekend.
The plan is simple... Myself and Marielle (the lady on the far left) will be discipling the team and raising them as leaders, who in turn will disciple and raise up the youth (teenagers) as strong leaders who will then do the same with their friends in their schools...

We will be making disciples, raising leaders, and ultimately planting churches!

WE see a transformed city filled with God-honoring disciples, impacting nations! 

I'm Engaged!!!

For those who have maybe not heard the great news yet,

I am officially engaged! And not just to anyone, but to the most amazing woman I could have ever asked for, Maryke Taljaard (soon to be Maryke Pretorius, whoohoo!)

We, together with some awesome friends, went on a road trip through South Africa recently, during which I popped the question "will you marry me?" and she said "Yes!!"

From Pretoria to Hogsback, from Hogsback to Coffee Bay, from Coffee Bay to Hole In The Wall, from Hole In The Wall to Durban and finally from Durban back to Pretoria, this was truly one journey I will probably never forget!

The reason I am sharing this with YOU is because it has obviously got some important implications on my life. No longer is this unexpected adventure of mine, mine alone, but rather an adventure embarked on by a COUPLE who is excited to follow Jesus where ever He takes us, no matter what the cost. So I want you to know that your prayers, finances and support is no longer just for ME, but for US! And because of that I want to give you a DOUBLE thank you for being a part and investing into OUR lives!

Thank you... Thank you!

Here are a few photos taken on our journey:

Good Company

Titanic?

The Big Moment!! 22 September 2013

Beautiful Coast

Hole In The Wall

Blessings,

Philip

Connecting with the Broken

A lot has taken place since the last time I have typed a new blog post. The unexpected adventure of Philip Pretorius has still been exactly that, an adventure!

I don’t want to make you read TOO much that you fall asleep half way, so what I am going to do is split the highlights I want to share into two separate blog posts. 

In this post I am going to share some random info on what I’ve been up to and then share a testimony of how I had an opportunity to connect with a broken person and how it has touched my heart.

In the second post… umm wait, I think I will keep that a surprise. Let’s just say, this adventure of mine isn’t just mine anymore, but more on that a bit later.

Here goes…

• I have been one of the group facilitators at our massive Kranskop youth camp

• Elevation (Every Nation Youth) has still been going strong with teaching, praying, worshipping, fellowshipping, raising leaders, making disciples  etc. (just got the great idea to take photo’s with all my Connect Groups and Leadership Groups and post them in one of my next blog posts, ‘watch this space’)

• We also had an Elevation outreach where we took our youth to do ‘The God Test’ with people at The Grove mall! Was amazing to see young people standing up as evangelists.

•  I have taught at our church’s Victory Training

• I have had the opportunity to serve at our evening services by preaching, raising new leaders to do announcements, being the spiritual oversight and helping the power team

• And finally, I have still been enjoying my studies at South African Theological Seminary. I have been busy with the subjects, Christian Counselling and Apologetics, and I have really been enjoying both!

In a nutshell, those are some of the main highlights that has taken place lately in my life specifically ministry wise, but like I said earlier, I want to share a specific testimony of how I have had the opportunity to connect with a person in desperate need of love and support.
 

Connecting with the broken

During the Kranskop Youth Camp I was one of the group facilitators of a group of boys. I ended up facilitating a group of boys from a school in Johannesburg. This school is one of those schools that you would definitely not see as famous, but rather notorious. To give you an idea, many kids use drugs, there is graffiti in the bathrooms, there is no sport at the school due to a lack of interest from the teachers and the hand-full of kids who want to follow Jesus and rise up out of their circumstances are often cursed and even spat on by other kids who is not shy to admit they worship Satan. By the grace of God one of our churches other youth leaders, Eugene, got open doors to minister in that school weekly and help the hand-full of passionate Christian kids start to be the light in that school. Two of these ended up in my group during the Kranskop camp.

One of those boys name is Marcellus. Throughout the camp I could build relationship with him and get various opportunities to show love towards him and speak truth into his life. A friendship was built. He shared with me that his brother was in hospital because he was stabbed in the neck with a knife while protecting his mother... from his father... who is now in jail! On the final evening of the camp we had praise and worship and Marcellus suddenly came running to me with tears in his eyes. His mother phoned to inform him that his brother has passed away. I had the opportunity to minister and counsel him, but mainly just to be there for him… As you could imagine, his heart was broken in tatters.

Amazingly enough the next day he was sharing with me who his friends are that he is going to speak with back at home, on how much God loves us.

But I can’t help but ask myself, what if he weren’t on that camp? Who or where would he have run to for help then? Jesus had a heart for the lost, the weary and the broken. All of us are probably somehow and somewhere exposed to people who are going through a tough time. Maybe you are even going through a tough time? I ask myself, am I loving and interested enough in my ‘neighbour’ to know that he/she are going through a tough time?

After the camp I went with Eugene to Marcellus’ school to follow up on him and Eugene is now continuing to reach out to him. It takes sacrifice to be a helping hand and a loving heart to others, but man oh man it is sooo worth it!

My next post, which will be on a ‘lighter’ note, will be coming soon!