December
2006 CSBA Newsletter
From the Servant’s Desk:
Judges 6: 24-27
Now it came to pass the same night that the LORD said to him, “Take your
father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the
altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is
beside it; and build an altar to the LORD your God on top of this rock in the
proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with
the wood of the image which you shall cut down.” So Gideon took ten men from among his
servants and did as the LORD had said to him. But because he feared his
father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he
did it by night.
The average Christians
will have some idea who Gideon was; he was the guy who stated a rebellion
against the Midianites. The Angel of The Lord and The Lord Himself
spoke to Gideon, but Gideon wasn’t readily accepting of this event. He asked God to prove He was in fact God!
After God, in His infinite
patience, showed Gideon that He was The Lord and that Gideon would be the
liberator of his people, God instructed Gideon to destroy the altar that his
father had built to the god Baal. Gideon
wanted to obey God but he destroys the idol at night, so as not
to upset his father or anyone else in the neighborhood! Gideon obeys
God but he’s afraid someone might see him obeying God!
How
many of us receive a calling upon our hearts to serve God but we either ignore
the call or we’re afraid to act? It
could be something as simple as helping to park cars at church, assisting in
the children’s Sunday school classes or cutting the grass once a week. Others are called to the Christian music
industry, evangelistic crusades or to the mission fields. In every case, if God lays a direction on
someone’s heart, He also demands that we burn all the idols that
are present in our lives. Every
distraction from God must be removed. If
we ignore the call of God or put it aside, it’s because we have other “stuff”
in our lives that we feel is more important.
Judges 7: 5-7
So he brought the people down to the water. And the
LORD said to Gideon, “
God had to reduce the
number of fighters to a number that would leave no doubt the impeding victory
over the Midianites was from God and not from the
Israelites.
We’re always searching for acknowledgement, either outwardly or within our own
heads. It’s just the way men are
wired. We crave notice and
notoriety. However, we need to make a
conscience daily effort to ask God for His direction for us…not our desired
direction…God’s direction.
The Bible is full of “Gideons”. Imperfect people touched by God for a
purpose. We’re all imperfect but God
touches us all in some way. The key is
the awareness of being touched.
How many have had an
urging in our past to serve God and we ignored the call. Years pass and our lives are getting
unmanageable and we wonder why these things are happening to us. I’m convinced that if we ignore God’s call,
He’ll allow us to move in whatever direction we choose…even if that direction
will lead us to frustration, unhappiness and sorrow.
We’re constantly
attempting to discern which thoughts and urgings are from God and which are
from the world. Christian maturity,
gained and strengthened by time in The Word improves one’s discernment. If an opportunity feels too good to be true,
it’s likely to be of the world. If an
opportunity gives you pause to doubt ever being able to carry out the
opportunity, it may well be from God.
When God wants to confound the mighty, He uses the most unlikely
servants. Look around the CSBA. We’re blessed with a multitude of “unlikely
servants”, myself included.
We are ending one year and
making plans for 2007. Make this the
year you actually change the way you do things in your life. Start a habit of daily prayer and time in The
Word. This practice is the foundation of
the Christian walk. Nothing is going to
change in your spiritual life until YOU change. God is eternal and unchanging. WE have to change.
Rededicate your life to follow Jesus Christ.
Strive to become one of Gideon’s “300”.
Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year!
God bless.
Brian Phillips
CSBA Servant
brianp@christiansportbike.com
CSBA NEWS
New Year, New Direction
Spending hours in a cramped plane seat flying back
and forth to
In 2007, the CSBA is disengaging the autopilot.
We’re going to put our hands back on the wheel, keep an eye on the
controls and fly the plane.
Plans for the New Year:
- CSBA rallies will become more purpose oriented. Gathering sport bike enthusiasts for a
weekend just to see who can ride faster than the next person is nothing
more than a competitive event.
People can get together in their home area and accomplish the same
thing. Track days would be a safer
alternative.
CSBA events should be for a generalized or specific purpose/s, i.e., fund raising for a cause, learning about a specific Book of the Bible, Christian men and/or Christian women’s prayer retreats. The bikes will still be there, but they won’t be the reason for attending an event. - An annual fund raising event to benefit
BreakThrough Ministry in
- Sponsor and bring Wim van Rensburg from
Harrismith South
If we’re going to provide support for Wim’s kids, I think it’s critical to learn about the needs and the mission statement first hand. By bringing Wim to the States, we can arrange to put him before a number of church bodies in
We’re fast approaching
member #1000. It’s apparent we’re not a
web-generated anomaly. This is a flesh
and blood, face-to-face Christian organization with more members on the rolls
than many churches. I think it’s time we
start acting like a Christian assembly.
If your main reason for
claiming to be a CSBA member is to be able to get together with riding buddies
you’ve met at rallies, maybe you’re here for the wrong reason.
If you don’t have a home church and you feel you don’t need a home church, you
might be here for the wrong reason.
If you don’t feel moved to
help people that are less fortunate than yourself, you might be here for the
wrong reason.
If you don’t believe the
Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, you’re here for the wrong reason.
The CSBA is open to all BUT
we’re Bible based and we’re evangelical, i.e., we’re mandated by the
instructions of Jesus Christ Himself to: “Go therefore and make disciples of
all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded
you..” Matthew 28: 19-20
If we are true believers,
we must attempt to carry out the instructions of Our Lord. There’s no way around it and there’s no way
to sugar coat it.
Together, we can make the
CSBA an organization that stands for the teachings of Jesus Christ. Welcome aboard and fasten your safety belts,
the ride could get bumpy. Matter of
fact, I’m sure of it.
What a great trip Marvin and I had in
November. We saw God answer prayer, we
were blessed with great fellowship and the weather could not have been better.
The village where Wim is
working with the kids has finished buildings…with running water. The children were well fed, healthy and had
decent clothing. Huge improvement over
last year!
Things are happening in
Prior to leaving for
One day we had the truck
stuck in a river in
As it turned out, this man was everything we were looking for in a mission
helper: a Christian Sotho who speaks English and his native tongue. We had invited Bernard to eat with us after
the river extrication. As the facets of
his background started revealing themselves, Marvin and I just looked at each
other and smiled. God will put whom He
wants in front of you to get the job done, sometimes in the most unusual
ways. All you have to do is have faith
and wait for Him to amaze you with His workings.
Prayerfully consider
making a mission trip to Wim’s part of the
world. It will change your life, deepen
your walk 
with Christ and provide a lifetime worth of
memories.
I’ve wanted to lead a group of CSBA members to
PLEASE
Keep BreakThrough Ministry and Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation in your
daily prayers!
Visit the BreakThrough
Ministry website to learn more about Wim’s vision for
the kids of QwaQwa at http://www.breakthrough-ministries.com/
and/or http://www.changingtomorrow.org
If you can, talk to your
pastor or the director of missions for your home church. Give them the BreakThrough web link, ask them
to consider helping or better yet, plan a mission trip to
$25.00 a month would make a huge difference in the lives of kids
who pretty much have nothing.
If you feel led, you can make a donation at: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
Or, send
your check made out to: "Changing Tomorrow Children’s Foundation" to:
Brian Phillips
Remember, every dollar received goes to Wim’s
kids. There are no salaries or
administrative costs.
Volunteers Needed
I’m going to try this again,
because I know we have talented people out there.
- Desktop publishing. The
current CSBA brochure is dated and needs a face lift. Some of you might ask yourself: “What
CSBA brochure?” See what I mean? We need a new one!
- CSBA T-shirts and Merchandise. I was
foolish enough to assume that we could get by with one mono-colored CSBA
T-shirt. Yet another reason why I
am not in the private business sector.
I’d starve! We need someone
or a group of “someones” to design and market
CSBA shirts and other merchandise that would be of interest to the
members. If we make a few dollars
on these items, that’d be nice too.
- Event volunteers.
- Newsletter articles. Got
something on your mind? Want to
review a product? Just back from a
great Bible study weekend and you’ve learned a new perspective on a Book
of the Bible? Type your submissions
in MS Word please…and hit “spell check and grammar” before sending it in.
- National events coordinator. Whoa!
What a job! Keep track of pending
CSBA events by communicating with the event leader/chair-person/diva, etc.
and posting current event information on the CSBA website via our web-guy
Ron Anderson. As far as dates,
hotels, activities and contact info, the buck would stop at your desk. Let me point out, having dropped the
ball numerous times as the current events coordinator, I’m looking for a
detail-oriented person. I mean
someone who LIVES to wrest order from chaos. You don’t have to attend all the
events. You don’t have to attend
any of the events. You don’t even
need a bike, just an organized way of doing things and are comfortable
with pestering people.
If you feel led to volunteer for any of the above, email me at: brianp@christiansportbike.com
Thanks
If you
have free time and would like to become involved in our Bible distribution
efforts, please contact brianp@christiansportbike.com
Matt.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible,
but with God all things are possible.”
The
second house is now 99% finished. All we need to do is put on doors, install
the windows, do some plumbing and it will be ready for occupation. We are
really excited and I know this is the next level God is taking us to. We are
still looking for the right person to take the responsibility of looking after
the Center and pastor the community we are building.
Please
pray with us for that person.
We
will also get to that point where we will need constant monthly income to look
after the people in our homes. Please keep this in prayer too, as we would need
that in place BEFORE we have people moving in.
Brian Phillips and Marvin Gurganus
from the CSBA visited
us during November. It has become bit of an institution for Brian to swing by
at the end of the year, and this year God sent Marvin with so we could have 2
people to rag on!!
God
laid it on Marvin's heart to document what he saw here in pictures, and he will
go back and show people our vision in photographs.
It
is awesome how God speaks into the heart of someone thousands of miles away
with an idea and adds him to His master plan for the mountain in QwaQwa.
When Taryn was here in
June she got the kids to brush their teeth after eating. (us
men do not notice these things.... I mean Hylien
still has to send me back to brush my teeth every now and again!!) This is
something that would not happen in their homes, so it is encouraging to see
that the ladies looking after them are consistent with having the kids brush their teeth daily.
And
yes Taryn, each kid still has his OWN toothbrush!
We
also received a donation of very nice books that will be added to some other
books we are stocking up on for the little "library" we want to have
on the mountain.
I
have started putting all the news and writings of visitors on a blogg, so if you have a Myspace
account please visit us: www.myspace.com/breakthrough_ministries
...and sign us up as a friend!!..come
now, you know you want to do it!
God Bless
Wim & Hylien
