I was saddened as many were to hear of the untimely death of Ross Olivier. I did not know Ross well, but he was the first minister I can remember. The one thing that I knew about him though was that he once was a prisioner. For the first time, I have just read his testimony which I found online. Whether you knew him or not, it is a powerful story of God's grace to those (in our estimation) don't deserve it. 

FROM PRISONER TO PASTOR –TESTIMONIAL BY REVD DR ROSS OLIVIER

I have been asked to tell my story, the story that has shaped my ethics, nurtured my values, and formed my conduct. My story is rooted in a deeply spiritual event. Thatis not to say I think that being religious guarantees moral behaviour. Ihave been in the church long enough to know that you get good believers and bad believers in every religion. The prophet Isaiah puts it plainly: “The Lord says „These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me‟.” We need to guard that there is no credibility gap between our creed and our conduct; no dissonance between the beliefs we proclaim and the behaviour we exhibit.

That said, my moral conversion was profoundly spiritual; it relates my journey, from darkness to light, from self to God.

I did not have a religious upbringing. We never went to church as a family. Apart from weddings and funerals, the first occasion I was in church with my parents was the Sunday I was ordained. Certainly they never spoke to my siblings or me about God or religion. I grew up without any conscious spiritual awareness. I do recall a brief interlude when a wonderful couple, Mr and Mrs Banks, moved into a house up the road from us. They were obviously devoted to God and as part of their mission invited the un-churched parents in the neighbourhood to allow them to take their children to Sunday school each week. A little embarrassed, most parents agreed and so, each Sunday morning, Mr and Mrs Banks would arrive at our door to fetch my brother and me, all spic and span in our Sunday morning clothes, hair slicked down with liberal doses of “brylcreem‟, shoes brightly shining, the two of us freshly washed and scrubbed for the occasion. So it was that for a brief period I attended the small Methodist Church in Brakpan. I remember enjoying this weekly outing but cannot report that anything of a faith nature got through to me. Or so I thought. Then, as is typical on mining villages, either our or the Banks family moved away and my tenuous connection with church ended. By and large, I grew up without any real sense of what are termed „spiritual or moral values‟.

I finished high school and was conscripted for two years of military service. By my 18th birthday I was in a neighbouring country involved in a war that in later years I discovered to be unjust. But we

1were young and impressionable, too ignorant to know that we were cannon fodder in the senseless battles being waged by the Apartheid regime. I do not know how to express this any other way except to say I emerged from the army a seriously messed up person.

I started work at a finance company. Driven by an obsession to make lots of money as quickly as possible, I worked hard and was quickly rewarded. By my 22nd birthday I had been promoted several times, owned a smart car and had bought a house. During this period, Shayne and I married. We had started dating at the age of 16 and thankfully she forgot to break up with me. She remains the love of my life.

Then things began to unravel. I started drinking too much. I was driven by greed and had no moral conscience. I soon started to make Shayne‟s life a misery. Looking back, I believe my behaviour at that time contributed largely to the fact that she suffered a miscarriage. I had also begun to defraud the company for which I worked. Having discovered a loophole in the system, I became a thief. I got away with it for quite a while. Eventually however, things began to fall apart. Our marriage deteriorated to the point where one day Shayne on essence said to me, “You‟ve become a horrible person. I do not like who you‟ve become – you‟re not the person I thought you were.‟ In typical male fashion, I refused to accept any blame. In a huff I angrily grabbed a suitcase, threw in some stuff and with spinning tyres raced off in my car. I drove into downtown Johannesburg and booked into the New Library hotel, one of my drinking spots.

I remember sitting on the bed, my case on the floor, overwhelmed by a sense that my life was at a crossroad. Somehow I realised that my next choices could be determinative for the future course of my life. I recall sitting in the silent loneliness of that hotel room with a fearful sense that I was on the brink of losing someone precious. With a deep sense of pending loss, I booked out of the hotel, drove to the nearest police station, and confessed my crimes. Rather naively I thought the police would say something like: “What a good boy you are, coming to tell us. Go home and we will sort this out later.” Instead I was arrested there and then and put into a cell in John Vorster Square Police Station. Subsequently I was transferred to The Fort Prison. Weeks later I was tried, convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. You can imagine the shock and shame I caused Shayne, our parents, my employers, and our friends.

After sentencing I was transferred to Pretoria Central Prison to serve my sentence.

I have some free advice to offer. Don‟t do anything that will land you in prison. It is no fun.

Prison life was harsh, sometimes brutal. I was brought face to face with the limits of my courage and endurance. I felt ashamed and a failure. I was sustained only by the incredibly forgiving love shown me by my wife. Resisting great pressure to be rid of me, she resolved instead to stand by me through the thick and thin of it all. Her love made me determined to turn my life around, but I didn‟t know how.

Christmas was drawing near. Then one day, out of nowhere, I recalled the Sunday School lessons that Mr and Mrs Banks had taken me to. I began to wonder whether there really was a God, as we had been taught. Without really knowing how, I started praying at night. It was a simple prayer: “God - I need help. I don’t know what to do. If you’re there, can you help me?” Praying even that small uneducated prayer gave me daily strength. I drew courage after praying. I felt hopeful. But I wasn‟t yet convinced. It took an extraordinary event to dispel my doubt.

It‟s closing on thirty years since then but I still recall with vivid detail the night my life was utterly transformed. It happened in the solitude of a single-person prison cell, lying on my bunk, staring at the naked light bulb fixed into the high ceiling. The light remained on throughout the night; I guess so that the guards could check on us through the small peep-hole in the thick metal doors that faced inwardly onto the rectangle corridor of D Block.

On that particular night I was thinking about God, wondering if there really was some divine power from which I was drawing strength, or whether it was just some trick of the mind, a mental crutch that I was leaning on for survival sake. It‟s always been difficult for me to explain the sequence that then occurred. It all happened so fast. The thought in my mind was: “if God is real then surely He can reveal Himself to me.” The next thought was, “How? How can He let me know that He’s real?” Then a thought flashed into my mind, “He can switch off the light”. In that instant, while the thought was still in my head, the prison block was plunged into total darkness.

But that wasn‟t it! That can be rationalised as one of those inexplicable coincidences that happen from time to time. No, it was more than that; it was much, much more than that. In the instant

that the prison plunged into darkness, I was enfolded, like a baby being wrapped in a warm blanket, within a tangible, real, embracing, transcendent experience of acceptance, forgiveness, and exquisite love. I just lay there breathless as I felt myself being enveloped within the tender embrace of an unseen presence. I was unable to think, move, or comprehend, yet I knew my questions had been answered. Deep in the spirit of my humanity, within a consciousness I never even knew existed, I had a sense of ultimate assurance. In that moment my life changed forever. All doubt was removed and I knew with certainty that my life had extrinsic value. I had encountered John Newton‟s Amazing Grace: I had been blind, but now could see; I had been lost, but now was found.

At that juncture of my sentence I was permitted one visit, by one person, of 30 minutes duration per month. Shayne always came to visit me. We would look at each other through a small thick glass window, and speak to each other through a wire grill, separated by a three foot divide. At her first visit to me after my „God moment‟, I asked her to bring me a bible. She looked quizzically at but the next time she visited, she brought one along. It was a King James Version. I hardly understood its language. But I have it still today, with my prison number 1631/77 on the inside cover, filled with short messages of love and support, in green ink, written by Shayne.

Following my release from prison I began to look for a job. I had determined to always tell the truth about my past. For seven months I received one rebuff after the next. Then the local municipality gave me work as a meter reader. Armed with a big book and a pencil, I walked the streets of our town, reading the electricity and water meters, recording the details of usage. Some might say it wasn‟t much of a job, but I embraced it with joy. A year later, I was promoted into the treasury department. It was as if I had travelled a full circle of restoration. It was as if God was saying: “You were a thief, but now you can be trusted with money again.” Who could have imagined that years later I would be appointed the Ministerial General Treasurer for the entire Methodist Church, one of the many responsibilities that were part of my duties as General Secretary of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa?

My life has been a journey of shaping and changing, of learning new values and deeper morals, a journey that could not be made without the incredible support of a loving wife, a journey with many failures and lessons to be learnt along the way, a journey that has taken me

4

from a prison cell in Pretoria to the top rungs of denominational leadership to a significant ministry in the United States. I never cease to be amazed by my journey from prison to parish. I thank God for the power to have come clean, and to have stayed clean.

I must end but there is one small part of the unfinished story that I would like to tell. A few years ago, I was invited to preach at the centenary service of the Kensington Methodist Church in Johannesburg. After the service I stood at the door shaking hands with the departing worshippers. I noticed an elderly couple were holding themselves back until everyone else had left. Then they approached me. “You won’t remember us”, they said, “but we are Mr and Mrs Banks. We used to take you to Sunday School.” I felt the tears well up in me as I said to them, “Your faithfulness helped change my life.”

I hope that we will be as faithful to others.

You see – that is the thing about right living – it bestows blessings beyond any reward.

I have been speaking a lot lately about how God turns our faithfulness into greatness. And I believe it is true. But I am starting to realise that with that faithfulness we need a strong dose of patience. 

My friend was today finally recognised as his son's dad. After years of cutting through the red tape of the adoption process, it is now official. Years of faithfully being a dad despite it not being official. Years of patience. And his son is a real blessing! But the full outcome of his patient faithfulness is yet to be seen. 

In ministry I find patience to be non-negotiable. Either you have patience, or you find another job. Not that I am the world's most patient guy. But in the end, my urgent is not everyone else's urgent. 

Does that mean I should quit? No way. It means I should be patient. 

God is not the god of instant gratification. He is in no rush. And when He calls, He seldom calls us to do something right now. Instead He calls us on a particular journey, and asks us to be faithful to sticking to the path He lays out. And for those times when the path seems to be leading nowhere, He gives us His Spirit, and His Spirit gives us patience. And so we soldier on. 

As the wise teacher in Ecclesiastes shows us:

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

So will you be faithful in the things God has entrusted you with? And will you be patient when the outcome seems uncertain?

I listened to a dead man speak today. 

He spoke words of wisdom. He spoke about many things. He spoke about suffering. 

He spoke about how bad things don't happen because "they were meant to happen", as if everything happens for a reason. No, bad things aren't meant to happen, said the dead man. But they do. Like when this dead man was living and he decided to go paddling out in the sea but didn't follow safety precautions. I wish he had. It wasn't meant to happen.

I watched as this dead man shared Holy Communion with the church he pastored. He shared this meal in a way I have never seen, but a way that looked so right. He challeneged ideas of silver cups and an individual approach to this sacrament. He showed how it is meant to be about family. He said we are meant to do this together, putting our arms around those that are hurting, those that are broken.

Broken.

He said Jesus said: we are all broken. The Bible says Jesus once took bread and said "this is my body, broken...". The dead man explained that the bread is not just Jesus, it is us, the body of Christ, the Church. And we are broken.

He said the church is broken. He said that is the point.  

A man once said of this dead man, that what was significant about him when he was living was not so much what he said, but that he said it. I am so glad, so glad, I got to hear him say it again. 

Love.

If I dead man can have so much influence on a living man, how much more influence can a living man like me have. 

I miss this dead man. I miss him being alive. I miss Barry Marshall.

I had the privilege of leading a Celtic Healing service at our church last night. The service is based around a very structured liturgy which is worked through, and includes a time of anointing anointing and praying for each individual. 

Part of my responsibilities was to anoint each congregant with oil. In my head I was thinking I need to be really concentrating when I did this. Not just so I can avoid sticking an oily finger in someone's eye! But rather because I thought somehow if I focused hard enough, the healing would be more effective! Crazy logic, I know. 

But then I had this real sense of just letting the simple be simple. I was struck by how God could use me without me having to use my intellectual self. All He needed was for me to be present. 

Now I am not sure if we brought physical healing to anyone last night. But as the band Tenth Avenue North write, the healing begins where the light meets the dark. Being light doesn't require intellectual focus. It just requires presence. And when that presence is in dark place, there is the opportunity for healing to begin. Dark places are slowly transformed by glorious light, God's light. 

So healing beings with presence. Presence in places that need healing. Will you allow this Christmas to be more about presence than about presents? Where is your presence needed now?

Go there. 

I want my life to count. I want to feel significant. I want to feel I made a difference. That is a lot of I's.

So I go to church. And I am told God has a purpose for my life. Great! I matter. More me. More I!. 

The preacher even quotes some verses from the bullfrog guy Jeremiah, something about Him knowing the plans He has for me, plans give me a hope and a future. 

Nice, God has a plan for me!

Sound familiar? Does it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? That verse is from Jeremiah 29:11. And truth be told, it has played an important role in my life and calling. 

But there is this little problem. It was never meant for an individual. God was actually speaking to an entire nation called Israel. They had been conquered and forced to live away from home in a place called Babylon. They were feeling down and rejected by God (they had actually had rejected God, but that is another story). 

So God comes and says, guys and girls, trust me here. I have a plan. I do not intend for you to live in exile forever. I am going to save you from the Babylonians just like I saved you from slavery in Egypt. 

So here's the thing. God does have a plan. It just isn't for your life. Don't freak out just yet, read on. 

For thousands of years, God has been trying to bring about His purposes on earth. Trying to get the people who inhabit the earth to choose His way of life. To love Him, and to love each other. He doesn't want to force the issue, He wants them to choose this way of life. 

When people choose this way of life, it is like a little bit of Heaven comes to earth. It is like His Kingdom is established wherever people love Him and love one another. 

He has a plan. It is for all people everywhere to make love their primary objective. He wants them to love Him. He wants them to love each other. 

God does not have a plan your life, He has a plan for all of creation. He wants it be restored to the way it was always meant to be. 

You can choose to be a part of it or choose not to be a part of it. Either way, His plans continue. God doesn't want something from you. But He wants to invite you to be a part of His plan. His plan that is way bigger than you as an individual. The purpose of your life is to be a part of God's bigger plan. 

There is no greater honour. And as Rob Bell says, in the end, love wins. And we all like to back the winner, don't we?

Have you ever found yourself plodding through your faith journey waiting for God's river of life to sweep you away in a torrent of unrequited love and grace? Perhaps you once experienced a spiritual flash flood that made you into a believer. But sadly that river was at best perennial, making an appearance in season... but for the most part you felt you were living as a Christian in a dry flood plain.

I sometimes feel that way. Like I am a lonely drop waiting for God to sweep me up in the current of His Kingdom, giving me an opportunity to be a part of something big. Trouble is, I've been waiting here for far too long...  

An old school South African acoustic rock band called Peculiar People wrote a song about this. 

• Water of love - Peculiar People
• Some days I’m in a strange place
• I feel like I’m falling far from your love
• And I do what I don’t want to
• Trying to be for you who I should be
•  
• On my own I’m going nowhere
• Not satisfied with this at all
• I’ve been waiting for your river
• Waiting here for far too long
•  
• I’ve been listening to you say
• That you’ll never leave me
• You’ll always be there
• It’s sometimes hard to believe you
• When I cannot see you
• But I don’t want to doubt 
•  
• Take me to the river
• Let me sink into your water of love
• ‘cause I just want to know that you are with me
• As I walk through this life
• ©2001 Here We Are Music CC

Do you understand that the river flows? Sure we can sink into this water of love and grace and all that. We can even drink from it.

But at some point, we have to decide to join in the current of God's Kingdom. If we want to experience that life-giving water all year round, we have to let it move us. Let it take us. It doesn't allow you to stay where you are. You can choose to just dip into the water but hold onto the shore so it doesn't pull you along. You can choose to stay where you are. Comfortable.

But the water will soon be gone, and you will be a lonely drop quickly evaporated out of faith and purpose and life. 

So when the water comes, and it does, let it move you. Allows your life to be part of God's bigger purposes. Don't ask the question: "What is God's purpose for my life?". Ask "How can my life fit in with God's purpose for this world?". God's purpose for you is to flow in the direction of His purpose for this world. 

Go where the Kingdom flows. It will never run dry.

My rating: 5/5

Summary: This is the book every preacher should read

Links: Buy at Amazon

This book has transformed the way I preach and teach. I wish I had this book when I started preaching, and from now on I will recommend it to anyone exploring a calling to preach. It starts off with a creative story that gets the main learning points into your head easily. Then the second half of the book explains the theory in a bit more detail. This structure really helps to keep the book in your hands.

It recommends a basic structure (Me-We-God-You-We) that can be applied to nearly any talk or sermon. It espouses the one-point sermon, which was so refreshing for me. I have grown up on three-point sermons and I was relieved to have someone challenge that idea!

“The… problem with preaching points is that it doesn’t reflect the world we live in. We don’t live our lives by points. We live our lives by emotions. We respond to what we see, taste and feel. So there’s no compelling reason to remember points… Even the preacher knows this. That’s why he or she has to refer to their notes. They haven’t even bothered to memorise their own points.”

It challenged my style of preaching (basically reading from a script) by explaining the need to “internalise the message”. This has really impacted by preparation, and reminded me of the need for my sermons to first speak to me, and then to my audience.

When it comes to Scripture, Stanley take us out of our usual “read Scripture – preach – send them home” approach. I have always tried to make the Scriptures more interesting, but the book takes this to the next level:

“Make it so fascinating that they are actually tempted to go home and read it on their own.”

It has significantly raised the bar for my preparation. Stanley shares at the end of the book how he is usually prepared 3 weeks in advance. Not bad for a guy that preaches nearly every week!

“It’s our preparation and presentation that will keep people engaged”

“Communicating for a Change” is the essential guidebook for preachers, whether you are a rookie or an old hat.

My rating: 4/5

Summary: A deeply challenging book that should be read by all church leaders

Links: Chapter 1 sample (scribd.com) Buy at Amazon

“Radical Together” should carry a warning label: “Explicit: sure to challenge the way your church does church!” In his follow up to “Radical”, David Platt sets about challenging church leaders to rethink where their church’s time, money and other resources are focused.

“We realise how prone we are to exalt our work over God’s work, our dreams over God’s desires, and our plans over God’s priorities.”

It’s an uncomfortable book to read, because it makes us realise how far our church visions have strayed from the Great Commission. We are supposed to be making disciples of all nations, but there are still so many people groups around the world who have never even heard of Jesus.

I particularly enjoyed Platt’s balance between our response to poverty and our response to the unreached. He doesn’t place one as more important than the other, but challenges us to consider whether our church budgets are addressing these two issues. He also is careful to not create a sense of a works-based salvation:

“It’s not that acts of mercy  are a means to salvation, but they are clear evidence of salvation.” (emphasis mine)

But the high point for me was his understanding of what Jesus says in John 14:12 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (NIV). Platt suggests the following:

“We will do greater things, not because of the quality of the Spirit in select ones among us, but because of the quality of the Spirit spread throughout all of us”

Jesus did amazing things, but He put us in charge of taking His work to the ends of the earth. It is time for us to revisit where we as the Church are headed. Platt gives us a blueprint of how to go about this. And best of all, he is putting this theory into practice in his own church. This is a must read for all church leaders.

I only have two criticisms of the book. Firstly it looses steam near the end, the first few chapters where punchy and challenging, but the last few were a bit repetitive. And the Kindle version I was given to review was very poorly formatted, though still readable. Hopefully this will be resolved in the final version (I suggest you first check out the sample from Amazon if this is an issue for you).

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

In preparing for my sermon tomorrow on the Transfiguration, I stumbled on an excellent book by Gary Thomas  entitled "Sacred Pathways - Discover your soul's path to God". Now I found the book lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Thomas suggests that there are many different pathways to God and ways that we experience His love. Not as in different faiths, but different ways Christians experience the Living God.

This came as a relief. My ability to be committed to a regular quiet time where I sit in my room and read the Scriptures and try to pray is weak at best. But I spend a lot of time studying His Word, reading books, listening to challenging podcasts... all of these I learnt can draw me closer to God. I also enjoy running and cycling, and often find my workouts to be an opportunity to chat informally with God. It doesn't fit into the structure of the "perfect" quiet time, but it is working for me. I don't need to feel guilty.

Thomas discusses the following spiritual temperaments which different people have, which impacts the way they experience God:

•  Naturalists: Loving God out of doors
•  Sensates: loving God with the senses
•  Traditionalists: Loving God through ritual and symbol
• Ascetics: Loving God in solitude and simplicity
• Activists: Loving God through confrontation
•  Caregivers: Loving God by loving others
• Enthusiasts: Loving God with mystery and celebration
• Contemplatives: Loving God through adoration
•  Intellectuals: Loving God with the mind

Isn't it amazing that our God is big enough to be experienced in all these different ways?

So the challenge is to find the ones that work for you, and focus on them. But also don't be scared to experiment in new pathways, it might be that God reveals Himself to you in a new and fantastic way!

If you would like to know more, I highly recommend you get hold of a copy of Sacred Pathways, it is available on the Kindle here.