Renaissance Innovation

I would just like to introduce you to one of the Students at Siyabona Leadership School, which I feel will give you a good idea of what we are trying to achieve with Siyabona.

Mpume lives in Orlando East, this is a very well known zone in Soweto.  Mpume has a high school education and he is very passionate about his community.  Unfortunately he has lost 2 sisters to AIDS.  Mpume serves his community by developing vegetable gardens and teaching about AIDS and the dangers of practising sex outside the boundaries of marriage.  Unfortunately in his community there is a lot of rape and many woman get infected through that. 

A couple of months ago Mpume got a research group to come and do voluntary AIDS testing in one of the High Schools with 1300 students in his community, where he provides teachers and students with fresh, healthy vegetables. 100 Students took part in this inisiative and 73 of the 100 people tested HIV+.  This confirmed Mpume’s mission to provide education about the illness and healthy food to build the immune system of those who are infected. 

Mpume has many people under his influence.  He is postitive and very well equiped for what he does.  He lives only from donations and shares whatever he has, going hungry many days, helping his community. 

One evening at Siyabona we had to share which leader has had the greatest impact on our lives.  Mpume’s response was pofound.  Sitting in our group with corporate leaders he said: “All I can say is Jesus Christ, that is it, He was God and could ask others to serve Him, but He served them.”

Love. John 3:16, 1 Cor 13

Our discussion on Tuesday night once again revealed Christ’s love for the world. We as a movement don’t exist to convert people. This was the paradigm we all grew up with: “Convert the buggers cause they are on their way to hell”. When we study Jesus and his life, we see His love for people. We see His love for the world. They are accepted, valued and loved for who they are. We as a movement want that to be our motive, to spread the love of Jesus. We want it to be the core of the movement.

From that core and motive the mission of God for us as His followers will be clearer and more authentic.

Tonight 6 people will gather in a house in a western suburb of Johannesburg.  A psychologist, a business and life coach, a graphic designer, a credit controller, a marketing manager and a financial director.  Their ages are 50, 39, 31, 32, 46 and 32.  They are the people giving momentum to a movement of Christ.  They feel called by Christ to live more dangerously to expand God’s Kingdom in Africa.

They are tired of the civilized religion that has been a part of them all their lives.  Our country needs this movement to find momentum.  May God lead their thoughts and actions.

This group of people will live with the following values:

R = Radical Inclusivity

E = Eternal Perspective

N = Nobility with non-violence

A = Authenticity

I = Integrity

S = Servanthood

S = Simplicity

A = Apprenticeship

N = Nurturing

C = Community

E = Engaging

Take the first letter of each value and you get the word Renaissance…………………

I have been very busy lately and the business that I started to support me and my wife is up and running.  We thank God for His provision.  I would just like to show you a photo taken at our 3rd session of Siyabona.  Our next session will be 25 July.  Siyabona has been running for 4 months and we are very excited.

 Keep in touch.

I have not been blogging for a while, but things have been busy.  We will have our second session of Siyabona tomorrow. The first get together was a great experience and there is great excitement for the second session tomorrow.

We had about 30 students from all racial and socio-economical backgrounds. It was a great dynamic and the students enjoyed the interaction in our country that is still very much isolated between white, colored and black.

I pray that this will help elevate the leadership quotient in our country.

Our vision is to cultivate diverse transformational leadership

Our core values:

Servanthood
Reconciliation
Apprenticeship
Integrity
Stewardship

Siyabona Leadership School will be an experiment where we introduce low, middle and high income groups to the same environment. Here in South Africa this is crucial to get our country mixed up and at a place where we share and learn from each other. Siyabona will provide the environment where the corporate CEO can learn from the local leader from a squattercamp, but also where the squatter can learn from the CEO.

Our country needs transfromation and the development of leaders. Siyabona is non-profitable and will exist only to see this happen.

I ask for your prayers and thoughts on this idea!

Siyabona will start on the 11th of April and will get together once a month for 3 hours.

By the way……Siyabona is the Zulu word meaning: we see, we have the ability to see the future.

It scares me. Consumerism that is.

Yesterday I had to wait in a queue for 2 hours to renew my car licence. The whole system of the state department here in SA is so insufficient. But what a lesson of how deep consumerism has her claws into me. We snap our fingers and pay loads of money to have things our way. This doesn’t work here in South Africa.

While in the queue waiting a crippled man walked in and was ushered to the front of the line. He was black. Many of the white, sophisticated consumers could not handle this and started complaining. “He also has to wait in the line”, was the cry. Then they took him to the back again, but eventually someone ushered him into the offices for personal attention.

It was pretty sad to see how we choose consumerism, rather than the example of Jesus. These were the European whites who brought Jesus to Africa. Somewhere in their proccess of showing Him to Africa, they have lost Him.

Sometimes working with the poor and broken is tough.  How do we give them hope?  Somehow we will not alieviate poverty right away for them.  In this temporary life not all will be perfect once we become Christ followers. 

We live in a time where people are obsessed with looking young until they die, but we still die.  Looking at the cosmetics industry it scares me to see all the available lotions and potions!  I don’t mind cosmetics, but you have to agree the world has become obsessive.  We don’t want to die!  Why is this?  Because we make to much of this life.  We are still the pilgrims that God sent to this world.  This is the journey, not the destination.

For the above mentioned problems Christ offered the following:

Eternal bread, eternal streams of water and eternal life.  That’s why I say:

Jesus and followers of Jesus look beyond this temporary life, focused on that which lasts eternally.
 

This is no reason to be passive about the world, but a great motivation to engage our communities, rich and poor.

Col 3: 1-3 : “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ^ 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ^ 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ^ 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

 

1 Thess 3:18 “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ^ 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ^ 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.�

 

Phil 3: 19-20  : “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ^ 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. ^ 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.�

 

⁴³ Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.â€?      Luk 24
 

Jesus speaks about water that quenches our thirst for eternity.
Jesus speaks about bread that feeds us for eternity.

 

Scriptures about eternity:  Close to 100 in the Bible.

2 Cor 4:16-18 : ‘Paul reminds us of this life’s temporary status! 

Questions:
 

1. What lasts for eternity?
   
2. If you have found the answer for the above, how should this influence the way you invest and manage your time?
3. If you start living for eternity today, what is the one thing you need to change so that your life will be in line with you eternal perspective?

 Jesus brings more than temporary relief, there is eternal hope.

The world is known for exclusivity. Therefore we discriminate. Our country has a history of apartheid where this was clear. Jesus challenges us to be inclusive. The church though has not done Justice to this core value of Jesus and His first followers. Therefore I post the following and would like you to comment on this.

R - Radical Revolutionary Inclusivity,

A movement of Jesus Christ should be known for its inclusive nature.

Luk 15:1 “Now the tax collectors and “sinners� were all gathering around to hear him.(NIV) ,

Mark 2:15: 15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners� were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners� and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?�
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.�

Col 3:11 “and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.�

Luke 7 : 36-50.

1 Cor 9: 19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings

Matt 19: 13 “13 Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.
14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.� 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Questions :

Do I realize that Jesus includes me?
How inclusive do I live towards others?

This is a series that I have been posting the last couple of months on www.kingdomblog.org

Our country is so diverse.  So many people, and so many needs.  I speak to rich and poor and there is a hunger for an authentic life away from our current culture.  This morning while Adel and I were on our way to work, we picked up a guy desperate for a ride.  He says that no one is interrested in helping him.  This is the world we live in.  We are so scared and isolated, even the church.  Now I know our country is unique with the violence but somehow I believe that we should live in a way that bring freedom and helps people get over their fear.

I’ve been reading Parker Palmer the last week and here are some astounding quotes:

“Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them - and receive them from others when we are in need.�

Abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community doesn’t just create abundance - community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.�

I’ve also read the “Time� magazine about the terrible reality of world poverty. What western democratic capitalism has created, is isolation from those who really have need. It really is sad to view the spending of the different countries when it comes to debt relief and poverty relief.

Somehow I once again realize that our hope is not in our own abilities, but our hope lies in Godly community. Our hope is to live together with each other and with Christ. This is how abundance will be created. I challenge you to become a person that creates this abundance. This is perhaps your most precious contibution towards humanity.  I do not only refer to the rich to help the poor, but also the scared and the isolated to enjoy a life of meaning between friends and fellow followers of Jesus.

Community is the best way to live for all of humanity! It was the way that Jesus our Master lived.

If you would like to read part 1-5, please visit www.kingdomblog.org