Dallas Rooftop Encounter – May 6 2019

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On Monday, May 6, we will be partnering with the Dallas Baptist Association (DBA) in Dallas, Texas for our first Dallas Rooftop Encounter. This will be the first of what could be three Rooftop Encounters this year in Dallas. We are presently speaking with two other ministries who desire to host Rooftop Encounters this Fall. Plans are already being discussed to bring the DBA and these other ministries together for a joint Rooftop Encounter in 2020. Plans are also being made for our National Pioneer, John Whaley, to meet w

Washington D.C. Rooftop Encounter – April 29 2019

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When people think of Washington D.C., various images come to mind. Our Nation’s Capital. The Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial. The place where decisions are made that impact our nation and the world. On Monday, April 29, it will be a city covered in prayer as pastors, leaders, and intercessors gather for the D.C. Rooftop Encounter. This will be our second Rooftop Encounter in D.C. and will take place during the annual Bible Reading Marathon which takes place on the steps of the Capitol and prior to the National Day of Prayer on May 2. The Bible Reading Marathon begins on Sunday evening, April 28. During the Marathon, the Bible is read aloud from the steps of the Capitol beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday evening and concluding on Thursday morning at 11 a.m. Details on the location and time for the D.C. Rooftop Encounter will be announced soon.

Joining Jesus – 25th February 2019

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SPECIAL NOTE
On 1st April 2019, I will be beginning the ‘Joining Jesus’ Podcast and be launching a new ‘Joining Jesus’ discipleship process that will be available at The Rooftop Academy www.therooftop.org

As such, to avoid having too many, and possibly confusing ‘titles’ I thought it would be best for the weekly email that I send to have the same title. Therefore, ‘Stay On Mission’ from now onwards will be titled ‘Joining Jesus’.

If you are being helped by these emails, from 1st March, please feel free to find out more about the podcast and discipleship process.
Here is this weeks article.

1. Take it ‘near’ to people.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:14,15

Often as I travel, I preach in churches in many different parts of the world. The places where I have the opportunity to preach are so varied, from large churches in cities of the developed world to small gatherings of people in villages and slums in the developing world. One thing that I have discovered is that wherever in the world I am and whoever it is that I am with, the gospel has power to change lives!

One of the advantages of preaching to a different church gathering each week is that I don’t have to prepare a new sermon every week. This allows me to preach, for a season, the same message in each place that I visit. Over the past few months, the message that I have been sharing has been based upon the amazing words that Jesus said to announce His ministry:

“The Kingdom of God has come near”.

I find these words to be such a great inspiration as I seek to join Jesus in His Mission because these few words provide such a simple but profound insight into what His mission was, and is!

Jesus didn’t come to the world, build a building, call it a church and ask people to come to it. He went to the people, where they were and as they were. He went to the broken, the hopeless, the fallen and the failures and He told them that there is GOOD NEWS! That is because ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’. Jesus was telling these people, who felt so far from God, that He was bringing God to them, right where they were! They could see it, feel it, touch it because He was the Kingdom and He was among them!

This ‘mission’ is so different from the way that many churches understand it. So many are running programmes and activities inside the walls of their buildings and waiting for people to come and join in. Jesus didn’t do it that way – He took the Good News of the Kingdom to the people.

Recently, I was speaking to a gathering of people in La Union, El Salvador. As I preached, I moved away from the pulpit and walked among the people. I frequently stopped and fist bumped a person and said something like ‘it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done, you may feel worthless and hopeless, but there is Good News – the Kingdom of God is near, it is within grasping distance’. One of the people that I had fist bumped and said this to was a young man. After the gathering he came to me and said that He wanted to follow Jesus! For all of his life he thought that he wasn’t good enough for God and for church. When he realized that Jesus came to Him ‘as he was’ and had the power to change him, everything fell into place.
Our church buildings are surrounded by people who don’t think they are good enough to attend our meetings. If we are to join Jesus in His Mission it is time for us to stop waiting for them to come to us and instead, like Jesus, go close to them and let them see in our lives and hear from our lips, the remarkable truth that ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’.
This week, I encourage you, to take the Good News of the Kingdom to somebody that you know who thinks of themselves as being far from God, but is close to you

Dennis

Burundi – Seminar for Pastors to introduce The Rooftop

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The Rooftop Burundi held a seminar for Pastors and Representative of the Churches. The theme was “Joining Jesus Christ in His Mission”. The Seminar was well attended and the message of The Rooftop was very well received.

Rooftop Burundi organise a Seminar for Pastors

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Pastor’s Seminar Invitation
I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the invitation of Pastor’s seminar of February 5th 2019. The Rooftop Ministry has organised that seminar with “Church of Brothers”. Help us with your prayers for that work.

News Item

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News to follow soon.

Joining Jesus – 19th February 2019

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After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  Mark 1:14,15

1.      GOOD NEWS.

If we are to join Jesus in His Mission, it is vital that we understand what His mission was and is.  I think this is so important because there is a great deal of misunderstanding about Jesus’ mission both inside and outside of the church.

Many people inside of the church see ‘mission’ as being focused on the ‘church building’, a place where we engage in activities and run programmes with the expectation that if people are going to hear the gospel, they will join in with what we are doing.  Put simply, we are ‘doing what we do and waiting for people to come to us!’

Many people outside of the church know nothing about why Jesus came.  All they have is a vague impression that the church is for ‘religious people’ who frequently consider themselves to be morally superior to those outside.   This leads many to believe that church is a place for people who think they are good. 

The tragic result of this misunderstanding on both sides is that in a world where less and less people are attending church, more and more people have no idea that Jesus came to the world to announce, and to be, GOOD NEWS!

The reality is that there are millions upon millions of people around the world who have no intention of attending church but, without even knowing it, they are waiting for us to go to them!  This is because God, the Holy Spirit, is active in the world and in the lives of people who are not coming to church.

As the scripture says:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

Please note the two simple words from this sentence ‘Jesus went’.  He did not ‘wait’ He ‘went’!

Over the next few sessions I will focus more on what this ‘Good News’ is and how we can Join Jesus in His Mission by imitating Him. But, as we begin this short series, I want to encourage you to consider a significant question:

‘In what ways are you bringing GOOD NEWS to people that are close to you but far from God?’

Take some time this week to think about people that you know who have not heard the GOOD NEWS and ask God to help you to be willing to go!

Joining Jesus – 11th February 2019

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4. ‘Choose Life!’
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Matthew 16:21-24

As He engaged in His Mission, Jesus invited people to follow Him. His invitation confronted the first disciples, and all of us with an enormous and eternal choice:

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
The choice is between seeking to ‘save’ our life or being prepared to ‘lose it’ for the sake of Jesus. There is so much that could be said about this challenge but I want to go straight to what I believe is the core of what Jesus is saying here. His words ‘whoever wants to save their life’ mean – ‘Whoever wants to stay in control of their life and still think of it as ‘my life’. People who make this choice will lose their life because they have never become the kind of followers that Jesus is seeking. The phrase ‘lose it (their life)’ refers to the ‘kingdom life that Jesus came to bring’. The life He offers cannot be received by people who want to carry on living their own life and somehow make Jesus a part of it! The result of us continuing to live our own lives is that that we will not truly know Jesus in this life and in eternity!

On the contrary, Jesus continues, ‘whoever loses their life for me’, these words mean – ‘whoever surrenders their life and submits to Jesus as Lord’ These people will ‘find life’ because the new life that Jesus offers is a ‘replacement’ for the life that we live when we stay in control. As Paul writes in his second letter to the church at Corinth:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17
A follower of Christ is, in the words of Jesus and Paul, a new creature whose old life ‘has gone’ and who is living a ‘new life’ with Jesus at the centre.

The challenge of these words of Jesus and Paul, is that Jesus never offered what passes for ‘being a Christian’ in many churches. Jesus never offered eternal life to people who would continue to live their own lives and turn up at church on Sunday for worship gatherings. He offered a new life to those who would be willing to surrender their life to Him, and join Him in His mission.

As I write these words I am personally, deeply challenged, by the uncomplicated yet radical choice that Jesus presents us with. I find myself wanting to look for a less challenging choice that will make it easier for me, and for others, to follow Jesus. But as hard as I look I can’t find one, Jesus didn’t offer ‘an easy road’ Rather, He said:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13,14.

As I conclude this short series on what is means to be a disciple of Jesus, I ask you, and indeed myself, to look at some other words that were written by the Apostle Paul and to ask the Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to help us to reach the place where these words can be our living testimony:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Joining Jesus – 4th February 2019

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SPECIAL NOTE
On 1st March 2019, I will be beginning the ‘Joining Jesus’ Podcast and be launching a new ‘Joining Jesus’ discipleship process that will be available at The Rooftop Academy www.therooftop.org

As such, to avoid having too many, and possibly confusing ‘titles’ I thought it would be best for the weekly email that I send to have the same title. Therefore, ‘Stay On Mission’ from now onwards will be titled ‘Joining Jesus’.

If you are being helped by these emails, from 1st March, please feel free to find out more about the podcast and discipleship process.

Here is this weeks article.

3.  It has to be ‘SUPERnatural”.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.  Matthew 16:21-24

Jesus laid down His life so that His mission could be completed, and this mission is at the very heart of God. Luke records Jesus’ words:

“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent”.  Luke 15:7

And a little later:

“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  Luke 15:10

It is clear from these words of Jesus that God’s priority is that sinners will repent, is was for this reason that Jesus came to earth, leading sinners to repentance was His Mission:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  Mark 1:14,15

In order for the ‘good news of God’ to reach the ends of the earth, Jesus calls people to follow Him.  In the New Testament, the word used to describe these followers is ‘disciples’ and it is really important to note that the word ‘disciple’ doesn’t just apply to a select group of followers who are ‘super-committed’ followers of Jesus.  If we are to truly follow Jesus and join Him in His Mission we must take serious note of the words that He spoke to His followers:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

These words are challenging to the very core because they speak of something that none of us can do on our own strength.  What Jesus requires of a disciple can only happen as a result of God’s supernatural intervention.  Left to our own devices we, like Peter, miss the point of what Jesus is calling His followers to do.  He is passionate about the mission that He came to complete and He wants people to follow Him, share in His passion and tell the ‘Good News of God’ to the world.

For this to happen, Jesus says that something miraculous needs to take place in “Whoever wants to be my disciple”.    The miracle will require that every disciple must “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”.

Self-denial and the willingness to suffer are contrary to our natural instincts and each of us will avoid these things if we can.  Self fulfilment and comfort are far more attractive to us!  Even as Christians, it is possible that we view Jesus as the one who blesses us and ‘makes our life better’.  However attractive this may seem, it is not what Jesus offered!  He knows that if we are to ‘Join Him in His Mission’ we will have to step outside of our comfort zone and, like Him, seek and save the lost.  This will require sacrifice and suffering.

The choice we face every day of our lives as we live among people who Jesus came to seek and to save is ‘will I put Jesus Mission before my desire for comfort?’  To be able to say yes to this we need a supernatural intervention, or, as the word of God says, we need the Holy Spirit.

This week, I encourage you to reflect on the verses below from Paul’s letter to The Romans.  As Christians we are not left to ‘do the impossible in our own strength’ but to recognize who we are in Christ and allow Him to do a supernatural work in us!

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  Romans 8:15

‘Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory’.  Romans 8:17

Dennis

Joining Jesus – 27th january 2019

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SPECIAL NOTE
On 1st March 2019, I will be beginning the ‘Joining Jesus’ Podcast and be launching a new ‘Joining Jesus’ discipleship process that will be available at The Rooftop Academy www.therooftop.org

As such, to avoid having too many, and possibly confusing ‘titles’ I thought it would be best for the weekly email that I send to have the same title. Therefore, ‘Stay On Mission’ from now onwards will be titled ‘Joining Jesus’.

If you are being helped by these emails, from 1st March, please feel free to find out more about the podcast and discipleship process.

Here is this weeks article.
2. Have you missed the point?
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Matthew 16:21-24
The Jesus who asks us to follow Him and join Him in His Mission is the one who ‘died for us’ as Peter writes:
‘For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God’. 1 Peter 3:18
The mission that Jesus asks us to join Him in is something that is far more urgent than merely filling up empty seats in church buildings. It is not a mission that is intended to give people a better life – it is a mission that is fulfilled when people surrender to Jesus and receive a new life, al life that begins in this world and will continue forever.
Having spent several years travelling to many parts of the world and visiting churches in a variety of different situations I have reluctantly reached a sad conclusion. The conclusion that I have come to is that the vast majority of Christians have lost, or maybe never had, a deep passion for a mission that is about saving people from an eternity without God! Somehow, it seems we have missed the point!
Remarkably, in the scripture we are looking at, we discover that we are not the first people to completely miss the point!
Immediately after Jesus had explained His mission to the disciples, Matthew records:
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Peter had missed the point and not understood that Jesus’ Mission was not just something that made life better here, it was a mission with an eternal perspective, hence the enormously challenging words from Jesus in response to Peter:
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Jesus now rebukes Peter and at the heart of this rebuke is that Peter only has in mind ‘human’ concerns not ‘the concerns of God’. As a result, Peter was a stumbling block because while he saw things from this perspective he would get in the way of the true mission of Jesus!
This can easily happen to us as churches and individuals, we can become so focused on ‘human concerns’ – our own problems and issues as individuals and, as churches, keeping things the way we like them to be and ensuring that we are ‘on budget’. These human concerns can mean that we completely miss the point and see our mission as ensuring that our needs are met – this can make us a stumbling block!
For us, as for Peter, there is a rebuke from Jesus if our focus is on ‘merely human concerns’.
This week I encourage you to take some time to read through the scripture verses above and ask the Lord to reveal to you whether you have in mind ‘the concerns of God’ or ‘merely human concerns’.