ENC Conference - Session 3 - 2021

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good afternoon every nation seems like the image is not in the room good afternoon guys i hope that lunch did not you know kill the energy can i see by a show of hands who's excited to be here [Applause] [Music] so i want us to do something i want us to shout jesus three times and the band is gonna do like a huge swell are you guys ready yes okay can we just stand up can you just stand up so i'm gonna count to three and reach out jesus jesus jesus is that cool okay one two three jesus jesus jesus gonna do that again one two three jesus jesus jesus we worship you god [Music] people come together strangers our blood is [Music] [Music] don't let your heart be troubled [Music] god is so take courage hold on be strong remember [Music] [Applause] [Music] so jesus jesus [Music] [Applause] our salvation is [Music] [Applause] [Music] hold your head [Music] [Music] so take be strong remember [Music] [Music] [Music] the heavens are opening this afternoon who's in this room that believes with me that the heavens are opening [Music] swing wide open let the praise go up as the walls come down [Music] his name is jesus swing white swing wide swing wide [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] his name is jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] his name is jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] his kingdom god yes jesus we fix our eyes on you and we just want to say thank you so much for all the words and things that you have shared with us over this weekend i just want to say thank you god that you want to be in a relationship with all of us and that you have been sharing with every single one of us a personal word and you have been talking to every single one of us and i just want to honor you for doing that and speaking to us lord and i want to say god will you come holy spirit will you come and open up our ears to hear what else there is that you want to say open up our eyes that we might see what you are busy with right now open up our hearts and prepare a good ground that we are ready to receive the word holy spirit will you come and erase upon every single one of us and your wisdom your might your counsel your understanding and will you show us the light will you show us jesus christ we honor you lord and we love you and we're expectant for good word for the rest of the week in jesus name i pray amen amen amen and amen good afternoon everybody welcome back all right i wanna actually i wanna try this out um who can recite the vision of who he has every nation this afternoon all right let's go we exist [Music] okay let's try that one more time where in every nation and we won't stop until every single nation has heard come on come on we had an amazing afternoon in joburg for those of you who are logging in online it was an amazing hot okay can sit down if i'll be standing for a while you guys can join me i think it's not a i'm joking i'm joking it was an amazing afternoon in joburg i hear there were some games that happened uh this afternoon which campers got shown flames during the games that were there were guys are playing as zoo lake who won uj always winning right awesome you can come on come on pasta lang you can share with us in the comment section um what did you get up to this afternoon in preparation for the session this evening um and i'm going to hand over to my co-host my name is uh neil mahomes i'm part of the vets team uh raichu in joburg and i'm gonna hand over to my co-host this evening thanks neos for those of you that know me my name is henry now i'm from erie nation campus in portugal and it's such a privilege to be here at rosebank so today we have something very exciting for every one of you we are hosting a panel and so you guys will see as they come up we have a variety of speakers and every one of them will share from their professional and personal experience of how they've seen god use them to bring change in their society and you'll hear from all the discussions how the awesomeness of god extends into every single sphere in every single society and i know our slogan is to change the campus and change the world and i believe that we should live it out today come on this year we're called to live that out and so i hope that as this panel as they share their experiences with you that you they will be a passion stirred inside your heart to go make a difference wherever you go awesome i have the honor of introducing the facilitator for the panel tonight i mean this afternoon actually not tonight um depending on which time zone you're kidding but i'm introducing bongiwa minam kizer she was born in the beautiful province of kzen an advocate in the high court of the high court in south africa not only is she an avid bookworm but she's also passionate about making disciples some of her disciples are here in this room tonight this afternoon she's speaking about making disciples changing society and seeing justice being administered in society she was a full-time campus vocational minister adverts while studying towards an llb degree come on guys seriously she's currently serving as a lay leader part of the average nation campus verts team but personally she's somebody that i always see as a teacher at heart wherever you find herself wherever you find her she's always imparting knowledge she's always giving off herself her resources and making sure that the next person is better from having interacted with her so please put your hands together for buongior minam kize [Applause] everybody um can you hear me no okay you can hear me now great this this feels amazing i've always wanted this opportunity to be able to just be you know wired well good afternoon it's great to be with you i welcome the panel that is going to be with me this afternoon to join me [Applause] thank you this is so amazing i was just saying to pastor nero that this i've missed this it's been one year six months since we've been able to gather like this as campus specifically i know that some of the services are back but this is absolutely wonderful so i have the privilege this afternoon of spending the afternoon with you guys with an amazing panel of speakers i happen to personally know um majority of them in this uh panel and i think that it's going to be a fantastic afternoon great you're looking forward to it great so i'm going to start off by introducing pastor simon littlefollow i think that he doesn't need any introduction in fact he's known not only um nationally but he's known internationally not because he's the senior pastor of this church especially not because it's a previous vitzi you know he's a former vetsi [Applause] but i think that um foster simon's heart you know his heart for the nations you know comes strong in whatever conversation you're having with him or whether he is preaching on the pulpit and that's just the heart that process simon carries but of course his bio is not limited to that he's an engineer by profession he was a member of the src whilst he was a student at vets university so leadership is not a new thing for him and he also did a bit of economics he started he worked immediately after he graduated but always had a call to come into full-time ministry he's a father of three children and a wife to that beautiful and amazing lindy lehrer follow please give some simon a hand next up i have the privilege of introducing renee coutier you know renee and is a wonderful mother of uh four children i don't know how she does it she looks absolutely amazing um the last two being twins she is married to eugene coutier but what i absolutely love about renee we had the honor of working together you know and collaborating on some projects which is when i met renee outside of the every nation space um one thing that i've really enjoyed seeing over the years is just your consistency renee has a heart for um community development she runs a um npc uh called beulah africa and she's successfully done it throughout covet i've also had the honor of sitting as a board member of beulah um africa and i've seen rene be the same person in the church space and in the workspace and now as an employer she's a wonderful person to watch out for you know as she comes up with creative ways and solutions for communities in south africa the next speaker mr lang lang faster cool the general i mean this guy um like lambda also needs no introduction in this space i mean he has done some phenomenal things made longer when we were still students he was studying at uj and we were of course at vids um and you know he hoped that he would have been part of us but um langa whilst we were students at vitz founded we will worship i'm not going to tell you when that was because i won't expose my age right now but langa founded we will worship and it seemed like such a cool jamming session that we would do you know like once a term um you know they would be invited into spaces but seeing langa grow we will worship has been the most inspiring and amazing thing um you know to observe and watch you do it consistently he has also founded a cool brand called singua setu and that for me wasn't also too far fetched because lana has always been a man in the fashion space believe it or not look at mr cool with the red pants and his superman t-shirt right and he's also an amazing songwriter we will worship has released three cds to date and i know that they're continuing to write he's written an amazing song during covet uh you know five hey look at me like done playing this thing i am trying to slowly catch up but um he's they've written about yeah about five cds but um sorry they've released five cds to date and he's married to the most amazing woman ornate in banambi whom i think is actually the engine behind all of this you know i actually have to give all the credit to unity we know who's running the show you know and he has four amazing children um that he shares with unati and we are looking for you to build a soccer team and the last speaker that we have is um quintin pretorius quentin um so somebody's very excited to hear from you this afternoon um is you know he he has developed a reputation he has a developed reputation um as a best facilitator um and i think that i have actually observed that you know it's not something that i'm just reading i know that clinton is passionate about cultural intelligence diversity and inclusion you know he sits in some of the most difficult conversations as part of this church you know being the race that he is but humbling himself you know to you know i forget sometimes but constantly just humbles himself you know to participate even though he might not be the right race because he presses on to what he believes god has called him to be it's a tough space to be in but you know it's something that we have watched on the sidelines and we think is absolutely fantastic i mean um some of the things that clinton is is committed to is connecting people and organizations uh i mean we had a quick coffee water a chat just before the session and one of the things that clinton mentioned was that as lockdown happened they consistently met for about seven eight weeks you know as a connect group because he's actually passionate about connecting people and that's something that he didn't stop just because everything else was sort of stopping around him there's so much more to be said about him um but i'll leave it to you know the interactions of the panel for him to tell you a little bit more about who he is help me welcome the panel this afternoon fantastic um well we're gonna write go straight into it but before we go into it for our audience online um you are more than welcome to ask any question and those questions we will try by all means to facilitate them to um this the panelist this afternoon and they will try to answer your question if your question has already been answered somewhat because it falls into a particular category we are not leaving you out because we don't think that it's important we think that all questions are important and we actually would love to engage as much as we can with you at home so woohoo thank you for joining us this afternoon great we're going to go straight into it now you know one of the first questions that i have that i would love each panelist to sort of answer is what are you passionate about and what you are passionate what are you passionate about yeah yeah what a joy to be with you guys this afternoon and uh what an honor also to sit here and look back uh over 20 years i was on campus i know i look young right carol i still look young but when i was on campus one of the things i remember is going to what was called his people bible school and today it's called nli every nation leadership institute and uh being taught about nation building and impacting society and that stayed with me i believe that was also the birth of what is my passion today which is healthy leadership a few years ago i probably would not call it healthy leadership but i had a coach that i sat down with and this executive coach helped me to come to this one thing because i'm passionate about healthy families healthy marriages i'm passionate about healthy businesses a healthy government that serves the people and this executive coach helped me to see that at the center of it all what connects all these dots is healthy leadership when the leaders are healthy families will be healthy marriages will be healthy churches will be healthy governments will be healthy so i'm praying for healthy leaders and that's what keeps me up at night that we can help healthily that we can have healthy leaders in south africa stop me from preaching we know pastor sam and we love to hear from pastor simon i mean that is absolutely amazing the one word that i would take out from what you've just said is it's all about health whatever it is that you are you know approaching and faced with it's about a healthy space that's right that's amazing uh great it's so lovely to be with you guys i've always been i've also been part of campus ministry since 2009 when i was a student and um it was during that time that god really started speaking to me about africa i've been on african missions and i really have a heart for africa but during that time just specifically broke my heart for the state that the continent is in um and god gave me the word beulah africa that's later on founded but africa but the the word beulah in isaiah 62 means married and god showed me this picture of a orphan or a widow in comparison to a bride and that is what i'm passionate about is to see how god marries africa how it changes people and changes situations from that orphan from that widow from the sad from the vulnerable from the neglected to being the secure radiant saved loved flourishing individuals that god has created us to be and that's what i love doing that's what i love seeing and it starts with people accepting jesus and then the journey from there on to become all that god has called us to do so i love africa i love in an albula african language we say we believe people i like people who are beautified and it absolutely just does what god has called them to do it's amazing [Applause] uh good afternoon everyone uh what what i'm passionate about is just seeing scripture come to life i want to see us experience what we saw in the bible and what we read in the bible i i want to see heaven come to earth as we were taught to pray and so that's that's so for me anything to do with bringing a kingdom culture here is is what i get involved in so i dabble in a in a number of things but that's the heart is just to bring god's kingdom uh here here on earth and and so at the moment kind of what i'm the two things i think that i focus on is creating and curating so creating in the sense of creating things making things developing things where there's lack somewhere create something find a kingdom solution for that particular thing and then curating in the sense where there's awesome stuff that god is doing around the nations but we don't always hear of it or we don't always know of it or maybe the wrong things are being profiled the wrong things are being seen or heard and so it's just the finding where god is working and how can we collaborate to share that with the with the rest of the world thanks lanka so my name is actually quentin swaney previously known as victorious in keeping you in south africa when i think about what i'm passionate about it's i ask myself at the end of every week when i do a review of my week is it's these three words of challenge inspire and connect and so i'm i'm really passionate about challenging systems and organizations that are not equitable and i want to see an equitable society where everyone has an opportunity to contribute i want to inspire people to be their best selves to live out their god-given talents and i want to connect people i want to be able to connect people and organizations and connect people to god's given purpose in their lives and so whether that's uh talking to young people whether that's serving with excellence in the church or whether that's challenging organizations to become more equitable those are the three things that i sort of live by and ask myself every week have i challenged inspired and connected wow that is absolutely amazing have i challenged inspired and connected with people keep that in mind write that down because it's going to change how you do life that is absolutely amazing one of the things that never made us do when he was up here he said we should share the vision of the church and all of you enthusiastically shed the vision now the next question that i have for the panel is how has that vision you know um assisted you to pursuing the life that you are currently living yeah that's a great question um and there's two ways to answer it so when we look at the every nation vision uh in the context of every nation rosebank we've distilled it to three phrases which is honor god make disciples transform nations uh in short that's what the vision is about that's what we're all about we want to honor god in everything that we do we want to make disciples and we also want to transform nations if you listen to the sermons last night i'm still repenting now yeah i was also direct uh from my living room uh you know some of the things that nero was talking about uh if you listen to the simmons this morning uh you can tell what the heartbeat of this church the heartbeat of every nation globally is we want to make disciples who will transform nations we want to make disciples who go out there and not just work for a paycheck we want to make disciples who will go out there and say how am i making an impact in society today so that's the one way i can answer the question is how am i making an impact living out this vision by transforming nations by being a socially responsible person the other way to answer it is uh thinking about some of the challenges we've gone through in the last 18 months or so around covert and how the vision of the church has helped us to actually stay alive to stay connected there was a study that was made in south africa most of the times we talk about studies that are made in the u.s a study made in south africa by the evangelical alliance and they found that churches who have a culture of discipleship or small group have done better during the time of covert because when the church services were closed the sunday services were closed church didn't close for us church was actually open because we connected in our small groups whether it was online through zoom through google meet or some people did what's up connect groups you know some people were calling each other i see some people are like yeah what's up connect group you just make it work you know but it's because of the culture of discipleship that we have which is the vision of every nation that has helped us to navigate through these challenging times and amazing testimonies have come through that you know like we hear testimonies of people paying other people's rent from their connect group during the time of covert you know someone lost their car because they lost their jobs and some of you will know the guy we've shared the testimony dealers the community came around him paid off his car now he's driving a car that's paid off that's what the vision of the church is about and being in community is being a disciple who make disciples as i said stop me from preaching just mute my mic meet me that's absolutely fantastic we love testimonies you know and we love to see that what it is that we buy into actually translates into something one of the things that we have is the student community the slogan is that change the campus change the world and this for me you know that pastor simon just shared speaks directly into that now renee why don't you tell us how that's affected your approach to bela africa and what it's done so in 2009 we had a campus conference at that stage little campus harvest for all these in the room um and we we had to do we did some research for that specific conference on all the major universities in africa um with a strategy of saying how do we transform the nation the continent of africa by targeting the campuses and through that god really challenged my heart and i think that formed so much of just the vision i have for the continent in saying how do we change the campus to change the world because i was one of those people i was changed in the way in which i view things on campus and that is one thing leads to the to the next but i think part of that the vision out there um starts with you being discipled and with me that was discipled and they're not ever maturing from making disciples because in the social responsibility space i mean that's my my line of work we often be socially responsible by association or we even do the things of contributing csi's all of those things or even sustainable projects but unless a person has jesus there's no sustainability after this life they will die and they will not go to heaven and i think that is the thing that really with every nation has really caught my heart is to say we can never separate church planting discipleship with nation building with fixing systems and structures be it educational health or whatever it is that god is putting on your life you cannot ever separate that from making disciples being discipled and i think that's what every nation has done for me and i've seen the difference between running projects without jesus the core and the center of it and doing it with him and i never want to go back to without him um i i guess the the vision i i i heard when i was at a student as when i was a student at uh at rao and then became you jack so you know you have to translate that for some people all right which is the best university ever anyway you jay and and uh so just being taught there you know to honor god and having that heart as as pastor simon said uh like the abbreviated version was honor god make disciples transform nations and i mean that was just drilled into us as as a student and so just even walking away so i studied um marketing my plan was to go into advertising after graduating i ended up in campus ministry or school of campus ministry then campus ministry and and uh i i remember saying thinking to myself chuck what am i doing like with my life you know and um but i was thought hey you know just stick with what god you know stick with god uh follow whatever it is that god has called you to do and uh and that and you know the moments of faith the moments of great faith i'm like yes god has called me i'm gonna do life is gonna be awesome and then you hit kind of like a brick wall at some point you're like what am i doing here and i remember i had one of those what am i doing here meetings with someone and they were like listen what are you doing with your life you know by 30 you need to be you need to know what you're doing like you know you need to know what path you're on by 40 you need to be an expert at that right so mind you i'm like still trying to figure out this life and i'm in my what am i doing here stage you know and but nonetheless again always always taught just to honor god man just honor god with your journey with your walk and i've seen over the years how the journey that i've walked it would never have been a journey that i would have chosen for myself but i've seen god work mightily in different ways to the point where i am closing on 40 and i'm still not sure exactly what i'm an expert at uh but i keep honoring god but but exactly but god but god is is working and i've you know i've i've worked and done different things along the way and i guess i say this because there's some of you here that will probably pick one career and and that will be it and some of you god will pull you in different directions maybe something you haven't studied at all um but just to know hey the safe place is to pursue god honor god honor god make disciples and your transformed nations through it so how does every nation help me fulfill my mission so in 1999 i was on this dance and drama team traveling germany england the us tell in the story about south africa and it was incredible um nelson mandela just resigned i think he just resigned and it was the first time this big leader had stepped down handed over so we were like the the thing of the world and uh i was only white south african on this dance and drama team i've been introduced to worship in different languages i was like this is it and i came back to south africa and went back to my old church which looked very like me sounded like me believed like everything like me but there was no african worship there was nothing and and i was like yo i need to find a place where i can express myself and i remember walking in those doors and i was like i am home i'm in a place that represents what i now believe and i i can worship in different languages and a whole bunch of things and so that was 1999 where i started coming to this church but it was a couple of years ago i think it was two years ago i was doing a consult i think me and you said we were doing a consult in pretoria a whole bunch of churches from all over uh were together and people were introducing themselves and they say and because there was a con a reconciliation meeting that we were conserve facilitating um they said i come from a white church i come from a black church i come from a colored church when it came to me they said what church do you come from i was like i come from a jesus church there's nothing it's not a black church it's not a white church this is a jesus church and so for me every nation allows me to express who i am in a way that is authentic so when i walk out these doors and i talk about reconciliation and equity it's not just something that i talk about from a textbook but it's a lived experience so it's these difficult conversations that me and cyan need to have it's the difficult conversations i have with different people and it's when we work it out here that we then begin to have an impact in society rather than the other way around and so the church allows me uh to practice yeah so i can be effective out there give give the panel a hand that was absolutely amazing one of the things that we sometimes don't do is to do exactly what they've spoken about connecting the vision with the path that you are trusting trusting for if you can't distill it into and you know into whatever it is that you are doing then there's a bit of a disconnect so that's quite a challenge for all of you uh today if you're not already doing it because all of your amazing students and of course you're doing it already but if you just perhaps may have fallen behind it's such a practical way of thinking about your life today for what you want to look you know what you want it to look like in the next few years and of course journeying with the lord you know as you do that i'd like to remind our community our online community to send any questions you may have if you'd like to interact with the panel um because we are all part of the same service and part of the same conference we're so excited to have everyone you know just connect and um you know be with the panel so my next question um links to something that has to do with the covet so last year was it i don't even know when covert started it feels like covert started five years ago you know but i'm told by very reliable sources that it was 2020 which happens to be last year you know so it's not all that bad so these reliable sources remind me that it was only last year i just come back from an amazing faith field conference you know abroad uh where i really felt that god had given me a vision you know um about you know the next few years and the scripture that spoke to that uh was habakkuk 2-2 i was so amped you know writing everything down excited for what the year would bring and approximately two months later we sat with the situation where we were about to get into a 21 day lockdown um which has obviously gone on for a year and six months um and you know it's sort of like challenged some of the things that like myself you may have had for yourself you know writing down and trusting god some of the students who started last year during first year suddenly did not have that interaction you know in the classroom you know that's not what they envisioned for themselves when they planned out to go and study at university so you know some people who completed those that year suddenly realized that they couldn't walk you know the great rack to the great hall or whatever it is you know the relevant um you know a venue where you would graduate as a student so that was a very difficult and challenging thing that some of you had to deal with last year but i'm going to hand it over to the panel for the panel to tell us how they dealt with the challenge of uh post by last year or the last two years at least and how it's affected um how you've continued if you don't mind can quentin start with this question thanks no no pressure sign um so my side hustle requires me to engage with people face to face i look out for finger moving and then i say okay you moved i want to engage with you so it was very much reliant on face-to-face engagement and then when the president said there will be no such thing how am i going to work so i remember um one week before complete lockdown i went and bought some paint i went to bought some cables i went and bought duct tape and i cleaned out one room i painted a wall i started putting my kids thought i was crazy putting duct tape on the floor and started experimenting so the first six months of lockdown was a massive learning curve lots of mistakes i remember my first sermon as a paid employee of the church was a recorded sermon and i remember i made so many mistakes and i realized how many times i go um um um and i had to record that that sermon over and over and over i think my kids can even recite that sermon uh to this day but we made so many mistakes but it was so great that you could learn from those mistakes and so now i'm at a place where i'm doing online engagements and they're so much richer and i'm now trying to figure out how do i take those online experiences to real life experiences and so learning curve what i also loved and i think i loved lockdown in some ways right because it allowed me to stop it gave me the gift of time and just to slow down and create new habits and i'm starting to rebuild these new habits and saying i don't want to be as crazily busy as i was in the past and how do i continue having those those healthy habits around my walk with god my time with my family are connecting with my connect group there's a number of others but that gift of time i mean i'm sorry foster science you know i actually would have uh wanted to ask lana this next question to say that you know as a creative um you know in lockdown where did you find your inspiration and how did you go about to write the sixth you know album that you were busy working on uh firstly i um i think when uh lockdown was was happening or about to happen um you know for for me as a creative and for i guess the community that i'm a part of is we're always looking at ways on how we can serve using the gifts that god has given us because we believe our gifts are for you know as i spoke about begin bringing god's kingdom and so we need to serve with our gifts and and so as songwriters then we said okay well what we can do is write songs that release hope and they release god's promises uh so we we wrote i mean you know whenever everyone anyone gets sick the first song people go to psalm 91 i'm i'm declaring psalm 91 over you oh you know you know psalm 91 gp you know those those things but uh and and so we felt like you know that you know what would be helpful way we could serve is actually just to write a song put that to song to help people meditate over that meditate over god's truth and promises and uh and so i mean with lockdown shutting with lockdown everything being shut down uh i mean there's no events there's no gatherings there's no you know all that stuff and and a lot of what we do has got to do with gathering people and uh so so what i the challenge with lockdown was was was finding ways to connect with people yeah uh looking at innovative ways to connect with people and we do have you know zooms and things like that we may be zoomed out now but but uh but it was just say okay what are the opportunities yes we can't meet yes we can't gather yes we can't do but how can we uh connect with people and so that was an amazing opportunity uh for me one of the things that that i did was was i was able to actually take time because i always say i never have enough time and so this was one time where it was like you have time okay and you have no excuse and uh and so try to make the most of it and so one of the things i i did was actually just listen out because we're always saying let's release the sound of africa let's release uh you know depending on where you where you're at but it's like the sound of africa is out there it's in africa it's across you know but we just don't know we just haven't heard or maybe we're just stuck in our silos and so just had that opportunity to connect with different uh creatives across the continent and having zoom calls which is something i wouldn't have really thought of outside of a lockdown you know in my mind i thought okay i need to fly to ethiopia i need to you know but then all of a sudden everyone was willing to connect uh on an online platform and uh so so those are those were some of some of the things that kind of inspired us to create more and to to to do more in in the creative space wow that's fantastic i mean using what you have to continue um you know the vision that you know you have downside down for yourself that's absolutely amazing what has come out of that pastor simon you lead a church and there are a number of you know services that run at rose bank but you are not only limited to rose bank you're connected to the wider nation um to africa as well as the entire globe how did the past two years affect you know the vision and the plan that you had for this year last year and this year moving forward so still on this uh uh season of covet uh when i reflect back to uh much last year and some of what you shared you start the year believing trust in god that it's going to be a great year let me just remind you a lot of you had the slogans like 20 plenty you remember 2020 20 20 20 plenty you know uh you start the year with that kind of it's going to be a great year 2020 vision division you know all those plans you know we're laid out and the reason i'm reminding you that is to remember who god is he's a sovereign god he is in charge whether we like it or not we can have our plans but he controls our plans bible says many other plans in a man's heart but it's god's will that will prevail so for me i actually have to learn very quickly that god is in charge god is in control so going into march and when the announcement came that services have to be closed we're going to lock down and at the time we were still just thinking about uh buying cameras going online it was even just a dream we were not thinking that we will do it like in 2020 or 2021 we were talking with some people how to best do this thing and you may know duncan and killing irvine they they they run a production company and they were they do strictly come dancing if you know that show they were just advising us on how to do this so we were just thinking and dreaming and now boom covered happened we had to buy the cameras we had to make online services work but i want to talk about what happens in the background we see now we have cameras we've gone online i battled with anxiety and that's something that i mentioned uh at the the pre panel chat that we had most of you you'll see a pasta you'll see a leader who stands in front of the people and you're leading people and you need to say it's going to be great but inside here you're like a duck you know how the dark guns in the water ah but you know out here you're giving vision you trust in god but at the same time you have to be able to say to the people i don't know so quentin is on our executive team for every nation rose bank and he was there the very first meeting uh monday morning where it's supposed to be day off we had to plan the services so that's when you say god will look to you so at that moment this is now my takeaway from the covet season i actually learned to fully rely on god i learned to fully rely on god fully rely on god because there were things like how are we going to pay salaries you're an employer now not just an employee how are you going to pay the salaries there were things like education for the kids you worry about those things but as you fully rely on god and you see him come through that's what we saw so we had a 20 drop financially and then we started picking up and i'm grateful we never had to retrench and we never had to cut down the salaries i'm sharing that with you because god is faithful and he will see us through the storms that is absolutely amazing thank you for sharing that past assignment but more particularly for sharing your vulnerability because we tend to want to stand on this pulpit and only speak about the good things that have come through we have the amazing cameras we have the online service i mean if i can share story with you i practice as a lawyer and one of the things that we have had to be stretched out of is that to get into online and catch up with technology yes believe it or not we still read paper and we're part of the problem with the trees in this old school yes we're part of the problem with the trees in this nation but it's caused us all to be stretched in one way or the other one of the i mean the questions that i have for for renee is exactly about the stretching you know renee is a social entrepreneur and a complete go-getter an efficient person and i've seen her do really amazing thing in jungle balls but you know um you can share your own story renee with covert she's had her family double literally um i'm not sure if it was part of the plan for her maybe she was just thinking one more child lord and the lord was like i'll double the blessing you know we always ask for things you know double portion at the same time having to come up with creative ways to keep the business sustainable at such a time as that please just take us through how you handled that season great so um i was at that stage we were running a project we're still running it but a program that government has in the northwest where there's 21 000 people part of this program it's almost like a it's not a social grants program it's a income subordinate program so people work for their money but only twice a week so it's low income but it's 21 000 people relying on those monies and when the president made the speech our department is actually the department that ran this program as well the department that had to manage covet but the communication that came through to us as called implementing agents organizations that basically runs these programs for government was very minimal um to a point of zero communication and i had 21 000 people look at me apart from the 60 odd staff members looking at me and saying what's going to happen with us are we getting money are we going to be working what's happening next um and beyond that even what's covert are we talking low literacy low low-income groups unemployed rural communities and during that time i just really knew that i had to look to god because god has never caught off of god never ever i think that's one of the biggest lessons i learned something might be sudden to you it's not to god so had to present to god saying lord what do we do and um during that time we then for those 21 days some of you maybe slept a lot watch movies we did videos go with videos and that we produced locally that i had to help the individuals to be able to understand what is covered how do i take care of my family members everything at that stage was for example the 20 second hand washing technique okay but now it's all everyone knows it but at that time if you were to google it it was an automated soap machine in some european mall that was used to shoot the little videos so we then had to literally figure out how do you do it with a bucket system how do you use bleach if you don't have sanitizers i mean like how do you really care for your family and that so we did that translated into five different local languages including sign language and rolled it out on a whatsapp platform so that's 21 000 people and beyond that it was many more that eventually got it but you actually get that and i think the takeout for me was to say that god is never caught off guard and if he is if he has placed you in a position of leadership whether it's your family whether it's your friends whether it's your class groups how do you in that time bring leadership in that situation what is leadership it's creating a space where people feel safe when they're secure they they actually feel less vulnerable than they were because you in some way safeguard them from that and i think that's something that i really took from covetous to say no matter what the storms are gonna be let's look to god because he's created beyond everything and he's not caught of god so he has a plan for us to get through this and it's not a plan to survive it's to flourish and how does that look and what does that look like in your life in that season that is so good thank you so much uh renee for that so for now we're going to switch to our online community and because they have some questions for us so this question i'd like to post particularly to langan bonambi what and the reason why i pick her on langa is because a couple of years ago before i even asked the question a couple of years ago we went away we used to go on student um camps and we're at the student camp it was time for lunch and i was like okay guys it's lunch time and longer like we're fasting we're on a seven day fast i'm like we're at camp why why would you do something like that i want to get closer to the lord so langa you know given that conversation that we had a couple of years ago about your closeness with the lord tell us you know um the question i'm posing to you is what are your views on prayer and fasting and how important do you think it is um to do so and how often do you think that a christian person should fast and pray now while lung is thinking about that so did he surprise you guys when you're like there was no preparation he just just like that he was just like i'm not going to have that burger that is the devil's work i am fasting and getting closer to the lord i don't realize i'm sitting next to such discipline is currently fasting i think it's happening now is that sweet coming up we're going to pray okay wow okay okay guys i am eating by the way just so you know i had a solid breakfast um sure that's a lot okay um i'll maybe take all the fasting thing um in the in the jewish or the hebrew calendar i think about two weeks ago was was what was is called the yom kippur or the day of atonement and so that's actually one of the one of the days that god decrees that uh he says that you will do no work so it's a sabbath you don't do any work and it's a whereas other like feasts or or or moments that god speaks about or commands there's feasting there's a lot of feasting whereas this one it's it's uh it's fasting well it actually says that you will afflict your soul and um and the the idea of afflicting your soul is really pulling away from things that your flesh desires and maybe your flesh even needs so like food but it's to pull away from those things so that you recognize that god is your source so that you just pull everything your heart even when your stomach is grumbling to say hey yes maybe i could get a burger but hey actually god is what feeds me god is the one that sustains me god is the one that keeps me and and so essentially that is that is the heart of fasting it's not to beat yourself up to try to get close to god it's just the heart to say god i want you more than this food i want you more than water as the psalmist said you know as my uh the deer pants for water so my soul thirsts after you it's that it's just an opportunity just to realign your soul and your focus again to remember that it's god that keeps and sustains um and so in in terms of uh practicing uh i think that the times is a community where we where we fast we often have the 21 day of of of fasting like at the beginning of the year that's a great time to do so as a as a community you know to journey together to say hey we are choosing to to follow god in this way um otherwise i think in general when you when you feel like you are pulling away from the lord and it's usually things that speak to your flesh that your desires um that kind of woo you woo you away and you'll you'll know guys you know some of you guys uh maybe there's a text message coming in in the midnight hour and uh you know it's that somebody that you shouldn't be that's right responding to uh you know it's just like ish this thing has got too much of a pull on my heart right now maybe i just need to cut off and just take some time uh just to be with the lord and let the lord be the one that satisfies me and and so just as you journey and and that's why it also helps i think in community because sometimes you can't pick up where where you are uh where your flesh is is feasting yeah you know but people around you people can say bro i can see uh why are you eating that much or why are you drinking that or why are you going to this place you know what what is happening are you still pursuing god is god still is jesus still the one that's satisfying your your heart and soul um so i i guess that's some just some thoughts around uh fasting um otherwise prayer guys prayer is something that we do every day we communicate with god um uh so there's different ways of praying i think sometimes we get stuck on uh ish i need to pray these long nigerian prayers and uh stomp up and down the the room you know some people in some i've been in some circles like if you're just praying quietly in the corner it's like you're not praying you know um but ultimately it's finding a way to commune with the lord and and that's that's really it it's just having an open line between you and the lord whether you're doing it reading scripture whether you're doing it pacing up and down whether you're shouting whether you're quiet um whether you are repeating a phrase over and over and over again whether you're reading a prayer there's nothing unspiritual about finding a prayer and reading that that's the power of liturgy you know sometimes you don't have the words but someone can put words down for you to pray and for those those words to minister to you and and god as well so but i would say every day just speak to god just just speak to god wow that's fantastic thank you langa for that you know as we're speaking about speaking to god i'd like to ask pastor simon um well one of the questions that have come through pastor assignment which i think i'd like to ask you is what is the difference between calling and purpose that's good that's a great question and i know for students you grapple with this question a lot and then also as long as said earlier on um this is my alarm clock my apologies is it a call to prayer it's a call to pray literally actually it's a devotion with the family 5 pm it is so uh i want to go back to the question of call and if time allows i'll comment on the prayer and fasting why it's important to grapple with the call of god in your life it is going to bring a lot of peace when you know what that call is so when you study scripture you realize actually there's the general call of the believers we are all called to know god and to make him known just read matthew 28 you know we are all called to go and make disciples of all nations if you're in every nation i'm sure you've memorized matthew 28 right all right all right some of you have memorized matthew 28. but the general police were all called to know god and to make him known to make disciples the specific call is connected to your gifts and talents so why this is critical why would god give you the gifts and talents that you have just nice to have there's a specific reason why god has given you the gifts talents and the skills that you have it's connected to your call so the diagram i like to draw for people i have it in my office is the place where your your call which is the gifts and talents that god has given you the place where your passion meets your gift and call and also your vocation the work that you do right there in the middle that place it's your purpose so let me say again in a simpler way your calling is connected to your passion the things that you're passionate about the things that get you up in the morning i i'm sure you've heard from the panelists the things that are they're passionate about i'm sure you also have things that you're passionate about there's a need in society that you feel like we need to do something about this where the need in society meets with your gifts and talents that's where your purpose is and i will encourage you to actually do those personality tests that helps you discover your gifts do those personality tests that will help you discover how god has wired you because that's how you will know your purpose and uh don't misunders don't underestimate the power of prayer i have noticed that some people on the side of just prayer and no action but we need both we need to pray but we also need to obey we need to act so most of us we're just praying praying waiting for the call of god it is when you do stuff that you actually find that i'm moving towards the call of god in my life you know we didn't have enough time but if you listen to renee she can tell you that it was almost like pieces of a puzzle coming together how god orchestrated things she didn't wait until she was clear on the call of god in her life i didn't wait until it was clear to me this is the call of god in my life i just obeyed honor god obey and you will get to that call for your life yeah that's amazing how you know that pastor simon is supposed to be a preacher is that he gets so passionate speaking about calling that's exactly what he's talking about where that meets that that's exactly what you you should do it wouldn't be a student conference if this question didn't come up quintin how do you bring the vision into dating and marriage you know dating it's about purpose and then dating and marriage purpose dating and marriage purpose dating no no the question particularly is true how do you actually bring the vision into dating and marriage the vision envision the every nation vision so you're that's because i don't know can i give you an answer yeah go for it very easy answer you love god you make disciples you be in church you'll find your husband will you find your wife seriously guys you're gonna marry you're not marrying potential you're not marrying someone who says one day i'm gonna serve jesus you marry someone who lives it now if in this moment now he doesn't respect your body you can't pray together you don't have accountability in your relationship then maybe that's not your marriage partner okay so don't over complicate it don't ever complicate it follow jesus be good friends i made my husband in campus ministry and we are still in campus ministry and that is part of it so back to you so i i think i i make my wife thames and i think rose six through eight i was exactly and um she uh we we we had a coffee date and then we went to movies and at movies she afterwards we had a pizza and then she said this to me she said i'm not playing games yet you're either serious about this or you're not and if you're not serious it's uh there's the door so it's about making sure that this is what we want and we'll make a commitment and then you make that commitment and you just act on it and it's not about moving you away from that person helps you and guides you in that process and so when we first got married i never worked for the first six months of our marriage i was earning 500 grand working as a youth pastor somewhere and tamsen was the breadwinner and now it's sometimes the other way around but your partner's in this thing it's not that i'm doing this and she's doing that you're really partners in this wow that's absolutely fantastic [Applause] thank you so much to quintin and rene for that i also needed to sort of hear how do i get to that place because you know at this stage i need more than llamas fasting i need more than yom kippur i i just need the entire church to stare at their knees you know because i'm not sure where the issue is but renee i think you might need to that they come to disappear yeah i've been discipled by the wrong person please renee you you need to be a disciple it's just your husband that hasn't been disabled yet so guys do your job the girls around you need some boys amen amen would you like to say something about that okay well this question is specifically directed to to langa but i have two questions another one this is the last question that i'm going to ask from our audience thank you so much to our online audience that has participated so well and given us such interesting questions to actually engage with but this question is going to be in two parts part for longer and partly for rene and the question that i'm going to ask is we tend to be our worst critics our own worst critics highly critical of ourselves and what we put out there how do you personally deal with insecurities performance anxiety and being highly critical of yourself whilst you think about that langa the question that i have for renee which is very much related is as a mother of four how do you deal with anxiety um of and fear as you raise your four children sure can i go back many moons ago um i think there was a time just after i knew what was my call i knew it was my passion um and i was all about africa as you've heard my story so i was in a worship session lord yera am seen me and i heard the words of god saying i cannot because you're full of yourself and i wasn't in a place of pride i was at a place of hurt here's the thing we can't be nation builders unless we deal with issues in our own hearts and i have to really start being um absolutely like a bulldog about personal purity about the wholeness of your soul so that has led to a place where god dealt it was a deep journey in some of those but god really dealt with issues so the moment you know there's something off you know you someone says something you're insecure deal with it um i've been in church environments where we okay and you're like but me and jesus we get each other like it's okay if i have this issue and the sin and this reality but god will never be able to use you to your full capacity and your full strength if you have those things and you allow them and you tolerate them over time so yes it's a journey but how do you deal with insecurity the bible speaks about your one eye makes you sin plug it out okay that's how ruthless and like reckless you have to be with issues in your life that's keeping you from living in full purity it's your birth right to be free every creation is your birth right so if you're not walking in that birthright then obviously you have to foster pray um but journey through that go for counseling find scripture meditate on those reason why i start there is god did that in my life at a very early age so at 18 that journey started by the age of about 23 there was still stuff god dealt with but that's when i started buddha 25 god put me in situations which typically i would not have survived a few years ago prior to that because of just where my heart was at now coming to being a mom exactly the same so yes there's moments of how do i do this but it's new issues it doesn't trigger issues of 10 years ago and 15 years ago and five years ago and whatever the moment you find something i'm like lord i don't know how to raise this child i look to god and i'm like lord this is only you i will always fail as a parent i will fail as a business with women i will fail as a wife but you are good in your god and you are awesome so how do i do this lord please help me in this so i would say it really is about like a absolute commitment towards god to get rid of everything on your inside so that he can use you on the outside and the same with family is exactly the same same sure dealing with uh was it insecurities i think where i've experienced insecurity in my life is when i have compared myself to someone else or something else and then insecurities would would rise up and so i've learned over the years and and i haven't mastered it i'm still growing and learning is is to be grateful for what i have um i found that shifts everything because it's always oh i don't have this or i don't i haven't done this and but when you turn around you say man god thank you so much for all that you have done all that you've used uh used me for that you're doing my fam whatever it is it it shifts your perspective and and the more i grow the more i realize it's about perspective and i think that that's the heart of renewing your mind is getting a godly perspective on uh on on matters um so that that has been you know having that discipline of of giving thanks um i think it's it's uh first thessalonians 5 17 it says uh rejoice always uh pray without ceasing and in all things give thanks for this is the will of god for you in christ jesus we always want the will of god right and it's just rejoice always pray without ceasing and then all things give thanks for this is the will of god for you in christ jesus so so that has helped me significantly guys um yeah to shake off to shake off those those insecurities yeah wow that is absolutely amazing thank you so much to our panelists um for this afternoon and as we close thank you to our online community the questions are absolutely amazing and as we close i'm going to just ask quentin and pastor simon to have one last word um that they'd like to say to the students both online and here with us this afternoon you can go you i was thinking about this as we were getting ready for the panel and uh the words that are really on my heart is don't give up hope don't give up hope don't give up hope and uh i want to make it real to you guys when i was a student at verts um i failed because i was on the src one of my lectures said engineering and src don't go together and then i wanted to prove him wrong he i proved him right i failed and then i failed again the following year and i was excluded and by being excluded for those who may understand the context in advances you have to go and appeal and then you may be taken back or not so i was taken back i can tell you it was a moment where i felt like the dream is gone the dream of being the first one in my family to have a university degree was gone that dream was gone but god brought back the dream god brought back the dream i was the first one in the family to have a degree and everyone followed there must be a trailblazer there must be one who will go first and others will follow and along the way there has been challenges where i could have given up the dream there was a time i wanted to resign from being a pastor now and carol knows the story but but my wife prayed through the night talk about a woman of prayer she stopped me from sending my resignation letters just let's pray through this and she prayed and where i'm going with this is i didn't know that it is through the storms that god is shaping character for where he's taking us so you may be going through the storm right now you may be wanting to give up hope you may be wanting to change what you're studying my word to you is don't give up hope god will see you through the storm so so in light of that you remind me of a story about my my my sister-in-law and brother-in-law i think was a couple of years ago their son was diagnosed with terminal cancer he was nine years old when he was diagnosed early in the year and the doctor said to my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law make the most of your time with your son you'll be lucky if you make it to december it was a growth in his lungs and his hips and halfway through the year he was on crutches and he was in the shower and he fell in the shower and so my sister ran into the shower and she saw her son laying on the floor and he's crying and he says mom i'm tired i don't want to do this anymore i just want to give up so my sister-in-law sits on the floor with him and says to him you can be angry you can be frustrated you can be disappointed you can have all those feelings but i'm not allowing you to give up we will fight this thing and gregory passed away on this 26th of december that year but when my sister-in-law shared that story it reminded me of many people that maybe feel like gregory right now laying on the floor saying i can't i just cannot do this anymore i just want to give up and so let my sister-in-law's words be with you this morning or this afternoon to say you can be angry you can be frustrated you can be sad you can be disillusioned but you may not give up you have to continue to fight and that is one of the joys of being a christian is that as christians we can fall but we get up every single time because we have a helper that helps us get up during those times and so wherever you are right now know that as a christian and knowing that you serve jesus he is there when he asks you to get up you get up we don't stay down as christians we always get up because we have a great helper along the way as we do this journey together thank you help me give her the hand of applause to all our panelists thank you so much to our panelists we've had a fantastic time and we apologize for going over time please put your hands together for boeing and the team thank you oh man what an amazing amazing session what was your takeaway what are some of your takeaways from that i just have to say this you know it's a panel that includes students if a relationship question and i don't think renee knows this but before i got married before i met my husband i listened to one of her sermons and i said god speak to me because i need to know if i can say yes to this guy or not and uh through that sermon i was really late to say yes yes so thank you renee but yes on a deeper level what i really saw that stood out was the basics and that is that we need to rely on god sometimes we forget the basics and that is just to turn our focus on god and that is what stood out for me tonight yesterday and for you i want to say to pastor um pastor quentin yes that we were challenged we were inspired and we connected come on that is so good and i want all of us to take this as our take home message this was mine firstly what pastor lanka said in terms of being grateful not comparing ourselves to other people being able to say thank you so much for all that you have done oh lord and then lastly what renee said about it's your birthright to be that's it have a good afternoon everyone come on that is so good see you tonight the next session starts at seven o'clock the doors will open at six if you're here in person and remember to use our official hashtags hashtag awesomeguard hashtag enc21 every nation campus awesome see you guys later bye you

Channel: Every Nation Campus Southern Africa

Views: 376

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ENC, Campus, Religion, Conference, Christ, Jesus, God, Every Nation, Faith, Pretoria, Tswane, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Joburg, Potchefstroom, Potch, Bloemfontein, Elevation, Hillsong, Youth

Id: s1amcxVfBHQ

Length: 87min 19sec (5239 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021