We were blessed today to watch this award-winning movie, which is about one the members of our church in Pittsburgh, USA, and his life-changing journey to work in one of our AIDS orphanages in Chennai, India. Incredibly impacting!!!

The movie is called "Blood Brother" and is now available from Amazon.com as a US import DVD.

Not many people realise the next movie project from the creators of Blood Brother is due to be set in Ukraine! Go Ukraine!! 

The promotion video is again incredibly moving, with the cutting question, when is it right to force someone to change???

Below is a sample clip from this prospective movie. It is hard not to be moved, and to conclude that sometimes force with the right motive is better than no action at all!

In the Middle East sheep and goats often look similar. I have seen this in Cyprus, and this photo of a mixed herd near Mt Ararat shows how difficult it can be to immediately tell the difference between the two types of animal.

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus tells us that at judgement God will divide the sheep and the goats. So what is the difference between the two?

The sheep fed the hungry, helped the poor, invited strangers......... The goats did not.

The sheep served others. The goats wanted to be served!

Yet both were in the herd, and appeared to follow the shepherd. What if we therefore had both in our church herd today? The goats who come to think what can I get out of church? Will it be a good show? Do I feel righteous for coming? And the sheep who come only to give and serve, and how can I help to build up the church today?

These are serious spiritual questions as they will affect our eternal future. 

The question is which animal are you?

Recently we discussed our vision for the Limassol Church of Christ by the year 2020. And here it is - 4 Cities, 4 Churches!

We recently looked at Hosea and his love for his wife Gomer despite her continued sin.

Marriage is a sacred institution and when we are young we all dream of fairytale weddings, and of course living happily ever after.

Christ himself of course has a bride.  Wait, I thought Christ was unmarried?? Who is it?

In Ephesians  5:25-27 we read Christ loved the church so much as his wife he was willing to sacrifice himself for her, as he did upon the cross. What were the waters of cleansing mentioned? Baptism of course. But importantly this washing was through the word, meaning it requires OBEDIENCE to God's commands. Christ after all wants to present the church as perfect.

In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul also eagerly desires to present the church as pure. This is the ernest desire of any minister or leader.

Yet Ephesians 5:24 makes it clear we are to submit to Christ, not to people! We are responsible to each other, and to call each other higher.

We should also realise the wedding has not yet happened. In Revelations 19:7-9 we read it will be in the future! What a great occasion it will be. Imagine being there. What a party!

But the church must be kept pure. A white dress should mean a white dress!