Citipointe Live

The final chapters 4 & 5 of our mini-documentary ‘project cambodia: cause behind the commission’ are now live.

You can view them over on the project cambodia page.

On our recent trip to Cambodia we documented what we saw, felt & experienced together as a team. We’ve cut these into 5 webisodes to be released over January. We invite you to view these mini-docos over on the project cambodia page. We hope these are reflective & inspiring…

much love
citipointe live

view the ’cause behind the commission’ webisodes

Was’ up everyone!

We had a rad Creative practice last tuesday night! I commend every member of our team for diggin’ deep and passionately pursuing the heart of God!
I spoke on a subject that is relevant to every human being whether you’re a teenager or you’re an elderly. The title of my message was “Living in the Light,” here is a breakdown of the notes I had, hope it helps!

Purity is such a battle these days. I’m not just talking about sexual purity, but about the arsenal of weapons that bombards our lives daily. We often excuse ourselves from being pure by insisting that it is so hard to be pure in these days. All sorts of excuses are given, “all the pornography on the internet,” “all the drama, sex, and violence on TV and in the movies,” “That piece of gossip was so juicy I had to share it with my best friend,” and we use the excuse “everybody’s doing it.” Bottom line, purity is not easy because the Devil knows how to co-opt some of our most basic and human desires and get this, WE PREFER TO GIVE IN AND HAVE THEM DISTORTED THAN TO BE DISCIPLINED AND HAVE THEM BLESSED.

Ouch! I can think of thousands of times in my life where I’ve taken the easy exit and gave in rather than be disciplined and choose purity. It’s a battle that everyone, even you, has to deal with. This very battle can take the strength and passion away from our spiritual worship.

You see, all of life, spiritual and sexual are part of our offering of worship. That’s why Paul talked about offering our bodies to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12). He said this is our spiritual worship. How intense is that, our bodies our the very temple, home, in which the Spirit of God lives. Problem is, our sorry ol’ fleshly, prideful sacrifice’s keep wanting to crawl off the alter.

I then asked this question, “What are you OFFERING to God?
Is your spiritual worship distorted or is it purified and holy, pleasing to God?
So what happens if you have done some crazy things in your life, you’ve chosen the easy exit and distorted your heart with the junk this world has to offer? What do you do? Do you wait for the next big name preacher to come through your city and go and get prayed for, cleansed and healed? That is definitely one way, but not God’s way of living a champions life!

I’ve come across one of the most powerful tools to help us champion this life, to help us live in the light and experience the very freedom that was blood bought by Jesus, that is through ACCOUNTABILITY.
So if you we’re to come to me and say “can I be accountable to you,” this is what I would say.

1-The Old way of Life has to go!
Ephesians 4:20-24 (Message) “Since then, we do not have the excuses of ignorance, everything, and I do mean everything, connected with that OLD WAY OF LIFE HAS TO GO. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And take on an entirely new way of life, a God fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.”

2-You chase, you submit to accountability!
Ephesians 5:21“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ!”

The problem we can run into is that we wait for someone else to do the work for us, we have to chase accountability, call them on the phone, book an appointment and make it happen.

3.Be accountable to what you are allowing in your life, in your mind!
Ephesians 4:23 “be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh spiritual and mental attitude)
Simple really, we are new creations in Christ but we still have to put off the old and put on the new everyday!

4.I would ask you the tough questions! Exposure=Freedom
Ephesians 5:11-14 “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose, reprove(to speak of disapproval), and convict(to declare guilty) them!
For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is the light that makes everything visible, this is why it is said:
Wake up O’ Sleeper
Rise from the dead
And Christ will shine on you!”
We must learn to open and vulnerable with someone that we trust with every little secret, every little skeleton in the closet. This will allow God’s light to shine on you and bring healing.

5.Be accountable on a consistent basis!
Don’t think by having one awesome meeting with someone and talking through issues is going to solve anything. Accountability and living in the light must be consistent, something that’s done again and again and again and again.
If we embrace accountability in our lives we will experience freedom like God intended, joy unspeakable. We will be positioned in freedom, able to dwell in His sanctuary, abide on His holy hill like Psalm 15 says,
“Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart, and has no slander on his tongue, and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without question and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will NEVER BE SHAKEN!!!!

We had a real challenge put on us last night at Creative rehearsal.  The challenge was to “trash our idols.” The night started with some worship, moved into listening to a Jason Upton song called “Dying Star,” (which, if you haven’t got Jason Upton’s music, it’s a must buy), then we as a team wrote down on a piece of paper the thing or things that were taking God’s place in our hearts. Each person then walked up to an old wooden cross on the stage, ripped up the pieces of paper and laid them at the foot of the Cross.
The thing is, there will always be the toys that our cowardly heart doesn’t want to give up.  There will always be idols in this life whether idolatry, man pleasing, our own dream chasing or whatever it is that will want to steal our thunder – our passion for Him.  It’s this selfish, sinful nature that has been passed down generation to generation because of a choice in the Garden of Eden, that we won’t get away from until that day, when Jesus takes our hand and leads us into eternity.
But reality is, the more we want of God, the more we have to die to ourselves, our own selfish ambition and dreams, and lay down the toys that we allow our heart to play with.
In order for this to happen, there’s going to be some pain involved.  We must, in our hearts, experience some bitter pain just like Abraham experienced if we want to see the blessing follow.
We need to be a generation with a never satisfying hunger for intimacy with God.  This hunger drives us to not  bargain with ourselves to give in to temptation in any way.
A life lived with Jesus shining brighter than anything else is what’s going to change the direction of our world.  It’s a choice. It’s gonna hurt only for a bit, but let’s choose to trash our idols and be a generation that shines our loving, graceful, and beautiful God.

Believin’ in Ya,
Aaron

Were at the Grove recording this years EP! We decided to do a studio EP this year and were pumped with how its sounding so far.
I think this is what “Heaven” is like! Wake up to an awesome wife, coffee..pancakes..then hit the studio, pick up my guitar and just go for it for 12 hours! This is defs bliss.
Were walking out a dream and creating music that God has put on our hearts. Its an experience to remember in a lifetime and such an honour for us to be given the responsibility.
These songs carry the heart of the church today, pushing down walls and stepping into clarity with what Jesus has commissioned us to do, “go out into all the world and make disciples of all men!” (Matt. 28:18-20)
Its our turn, were ready for all that He has and willing to lay down everything, we are His disciples.
With love
Aaron

Ok so we arrive and I’m freaking out, this place is insane. Love it hey, our studio is in a mexican looking cottage home in the middle of bushlands surrounded by lakes and its crazy inspiring for writing. I love Grove Studios. Looking forward to the quality music that we are about to create for our God its so fun. Latas peeps. Love Chubs (Chardon).

The world as we know it is beautiful, but damaged. The words and melodies of the songs are God inspired and have the power to change hearts and direct them toward a life called by God. When we change – the world changes, that’s why we need the songs of heaven to be written and released. We don’t take lightly the responsibilty, importance, and opportunity to record Gods worship, we thank u God.

Love God and love people.
Forever His
Beck xxx

Hello, hello, hello. After a very long 10-hour drive from Brisbane to Sydney, while witnessing an infant duck being crushed by a motor vehicle and having the mother duck collide with our windshield we have arrived at grove studios. Our engineer josh is a legend and we feel he will really help us capture what we are looking for. This morning our wonderful manager Cathy cooked us up a feast for breakfast, Bacon, eggs, fruit, yoghurt and these fantastic muffins. Its good to eat like kings when trying to record. We finished the drums for two songs today and it’s sounding sick. Tonight we are having another amazing meal cook again by Cathy (THANK YOU CATHY) We are just about to head back into the studio to put down the album intro. It has a bit of oriental influence, I kind of like it. I really believe we are going to capture something special this year as we record this 7-track studio EP. We can feel the presence of God all over it. All right I got to jump back into the studio all our love

Joel+

NEW ZEALAND, here we come. Right now i am dreading our flight. We have to be at the airport and 5am, i don’t normally wake up till at least 12. Well firstly I just want to say I’m pumped for this trip. It is going to be sick to catch up with our friends from Elim, and City Impact. Also can’t wait to make so many more friends.

But the real reason i am writing is to explain the massive growth of hair upon my face. Now firstly, no, it’s not a fashion statement & I realize it is a little scary, although I am growing quite attached to it. But a week after we return from NZ a group of my boy’s and I are going on an ultimate survivor trip. Let me explain, 5 of us are getting dropped off on a deserted island in the middle of the pacific ocean just off Fiji.

This island will have no human life on it. All we are allowed to take is the clothes on our back, a spear gun, one machete, a knife each and 20 litres of water each and that is it. We will be on the island for 14 days, having to build all our own shelter, and catch all of our own food (probably going to eat heaps of sashimi). Actually we will be taking flint stones to help us create fire. So the ultimate plan of this trip is we have been shipped wrecked and we need to survive, hence the beard, I am trying to make this as realistic as possible.

Imagine a tourist boat rocked up, they would think we have been there for months. So there you have it, the reason for the giant pile of hair on my face. Really pumped for NZ though and cold weather love you all See you soon!

Joel +

Two thousand and nine…  Crazy when you think about it.  Actually it’s been the best start to any year of our lives, that’s because of little Sienna Haven Lucas was born Jan 18th, 2009.  Weighing 7lbs 13ou, 52 cm long.  She is the cutest little girl ever, yes we’re biased due to being her parents!   So my prayer was answered to be a Father to a little baby girl!  She’s gorgeous, you can stare at her for hours!  Don’t worry Beck and I are doing fine, getting some sleep haha.
Just wanted to spill my thoughts with you guys about 09.’  Already this year has brought a bit of chaos with where everything is at in the world’s economy and a lot of people are confused and looking for answers.  You can look at things and feel pretty hopeless.  But I hope we can all see this as an opportunity for you and I, God’s people, His church, to shine a bit brighter, speak a little bit louder, tread deeper into the water, and open eyes with the message that saved all of us.  It’s exciting, it’s new days ahead of us and we have the ability to shape and direct our future, changing lives, and seeing Jesus win this world!
It sounds easy to talk about it, but it is going to take each of us answering a question.  “Am I willing to pay the price?”  In the bible it says that He paid the ultimate price with His life!  Are we willing to pay that same price?  Why should we give anything less?
Come on, it’s our turn! Let your life do the talking this year, pay the price to see God’s kingdom come to earth!
We’re excited, we don’t know exactly what is to come, all we know is we’re not going to stop lifting our hands, shouting his glory, we’re not going to stop speaking up for those that have no voice! We are going to continue to press forward!  We’re going to continue to live, love. sing and dance because their our lives depending on us paying the ultimate price! We can do it, yes we can!

Much Love
Aaron Lucas