Whose faith is master of his mind,

And I will right all the wrongs

And bless the name of all mankind.

Give me a man of God- one man,

Who’s tongue is touched with heaven’s fire,

And I will flame the darkest hearts,

With high resolve and clean desire.

Give me a man-one man,

One mighty prophet of the Lord,

And I will give you peace on earth,

Bought with a prayer and not a sword.

Give me a man- one man,

True to the vision that he sees,

And I will build your broken shrines,

And bring the nations to their knees.

George Liddell

Are you the man?

Mizizi is a swahili word for “roots”.

Mizizi is a ten weeks experience, tailor made to facilitate your connection with God, your purpose and with lifelong friends. As you know, the taller and stronger the tree, the deeper its roots have to be. The same is true about life. If we want to be the kind of people who will fearlessly influence the society and have a long term impact, then we need to know God and grow deeper in our relationship with Him.

Mizizi creates the environment that allows people to know and experience God’s power to transform. As we go through the ten weeks we begin to discover the purpose that we were created for. We start to see that there is a bigger picture to our lives than the small worldly accomplishments of money, materialism and achieving our selfish dreams. Mizizi facilitates the discovery journey to your purpose.

“If you want to go fast, walk alone, If you want to go far, walk with others.” Statistics show that life thrives in a small group. For us to be great we need to surround ourselves with like minded people who are going in the same direction we do. You will  go through Mizizi in a small group for the ten weeks and you are assured of bonding and creating lifelong friends who will support you, stand with you and see you to your greatness.

Mizizi is not about information, it is about transformation. Anyone can go through Mizizi, the believers, non believers, the old and the young. Read the comments of the post ” What was your Mizizi experience” and you will get a sneak peek of Mizizi. If you read the other posts you will get more info.

To sign up for Mizizi Season 2, kindly click here and fill in all your details.

The Launch will be on the 11th of May 2010 at The Mavuno Dome.

This actually happened to a guy named Solomon. This is how the story goes:

2 Chronicles Chapter 1

¹ Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.

² Then Solomon spoke to all Israel—to the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, to the judges and to all the leaders in Israel, the heads of families- ³ and Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon, for God’s Tent of Meeting was there, which Moses the LORD’s servant had made in the desert. ⁴ Now David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. ⁵ But the bronze altar that Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made was in Gibeon in front of the tabernacle of the LORD; so Solomon and the assembly inquired of him there. ⁶ Solomon went up to the bronze altar before the LORD in the Tent of Meeting and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.

⁷ That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Imagine that! 1000 burnt offerings. If you read this chapter from the beginning, you notice the Lord asking Solomon to make that sacrifice, right? Wrong. At no point is there a record of the Lord instructing
Solomon to make such an enormous offering.
So here’s a guy, recently crowned king and what is his first executive action? Come on folks, lets offer 1000 burnt offerings to the Lord.The guys probably said to him- you mean a hundred to which he replied-… well you get the drift…

How long does it take, to offer 1000 burnt offerings? I mean, for all the technology we have, Kenya Meat Commission kills (or is it harvests?) 1000 animals a day! Whose animals were they to begin with? how many men did it take to get it done? I mean, I think about it and it really strikes me the magnitude of sacrifice that Solomon offered unto the Lord!

No wonder there is no record of the same offer being made by God to anybody else- ask for anything and I will give you. At least none that I have found. No instructions and no precedent and this guy offers God a
sacrifice that He couldn’t ignore. Wow!

“Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”

St Augustine

I was humbled and in awe. People received healing, relationships were restored, others got delivered from past wounds and the best is, the many who surrendered their lives to Christ. We would like to hear your Mizizi experience………….Come on share it with us and let us celebrate together.

If you had a bad experience, share it too….

Here are the photos from the retreat http://www.flickr.com/photos/mavuno/sets/72157623726156696/

God, who is love, created us with the sole purpose of being able to focus His love on us, & that we would be His family, adopted sons & daughters through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Bible also says, “And this was His purpose, that when the time is ripe He will gather us all together from wherever we are in heaven or on earth to be with Him in Christ, forever.” Did you hear that? We’re going to be with God forever. When the time is ripe, when the time of waiting is over, God will come & gather us together. Whether we are in heaven or on earth, He is going to take us to be with Him, forever.

“The purpose of life is to prepare us for eternity.” This life is pre-school. This life is dress rehearsal. This life is a time to get ready because we’re going to live a lot longer on the other side of death than we’re going to live on this side. So the reason we’re alive, the reason God has left us here is to get us ready for eternity. That’s the reason for our existence.

WHAT GOD WANTS US TO DO
There are 4 things that God wants us to do with the years that we have while we’re here. Let me put it this way, “Amongst other things, there are 4 things God wants me to do with my life.

The first one is this. God wants me to get to know Him. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If I’m a part of His family, He is my heavenly Father, and He is the one who created me. He would like me to know Him. What better way to find out about your purpose than to know from your creator? Now, how do you get to know someone? Well, you spend time with them, talk with them, & listen to them. That’s what we must do with God, too. Read His word, pray and listen to Him. The Bible also teaches that I can come to know God by coming to know Jesus. Jesus Himself said, “…when you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” In following Jesus I’m following God. Surrendering your all and accepting Him in your life.

The second thing that God wants me to do is to become like Christ. If I’m a member of His family, & if God is my Father, then I ought to take on family characteristics. Just as children have some of their parents’ traits because they are family, I should exhibit some of the traits of Jesus because we’re family, too. So God is busy trying to form His character in our lives, to make us like Jesus. That has always been His goal. He is molding us to be more like Him. This is a process, it is a journey.

The third thing God wants me to do is to practice being a servant. Why? If we are going to be like Christ, then we need to be servants like He was. The most Christ-like picture, the best model of being Christ-like you will find in Scripture is of Jesus putting the towel around His waist & washing the feet of the Apostles.

Do you remember Mother Teresa? She was old & bent. Living in the slums of Calcutta, India, she spent her time working among the diseased & dying people who crowded into her makeshift wards every day. She gave her all to the people of India and made a huge impact in the lives of many. Now friends, that’s the secret of contentment in life. When we give ourselves away we find out what life is really all about. Christ died for our sins, so that we may live eternally with our Father in heaven. Who are you living for?

Finally, there is one more thing that God wants me to do – that is to share my life’s purpose with others. Why does God keep me around? Because the only plan that God has for telling others about His purpose is for those who have found the purpose to share it. The Bible says, “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, & He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” God has no other plan than that. So once I understand what life is all about, that this is preparation for eternity, God wants me to tell as many other people as I can.

Poem: An old man, traveling alone on a highway. Came at the evening cold & gray
To a chasm deep & wide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
For the sullen stream held no fears for him,
But he turned when he reached the other side,
And began building a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” cried a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the close of day,
And you never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep & wide.
Why build you a bridge at eventide?”

And the builder raised his old gray head:
“Good friend, on the path I have come,” he said,
“There follows after me today
A youth whose feet will pass this way.
This stream, which has been as nothing to me,
To that young boy a pitfall may be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim -
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
(W.A. Dromgoole)

Now King Solomon, if anyone, should have known the answer. I mean, Solomon had it all. He had money – more than he could ever spend. He had possessions – more than he could ever enjoy. He had wives – more than he could ever please. He even had wisdom far greater than any one else in his day. He had it all. Yet for a while, at least, he didn’t have a real grasp on the purpose of life.

LIFE WITHOUT A PURPOSE
The 1st chapter of Ecclesiastes, has some of the negative results that come from not knowing the purpose of life.

1. First of all, when you don’t know the purpose of life, then life will seem empty. In vs. 2 Solomon writes, “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’… ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’” Have you ever felt that way? Without some guiding purpose, life doesn’t make much sense at all!
2. Secondly, when you don’t know the purpose of life, then life can be an endless cycle of futility. In vs’s 4, 5, & 6 Solomon says such things as, “Generations come & generations go… The sun rises & the sun sets, & hurries back to where it rises,” & “The wind blows to the south & turns to the north; round & round it goes…”. So life becomes like a merry-go-round – going round & round, yet never getting anywhere. And Solomon gives this result in vs. 8, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say.” In other words, “It’s wearing me out.”
3. Thirdly, when you don’t know the purpose of life, you’ll never be really satisfied. Notice the last part of vs. 8, “The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” We always want more. We have gone from 10″ black & white picture tubes to giant flat screens, & hi-fidelity, stereo?phonic, surround sound. But we’re still not content. From a Toyota corolla to a Subaru to a VW Polo or Passat to a Mercedes Benz and we are still not satisfied. Put a 250-channel remote control in our hands & we’ll still be restless. Because the things of life don’t really satisfy unless you have a purpose for living.
4. Fourthly, when you don’t know its purpose, life itself will seem insignificant. Listen to vs. 11, “There is no remembrance of men of old, & even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.”  “If you ever start to feel proud, just remember that soon after your body has been lowered into the grave, your family & friends will be eating chicken strips with salad & telling jokes, & you’ll be history.”

Wow, that’s depressing, isn’t it? Yet, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the lives that Solomon describes as empty, meaningless, futile, insignificant, & out of control. Solomon wrote this book near the end of his life after he had tried everything and achieved much, only to find that nothing apart from God made him happy. He wanted we the readers, to avoid these same senseless pursuits. Before we even get into how to discover your purpose we need to understand that if we try to find meaning in our accomplishments rather than in God, we will NEVER be satisfied and everything we pursue will be meaningless…

I ask the question again, What is it that you do?

…..to be cont’d……. (next week we shall be looking at how can we discover our purpose)

What about the environment? it really makes me mad when i am driving and i see the guy driving in front of me littering all over i almost want to ram into his back( next time you see someone litter, please hoot at them). Blocked sewage, litter even in the estates, and we have many other things that make us mad but can be prevented to make life better for each other……………………….but the worst of them all……bad drivers…..Who will make this world a better place?

We need to engage the systems and structures of our society and cities at large. What is your story?

In week 7′s readings in the Mizizi book, we explore the various ways of sharing in our Fathers[God] heart and passion. The lessons also explore faith, engaging the powers, the environment and finally shares God’s vision for the world. In relation to Kampala, we believe that this is what God would love to see, churches that transform people who in turn become who God intended them to be. Our desire as Mavuno, is to have a church in every capital city in this continent. The capital cities being the hubs of many countries, makes them the right place to begin influencing. We need to be sensitized towards the need to actively participate in society, faithfully accomplishing Gods mission in everything we do. This is part of what we learn in Mizizi………

You know there are times we do things for the wrong reasons because no one has ever stopped to ask ‘Why?’ There are also times when we continue to do things for a long period of time based on nothing more than ignorance. Therefore, the question i want to ask us this day is, Have you ever stopped to ask why we take Holy communion?

Post your comments below….