CRP Featured In The Comrades
Riches Crosses Finish Line
The route runs between Durban on the Indian Ocean – sea level – to Pietermaritzburg and crosses a terrain which rises and falls several times, reaching almost 900 meters above sea level at one point.
And to make things worse, there is a time limit – argh! You must finish within 12 hours to get a medal and finishing in that time is not a given. Over fifty percent of the runners finish in the last hour and several finish late. Many don’t make it at all.
The race is run in both directions. Sometimes up – Durban to PMB – and sometimes down but don’t kid yourself, even down is no piece of cake. The record times for each are only 5 minutes apart.
In spite of these limitations it has become one of the most popular races going and this year registrations reached a record high of 19,617 for an up run. Approximately 1,300 runners came from overseas. Considering the length and difficulty of the course, and how far South Africa is from the rest of the world, those numbers are impressive.
One of the international entrants was my friend Ritchie Miller from Avalon Church in McDonough, Ga. It was his first Comrades, his longest marathon and his most difficult run ever. He didn’t complete the race in regulation time but the cause he ran for compelled him to make it across the finish line.
He ran to raise money for charity:
- Those supported through his church’s ministry, Avalon Hope
- And the SACRP – South African Children’s Resiliency Project – otherwise known as CRP. The CRP is the brain child of Dr. Robert Graham who is a US citizen and highly qualified but has dedicated himself to the cause of African children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
The neat thing about this race is the route runs right by the CRP orphan village and because roads are closed for the race, the occupants of the village have no choice but to sit beside the road cheering the runners on, and sipping cool drinks of course.
But back to Ritchie. Read more
CRP In The Amashova
I just finished my fourth Amashova and my third 106K cycle race. Other than the first, which was the 38K exercise for beginners, every event has been an opportunity to showcase CRP, The Children’s Resiliency Project.
CRP is an orphan village situated 
in Ashburton, South Africa – just south of Pietermarizburg – and is the brainchild of a friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Graham. I’ve known Bob for fifteen plus years and have worked with him on various short-term projects here in South Africa. His professional life was centered in education prior to coming to South Africa but he has always had a strong interest in at-risk-kids and now focuses all of his attention on the orphan epidemic marring the South African community.
Although the main focus of my ministry is church planting I am sympathetic to the cause and provide support whenever I can. One way to do that is wear the CRP logo while riding the Amashova. I also let friends and associates know about this race and ask them to consider making a donation to the project. Hence this post.
You can get up to date information about the project here and securely make donations on the site. Read more
Must Tithes Be Given Only To Church?
Recently on Yahoo Answers a person (we’ll call him Jerry) submitted a question about tithing:
“Does money I tithe have to be given to the church to be considered tithing?”
The reason for the question had nothing to do with selfishness, materialism or bad financial management. His question was motivated by generosity.
The church Jerry attends was preparing to send kids to camp and there were a couple of kids who couldn’t afford to go. Diverting Jerry’s tithe to this need for three months would cover the expense and he wondered if that was legit. Would that still qualify as “tithing?”
He also made it clear that he wasn’t questioning the rationale behind tithing (devoting ten percent of your income to God). In fact, he specified that only people who believed in tithing should respond and he further qualified by requesting only “respectful” answers. I almost laughed at the request. Having been scorched a few times by anti-tithers I wanted to put on a flack jacket before reading some of the responses. He had obviously faced a few also. Read more
Evangelizing the Religiously Hardened
Filed under: Bible Study, Charity, Evangelism, Ministry Methods of Jesus, Religion
Jesus Breaks Sabbath Law
John 5
Jesus was not a religionist!
His spiritual devotions never involved habitual ceremony. He prescribed no rituals and there was nothing routine with His words or actions. Some responded to Him angrily, none yawned.
Any rituals He may have followed are not recorded for us. If anything, Jesus was religiously unpredictable.
- He traveled to Jerusalem on many occasions but not once are we told He offered any sacrifices. He did, on the very odd occasion, tell someone to offer an appropriate sacrifice (Matthew 8:4) but we have no record of Him blessing those ceremonies with His presence.
- Many of the things Jesus did and much of what He said was religiously disruptive: cleansing the Temple (once in John 2, a second time in Matthew 21*), claiming to be Messiah in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4) and healing on the Sabbath (John 5).
- The people about whom He spoke His harshest words, the Pharisees, were excessively religious (Matthew 23).
- It was the ultra religious who were the most instrumental in his execution (Mark 15:1-15).
- Jesus rarely encouraged anyone to be religious. He spoke of disciples as sacrificial not ritualistic.
- Jesus evangelized the religiously hardened and did so by being religiously agitating.
I wouldn’t say that Jesus was anti-religion but I would say that He had no tolerance for religious nonsense. Read more
THE BLIND SIDE, by Michael Lewis
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If you enjoy real life stories about individuals improving themselves against great odds then you’ll love this book.
Mr. Lewis tells the story of a young African-American boy, Michael Oher (pronounced “oar”), born in the worst section of Memphis, TN into one of its most dysfunctional homes as he makes the gargantuan leap from the arm-locking embrace of disadvantage to celebrity. The book also gives witness to the fact that these transformations don’t happen easily. It takes the will power, resolve, love, interest and effort of every possible person you can imagine and some good fortune too.
Born to a drug-addicted mother Michael bounces in and out of school and various hideouts in an attempt to avoid foster care which was more oppressive than the gang infested housing development he survived for the better part of his first sixteen years of his life. Read more
Tim Pepper - Beautiful Frustration