CityWest iPhone App
Attention CityWest iPhone users! We have the closest thing to an iPhone App up and running for our website. Recent enhancements to our website allows iPhone users to view our website in a “mobile format” which closely resembles an official App. Until some rich person joins CityWest and donates a stack of money to develop an official App, this is as good as it gets!
But follow these instructions below and you’ll have a web experience on your iPhone that looks and feels like an App! Please note that for the time being, audio streaming of our sermons are not available through this “App” due to the limitations of the software our iPhones come with.
Without further ado, follow these instructions and you’ll get it up and running on your iPhone in no time! Blackberry users should be able to alter these intructions to have a similar result.
Open up Safari on your iPhone and enter our web address: www.citywestchurch.com.au On the left is a screen shot of the traditional website. You may get this screen or the mobile enhanced version as shown above. Once loaded, click on the “+” sign on the bottom of the screen. This is a function to add a bookmark. But what we aim to do here is add a bookmark to your iPhone – not just Safari.
Next select the “Add to Home Screen” button. This function allows you to add the bookmark to your iPhone home screen. The end result being you simply select this “bookmark” as you would select any App.
Here you get to name your bookmark. You will notice the CityWest logo is automatically added as an icon. In order to keep things neat, delete the “church” in the title. This allows you to view this bookmark neatly on your iPhone home screen.
A new button appears on your home screen! This button can be moved around on your iPhone just like any App. Next time you want to access the website, simply select this button and your done! Just like an App!
And there you have it! It’s simply a bookmark to our website. Due to an enhancement in the coding of our website, mobile users experience the website in a very similar way an App operates. The default landing page are the various blog posts at CityWest. As mentioned above, currently the iPhone doesn’t allow direct audio streaming of sermons from a website. We’ll have to wait till we have the funds for an official App to allow for this. In the meantime, feel free to subscribe to our podcast here.
Be sure to explore other parts of the website by clicking on the drop arrow in the top right hand corner. This gives you access to a tonne of different pages from our website. Be sure to check this frequently as updates will occur soon.
And there you have it! It’s like having an App without actually having an App! Please feel free to contact us here if you have any questions or issues.
Featured Music Video | Mess Of Me
Today’s featured music video is by the award winning band of Christian rockers known as Switchfoot. Known for their hard and heavy guitar rifts and power ballads, Switchfoot has been around since 1996 and have produced a number of hit albums.
In light of the current sermon series at CityWest – “Invasion Of God” – a common theme is repentance. Repentance is simply an acknowledgement of something wrong in your life, confessing it and turning your back on it and conquering it with the help of God.
Switchfoot fits into this mindset perfectly. All five members are surfing fanatics and the word “switchfoot” is a surfing term as lead singer Jon Foreman explains..
“We all love to surf and have been surfing all our lives so to us, the name made sense. To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It’s about change and movement, a different way of approaching life..”
When we see sin in our lives, it’s always a good idea to “switchfoot” – turn and face the opposite direction. But a prerequisite of this is to actually acknowledge the mess in our life in the first place. As fallen human beings, this is a tough place to go – to admit that we haven’t got it “all together” as we make it out to be.
But if we are honest with ourselves, it’s often very plain of the mess we have made of our lives and the need to “switchfoot”. In this light, we hope you enjoy “Mess Of Me” from Switchfoot’s new album, “Hello Hurricane”. Lyrics are below the video.
I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
There ain’t no drug that they could sell
Ah there ain’t no drugs to make me well
There ain’t no drugs
It’s not enough
There ain’t no drugs
The sickness is myself
– Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
We lock our souls in cages
We hide inside our shells
It’s hard to feed to the ones you love
Oh when you can’t forgive yourself
Yeah forgive yourself!
There ain’t no drugs
There ain’t no drugs
There ain’t no drugs
The sickness is myself
– Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
AHHHHHHOOOOO!
There ain’t no drug
There ain’t no drug
There ain’t no drug
No drugs to make me well
There ain’t no drug
It’s not enough
We´re breaking up
The sickness is myself
The sickness is myself
– Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
What’s Next?
So, what’s happening next? I was asked this recently in relation to what is going on at Church and to my horror I could not give a clear and definite answer. If you know me you will know that that is not like me. You see, I am an organizer, a planner and a strategic thinker. I love to pre-plan months in advance. I love to sit and organize what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I see things as a series of strategic choices to be made to get us to a specific goal. That’s how I’ve always done it, especially when it relates to my main ministry of preaching and leading CityWest Church.
But recently something changed. God ruined me!!! He started breaking off me my controlling nature and the fact that I had been holding on too tightly. He messed up my plans and replaced them with His…I mean, c’mon, how rude! (Thank you Jesus) He began releasing me from the need to want all of the details and want them far in advanced so that I could make strategic decisions. Now that I think about it…I was a sick man! Not only that but what I held on to so strongly was my ability to organize around a sermon series and make sure all issues were addressed and everything in place before it even began. But then it happened, God knocked the wind out of me and stepped in as if to say, “Hey Mark, let’s try it a new way. Let’s try it with you letting go and Me leading you one step at a time. No more painting the future how you see it, let’s try you trusting Me, depending on Me and waiting for Me. How about you step out in faith, expect Me to show up and watch what I’ll do.” Well, can you imagine my response?
Thankfull I could say nothing else but, “YES LORD, Not my will but Yours be done”, and I have never felt so free. How stupid of me to think that by holding on to this Church and ministry so tightly would give me joy and fulfillment. How ridiculous to think that I could do God’s work in my way by my wisdom and my strength…wow, I really was an idiot! But He woke me, shook me and changed me and I am not the same man I was even 4 months ago.
So as some of you would know, our sermon series “Incarnate” was put on immediate hold and replaced with our “Invasion of God” series which is really just a response to what God is doing in us and through us. I have not planned for this series nor have I outlined what will be preached months in advance. I literally have no idea what God will do or lead me to preach this coming Sunday. I am just waiting on Him to plant within me His message and I simply obey. It has gotten to the point where last Sunday the sermon I had spent hours preparing during the week never got preached because during that morning God said, “Mark, you will not preach that sermon today, instead just read My Word.” So after a bit of a wrestle with God about who’s idea was better, God won and I just read Ephesians 4,5 and 6. Hey, that is not me and even know I freaketh out! What is God doing? I thought the process of wrecking me was drawing to a close…yeah right! I have said to God, “Lord, You still have so, so much work to do on me, thanks for being patient.”
Interestingly today God confirmed to me that this is His preparation for revival. I just started reading Rick Joyner’s detailed account of the Welsh Revival which occurred in 1904-1905 titled, “The World Aflame”. It is truly the most amazing and breathtaking revival ever to hit this world. But in this book Rick writes, “A true move of God is not fueled by money, organization or advertising. True revival only comes when the pillar of fire, that is the presence of God Himself, picks up and moves. To try to organize, promote or sell a move of God is profanity in its lowest form”. Then further on, using the example of Evan Roberts and the others who were used by God in the Welsh Revival, Rick writes, “Those with the humility that comes from knowing they do not have the answers, which stimulates a holy desperation for God in them, seem to be the only ones who can ever be responsive to the Lord when He wants to do a new thing.” Um, did you get that? Is God messing us up for a reason? My shock didn’t stop there. He goes on to write, “During times of a dynamic outpouring of the Holy Spirit, such as the Welsh Revival, the Lord can only use those who will yield themselves completely to Him in order that He might do something entirely new.” Yes, dear reader, God is up to something new.
Are you being prodded and nudged by God too? Is He dealing with you more forcefully than ever? If so, don’t reject His move, embrace it because this could mean the start of the greatest revival this world has ever seen, the harvest before the return of our precious Jesus. Could we be that generation that will see prophecy fulfilled and be used of God to do His will? Yes we could be, but let’s make room for Him so that we don’t miss Him.
So, what’s next? Don’t ask me anymore, I have no idea. But one thing I do know, Jesus is in charge and in control and is leading the charge! Let’s follow.
Free Mark Driscoll Audio Book Download
Be sure to grab yourself a free Audio Book download of Mark Driscoll’s, “Religion Saves: + nine other misconceptions” – available now @ www.christianaudio.com.
This book is based on the same titled sermon series held at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Check out the sermons here.
Basically Mars Hill Church opened up a web based survey and asked for people to post any questions they would like Mark Driscoll to address. After receiving thousands of questions and thousands of votes against these questions, the top ten areas were addressed in a sermon series and a book was put together.
Now you can download a copy of the audio book for free thanks to www.christianaudio.com!
Simply log in or create an account and for the month of February, it’s yours for free! Simple!
I AM OVERWHELMED
Sunday is drawing to a close and I am sitting in my home office looking into dead space and thinking about how gracious God has been to us. You see, CityWest Church is going through an awakening, a refreshing of God’s Spirit unlike anything we have ever seen in our short 8 year history. To come to Church is to literally walk into God’s overwhelming presence and many of us continually stand amazed. It wasn’t always like this, but I am breathless at how God has decided that our time is now. I am worshipping Jesus for this because what we are experiencing is an answer to years of prayer. I have been begging God to show up in His manifest presence for a long time now. Could it be that this is the start of Him stepping down to dwell with us in revival fire?
Ian Malins in his book “Preparing the Way for Revival” describes in more detail what we are craving. He wisely makes us understand that there are three dimensions to God’s presence. Here is how Ian Malins explains it:
GOD’S GENERAL PRESENCE: This is seen in the fact that God is everywhere and no matter where we are, God is there also. Psalm 139:7-12 (ESV) describes it, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” Our very life and existence depend upon His constant presence and sustaining power (see Hebrews 1:3). An external presence of God surrounds all people (like air), whether we realize it or not. Without this general presence we could not exist (see Acts 17:28).
GOD’S INDWELLING PRESENCE: This is a deeper dimension of God’s presence that we experience at the time of spiritual birth (see John 3:5). Before we believed and received Christ, we were spiritually dead. There was no spiritual life within us. But when we believed, we were brought into covenant relationship with God, through Jesus and His Spirit is now not only with us but dwells within us (see John 14:17). Some Christians go only this far in their understanding of God’s presence. But there is more to His personal presence than that (as wonderful as that is!)
GOD’S MANIFEST PRESENCE: Jesus speaks about this in John 14:21 (ESV) when He says, “…And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” The manifest presence of Jesus is not just the presence of Jesus living within us; it is the presence of Jesus revealed among us. It is God visiting His temple – both individually and corporately. It is God’s Spirit moving in us, among us and upon us in holiness and power. It is a presence we can feel. At such times people know without a doubt that God is in their midst, moving and touching their lives. This is the level of God’s presence we experience in times of revival. And many have never known this kind of presence before.
For those of you unsure about what revival is, this will bring greater clarity. We are pursuing and praying earnestly for God’s manifest presence – and let me tell you, we are seeing it more and more. When God shows up in this way we are totally and utterly overwhelmed. You cannot walk away from this encounter with the Living God and not be changed. Since God has been gracious enough to reveal Himself this way, I have become a new person. I am not the same Mark as I was even four months ago! I never realized how much I needed God’s manifest presence until I actually experienced it. There is no place I’d rather be and I crave it constantly.
In God’s manifest presence are many, many joys. Jesus is honoured to a greater extent. Jesus is elevated as above all. Jesus is adored and worshipped in a way that is deserving of His Majesty. The Holy Spirit is given room to move and to be poured out on His thirsty people. The embrace of the Father goes beyond theory and is felt. The Smile of Almighty God shines over you and you cannot help but reach out higher than you ever have. Prayers take on new meaning as it becomes an intense and intimate communication. And this list goes on about how the manifest presence of God transforms us.
But what I find most remarkable about this is that we are uncovered and laid bare before our Holy God. Repentance doesn’t offend you anymore and you actually long for it. Humility becomes your goal and you are quick to agree with God about your fallen, sinful state. Deep and authentic brokenness becomes normal and you can’t get enough of God’s cleansing power. There is a stripping away of the flesh and a consuming sense of God’s Spirit being poured out upon you, as in a baptism. What can I say but God is an overwhelming God!
So, if your eyes have been opened to seeking God on a more intimate level, then go ahead and ask Him. Let me remind you that God wants this more than you do because His love for His kids goes so deep and He hates anything that separates Him. God’s manifest presence is for you, but do you want Him that close? It will take people who pray hard for Him to come and earnestly live out 2 Chronicles 7:14 – please read it AND LIVE IT!
