Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Rob Rufus Resources!!

There's a couple of resources I wanted to point out coming out from City Church International in Hong Kong. Rob and Glenda Rufus have just returned from South Africa where they took part in a "Word and Spirit Conference" together with Dr Michael Eaton - the well-known theologian and author. Here are the sessions;

Session 1 - Michael Eaton

Session 2 - Michael Eaton

Session 3 - Rob Rufus

Session 4 - Rob Rufus

The second resource I wanted to mention was entitled "The Rob Rufus Blank Bible". Regular readers may remember my fascination and excitement with the Jonathan Edwards Blank Bible. I first mentioned it back in 2006, took some notes from the fellow volume; "Notes on Scripture" at the Evangelical Library last year and finally brought the two volumes of the "Blank Bible" in February!

It was while I was spending time reading the "Blank Bible" that I suddenly got a vision. I have been so impressed with the way that Jonathan Edwards worked through the Word of God writing his own notes on Scripture that I decided it would be an awesome resource to do the same thing with Rob Rufus's preaching and teaching (and ultimately other true grace teachers). I saw a vision of an awesome resource where anyone can access notes and help and insight on any verse of the Word of God.

I have waited some months since having the vision because I wanted to gather together Rob Rufus's commentary on as many verses as possible before I launched the project - obviously it being a work in progress. I should point out I have sent the hard copies of this to Rob and Ryan Rufus for their approval. So here it is;

"The Grace and Glory Blank Bible".

As I say it is my ultimate dream to add other grace and glory teachers such as Bill Johnson as it grows. May it be an added help to growing in our love and appreciation for the Word of God and more importantly God Himself in relationship.

13 comments:

lydia said...

Wow Dan, you've been busy, I checked out the new site - Excellent work!!

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

I am so glad that you are not offended Dan, and
that you don't have a ministry preference heirarchy.
What a clear description you gave .
I've just lost everything I wrote again...
Must save it first!!!!
I was saying what a great idea to do a Blank Bible.
Morris Cerullo did many annotated Bibles from different
angles for his partner's year long support.
So good to trap some of the best material you or others find
from books and podcasts and place it beside the relevant scriptures.
One thing that Todd also mentioned on Monday was how he has bunched
up all the recorded miracles in the gospels and Acts for quick
perusal before going into action. You can do all this so easily
digitally.
Think in terms of providing an important resource for God's army in the
coming months and years...to promote quick growth.
================================
Shawna...that's a great testimony. let it be a firstfruit of many
such coming out of Dan's blogs...oh and others too.Makes me want to practice with you both in New Hampshire.
I really hope Page's testimony is useful. Enjoy Norman's book too.
I think you have ordered an earlier one. He just got clearer and clearer
as he got older.
As I reported the other day,while you were away,Lydia Joy had a link which
led indirectly to here..http://www.exchangedlife.org/about.aspx
Seems like this is another group, again in the evangelical wing,
who have stumbled across the meaning of Romans 6 to 8.
So again, just add these things to what you already know
about being baptised in the Spirit. I get the impression
from their intro film that these people are still very young
in these things. We haven't yet seen a church combine Spirit-filled
Christianity with the clarity of the Exchanged Life. As I said before
in the Song of Solomon picture of the Beloved Coming out of the Wilderness
leaning on Her Beloved.....this multiplied up in thousands upon thousands
is the vision of the Army of the Lord in Joel 2 , specific to our generation
as given by Paul Cain. "Awesome and terrible as an Army with Banners."

lydia said...

Hey Chris,
Can you expound on what you mean by; "We haven't yet seen a church combine Spirit-filled
Christianity with the clarity of the Exchanged Life."

I think I have my own idea of what you really mean by this, but I'd love to hear you share more.

Sheila Atchley said...

Dear Chris,
This morning, I finally got the chance to not just skim, but read your response from a couple blogs back...the one about the Orb. *grin*

Well, I loved it again. You and I (I am guessing...) might not see eye to eye on every dotted "i" and crossed "t", but who does? And I am beginning to think that your science-speak reveals a sharp mind, and all your talk about "third level stuff" reveals a far simpler, out-and-out hunger for God.

Not that you needed my approval. *lol*

The illustration I have used when teaching Bible in conjunction with church history (to women) is the ubiquitous tension rod that we girls hang up little cafe curtains with. You need the "Word", theology, examination of ourselves, "works", to quote a dirty word found in James....pushing against "Power", grace, faith. You need the tension, or you lose integrity entirely, and all your lovely cafe curtains are useless. :-)

Then, there is the rainbow. The sign in the heavens that cannot exist without two seemingly "incompatibles" coming together: rain and sunshine. This speaks of a God of truth - and mercy. A God who said, "Stone the man who commits adultery", and then told a prophet to marry a whore. A God who tells us quite clearly that faith without works is dead - and I fear we don't know HOW dead each one is without the other!

You "do" orbs, I "do" curtain rods and rainbows.

Wait till you hear my bunny and butterfly doctrines!

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

OK I'm totally gobsmackedly impressed,Sheila.....and yup we all have this different imagery we use. The faith and works sentence
is very striking. Very very striking. I think you could apostolically smash a hole right through the worldwide Body of Christ with that one...and Jesus could then perhaps have His way through us.


Peter Stott would like you as well.
He talks about tension quite a bit.
When he holds a conference in which he speaks he deliberately invites someone to unsteady the applecart like David Matthews. An Irishman over here who is uncategorisable.Well he is Irish!!

I actually think that Janelle and Dave Bish and all are a necessary foil to the grace teaching...but and hear me well on this...as I've said before ALL these things are up and running together in the 3rd level. You don't take sides anymore, you're by then running with the whole lot in your spirit and imparting it by direct anointing to others when you minister.

Anonymous said...

Dan - I've never heard of a blank bible before, but I think doing one for Rob Rufus is a great idea. I've found your post-it note site and the Grace and Glory site useful in tracking down Rob Rufus' quotes that I've heard SOMEWHERE in the who-knows-how-many sermons I've listened to. So much easier than re-listening to find the one or two sentences I'm trying to remember. I've actually used the "find" feature on my computer. I'm sure I'll be using this new site you've started too.
Chris - I know, it would be so fun to have others to practice with. I hope as you keep leaking those 3rd level nuggets to those in your community you find more and more people you can run with. I wonder what you'd think of Brian's preaching. I'm reading your thoughts on training and ministering, and although I haven't commented, I've been considering our own experiences, and what we've observed thus far. The whole wilderness thing seems to make more sense. After our one and only homegroup (first level, in your terms) pretty much failed a year ago when all the members stopped coming to church we entered this season of intense growth and learning, kind of on the outskirts of our local body. No one really understood why we didn't fold back into another group, I started listening to CCI sermons and Bethel sermons and reading all these books that God placed along the way. Then there was this added tension as Brian started doing the preaching thing, basically feeding members of other communities, and all the new believers not being added to our church for one reason or another. Not really standard operating procedure. Our church has been so patient with us though, they don't really understand what's going on, but they sense God in it and they've let us go for it, given us the freedom to follow His leading, but it hasn't been easy, for them or us. We've done training weekends and seminars before, but nothing has really compared to what we've experienced this last year.
And, yeah, I guess I didn't order the most comprehensive book Norman Grubb wrote. I thought I did, I knew that you'd referenced a book of his but couldn't find it until today when I went looking for something else in the comments of the past. "Yes, I am" is the one I was after, I think. You have to give me some credit though for remembering 2 of the 3 words in the title though! Yes, I Am vs. Who Am I? :) Just kidding. But that's OK, I'll read this one first and then pick up that one. I remembered yesterday that someone quite prophetic in our church once prayed over me "do you know who you are?, do you know who you are?" so maybe ordering this book was meant to be. (As a side note, based on other things he's said, he's spent quite a bit of time in the wilderness too, he says "five years is nothing, twelve is a haul"). I'm actually hoping that maybe someone else would want to read "Yes, I am" with me. I may ask the wife of the prophetic guy that prayed for me.
Thanks also for the Exchanged Life link, that's a nice phrase. I'll need to poke around their site a bit more.

Sheila Atchley said...

Dan, Dan, Dan...

Incredible work. Really. A life's work. What you have begun here is much bigger than you are. Must be a "God thing" in your life!

Carry on. May the Father impart strength and perseverance for the task.

Unknown said...

Hey Dan

Great idea with the Blank Bible! It's got potential to be a great resource!! I've sent an email to your ernbaxter.com address with an idea about maybe workin together a bit to (I hesitate to say "improve" but...) put together an interface that may make things a bit easier. Let me know if you're up for talkin a bit more about it :)

Cheers mate
Jon

Sheila Atchley said...

Chris,
Thanks for yet another laugh. "Running with the whole lot of it" in my spirit, and "imparting it by direct anointing" could probably be THE WORDS to describe the consuming passion of my life. I'm not there yet.

But I submit to you that it will be done in, and through, real relationship to real people in the body of Christ. It will be accomplished as we adopt the same mentality of the upside down, inside out Kingdom where to lose your life is to find it, and to be small is to be huge, and to be thought of as "not very successful" as the world defines success, is to actually be the greatest of all.

It will be accomplished as we break bread from house to house, getting to know real people, with names, addresses, and feelings and thoughts, and touching them, sometimes one at a time, with the power of God.

The opposite of the Mega Mentality, where the very Tower of Babel can be built by human strength masquerading as the supernatural.

I think loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, AND loving our neighbor as ourself, *is* third level living at its best. It is from that position of strength, that the gospel of grace can take over, and signs and wonders follow us around. We'll be moved by the same compassion that moved Jesus.

I'm not there.

But I know where I am going.

Dan Bowen said...

Thanks all for the very encouraging comments ... it really is exciting to know that it is being of use!!

Hey Jon ... so excited to hear about your idea. Would you by any chance be able to re-forward it to my Yahoo mail address? Pete Day manages the Ern Baxter mail and he's away on holiday so I can't get access for a few weeks!! I'd really appreciate that so that I can get back to you ASAP!

Unknown said...

Hey Dan

Can't seem to find your yahoo address, which is odd 'cos I'm sure I've had email from you (might have been Mark Heath though). I'll just type it here :)

Essentially, I was looking at the tags with the bible passages that are being used as the navigation, and think it'll get unwieldy very quickly! Professionally, I'm a web developer and I was thinking that I could put together an interface that allows you to tie commentary to actual books, chapters and verses, and then have them presented that way.

For example, this would mean people could visit the site, and drill down to Rob's comments by selecting which book they want to see, in the familiar order.

We could chat further about the details of how it would look and do what it needs to. But Blogger doesn't strike me as the best interface that will help people access the great content that is going to be on the site.

As much as anything else, I just thought this could be quite a fun project to work with you on :)

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

I thought I'd reply to Lydia with an extract on her site...actually turns out to be from the book you are reading Shawna...and yes the titles could have been more different...but then to quote Jules Verne, Norman was probably Doing a "Journey to the Centre of (The Earth,no)Christ"...sort of "Am I in yet?," "Just a bit further?" And " Oh this what it's like!" Finally Book 4,"Woooooooow!" Then he died.Leaving us a little nonplussed out here.
I'll keep everyone posted on what is happening in Havant,Shawna...you're right, we practice where we are.I'm sure we're all pretty riveted by what you are experiencing there. Loved Todd's message on contending for the Promises of scripture. We had our first "healing rain" meeting last night. Sort of a worship/soaking...being open to Words of knowledge and praying for healing kind of meeting. A few things were called out. Peter Stott said something about an abdomen...I didn't have pain as such...but I have a hernia developing after 26 years of tossing pianos around, so we prayed for it to undevelop and I think today there genuinely is some improvement.Will keep you all posted.Does anyone else think the word verifications can be funny "oxrrfnok" - a type of winged reptile long since extinct except in Yorkshire

Dan Bowen said...

Hey Jon!

Wow - this sounds like an absolutely AWESOME idea and a real answer to prayer! I've never ever pretended to be anything whatsoever in the way of a web developer or have the slightest understanding of HTML or whatever! My only gifting (I feel) is the ability to type quickly and so have just used whatever facilities I can to get up on the net, this kind of awesome material.

So I have indeed really been praying heaps that I would make friends with someone who really does know what they are talking about! And here you are! Awesome God!

Well my email is: CharismaticDan@yahoo.com.

I think your ideas about a more suitable forum sound absolutely brilliant and what would be fab is if we can find a way to work together, so that I can obviously carry on digging out and typing up the quotes and getting them available in the best format.

I'll be thrilled to hear whatever ideas you may have! Let me know what's best - whether to give you editorial access to the blog or whatever.

I know that Rob and Glenda and Ryan Rufus will be thrilled as well, they are so living the dream to get the message of grace and glory published!

Thanks again bro, so much!

:)