Surf’s Up! – A Chat With Logan Mills

Papamoa’s Logan Mills will always remember the way his youth pastor phrased a question he once asked the group. “If you took money out of the equation, how would you describe your ultimate dream when it comes to using your God-given giftings and talents to glorify Him?” And, that’s because Logan – just 10 at…

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Howard’s Heart For A Transformed Aotearoa

“What does a ‘transformed’ Aotearoa look like? Great question.” As Howard Goold and I sit having coffee near Putaruru-based Transform Aotearoa’s office, the organisation’s CEO reflects for a moment. “Transformation starts with individual lives. Like a ripple effect, transformed people, and those transformed lives, will result in transformed families, transformed communities and – ultimately –…

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Staff Snapshot: A Look Back

In December 2022, we marked our five-year anniversary – and 20th issue – at Authentic. So, we asked each Authentic staff member to reflect on a particular aspect of our journey to that point which has impacted – or encouraged – them. Here are their responses… Jeremy Smith, Editor As straightforward as it sounds, since…

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Am I Pulling Down My Barns?

The heading of this article is a question I regularly ask myself. It may seem a strange one, but the parable in Luke 12 is very applicable today in a nation where there is so much wealth and prosperity compared to past generations. “And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a…

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Fear-Filled Evangelism, or a Relaxed Natural Flow

The flight story. Evangelists like to tell their best stories. They get more support that way.  You may have heard the story about how one of those ‘talk about Jesus all the time’ types – the ones who quietly terrify even pastors and make us all feel guilty if we are not naturally extroverted –…

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Waiting “For” God, Or Waiting “On” God?

Stress is one of the biggest causes of trauma facing our society – and one of the biggest causes of stress is impatience.  We are told impatience can affect our sleep, encourage a sense of frustration and helplessness, reinforce negative emotions and make it difficult to focus on the present.  We live in an ‘instant’…

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Alpha And Omega – Invitations from God

I am continually impressed when I open God’s word. There always seems to be an invitation somewhere in the text to take action to draw closer to God. Invitations from God start in the first book and continue through the whole Bible – finishing at the end of the last chapter of the last book!…

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Rewards

Let’s read Acts 10:1-4. “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth…

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Be Content

The apostle Paul experienced many highs and lows in his life. But, as a follower of Christ, he recognised that he had no promise of tomorrow – and that he was where he was due to the grace of God. We are no different. “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard,…

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