Tree of Life Blog » Uncategorized

The Last Brighton Conference

Tree of Life — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 09:19:00 +0000

This year's Together on A Mission Conf. was the last by Newfrontiers

I take this opportunity to thank you for praying for my Visa. Getting a UK Visa for the first time, within 15 days flat was indeed a miracle! I got it just in time to go to the UK and attend Newfrontiers’ last Together On A Mission conference. For me, it was first time I was attending a conference like this and it was an overwhelming experience. The praise and worship was excellent and God’s presence was amazing. Although I arrived a day late, I was still blessed in the 3 days that followed. After attending seminars by Lex Loizides and Tope Koleoso on ‘Demonstrations of Power Today’ I have faith to see signs, wonders and miracles happen in our church here.

The words preached by Terry Virgo, David Holden, Joel Virgo, P J Smyth, were powerful. P J Smyth (who was healed from cancer) preached on healing and Dave Holden’s (concluding sermon) message about relationships and unity are both available on the Newfrontiers’ website – a must hear.

Inder Pawar and Vinu Paul were up there and led a prayer for churches in India. More than 60 nations’ representatives gathered to pray for the further growth of the churches all over the world. Later, I had an opportunity to be in King’s church at Hastings (350 people). There was much prayer and prophetic move of the Spirt there.

Even though one show (Brighton) was closing just like ‘Dawn’ or ‘Stonleighh’ that happened earlier years, God promise for a great future and to look to unfolding of that future as we march forward together.

There was lot to learn and I have been blessed with a lot. Something that I wish to share with you from this trip is that storms may come in our lives, and put us in deep trouble. But our God is Sovereign and faithful to bring us out. Let us therefore be encouraged to live; growing in relationships, being transparent to the leaders and one another.. and in the course of it, build up our unity!

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Franco who initiated my being in Brighton conference and Robin Redsull (Hastings Church) who hosted me , not forgetting Malcolm Kayes and Karen Patrick from Coign Church, UK without whose help Brighton would not have happened for me.

Bombay Teen Challenge performs in TLC

Tree of Life — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 09:40:47 +0000

Bombay Teen Challenge in TLC

“I can’t believe that these children came from the streets, indeed God has done a miracle in their lives”. This was one of the responses that came from a visitor who heard these 40 children from BTC sing at TLC on the 7th this month. Indeed they sang amazingly well. Well done
Rohan & Marianne! Your hard work will be indeed rewarded.

BTC is celebrating it’s 20th Anniversary this November

The Eye Camp Feb 2010

Tree of Life — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:46:43 +0000

God’s hand on the Karuna Project has been amazing. Ever since the fledgling project was conceived, there have been growing opportunities leading to other doors for us as a church to serve the poor and needy.

One such opportunity is the eye camp. Part of many such ventures, an eye camp is a place where people in the leprosy colony, come to get their eyes checked and have spectacles issued at a very low rate.

It was initially observed that those living in the leper colony in Borivali had very low incomes. Because of this ailments such as cataracts in the eye, partial blindness and even blurry vision are not given due importance. It is to address these issues that Tree of Life Church along with Stepping Stone Charitable Society hold the Eye Camps every year.

Through these camps, not only do we bless those people and ease their suffering, but also, plant seeds of the love of God in the hearts of the patients. We look forward to your continued support to help these projects take roots all over the city and beyond. God bless you!

Here is what Praveen Nayak had to say:

The Prerna Eye Camp was Peaceful and Joyful time. There were 171 Registration. We distributed around 145 Spectacles. Few People and children did not need it, 2-3 needed the operation accordingly they were directed. It was a good time at the clinic. Pat, Margret, Michael, Usha, and myself were there. There were 3 opticians. The people were listening and obeying if you tell them to stand in the queue i.e. they were cooperative. We started at 2PM and ended at 5PM.

Following are the pictures of the Eye Camp:

Picture from the Social Action at Prerna: Eye Camp

Valentine’s Day at TLC

Tree of Life — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:00:23 +0000

Valentine's Day

As a family, you may know, there are only a few occasions in a year when you invite new people over to celebrate something. More often than not that occasion in church, is Christmas. This year, coincidentally, Valentine’s day fell on a Sunday. Thus, it seemed liked the perfect opportunity to encourage all the newcomers and general congregation about true love in a fun and interesting way.

So in keeping with this theme, In the Hindi service it was a pleasure to have Benny Prasad, a talented musician who’s credited with the joy of being the first person ever to create a guitar with drums in it. Benny shared his testimony with the congregation about how he came out of several crisis in his life and how God was sovereign in every situation. His struggle through rejection in his early years and the love of God that brought him back on his feet was moving. And as he finished, he played a wonderful solo on “My Jesus, My Savior” that he had played in the Olympic games in Athens, Greece.

The hall having being decorated with heart-shaped balloons and drapes, we began our Sunday with lively worship and praise. Halfway through the meeting, some youth @TLC presented a short musical play on a girl torn between the attractions of the world and Jesus. The play conveyed the message quite simply and it was touching indeed!

Hearts were distributed to couples to put their partner’s photographs on it and keep it as a memento. Franco towards the end of the meeting prayed a prayer of blessing and well being on all the couples in the church.

And at last Franco taught us on the true reason for celebrating Valentine’s day. Download the message from here. Lots of humor and practical examples kept us all wanting more of a long, but happening Sunday!

A Different and exciting Sunday at TLC

Momentum : Church Planter’s Conference

Tree of Life — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:30:15 +0000

Indeed it was a momentous time… a time of meeting the king of kings, a time of reviewing, understanding India, its geographical locations, the population, the need for church plantings, worshipping and hearing the heart of the Lord through prophetic utterances, fellowship, etc. all under one roof. It was a power packed 3 solid days conference for the 120 people who were present.

At the conference

Our time began with Guy Miller envisioning us about the conference, speaking from Rev. of the full purpose and plan for us – to be a worshipper who will see Jesus as He is, more than a conqueror and hence for us to be warring Christians full of the Holy Spirit. Jesus holds the keys of all the cities, there is no city whose keys are not with Jesus. Tribulations, persecutions even death would be the outcome on moving for the kingdom but we are to be like soldiers in uniform to be on the guard. Jesus speaks tenderly yet straight to the churches, the word of God is not weak, it is life changing. Passionate for Jesus and the kingdom that’s what we are called for, having a heavenly mindset, not the compromising Christians but ones who will battle against the Jezebel who undermines spiritual authority. We prayed vibrantly for the new church plantings initiatives and those who will be leading it. Each one of us was touched by the Spirit of God.

David Stroud who has planted many churches preached on church planting and his experiences with it. The five qualities a church planter should have are:

1. He must be a man who has the call of God on his life

2. He must be a man of vision

3. He must have a history of taking steps of faith

4. He can make strong relationships

5. He can lead himself

6. He must be good communicator

The Momentum Conference

His preaching about taking responsibility and not to make excuses was so remarkable & challenged us all. He challenged us not to live as hostages but to find a way no matter what situation we are in like Moses, Joshua, etc who took responsibility in extreme situations. Responsibility is nothing but an ability to respond to situations

Malcolm Kayes spoke of Abraham in whom there was no evidence of worship of God. God called him and used him. He assured us that we are not disqualified by our past and like Abraham we are not to look back, but to GO There is a sure destination for us all (the city of God). Abraham also had a promise from God and he believed. Let us therefore be filled with a new passion, a new vision in God, a new hunger for souls. A great momentum is building up for us all and the church and it is time to move ahead with a new mantle of responsibilities not making excuses but owning India and being bold and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Newfrontiers Annual Cricket Tournament

Tree of Life — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:03:52 +0000

The TLC team (L to R): Dinesh, Sonu, SIby, Arun, Allan, Neil, Errol, Neville, Don (Sunny’s brother), Sunny, Aaron & Peter. (Inset) The winning JVK team and Franco.

It was 26th Jan & our cricketers from New Frontier churches in Mumbai and Nasik, gathered together for the battle for the cup at Holy Family School Grounds. There was enthusiasm and joy and confidence in everyone to win the trophy. Lots of fellowship and fun, friendship, eating together and cheering one-another was happening there. The stadium was full of spectators and cheerers, with music & drums, placards & signs. Last year’s winners Masiha church lost the match in the first round itself. We TLC, played better cricket this year and won the first match against Living Word church. We however lost the second round after a putting up a good fight against Jeevit Vishwas Kalisiya, who won the trophy after consistently winning 4 matches. Let’s applaud these great winners.

RSS Feeds from our Blog

quadrosneil — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:27:54 +0000

Be the first to get Tree of Life Church’s headlines as soon as they are published. Here’s a way to save time if you read many websites. This FAQ will show you how, and will answer some of the common questions about Tree of Life Church’s new news feeds.

Syndicating from Tree of Life Blog

You’ll need to have installed a news reader to receive our news feeds such as Feed Demon, Sharp Reader, and NewsGator (an Outlook plugin) for Windows, NetNewsWire and Shrook for Macs.

You can even use Bloglines.com & Google Reader for those who like web-based readers.

The RSS icon (Partially hidden in upper right header of the blog)

Once that’s done, you can subscribe to Tree of Life Blog’s posts here or by clicking the RSS Icon in the top right corner of the blog:

All New Posts: http://treeoflifechurch.in/blog/feed/

More Details on News feeds..

What is a news feed?

A news feed (also known as an RSS feed) is a listing of a website’s content.

The feed is updated whenever new content is published to the site. News readers download lists of stories at an interval that you specify (every 30 minutes for example), and present them to you.

All news feeds on espnstar.com will have a link back to the website. So if you see a story you like, you can click on the link for that piece of content and will be taken to the website to read it.

What’s RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, “Rich Site Summary”, or a handful of other names, and it is a site’s syndicated news feed that you subscribe to using your news reader.

What is a news reader?

A news reader (also known as a news aggregator) is simply a piece of software that you can use to read your subscribed news feeds. It is to news feeds what Outlook, Hotmail, and Entourage are to email.

Should I use a news reader?

A news reader can save you loads of time if you visit a lot of websites on daily basis, or read a lot of weblogs.

The news reader will act like a sieve, allowing you to discard articles you are not interested in, and do further reading on websites for the article you are interested in.

You won’t have to visit many sites multiple times every day to see if there are updates; your news reader will do that for you and will let you know when there is a new story to be read!

So if you visit a lot of websites regularly, or want to be alerted automatically when your websites publishes a new story, using a news reader might make sense.

You can find even more news readers at itopik.com.

(For internal review purposes) Code: RJ2HGS4MSPRG

New Year’s Eve: Prophecies for the year 2010

Tree of Life — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:00:49 +0000

It was great to see our God who speaks and encourages us, and as we met on New Year’s Eve he spoke these words for us, to encourage us, build us and see us blessed in this year. What a faithful God we serve, hallelujah! Let’s take hold of them and see them fulfilled in our lives. Some of the prophecies are concisely given below. We hope that you will be envisioned by them!

Old row of buildings are demolished & God is raising up new places. God’s Spirit is poured out mightily & you will go out without fear & take over these places. These are my appointed places & I have anointed you to take them. You are like that eagle which was hurt in one leg & could not fly but this year God is healing you & you will fly great heights.

The Lord is moving around & putting his hands on shoulder of certain people & saying them, ‘do not fear, I am with you, trust me, just trust me’.2010 is year in which God is going to work in most of our lives, in mysterious ways for his miracles to perform. He is going to reshuffle TLC. He is going to take many of us to great & new heights. God wants us to declare positive affirmation over our own life and into the life of one another. He wants to change the image of our life, inside before he can change the outside.

It will be a year of vindication. In whatever area you are going through, God will vindicate you. God is saying, Do not be narrow minded. God has abundance to give. Ask for Big things and we will receive it. He is going to give us a lot this year. Have faith for big things. I am the Lord God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me. God wants to give a new start in someone’s career, new start in marriage, new start in interpersonal relationship, new start in lifestyle. Do not hold back fearing failure, move on. God wants to give us fully, but come into His presence and serve. God is saying we need to concentrate on sharing the gospel and see people saved, just as John 3:16, that only through Jesus a man (sinner) can reach God.

New Year's Eve Service 2010

The Christmas Story Street Play

Tree of Life — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:21:51 +0000

Christmas time was near and in our continuous efforts to spread the love of Christ, two street plays were organized near Golibar Subway, Santacruz and Kama Estate, Goregaon on the 22nd and 23rd of December. These areas are predominantly surrounded by poor people living in slums and the culture being rural a ‘naatak’ or street play on the Christmas story was presented, adapted for the setting.

20 volunteers and 5 actors made the play happen with simplicity yet a powerful message about how Christ is important for everyone, from the rich to poor, to the hopeless to the one who thinks he’s got everything in order. Being in Hindi the crowd easily understood the play and around 40 – 50 people gathered on this occasion. This was very encouraging to see as the love of God was communicated through a short message after the play. Many of the audience came eagerly seeking prayer for ailments, family issues and other problems. The team prayed for every one of them and made sure no one left without knowing the love and care of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

What was most significant about this play was the fact that with limited resources, in an area hardened by life, we were able to impact them with the word of God and touch many lives.

Following is an encouraging video of the event:

Foreword December ’09

Tree of Life — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:01:59 +0000

Senior Pastor & Elder of TLC

(This is a foreword to the December edition church newsletter published every month)

Life is not like a battle, it IS a battle. We have to constantly battle for the promises of God, battle to preach a gospel of grace, battle to keep our minds fixed on things above, battle for our children, battle to believe God for our healing, etc. We have an enemy who has come to rob, kill and destroy but Praise God we have a God who has come to give us life and life in abundance. And the truth is that on the cross Jesus won the victory. And so we can rejoice Hallelujah and know that our hope is not in vain.

With this in mind let us be eager to share our faith with others and impart this hope to many who are perishing. Even as Christmas is nearing and we remember the birth of our Lord Jesus, let us remind ourselves that today we are alive because the Father gave His one and only Son that all who believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Even as we belong to a God who is so giving let us be a people who will give. Freely we have received, let’s freely give. It’s a wonderful time to remember the poor and bless them with the love of Jesus. Even as you wait on the Lord he will lead you to share His love with many.

Let’s also take this opportunity to bless our Hindi church brothers and sisters who have never known what it is to celebrate Christmas.

We will be trying to prepare a list so that each one will be able to choose and individual or family whom they can bless. May each one of you have a joyful time with family and friends enjoying the greatest gift of life Jesus as we enter into the Christmas season.