Search results for ""author pete portal""

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world - often described as a kind of heaven on earth. Yet for the majority of its inhabitants it is hell. Apartheid-spawned ghettoes are everywhere, and for those living in Manenberg - a coloured township on the Cape Flats, purpose-built by the apartheid government as part of its forced removal plan - life is just as marginal today as it was during apartheid. The main differences now are the rampant drug use and widespread gang presence.No Neutral Ground is a gripping account of Pete Portal's move from London to Manenberg, of addicts and gangsters meeting Jesus and being transformed, and how he went from living with a heroin addict to establishing a church community - and all the heartbreak and failure along the way. This is a story of mighty works of God, as well as relapse, hopelessness and despair; the miraculous and the mundane, heaven and hell, all balanced on a knife edge. Offering searing insight and an inspiring vision of faith, Pete asks why anyone would choose this way of life, if giving up our lives for others is worth it - and what the church could become if we were willing to risk it all to reach the forgotten and the lost.

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Nowadays it seems like everyone wants to be successful, but how many of us actually feel it? We may know that true success is found in following the one who made us. And yet, in our increasingly polarised and comparison-rife world, many of us find our hearts yearning for an ever-elusive 'success': in money and power, in influence and accolades. It is time for us to remember that success is attainable - not in what we have but how we live. This book invites you to recognise the beauty and complexity of the world we live in and how we, individually and collectively, may have conformed our faith in Jesus to simple consumer culture and cultural preferences. It is an opportunity to redefine success, choosing love over efficiency, depth over volume and real friendship over cold transactions. Jesus' life and teaching are the perfect antidote for a world growing sick with the wrong sort of success. And, he invites us again to experience a success that truly satisfies our souls.

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