Tag Archives: Afshin Ziafat

Afshin Ziafat at NPHX

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I shared last week about our excitement regarding a special guest speaker.

We had a great Sunday at NPHX this past weekend with our guest, Afshin Ziafat. He shared in our 10:30am service and Crash (our 6pm service). We experienced a great response in both services and had an overflow crowd on Sunday evening. Below, you will find links to the audio and video of his Sunday morning and Sunday evening messages. If you missed either, I encourage you to check them out. Watch or listen to them again, if you were there, and share them with others.

Click here for video from Sunday morning and Sunday evening respectively.

One caveat regarding Sunday evening. We had technical difficulties that night, so the video starts 10 minutes into his message. The audio link below has the full message.

Click here for audio from Sunday morning and Sunday evening.
For photos from the service Sunday evening, click here.
For more information on Afshin Ziafat, check out his website.

top posts from January 2012

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In case you missed any of them, here are my top ten posts for January 2012.

graphic courtesy of www.wordle.net

1. A Newsworthy Day, part one (my interview on Channel 12 News in Phoenix about Tim Tebow’s 3:16 playoff game) – January 9, 2012

2. A Newsworthy Day, part two (my interview in Portraits Magazine with Francis Chan, along with video of my interview re: Tebow) – January 10, 2012

3. I know I need it, but this sucks! (It is often the things we need the most – feedback, in this instance – that we struggle to actually accept in the moment) – January 4, 2012

4. The Day My Grandfather Met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (One of my favorite family stories)  - January 16, 2012

5. The conversation about manhood in America (two interesting pieces regarding the state of manhood in America from very different sources) – January 18, 2012

6. I thought you hated rules! (9 rules for creatives and how boundaries make our creativity better) – January 26, 2012

7. Your favorite Bible verse: Philippians 4:13 (A different take on “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”) – January 5, 2011

8. Getting over that Monday Morning Hangover (Steps for pastors, church staffers and others to get past a hard Sunday into a successful Monday) – January 30, 2012

9. A Powerful Story of Forgiveness (Introduction to Afshin Ziafat, guest speaker at NPHX in January 2012) – January 23, 2012

10. Dallas Willard and the Gospel of Sin Management (a false gospel preached in many places today and a possible source to so many of our challenges in the church) – April 25, 2009

A couple of interesting lessons I learned. One, I was surprised to see two blogs from outside of this month on the list. #7 from January 2011 and #10 from April 2009 get hits nearly every day because of the tags and Google searches. So, it is cool to see blogs still get traffic after all that time has passed. Two, I need to improve in giving titles to my posts. Some of my titles would be completely unclear without the description in parentheses shows me a growth edge I have as a blogger.

I appreciate you and your presence here on the blog. Thanks to Michael Hyatt for inspiring me to start this feature in 2012 and for the model for this post.

Question: Just out of curiosity, which of the top 10 was your favorite post and why? Any topics you would like me to explore here in February 2012?

A powerful story of forgiveness

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My pastor, Dan Yeary, came to me this fall and asked if I had heard of Afshin Ziafat. I had not, so I did what any 27 year old pastor does. I typed in his name into Google and YouTube. Within a day, I was blown away by the powerful story of transformation that God had done in the life of a boy who was born in the USA, lived in Iran, fled a political revolution, and experienced persecution in America. Afshin now has a platform to share the Gospel with thousands of college students every week. When we got a chance to invite Afshin to join us at NPHX in January 2012, we jumped at it.

As we decided to begin 2012 at Crash with a series on forgiveness, I knew that Afshin’s story would be a powerful way to end this conversation about how we can break away from the toxic power of un-forgiveness. And I am incredibly excited for him to be at NPHX this upcoming weekend. You can learn more about Afshin’s story and his sharing this weekend at our church here.

Invite a friend to come with you. Someone who has questions about God, someone who struggles with doubts and frustrating past experiences with religious people. Ask them to join you on Sunday morning at 10:30AM or Sunday evening at 6PM.

If you want to check out a little taste of Afshin’s story, check out the video below. And then join me in praying passionately for God to do great things when we come together.