http://www.teleioschurch.co.za/

Teleios, 42 Antrim Road, Johannesburg (2026)

21/08/2026

✍️BLOG FRIDAY✍️

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL

If you have played any racquet sport (like tennis) or stick-and-ball sport (like golf), you would have heard the concept “Keep your eye on the ball”. This is vital because the structure of the body is such that if you watch where you are aiming at and do not focus on the contact point with the ball, your shoulders open and the pelvis rotates, which means you are certainly not hitting for the target, and in many instances the ball will go wildly left or right from the target. However, as humans, we have the constant desire to look at where we WANT to go and less desire to focus on the here and now.

I highlight this on purpose – where we WANT to go. We are always looking to the future and desiring this and that. Now listen, I do not fundamentally have issues with goal setting. In fact, I think it is very valuable in many areas of life, sport, and elsewhere. However, if you are constantly looking where you WANT to go and not focusing on where you are now, you actually create a cleft between reality and desire.

As a Christian, we must tread carefully in this cleft…
We all remember the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. In Matthew 26:36–46, Jesus enters Gethsemane knowing arrest, humiliation, suffering, and crucifixion are imminent. He says: “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death.” — Matthew 26:38. Then He prays: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” — Matthew 26:39. The key is that Jesus does not deny the pressure. He fully acknowledges His anguish, but He keeps returning His attention and surrender to the Father. As Christians, we must constantly acknowledge that our desires, wishes, goals and focuses are all less important in comparison to our Father’s perfect will for our life!

This is echoed in Psalm 16:8 (BSB): David deliberately places God at the centre of his awareness — “I have set the LORD always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” And in Psalm 123:1–2 (BSB) — “I lift up my eyes to You, the One enthroned in heaven… so our eyes are on the LORD our God until He shows us mercy.”

Yet, as humans, if we are honest with ourselves, we often consider the following internal rationalisations:
1) I am saved and part of God’s chosen children
2) I am doing God’s work / Kingdom work
3) God helped me move in this direction and that direction; this will be great to build the Kingdom in such-and-such a direction.
4) If God is for me, who could be against me?
5) I will therefore push strongly towards…

Before long, we are focused on where we want to go again and no longer keeping our eye on the ball.

Hebrews 12:2 (BSB) — “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” comes as a strong reminder in an athletic concept to remind us that our race in this world is one of endurance and not outcome. It is a race where, as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, we cannot focus anywhere else. This is your definition of faith – faith by vision, not by your vision but by Jesus’s vision. Think of the blind athlete with an able-bodied person running next to them, giving commands, direction and guidance at the pace that you are at.

Jesus has gone before you – He is the author of your life;
Jesus has set the perfect example – He has brought you into perfect completion.

Stop striving and Keep your Eyes on Jesus.

Travis Mitchell

19/08/2026

Prophecy & Power

Join us this Sunday evening for a time of prayer, prophecy and impartation.

🗓️ 23 August 2026
🕖 5:30PM
📍42 Antrim Road, Meredale, Johannesburg South

Looking forward to seeing you, come expectant!

15/08/2026

✍️BLOG FRIDAY✍️

BEYOND THE PULPIT: WHEN THE POWER OF GOD GOES WITH YOU

There is something powerful about being in church.

There are moments when a worship song seems to speak directly to the heart. Moments when a sermon challenges us, encourages us, or gives us a new perspective. Moments in prayer when we become deeply aware of God's presence. We listen, we respond, we receive and sometimes, we leave the service feeling strengthened and renewed.

But then Monday comes.

The music fades. The congregation disperses. We return to our workplaces, our businesses, our classrooms, our families, our communities, and the ordinary pressures of life. And this raises an important question: What happens to the power we experienced in the pulpit when we step outside the church?

The pulpit matters. The preaching of God's Word matters. Gathering together matters. But perhaps the pulpit was never meant to be the final destination of God's power in our lives. Perhaps it was meant to be a place of preparation.

The Power should go with you

Jesus never called His followers to simply gather around Him. He called them to go.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

There is movement in that command. The Christian life cannot be confined to a church building. What God does in us when we gather is intended to influence what happens when we scatter.

We come together to be strengthened, but we go out to serve.

We come together to hear the Word, but we go out to live the Word

We come together to be refreshed, but we go out to become a source of refreshment to others.

We come together to encounter God, but we go out carrying the evidence of that encounter.

That is the challenge of going beyond the pulpit.

When faith leaves the building

It is easy to appear spiritual in a spiritual environment. When everyone around us is worshipping, it is natural to worship. When everyone is talking about faith, it is easy to talk about faith. When we are surrounded by people who share our convictions, living those convictions may not feel particularly difficult. But what happens when we enter an environment that does not look like church? What happens when the conversation at work becomes uncomfortable? What happens when someone treats us unfairly? What happens when business pressure tempts us to compromise our integrity? What happens when nobody is watching?

That is where the power we received in the pulpit begins to matter. The world may not sit in our Sunday service, but it will interact with us on Monday. Our colleagues may never hear the sermon we heard, but they will hear the way we speak. Our clients may never join us in worship, but they will experience our integrity. Our neighbors may never read the Bible we read, but they will see how we treat people. Our families may not always hear our prayers, but they will experience our patience, our love, our humility, and our character. The world may not see our pulpit, but it will see our lives.

The pulpit is not the finish line

There is a danger in becoming satisfied with what happens inside the church. We can attend services, listen to powerful messages, take notes, say “Amen,” and still fail to allow what we have received to transform our everyday lives. The purpose of hearing is ultimately doing.

James reminds us not to merely listen to the Word, but to “do what it says.” (James 1:22)

That is where the message moves from the pulpit into the world. A sermon on love becomes meaningful when we love someone who is difficult to love. A sermon on forgiveness becomes meaningful when we choose to forgive. A sermon on generosity becomes meaningful when we give. A sermon on integrity becomes meaningful when we refuse to compromise, even when compromise would benefit us. A sermon on faith becomes meaningful when we trust God in circumstances we cannot control. This is what it means for the power to go with you.

We carry something into the world

When we leave church, we don't leave empty-handed.

We carry the Word we heard.

We carry the encouragement we received.

We carry the conviction God placed in our hearts.

We carry the faith that was strengthened.

We carry the love we experienced.

And, most importantly, we carry Christ with us.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:20 that we are “ambassadors for Christ.”

An ambassador does not remain in the place where he received his commission. He is sent. In the same way, the believer is sent into places where Christ needs to be represented.

Your office can become a place where Christ is represented.

Your business can become a place where Christ is represented.

Your classroom can become a place where Christ is represented.

You don't need a microphone to make an impact.

You don't need a platform to demonstrate the character of Christ.

Sometimes the most powerful sermon you will ever preach will be the life you live when nobody calls it a sermon. What If the World Could See It? Perhaps the question we should ask after every church service is not simply, “What did I receive today?”

Perhaps we should also ask:

“Where am I going to demonstrate what I received?”

What will look different because I heard that message?

Who will experience God's love through me this week?

Where will I need to choose integrity?

Because the goal is not simply to have powerful moments in church. The goal is to become people through whom God's power can be seen outside the church.

Beyond the Pulpit

Because the power was never meant to remain in the pulpit.

The power goes with you.

Nthabeleng MamaNeo

13/08/2026

Worship with us every Sunday @ 9 AM 🙌🏼

📍42 Antrim Road, Meredale, Johannesburg South

11/08/2026

Teleios Youth Moments

Deuteronomy 31:6
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Join Us every Friday @ 6 PM

07/08/2026

✍️ BLOG FRIDAY WITH APOSTLE BRANDON ✍️

Can the local church be abused?

I was recently asked a very interesting question by an inquiring mind: Is it possible for someone to be guilty of abusing the church? My answer: Yes, it is possible to abuse anything!

Abuse is the mishandling of a person or an institution etc. Environments function on two things, relationship and opportunity. In other words, relationships often bring us into opportunities and those opportunities expose us to platforms and grant us access to resources and platforms. A case in point would be Judas who was part of the group Jesus was discipling. The scripture highlights how he abused access and the privilege to serve, consider the text:

John 12:6 "He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it."

The scripture highlights how Judas pretended to be an advocate for the poor when someone became a blessing to his pastor, Jesus, but that was not the case. He abused the space and the resources he had access to and was under the impression the collective company of disciples and Jesus did not know. This was a blatant abuse of trust and opportunity. In contemporary times, Judas would be seen as a righteous man for fighting for the poor and everything else he did would be dismissed and the space would be branded toxic and abusive.

Church as an institution has order and that order can easily be undermined by the culture of gaslighting that has crept even into spiritual spaces. Often when spiritual leaders try to correct the abuse of opportunity, they are dismissed as being toxic or abusing their authority. This has produced a fear culture where leaders fear being misinterpreted and misquoted and as such just give free rein to the toxicity rising in the pew.

I sit in countless sessions where senior pastors are just exhausted and at the same time are reluctant to call out those who abuse the institution because they fear that people will exit. Their genuine concern sounds petty but those concerns can become a serious threat to the sanity of the local church if not addressed. This leads to a high tolerance for people abusing and undermining the local church and everything gets entertained until it's normalised. The order of the house gets rewritten because what we tolerate becomes our default culture.

A major contributing factor to the abuse of local churches is the church's obsession with talent. Churches no longer disciple, churches recruit. It is possible for someone to be in a space but never be discipled by the space and this leads to a form of abuse where what's being built is not respected or honoured and neither is it prioritised. The church must return to the ancient pattern of discipling because this creates a framework of accountability and discipline. As long as we avoid discipleship and build microwave institutions because we want to rush everything, we will be at the mercy of abusers.

The second major contributing factor to abuse is who we choose to trust. When people are in trusted spaces, whatever they are trusted with can be used as a tool of manipulation later on in the journey and the acceptance of abuse can easily be normalised in that space. Judas was an insider who knew everything about Jesus and the disciples. That trust factor became the basis of abuse; he knew they trusted him and in turn he did what he wanted to do without considering the repercussions of his actions. He lacked the maturity to steward trust well and it eventually became a tool of manipulation. He wanted to control everything and everyone and that was the abuse of the space.

Serving in the local church demands maturity and that maturity understands that it will be held accountable to the order of the house. There are issues of compliance in every local house that must be adhered to. Ignoring this has consequences and those consequences are sometimes sad because nobody anticipates that strong and beautiful relationships can and will come to an end. When we come to such abrupt endings, it is incumbent on us to search our hearts and to reconcile the truth to our hearts, not the narratives we create in our heads to excuse us from the fact that we abused and mishandled the local church. Honesty with self cannot be constantly ignored and dismissed by a false narrative; there are genuinely times when we have to live out our Christian convictions on ourselves. This requires of us as members of the body of Christ to pause and to say: I took advantage of privilege and opportunity.

There are times when church mishandles us but there are many times when we mishandle church. Church can be abused and we are sometimes guilty. When its all said and done, there are many christians who say "this church hurt me" but not many christians who say "I did this church wrong". My prayer is this: That the christian community will mature to a level where we own our part in a broken relationship.

God will help us!

Brandon Bailey

06/08/2026

A prayer for Godly Friendships and Circles

06/08/2026

Worship with us every Sunday @ 9 AM 🙌🏼

📍42 Antrim Road, Meredale, Johannesburg South

31/07/2026

✍️ BLOG FRIDAY WITH APOSTLE BRANDON ✍️

The Algorithm Prophets

One subject that is very dear to me is "The Prophetic". I've been on both ends of the spectrum: one, where there is a disdain for it; two, where there is the abuse of it. This has led me to pen my latest book, "The Governmental Prophet," which will launch in a few weeks. The objective of the book is to provide clarity and understanding to the prophetic community concerning God's overall operation in the prophetic.

Last night I had the privilege of teaching a little from the book. We zeroed in on a term I coined, "Algorithm Prophets". The algorithm can be defined as the system that ranks information, recommends information, and rewards information. This system by default begins to influence and shape narratives, and because it rewards particular perspectives and language, it configures us to fit a particular mould and to drive a particular narrative. It's on the back of this that we produce a prophetic community where all see the same thing, say the same thing, and express themselves in similitude. This robs us of authenticity in the prophetic, largely creating generalised perspectives that pass as the word of the Lord. We did a teaching on this on our new YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/).

The idea of functioning from an algorithm is not foreign to scripture, and a powerful case study plays out in 1 Kings 22. The backdrop of the story is King Ahab getting ready for war and mobilising a company of prophets to give him directives. He gathers 400 prophets, and all of them function from a pattern that becomes the default algorithm in that space, creating a ranking and recommendation for what should pass as the word of the Lord. When Ahab's ally Jehoshaphat raises his concerns with this prophetic pattern, Micaiah is highlighted as a prophet who doesn't function from the algorithm in the corridors of power but stands alone as an authentic voice. In these verses, we see the algorithm being sold:

1 Kings 22:12–13

"All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. 'Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious,' they said, 'for the Lord will give it into the king's hand.'

The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, 'Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably.'"

In these verses we see how rank is given to a prophetic narrative and how it is presented as a recommendation to a prophet who functions outside of the system. It is here that we see the emergence of what I coin "The Algorithm Prophets".

Micaiah rejects this and protects the integrity of God's word and the integrity of the prophetic culture of his day and age.

When we bring this into contemporary times, we must consider how spaces influence our expression, and how the pages we follow and subscribe to shape our language and our perspective. We must consider how we adapt to the demands platforms sell us, and how we abandon our voice so that we can fit into the algorithm.

Social media, culture, spaces, and networks all function on an algorithm and create a myopic vision that fits where we belong, and we very seldom hear God outside of the framework of our dominant learning and exposure. I recently told one of my sons in the faith to stop thinking that because it pops up everywhere, it is God. It is very much possible that you are stuck in a loop of interest — stop treating repetition as divine confirmation.

The enemy of prophetic authenticity is the algorithm manufactured by spaces, and the ambition of the human heart will gladly conform to belong and to be accepted. Guard your assignment jealously and do not assimilate into the algorithm, where you sound like everyone else.

Brandon Bailey

Teleios

21/08/2026

19/08/2026

15/08/2026

13/08/2026

11/08/2026

07/08/2026

06/08/2026

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31/07/2026

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