24 December 2007
14 December 2007
The Golden Compass
The release of The Golden Compass as a major motion picture represents a new challenge for Christians -- especially parents. The release of a popular film with major actors that presents a message directly subversive of Christianity is something new. It is not likely to be the last.
Having seen the movie at an advance viewing and having read all three books of His Dark Materials, I can assure Christians that we face a real challenge -- one that will require careful thinking and intellectual engagement.
Read the rest here
Having seen the movie at an advance viewing and having read all three books of His Dark Materials, I can assure Christians that we face a real challenge -- one that will require careful thinking and intellectual engagement.
Read the rest here
03 December 2007
The Interpretive Journey
One of our youth ministers was teaching the following last week to a small group of youth ministers and apprentices. I thought I would show you because the basic outline is useful as you study the Bible.
The Interpretive Journey
From Grasping God’s Word
1. What did the text mean to the original audience?
2. What are the differences between the Biblical audience and us today?
3. What is the theological principle in the text?
4. How should individual Christians apply the theological principles in their lives?
The Interpretive Journey
From Grasping God’s Word
1. What did the text mean to the original audience?
2. What are the differences between the Biblical audience and us today?
3. What is the theological principle in the text?
4. How should individual Christians apply the theological principles in their lives?
A new controversy
The film, The Golden Compass, opened in December and is based on the first book in Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials. In an interview in the Washington Post, Pullman candidly remarked, "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.” Pullman has also been outspoken about his desire to undercut The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
Read the whole article here
Read the whole article here
26 November 2007
More for the season...
David Hasselhoff is concerned that his role in European history is being overlooked. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the actor and pop singer argued that he helped to bring down the Berlin Wall by singing his song Look For Freedom on that fateful night. “I find it a bit sad”, said the ex-Knight Riderand Baywatchstar, “that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum.”
Is it possible that Jesus had an inflated sense of his own importance too? People were certainly saying some amazing things about him.
Read the rest here
Is it possible that Jesus had an inflated sense of his own importance too? People were certainly saying some amazing things about him.
Read the rest here
How would you sum up Christmas in just 3 words?
Vaughan Roberts takes us to the heart of the Christian message by showing us how the coming of Jesus into the world on the very first Christmas day is:
* Historical - it really Happened
* Joyful - it's good news for everyone
* Essential - something we ignore at our peril
read the whole booklet here (it's short)
* Historical - it really Happened
* Joyful - it's good news for everyone
* Essential - something we ignore at our peril
read the whole booklet here (it's short)
16 November 2007
25 October 2007
17 October 2007
19 September 2007
Inspired?
Do we take the Bible at face value? The Archbishop of Wales does not think we can. He says...
“There is a difference between taking scripture seriously and taking it literally or as being inerrant or infallible. The books of the Bible are the inspired response to revelation, but the responses are fallible, and responses are not identical with the revelation for the ‘word of God comes to us through the words of men’ to quote one theologian.” (Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales)
How does that square up with 2 Timothy 3:16? Go back to the Word on word sheets in your notebook from our training day and discover what scripture says about itself.
“There is a difference between taking scripture seriously and taking it literally or as being inerrant or infallible. The books of the Bible are the inspired response to revelation, but the responses are fallible, and responses are not identical with the revelation for the ‘word of God comes to us through the words of men’ to quote one theologian.” (Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales)
How does that square up with 2 Timothy 3:16? Go back to the Word on word sheets in your notebook from our training day and discover what scripture says about itself.
10 September 2007
09 July 2007
Sydney Anglicans Record Rise In Youth Attendance
Reverend Zachary Veron, the incoming YouthWorks CEO, has attributed the rise in youth attendance to the diocese holding the Bible as the ultimate authority and placing an emphasis on sharing the message that Jesus is Lord. On average, he said, this approach had a higher youth attendance compared to a liberal approach.
He told Christian Today Australia: “Anglican churches in Australia which hold the Bible as the ultimate authority over our lives as God's written word to his created beings, and therefore place an emphasis in their ministry on Bible teaching and sharing the message that Jesus is Lord with others, on average have many more young people attending church than most Anglican churches which have a more 'liberal' approach to the Scriptures.”
He also said that if any Anglican churches abandon the authority of the Bible over our lives, then young people will usually abandon them.
The whole article is here: http://au.christiantoday.com/article/sydney-anglicans-record-rise-in-youth-attendance/2928.htm
He told Christian Today Australia: “Anglican churches in Australia which hold the Bible as the ultimate authority over our lives as God's written word to his created beings, and therefore place an emphasis in their ministry on Bible teaching and sharing the message that Jesus is Lord with others, on average have many more young people attending church than most Anglican churches which have a more 'liberal' approach to the Scriptures.”
He also said that if any Anglican churches abandon the authority of the Bible over our lives, then young people will usually abandon them.
The whole article is here: http://au.christiantoday.com/article/sydney-anglicans-record-rise-in-youth-attendance/2928.htm
27 June 2007
Is our worship incomplete?
From Leadership Journal...
Worship is often equated with joy and celebration. It's a kind of pep rally to inspire thanksgiving and excitement about who God is. While this is a legitimate aspect of worship, it is incomplete.
This comes into full relief when we consider the experience of my friend and even more so when we read the book of Psalms as a record of ancient worship and a rich resource for our worship today.
An important pattern in the psalms is that they repeatedly employ a narrative arc, a movement from grief and lamentation to celebration and joy. This pattern is strikingly absent in many worship services today. We tend to deny our suffering in favor of celebration.
Read the whole piece at http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/002/17.64.html
Worship is often equated with joy and celebration. It's a kind of pep rally to inspire thanksgiving and excitement about who God is. While this is a legitimate aspect of worship, it is incomplete.
This comes into full relief when we consider the experience of my friend and even more so when we read the book of Psalms as a record of ancient worship and a rich resource for our worship today.
An important pattern in the psalms is that they repeatedly employ a narrative arc, a movement from grief and lamentation to celebration and joy. This pattern is strikingly absent in many worship services today. We tend to deny our suffering in favor of celebration.
Read the whole piece at http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/002/17.64.html
22 June 2007
Wow
What happens when Jesus is but one way to the divine...
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=964
A good commentary from a theologian I respect.
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=964
A good commentary from a theologian I respect.
02 May 2007
Desiring God
Having stumbled upon the 'Desiring God' podcast by John Piper, I was struck by the very first message I listened to from it. The message is titled My Anguish: My Kinsmen Are Accursed Part 1 (which suggests that part two is coming). It is worth checking out. He gets into issues that many denominations and Christian organisations are dealing with. If you are not familiar with John Piper, he is a highly respected theologian, preacher, and Bible teacher. Worth checking out! www.desiringgod.org/
Here are two quotes from the message...
The more you adjust or obscure Biblical doctrine in order to make Christian reality acceptable to unbelievers, the less Christian reality there is when they arrive.
If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you do not get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. That is not evangelism, that is deception!
Here are two quotes from the message...
The more you adjust or obscure Biblical doctrine in order to make Christian reality acceptable to unbelievers, the less Christian reality there is when they arrive.
If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you do not get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. That is not evangelism, that is deception!
12 April 2007
Teaching the Bible
The book keeps popping up in the oddest places! Read and comment if you like...
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601845-1,00.html
also, the Titusonenine blog just posted the following item (source not mentioned)...
Nancy Ammerman: Teaching children the Bible
April 12th, 2007 posted by kendall at 1:11 pm
Many mainline kids don’t even hear sermons, since they leave for Sunday school after the opening portion of the worship service. And in many New England churches, religious education shuts down for the summer. Even a pretty regular attender in these churches is lucky to get 20 to 30 hours a year of religious exposure. Also, when children are in Sunday school, free-thinking teachers rarely ask them to memorize anything, lest they be accused of indoctrination. It seems likely that these children’s reservoir of biblical memory will run dry before they ever have a chance to reach adulthood.
In some churches, this pattern is more a matter of neglect than intent, while in others it reflects a genuine ambivalence about teaching children the Bible. Is all that Bible reading and memorization a good thing? Have those biblical images embedded in our brains made us too accepting of patriarchy, too willing to trust authority, too willing to believe? Perhaps. But I am convinced that it need not be so, that when we commit something to memory, it sinks deep and often resurfaces in surprising ways to meet new situations. Biblical fragments (”knit together in my mother’s womb,” “her price is far above rubies,” “plans for your welfare and not for harm”) happily can grow with us, providing both a touchstone to the past and points of connection to new people and new meanings. We stuff our memories with so many things (lyrics to Sesame Street songs, Santa’s reindeer), why worry about adding the names of the apostles and the words of Psalm 23 to the mix?
Those biblical words are, in fact, the common language we speak as Christians, part of the tool kit with which we build ourselves and our communities of faith. If nothing else, the Bible’s existence means that we do not have to start from scratch in building a community of faith. And its infinitely multivocal and multiform self also means that there is plenty of material to work with as we and our communities change. Thinking again about how scripture works, I have become convinced that having a canon matters, not just because the words are uniquely inspired or holy or true, but because this is the core set of stories that we’ve all agreed to share and that have shaped us and our forebears in manifold ways. There are always other stories and always many interpretations, but those who have called themselves Christian for all these years have these characters and plots in common.
Spending time building up that core, then, is essential. It can later be deconstructed and reconstructed, added to or set aside, but if we don’t start here, we may lose something very important.
It’s not surprising, of course, that we all look back with ambivalence about the way we experienced the Bible as children. Looking back, we can see how much we simply trusted our families and our communities to tell us the truth, to tell us reliable stories about what life is like. It is probably equally likely that they didn’t tell us the whole truth. As much as we may feel betrayed when we begin to learn about the Bible’s darker side, that very sense of rupture is a predictable sign of our movement along a developmental path.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601845-1,00.html
also, the Titusonenine blog just posted the following item (source not mentioned)...
Nancy Ammerman: Teaching children the Bible
April 12th, 2007 posted by kendall at 1:11 pm
Many mainline kids don’t even hear sermons, since they leave for Sunday school after the opening portion of the worship service. And in many New England churches, religious education shuts down for the summer. Even a pretty regular attender in these churches is lucky to get 20 to 30 hours a year of religious exposure. Also, when children are in Sunday school, free-thinking teachers rarely ask them to memorize anything, lest they be accused of indoctrination. It seems likely that these children’s reservoir of biblical memory will run dry before they ever have a chance to reach adulthood.
In some churches, this pattern is more a matter of neglect than intent, while in others it reflects a genuine ambivalence about teaching children the Bible. Is all that Bible reading and memorization a good thing? Have those biblical images embedded in our brains made us too accepting of patriarchy, too willing to trust authority, too willing to believe? Perhaps. But I am convinced that it need not be so, that when we commit something to memory, it sinks deep and often resurfaces in surprising ways to meet new situations. Biblical fragments (”knit together in my mother’s womb,” “her price is far above rubies,” “plans for your welfare and not for harm”) happily can grow with us, providing both a touchstone to the past and points of connection to new people and new meanings. We stuff our memories with so many things (lyrics to Sesame Street songs, Santa’s reindeer), why worry about adding the names of the apostles and the words of Psalm 23 to the mix?
Those biblical words are, in fact, the common language we speak as Christians, part of the tool kit with which we build ourselves and our communities of faith. If nothing else, the Bible’s existence means that we do not have to start from scratch in building a community of faith. And its infinitely multivocal and multiform self also means that there is plenty of material to work with as we and our communities change. Thinking again about how scripture works, I have become convinced that having a canon matters, not just because the words are uniquely inspired or holy or true, but because this is the core set of stories that we’ve all agreed to share and that have shaped us and our forebears in manifold ways. There are always other stories and always many interpretations, but those who have called themselves Christian for all these years have these characters and plots in common.
Spending time building up that core, then, is essential. It can later be deconstructed and reconstructed, added to or set aside, but if we don’t start here, we may lose something very important.
It’s not surprising, of course, that we all look back with ambivalence about the way we experienced the Bible as children. Looking back, we can see how much we simply trusted our families and our communities to tell us the truth, to tell us reliable stories about what life is like. It is probably equally likely that they didn’t tell us the whole truth. As much as we may feel betrayed when we begin to learn about the Bible’s darker side, that very sense of rupture is a predictable sign of our movement along a developmental path.
06 February 2007
I have been inspired today!
In looking up a resource I have long wanted to use here, I discovered a website of a church that is really thinking outside the box in terms of method without compromising a solid commitment to the gospel. I heard the founding pastor preach some years ago and was deeply impressed by his clarity and thoroughly Biblical approach. He is the mentor to a friend of mine. Anyway, the site is chock full of resources including mp3 sermons/teaching, songs for worship, and lots more. Worth a look!
http://www.thecrowdedhouse.org/welcome.htm
http://www.thecrowdedhouse.org/welcome.htm
02 February 2007
What is Bible Study? (a soap box commentary)
Recently I had a conversation with a very impressive woman and as she was sharing, she mentioned that she is in a Bible study with some friends. “Right now”, she said, “we are studying John Piper”. I had such a mixed reaction to her statement. First off, I was impressed that she was reading a book by John Piper, an amazing pastor and theologian who lives up in Minnesota. Yet, my other reaction was to think ‘when did Piper get added to the Bible?’ We Christians have this odd thing of doing what we call a Bible study and really we don’t study the Bible. We read books about scripture, theology, the Christian life, etc and call it a Bible study. Frankly it grates on me! Every Friday I go to Starbucks at 7am because Lauren is part of a group of girls from her school that meet up there. For a while she referred to it as “Bible study” because that is what she was invited to participate in. However, after a few conversations in the forty minute ride to get there, we no longer call it that because… well… it isn’t. They read a (good) book and discuss it. So Friday mornings, she goes to her book study and when they decide to actually study the Bible, it can legitimately be called that.
Some folks I know are involved in small group Bible studies that often don’t actually get around to studying the Bible together because they devote most of their time to “doing life together” meaning that they share their struggles, confess sin, encourage and pray for one another, etc and if they get around to doing more than reading the Bible, then great. I am not opposed to ‘life groups’ or small groups that are all about sharing, but let’s not deceive ourselves and call it Bible study unless we are actually going to study His word. In my mind, a good Bible study always includes sharing, encouraging, praying, etc for one another. Otherwise we are not rooting what we learn in real life stuff.
Anyone agree?
Some folks I know are involved in small group Bible studies that often don’t actually get around to studying the Bible together because they devote most of their time to “doing life together” meaning that they share their struggles, confess sin, encourage and pray for one another, etc and if they get around to doing more than reading the Bible, then great. I am not opposed to ‘life groups’ or small groups that are all about sharing, but let’s not deceive ourselves and call it Bible study unless we are actually going to study His word. In my mind, a good Bible study always includes sharing, encouraging, praying, etc for one another. Otherwise we are not rooting what we learn in real life stuff.
Anyone agree?
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