It occurred to me recently that we may need a Luddite revolution in our attitude towards ministry.
Now, if you know who the Luddites were, you’ve probably already picked up an irony in the fact that I’m blogging about the need to become Christian Luddites. The Luddites were basically a group of tradies in 19th-century England. They saw the threat posed by the spread of industrial technology, and protested against it—even sabotaging local wool and cotton mills.
Matthew 18:15-20 is such a helpful passage when you feel someone has sinned against you. It encourages you to talk to them in private to point out the sin or offence. (Maturity now makes me realize that when you do this, there’s the possibility of hearing another side to the story, which makes you reconsider too.) Then, if there’s no repentance, you involve a couple of elder-type Christians. Only in the face of continued defiance would it finally become a public matter for discipline in the church.
It’s the ‘ism’ that makes all the difference. The ‘environment’ is just all the stuff around us. ‘Environment’ is first recorded in 1830, and comes from the much earlier word ‘environ’, which, in turn, is first recorded in one of Wycliffe’s sermons from 1375. ‘Environ’ comes from an Old French word meaning “that which makes a circuit (or veers) around us”.
Francis Schaeffer is still a revered name in many evangelical circles. In others, he is now hardly known. Ranald Macaulay, who knew and worked with Schaeffer, summarizes his legacy. (more…)
All sorts of people have claimed to see visions of God, of Christ, of Mary or of the saints over the centuries. And, from time to time, the Roman Catholic church has endorsed such visions and used them to encourage people in their allegiance to the Roman church. But Martin Luther, the great Reformer and opponent of Roman Catholic teaching, also saw visions— sometimes in considerable detail. Here he describes one such appearing:
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In the fascinating rise and rise of Barack Obama, we see a resurgence of what the Americans call ‘liberalism’ and what we Australians don’t really have a decent name for, apart from the vague designation ‘leftist’. It’s a moral and political philosophy that takes an optimistic view of mankind and the human heart, and believes that if we all start afresh, work together, and change the way we do things, then together we can build a better America, a better Australia, a better world. Yes, we can. (more…)
It was only a silly TV comedy, but it got me thinking—thinking about weddings and divorce, prenuptial agreements and the nature of marriage. (more…)
20 years ago in April 1988, our first child was born: a daughter. Like most first-time parents, we had discussed ‘the name’ at length, but almost as soon as we saw her tiny but perfect little frame, we knew what we would call her. She was a gem (and still is). We called her ‘Gemma’. There was another birth in our family in that same month 20 years ago: a little periodical was born. And the name was also a subject of much discussion. We didn’t want to call it anything too fancy or too pretentious, but we didn’t want to call it anything too predictable either. We wanted the name to say something about what the fledgling publication was and wasn’t: it wasn’t a newspaper or news magazine, attempting to report on what was happening in the world (the Christian world or otherwise), and it wasn’t just a special interest magazine for the Christian lifestyle, like Cigar Aficionado or Better Homes and Gardens. We wanted to convey that this new little periodical aimed to inform and equip Christians for life and ministry in God’s world—that its aim was not to entertain or divert, but to inspire action. (more…)
From the bountiful crop of recent books on church, Chris Green looks at three well worth reading.
Total Church: A radical reshaping around gospel and community (more…)
Have you heard the ‘bridge keeper’ illustration? It’s supposed to help us understand the death of Jesus. It goes like this:
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Gene Robinson is apparently upset that he has not been invited to attend the Bishops’ conference at Lambeth this year.1 The theological differences between Bishop Robinson and evangelical Anglicans over homosexuality are well-known and well-traversed. But what I find interesting is what this report reveals about the different way he views Anglican polity. He refers to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, as his “chief pastor and shepherd”. I seriously doubt you’d ever hear Peter Jensen or any evangelical bishops from around the world referring to Rowan Williams as their “chief pastor and shepherd”. For a start, that’s not how they would understand the official relationship between their church and Canterbury. But secondly and more importantly, I think they’d probably think that there is someone better qualified to be their chief pastor and shepherd—someone who sits on a heavenly throne, not a throne in Canterbury. Where might they get suchan idea? Well, one place would be The Book of Common Prayer service for the consecration of a Bishop where Jesus is referred to as the “chief Shepherd”. They’d also get it from the Bible (e.g. Ezek 34:15, John 10:11). (more…)