Recently I enjoyed preaching on Romans 16. Perhaps surprisingly, there was a lot to learn from the long list of names. One obvious feature was the many women mentioned.
Monthly Archives: July 2008
Bus evangelism
A most excellent statement from a seemingly unlikely person, heard this morning. The speaker was a tall, retired man in a suit, addressing a younger bearded man who may or may not have had some religious interest, but who had a great deal to say about the Pope, the Roman Catholic church, and the recent Roman Catholic World Youth Day (WYD). They were talking about the re-enactment of the route to Jesus’ crucifixion that happened as part of the WYD celebrations. The older man, who spoke broken English with a heavy Armenian accent, had this to say about the re-enactment:
Shifting to the personal
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
This morning, just for something different, and not at all because some of the Sola Panellists have gone quiet and there’s nothing in the cupboard (guys!), let me suggest that you spend your time doing some listening instead: check out this month’s Briefing Lounge podcast, Shifting to the personal’. (more…)
Charismatic culture
In the comments from one of my GAFCON posts, Sam asks this interesting question:
While reading the material on the GAFCON website during the conference I couldn’t help notice the charismatic flavour of many of the comments, particularly those of the African Bishops. Do you have any thoughts on how you see this impacting the wider Anglican community in the future?
Nowism
There is an insidious and dangerous teaching that I’ve noticed creeping in to my church, threatening my Christian hope, and stifling my evangelistic effectiveness. Up to this point, it hasn’t had a catchy title.1 But I want to correct that. I’m going to call this teaching ‘nowism’, from the English word ‘now’, meaning the present age.
The panel gets web-savvy
Regular readers will notice a little green icon and the words ‘Share this’ at the top and bottom of every post. This little widget allows you to share Sola Panel posts with people across the internet—on sites like Facebook, Digg, del.icio.us and Technorati, on your own blog and via email to other people.
An interview with Gordon Cheng
Gordon, how did you come to Christ?
A school friend told me that if I was a Christian and wrong, I would have just wasted a lot of Sundays with nice people. But if I was not a Christian and I was wrong, then I was going to hell! I realize there are logical flaws in that argument now. But it was enough to convince me to keep talking to him. He told me the gospel, and started me off going to church and reading the Bible.
Reflections on World Youth Day
I’ve been asked for some reflections on Roman Catholic World Youth Day, held in Sydney last week. My reflections here are more about the ‘vibe’ than specific doctrinal interaction.
Serendipity
Weird. Having uploaded my post about Jonathan Leeman’s excellent article on individualism about five minutes ago, I notice that Jonathan has just posted the first few paragraphs and a link to the article in pdf form. We didn’t organize this, I swear!
What if individualism isn’t really the problem?
One of the many rewards of running our first Matthias Media USA conference last year was the time spent getting to know our hosts at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC—including Jonathan Leeman, who runs the always interesting 9Marks blog, and pulls together their eJournal.
Church music
In the most recent paper edition of our diocesan newspaper, Ross Cobb says, “We need to ask if our church music really is contemporary”. Ross is the music director at St Andrew’s Cathedral here in Sydney, and is across any genre you care to throw at him, whether it’s pipe organ or the credibility reducing Burt Bacharach. He says:
A visit to Hillsong
We’ve recently had some American friends staying with us. They sing Hillsong music in their church back home, and so they wanted to check out the church.
Thoughts after GAFCON
I’d like to report that in the two weeks since GAFCON, I’ve been carefully going over my notes, digesting my observations, mulling over what I saw and heard, and preparing to deliver myself of some devastating post-conference insights. Of course, the reality is that I have been stumbling through a haze of jet lag and exhaustion, attempting to locate my wife and kids in the fog, and emerging into brief moments of clarity to stare with horror at the mountainous backlog on the desk.
The danger of living the gospel without speaking the gospel
Assumption: Godly Christian living in response to the gospel is a clear and unequivocal command in Scripture. It also commends the gospel to a watching world. For instance, 1 Peter 2:12: “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation”. However, I want to suggest that godly Christian living in response to the gospel is a completely inadequate mission strategy doomed to failure.
The coming of the Son of Man: A response to Sandy’s second post
Sandy began his second post by noting the difficulty of verse 34 for the ‘second coming’ reading. The seriousness of this obstacle should not be overlooked, and a referent for the coming of the Son of Man ought to ‘fit’ with the time frame of this verse.