Following on from Gordon’s post on ‘Why Pray?’, I have found it incredibly important pastorally—especially in ministry to the frail and aged—to help people see that when they pray, they are really making a difference.
Category Archives: Sola-Panel
Christianity and the credit crunch
For our regular blast from the past this week, I couldn’t go past the words of Brian Rosner in his book Beyond Greed (also printed in Briefing #250).
Gladly spent
I was reading a poem recently by Gwen Harwood that went like this:
In the Park
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt.
Someone she loved once passes by—too late
Bringing the Bible alive?
Many errors in Christianity arise because people identify a legitimate problem, but provide the wrong solution. This is often a recipe for disaster for (as any doctor will tell you) the wrong solution to a legitimate problem often makes things worse.
Jesus and the credit crunch #2
Last time I wrote, things looked bad. On Friday they hit rock bottom. The major governments of the world have ridden in like knights in shining armour, and Monday saw the biggest one-day bump in shares on Wall Street since 1939. However, I don’t think the problem is quite at an end yet. The reality is that the whole nature of the economy has changed. Big questions are being asked about about the fundamental viability of the ‘free market’ and, like it or not, in many parts of the western world we have just nationalized significant parts of the banking system. It is still a moment for Christians to be speaking about the obvious failure of the ‘gods’ of the modern world.
An appeal to women and their pastors
Older women are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5)
Jesus and the credit crunch #1
The world is falling apart. The Australian Federal reserve has slashed interest rates by one percent—the biggest official cut in interest rates in 16 years—in order to try and protect the economy from the ravages of ‘slowing growth’. The US Government is injecting $700 billion dollars into the markets, and has propped up failed bank after failed bank. European car makers are slowing or halting production. France, Ireland and Britain are headed towards (or are already in) recession. And despite the hasty assurances of key Australian politicians, it appears that Australia’s future may well be no better.
Time for lay administration
When I first attended our diocesan Synod (= denominational ‘parliament’) 10 years ago as a new Anglican Parish Rector (= Senior Pastor), I expected to sit quietly and get a feel for how things worked, reading the business papers and listening to speeches from ‘old hands’ to shape how I’d vote on the various motions and ordinances (= denominational laws).
The new principalities and powers #3: The mythical self
Principalities and powers: the controllers of our destinies—forces beyond ourselves.
But how ‘beyond’ ourselves are they really? And what is the ‘ourselves’ that they are beyond? The question of identity is a big one. The old ‘who am I?’ question has been around for as long as the human being. The question stays the same, but the answers appear to change, for better or for worse, in sickness …
Don’t wait ‘til you say goodbye
As some of you reading this post are aware, I left the ministry that I had been involved in for seven and a half years at the end of August. I look back on that time in my life with great fondness and thankfulness to God, even though I had come to the point of moving on because of certain personal struggles and weaknesses that I have not enjoyed being forced to face. It will suffice it to say that I have learned all sorts of things about myself and others in the process of leaving.
The new principalities and powers #2: The mythical generations
Astrology has its mysteries, but at least it makes life nice and simple. There are 12 signs in the zodiac, and so, depending upon when you are born, your life is somehow determined by your sign.
Why pray?
Demons: a sonnet
This week from the Briefing archive, it’s a poem: one of Tony Morphett’s superb little ‘Sonnets from Mark’s Gospel’ that featured in Briefings 20-26, way back in 1989:
The new principalities and powers #1: Picturing ‘big evil’
The language of ‘principalities and powers’ confuses me. Sure, the New Testament uses it, and it is very clear that whatever lies behind the language has been trounced by Jesus’ death and resurrection. And whatever anyone might mean by ‘principalities and powers’ has been defeated at the cross, so there is no need for anyone to fear whatever it is any more. They are safe ‘in Christ’: they have found a permanent resting place, secure in the Father’s hand. Nothing—nothing at all—can separate them from the love of God found in Christ Jesus.
Dare to do things badly
Our minister is a very godly man: he has chosen to do something he’s less good at for the sake of the gospel. Let me explain.