Another year, another Bible study group. Time to sign up, turn up and get things rolling. Ho hum. Time also perhaps to ask some questions about your own contribution to the small group you are in. Are you making much of a difference in the lives of your fellow group members? Do you feel as if you just go along because that’s what you’re expected to do? What part are you going to play in this year’s group? (more…)
The word to the world in your lounge room: A step-by-step guide
Growth group clinic hypotheticals
Everyday Ministry
Small group ‘Hypotheticals’ for discussion when training small group leaders.
Firing up for evangelism
Pastoral Ministry
How can a pastor get evangelism going in his church? To ‘evangelize’ literally means to ‘proclaim news’. Thus, when the President of the IOC stands to say, “The games of the 33rd Olympiad in 2012 are awarded to the City of London”, he is evangelizing. To do Christian evangelism is to tell the news that “Jesus Christ is Lord”.
New year’s resolutions
Couldn't Help Noticing, Life, Sola Panel
It’s that time of year when certain sorts of people flirt with the idea of New Year’s resolutions. I once made such lists. After multiple failures and subsequent guilt, I made a resolution to give up on resolutions.
The Rapture: Is anything missing?
In one chaotic moment, millions of people around the world suddenly disappear, leaving their clothes, wedding rings, eye glasses and shoes in crumpled piles. Mass confusion hits while vehicles suddenly unmanned veer out of control, fires erupt and hysteria breaks out as the living stare in disbelief and fear at the empty places where their loved ones were just seconds before. This is the rapture that God has planned as the first sign to begin the unraveling of the end of time.
The four judgements of God
Thought
Holiday or ‘Holy’-day?
A travel brochure with a difference.
Read the full article online (PDF).
A summary of our captivity and freedom
William Tyndale lived from about 1494 to 1536.
The fall of Adam has made us heirs of the vengeance and wrath of God, and heirs of eternal damnation. It has brought us into captivity and bondage under the devil. The devil is our lord, our ruler, our head, our governor, our prince and our god. And our will is locked and knit closer to the will of the devil than could a hundred thousand chains bind a man to a post. To the devil’s will we consent with all our hearts, with all our minds,with all our might, power, strength, will and lusts. The law and will of the devil is written in our hearts as well as in our members. We run headlong after the devil with full zeal, and the whole force of all the power we have; just as a stone cast up into the air comes down naturally of its own accord, with all the violence and force of its own weight. With what poisonous, deadly and venomous hate does a man hate his enemy! With what great malice of mind, inwardly, do we slay and murder! With what violence and rage, and with what fervent lust do we commit adultery, fornication and such like uncleanness! With what pleasure and delight, inwardly, does a glutton serve his belly! With what diligence do we deceive! How busily do we seek the things of this world! Whatever we do, think, or imagine, is abominable in the sight of God. For we give no honour to God; his law, or will, is not written in our members or in our hearts; neither is there any more power in us to follow the will of God, than in a stone to ascend upward by itself. And besides that, we are as it were asleep in such deep blindness, that we can neither see nor feel the misery, slavery and wretchedness we are in, until Moses comes and wakes us, and publishes the law.
Relishing the Reformation
Pastoral Ministry
Sermons on the card
The tenor and effect of certain sermons made by Master Latimer in Cambridge, about the year of our Lord 1529. (Hugh Latimer lived from 1485 to 1555.)
The Reformed Pastor
Richard Baxter published The Reformed Pastor in 1656 to help pastors do their jobs better. It is still worth reading. Gordon Cheng brings us two short excerpts.
The sum of the Christian life: The denial of ourselves
John Calvin lived from 1509 to 1564.
(The Christian philosophy of unworldliness and self-denial; we are not our own, we are God’s, 1-3)
Enemies of the cross of Christ
Martin Luther lived from 1483 to 1546.
Phillipians 3:17-21: Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.
What if the pastor did make fun of Islam?
The judge who convicted two Christian pastors of religious vilification in Victoria (December 2004) found, among other things, that one of the pastors ridiculed Islamic teachings and traditions while conducting a public seminar on Islam. In his Summary of Reasons for Decision, Judge Higgins states: