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The character of Jesus in Revelation

December 28, 2008 in Essays & Sermons with 0 Comments

What can we learn about the character, role and purpose of Jesus Christ from Revelation chapters 1, 5 and 19?

In what ways would the particular aspects of Christ’s character and activity which are presented here be relevant to a church facing opposition and persecution?

Introduction

In the book of Revelation, we see Christ presented in various ways, and although a part of the Bible which is seen by the majority as difficult to understand, we can gain a great understanding of the person of Jesus through John’s writings.

The imagery portrayed, which could be interpreted as contradictory, can help us to explore and understand more about the whole character of Jesus, and what His role and purpose are. This in turn helps us to understand the relevance of Christ’s sufferings to Christians struggling against persecution and opposition in modern society.

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Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God

December 28, 2008 in Essays & Sermons with 0 Comments

Explain the main aspects of Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God

Introduction

The Kingdom of God features very prominently in Jesus’ teaching with the phrase occurring over 30 times in Luke’s gospel. Through Jesus’ life, including his teaching, his interactions with others and in the miracles he performed, we can begin to examine his message about the Kingdom of God.

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Can the Gospels be trusted as evidence for Jesus?

December 28, 2008 in Essays & Sermons with 0 Comments

This assignment was to write two articles for a broadsheet newspaper – one stating why the Gospels can be trusted as evidence for Jesus, and the other giving the counter argument.

Why the Gospels can be trusted as evidence for Jesus

Around 1.5 billion people worldwide call themselves Christian, putting their faith in Jesus Christ. According to the Bible, he was a man who was also the divine Son of God, whose mother was a young virgin. Having become a Rabbi, he spent the last years of his life teaching and performing miracles. He was crucified by the Romans, but his body disappeared from the tomb and many people claimed to have met the physically resurrected Jesus.

In addition to the first four books of the New Testament part of the Bible (the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) other non-Biblical documents contain reference to the existence of Jesus. Josephus, a Jewish historian mentions many individuals who are also referred to in the Gospels including “James, the brother of the so-called Christ” . Also, Thallus, writing around AD 52, included reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. These independent writings help verify some of the content of the Gospels, not least that Jesus existed.

There are two major issues when considering the reliability of the Gospels; whether the authors of the documents were accurately reporting events as they occurred, and whether the documents as we have them today are accurate and authentic copies of the originals.

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Feeding the ducks

December 28, 2008 in Family with 1 Comment

We took advantage of the sunshine yesterday and took Kaity to feed the ducks at Mote Park. This outing was also a good opportunity to try out the new camcorder.

Christmas movie

December 19, 2008 in Media clips, Times and seasons with 1 Comment

Very amusing clip. And the animals sound like voices from Family Guy!

Accessible church?

October 12, 2008 in Church with 0 Comments

In preparing for today’s Café Church, I was using a discussion starter from Youthwork magazine, and I was quite suprised at how the questions as written used language that I wouldn’t consider accessible for a non-Christian, or even those from a low education background.

This has made me quite conscious of how we pitch our public worship:

  • How much of it should be geared towards newcomers?
  • At what point do people become able to make the transition from seeker services/alpha etc and fully understand & engage in worship, particularly “wordy” liturgy?
  • Can church services ever be culturally relevant & accessible to everyone?

Using café church as an example, it is a bit easier because there’s no formal liturgy, but the whole concept of sitting round a table and discussing things with people isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some people do like to come into a church building to meet with God and focus on Him without distractions from other people

So while café church may be a good way of making church accessible to some, the very same format is likely to alienate another group of people. In that case, what is a fresh expression of church? It may well be that in some churches/areas/cultures, a BCP Evensong could be something fresh that would make church more accessible to some. To use ++Rowan’s catchphrase, we need the mixed economy!

New Wine

August 4, 2008 in Random reflections with Comments Off

We got back home on Saturday from New Wine. It was our first venture into the adult Christian festival world, having been regular Soul Survivorites since our teens. I have to confess I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was probably thinking it would be a bit of a quiet, staid affair.

In some ways, it was. Most of the venues on site, including the bookshop, closed down by 10.30pm, and there wasn’t the screaming enthusiasm in the main venue that you get with 12,000 young people at SS. But I actually found that really refreshing.

The whole atmosphere was family focussed. There were kids everywhere! Kaity settled into Gems (the creche-type group for 0-2s) amazingly. We were worried that she wouldn’t want to be left, but she had a really good time, and is still asking when she can go back!

The teaching was really good, with Frog & Amy Orr-Ewing leading the morning Bible Study on Judges, and then a number of different speakers in the evening main meetings, including Jo Saxby, Shadrach Ofosuware, Mark Melluish and Brother Andrew. There seemed to be a running theme of the significance of evil in the world through a lot of the talks. I’m not sure how intentional that was, but God certainly seemed to have prompted it!

Esther & I went to a lot of family-related seminars. Two sessions on marriage, led by Steve & Kathy Melluish, and then a parenting seminar by Will & Caroline Kemp. In the marriage seminars, Es & I realised that we speak very different love languages, and that affects how we think the other will interpret what we mean! I managed to resist the temptation to go to any youthwork seminars, but did go to a session on healthy churches by Henry Kendal from St Barnabas Finchley, and an interesting talk from a media lawyer on the role of media in society and how church and media can and should interact.

The other area where I wasn’t sure what to expect was in the Ministry times. John Coles and other New Wine leadership seem to be very supportive of Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Outpouring in Florida, but, at least in Venue 2, there wasn’t any of the hype or “dodgy” stuff that I’ve seen from Florida on GodTV.

I think my highlight of the week has been how Kaity has engaged in worship. She’s been singing “Our God is a great big God” all week, and last night as I was listening to “Mighty To Save”, she started joining in with that! She’s very excited about going back to the Pebbles group next year!

I’ve got another week at home before going back to work. My aim now is to spend some quality time with the family, and try to get my final New Testament assignment completed. 2000 words on the requirements of being a disciple of Jesus, based on the Sermon on the Mount. Any thoughts anyone??

Ch..ch..changes

June 12, 2008 in Random reflections with Comments Off

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news this week about how the British public respond to change:

Petition against Polyclinics

60 police stations to shut

and of course:

Brown wins crunch vote on 42 day detention

I think all of these issues show how difficult people find change, irrespective of the politics or truth behind them.

Let’s take the police station closures. Lots of police stations means lots of building maintenance costs, lots of power bills, and lots of administrators.  All these cost money which divert funds from the front-line service provision. The nature of society means, rightly or wrongly, that communities don’t have the same level of relationships anymore. We don’t know our community bobby, and if we need to report a crime, how many people would actually choose to go to a police station to do it? I suspect that the vast majority of public contact with the police is by phone. I certainly would rather be able to make a phone call when I need to than traipse around looking for a police station. The buildings which are being earmarked for closure could bring in a lot of revenue when they are sold, which can then be used to fund more police officers on the streets. Does it really matter whether their base is in a traditional police station, in a shopping centre or on an industrial estate, as long as you can make contact with an officer when you need one?

In the same way, few people have the same relationship with their family GP that they used to. You’re now registered with a practice rather than a specific doctor. I know I’m fortunate to be a patient at an excellent GP practice and I’ve never had a problem getting an appointment (with my preferred clinician) when I needed one. Where is the issue with these so-called “Polyclinics”? In my mind, having a number of medical services available under one roof is much more beneficial than having to see your GP who will then refer you to someone else, somewhere else. Ok, inviting GPs to tender for the work alongside private companies may be contentious, but here’s hoping the NHS will learn from the Dentists’ contract debacle!

And the biggest hot potato of them all. Should those suspected of terrorism be able to be locked up for 6 weeks’ without being charged of an offence? In an ideal world, no, of course not. It runs contrary to the idea of an individual being innocent until proven guilty. But in an ideal world there wouldn’t be any terrorism. The sad fact is that if we want to be protected from more 9/11 and 7/7 events, then the way crimes of this nature are investigated needs to change. Investigations of this level are highly complex, and I can certainly understand why the police may need to arrest individuals suspected of planning terrorist attacks in order to protect the public, before they have all the evidence necessary to bring charges. And if they are under time pressures to charge or release suspects, this could lead to rushed investigations where important evidence is missed. Yes, suspects could be released on bail, but in reality, would you want someone who the police are 90% certain has been planning a suicide bomb attack released back on to the streets? If such person then went and carried out an atrocity, the police would then have every finger pointing at them for releasing them in the first place!

So, do these issues mean that we don’t like change? Is it that we’re suspicious of our Government’s motives? Are the media responsible for hyping up the public without presenting a balanced view? Probably a mix of all three, but before we get on our soap-boxes about how bad our public services are getting, lets think rationally and pragmatically about why such changes are needed, and make sure we get all sides of the story, not just what the BBC, Times or Daily Mail want to tell us.

“Celebrity” churches

May 31, 2008 in Church with 4 Comments

There’s reports on the net that Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio from the Passion Movement in the States are going to set up a church in Atlanta.

Man of Depravity suggests that this will become the fastest growing church in America.

I’ve heard Louie speak many times, and think both he & Chris are extremely anointed individuals. I’m sure that they’ve really spent time praying about this, and that God has put this call on them.

I do think this raises the question of “Celebrities” leading churches though. Will this become the fastest growing church because God will use it to bring about revival and lots of people will come to faith, or will it be because lots of people in other churches want to be at Chris & Louie’s church, and leave their current place of worship? Does it matter?

Church consumerism or “Church Hopping” seems to be on the increase, where people are constantly looking to get the best “service” they can. If the music/worship/teaching/ etc isn’t suiting them, they look for somewhere else. If a well known Christian celebrity comes to town, then that’s obviously the place to be!

Of course, in one sense, we are the one catholic and apostolic church, so where we actually worship probably doesn’t matter a huge amount as long as we’re in a place where we can worship God and grow in our relationship with Him, but some questions I have:

  • What about the smaller, less famous churches who lose people to be at the next big thing? Do mega-churches with popular pastors/worship leaders find smaller churches are jealous at their perceived success, making unity difficult?
  • Are mega-churches always successful?
  • How difficult is it for leaders like Chris & Louie to keep focussed on Christ when they are seen as the celebrities?

I’ll post again when I’ve thought about those questions a bit more!

Fresh expressions and stuff

May 10, 2008 in Church with Comments Off

Today, I’ve spent the day at a Diocesan Gathering where people from across the Rochester Diocese have been discussing Fresh Expressions and new ways of being church. It was amazing that there are people from across the area who are prepared to give up a warm, sunny Saturday to look at the future of the church in our country.

Paul Bayes, the Archbishop’s Adviser on Mission & Evangelism, spoke about the impact of the new Bishops’ Mission Orders, and what these can mean for new churches. There were different seminars – I went to one on Foundations21 (which was a bit disappointing as it turned out to be more of a sales pitch for a very overpriced Alpha-type course rather than a session looking more generally at using the internet as a tool to engage people with the Gospel) and one on the impact of culture on discipleship and leadership in the church today, delivered by the LICC.

I came away so grateful for my church. Seeing how other churches are just about managing to hold family services every couple of months or are starting to use “alternative” worship ideas that have actually been around for a number of years makes me realise that however frustrating Pip n Jim’s can be at times, we’re actually engaging with our community much more than some other places are.

What surprised me was the lack of young people. And I don’t mean teenagers. Or even students. Esther & I probably made up 50% of those under 40. Maybe it was because it was a nice sunny day, or because of Radio 1′s big weekend nearby. But if the church is going to have any future, we need to engage younger people.

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