At the BibleFresh conference on preaching – here’s the online magazine – we discussed various aspects of preaching and how it can be refreshed in the UK. Over the next few days I’ll share a few of the thoughts coming out of that event. Traditionally the sermon was considered by some to be the full extent of ministry, or at least the primary avenue of ministry. Today preachers are realizing more and more that the sermon is part of a larger package of ministry. So this makes me think of several ministry partners for the sermon: 1.
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Non Solo Sermon Ministry
A group of pastors, students and church members from across the state rode bicycles from West Texas to S.A. to fight hunger in Texas. FaithInSA.com
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Baptist group rides 445 miles to feed thousands of children
Rev. Daniel Callahan, the Catholic priest at St. Joan of Arc in Toronto, is a serious athlete who participates every year in New York’s Ironman triathlon
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Rev. Daniel Callahan, priest and Ironman competitor
Randall Stephens In fall 2010 PBS will broadcast what looks to be an epic 6-part historical documentary on the American religious experience. Called God in America the program will feature religious studies scholars and historians alongside dramatizations and loads of prints, photographs, and illustrations. Subjects include: Franciscan Friars and the Pueblo leader Po’pay, Puritan leader John Winthrop and dissident Anne Hutchinson, Catholic Bishop John Hughes, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, reform Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, Scopes trial combatants William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, evangelist Billy Graham, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell
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PBS’s God in America Series
The Bible often distinguishes humanity in stark alternatives. There are those being saved and those perishing. There are those who trust God and those who don’t. There is love and hate. Heaven and hell. Faith and fear. The righteous and the wicked. The wise and the foolish. Often the stark alternatives provide for very strong opportunities to preach the Word boldly and with great clarity.
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Shaded Differences Not Poles Apart
In life, there are certain signs that are visible; yet silent that scream “Danger Will Robinson” as your brain begins to go into screen saver mode much more frequently. Things such as: Folk calling you at 7 p.m
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Apocalypse Watch: The Pope gets a lawyer
When you speak on a subject, rather than preaching an assigned text, you have the choice of which text to preach. In many cases there are obvious texts to preach. Asked to preach on the church, you might be drawn to Ephesians, or Matthew 16. Preaching on marriage? Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3. Preaching on missions? Matthew 28 or Acts 1. There are advantages to preaching the more obvious texts. First, they are obvious because they address the issue clearly. Second, people will often feel a sense of an expectation being satisfied, like watching a good movie for a second or third time
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Obvious Texts and Not So Obvious Texts
The 4th Global South Encounter is meeting in Singapore beginning Monday morning the 19th. There will be some important matters that will come from that meeting, notably concerning the Anglican Covenant and the call by some Primates for a special meeting of Primates sans TEC or the Anglican Church of Canada. A short notice was posted on the Global South website concerning delays in arrivals because of the volcanic ash problem in Europe and publicising a message from the Archbishop of Canterbury
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Canterbury’s Video Message to The Global South Encounter 4
Yesterday, April 17th, was a day to make us Episcopalians proud. Ian Douglas was ordained bishop in the Church of God, as bishop of Connecticut. It was a grand service with about a bazillion people present, Archbishop Desmond Tutu as Preacher, The Presiding Bishop in the Chair, a wide variety of bishops participating and good friends in the congregation.
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Ian, bishop in the church of God
Pope Benedict XVI met Sunday with a group of clerical sex-abuse victims and promised them with tears in his eyes that the Catholic Church would seek justice for pedophile priests and implement “effective measures” to protect young people from abuse.
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Tearful pope says church will better protect young
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck claims that faith-based calls for “social justice” are really ideological calls for “forced redistribution of wealth . . . under the guise of charity and/or justice,” and that Christians should leave their churches if they preach or practice “social justice.” Rev
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Wallis vs. Beck: The politics of social justice
Revelation 12 (The woman is not the church) I want to make it clear that the order of events written in the book of Revelation provides no reason to lump every tribulation (thlipsis) into a single ‘Great Tribulation’ that’s coming. Revelation 12 demonstrates the non-chronologic nature of the book as chapter 11 has already reached the apex of events in that (Rev 11:15) “ the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ ” is the end of the story. Revelation 12:1 goes back in time and symbolically describes Judah as a woman who is pregnant, v5 with one who will rule all nations, clearly Jesus (It should be noted that Judah gives birth to Jesus).
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Understanding End time Prophecy (How the accepted scenario went off the track) Part 5 of 5
Several Anglican Primates from the so-called global south have written in the past week to make it clear to the world that they believe actions of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are wrong-headed and evil, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has allowed the bureaucracy of Lambeth and the Anglican Communion Office to usurp the powers of the Primates and that the ABC must convene the Primates immediately, but without the presence of the TEC or ACoC Primates. Those writing have made it clear that they hold to 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, and The Windsor Report. Some, but not all, have said they are for the Anglican Covenant.
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A Beam in the Eye: Anglican Primates blinded by the vision of the Colonialists Wrong.
by Ed Blum The West coast will miss Jonathan Walton. In the same week that we cheered the tremendous new resources for the study of religion in the American West, we now boo the fact that Professor Walton will trek from Riverside, California, to Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, he’ll be a new professor at Harvard Divinity School .
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Watch This! Jonathan Walton’s Trek to Harvard Divinity School
The GAFCON/ FCA Primates Council have just met in Bermuda and have published a communique. It can be read HERE. The Primates Council is now billed as “The Primates Council of GAFCON / FCA.” But it is the same self appointed righteous remnant of the past, claiming to be Global South Anglicans but not including Brazil, IARCA and Mexico
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Anglican Communion II… I don’t know why we bother. (Corrected)
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” It’s a quote of the dramatic many equate to some movie from the roaring 20s or some such, but not so fast. It’s actually one of the plethora of pop culture references that are really biblical writ.
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Crystal Cathedral loses even more luster, staves law suits
Archbishop Orombi of Uganda has seen fit to write the Archbishop of Canterbury, with copies to all the Primates in the Anglican Communion. Copies are all over the Anglican blogsphere. It is a remarkable letter, filled with sour grapes and bitter gripes.
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Orombi’s letter to Canterbury, sour grapes and bitter gripes.
“A vital text proving that there were two Sabbaths in that week has been obscured by almost every translation into English.” -Herbert W Armstrong, ” The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday “, 1972, p.13 I think HWA had a fine little thing going with the “two Sabbaths” argument. It was quite convincing. One of his premier arguments! It certainly convinced me for a number of years
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The Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28
The great tribulation is coming? “It will be 3.5 years of hell on earth” says the fire breathing evangelists and virtually all proponents of biblical prophecy, but I disagree, I say it’s been here.
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Understanding End time Prophecy (How the accepted scenario went off the track) Part 4 of 5
Kelly Baker I know that many of you who know me well for just waiting for me to comment on the Hutaree, the Michigan Christian militia group, the nine arrests , and the larger white supremacist plot to reclaim America. What might be more surprising is that I sort of don’t want to.
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Christian Militias, White Supremacists, and Scholars Who Study Them
Tony Clavier writes thoughtful pieces over at the Covenant-Communion website. His latest, ” The Presiding Bishop Writes” is well worth the read. There are several problems with the essay – the comparison with the Synod in England takes little account of the territorial problem of the size of The Episcopal Church, there are a variety of ways in which the entrenchment of leaders takes place and we are not alone in this, etc
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Fr. Tony on the supposition that The Episcopal Church is a democratic institution.
by Matt Sutton There has been a lot of debate recently among academics about the “black church.” First Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., buried it on the Huffington Post . Then, Religion Dispatches asked some prominent scholars to respond to Glaude.
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The Black Church(?)
The Anglican Communion Institute, whose working writer – theologians are The Rev’d Professor Christopher Seitz, The Very Rev’d Dr Philip W. Turner III and The Rev’d Dr. Ephraim Radner, has come to the defense of the Diocese of South Carolina and its bishop
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ACI Easter Message on South Carolina and its defense of Episcopal and Anglican ways.
UPDATE 04/01/2010 – I just came across this more recent video of Mr. John Piper responding to questions about him inviting Rick Warren to his Desiring GOD conference… Honestly, I don’t even know what to think about this video from Mr
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Videos: Dr. John Piper Thinks Rick Warren Is ‘Theologically Sound’
Preludium has received a report that General Theological Seminary is facing into major financial difficulties and that there was a closed door meeting of the Board of Trustees today (March 30th) followed by a meeting with members of the seminary community. The report indicates that there are plans for a short term solution but considerable doubts about the future of the Seminary. If this is so, please pray for the Seminary, its students, faculty and staff
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What is happening to General Theological Seminary? (Updated)
Just a short note on the Roman troubles. The Pope is quoted by the Times of London saying that Christ “helps lead us towards courage which does not allow us to be intimidated by the chatter of dominant opinions.” How’s that for autocratic overkill! The headline reads, Pope: I ‘will not be intimidated’ by sex abuse accusations
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"…the chatter of dominant opinions." The Pope as autocrat
Invariably the reply I receive to my pointing out that God’s eternal law is love and not a laundry list of do’s and don’ts is: “but God’s law teaches us how to love.” Of course, the reference to the law is usually meaning the Ten Commandments specifically (as if they can really be separated from all the rest that Israel said “we will” to).
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Does the Law Teach Us How To Love?