Saturday blog-sweep

I am looking forward to our Quiet day today and also to watching Harlequins play at home which will be slightly less quiet I imagine:) I do recommend 'The lost art of meditation' as a good book on biblical mediation for some post quiet day reading if you want it.

I spent a night at Naturally supernatural which was a time of blessing and refreshing and it was great to see our young people ministering in the gifts with such joy and confidence. When I was fifteen, I was doing all sorts of things but ministering in the gifts I don't think was one of them!

Britain has gone from God-fearing to God-jeering

I’m not sure what I believe, but I do know every word of the Creed, and when I say them I feel I am joining myself to generations who spoke those words centuries before I was born, and that custom is deeply consoling. I thought about my friend, stranded in New York by snow when her son was hurt in a car crash. Ann hadn’t prayed for years, but she slipped into a church on Fifth Avenue, “I can’t manage it alone,” she emailed, “I know that sounds strange.” Religion is strange, infinitely mysterious and easy to mock, but all I can say is that its rituals feel full, not hollow, as so much of modern life does. The Dorkists argue that you don’t need organised religion to hand down the wisdom of ages or a system of morality. Don’t you?


(via On-living)


Cost-effective compassion: 10 most effective ways to help the poor


“… what are the best ways to help those living in developing countries? By ‘best,’ I mean most effective: things that actually help people rise out of poverty, and that carry with them a sizable “bang for your buck”—programs in which the impact on the poor is significant per donated dollar. … A World Health Organization study estimates that the availability of clean water in a rural village reduces infant mortality by 35 to 50 percent, at a cost of roughly $10 per person per year. … Of all the long-term development interventions, child sponsorship received the highest rating.”


(via Preacher Smith)

Discipleship is about more than conveying information

It seems to me that the real question is what we really believe. It seems to me that we do tend to have two creeds—the one which we believe in our intellectual assent, and then the one which we believe to the extent of acting upon it in faith. More and more it seems to me that the true level of our orthodoxy is measured by this latter standard rather than the former. And more and more it seems to me that there is no such thing as an abstract Christian dogma—that each Christian dogma can be experienced on some level. [Francis Schaeffer]


Fishers of men not keeper of an aquarium


I just believe true disciples should care more about making disciples than freeze framing the church the way it was when they became one. Or wanting twenty-six programs customized to their liking. If the mark of Christian maturity is a bunch of people who want to create a museum glorifying and preserving their personal preferences and then sanctify it by calling it a church, count me out.


Do we really need attractional and missional?

To use an analogy, suppose you were hired by the owner of a baseball team to find players for the team, sign them to contracts, teach them to play baseball, get them ready in Spring Training and ready to hit the field to be a competitive team when Opening Day roles around. So you go to it.

Six months later, as Opening Day is a few days away, the owner of the team comes to the ball park to see how you’ve done. When he arrives, he’s a little surprised at what he sees. You’ve got more players than usual, but most of the players are severely overweight and when he asks them to take the field to play a scrimmage, they look at him dumbfounded. “We don’t actually play,” they say. “But we showed up to the ball park and are wearing the uniforms, so that’s something, right?”

Discipleship 101

Most believers have never been intentionally discipled and most believers have no clue how to go about discipling a new believer. The problem is that people don’t have a good understanding of what discipleship is. Here’s a definition for you:

Discipleship is truth transferred through relationship.

Bike for Burundi (do give generously...)

(via Twelve)