More ideas for connecting
Steve McCoy in the US writes, “I’ve noticed in my life and in the life of my family that 5 tools have stood out this summer as helpful for connecting with our neighbours. Here they are for you. …”
– Not everything translates exactly, but there are some good, simple ideas here.
Themelios — July 2009 edition online
The latest edition of Themelios, published by The Gospel Coalition, is available on their website.
It’s a free download in a choice of formats (e.g. a 1.2MB PDF file).
Christian Missions in the Third Millennium
“The impulse of the missionary conviction is drawn from the assurance that God saves sinners, and that He is glorifying Himself by creating a new people through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we have the glad opportunity to glorify God by declaring the Gospel to all the peoples of the earth. …” (emphasis added.)
– Albert Mohler’s comments are a world away from this earlier story.
God’s place in the Dreaming
“The Uniting Church recently became the first major Christian denomination in Australia to commence processes to formally acknowledge, in the Preamble to its Constitution, Australia’s traditional owners and their pre-existing relationship with the Creator God. …”
– from The Uniting Church website – emphasis added.
(Romans 1:16-23 also speaks about everyone’s pre-existing relationship with God.)
See also:
In addition to recognising Aborigines as the first people to settle in Australia, the preamble also acknowledges that the church did not bring God to Australia’s indigenous people.
“They’re saying it’s not Europeans who brought God to this land on a boat,” Reverend Murray Muirhead, from the Aboriginal wing of the Uniting Church in Alice Springs, told ABC radio.
“God had already been here for millennia.”
– report from The Brisbane Times, July 21, 2009.
Canterbury, you’ve missed the point!
“Archbishop Rowan Williams’ Reflections on the 2009 TEC General Convention has so incensed me that I am compelled to respond with a second post for today. …
The row is about the authority of Scripture which declares the practice of homosexuality to be a sin.”
– Bishop Glenn Davies writes at SydneyAnglicans.net. (Photo: Russell Powell.)
Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future – the Archbishop of Canterbury
Reflections on the Episcopal Church’s 2009 General Convention from the Archbishop of Canterbury –
“the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity. It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences. So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle. …”
– Read the Archbishop’s full comments at the Anglican Communion News Service.
(Photo of Abp Rowan Williams at ACC-14: ACNS.)
Trueman on John Owen
Carl Trueman gives a video introduction to Puritan theologian John Owen. It’s from Westminster Seminary on YouTube and runs for 10 minutes 20 seconds. (h/t Justin Taylor.)
Moratoria dashed
“Sad to say, just one year after the affirmations of Anglican Church unity made at the Lambeth Conference of 2008, the USA Anglicans have decided that one year was enough of a wait.
Their recent decision to affirm same sex relationships will deepen the split in the world-wide communion. All the Lambeth conversation groups (‘indabering’) bought only one year’s reprieve…”
– Bishop of Tasmania John Harrower laments the dashed hopes of Lambeth.
Church of Uganda seeks famine-relief
The Archbishop of Uganda’s secretary for International Relations writes:
“Uganda is experiencing serious drought and famine in northeastern, northern, and northwestern Uganda. People have now started to die. …”
– Read the full report at Anglican Mainstream.