What do you do when there is conflict in your church?

“What do you do when there’s conflict in your church?

Because there will be at some point.

How can you deal with conflict well?

What do you do when there’s no conflict to prepare for the times when conflict will come? How to you give your people a framework for understanding and resolving conflict?

What do you do when a couple comes to you and the marriage is a warzone? What should you outsource? What should you do yourself?

Bruce Burgess is the Australian Director of Peacewise.”

– Bruce was interviewed by Dominic Steele on this week’s episode of The Pastors Heart.

Religious Freedom and land-clearing

“A religious group has claimed that “religious freedom rights” allow it to ignore Australian laws governing land-clearing and other provisions regulating land development. The claim is clearly wrong. It is important to spell out why, so this false claim does not affect other, justifiable, arguments that can be made about appropriate protection of religious freedom. …”

– At Law and Religion Australia, Assoc. Professor Neil Foster points of that Religious Freedom does not give a license to ignore the law.

The value of training women for ministry

“Tracey Gowing helps oversee evangelical student ministry across Australia. In her role she has trained and influenced countless women, and worked with plenty of men.

Tracey is full of practical wisdom on how to live out the Bible’s teaching on men and women. I thought I’d pick her brains, firstly on how she trains women, and then next time on how she works with men.”

– At GoThereFor.com, Lauren Driscoll speaks with Tracey Gowing.

Middle-aged white men can tell the Truth

“Maybe we never realised it, but John 1:1 changes the way we understand everything.

It means that we believe in objective truth. That is to say, truth is real, it sits above us all, and all things ought to be conformed to it.

Truth is not merely ‘my truth’ or ‘true for me.’ Truth is true for everyone. …

But truth is dying in the West. …

This is why identity politics has caught on so quickly. It teaches us that we are no longer to measure things by what is said (ie whether it’s true), but rather who said it.

There are those who have no right to speak about things because of who they are. Because their group identity makes them ‘privileged’ they cannot speak about issues affecting other groups who are ‘victims.’

Examples abound. Only yesterday…”

– Here’s a thoughtful piece from Martyn Iles at The Australian Christian Lobby.

NSW CMS Summer School applications open

Gary Millar is the main speaker at the 2019 NSW & ACT CMS Summer School.

Applications are now open.

We can’t talk about unethical transgender medicine involving children?

“Here we go again.

Now the University of Western Australia has caved in following protests by the LGBTI lobbyists and cancelled a talk by Quentin Van Meter, an American paediatric endocrinologist who has been visiting Australia this week, speaking out about unethical transgender medicine being practised on children.

Dr Van Meter is a clinical associate professor at both Emory and Morehouse Schools of Medicine and he trained at John Hopkins, which did much of the early work on transgender.

The Perth talk was to have been the last in a week-long tour sponsored by the Australian Family Association. …”

– This opinion-piece in The Spectator Australia includes an hour-long ‘must-watch’ video of Dr Van Meter’s Sydney talk.

Related:

Findings from the New Atlantis Report on Sexuality and Gender, October 8 2016.

The Judges of Jesus

“Luke brilliantly plots the intersection of the eternal with the temporal (Luke 3:1–2). It was in Tiberius Caesar’s fifteenth year, AD 28, that John the Baptist began proclaiming the word of God.

He also remarkably captures the political complexity of Palestine. Pontius Pilate was military governor of Judea, Herod’s son Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, and Caiaphas was high priest of the temple city, Jerusalem.

In the narrative that follows Luke traces the movements of Jesus within the jurisdictions of those three men. …”

– At his blog, Bishop Paul Barnett reflects on the legacy of the three judges of Jesus.

Jesus never directly said “I’m God!”: Answering our Muslim friends (Part 1)

“A common objection we hear from our Muslim friends regarding the deity of Jesus is this: Jesus never directly said “I’m God”.

How would you defend the deity of Jesus using his own words? …”

– At The Australian Church Record, Ryan van der Avoort provides some very helpful resources.

There’s no need for an epic moment every Sunday

“If you measured church life only from the tweets of some pastors, you’d assume church services are awesome for every other congregation but your own. Phrases like, ‘Killer praise band,’ ’Home run sermon,‘ and ‘Amazing stage design’ fill Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds on Sunday afternoons.

Meanwhile, at your church, the lapel mic stopped working halfway through the sermon, the Scripture verses on the screen were in the wrong version, and the date for the church picnic was incorrect in the bulletin. …”

– Maybe your church isn’t an epic church. Here are three reasons it doesn’t need to be. (Link via Gary Ware.)

Five things I learnt in Birth class about welcoming people to church

“Everyone else looked right at home. I probably did too, but in reality, I was terrified. …”

– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Dave Chiswell shares wisdom you can use this Sunday.

(Photo: GAFCON media.)

Expecting to repent

“It is a humbling experience to be faced with your sin –many of us don’t cope well with it.

We may respond with defensiveness, bewilderment, and denial. …“

– Food for sober reflection, from James Chen at GoThereFor.com.

Also see: A Soul-Refreshed Life (David Brainerd) – Reformation21.

Moore College Open Events coming up — Sept 2018

Moore College has an Open Night on Monday 3rd September, at the start of its Open Week.

Considering finding out about Moore College? This is your opportunity!

Or perhaps there is someone you could encourage to think in that direction.

See the College website for details.

‘My Body, My Choice’

“What do we worship?

If aliens from another planet were to conduct a research expedition to earth, tasked with answering this question, what would they come up with?

They might ask people, but I doubt the answers would match up with what the aliens saw all around them. Various gods would be offered up as objects of worship. Some would say, “I’m spiritual, just not religious.” Others would claim to worship nothing.

But the evidence speaks louder than words. …”

– What does “My body, my choice!” say about us? Martyn Iles from the Australian Christian Lobby takes a biblical perspective.

Four ways Christians can support our farmers

“Take a drive into the country and you’ll see rolling hills of red dirt and crispy yellow grass. The drought is crippling farmers and rural economies, and it doesn’t look like relief is coming any time soon.

‘The short version is that it’s pretty tough,’ says Rev Ted Brush, the Bush Church Aid’s NSW & ACT Regional Officer. Since stepping into the role in January, Mr Brush has seen the toll that the drought is taking on towns.…”

– Story from SydneyAnglicans.net.

See also:

Bush Church Aid

Archbishop of Sydney calls for Prayer for the Drought.

The confidence and hope of our calling

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thess 5:24)

“These few simple words sum up some of the essential fundamentals of Christianity. They tell us three things about God: that he has called us, that he is faithful, that he will do. …”

– Biblical encouragement from The Rev. Alan Stubbs, via The Australian Church Record.

← Previous Page — Next Page →