The answer to dull and boring preaching
What’s the place of illustrations in preaching? Or emotion? How can we make our preaching better?
Dr Peter Bolt is interviewed for the latest instalment of Preaching Matters from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in London.
See it here. Invest 10 minutes of your time.
Barnabas Fund urges prayer for Syria and Egypt this weekend
“This Sunday (1 September), we are urging churches and individuals to hold a time of prayer for Syria and Egypt’s Christians.”
– Details from Barnabas Fund.
And you can find a prayer for ‘the Forgotten Church in Syria’ here. (h/t Carl Trueman.)
Assessing Christian election guides
Sandy Grant takes a look at four different Christian election guides –
“Thoughtful Christians could benefit from interacting with each one of these election guides, even the ones where they find a considerable amount to disagree with.” – Read it at The Briefing.
Preaching Christ in an age of Religious Pluralism
Church Society has published online the audio of Gerald Bray’s talk at the 2005 Church Society Conference.
The topic: Preaching Christ in an age of Religious Pluralism (Acts 17 v16).
It’s a 38MB / 80 minute mp3 file (direct link).
Notes on Jeremiah by Graeme Goldsworthy
To promote the soon-to-be-released Gospel Transformation Bible, Crossway have made available a free download of the book of Jeremiah, with an introduction and study notes by Graeme Goldsworthy.
– Download it here. (h/t Gary Ware. Photo: The Bible Society.)
Modern Bioethics and its challenge to Christian thought
“Modern Bioethics and its challenge to Christian thought” is the topic for the next Centre for Christian Living open night at Moore College. Dr Andrew Ford is speaking, 7:30pm Wednesday 28th August, $8.
Resource for Australian Voters
The Australian Christian Lobby has released its comparison of policies of the major parties for the upcoming Federal Election. (Since some have asked: The Australian Christian Lobby and the Anglican Church League are quite separate – we just happen to have the same initials.)
Do you feel Called by God? — review
“Michael Bennett’s book is brilliant. I loved it. Let me tell you why. Ever since I became a Christian at age 19 (1989), I have been baffled and confused by the way Christians speak about decision-making. I was always hearing people say stuff like “I feel God is calling me to do X, Y and Z”. They seemed to put an awful lot of emphasis on two words: feel and call. …”
– Ben Pfahlert is very glad to see this new book by Michael Bennett (who also brought us Christianity Explained).
Paul: A Pastor’s Heart — review
“Paul – A Pastor’s Heart is succinct and easy to read; Barnett explains Paul’s meaning and motives clearly and helpfully. … It takes a powerful piece of Scripture and makes it accessible and applicable to today’s church.”
– A review of Bishop Paul Barnett’s new book on 2 Corinthians – from Eternity Newspaper.
Launching the ‘Jesus brings’ campaign
The ‘Jesus Brings’ campaign (foreshadowed here) has now been unveiled by the Department of Evangelism and New Churches in Sydney.
It is hoped that ‘Jesus Brings’ will be a season of focussed and united mission in 2014 across Sydney and the Illawarra.
Watch Archbishop Glenn Davies explain why ‘Jesus Brings’ is such a great idea.
See the resource website here – and be sure to download a copy of the “Vision for Mission” document (PDF file).
CMS Summer School 2014
Registration is now open.
Free New Testament offer
As the screening in Australia of The Bible ‘epic mini-series’ comes to a conclusion tonight, those who want to learn more are being offered a free copy of The New Testament.
Story from the Bible Society.
Mark Dever heading to Sydney
“Over the next two weeks Dr Mark Dever is going to be speaking in Sydney.
Mark is the senior pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC. He is also the President of 9Mark Ministries. … He is one of the most important voices in North American Christianity today.”
– Phillip Jensen with news of Mark Dever’s engagements at the Cathedral.
Moore College Overview Video
With Moore College Sunday coming up this weekend, this 5 minute 30 second video is a great resource to show to your congregation or in small groups.
(The shorter Moore College Sunday Video can be found here.)
Finally Free — book review
“Unless you have been deliberately avoiding any discussion of contemporary issues, you must know that pornography is one of the major challenges to the church today. Carl Trueman is not exaggerating when he says ‘Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today’ …
Porn is so significant a concern today that if you are not struggling with it yourself, you must know someone who is. In either case, this book will equip you for the fight.”
– Tim Challies reviews Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace by Heath Lambert. Availability.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…