The Day Death Died — Cathedral Easter Convention 2014
This year’s Easter Convention at the Cathedral is a very worthwhile way to spend Good Friday afternoon.
Phillip Jensen and Mark Thompson are the speakers. Good Friday, 2:00 – 5:00pm. Early Bird Rate $15. ($20 after 13th April.)
See the promo video and book in here.
Christian events & conferences in Australia this year
Steve Kryger at Communicate Jesus has helpfully compiled a list of Christian events and conferences (most of them evangelical in their theology) in Australia during the remainder of 2014.
“Church of the Triune God” — a review
“…I’m thankful for the recent Church of the Triune God: a book in celebration of the teaching and passion of Robert Doyle, a lecturer from Moore Theological College. Edited by Michael Jensen, it’s a collection of excellent essays on the themes he was so captivated by throughout his teaching career: the Trinity and the church.”
– At The Briefing, Sam Freney reviews Church of the Triune God, published by Aquila Press.
(Authors include Mark Baddeley, Mark D Thompson, John McClean, Ashley Null, Peter G Bolt, Benjamin Dean, Rory Shiner, Andrew JB Cameron, Kanishka Raffel, Chew-Chern Morgan and Greg Anderson.)
Around the web — 6th April 2014
Here are a few items you may have missed this week –
- Inclusive, Safe, and Welcoming to All? – Stand to Reason on the termination of Mozilla’s CEO for supporting traditional marriage.
- Couple sentenced to death for ‘blasphemous’ text message in Pakistan – ABC News.
- Sympathy for the Devil – ‘Noah’ is no adaptation of Genesis.
- David Powlison, Director of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, visited Oak Hill College where he was interviewed about biblical counselling.
- Abp Welby: Anglican Communion sexuality decisions can mean African Christians suffer – ACNS.
Formulary Friday: Collecting our prayers
“The Prayer Book Collects are like precious, highly-polished jewels adorning a crown. They are the short prayers which ‘collect’ together particular concerns and themes expressed in the liturgy – and invariably combine clear and easily-memorable phrasing with a highly concentrated shot of sound doctrine.
…the Prayer Book Collects give us a very helpful model for composing our own prayers – whether in our personal prayer times, or in public worship.”
– for Formulary Friday at Church Society’s blog, Mark Smith looks at The Collects.
The real story of Noah
“The premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah has sent some folk back to their Bibles to see if there was a whole bunch of details that they’d forgotten.
Apparently not. Where the Bible’s story has left some gaps, Mr Aronofsky has provided plenty of creative and speculative details. Rock monsters, stowaways and much, much more.
Do those additions help us understand the story more clearly? Well, if the original author thought that the point of the story could be made with the details provided, it would seem not.”
– Gary Ware (Mount Gambier Presbyterian) has written this piece for his local paper. Some good ideas you might be able to use this Easter.
Related: Noah: A No Holds Barred Review (h/t Tim Challies).
“The character of Noah in this movie is so far removed from his biblical counterpart that he’s absolutely unrecognizable. He’s a maniac who is an idolater, a warlock, a murdering psycho, and in reality has absolutely no idea what’s happening with the flood… Noah doesn’t preach righteousness and repentance for 100+ years (2 Peter 2:5), and the Noah in this movie is a violent butcher of a man, completely the opposite of how Genesis 6:8-13 portrays him.”
GWC’s Mark Dickson on Moore College
Mark Dickson, Principal of George Whitefield College, speaks about the significance of Moore College for the church in Africa and elsewhere.
Watch the 5 minute video. A cause for thanksgiving to God and a strong prompt for prayer for Moore College.
New Church Society website and blog
Church Society in the UK have just re-launched their website.
“Over the past few months, Church Society has been through a process of rebranding which has gone to the heart of who we are and what we do.”
As well as a new look, there’s now a blog with weekly features – the first one is Formulary Friday (“Every Friday, we consider an aspect of the formularies of the Church of England: that is, the 39 Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.”).
As Church Society Director Lee Gatiss says, the need for theological clarity in the Church of England has never been greater.
– See it all here, and you can also subscribe to their RSS feed.
Advance your Preaching — Moore to host hands-on preaching day
“On April 8 Moore College will host the first of a regular series of hands-on days to help improve our skills in proclaiming the Word. Moore Emeritus Faculty member Dr David Peterson, author of the Pillar Commentary on Acts, will give us input on issues involved in preaching the Book of Acts. …”
– Read the details at the Moore College website – and book in to “Advancing your Preaching” here.
How real is ‘Heaven Is for Real’?
John Piper was asked about the “Heaven is for real” genre of books written by people who claim to have been to heaven.
Here his reply – 6 minutes here. (h/t Tim Challies.)
One 2 One part 2
In part 2 of her 3-part video series from St Helen’s Bishopsgate, Amy Wicks talks about the where, when and how of One2One Bible reading.
An Evangelistic Leaflet from Phillip Jensen — for St. Patrick’s Day
How can you use St. Patrick’s Day to share the good news of the One whom St. Patrick proclaimed?
Phillip Jensen has written a leaflet for members of the Cathedral congregation to hand out, or to give to friends. You may wish to use it too.
Please pray that this leaflet may be a blessing in pointing many to the Lord Jesus. There’s a PDF download link as well as some material you may find useful at phillipjensen.com.
One2One Bible reading promo
This video from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate is a simple encouragement to reading the Bible with someone else.
See One2One – part 1 – on Vimeo.
Proc Trust Spring Wives Conference 2014
The Proclamation Trust has been posting videos from their just-concluded Spring Wives Conference:
Lindsay & Wallace Benn – Ministry marriage.
John Samuel – Wisdom and its beginning, Wisdom and guidance, Wisdom and family.
Clare Heath-Whyte – What keeps us awake at night, What gets us up in the morning.
And the Proc Trust’s Adrian Reynolds reflects on the importance of the Conference.
Piper on Calvinism: Deeply Experiencing God’s Grace
Andy Naselli writes: “In some circles Calvinism unfortunately has a reputation for being sinfully contentious, especially when self-labeled Calvinists are arrogant and when non-Calvinists misunderstand what Calvinism really is. This 94-page book should help.”
John Piper speaks about his book “Five Points – Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace”, here, where it’s also available as a free PDF download.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…