Free audiobook – What is the Mission of the Church?
This month’s free audiobook from Christian Audio in the US is What is the Mission of the Church? by Kevin DeYoung & Greg Gilbert. Get it here.
Australian Church Record, Nov 2012
The latest issue of The Australian Church Record is now available from their website.
This edition reflects on Sydney Synod, the Diocesan Mission, and the election of a new Archbishop.
Trust and obey?
“The survey reveals 64 percent of churchgoers agree with the statement: ‘A Christian must learn to deny himself/herself in order to serve Christ.’
Nineteen percent disagree with the statement.”
– Ed Stetzer has new research from the US.
Jesus Is …Beyond Fiction
“I cannot believe how often educated people pull out the claim that Jesus probably never existed. Except that it’s not PC to say so, it really deserves the title of Old Wives Tale!
Down in my neck of the woods, Gospel for the Gong has been running a ‘Jesus Is ________.’ month of mission. …”
– Sandy Grant shares some resources – as well as news of a terrific evangelistic initiative – at The Briefing.
‘God’s Library’ — new eBook from Greg Clarke
Bible Society Australia CEO Greg Clarke has published a free eBook to coincide with the Society’s 25 Words campaign. It’s designed to encourage both Christians and non-Christians to look into the Bible.
From the Preface:
“All other books are also-rans… the Bible is publishing’s success story. This introductory book is written especially for those who feel that they really should know something about the world’s most influential text, but may have been afraid to ask, put off by the Church, found the black leather cover and cigarette paper pages ominous, or just never got around to it.”
It’s available free online until 9th November here in a Flash-based screen reader.
If you have a mobile device, you’ll probably need the PDF version (7.8MB direct link).
The New City Catechism
“Last week Tim Keller asked ‘Why Catechesis Now?’ This morning TGC introduced the New City Catechism, adapted by Tim Keller and Sam Shammas from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York…”
– Andy Naselli has the links and some related resources.
Why Catechesis now?
“The church in Western culture today is experiencing a crisis of holiness. To be holy is to be ‘set apart,’ different, living life according to God’s Word and story, not according to the stories that the world tells us are the meaning of life.
The more the culture around us becomes post- and anti-Christian the more we discover church members in our midst, sitting under sound preaching, yet nonetheless holding half-pagan views of God, truth, and human nature, and in their daily lives using sex, money, and power in very worldly ways. …”
– Tim Keller lays out the need for a new Catechism to be launched next week by The Gospel Coalition.
Related: Grounded in the Gospel – J I Packer on The White Horse Inn.
Creeds and Confessions in the Contemporary Church
Carl Trueman was interviewed on the role of creeds and confessions in the church – at Christ the Center broadcast.
Where general church culture is increasingly forgetting the place of creeds, this is worth hearing. The interview starts 5:15 into the audio file.
Related: See also the video about Trueman’s new book The Creedal Imperative here. (Availability.)
Preaching Matters
The beginnings of a what looks to be wonderful video resource from Great St. Helen’s Bishopsgate.
Preaching Matters. (h/t Reformation21.)
‘Churchman’ digitised for the Web
“Church Society are pleased to report that Rob Bradshaw, Director of “Theology on the Web”, has recently digitised and uploaded to the internet, most back articles of Churchman (est 1879), dating from the 1920s. In total Rob has uploaded 3,531 individual Churchman articles to his Biblical Studies website, for which the Council of Church Society express their deep gratitude.
Click here to view the Churchman page on Rob’s Biblical Studies website. It is hoped in due course that these files will also be made available on the Churchman website. …”
– from Church Society’s EV News.
Did we get Jesus right? Jesus in the Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels
Another lecture given at The Lanier Theological Library in Houston has been released. It’s Dr Simon Gathercole (Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University) on “Did we get Jesus right? Jesus in the Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels.”
He looks at the message of the four Gospels, and then compares them with the later Apocryphal ‘Gospels’.
The talk runs for 49 minutes, followed by two responses and then questions. Worth watching and sharing, and a good answer to notions arising from The Da Vinci Code and similar.
Related: Dr Peter Williams, New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts. (Vimeo)
CMS Summer School 2013 registration
Registration for the NSW CMS Summer School is now open. Details here.
Myths about Christianity
On a recent episode of The White Horse Inn, Michael Horton interviewed History Professor Jeffrey Burton Russell on his new book, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends.
Worth listening to a historian’s perspective.
Garage Hymnal new EP launch
Garage Hymnal is launching their new EP, ‘Bird in a Winter Storm’ at 7:30 on Friday 9th November at St Barnabas’ Broadway.
‘XV: the Bible in 15’ — Bible overview app from Matthias Media
Matthias Media has released a free app for iOS 5.0 and later (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) –
“XV helps you do two things: zoom out and see the magnificence of the ‘big picture’ of the Bible’s story, and then zoom in to focus on the life-changing detail.
So you’ll start with a zoomed-out introductory overview of the story of the Bible in 15 stages, from creation through to new creation. This will give you a framework for the next phase of the using the app: zooming in to study the detail of God’s word – understanding it better because of your new sense of how it fits into the big story.
It’s a whirlwind tour of the big breathtaking picture of creation, the fall and the history of God’s dealings with Israel, the promise of restoration, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and what is still to come—the whole story, with all its ups and downs, and with the certainty of God’s promise shining through. …”
– Read more and download link.
There are also ‘in app’ purchases, but the free module, 25 words in 25 days, nicely complements the Bible Society’s 25 Words campaign. Worth checking out.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…