To End All Wars
Posted on November 11, 2014
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Here’s Glen Scrivener’s throught-provoking contribution to Remembrance Day.
Four ways to God
Posted on November 10, 2014
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Tony Payne writes, “I suppose it’s like looking at old baby photos, but over the past month or so I’ve been browsing through some of the classic early articles in The Briefing.
… I couldn’t help returning to an article that I also highlighted in the special edition that marked our 21st birthday back in 2009 — ‘Four ways to live’, which appeared in Briefing #3, in May 1988. This foundational article discussed four competing sources of religious authority (the ‘authority quadrilateral’), and how the Christian is to view each one.”
– It was a good article in the days when they produced The Briefing using a Mac Plus and a LaserWriter, and it still is. Read the extract here.
Chappo’s contribution to the Anglican Diocese of Armidale
Posted on November 8, 2014
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“This weekend (8/11/2014) the good people of the Anglican Diocese of Armidale are celebrating their centenary.
Before 1914, the Armidale Diocese existed as the Diocese of Grafton and Armidale, which covered a huge amount of New South Wales from 1867 till 1914. Over the past 100 years the Diocese has undergone massive change, and as part of my 4th year program at Moore Theological College I had the opportunity to do a large research project on the diocese.
Specifically, I wanted to look into Chappo’s time in the diocese as I had hardly heard anything about his work there. What I found was deeply encouraging for my life and ministry. As the Armidale Diocese celebrates this weekend, feel free to get acquainted with our brothers and sisters of the north…”
– Tim Stevens writes on someone close to the heart of many in Australia and around the world.
Don Carson on Jeremiah
Posted on November 8, 2014
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In July, Dr. Don Carson (Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) spoke at the STAND for the Gospel conference at Howick Baptist Church in Auckland.
His theme was theme: “The Weeping Prophet: Jeremiah Confronts the 21st Century”.
The talks are available – audio – video. (h/t Faith by Hearing.)
The Zimzum of Love — a review
Posted on November 8, 2014
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Rob Bell’s new book on marriage, The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage, may get some local coverage. Dave Harvey has a review:
“In Love Wins Bell introduced us to his “new” way of understanding heaven and hell. At least he used the Bible. In The Zimzum of Love, the Bells reference the Bible a total of three times, one of them being a reference to John 3:16 signs at football games.” (h/t Tim Challies.)
Homosexuals in the Church: Keep Reading in Ephesians
Posted on November 7, 2014
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“The progressive wing of evangelicalism seems to be ramping up its demand that Bible-believing churches accept homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. An example is a recent video…”
– Rick Phillips, Senior Minister at Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina, writes to help Christians respond in a loving and Biblical way.
Pakistani Christian couple tortured and burned to death
Posted on November 6, 2014
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“A Pakistani mob beat to near-death a Christian and his pregnant wife for her alleged ‘blasphemy’, then threw them both into the large kiln where they both worked as bonded laborers. The incident happened on Tuesday 3rd Nov, some 60 kilometers from Lahore…”
– from World Watch Monitor.
SMBC 2014 Missions Conference audio
Posted on November 5, 2014
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“Global Church Planting – The Church’s Mission to the Nations” was the theme for this year’s SMBC Missions Conference.
Craig Ott (Professor of Mission and Intercultural Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Mike Raiter, were the keynote speakers.
Audio recordings of their talks are now available for download.
GAFCON 2013 Remembered
Posted on November 4, 2014
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“Just over a year after more than 1,300 leading Anglicans, including 331 bishops, gathered at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi for GAFCON 2013, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala dedicated a commemorative plaque in All Saints’ Trinity Centre on All Saints Day, 1st November…”
– from GAFCON.
Andrew Sach on preaching Revelation
Posted on November 4, 2014
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In the latest Preaching Matters from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, Andrew Sach encourages preachers to preach the ‘scary’ book of Revelation.
Albert Mohler on John 15:18-27
Posted on November 3, 2014
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In a recent sermon on John 15:18-27, Albert Mohler reflects on what it means to be hated by the world.
A mighty balsa wood boat
Posted on November 3, 2014
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“As Paul prepared to leave the church elders in Ephesus, his love for the church, anxiety about what would come, and sorrow at his departure brought forth tears. Presumably he was leaving a tiny group of people behind, a small boat afloat in a sea of paganism.
Paul obviously believed that God was doing a great work there, but that’s not what it may have looked like. In this group of people, God’s great work in gospelling the world and bringing them to salvation was going ahead – but if you were to look at the actual people and what actually occurred, it must have seemed like a balsa wood boat adrift on a sea that was threatening to swallow it up.
If you ever get the chance to do ‘last words’, you generally choose significant ones. The last words of the apostle to the eldership of the Ephesian church are no different…”
– A most encouraging word from Peter Jensen, based on Acts 20, given at the 2014 Nexus Conference.
Tears and Hope 2014
Posted on November 1, 2014
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The annual ‘Tears And Hope’ service of healing for survivors of abuse is to be held at St John’s Darlinghurst, next Monday, November 3rd at 7:00pm.
Download a 1.3MB PDF flier to share with others, and pray that the service may help to bring comfort and healing.
Big changes for Mars Hill
Posted on November 1, 2014
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“Marking its own Reformation Day of sorts, Mars Hill Church will dissolve Mark Driscoll’s multisite network and let each of its remaining 13 churches go their own way.
Founded in 1996, the Seattle-based megachurch planted 15 satellite sites across five states, its passion for creating new churches further evidenced by Driscoll founding the Acts 29 network. By New Year’s Day, the multisite organization and the Mars Hill name will be no more…”
– from Christianity Today.
See also this statement on the Mars Hill website –
“Following much prayer and lengthy discussion with Mars Hill’s leadership, the board of Mars Hill has concluded that rather than remaining a centralized multi-site church with video-led teaching distributed to multiple locations, the best future for each of our existing local churches is for them to become autonomous self-governed entities. This means that each of our locations has an opportunity to become a new church, rooted in the best of what Mars Hill has been in the past, and independently led and run by its own local elder teams. …”
The Briefing: The end of the beginning
Posted on November 1, 2014
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“Back in issue #1 of The Briefing, in 1988, the feature article was entitled ‘Have Evangelicals lost their way?’ With this being our final edition ever, readers may be wondering: ‘Has The Briefing lost its way? Is there nothing left to say?’
To quote Romans 3:10, ‘By no means!’…”
– Sam Freney and Tony Payne on winding up The Briefing. What’s next?
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…