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The evergreen Rory Bremner has Gordon Brown singing a bit of Mika's Grace Kelly

Australian Newfrontiers blogger Mick Porter is blogging through my favourite New Testament book, Galatians. In Part 12: Biblical Theology and the Law, he offers these diagrams and conclusions:





* Despite what commentaries by some very respected authors say, we were not all under law before Christ and the law is not the universal form of slavery that all people are under today if they don't know Christ.
* Salvation history is vitally important - Paul's arguments in Galatians have everything to do with the order in which things have taken place from Abraham to Christ.
* The role of Israel prior to Christ is essential for all Christians to understand. Israel was the son living under a guardianship waiting to enter the inheritance - and the law was the guardian. The inheritance came but they were unwilling to give up the guardian. Gentiles were under slavery to idols, were offered positions of sonship, but threatened this by also starting to place themselves under the guardian.

The second part of our weekend with John & Sue Hosier was a little 'cheese and wine' evening in Exminster (classy, eh!) with some of the other leaders from the church family. Having heard John's 15 reflections on 40 years in ministry and knowing John would be preaching on Sunday this was Sue's opportunity to share with us. These are the headlines.

Saved not just busy.
Enthusiasm for church.
Rejoicing in the gospel.
Visionary - see it.
Amused at people and life.
Nourishers, plan to be hospitable, and nourish souls.
Tender - better to be naive than cynical.


Long suffering, endure.
Evangelists are a rare breed, value them, and do the work too.
Adventurous not timid or boring.
Devoted - everyone is, but what to?
Even tempered with the flock.
Reliable.
Serve in love.
Happy in God from the inside.
Intercession - he intercedes for us!! - be prayerful too.
Patiently endure with people and circumstances.

I love hanging out with Christians who are older than me. I have so much to learn from …

What a morning! A time of worship with gospel-saturated songs and prophetic words, followed by the brilliant John Hosier on Ephesians 3:7-13 which on a mere wordle style analysis was emphatically about Christ and the church. Definitional preaching that held Christ up for us to believe in, to revel in, to see!

 John preached the same message at CCK Brighton last month. I'll add a link to todays version when it goes online later this week.
"We cannot afford to be casual about the local church""The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun." (Piper, quoted by Hosier)"These are my people" (...and this is my crowd. These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights.)And he read the Nicean creed! Could make a case for the Athanasian given its Trinity Sunday, but hey - a creed in Newfrontiers is cool. As John says, sure we don't make a habit of reading them but we really really believe them.

Piper is…

I cite this at length because Mark isn't blogging anymore and this is brilliant. 
Mark Lauterbach, pastor of Grace Church San Diego:

"The temptation of my heart is always to take a work of God and turn it into a self-improvement project. Acts is about the continuing work of Christ to build his church by the Spirit of God and through the witness of his people. Human servants are all over – but Luke wants us to see this is the work of Christ. My heart wants to turn it into a blueprint for what I need to do... Acts 2:42-47 is the end of a passage about the pouring out the Spirit of God by the exalted Christ. It is about how the Spirit of God is the active presence of God in this last chapter of history... Acts 2:42-47 contains no exhortations. It is a description. It is a description of what it looks like in a local church when the Holy Spirit is active.

These are vital signs. “Vital signs” is a medical image. Doctors look for vital signs in a patient. They look for a strong pulse…

John Hosier, Bible teacher, 'retiring' elder of CCK Brighton is with our church family this weekend which is brilliant. Yesterday he shared lessons from his 40 years in ministry.

The Leaders Poole carries highlights from the same material.

1. Two weeks ahead: Four hours of Bible Study / exegesis.
2. A few days before: Moving from 'what does the text say' to 'what does it mean to me' (life related)
3. The Day before: Six hours editting it down.
4. On the day: Four x1 hour preaching it. BigThink

Never yet had to preach a sermon four times in one day, though our church is going back to back services in the autumn so twice is going to become more common. I'm definitely a get ahead kind of person - the four hours at least two weeks ahead is a great idea.

Step 2 seems the really hard step - turning an outline of the passage into an applied sermon, Keller excels at this. And then editting is definitely time consuming but pays great dividends for making the word stick.

Can't help but think it's all too easy to go from Step 1 to Step 4 without doing 2 or 3 at all.

So far Step 4 has only ever been preach it once, though we're going back-to-back services in September so here comes preaching twic…

Matthew Henry on 1 Timothy 2:1-2:

Here is a charge given to Christians to pray for all men in general, and particularly for all in authority. Timothy must take care that this be done. Paul does not send him any prescribed form of prayer... Paul thought it enough to give them general heads; they, having the scripture to direct them in prayer and the Spirit of prayer poured out upon them, needed not any further directions. Observe, The design of the Christian religion is to promote prayer; and the disciples of Christ must be praying people...

Pray for all men, for the world of mankind in general, for particular persons who need or desire our prayers. See how far the Christian religion was from being a sect, when it taught men this diffusive charity, to pray, not only for those of their own way, but for all men.

Pray for kings (v. 2); though the kings at this time were heathens, enemies to Christianity, and persecutors of Christians, yet they must pray for them, because it is for the pub…

Catch up in the previous six chapters at Youtube

Not Charles and Di, or Charles and Camilla... Christ and the Church:
“Who can even begin to appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can comprehend the riches of this glorious grace? Christ, the rich and divine bridegroom, marries this poor, wicked whore, redeems her from all of her evil, and adorns her with all of his goodness. It is now impossible for her sins to destroy her, for they are laid on Christ and swallowed up by him. She has her righteousness in Christ, her husband, which she now can boast is her very own… through our marriage all that is his is mine and all this is mine is his..[she] says… ‘my beloved is mine and I am his’” Like the angel says: "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."
And the church is very much invited, she's the bride.

Tony Reinke links to seven of Don Carson's books that are now available as free PDFs

Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life (Crossway, 1993)Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century (Baker, 1994)For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word, Vol. 1. (Crossway, 1998)For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word, Vol. 2. (Crossway, 1999)The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000)Love in Hard Places (Crossway, 2002)Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson(Crossway, 2008)More at The Gospel Coalition website

Merrie Theologian turns evangelism trainer:



See the other 10 steps at 'Soul Winning Made Easy'

In 2004 Roland Emmerich brought us Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal entertaining us with the possiblity of the jet stream moving and bring a new ice age to much of the northern hemisphere.

BBC has a documentary on The Jet Stream and us which illustrates the British obsession with the weather and our reasons for interest in it. The Weatherman says the future of the Jet Stream is the biggest question for the future of humanity.

Perhaps not quite the biggest, but no doubt it has the potential to make some difference. The Met Office and Co now need to be able to predict the future - which is one of the helpful uses of maths and at the same time something that we're unlikely to ever accomplish. The Jet Stream will move north, and south... the universe seems wired for repetitive cycles of things and we find ourselves living in the middle of it, searching for something solid to grab hold of.

On  iPlayer until June 7th for those in the UK.

HT: @JoelVirgo yesterday. Chris Moyles on Radio 1, 1hr 10mins into the programme talks about watching a service from Kingsgate Church in Peterborough on BBC1 recently.

He's blown away by a meeting that is "all about Jesus, baptism and having a Happy Day" and notes that he wanted to play the Hillsongs song "Mighty to Save" on his show, but didn't think he could get away with it because of all the stuff about a saviour...

Chris, I'm glad you enjoyed it and would happily assure you that what you saw isn't all that rare. Yes there is plenty of dead-christianity around but rumours of the death of the church are exaggerated. She is very much alive.

Watch That's the Spirit on iPlayer until June 7th.
Simon Mayo on the future of religion, 1hr 50mins into his programme on Tuesday

Update:

Thoughts welcome on this sketchy outline which should fit somewhere in the upcoming 'Love the church' weekend.

Intro: Do you know the love of God? We all want to be loved. Exploring this in our experience and culture - the desire for acceptance and appreciation. Perhaps some critique but mostly I want to draw on the good of this.

1. YOU NEED A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR (3:6-11)
Not just any man: The LORD (smoke in the wilderness), The King (David’s son) who comes and dies for the one he loves, the aroma of the wedding is the aroma of Jesus' death. He comes for his bride - the day of his gladness... the wedding supper of the lamb.

2. HE DOESN'T LOVE 'YOU', HE LOVES 'THE CHURCH' (4:1-16)
He’s not besotted with ‘you’ (The Song isn’t "Jesus and me"); Christ is besotted with the church whom he loves. He is totally captivated with her, his death has made her shiny and beautiful.

3. SO, BE FOUND IN THE CHURCH: LOVE THE CHURCH (5:1)
So, be part of the on…

By Jove, I waited a month for this book to arrive and it was worth it. Michael Ward is a man immersed in CS Lewis' work and in the process came across a key that unlocks the depths of the Narniad. The bulk of the book explores The Planets in the Lewis writings generally, in the Narniad and the theological implications. Brief treatment is given to the context Lewis wrote into, and the connection between his book Miracles and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, I neither know Lewis or Medieval literature enough to truly evaluate the claims of the book.

I'm drawn in by Ward's observations about The Planets, but perhaps more captured by the ideas of how to communicate ideas in apologetics, in narrative and in imagination. He observes Lewis moving from Miracles to The Lion using the imagery of Jupiter (though 'it is not true') to communicate powerfully and imaginatively the same message. It's a softer approach but more appealling - though there is something inviti…

The latest Mike Reeves interview is up: 
Theology Network tabletalk: Terry Virgo on The Church.
Some priceless stuff in there.
Mike has also interviewed Terry on his other great passion, grace.

Transcript by Dan Bowen

Going to University in the autumn? Or, a church student or youth worker, pastor, parent, grandparent...?


Check out 44 videos to prepare you for student life from Andy Croft (Soul Survivor), Lou Fellingham (Phatfish), Roger Carswell, Krish Kandiah (Evangelical Alliance), Cathy Burton, Terry Virgo, Graham Daniels many others... and order free copies of the student cookbook with recipes from The Vicar's Wife Elisa Beynon, 


Get ready to go!

In a universe without God it really doesn't matter all that much what you do. If there is a God then that begins to raise questions about what to do with my life? Much of the questions about this are new questions, no-one has to ask career questions a few centuries ago - you'd just do what your parents did, nor marriage questions in some cultures - your parents could sort that for you. We are where we are though.

I picked up Kevin DeYoung's previous book 'Why we're not emergent' at Together for the Gospel last year. Some of the emergency engagement went past me, having not read much of that myself, though I liked the chapter the doctrine of scripture. His next book is much smaller and hits the question of guidance, walking between charismatic paralysis and its non-charismatic equivilents. The simple fact is that there's a lot of tosh in the evangelical mind about guidance concerning dreams, visions, fleeces, impressions, doors, verses-out-of-context etc. No…