In recent years, there has been a swathe of stories reporting the alleged involvement of celebrities in child molestation. The behaviour of a small number of paedophiles has been scrutinized online and a watching world has been left feeling sickened. Silhouettes of victims on newsreels tearfully tell of trauma past and the ongoing struggles of a life ruined forever. The awfulness of such stories can barely be quantified.
In quiet conversations in churches around the globe, there are Christians who tell their stories too … those who know just what it feels like to be sexually abused as a child. They know how deep the pain pierces. They have shared in the tears that flow for so many years. But, in Christ, they can testify to a different ending. The abuse can never be forgotten but theirs is not a life ruined forever. They know the reality of a life being rebuilt. Today, on The Good Book Blog, we hear from one such survivor:... continue reading
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100
In this post-Easter period, it seems appropriate to reflect on just how many people Jesus came in to contact with after his resurrection. Whether on that Easter morning at the tomb or the encounter on the road to Emmaus or one of the many appearance to his disciples, Jesus touched people's lives in a major way. Of course, he did this too before his death.
In Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller features ten conversations from John's Gospel that show how Jesus changed the lives of every person he met. Those conversations confronted common doubts and questions like "who am I?"' "why am I here?", "what do I believe?" and "what is my purpose in life?" Keller believes the biblical answers from those "powerful" encounters with Christ long ago contain invaluable lessons for us today.... continue reading
Archbishop: Britain not a ‘Christian country’ – if judging by numbers in the pews
Eight arguments about whether the UK is a Christian country
Attorney General: Rise of fundamentalism is 'damaging' Christianity
Southern Baptist conference grapples with questions of sexuality for first time
China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years
Jesus Christ's resurrection relevant to all Australians, Sydney Archbishop says in Easter message
Jack Straw comes out in support of David Cameron on 'Christian Britain'
Disclaimer: The Good Book Company is not responsible for the content of external sites and does not necessarily agree with the content of articles listed.
A new report this week showed that “violent crime is continuing a long-term fall in England and Wales”. Data from hospital emergency departments shows a 12% fall in injuries from violent crimes, with 32,800 fewer victims than the previous year. With just one exception, violent crime has fallen every year since 2001. It’s not an isolated trend either. One expert is quoted as having said: “Violence is falling in many Western countries and we don’t know all the reasons why”.
There are a number of possible reasons. The experts link the fall in violence to declining rates of binge drinking. Disposable income has fallen as the price of alcohol has increased—and, intriguingly, the cultural attitude to alcohol among young people appears to be changing. Perhaps all those TV adverts and tedious PSHE lessons in schools spelling out the dangers of excessive drinking have proved effective.... continue reading
Dear David,
Thanks very much for putting Christianity back on the front pages of the papers by claiming, as our Prime Minister, that this is a Christian nation. I notice that you’ve been getting some flak from people who don’t think this is, or should be, a Christian country.
And the thing is, David, that they’re right.
This isn’t a Christian nation. And it never has been. There’s no such thing as a Christian state, with borders and land and law enforcement and so on. There was once a nation that collected all God’s people into one place, with civic laws and a penal code and so on. It was called Israel, and it existed until Christ came, and explained that his kingdom is not of this world, recognizes no borders, and whose only land in this world right now is the hearts and bodies of his subjects, what he called 'his church' (that's not the same thing as the Church of England, David, though part of that denomination's membership are included in it). It’s only because Christ came and turned the centrifugal force of Old Testament Israel into the centripetal force of the New Testament church that our nation has any of his people living in it at all. While Israel was to be a light to the nations, now the church is to be the light in the nations.... continue reading
Did you know that yesterday was Charlotte Brontë's 198th birthday? I didn't. But Google kindly told me when I logged in.
Did you know that today is Earth Day? Again, I didn't - but Google came to the rescue again, with an animated doodle this time. I enjoy those ones - do you? They keep me on the Google page for longer, and reinforce whichever special day it is. My favourites are the games - especially when they reinvented Pacman, a game I spent far too much time on as a student…... continue reading
1. Everyday Church ebook - just £6!
Get the ebook version of Everyday Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis for just £6!.
2. The Preacher’s Cheat-Sheet
Tim Challies shares two lists that help him prepare to preach.
3. Every Christian’s 2nd Most Important Book
Garrett Kell at All Things for Good considers the second most important book for every Christian.
4. What will they hear next weekend?
After the Easter weekend, Aaron Armstrong looks at this question.
5. And finally...
This week's video of the week, ‘The Reality of the Resurrection’:
Found something that you think should make it on to the On to a Good Thing round-up? Send it to: ontoagoodthing@thegoodbook.co.uk
Last weekend I decided to do a straw poll. I asked a selection of my friends a simple question: why did you leave church as a teenager?
There was a range of answers. Boring services, lack of peers, pressure of studies all reared their head. But there were 3 others factors that loomed much larger:
Faith wasn't shown to be rational
"I had questions. Lots of questions. I was being bombarded with science and secular philosophy at college and it didn't fit with what the Bible was saying. I wanted to understand why. I asked my youth leaders to explain how I could be sure that the Bible was right and the teaching I was getting Monday to Friday was wrong (or of less importance). They simply told me to believe. I guess it wasn't a heretical answer by the church's standards but it wasn't a helpful one. It left me with the impression that Christianity was a blind faith rather than a faith based on reason and facts. And so I walked."... continue reading
As we look back on Easter 2014, it is plain to see that the church has a very different place in our society now to that of the 20th century. Where the church was a fairly focal point of both local life and the state as a whole a hundred years (maybe even 30 years) ago, now the church is seen to have no real place in society. We have become a nation that used to be Christian, now Jesus is no more than a name from the past or a baby that appears at Christmas.
This is why Everyday Church is important for us to read. Not just leaders of the church, but also the 'everyday Christian.' What Chester & Timmis do is to show the state of the church as it is today and how we 'should do church' in light of the culture we live in. Their argument is for us to show our culture that church isn't a building but a life lived as Christians together.
There isn't anything radically different here compared to other books of a similar nature but it is a model that is clearly producing fruit in a tough area of the UK. The authors want to show us how living lives with gospel intentionality has been far more beneficial than just getting people to come to an event in a church building. This is so helpful to be reminded of and the examples they give of how it has been worked through in their ministry add weight to their argument.
What they do in Sheffield won't exactly fit into every church setting throughout the country but their heart for the lost people of the UK will. This book is invaluable if we are to reach a culture/country with the love of Jesus and the hope of eternity.
Read more HERE and get the ebook for just £6 until midday on Thursday. Use code ece0414 at the checkout.
