What is the thinking behind a Jesus-Centered-Life term? how do they work? And why are the Bible Studies so hard..?
Getting ready for our next JCL term...
On Sunday we will be delving into the Bible’s teaching on the life and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It will be - I hope - as challenging as it is inspiring. I have already been brought to both moments of incredible joy, and repentance a number of times as I have studied and written for this term. I think that as a Church we will have some difficult questions to navigate, but i expect that we will also find much that encourages and excites us. We may find things we disagree about, but I hope too, much that unites us. As we get ready, here is a taster from Josef Tson (you might remember him from our Lent course a couple of years ago, when we spent our time listening to what we might need to learn from the Persecuted Church).
Global Church Worship
A little up-lift for the Lord’s Day. and a reminder that we are part of something much bigger than us. Today, throughout the nations of the world, He is exalted, and worshiped by His people as we join our voices with those around the throne (Rev.4:8-11, 5:12-13, 7:10-12 etc.)
sometimes what you read has more resonance...
The fall of humanity has created a perpetual crisis. It will last until sin has been put down and Christ reigns over a redeemed world … The fall has affected every part of our nature - moral, intellectual, psychological, spiritual, physical. Our whole being is deeply injured. The sin in our heart has overflowed into our total life… nature itself, the earth and even the astronomical universe has felt the shock of our sin…Humanity is lost but not abandoned.
Let a flood or fire hit a region, and no able bodied citizen feels they have any right to rest till they have done all they can to save as many as they can… While death stalks no-one dares relax; the critical emergency for some becomes an emergency for all. In times of extraordinary crisis, ordinary measures will not suffice. The world lives in such a time of crisis. Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing. We dare not settle down and try to live as if things were ‘normal’. Nothing is ‘normal’ while death roams the world…
To me it has always been difficult to understand those Christians who insist on living in the crisis as if no crisis existed … I wonder if such Christians actually believe in the fall.
taken from Tozer, Born after Midnight.
geneaolgies rock
Over the next few days in our Read Through the Bible 2020 we are confronted with one of the longest genealogy sections in the Bible (I Chron. 1-9). It can be a bit tricky to know what to do with sections like this… here is a sermon that might help us navigate these chapters…
Communion, Coronavirus and Correction?
What is God doing in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic? Undoubtedly there are many aspects in His providence at this time, but might one be that He is lovingly disciplining His children?
John 6, Communion and 'Spiritual Communion'
If Communion is so important, why are we not making efforts to celebrate or enact it during these days, when arguably we need to share the Bread and Wine more than ever? What are to make of one option in the Church of England’s guidance: Spiritual Communion?
John 6... and Anglican Liturgy
What do we believe is happening when we take Bread and Wine together in Communion? How does passages such as John 6 shape the worship of the Church?
John 6... and there's more
As i mentioned in today’s service, the passage we have before us in John 6:52-59 is incredibly rich, and i simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw one or two more aspects of it to the fore… This first explores how the ‘seen’ creation is pointing us always to the ‘unseen’.
an old sermon on I Cor.11 & Communion
In today’s sermon we’re thinking about Communion. This isn’t the first time we’ve considered this glorious sacrament, and it’s place in our life as a Church together.
There is also a sermon in the MIE membership series, which can be found under media / previous talks, or here:
https://www.mie.org.uk/mie-membership
And don’t forget to have a look at our series in Matthew’s Gospel, particularly Matt.26, where Jesus institutes the Lord’s supper. There is also a series of articles I wrote a few years ago about Communion, when we were thinking about including children. They can be accessed here:
https://www.mie.org.uk/childrens-communion
And here is a sermon I preached a while ago on Acts 2:42, and I Cor.11:17 ff.
Saturday night special
make yourself a cup of tea, sit down for half an hour and have a listen to this… or take it in bite-sized chunks! Voices from years gone by…
Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs..?
So, we are told (commanded?) that authentic Christian worship includes our reciting and singing of Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (or, songs from the Spirit. see Eph.5:19 & Col.3:16). At the risk of being anachronistic, it seems that we are pretty committed the third (spiritual songs), open to the second (hymns), but distinctly - dare I say strangely - reticent about the first (psalms). Apart from a handful of songs based on Psalms (e.g. The Lord’s my Shepherd (Townend); Give thanks to the LORD, our God and King etc.) and a few of the hymns we sing (e.g. Glorious things of thee are spoken), my sense is that Psalmody is generally notable by its absence. We periodically recite Psalms together in our evening service, but even that is a long way from the old BCP lectionary that would have us read through the entire book of Psalms every month! Reading some Psalms in the last couple of days in our Bible Read Through, I began to wonder why the reciting and singing of Psalms in our corporate worship has fallen into disuse? What might it sound like if we consciously re-integrated it into our worship? I guess there are the historic metric settings, but it turns out there is a bit of a renaissance of psalm singing going on these days. Here are a couple of options. The first is part of the Psalms-project and you can track down a lot of their work on Youtube. The second is more obviously congregational! There are also more settings of Psalms on the Church’s Spotify play-list: scroll down to the bottom of the MIE web-page, and click on the green circle with three arcs in it (the Spotify logo) - though you’ll need to set up an account to listen.
Doubt (6 of 6)
The Eclipse of God
Doubt (5 of 6)
Emotional Doubt
Doubt (4 of 6)
Moral Doubt
Doubt (3 of 6)
Intellectual doubt
Doubt (2 of 6)
continuing to navigate the question of faith and doubt
Doubt (1 of 6)
An introduction to the question of doubt, which I raised in our Easter Service
It's Sunday
Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 17
45.Q.
How does Christ's resurrection benefit us?
A.First,by his resurrection he has overcome death,so that he could make us share in the righteousness which he had obtained for us by his death. 1 Second,by his power we too are raised up to a new life. 2 Third,Christ's resurrection is to us a sure pledge of our glorious resurrection. 3
It’s Saturday
Heidelberg Catechism: Lord's Day 22
57.Q.
What comfort does the resurrection of the body offer you?
A.Not only shall my soul after this life immediately be taken up to Christ, my Head, 1 but also this my flesh, raised by the power of Christ,shall be reunited with my soul and made like Christ's glorious body. 2
1.Lk 16:22; 23:43; Phil 1:21-23.
2.Job 19:25, 26; 1 Cor 15:20, 42-46, 54; Phil 3:21; 1 Jn 3:2.
58.Q.
What comfort do you receive from the article about the life everlasting?
A.Since I now already feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, 1I shall after this life possess perfect blessedness,such as no eye has seen,nor ear heard,nor the heart of man conceived a blessedness in which to praise God forever. 2