To Chad

If you're interested in things Africa, or medical, or the gospel, or all three, check out my sister's blog: 

I'm rather glad she's started blogging, as she's off to Chad for the next several years.

Relationships in the new media age

How is facebook changing your relationships?

How has the internet changed you? If you think it hasn't, you're either reading this post printed out and handed to you by a friend, or you're just not thinking, which means you're in danger of being changed for the worse.

As we use new media and technologies, they don't just make things quicker or easier; they change how we do things, and thus shape who we are and how we live. They shape the nature of relationships, of communication, of community.

How are your friendships different to your parents' friendships? How are your friendships different now to pre-facebook? If you publically post on someone's wall rather than writing a letter, what difference does it make to your relationship?

So how then should we reflect on and engage with these things as church? Neil Powell of City Evangelical, Birmingham, gave a seminar on this for Avenue Community Church in Leicester - and thanks to him and to them, the recording's available. But this isn't just one to idle away a half hour from curiosity: this is one to gather a group of friends to listen to, discuss, and help each other apply. Relationships in the New Media Age.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in blogsville

...Martin Downes called us back to the coffee table with a great topic - Whatever happened to The Angel of the LORD? The conversation's warm, the Bibles are open (= easily perused with the help of an ESV-linked firefox plugin!) the coffee in my part of the conversation is cafedirect Palenque Mexico blend with speculos biscuits, and while we whizzed round a bit of Blackham/Goldsworthy debate, we seem to have identified two questions as summarised by Dan:

(i) whether the Word appears and exercises ministry in the OT, and (ii) to what extent the OT saints knew who he was and knew the gospel as we do.

I don't see how (i) is avoidable given what the text ascribes to The Angel of the LORD (TAOTL) - he speaks on behalf of the LORD (could be an angel), receives worship of the LORD (hmm), and the text one moment calls him TAOTL and the next, the LORD. I'm not so concerned with (ii) - given the promises of God, the OT saints knew enough to trust in Him to redeem and rule personally, whether different amounts at different times in history. After all, even now since we do not know exhaustively, we do not comprehend God - but as He has exhaustive knowledge and has revealed, we may nevertheless apprehend God in truth. This is a handy distinction John Owen made, apparently. It seems there's the whole Blackham/Goldsworthy debate behind this though. Coffee, anyone?

...and elsewhere, I've abused blogger to form a rather rough website for my church's Priceless week of events in a week's time. Him we proclaim is indeed priceless, and to hear Him is beyond price:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. ...

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. [From Hebrews 1-2]

'My' identity is Christ

I must 'choose an identity'? Fine then - I will choose the Identity in which I was chosen before the first keys were struck to write the script of blogger, and before the first words were spoken to create this world, or me. I will choose the Identity with which I was identified when He lived, died and rose again 2000 years ago. I will choose this identity because He first chose me. I will choose this Identity not just today, to put aside tomorrow: this Identity has consumed my past and replaced it with His own. How can a dead person blog? You ask me to choose an identity - but it is no longer I who blog: I have died with this Identity, and the blog I now blog I blog by trusting in Him, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Crass? But you asked me to choose an identity. God has identified me with Christ. Nothing more is needful.

For much more wonderful stuff on the reality of being identified with Christ, united with Him, found in Him, such that, "The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ's past," see Union with Christ, by Michael Horton. I was in Philippians at the weekend with Aston CU, and this beat doesn't let up throughout the letter: in Christ, in the Lord, in Christ, in the Lord,... And thus such a key antidote to our natural inclination to look inside ourselves for salvation. Our passion, our worship, our evangelism, our ability, our Quiet Times, our church, our faith: worthless. Worthless for righteousness within ourselves. That I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness which comes by law but that which is by faith in Christ Jesus, the righteousness from God that depends on faith...

Choose an identity

On the back of this post, I couldn't help noticing that every time I go to comment on someone's blog, blogger tells me to "Choose an identity." Thus blogger, in one 3-word sentence, summarises our culture. There are many identities you may have: choose one for now. No wonder people take issue with the idea of one true God and one mediator between God and us - the one Man Jesus. Wake up, choose a shampoo from the shelf, choose an outfit from the wardrobe, choose an identity from the drawer, choose a god from the sky, and off we go.

Quote of the day: Preaching as Worship

Marcus Honeysett is blogging at Digital H2O, and has posted his talks from the Biblical Evangelism Conference 2003. I heard these given, and recommend reading them!

Preaching as Worship - Preaching (or, as he said, any Bible handling in whatever situation - think evangelistic Bible study, small group talk, CU meeting,...) is, in the words of Cotton Mather, "restoring the throne and dominion of God in the hearts of men."

Preaching that Speaks to Suffering and Evil - let "our preaching combine heart-wrenching weeping with unbreakable confidence in the sovereignty of God" (Piper)

Preaching the Cross -

"Lots of people would like you to not preach the cross. Non-Christians find it offensive. Some Christians think it is dull, or the basics that they have gone on from and grown out of. Some think that its just an old message with little contemporary excitement because they’ve heard it all before.

But I tell you that there is no glory in Christianity without the cross. There is no glorious message for us to proclaim without the cross. There is no power to save those who believe, no grace, no work of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 3 says that you grow as a Christian having the Holy Spirit and knowing him working miracles among you because you believe the message of Christ crucified. And without the message of the cross the gentiles are nor brought as a fragrant offering to God for his praise."

Off to Canada for

with preaching from Peter Kuzmic, Jacques Buchhold and Ziel Machado, and sessions on Truth & Reconciliation, HIV/AIDS, Evangelism in the contemporary world, Environmental issues & Christian witness, Engaging the university, and regional times, international exhibition, 60th anniversary celebration of IFES, parade of the nations, tribute to Lindsay Brown, commissioning of Daniel Bourdanné as General Secretary, musical worship (multilingual?), books, and general committee time where we welcome new movements to join us, and other exciting business! All with around 600 people from up to 150 countries. Some hoping to come from less economically developed countries still need to be granted visas: please pray that this would happen for them to join us for mutual encouragement in the Lord and his work.

I hope to post notes on some of the sessions after the conference - or, if I can borrow someone's laptop, during it.

Getting the message (of) across

Ok, so maybe it wasn't too informative to merely post a linked logo: Adrian, being the World Famous Christian Blogger that he is, has (unsurprisingly) written it up rather better: Adrian's Blog: Word Alive and Spring Harvest to Separate After 15 Years Because of the Atonement

Q.1 What is the chief end of blog?

I was recently asked for blogging tips by someone thinking of starting out. So, being a blogger(!), I'll collate my reply into a blog post. Hoping it'll be helpful for some. If Mike Reeves is to be believed (which he generally is), then Luther rather thought that we must have a theology of everything - blogging included (ok, he didn't explicitly mention blogging). Otherwise we'll be doing those non-theologised things idolatrously. We do have a theology of everything - but what theology? What theos? If we haven't seen blogging in the light of the word, perhaps we're blogging idolatrously! So, without further ado -

I blog (in reverse order):

a) for myself - to help me think through what I'm learning. You know - you have a brilliant or deep thought, try to explain it to someone else, and realise it actually doesn't make sense. Or you forget it a day after having it. Blogging can help you think it through more. It also keeps you more accountable about such thoughts: goes some way towards you doing theology in community, rather than on your own. Which then helps to hone those thoughts, getting input, correction, etc., from others.

b) for the Church - helps me focus on building up the Church. That is, I have a thought, I learn something, something strikes me, or something happens to me. I want to share it. But how and why? Blogging forces me to think through the thing in a gospel framework, from a gospel perspective, for the building up of the Church. Why blog it otherwise? So I aim to not blog about something until I can do so in an edifying way. Of course, and sadly, I don't achieve this 100% - nor does that mean that my posts are all fluffy & encouraging! But they should be edifying. As I say, that's an aim... (This also means that I welcome comments on any of my posts, or on the blog in general.)

c) for God's glory - the 2 aims above come under this. Blogs are sitting around theologising together, only you can do it across the world and have random people listen in, learn, rebuke, correct, encourage, etc., which is marvellous. But as with everything, it can also be self-serving, self-glorifying, captivated by the desires of the idol factory within, so idolatrous.

So as with all things, blogging should come with a 'take care' tag. It isn't that blogging is intrinsically bad. But our hearts are idol factories, and we so easily take any good thing and quickly it shows up our sin / trips us up in ways in which we hadn't had opportunity before. So for example, it's all too easy to vent on a blog - to post quickly, without the care necessary, giving off to a faceless meta rather than purposing to minister to brothers & sisters in Christ. I sometimes go and type a blog post in haste & high emotion, then save it as a draft, come back to it days later, and rewrite it / scrap it because in its original form it wouldn't minister the word well to my brothers & sisters in Christ who read the blog, or it wouldn't point them to the hope we have in Christ. Another idol-factory blogging example is being enslaved to stats, for popularity or for pride. Knowing your blog stats is not necessarily bad, but take care of your deceitful heart. I know I all too easily slip into the captivity of fear of man, and pride - so I don't register with technorati.

The purpose of blogging? To glorify and enjoy God! So purpose that your blog will be a theatre for God's glory, not for your own. And please minister the word to me to rebuke & correct me whenever that's not the case here.

Some words from better bloggers than me: Adrian Warnock - Andy Shudall