“Grandfather was such a modest and humble man”
Plus – how blokes can be real blokes to make their families better!
Should we get religion out of politics? Hear from an aspiring Christian politician and media commentator.
A dynamic and provocative priest and intellectual from Zurich, Zwingli led his own unique branch of the Reformation. It all started off with a controversy about sausages …
In June 2016, Al Stewart answered four difficult questions with four confronting answers. Listen to what Jesus says about hope.
1 Peter 1:6-7
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith –of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.’
By now I suspect that you have all heard that the Geelong West Presbyterian Church buildings on the cnr of Pakington St and Waratah St were burnt to the ground in the early hours of the morning on Friday, April 15. While some structure remains standing, the whole site was condemned and nothing was able to be salvaged.
I said to my wife one day; “do I need to go to Church today?” She told me I had to, I was the pastor. Church can get really boring. In the light of busy lifestyles, family needs and more interesting pastimes, Church can be a chore. We ask people to give up their Sunday morning generally and in a church of 100 use up 200 man hours of time. Duty, and responsibility can only take a person so far. “Ought to” and “should” are not a language long sustained. Even if the die hardship do keep coming, when Church is a bore, visitors don’t come back and people don’t bring friends.
God is not boring. Some things that will take the bore out: preach with enthusiasm, preach life relevant stuff, preach short, use audio visuals, be creative, adjust routine, introduce the true power of God, pray, prophecy, lay hands on people, liven up the calendar with focused events, introduce things that will make people laugh and cry, celebrate often, sing with a tempo that doesn’t drag, worship in short bursts, have a dynamic one hour service instead of a boring two hour one, good coffee and cake, a great welcome, less words and not more, finish on time, no talking head announcements – use PowerPoint at least, move the elements of the service around, get younger visiting speakers, don’t have a communion sermon, don’t let people who no platform gift to ‘have a go’, and, the list goes on. Boring meetings are usually ill considered and ill planned meetings that have fallen in the ruts of easy and usual. You will have creative people who can be mobilised to plan your meetings and a there is world of non boring Church ideas on Google. Consider using them.
The post Yawn appeared first on Australian Christian Churches.
“Like I’d spoken to some people and they said “you should not do this”, and I said “I don’t care, it has to be done!””
Plus how a magpie changed one families life. – Cameron Bloom
Are we alone in the universe? Would the existence of intelligent alien life challenge the Christian message?