What is the difference between Catholics and Protestants? (video)
This is a question I am asked frequently by the Persians coming into our church investigating Christianity as well as the local Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims we are engaging in our community. Whilst there are lots of differences, this video does a great job of briefly summing up the central two.
When did God last disagree with you?
I liked this. It put me in mind of Tim Keller’s comment, ‘if your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealised version of yourself’.
How ‘LGBT Affirming’ is like King James-Onlyism
Speaking of God disagreeing with us, Joe Carter explores how so-called LGBT affirming churches bear striking resemblance to fundamentalist King James-Only churches. He offers seven similarities.
Now teaching Christian doctrine at a church school is ‘extremist’
David Robertson addresses an absurd story. A Christian organisation was barred from a Christian school for teaching Christian doctrine despite the organisation being vindicated by the Headteacher. It is hard to see this as anything other than aggressive secularism seeking to expunge Christianity from public life – even where it is manifestly appropriate. You can read the Christian Institute report here.
Ten rookie preaching mistakes
This was helpful. Here are some things to avoid in preaching, some of them not only when you happen to be starting out either.
The new urban crisis: when nothing is trickling down
Mez McConnell has been doing a three-part review of Richard Florida’s book, The New Urban Crisis: Gentrification, Housing Bubbles, Growing Inequality and What We Can Do About It. All three articles from Mez are worth reading, especially his insights on how Florida’s book should affect our approach to church planting. In my view, this second article is the best of the three.
From the archive: Three ways prosperity teaching subtly infiltrates the church
‘We may think we could spot these things a mile off, but subtle forms of prosperity preaching have a habit of creeping into otherwise good Evangelical churches. Here are some examples of how subtle, yet pernicious, prosperity teaching may have infected our churches.’