Month: August 2011

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Where is God in a messed up world?

At my “More Justice” talk today at UWS, they played the following video as an intro:

It’s called Lunchbox: Suffering from a series put together by UCCF: The Christian Unions in the UK. Here’s the deal with the lunchbox:

Five tasty treats for evangelistic events […] LunchBox is a collection of short, thought-provoking films on questions people often ask. The films open up the questions, without presenting the answers, so they are ideal for getting people thinking, leading in to lunchbar talks and debates.

I haven’t watched the other ones in the series yet, but assume they are also useful like the suffering one above. You can download HQ versions of the RELIGION, SCIENCE, LIFE + SUFFERING videos from here. You can also get embeddable versions at their YouTube channel. Let me know if and how you might use them.

Interested in some answers to the questions this video raises? Check this out…

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UNASHAMED + RICE + CONFIRMATION + MORE MISSION

I’m in the middle of a particularly busy time at the moment. (Sorry if I haven’t replied to your email!) Lots of good things going on at St Faith’s and Soulies as well as some external ministry opportunities. This blog post is a quick highlights package…

UNASHAMED – Friday night was great!! Over 350 young punks turned up to our northern beaches combined youth event! Awesome music by City Surrender (from St Paul’s Castle Hill) and a very sharp and pointy sermon from Ross Ciano. Approx 15 responded to the gospel with a bunch more recommitting themselves to following Jesus. Lots to thank God for, a few things to iron out if we do it again.

RICE – there were about 4000 young crew in at the Sydney Entertainment Centre for the rally. I really enjoyed the stripped back program… it actually finished early! Sam Chan gave an absolute cracker of a talk from Luke 19:1-10. I don’t know how many responded to the gospel, but there were hundreds… maybe 250-300? That’s a guess. I had the privilege of praying with 6 young guys afterwards. Such a buzz. Such a joy.

CONFIRMATION – I’ve really enjoyed the last month of Confirmation Classes with a bunch of year 10s and some older lads. We spent quality time learning the basics of Christianity from a John Stott outline and working through the catechism in the Anglican Prayer Book. Solid stuff. Sunday night was the confirmation service. Really encouraging. Killer sermon from the Bish (Glenn Davies). Packed house. Good vibe.

MORE MISSION – I’ve given 5 talks at universities across Sydney in the last week with 2 more to go this week. Lots of Christian uni students across the 3 campuses have been excited to be on mission together with many of them bringing guests to each event. I’ve had some good chats with people and know there have been a few respond to the gospel with many more keen to keep checking out Jesus. Rad.

Praise God for good gear going down.

3 of the 4 pics originally from here.

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HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE

hope-beyond-the-grave

What do you hope for in life? What are your dreams? What are your aspirations? How certain are you that your hopes will be fulfilled? My guess is that you DO have hopes and aspirations. Often though when we talk about “hoping” for something, it’s really just another way of “wishing” for something. I really hope (wish) I win the jackpot lottery! I really hope (wish) the good looking girl takes notice of me!

But when the Bible speaks about hope, it’s not about wishful thinking. The hope offered in the Bible is actually far more than we could hope for or imagine. Hope in the Bible is certain. Guaranteed. Assured. Without a doubt.

We live in a broken world where our hopes and dreams are often shattered. And ultimately we are all on the same trajectory toward a certain death. Death is our great enemy. Death shatters all our dreams.

The good news of Christianity is that Jesus offers hope beyond the grave. It’s not some wishful thinking that I will one day go to a mystical place in the clouds. The Christian hope is a certain hope built on the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The Christian hope is a certain hope that those who believe in Jesus will also be physically raised from the dead.

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