Seven up…

1) NIV Audio Bible in One Year Read by David Suchet – Want to get through the whole Bible in 2019? My friend Dan put me onto this: the audiobook website Audible offers one free download when you sign up for a new subscription. Why not use that to download actor David Suchet’s masterful reading of the whole of the Bible. And wonderfully it has been broken down into daily readings: a Psalm/Proverbs, and some Old Testament and New Testament. You just hit play and it starts you off on your first daily reading. Best of all, you’re entitled to then cancel your subscription and retain your free download of the whole of the Bible. Why not also hear John Piper share three brief reasons why we should seek to read the Bible every day in 2019.

2) What the ‘Quarter-Life Crisis’ Says About Young Adults in Your Church – This article is a good intro to Rachel Jones’ brilliant new book which became my first read of 2019 (ok, I started on 26th December!) and which I reviewed on the blog this week.

3) A Pastor, His Dying Wife, and Their Church—A Group Text – Some will be aware of the details of this situation. Please pray for the London-based Franklin family in light of these tragic events, but this article written by a friend of the family and with Brad’s permission is a powerful testimony to trusting God and pastoring a church whilst walking through the valley of the shadow of death. You can support the family financially here.

4) The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2018 – A great little round-up of the wonderful and wacky world of podcasts from the last year.

5) Dementia in the Trans-Physical Age – Very thankful to Andrew Haslam for this personal and perceptive piece on a subject we don’t often address. Particularly appreciated it after writing a dissertation on our often under-appreciated theology of the human body!

6) Atheism may be on the wane in Britain – Interesting interview with John Dickson about the recent Times survey that indicated atheism may be decreasing in the UK. In short, we need to ask people what they mean when they say they do or don’t believe in ‘God’. Some may instinctively describe themselves as ‘atheists’ if they don’t subscribe to the traditional, ‘religious’ type of God, yet may still retain some belief in a spirit or higher force. In that sense, people are less likely to line up with the atheism of Dawkins, but are hardly convinced or clear about the God of Christianity. In a similar vein, the latest church attendance statistics were released just before Christmas and Ian Paul reports on them here: What are the church attendance statistics telling us?

7) How Easily Influenced We Are – For something a bit different, I was reminded of this from a few years ago – how does he do it – seriously?!

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Photo by Freddy Castro on Unsplash