Seven up…

1) Born to Fly: Mary Poppins, Bruce Springsteen, and the Spell of Immortality – If you enjoyed the new Mary Poppins Returns (I’m yet to see it!), then I think you’ll enjoy this thoughtful and delightfully written longform piece.

2) How Millennials Became the Burn-out Generation – This article made a lot of headlines this week.  If you were born between 1982 and 2004, then you’ll probably find it ringing true. And if you’re not in that category, then read it to understand those in your life who are in that bracket. And then all of you go read Rachel Jones’ Is This It?

3) Leading bishop apologises for role in gender transition liturgy guidance – and now opposes it – The seemingly both unexpected timing and theologically shambolic nature of the Pastoral Guidance from the House of Bishops re: Gender Transition Baptismal Affirmation released just before Christmas continues to be a cause of concern for many in the Church of England. This week saw the release of what many feel was a disappointing ‘clarification’ about this Guidance from the Secretary to the Archbishops’ Council, as this response to it makes clear. Not only that but an apology was also issued from the original Bishop who had initially announced the Pastoral Guidance (see link above) expressing that he now supported calls for the Guidance “to be clarified and modified, or for its status to be changed”. To be continued…

4) The Present and Future of Christian Blogging – There’s been a bit of stuff bouncing around about online how personal/individual blogs are dying off because more and more written content is being published on large ministry blogs. Tim Challies – not quite the original Christian blogger, but almost – has written about what he sees are some of the dangers of this shift, and this response piece is a helpful engagement with Challies’ argument, albeit with qualification.

5) Three Precious Words for This Troubled Soul – Feeling overwhelmed? Exhausted – mentally and physically? Crushed? Maybe this week you particularly need to hear this short reflection from Sam Allberry.

6) Five Ways to Last 20 Years in the Same Church – This was a huge encouragement to read and very refreshing.

7) Christian Uses KonMari Method While Studying Bible To Remove All Verses That Don’t Spark Joy – For something a bit different, if you’ve become aware of Marie Kondo and her ‘innovative’ tidying methods – the subject of a new Netflix series and two best-selling books – then you’ll probably enjoy this. (And if you hadn’t realised, the Babylon Bee, who wrote the above article are a Christian satire site – and a very dry one at that!)

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?!

Sharing is caring. Know someone who might find these links interesting? Why not forward it on?

Photo by Freddy Castro on Unsplash

With the past few days providing a chance to spend time with family, eat Christmas leftovers, and breathe a little, there happily hasn’t been much web browsing going on.

So, if it’s not too introspective, allow me to instead share the 10 most popular posts here at That Happy Certainty from the last twelve months. 

By the way, I’m really grateful for your support and encouragement in reading, sharing and feeding-back on the blog this year, not least The Sunday Refill. It was a big surprise to be given the runner-up prize for Premier Digital Blogger of the Year, particularly because there’s a handful of blogs that I read regularly that deserved that more than this one!

To be honest, in some ways I’d have liked to have written more non-Refill articles this year; it seems my draft folder is getting fatter, but sometimes it feels like there’s just not the time to turn them into finished articles. Like last year, there’s been a fair few book & resource reviews on the blog, but family life, ministry on the ground, and other projects have rightly been the main focus. Maybe in 2019 I’ll find a way to write more about the things that are naturally taking my time.

So here we go, the 10 most popular posts at That Happy Certainty in 2018…

(By the way, I’ve intentionally discounted the weekly Refills, as well as my annual round-up of Christmas and Easter videos – they’re normally much more popular than anything else, so feel a bit like anomalies!)

As you’ll see, half of the most read posts weren’t even written this year, which perhaps says something about their ‘enduring’ significance’ and something about Google’s algorithms! But the big lesson is that if you want something to be read by lots of people, write about a royal wedding…

1. 9 Assorted Thoughts on That Wedding Sermon

2. “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience” (2014)

3. Not Deciding: Leadership Lessons from Band of Brothers (2014)
4. The Difference Between Wounds & Scars (2014)
5. Review of Life Explored (2017)

6. So Much For The City: Rediscovering a Vision for Small-Town Church Planting

7. Review of The Goldilocks Zone (Collected Writings of Mike Ovey)

8. “The best things we do are usually the hardest”: An Interview with Dave Griffith-Jones

9. ‘This Is Awesome Cutlery’ Album – A Review (2017)

10. Progress by Adrian Reynolds – A Review

And if you really want to overload on geekdom, you can also see previous years’ top 10s from 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, or even 2013.