The Sunday Refill – 7 Links for Your Weekend (11/10/20)

Seven up…

1) COVID Christmas Outreach – ‘How do we do Christmas?’ is becoming the hot ministry topic! GAFCON UK have produced this fab and extensive crib sheet on the topic, including the wisdom from Ed Drew from Faith in Kids. CPAS have also written a guide to Making the Most of Advent & Christmas, as well as creating a padlet board for Christmas outreach ideas. They also have a number of helpful crib sheets: on Drive-in Carol Services;

2) I Miss Having Ideas – Interesting piece on creativity in lockdown…

3) “O Tempora! O Mores Evangelici!” 2. He’s BEHIND You! – Mark Meynell continues his challenging series looking under the bonnet of British evangelicalism.

4) A Positive COVID Test at Church: Now What? – I guess this is something most churches will face at some point. Interesting case-study on how one church worked through this.

5) Safeguarding in the Church of England and the Church in Wales – The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse released their report on the Anglican Church in England & Wales this week, and it makes for sobering reading. The Bishop of Huddersfield, Jonathan Gibbs, the Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop, and Melissa Caslake, the Church’s national director of safeguarding, have released this statement. Justin Humphreys from ThirtyOneEight called for “openness, humility and a commitment to change”.

6) Churchill’s D-Day Task List – This is a helpful word on planning and productivity from Cal Newport. Somewhat relatedly, Dan Green also shares some gleanings on processing your email.

7) O Come, All You Unfaithful by Sovereign Grace Music – For something a little bit different (in that it’s not yet November!), this is breathtaking. Before you watch the video, you need to know that it contains people who are mostly listening to the song for the first time and hearing it in light of their own experiences: “a stillborn child; a strained marriage; feelings of shame; legalism; loss; loneliness.” As Bob Kauflin puts it, “we think seeing their responses as Lisa Clow sings communicates even more clearly that Jesus wasn’t born for people who have it all together. He was born for those who have nothing.” This is going to be played a lot over the next ten weeks.

Quote of the Week:

“Before a church is a growing number of people, it’s a number of people growing.”

– Mark Dever

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