The Sunday Refill – 7 Links for Your Weekend (25/11/18)

Seven up…

1) Ask and You Shall Evangelize – Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra tends to beast it at long-form articles. Here she reflects on the changes we’ve seen in evangelism and apologetics in the last decade. Much that resonates and much to ponder. Definitely a helpful piece to introduce the call to herald the gospel in our contemporary moment.

2) Donald Trump: the president of expressive individualism – Haven’t got to this yet, but looks like an insightful take on ‘how we got here’.

3) 41 Take-Aways from the FIEC Leaders’ Conference – With over 900 delegates, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches’ (FIEC) annual Leaders’ Conference must be becoming one of the largest Christian leadership gatherings in the UK. As an Anglican, it’s not particularly aimed at me but I’m thankful to have many friends who are affiliated to the FIEC. The audio for all the plenaries and seminars is also available here, but to guide you through that Banstead pastor Dan Green shares some of his take-away quotations and reflections.

4) The Gelding of God – A lot of talk this week after the Archbishop of Canterbury’s reported comments about God not being a Father “in the same way a human being is a father”. As Matthew Roberts points out, there’s more nuance in what was actually said, yet – as with all theology – there’s ‘knock-on’ in making such claims. On one hand, this is becoming a regular news item, so one would imagine such a reaction would be expected (and therefore nuance would be par for the course). This piece highlights this tendency to pit God revealing himself through Christ against God revealing himself in the Bible. (By the way, gelding is another way of saying castrating…) Lee Gatiss also manages to highlight the key issues in this brief letter to The Times.

5) When you say, “Anyone got any questions?” do you often find no one seems to have any? So try this… – A really simple little tip for encouraging engagement.

6) American killed by remote tribe believed god was helping him reach island – Most news outlets have reported on this story this week. Fool or fool for Christ… would you?

7) Trust-Building Exercise – For something a bit different… you know the one: ‘fall and we’ll catch you’. Well, let’s all try it at church and see how many times this happens…