The Sunday Refill – 7 Links for Your Weekend (31/7/16)

After a nearly-Wifi-free summer holiday, today The Refill returns. Did you get the postcard?

1) Lolly-Stick Summer Fun – If the arrival of the school summer holidays means you now have your hands full, here’s a cracking idea to try from the Good Book Company.

2) Five Reasons to Host a Q&A Session After your Church Service – Tim Keller explains why hosting a question & answer session after your church service could pay dividends, particularly evangelistically. We occasionally tried this in Cheltenham, particularly towards the end of a sermon series – and it seemed to be a helpful way to engage with queries and work through how God’s word fleshes out. Interestingly, a few days after this article was published a pastor called Mark Jones responded with a post arguing to the contrary. However, if you scroll down through the comment section of the original piece, you’ll see Keller in turn engage with Jones’ arguments and explain why he still thinks Q&A sessions are worthy additions.

3) Victory! Supreme Court rules Named Person scheme illegal – The Christian Institute reports on this week’s remarkable ruling from the Supreme Court on the Scottish Government’s Named Person scheme, which sought to assign a state guardian to monitor the ‘wellbeing’ of every child. The landmark judgment contained this striking sentence: “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world.” Refreshing.

4) Never been kissed and never been happier – Our culture doesn’t often give voice to stories where singleness is seen as a state of human flourishing. Instead being single is often portrayed as being incomplete. That’s why it’s so refreshing to read something of 32 year-old Sarah Yardley’s story.

5) How best to communicate Jesus – If you struggle to know how to share the good news of Jesus with your friends, then this article is a good place to start. In short, everyone is different and everyone is the same…

6) ‘What is amazing about ‘Amazing Love’? – Book Review’ – Amazing Love: Theology for Understanding Discipleship, Sexuality and Mission was one of the books sent out to every member of the Church of England’s General Synod ahead of its meeting earlier this month, where the Synod began reviewing the Shared Conversations on human sexuality. Essentially Amazing Love argues that the Church needs to change its teaching on sexuality. Revd Dr Pete Sanlon has written a robust two-part review which first engages and comments on each chapter, and then reflects on the rhetorical and theological significance of the book. If you can only read one, the latter piece is particularly illuminating.

7) The Syrian refugee who swam for her life – all the way to the Olympics – Did you know that there will be a team of Refugee Olympic Athletes at this year’s Olympics? Amongst them will be swimmer Yusra Mardini, and her story is just remarkable.

Oh, and if you’re disappointed that there hasn’t been a single article about Pokemon Go, then if you can wait til Tuesday you’re in for a treat…

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