"New Atheism - Taking it Seriously"

Here is a free training event with Dr John Lennox from Oxford University on the "New Atheism - Taking it Seriously". John is a Mathematican and Christian apologist and has publically debated a number of leading atheists such as Prof Richard Dawkins. John has written a number of books including God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? and Christianity: Opium or Truth? Details on the event can be found in the brochure below. The brochure can also be downloaded from www.gospeloutreach.com.au/resources/JLConference.jpg To register simply send an email to info@publicchristianity.org or call 02 9955 0077.

150 reams of paper info

One of our 645 community projects is to donate 150 reams of paper to MAG by August 9. Some important questions and answers below.

What is MAG? Mission Aid Group (MAG) supports the work of CMS missionaries by supplying goods that are expensive or hard to get. These goods are for the use of Tanzanians in hospitals, schools and training centre's. MAG is a practical way for YOU to share what God has given you, by buying simple, everyday necessities, making things or giving money to help with freight costs.

Why reams of Paper? Paper is in short supply in Tanzania. Churches and schools need paper to teach and resource gospel ministry. We have the opportunity of practically supporting ministry in this simple and cheap way.

What do I do? You can support this project in 3 ways

• OPTION 1: Bring your ream of paper on Sunday nights. Give to an usher who will store it in the conference room. We will count and store the paper each week and let you know
• OPTION 2: Collect reams of paper in your CONNECT GROUPS or in YOUTH BIBLESTUDY GROUPS. Then on Sunday 2nd or 9th bring it all to Church.
• OPTION 3: You can deliever it to the Church office (7 Lombard St during the week)
• OPTION 4: You can donate money to finance the freight cost of getting it to Africa. Put in marked envelope in the giving.

Is there a theology of singleness?

Great questions last Sunday on relationships. One of the really sharp questions that came up on the feedback cards and question time was about singleness. Is there biblical sexuality for singles beyond 'flee sexual immorality'? What does it look like to be a good model of Christian singleness?

As Ed mentioned on Sunday night, we (as the community of 645) need to do a lot more thinking and exploration of this. We need to carefully listen to the Word of God and share our wisdom on this. So there's not a neat tidy answer ready to go on this one. Some thoughts to keep us thinking

1. As a community we need to acknowledge that singleness can be a hidden torment for some people. Feelings of loneliness and isolation can be very powerfully present in people's lives. This is where couples need to make sure they embrace and welcome singles not exclude or avoid because they feel awkward about them. Again couples need to love singles not by trying to match them up with other singles but by being their brother and sister in Christ. 

2. While God has created us for relationship, the Bible doesn't see singleness as a necessary curse. Both Jesus and the apostle Paul lived full rich authentic lives as single men. Paul saw his singleness as a blessing - allowing him to serve Jesus more than he would have with all the responsibilities of family (See 1 Corinthians 7). Older generations will remember the ministry of the evangelist John Chapman and our own Peter Johnston who had massive ministries to others as single men.

3. A wise woman said to me after Sunday that we need to be careful not to think that getting married will be the end of all our problems. Heartache and loneliness can be realities in marriages. Marriages require work and responsibility that singleness doesn't bring. It really is better to be single than suffer in a bad marriage. So we need to spare ourselves the disappointment that comes from thinking 'if i could just find someone, then i'd be happy'. 

4. It occurred to me that there's a real sense that the way we model godly singleness is the way we do it in every part of life. How do you model godly work, parenting, priorities, dating, study etc? By putting Jesus first and serving him in all things. It might sound too neat but this is real. When the pain of singleness is very real it can be tempting to withdraw, get critical of couples and complain 'the church' doesn't do enough for singles. The way of Christian freedom is not to be controlled and dominated by this but to get on serving Jesus. This has 3 real benefits - as you pour your time into serving Jesus; you become a better and better potential husband or wife, you are more likely to meet a great godly partner who'll see that in you, and you find a greater  wholeness and fulfillment as you know Jesus more deeply. It's not neat. It's doesn't mean the longing for a partner ends but you're less defined and dominated by 'being single'. 

There's so much more we need to explore and discuss together but this hopefully gets us thinking. 

James

Is God still intervening in our painful world now?

Last Sunday (July 6th) we continued our series 'Wrestling with God, wrestling with life' with the big topic of 'If Jesus is King, then why all the pain in our world'. As I said on Sunday night it's a raw messy painful topic, well beyond just 1 talk and question time. So it was great to get some follow up questions 'If God felt so much sorrow in his time on earth and healed the sick and raise the dead, why did he have mercy on those ones and not others?'. Some thoughts:

1. Sometimes this question is driven by a fragile assumption. 'I'm a good person, so good things should happen to me...i deserve God's blessing'. In fact, the Bible is very clear that everything we receive from God is a gift not a right. God gives us good things because he is generous not because we deserve it. This stops us from getting pushy with God and demanding that he bless us in everything. If we experience pain and suffering it's not unfair or somehow a sign that God doesn't care about us. 

2. But you may ask, what about God being compassionate (like we saw in Luke 7:11-17) and intervening in our pain. This is the 'problem' that Jesus encountered. As he walk in the world pain and suffering were all around him. He could do so much to help people and yet the need would never end. We see this in Mark's gospel. Have a look at chapter 1. Jesus is introduced as the long awaited messiah promised by Isaiah. He has power over evil (casting out demons) and sickness. The crowds flock to him. By chapter 1 verse 45 (1:45) Jesus can no longer enter a town in the area because of all the crowds of people wanting healing. In 1:38 Jesus says he has come to preach that the kingdom of God has come and not spend all his time healing. Again in the famous incident of the paralysed man lowered through the roof by his friends, Jesus tells them he heals the man to demonstrate that he has authority to forgive sins. As you read on in the gospels Jesus deliberately turns his face not to all the pain around him but to Jerusalem where he goes to die for the sins of the world. 

So (and finally here's the point) the solution to the pain and suffering in this world was not for Jesus to spend his life healing but to die on a cross to defeat sin and death. In doing so he made THE real difference in the world, not just for then and there for Israel in the 1st century but for all eternity and for everyone who puts there trust in him. 

A related question raised on Sunday night was, do we see God intervening in pain and suffering now?

This is a good question, engaging with our experience of pain now. We know the love and power of God so we ask - why not just step in here and there...and here etc. 

We need to understand properly just how sovereign and present in our world God is. We live in a culture that has kept on pushing 'religion' to a little corner that has little to do with our daily life. So we're tempted to think that our world runs along without God like a machine. He might fine tune it every now and then but he's basically sitting back watching. So then only when something dramatic happens (like a healing, or dramatic rescue or a disaster) we think that's the only time we really see God's presence. This leads to, what some writers have called, the 'God of the gaps' - God explains and is only real or present in the things we can't make sense of ourselves. So when we come to suffering we say 'What is God doing, he's not filling in this gap here so he's not doing anything'. But it's here where the Bible brings us back to reality - God is constantly sustaining and caring for this world (Have a look at Psalm 3:5, Hebrews 1:3, Revelation 4:11). The fact we wake up in the morning, that life is not chaos, that life is not filled with constant suffering, that this world is not as evil as it could be is God's daily mercy and protection in our lives. Sometimes that's spectacular and unexpected but that shouldn't make us ungrateful or dismissive of God's daily care and protection of us. 

There's some more thoughts to wrestle with.

James

 

www.freerice.com

Poem

“When I said, ‘my foot is slipping’, your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.” Psalm 94:18-19

One night I looked before me
At the path that lay ahead
The troubles that were coming;
I wished another way instead.
My heart was frail within me,
I could not take a step.
I trusted in my strength alone
And weak, I sat and wept.
Yet as I began to cower
A voice, it called to me
It said ‘Rise, my child, I love you,’
And I said ‘But Lord, I am so weak.’
He said, ‘Child, I am with you,
When you are weak I will be strong.’
I said, ‘O Lord, sustain me,
I am so tempted to do wrong.’
He said, ‘Fear not precious child,
Though hardship may arise
My love will guide and teach you
And I will help you to be wise.’
‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘I’m unworthy,’
‘Take courage, my child, take heart.
I have made you and I will carry you;
And you and I shall never part.’
I said, ‘O Lord, I trust you.’
And I rose and looked ahead
And with the hope of life behind me
I stepped forward with no dread.

Naomi

Question - Amos - Disasters

Can we assume that the current worldly disasters are a direct result of God’s judgment or just because we live in a sinful world?

In short, I think that the disasters we see are both a result of living in a sinful world and God's judgement. In addition, they are meant to point us back to God. What we cannot do is make a call on whether a particular event is one or the other, just as we cannot make a call on whether a particular event is related to a particular sin. We can only know these things if God tells us.

The disasters sent by God and described in Amos 4 were to be seen as warnings of the need to repent and turn back to God because of the judgement to come (we read several times that they did not return to God, vv6,8,9,10,11).

In the NT, Jesus speaks of the disasters that will occur in the end times or last days, that is, the period between his first and second comings. These are signs that we ought to expect the end at any time and so stay awake as well as turn back to God (Mark 13:28-37). This, I take it is what we are experiencing.

We are not in a position to make a direct link between a particular sin and a particular punishment or judgement, that is, we cannot say that this event is God's response to that sin, unless God tells us. In the OT there are many instances of specific judgements as the result of specific sins (eg Assyria's invasion and destruction of Israel). In the NT, the apostle Paul is able to declare that the sickness and death the Corinthians were experiencing was a direct result of their behaviour towards one another (1 Cor 11:30), or God's judgement on Ananias and Sapphira, was also a direct result of their behaviour (Acts 5).

George

Prisioneralert.com

This is a site where you can write a letter to a Christian in prison in a restricted nation. The web site translates the letters into the language that the prisoner can read. As we heard on Sunday giving money is a really practical way we can care for those being persecuted, and i think that this could be another practical way where 645 can encourage our persecuted brothers and sisters. Mel H

Reachout Conference Aug 16

REACHOUT CONFERENCE “TRANSFORMERS-AGENTS OF CHANGE

“Reachout exists in cooperation with mission agencies and Bible colleges, to glorify God and make it easy for young people to explore mission and become involved. ”

When: 15-17 August 2008 Where: Katoomba Christian Convention Centre
Cost:$30.00 (for whole of Saturday) or $50.00(for whole of weekend)

At Reachout we will hear from 2 great speakers, Jason Mandryk ( co-author of Operation World) and Mike Raiter who will talk about God’s plan to Transform the world-and your part to play in it.

There will be opportunities to talk to mission reps from a number of mission agencies, attend seminars as well as time to fellowship with one another through praying, singing and drinking coffee, plus lots more….

A lot of people come to Reachout for the Saturday and I am hoping you will join me on a trip to Katoomba on August 16th. If you have any questions or are interested I can give you a Reachout flyer/postcard.You can also talk to me at church, send me a message through facebook or visit the Reachout website, http://www.reachout.au.com if you are wanting further information. It would be great if you could prayerfully consider coming to Reachout and even sacrifice a sleep in for this one Saturday!

Thanks Yohanna