A Midland vicar apologised to a Church of England court yesterday - for laying a new carpet.
The Rev Nigel di Castiglione, Rector of St Mary's and All Saints' Church in Trentham, Staffordshire, covered some rare tiles with the carpet, took out some pews and moved the font to tidy the place up.
But he carried out the work without the permission of his diocese.
'Don't let worries kill you; let the church help.'
'The best vitamin for a Christian is B-1.' 'God answers knee-mail.' 'Free Trip to heaven ... details Inside!' 'Running low on faith? Stop in for a fill-up.' Motorists glance at them for just a moment, but ministers see church marquee messages as a great chance to attract people with a groaner of a pun or a thought-provoking phrase. Coming up with pithy messages has even sparked a cottage industry of sorts, inspiring a half-dozen books and e-mail traffic.
The churches are a reflection of the truth of Plato’s statement, "What’s honored in the country will be cultivated there." When we got started as a country, we had no more than 3 million people--less than Los Angeles County today. Yet we turned out Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton--you can name a list as long as your arm. How many people on the public stage can you name today who are of the caliber of those first men? And why aren’t there more? Because what’s honored in the country will be cultivated there.
Or how come those itty, bitty Italian city-states turned out one fantastic painter and sculptor after another? Because every kid couldn’t wait to get his mitt on a paint brush. What’s honored in the country will be cultivated there. We have fantastic athletes. I watched the Spurs and Lakers yesterday. Those guys play basketball like nobody’s business. Yet we have mediocre politicians, and the clergy is pretty mediocre also. But what’s honored in a country will be cultivated there. The greatest recession in this country is not economic; it’s spiritual. And so the great biblical mandates of pursuing justice and seeking peace are shortchanged.
In the postmodern worship experience, emphasis is often placed on the feel of worship, incorporating the five senses into a service.
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In other words, is the emerging church movement a vital example of contextualizing the gospel, or is it a syncretism
The two men will be formally anointed later this month at the Democratic convention in Boston
1. To apply oil, ointment, or a similar substance to.
2. To put oil on during a religious ceremony as a sign of sanctification or consecration.
3. To choose by or as if by divine intervention.
The ongoing vision of Allelon is that the Church would be a people among whom God can live, as sign, symbol, and foretaste of his redeeming love and grace; who in their life together will, reproduce God's Kingdom life; who will as God's creative instruments, embody, announce, and demonstrate the Gospel of the Kingdom; and, as God's redeemed and redemptive alternative community, will be allelon for the whole church and for the sake of the world.
[RM]: “I think you quoted Tozer a while back in another interview where he suggested that a new heretical thought had entered the modern Christian thought. The idea that people come to Jesus and say, ‘I want some of your blood for the forgiveness of my sins, but I don’t have any intention of following you or obeying you, and now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to get on with my life’.”
[DW]: “Those are what I call ‘Vampire Christians’. Tozer actually does say that this is outright heresy. He was very clear about this and the dear man was such a Christ-like man that he could do this and get away with it. But, on the other hand, you’ll have people who will hear this and say, ‘Isn’t that pretty?’ and they’ll do absolutely nothing about it.”
As intelligent men they were capable of addressing issues clearly and that is what you do not hear today. The level of intelligence in our sermons, the abysmal story telling that you hear constantly is just hopeless. The power that comes through the Bible itself, which is the most intelligent book ever written, is lost.
I lived for two years in the Netherlands as an “expatriate” - someone who lives as a non-citizen in a country not their own. I learned a lot of things, but most of all, through the homesickness I sometimes felt, even in the midst of loving my experience of living abroad, I learned an excellent model for our time here on earth. We are, all of us who know Christ, expatriates- living for a time in a foreign country. We can enjoy it, but if we ever stop feeling homesick, we are in trouble.
So, next Fourth of July, go ahead and light off some fireworks, thank God for the freedoms you have, enjoy a nice parade or picnic… but maybe leave the Star-Spangled Banner out of the worship set, okay?
Perhaps what most weighed upon my mind as I read Lockwood's book was his diagnosis of religious responses to the locust plagues. On the American frontier, farmers who faced the oncoming cloud of ruin were forced to ask for aid. At first, they asked the church, and the church responded with prayers. But when it came time to ask for more than prayer, the church shut its doors. As Lockwood states, 'Offering up prayers was one thing--giving up wages was quite another.'
In the end, the destitute turned to the federal government for their subsistence, eventually raising a series of fundamental political questions that would set precedents for agricultural policy, natural disaster, and federal relief into the present time. Today, we wait for the government to pronounce a 'natural disaster'--where 'natural' means precisely that.
Reviving a meme borrowed from my cousin a couple months back . . .
1. Grab the closest book.
2. Turn to page 64.
3. Find third complete sentence.
4. Print sentence in comments here or on your own site (a trackback would be nice).
Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person.
The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus. And by that I mean they’re learning from Him how to live their life, as He would live their life if He were they. So that means, whatever I am, whoever I am, I take Him into my whole life as my Lord. Lord means that He’s my teacher. Another way of putting this is to say that our greatest challenge is to recover Jesus the Teacher. You know, if you don’t have a teacher you can’t have a disciple. Disciples are just students. Unfortunately, it’s a long and convoluted story, but roughly over the last two hundred years, Jesus as Teacher has simply disappeared. Whether Liberal or Conservative, it doesn’t make any difference. This is the unfortunate fact, and it lies at the foundation of the efforts of many people today to find a different form for the Church.
Pocknee's lab has created a boxy contraption that has rubber tires, a jumble of wires and hoses, a GPS system and several computers. It can be guided by GPS signals or a human with a joystick through a wireless network.
