Sunday, November 24, 2013

Christian Primary School Assembly on Friendship

Begin with a quiz / game in which you get 3 pairs of friends up and ask 3 sets of questions in Mr & Mrs style to find out how well they know their friend:

E.g. what does your friend want to be when they grow up?

How many brothers and sisters do they have?

What's their favourite thing to do for fun?

The point is that good friends know one another.

Reading: John 15:14-15
"you are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father. 

Jesus friends know him. Jesus tells us what he thinks and feels and plans in the Bible. 

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Women Bishops: Impossible or Just Wrong?

Forgive me, I am repeating myself here, but someone else must have thought about this important question before and better than me.

It seems that those of us who are against women Bishops really need to work out which of the following positions we take (or what other position we adopt). This is key to working out what proper provision would be like for us.

Is it:

(1) Bishops are and must be men; women are not and cannot be men men; women are not and cannot be Bishops. That is, the Church of England might try to make women Bishops but that cannot be done, it is impossible. We cannot acknowledge a woman as a true Bishop even if she might be a bishop in law.

Or

(2) Women ought not to be bishops but they can be. The Church of England shouldn't make women Bishops but it can and it will. We can acknowledge women as true and lawful Bishops even though we wouldn't and shouldn't have done this thing.

Position (2) would make it a lot easier for us and the provision we would need would be less significant. And presumably it would make the Women Bishops and their supporters happier.

Does that all make sense? Are these good questions and what are the answers?

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Women Bishops questions that leap to mind

Well, I have at least the following questions about where we are in this whole process:

(1) Will the conscience of individual incumbents be respected? All the talk seems to be of PCCs asking for some kind of alternative provision.

(2) Will clergy be required to assent to the fact that women really are bishops? How does this provide a place for those who hold to an impossiblist position analogouge to someone who argues that homosexuals cannot marry?

(3) We are told that traditionalists should have an honoured place in the C of E. Have those who have said that male headship views are incompatible with a gospel theology repent of this view?

(4) Surely it is a matter of natural justice that there should be a conservative evangelical Diocisan Bishop?

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

David & Sally's holiday choices



Play along with me in a little thought experiment for a moment.
Imagine Dave and Sally.
Dave and Sally are married.
They want to go on holiday.
They are thinking of going together.
But Dave wants to go to the mountains and Sally wants to go to the beach.
Should they go to the beach or to the mountains?
Imagine they can’t find a beach up a mountain.
I suppose they could compromise and go to the lakes, but just ignore that possibility for a moment.
There are some binary choices in life where you have to choose one or the other.
Just imagine that Dave and Sally have to go on holiday together and they have to go either to the mountains or the beach.
And imagine this is going to be their only holiday ever: they can’t go to the beach this year and the mountains next year.
And imagine that the mountains and the beach are the same in every other respect: the holidays are exactly the same price, exactly the same distance away and so on.
How on earth do they decide?
This may seem a little theoretical by now but the principle does matter.
And the answer is simple. 

DV Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:22ff will answer this great question. 

Monday, November 18, 2013

C S Lewis

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death, and a memorial stone to the author is due to be unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

C S Lewis' Screwtape Letters is the Book of the Week on Radio 4 this week.

You might be interested in Prof Alistair McGrath new life of Lewis.You can also find links to 4 talks McGrath has given on Lewis here.

The Desiring God National Conference 2013 was on the subject of Lewis. As well as Piper there are addresses from Doug & Nate Wilson, Vanhoozer, Philip Ryken and others. 

Google, of course, reveals lots of other lovely C S Lewis goodies.

Training Pastors: a proposal for theological colleges

Maybe there should be a rule that the average age of Faculty members at the theological seminary should not be less than 50. And maybe the majority should have been incumbents or senior pastors. I wonder how this would affect formation for ministry?

Oh, and maybe all pastors should be 30 before they are ordained. 

As a friend pointed out on Twitter, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ "trained pastors" when he was only 30. He would have pulled down the faculty average!

Saturday, November 16, 2013

New Bell Cuisine Recipie Book

New Bell Cuisine: Nibbles & Bites From Warbleton ed. Margaret McCarthy 118pp. £5 + p&p. Order here or collect from The Stores, Rushlake Green, Warbleton church, Shaw's Garage and selected pubs. All proceeds to the bells appeal.