They'll never get me. Does God have to have me here?
Exactly 59 minutes later, we are all out the door. I am thinking the same thing I think every week - really, I didn't get much from that. The knowledge that my real spiritual high will come this afternoon, on a training run in breezy sunshine with my iPod and worship music, nags me.
Read moreHe begins his confession by quoting a famous poem of the metaphysical poet, George Herbert - "Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back". If it seems a little odd for a 17th century Anglican minister to be quoted in this context, don't be put off; great poetry speaks to everyone in every age; indeed, there is something hugely poignant in Herbert's careful and elaborate conceits being linked to this very 21st century prodigal son.
Read moreWith his body twisting in agony, he uttered three prescient words, "God help me."
During those days, he journeyed "to another, larger dimension of the universe, a dimension I'd never dreamed existed." He entered a new world, "where death is not the end of consciousness, but rather a chapter in a vast and incalculably positive journey."
Read moreBased on the trends I see in younger generations (trends which are the product of decades of social change, not Facebook), the Church will have to revisit this issue of church polity if it is to regain an active presence in the lives of Americans.
Christianity and community
Read moreDr. Benjamin Wiker: You say in There is a God, that "it may well be that no one is as surprised as I am that my exploration of the Divine has after all these years turned from denial...to discovery." Everyone else was certainly very surprised as well, perhaps all the more so since on our end, it seemed so sudden.
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After a rebellious youth, Graham found a straight and narrow path that took him to the pulpit and the helm of his father's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
But for every Franklin Graham, there's a Friedrich Nietzsche, the atheist philosopher whose father was a Lutheran minister. For every Condoleezza Rice, there's an Alice Cooper, the heavy-metal singing, fake-blood spouting son of a preacher man.
Mr. Ash, now director of the Proclamation Trust's Cornhill Training Course in London, was StAG families curate from 1993-97, then rector of one of its church grafts, All Saints, Little Shelford, from 1997-2004. He writes very perceptively about the right motivation for church planting - no empire building: We were very concerned that that the church-planting projects should avoid any danger of magnifying St Andrew the Great.
Read moreI was wrong. The church closed just a few weeks ago. Like many dying churches, it held on to life tenaciously. This church lasted ten years after my terminal diagnosis.
Read moreFrom the Bible and from history, we know God is on mission to bless all nations: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6). Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM), launched in the chapel of the Bishop of Virginia in 1993, works to multiply biblical, indigenous churches where the need is greatest: among the 25 largest, least evangelized people groups on earth.
Read moreWhen I came to the Diocese of Chelmsford in 1983, there were (as I recall) over 600 stipendiary clergy. By 2025, the number of incumbent-level posts will have dropped to 215. To cope with these changes, a diocese of several hundred parishes will be broken down into roughly seventy 'mission units' the size of mini-deaneries, each resourced by a centralized team.
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