Quick Question
- What other stupid things do Christians say?
Showing posts with label resource wednesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resource wednesday. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
10 Things Christians Should Stop Saying | Jefferson Bethke
I have a lot of respect for this guy. He has an awesome name and he also talks a lot of sense. He is most famous for his Why I Hate Religion, But I Love Jesus video. This has received about 27 million views on YouTube. This is one of his more recent videos that lists stupid things Christians say.
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Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Resource Wednesday
Yet another Resource Wednesday. I've been looking into worship music a lot recently, especially new workings of old hymns. This is the Sing Team, one of Mars Hill's worship bands. However, I love the mix of community and praise they've got going.
I can't get enough of their music, especially Oh! Great is Our God! Listen to their album here. You can download the chords here.
Quick Question
I can't get enough of their music, especially Oh! Great is Our God! Listen to their album here. You can download the chords here.
Quick Question
- What are you listening to at the moment?
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Resource Wednesday
It's another one for the boys! Usually I do websites, and sometimes books, and sometimes eBooks. This week, it's going to be a podcast.
Christian Vision for Men is a movement for believing men and seeks to engage men across this country. Beechy and Willmott, from CVM, have a podcast, the Beechy & Willmott Drivetime Show.
A bit like Mark Driscoll, they call guys to become tougher, more robust Christians. They're happy to talk about the common sins in men's lives and call them up on it.
Quick Questions
Christian Vision for Men is a movement for believing men and seeks to engage men across this country. Beechy and Willmott, from CVM, have a podcast, the Beechy & Willmott Drivetime Show.
A bit like Mark Driscoll, they call guys to become tougher, more robust Christians. They're happy to talk about the common sins in men's lives and call them up on it.
Quick Questions
- What podcasts do you listen to?
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Resource Wednesday
Despite the fact that most my readers are probably female, this one is for the guys! It's from The Resurgence website that was a Resource Wednesday a couple of months back. But, before you accuse me of playing old records, it's an ebook that is available for download from there.
Porn-Again Christian is exactly what it says it is: "a frank discussion on pornography and masturbation". Mark Driscoll, who isn't known for holding back punches, really tells it as it is. This is really refreshing in a church society that try and avoid the subject and where my generation's only enduring memory of sex education is putting condoms on plastic phalluses.
He covers some of the untouchable areas of the Bible (pardon the pun), including Song of Songs and the famous Ezekiel 23:20 passage. What is also brilliant is the way it encourages and celebrates sex. It is a fantastic thing, as Song of Songs shows: but within the context of marriage. Christian sexual education can cause a sense of guilt and sexual repression that causes more harm than good.
My only problem with the book was chapter 8, which used an interview from serial killer, rapist and necrophile, Ted Bundy. This was an obvious scare tactic; if you watch porn you'll go on to kill woman. There are few problems with this argument. Ted Bundy showed abnormal and sadistic behaviour from a young age (as young as three, and some believed he killed his first victim at 14). The pornography was probably more symptomatic that causal. Also, Bundy was a prolific liar. Most of the content of that interview was probably untrue.
Apart from the prattle of a psychopath, this book is good. And it's free. So go read it!
He covers some of the untouchable areas of the Bible (pardon the pun), including Song of Songs and the famous Ezekiel 23:20 passage. What is also brilliant is the way it encourages and celebrates sex. It is a fantastic thing, as Song of Songs shows: but within the context of marriage. Christian sexual education can cause a sense of guilt and sexual repression that causes more harm than good.
My only problem with the book was chapter 8, which used an interview from serial killer, rapist and necrophile, Ted Bundy. This was an obvious scare tactic; if you watch porn you'll go on to kill woman. There are few problems with this argument. Ted Bundy showed abnormal and sadistic behaviour from a young age (as young as three, and some believed he killed his first victim at 14). The pornography was probably more symptomatic that causal. Also, Bundy was a prolific liar. Most of the content of that interview was probably untrue.
Apart from the prattle of a psychopath, this book is good. And it's free. So go read it!
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Resource Wednesday
This could be seen as a sort of book review, but I'm going to put it in Resource Wednesday anyway. It's not one of those linear, read-from-front-to-back books, it's more of a reference book. So that's how I'm justifying it.
Whilst at New Wine I hit the bookshop, and I came away with some new reads and my bank account quite a bit lighter.
One of the books I picked up was TouchPoints for Men. It's a book that collates verses by subject, from Goals to Temptation. It's already proved itself helpful, and I used it extensively when writing my next post (which is scheduled for Friday).
It's also a part of a series and there are TouchPoints for women, students, leaders, new believers and more.
Quick Questions
Whilst at New Wine I hit the bookshop, and I came away with some new reads and my bank account quite a bit lighter.
One of the books I picked up was TouchPoints for Men. It's a book that collates verses by subject, from Goals to Temptation. It's already proved itself helpful, and I used it extensively when writing my next post (which is scheduled for Friday).
It's also a part of a series and there are TouchPoints for women, students, leaders, new believers and more.
Quick Questions
- What do you use when looking up verses on a particular topic?
- What resources can you recommend?
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Resource Wednesday
Recently I've been posting quite a few videos and they're all coming from one particular site.
It's the Verge Network site. It has really good resources on being a missional community, giving us the why, how and who of proclaiming God's glory on Earth.
There's some really challenging posts, especially in my role as a youth worker. How can I remind the teens that they're meant to be trying to give people the opportunity to know about Jesus? How do I try and x:cell from being a holy huddle? How does Exilio disciple the teens to be counter-cultural but whilst also engaging with those around them?
This site may not provide all the answers, but does definitely prod and poke and encourage reflection and prayer.
The RSS feed of the site appears in my "Elsewhere on the web" side bar (when it hasn't been updated recently, click the "show all"). So if you want to know the latest, then click there.
Quick Questions
It's the Verge Network site. It has really good resources on being a missional community, giving us the why, how and who of proclaiming God's glory on Earth.
There's some really challenging posts, especially in my role as a youth worker. How can I remind the teens that they're meant to be trying to give people the opportunity to know about Jesus? How do I try and x:cell from being a holy huddle? How does Exilio disciple the teens to be counter-cultural but whilst also engaging with those around them?
This site may not provide all the answers, but does definitely prod and poke and encourage reflection and prayer.
The RSS feed of the site appears in my "Elsewhere on the web" side bar (when it hasn't been updated recently, click the "show all"). So if you want to know the latest, then click there.
Quick Questions
- What resources do you use?
- What type of resources would you like me to hunt out for you?
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Resource Wednesday
Sometimes, the most difficult things about being a youth worker is not the tears, the misbehaviour, the constant noise and mess. It's the questions. You get questions on the reliability of the Bible, eschatology, and how do we know Jesus was real. It's these moments as a youth worker that your heart really sinks. You feel the youth groups eyes on you, you co-leaders are waiting expectantly. You murmur some half-hashed answer and think why aren't there easily accessible resources for these types of questions.
It would be really helpful if there was a apologetics website that contained short, understandable articles, videos and soundbites. Perhaps it would contain articles about suffering, truth and culture, written by people such as Amy Orr-Ewing and Michael Ramsden? But, surely that is just a dream, a youth workers fantasy?
bethinking.org is UCCF's apologetics website. It's crammed full of articles, film reviews, videos of lectures, recordings of talks. It's good for youth workers, as it equips you with answers for those questions. But also, you can refer the teenagers to it and get them to start finding the answers to their questions.
As it's aimed at Christian students, some of the topics may go over the head of your teens. But probably not the ones who think enough to ask those type of questions. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief as you say, "Well, why don't you find the answer yourself. Go to bethinking.org and come back with what you find." Most likely they'll forget your advice and you'll never have to think about it again.
Quick Questions
It would be really helpful if there was a apologetics website that contained short, understandable articles, videos and soundbites. Perhaps it would contain articles about suffering, truth and culture, written by people such as Amy Orr-Ewing and Michael Ramsden? But, surely that is just a dream, a youth workers fantasy?
bethinking.org is UCCF's apologetics website. It's crammed full of articles, film reviews, videos of lectures, recordings of talks. It's good for youth workers, as it equips you with answers for those questions. But also, you can refer the teenagers to it and get them to start finding the answers to their questions.
As it's aimed at Christian students, some of the topics may go over the head of your teens. But probably not the ones who think enough to ask those type of questions. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief as you say, "Well, why don't you find the answer yourself. Go to bethinking.org and come back with what you find." Most likely they'll forget your advice and you'll never have to think about it again.
Quick Questions
- What's your method of sweeping difficult questions under the rug?
- If you say you'll get back to someone with the answer, do you?
- What questions do you have? What do you want to know?
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Resource Wednesday
The second of the Resource Wednesday series. I'm doing well so far (mainly because I wrote this on the same day as the last one and scheduled it for two weeks time).
This week we'll take a brief look at The Resurgence website. It's a resource bank provided by Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and the Acts 29 network. It has loads of helpful posts about numerous topics, such as mission, being a Godly wife and Dead Guys.
I just love the amount of resources it has and the fact it has new things daily. It's primarily aimed at leaders (the site's motto is "We serve leaders"), but their definition of leaders is quite broad. This can include youth-leaders, leaders within the home or church leaders.
My only criticism is very hard to qualify and happens in only a tiny number of the articles. The site is American, and if you find people like Mark Driscoll grating, you'll probably find some of the articles grate with you too. It's not so much what they are trying to say, but the presentation of it.
It's quite a big site, with a lot of resources but to give you a flavour I'll pick out a small selection:
This week we'll take a brief look at The Resurgence website. It's a resource bank provided by Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and the Acts 29 network. It has loads of helpful posts about numerous topics, such as mission, being a Godly wife and Dead Guys.
I just love the amount of resources it has and the fact it has new things daily. It's primarily aimed at leaders (the site's motto is "We serve leaders"), but their definition of leaders is quite broad. This can include youth-leaders, leaders within the home or church leaders.
My only criticism is very hard to qualify and happens in only a tiny number of the articles. The site is American, and if you find people like Mark Driscoll grating, you'll probably find some of the articles grate with you too. It's not so much what they are trying to say, but the presentation of it.
It's quite a big site, with a lot of resources but to give you a flavour I'll pick out a small selection:
But be warned. Some of the stuff on this site is pretty challenging.
Quick Questions
- What sites do you use?
- Did you find the video about the Death of the Mushy Middle encouraging?
- Have you found any good pages on The Resurgence website?
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Resource Wednesday
I tried to a few series in my previous blog. It always ended badly. So, I'm probably going to need a bit of participation from you guys. Therefore, if you know any good online resources please let me know. They could be Bible study tools, sites with good videos or articles about Christianity. Feel free to just point me in a certain direction or write a guest post for me to put up.
I thought I'd start with a bog-standard one: BibleGateway.com. It's always been a really helpful site and you'll often find me on it. I often use it to read commentaries on different passages, to see what the passage is in a different version or just when I can't be bother to reach for my Bible which is probably in my bag next to me. The key to youth-work is efficiency and BibleGateway is a really good way to quickly look up multiple passages, especially when they can be spread across the whole Bible.
BibleGateway, however, was a bit clunky and you sometimes had to go obscure routes to read the commentaries. This is no more, because, as of today, BibleGateway has gone Beta.
Apart from the fact that it just looks cooler, it's also much easier to use. You can set up parallel readings and view the resources for that passage (such as commentaries and dictionaries) along side it. I makes delving and investigating passages a lot simpler and makes it a lot more rewarding. I is an really accessible way to learn about the richness and complexity of the Bible.
But don't let me convince you, let Rachel Barach. Or give it a go yourself.
Quick Questions
I thought I'd start with a bog-standard one: BibleGateway.com. It's always been a really helpful site and you'll often find me on it. I often use it to read commentaries on different passages, to see what the passage is in a different version or just when I can't be bother to reach for my Bible which is probably in my bag next to me. The key to youth-work is efficiency and BibleGateway is a really good way to quickly look up multiple passages, especially when they can be spread across the whole Bible.
BibleGateway, however, was a bit clunky and you sometimes had to go obscure routes to read the commentaries. This is no more, because, as of today, BibleGateway has gone Beta.
 |
| New look of BibleGateway.com |
Apart from the fact that it just looks cooler, it's also much easier to use. You can set up parallel readings and view the resources for that passage (such as commentaries and dictionaries) along side it. I makes delving and investigating passages a lot simpler and makes it a lot more rewarding. I is an really accessible way to learn about the richness and complexity of the Bible.
But don't let me convince you, let Rachel Barach. Or give it a go yourself.
Quick Questions
- What do you think of the new look BibleGateway?
- What internet resources do you use?
The next one will be up in a fortnight.
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