Challenging Times

Great opportunities for writing, studying and travelling.

We have vacancies for two people to join our team as interns. This is an opportunity to:

• spend a year in the UK
• gain some formal theological training
• gain practical experience of researching and writing
• get to grips with the cultural changes that are sweeping the western world
• (probably) take part in a mission/ministry trip somewhere in western Europe

This is an opportunity that would suit someone who is graduating from university this summer, and wants to take a year out, and give some time to Christian service while growing in their own discipleship.
Go here for more information

The ruins of an ancient church building discovered in the prison at Megiddo, Israel, contain an inscription ‘To God Jesus Christ.’

Archaeologists have dated this church building to around 230 AD. This makes it the earliest Christian church building discovered in Israel – and the inscription is the earliest inscription anywhere mentioning Jesus Christ.

This is an important archaeological discovery. It also drives a coach and horses through Dan Brown’s assertion in The Da Vinci Code that Jesus was made Son of God by a vote at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, at the insistence of the Roman emperor Constantine – this inscription dates from about a hundred years before the Council of Nicaea.

For more on this story…

Revd. Dr. Josh Moody, Senior Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, CT, wrote recently:

Following on from the success of ‘Facing the Challenge of our Times’, David Couchman has put together a much needed resource specifically aimed at the all-consuming impact that TV has upon the Christian mind. Indubitably, we are influenced by our environment, and the media form of TV is so pervasive that it necessitates a thoughtful Christian response. Couchman delivers: in this 8 week course there are helpful questions, quotations from modern authors that will stir discussion, and a general call to a careful and thoughtfully balanced engagement with today’s media rich world.

Amazing Grace is a superb film – powerful, moving and inspirational. Michael Apted’s direction and Steven Knight’s screenplay are both excellent. Apted conveys the horror of slavery without assailing viewers with endless scenes of slaves being mistreated. It is our awareness of the reality behind the story that makes it so disturbing. What helps to drive it home is the exceptional performances as characters in the film reflect on how the slaves are treated.

- From the review of the film by Tony Watkins. Go here to read the full review.

Tony Watkins’ new book ‘Focus: the Art and Soul of Cinema’ helps followers of Christ get to grips with how movies affect us – and how we can engage with them positively.

For more, go to Focus: the Art and Soul of Cinema

‘Churchgoing in the UK’ is a recent survey by TEAR Fund of seven thousand people.

It found that 53% of people in Britain still call themselves Christians; one in ten goes to church every week, and one in seven every month.

On the strength of these results, Matthew Frost of TEAR Fund said:

What is clear from this survey is that the UK is holding firmly to the Christian Faith.

The shallow grave of false hope

I don’t like to disagree with a Christian brother, but I do wonder which planet he’s living on.

OK, 53% call themselves Christians. So what? What does this mean? In the last census, in 2001, almost three quarters of us called ourselves Christians – a decrease of 20% in six years. How is that ‘holding firmly to the Faith’?

One in ten goes to church each week. That means that nine out of ten don’t go to church. How is that ‘holding firmly to the Faith’?

The survey also found that two thirds of the people in Britain haven’t been to church in the past year, except for baptisms, weddings and funerals. This means that a significant number of people call themselves Christians, but wouldn’t be seen dead in a church. (Well, that isn’t quite true. One of the few times they would be seen inside a church is when they’re dead…) How is this ‘holding firmly to the Faith’?

The survey found that the UK is one of the four least religiously observant countries in Europe. How is that…. you get the point.

It’s time we stopped fooling ourselves with the idea that the church in this country can carry on with ‘business as usual.’ This survey is very helpful in giving us some real figures, but the spin doctoring that’s already going on is far less helpful.

Elaine Storkey, the president of TEAR Fund, hits a lot closer to the mark when she says that

The church for a lot of people is a very strange place these days. They’re not familiar with what’s going on inside the building, with the form of service, with the way people gather, with what they say, how they pray.

And with clarity and realism she says that the first thing the churches

have really got to wake up to is that there is this big cultural gap between the churched and the non-churched.

Glimmers

There are some positive signs in the survey: church-going among adults from black ethnic groups is three times higher than from whites. The future of the Faith in this country is much more multi-ethnic and multi-cultural than most of us have yet grasped.
And nearly three million more people say that they would go to church if they were given ‘the right invitation’ – for example a personal invitation, the chance to go with a friend or relative, or the offer of help during difficult circumstances.

Churchgoing in the UK