Tag Archives: blogs

Collection of Webs: April

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to. If you have missed any collection of webs this year you can find them all on this page.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Bryony writes about her Church Youth Weekend away: If you have Jesus, then you have everything you need for life. Not just today, not just in this moment, but for your whole life. (Amen to that!)

I am currently studying 2 Timothy with Bish at the moment, so it’s always great to see him blog about it. Here is a cracking post about maturity: “Wisdom is chewy.
Wisdom is slow-cooker.”

Emily unpacks the story of Elijah when he stops to rest under the broom tree. Its a great little post to encourage you!: “I know the journey is too great for you. Here, eat this, and drink a little of this water.’

Mike Shaw writes about students and their final year exams, an encouraging post in a season of exams and anxieties for students: “So as many students enter their final year, their priority has to be cross shaped, not exam shaped.”

Tanya wrote an amazing and challenging post on Disability living allowance in the UK. This is certainly worth a read: “It is plain misleading, and the truth of what is happening is being buried under debates about Wizard of Oz songs in the charts.”

Blog Posts Out There:

An article about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter and her battle with depression: “Christians who suffer from depression find themselves “suffering quietly and in fear of what their friends would say”, she said.”

What happens when you really disconnect? “By the end of nine days, I felt empowered and enriched. With my brain quieter, I was able to take back control of my attention.”

Pam writes about Naming the Top: “I’m sure Jesus mentioned something about arguing who is the greatest”

David Murray writes I’d rather be a godly administrator than an ungodly minister: “You spend your week filing papers, printing reports, chasing up bad debts, putting stamps on envelopes. Then you go to church on Sunday and you see a man leading hundreds in worship and prayer, and preaching inspiring sermons. It’s pretty obvious who’s pleasing God most isn’t it?”

Books:

I finished reading Life of Pi! Which I really enjoyed, I haven’t seen the film yet but I really want to! I think its such a clever book and lots of themes can be drawn out from it!

I’m now reading Cloud Atlas which is a fun and really different book. I am only a quarter of the way through but I think all the lives of different people will link together throughout the book!

I’m also reading Serving without Sinking by John Hindley which has been an encouraging read. Its been focusing me back onto Christ which is certainly what I need!

In the Garden:

We have started gardening this year. Already planted: Carrots, potatoes, garlic, broccoli and leeks in the raised beds. In the green house we have Aubergines, Peppers and Tomatoes! Already some of the potatoes and garlic are showing leaves above ground which is very exciting!! I hope to give you updates on these as the year goes by.

Posts on my blog:

Stewarding, Strife and Smiles: My account of the challenges of stewarding at a conference.

Two Years of Marriage: What I have learnt in my marriage so far.

Introverts at a Conference: How an introvert can survive going to a conference!

Collection of Webs: March

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to.

Blogs Posts from friends:

My friend Ali has started blogging again over at Redeeming Clouds. It’s a great read and worth having in your bookmarks.

My friend Emily has been writing a series about how she isn’t a morning person. A really good little series to read.

Tanya writes a cracking post on penguins and parenting. It’s heart-wrenching and you may cry at the end!!

Blog Posts Out There:

Creative People Say No: Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.

10 Time management Rules you are breaking: A helpful list of being more productive.

God will find you in your dark place: When you’re in a dark place, God crawls into the darkness with you, tells you He’s with you, and then he holds you till hope begins stirring in your soul.

Books:

Finished Miranda: Is it just me? Which was delightful, funny and full of good little stories. Certainly a feel good book.

I finished Reading Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp – one of the best books on pastoral ministry that I have read so far. Challenging, insightful and helpful!

Also finished reading Real Marriage: by the Driscolls which was an interesting and also helpful read in places.

Now I am reading Life of Pi, which is a fantastic read so far.

I am also on Good Reads if you want to find out more about what I am reading or what I am going to read etc.

Posts on my blog:

Do Check out my Black Mirror Series that I wrote last month.

6 Questions for Christian Leaders

Jesus or Cheesus?

Black Mirror: Life, Death and Resurrection

blackmirrorI have come to an end of my mini series of engaging with the Black Mirror series. I only looked at 3 episodes but there are another 3 you can watch and they are worth watching, I just felt these 3 really resonated with me. I enjoyed observing and thinking about the ideas that black mirror presents to us. It challenges us on how we use social networking, technology, how we view ourselves and our desires and society. There are many other themes within these episodes that I did not talk about. But the ones I picked out were:

15 Million Merits: The fullness of life: Looking at Incarnation – the real, the dirt and the humanity of people. The tendency to hide in a virtual world where we become numb and lifeless and we find ourselves craving for something real and something true. So we must come and look at Christ who offers us fullness of life which is found in the reality of how fully human He is. Flesh not virtual.

The Entire History of You: Imagine you could remember everything. Nothing is forgotten. The only way to forgive someone is by erasing them from your memory. But is that enough? Does that really produce genuine forgiveness in your heart? Jesus offers us something better. He offers himself on the cross for true forgiveness and healing.

Be Right Back: We desire our loved ones back. We desire resurrection. But not a lifeless, hollow resurrection. Not a life that can only be found on facebook or in any virtual world. We want full, life filled resurrection. We want life after death. We want real hope. Jesus offers us real and true resurrection. When he said “Be right Back” He came back as a new creation, eating, drinking and fully beautiful. Only Jesus offers that.

So those are the three:

Incarnation, The Cross and Resurrection.

Life to the Full, Truly Forgiven, Life after death.

The world craves and yearns for it but it can only and ever come through and in Jesus Christ.

Collection of Webs: February

Here is a monthly collection of webs where I share with you what I have been reading on blogs, articles, books and what I have been watching or listening to.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Elli posts on Defining Terms and she remarks: “So, here’s the deal. I’m giving myself a new label, one that to some is going to sound the epitome of oxymoronic, but I don’t care. I’m a Complementarian Feminist.”

The Importance of Adam written by Glen: “You might ask, “What on earth should we say to our scientifically minded friends who laugh at an historic Adam?”  Well I’d simply ask them about their belief in Christ. With 1 Corinthians 15 open I’ll say, “Here’s the bible’s logic: if Christ rose, Adam fell. Let’s ask whether Christ rose…”

Matt Herring has posted some fantastic photo’s up from the street. He is a really good photographer, so please do check the rest of his blog out!

Tanya writes about how she became a feminist: “A feminist is someone who believes in the equal worth of women and men and also sees a world where women aren’t valued equally. I have always been the former; now I am becoming the latter.”

Blog Posts Out There:

3 reasons I’ll be reading Rob Bell’s new book: A rather interesting article from the Gospel Coalition:” I expect Rob’s book will prod me toward better and more beautiful ways of presenting the truth.”

Are you worshipping the idol of open options?: As I stood in line, I actually started to think, Maybe I want 140-degree coffee too. Maybe, I thought to myself, my choice of milk temperature up to this point has been catastrophically naive. Suddenly, his choices made me unhappier about my own. I began to covet. I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore. I became anxious and indecisive. I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit—either to my kind of coffee or to his. Was this really freedom of choice, or slavery to it?

Books:

I finished reading Game of Thrones book 3 part 1, which was very enjoyable. I am now reading Miranda’s book: Is It just me? I love it. It’s so funny and so Miranda!

I have also read a booklet on how to deliver a TED talk to help me shape my own talks and ministry. It’s a good little book with helpful ideas. Bish wrote a review here.

Watching:

Been watching a bit of Black Mirror on channel 4. It’s quite Sci-fi and dark, but very interesting to watch. I hope to write some reviews of that soon.

Watching TED talks has been a lot of fun, some inspiring stuff on there.

Posts on my blog:

1. Out of the Heart and onto the blog

2. The Glory of God

3. Guest Post on God and Suffering

4. The Spirit of Sonship

Well that’s me. What have you enjoyed this month?

Guest Post: God and Suffering

Please do check out my guest post on God and Suffering over at Tanya’s blog. Tanya very kindly asked me to write something on God and suffering and so I decided to write a poem called “Through my eyes”. I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Out of the Heart and Onto the Blog

affectionsBlogging is rather an interesting platform. Anyone can start a blog and put up their ideas and it’s very appealing not having to go through publishers and editors to put up your own thoughts and ideas. It is also very revealing, on blogs and also twitter little storms can be created which will either build up a person or destroy a person. They are powerful mediums and they need to be treated with care.

I have been thinking a lot about what Jesus says in Luke 6:45:

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Out of the abundance of the heart the person blogs or tweets. It made me think about the topics I blog and the state of my heart. I’m not naturally a good person, but Christ has changed my heart, he has filled me with his spirit and so out of my mouth should speak a different heart. It made me think about how I use this blog and what I write about. Am I encouraging? Am I proclaiming Christ? Am I loving? Am I thankful? Or do I prefer to rant and complain? Do I prefer to crush someone?

If my words on a blog post or on twitter are discouraging, grumbling, complaining, unforgiving, going out their way to belittle someone or making sure I crush someone under the weight of my words and expectations then it is quite evident what my heart is like because Jesus says in Matthew 15:18:

“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.”

 

If I am like this and its evident that my words are saying something about my heart that is not good nor Christ like, then I need to come back to Christ. Perhaps the temptation is to masquerade what I think on the blog, but people know me in real life and can judge whether my words are true or not. Instead I need to come back to Christ. Come to sweet Jesus and be reminded of who I am in Christ – a new creation with a new heart and adopted into His family. Totally forgiven.

When it comes to what we say on the internet we have to be careful. We have to be accountable to people, to be slow to speak and quick to listen. We need to test our hearts and the words from our mouths. What we say can really hurt and affect people more than we realise and often it comes from a bitterness rooted in our own hearts that causes this.

Come to Christ again. Repent. Forgive. Think about what your writing about – will it lift a person up? Will it encourage them? Does it edify?

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29 ESV)

Collection of Webs: January

So I saw this idea of doing a blog round-up through Tanya and I thought it was such a fun way of doing Collection of Webs. But this time it will be monthly and include lots of other little things like books being read and films watched etc. Hopefully this will be a bit of fun.

Blogs Posts from friends:

Bryony chats about the Gospel in the Job center – some great reading here: “I have really noticed that the job centre communicate a clear ‘gospel’ story (or worldview) that is completely in a realm of its own.”

Dan Hames shares a quote on: What to do when you just can’t pray.

Bish shares some reflections on the early Christian Unions: The story is the same today – there’s a legacy to inherit, but the Christian Unions are built on Christian freshers turning up in halls and standing together. We stand on the foundation of home churches and youth work, we stand on the work of God in people.

Ellie shares her thoughts on Purity.

A poem written by my husband about taking communion.

Blog Posts Out There:

An article on how men see women and sports. This was really insightful and interesting: The way we consume iconic national events like the Super Bowl better depicts what we really believe about women than does anything else. For in the invisibility of normality, there we find our idolatry.

Mike Reeves writes about why not having Adam and Eve is actually bad news for the Gospel.

A good post on Luther and his way with colourful words…

Books:

I have set myself a mini project this year which is to read War and Peace. I have just finished book 1 out of 15. Its going well and I hope to finish it before the year is up. But there some people in the world that read War and Peace more than once!

Also reading:

Game of Thrones book 3 and

Where is God when it hurts by Philip Yancy.

Music:

Currently enjoying some songs by Bethel and Boy and His kite.

As well as Rend Collective Experiment

Watching:

Extremely loud and incredibly close

Also loving Miranda, Call the Midwife and Ripper Street.

What are you enjoying at the moment?

Favourite Posts on my Blog:

1.Can we know God?

2.The Heat of Love

3.No Airbrush Please

4.The biggest problem in Church

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Here are some great blog posts on the internet at the moment:

Death to January – Blog post by Emma Scrivener: “A time of fresh starts, resolutions and beginnings.  But how do you make them, when you’re in the same body, with the same mind, the same relationships, the same job (or lack of), and same struggles? This month it’s harder to trot out the same excuses.”

Is the bible a book about God? – Written by Dan Hames: The Bible is specifically a book about the Son of God. So long as we say that the Bible is a book about ‘God’ in the abstract, and not fighting hard for the centrality of Christ to the Bible, we’re depriving him of his rightful place, and ourselves of vital spiritual sustenance.

Welcome to the Crazy Church Family – by Bryony Young: “I have come to the conclusion that my Church is simply a glorious ruin. Glorious because we aim to glorify God and a ruin because we are still a work in progress.”

Boots – by Tanya Marlow: “Most days I am actually okay about being ill; I kind of accept it and get on with life. It doesn’t feature much in my thinking. Today is not one of those days.”

Three is the Loveliest number – Article by Mike Reeves: “For the health of the church and our faith, we must be proud of who our God is. And since the Trinity is no mere theological icing resting atop our God—since the living God is Trinity—we must be resolutely and thoroughly Trinitarian in all our ways and thoughts.”

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So what has caught my eye on the web over the last couple of weeks? Well let’s have a look:

“You can’t have a child” – facing the consequences of infertility or singleness – a great blog post over at Woman in London. A real heart-rending issue and she writes really well about it.

Preaching in a Vacuum - a Post by Mike Shaw about how Preachers are preaching to a certain culture and group of people.

The God who Gives to Give – Dave Bish posts about “the Father who gives authority to his Son, and the Father gives people to his Son, and then the Son gives Eternal Life to people.”

Evangelism: It ain’t Rocket Surgery – Written by Glen Scrivener on why Evangelism isn’t actually that hard.

And for the last link, I found this video on the Power of the Pentatonic scale – its is truly brilliant:

 

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A really great article in the NY Times on The Joy of Quiet – “We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.”

Glen Scrivener has written a great post on Marital Communion (or, in other words, sex)-  “If I sit in my pew until I really really feel a heart-felt connection to Christ, I’ll never take communion.  But if I’m assured that Christ is promised in the bread and wine, then the focus is taken off my feelings and put objectively onto the real offer of Christ. So it is in the bedroom. “

A wonderful post by Dan Hames on Reclaiming the old language of spirituality - “There is a difference between having faith, and depending on your faith.  Faith relies on the truth of the Word, and not on itself.  We may have many questions about our faith– its strength, goodness, quality, genuineness, and whatever– and can allow ourselves a healthy dose of pessimism about it.  My faith is not good. I’m not good.  But I don’t have faith in my faith!  Rather, I trust One who alone is good and true. “

Emma Scrivener wrote a great post on Heroes: Fallen or Pushed? – “I build them up in my head.  I praise them to their face and to others.  I consider myself a follower, a disciple, a devotee, a subscriber.  And in return, all I ask is that they never, ever make a mistake.”