sport watch
Players as products: are we pushing our sportspeople too far?
Jonny Reid
Date posted: 9 Oct 2024
Manchester City star Rodri recently said that football players are close to calling a strike in opposition to an increase in the amount of games they are being asked to play. Footballers are not the only ones asking questions about workload.
Cricketer and England Test captain Ben Stokes retired from playing One Day Internationals saying: 'I feel that my body is letting me down because of the schedule and what is expected of us.' World number three tennis player Carlos Alcaraz also claimed the administrators are 'trying to kill us' with injuries mounting up due to a compressed calendar.
As Cadbury’s chocolate marks 200 years, do you know its Christian origins?
Janice Pibworth
Date posted: 9 Oct 2024
Cadbury is synonymous with chocolate and has been a household name for many years. The firm is celebrating its 200 years this year.
In 1824 John Cadbury opened his grocery shop in Birmingham, which sold tea, coffee and cocoa. The Cadbury business went into decline following the death of his wife, and then two of his sons, Richard and George, took over the firm. The Cadbury brothers struggled to make a profit for the first few years. Each brother contemplated career moves but eventually, with the successful developments surrounding chocolate manufacturing, the business flourished.
Blessed are the legend-makers? The Rings of Power, season 2, reviewed
Caleb Woodbridge
Date posted: 8 Oct 2024
In the opening episodes of the second season of Amazon’s lavishly-budgeted Tolkien prequel The Rings of Power, Galadriel and Elrond debate using the three magic elven rings. Can the rings be used for good, or are they too dangerous to use, since they were created under the suggestion of villain Sauron?
I couldn’t help but see an echo of the question that I’ve been wrestling with in relation to The Rings of Power, having watched the first six episodes of series two. This is a show created to sate the desire of the great empire of Amazon for a franchise success, for its own Game of Thrones or Harry Potter in terms of cultural and above all financial impact. It might seem from the beginning a cynical exercise, the zombification of Tolkien’s literary legacy into a vehicle for ‘brand extension’ and corporate exploitation of ‘intellectual property’.
sharing Christ with Muslims
Employing the ‘Columbo’ tactic in conversation
Hisham E.M.
Date posted: 8 Oct 2024
If we want to be ambassadors for Christ, having the right answers will not be enough.
We need to do it in such a way that it creates an environment conducive to respectful conversations and allows them to be maintained through difficult moments of disagreement and debate. The best way to achieve that is to ask questions.
safeguarding briefing
Church culture: 'But we've always done it that way'
Jules Loveland
Date posted: 7 Oct 2024
In every church, there is an often unseen influence that can bring life and progress to a congregation or leave it stagnated. This influence is church culture.
Frequently overlooked and under-appreciated, culture is always present. It shapes the way we think, behave, and interact with one another. Understanding the significance of our church culture is essential, for effective evangelism, growth and pastoral care.
Real change starts with the heart
Emma Scrivener
Date posted: 7 Oct 2024
There’s a popular video on social media that perhaps you’ve seen. A woman is given the following scenario by a presenter: 'Imagine we’re in a race. I’m coming second and you pass me. What place are you in?'
Why is some ‘sound’ expository preaching just so dull and boring?
Jon Barrett
Date posted: 4 Oct 2024
‘The preacher pulls the little cord that turns on his lectern light and deals out his note cards like a riverboat gambler. The stakes have never been higher.
‘Two minutes from now he may have lost his listeners completely to their own thoughts, but at this minute he has them in the palm of his hand. The silence in the shabby church is deafening because everybody is listening to it. Everybody is listening including even himself. Everybody knows the kind of things he has told them before and not told them, but who knows what this time, out of the silence, he will tell them?’
bridging cultural divides
Crossing cultures as an introvert
Jason Roach
Date posted: 3 Oct 2024
A common concern around welcoming people from different cultures into the local church is that it is impossible for introverts. I remember one person saying, 'I find it hard enough to speak to my friends, let alone to strangers!'
It’s part of a bigger fear among Christians that we just don’t have what it takes to reach out to those who are different from us. What do we do when we want to communicate across cultural differences, but the bar just seems too high?
Ten Questions: Oliver Wyncoll
1. How did you become a Christian?
I was blessed to grow up in a Christian family, attending an Open Brethren assembly in Banbury during my childhood. When I was eight, I went to a Christian boarding school in Bath for ten years. I was known as a Christian at school, but had no real relationship with Christ as my Lord and Saviour and rarely wanted to read the Bible on my own.
Now This
Surrogacy: ‘extreme babysitters’
Bill James
Date posted: 2 Oct 2024
When Tom Daley tearfully announced the end of his diving career after the Paris Olympics, he said that he was looking forward to spending more time with his family.
It is not only accepted, but celebrated in the media that he has children with his ‘husband’ through surrogacy, and this is unquestioned and unchallenged. He is not the only one, joining high-profile names like Elton John and David Furnish, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
evangelicals & catholics
A new theological critique of Roman Catholicism
Leonardo De Chirico
Date posted: 1 Oct 2024
Opening a book by Henri Blocher is like being invited to a wedding dinner. It is a theologically and culturally rich, tasty, and challenging experience. So, the release of his latest book La doctrine de l’Église e des sacrements, vol. 1 (Vaux-sur-Seine: Edifac, 2023), is a feast of theology.
The book consists of two parts. In the first, Blocher expounds on the Biblical data, while in the second, he analyses three types of church conceptions and models: the Catholic, the Reformed (paedobaptist), and the Confessing (credobaptist). Attention will be concentrated on the section regarding Roman Catholic ecclesiology.
Christian Nationalism: A new Biblical critique of its dangers
Jim Sayers
Date posted: 27 Sep 2024
In the past six years as a church planter, I have met several unchurched young white men who want to investigate the gospel because they reject secular liberalism and the rainbow agenda.
They think we are throwing away our Christian heritage, but don’t really know what it is. Their starting point includes a suspicion of mass immigration (one called it a form of genocide), a fierce patriotism, a fear of Islam, and a strong antipathy to alternative sexualities. Some of them had already connected online with Christian men in other countries who run forest training camps to build physical and spiritual muscle. As we explored the gospel together, this strong nationalism faded as they grasped God’s grace in Christ and came to faith.
cartoon
October cartoon
Sophie Killingley
Date posted: 26 Sep 2024
*‘Skibidi toilet’ is an internet series released on a YouTube channel which ‘follows a fictional war between human-headed toilets and humanoid characters with electronic devices for heads’. It is particularly popular among ‘Generation Alpha’ – those born since 2010.
Churches and accessibility: time to change
Kay Morgan-Gurr
Date posted: 25 Sep 2024
Someone I follow on X posted a picture of a tin opener. The caption read: 'If you're right handed you'll see a tin opener. If you're left handed you'll see an obstacle.'
A very true statement, especially if you’re left handed. The literal thinkers among us would say: 'just go out and buy a left handed one!' But do they even make left handed tin openers?! When I was a nurse we used to send trainee doctors to find the left handed blood pressure machine - insisting they existed. So, I wasn’t sure if this was one of those sort of jokes.
youth ministry
Starting September well
Jonny Woodbridge
Date posted: 25 Sep 2024
How has your new academic year begun? It can feel like landing back to earth with a bump and maybe you wonder how you ever used to cope doing all a normal term-time week entailed?
We all want to start the term in a great place so we can hit the ground running but I'm sure we all achieve that to different extents and are painfully aware of those areas we weren't quite ready for. Before I share what those are for me, here are a couple of ways we were able to begin in good shape thanks to two wonderful members of our youth and children's team.
the pastor's toolkit
Pastors: one year in and struggling?
Phil Moon
Date posted: 24 Sep 2024
Am I the only one to notice that there seems to be such a thing as a 'first year dive’? It may be my imagination, but I think there's something to it.
I have a number of friends and know of several others who've got about one year in to a first position of responsibility – where you’re the senior pastor or vicar – and suddenly it hits them.
sport watch
Born to play: the rise of women’s football
Rosie Woodbridge
Date posted: 23 Sep 2024
Something has happened to the Nike swoosh.
One of the world’s most recognisable and iconic logos has undergone its biggest revolution so far. On football clubs’ third kits, the swoosh will now be vertical. Why?
