Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
Save your people and bless your inheritance;
be their shepherd and carry them for ever.
Psalm 28:6-9
I can’t see without glasses. They’re on my nose from the moment I wake up until last thing at night. Which means I see everything through a pair of lenses. And that makes a difference. A couple of years ago I got my first pair of varifocals. I love them, but they did take getting used to. In particular, every time I moved my head from side to side, the whole world wobbled!
This last pair of glasses is a little different to the rest because they are about more than just reading the Bible. They shape how we look at the world - a concept I find easy to grasp, since my worldview is quite literally shaped by the lenses I see it through.
The crown-shaped specs are about looking at the world through biblical eyes. They take those vital Bible truths that God is good and God is sovereign, and shape how we see the world around us.... continue reading
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When I'm hurting, I like to act the victim - blaming the people around me for the surrounding mess. It means:
When I'm hurting, I like to act the hero - pretending I can soar through the pain unaffected. It means:
When I'm hurting, I like to live up to my calling as a precious child of God. It means:
Who would you like to be today?
In our recent series of Growing Young Disciples training days, we looked at teaching the gospel message faithfully and effectively to a range of age groups. It’s easy when working on this with leaders of young children to focus on storytelling techniques, so one comment from Tim Thornborough (the boss!) particularly stuck in my mind:
“You’ll never teach a Bible story well if you haven’t first been moved by it yourself.”
This is the danger of storytelling techniques, and also the pairs of glasses we’ve tried on so far - we can focus on how we dig into the passage, forgetting that it’s meant to be digging into us.... continue reading
I was reading the book of Jonah the other day (not as part of a reading plan, I'd been watching a TV programme on oceans and it started a train of thought in my mind... ). And, as I did so, it struck me afresh just what a grump Jonah was. He was clearly chosen by God and he was used significantly by God but he had a profound ability to be really miserable, stubborn and plain awkward along the way. He was:
1. Grumpy about God's call to mission
He didn't want to go. It's as simple as that. God called him to proclaim a message of judgement to the Ninevites and Jonah responded by legging it. It's not that Jonah minded the travelling (he was only too keen to get to Tarshish, in the opposite direction); it's not that he minded a spot of financial sacrifice (he didn't hesitate to pay the fare for his "let's run away from God" trip) - but he was desperate not to go to Nineveh and tell the people there that God doesn't treat rebellion lightly. Hand-picked by God to be the bearer of a divine message, he said "no way!"... continue reading
I’ve admitted before that I’m something of a sci-fi geek, which may be why we made our own time machine to use at our annual holiday club. Children and leaders were “Time Travellers”, entering the time machine to visit whichever Bible events we were exploring that year. (I also made the head of a giant fish once, so that everyone arriving at our Jonah holiday club had to walk through the jaws when they arrived - same idea as the time machine, but a bit more limited in which events we could explore!)
Children love the idea of time travel, but its value doesn’t end there. When we read the Bible in 2014, almost every event (bar the odd bit of prophecy) happened at least 2000 years ago. So that’s where the time-travel specs come in*.... continue reading
1. If you could ask God one question ebook - just £1.99
Get the ebook version of If you could ask God one question for just £1.99.
2. Andrew Sach: Emotional Preaching
A new video from Preaching Matters.
3. 50 Strategies for Better Preaching
Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition looks at these 50 strategies for better preaching and writing.
4. 5 ways to support our young people this exam season
A helpful post on helping our young people through exams.
5. And finally...
Our video of the week, ‘The World We All Want first episode completely free!:
Found something that you think should make it on to the On to a Good Thing round-up? Send it to: ontoagoodthing@thegoodbook.co.uk
It is regularly my privilege to train leaders and helpers in children’s work, and it’s often my experience that they lack confidence in teaching the Bible. In fact, many struggle to think of themselves as Bible teachers at all, telling me they “just” tell Bible stories and help the children have fun.
So I always try to encourage them that every one of them can dig into the Bible a bit more for themselves, and that it’s not hard to do. That’s what my pairs of glasses are about. But I always start with this simple rule of thumb:
It truly is that simple.... continue reading
