Articles
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
One what?
What makes a marriage a marriage? Is it love? In our Anglican Marriage Service, the couple are not asked whether they love each other. Rather they are asked will they love each other. Their marriage proceeds on the basis of a vow and promise they make to each other.
What sustains the marriage is that each of them remains faithful to their word. It is their faithfulness to their promise that keeps them faithful to each other. Their promise is that they will faithfully love each other no matter what.
Could they be married privately, so that only they knew what they had promised?
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
How can a Minister Help?
I have just spent a weekend in Albany, teaching an intensive course to about 20 very keen students, preaching at one church and attending and listening to the sermon at another. I met at least seven ministers while I was there. Pastors and ministers are all different. They have different gifts, priorities, experiences and goals, although all the ones I met have central common goals of building people up in Christ and seeing the church strengthened and growing.
A couple of weeks ago I spoke to the congregation about ways in which I thought I could best assist this church while I was still here. How could I help?
I would like to continue to help us meet together, week by week, in a way that both helps the regulars and allows people with little church background to join in. This of course involves change.
I would like to continue to help us evangelise, make disciples and grow the church by helping others hear the gospel and turn to Christ. Especially to help train, teach and encourage those who want to make disciples.
I want to continue to help people with their personal faith and life issues. This means both helping, teaching, encouraging, and supporting Christians as they learn how to follow Jesus, struggle with what the Bible says and how it applies to their life, as well as the issues they find difficult.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
God’s boxes of chocolates
What does God expect people to do who don’t know much about him? They should do two things: they should honour him as God, and give thanks to him. How much do you need to know to honour God as God? We only need to know that there is a God. After that, treat him with honour.
And give thanks to him. For what? Everything. Anything. Life, health, safety, sunshine, rain, food, friends – even answers to prayer. Especially for God’s boxes of chocolates.
God’s boxes of chocolates are his little gifts that he gives to us to let us know he is there and that he loves us. Sometimes they are unexpected. Sometimes they are answers to the prayer of a doubter, or someone who doesn’t think they really believe in God. They are little signs that God is interested in us, wants to bless us, wants to be friends, wants to show his love to us.
Often people pass up the opportunity.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Why did Jesus die?
The simple answer is, “Because of death.” But why should there be death in the first place? How come, if God created everything good, he made humans who died? He didn’t. He made them so they could live with him forever.
But something went wrong with the humans he made. To tell the truth, the humans went wrong. They had a difference of opinion with God as to who was the boss – who got to say how things should be. They tried to have a kind of coup, a takeover, a rebellion, you could say. The only trouble is they weren’t capable of running the world like God. Certainly not capable of living like God – you know, always just, fair, good, loving, caring ...
Needless to say God was not too happy about this attempted coup – not that it made any difference to him acting as God. But it did make a difference to the humans acting as humans. Now they had god-sized swelled heads. And they continued to act as though he wasn’t really God.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Do you really want to be forgiven?
Last week I attended a seminar about some of the Psalms that ask God to avenge the enemies of the Psalmist. Many of the Psalms seems foreign to a Christian since they express feelings and attitudes that we have been taught (rightly or wrongly) not to have.
One aspect of the problem concerns whether one can forgive the unrepentant. The speaker quoted a Japanese proverb that says, “Forgiving the unrepentant is like drawing pictures on water.” Many of us will know the truth of this if we have lived or worked with a person who has chronically harmed us and who has been unwilling to acknowledge or repent of their wrong. Our forgiveness is meaningless to them.
Repent might not be the word we would have used in all of those circumstances, but it is probably the right one.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Eating bread
“This bread is the bread of affliction that our ancestors experienced in Egypt.” The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread combined to remind faithful Israelites of the suffering and subsequent salvation of God’s people at the Exodus.
A later celebration of the Passover had Jesus providing new words. “This bread is my body.” His body of affliction. Representing the affliction that was ahead of him, rather than behind him. “Take it, and eat it,” was his command.
It is one thing to eat bread that reminds you of troubles in the past. It is another to eat bread that tells you of your friend’s approaching afflictions. It is a much deeper thing to eat knowing that you are joining yourself with your friend in his afflictions. That his troubles are your troubles. That you will share his afflictions because he has shared yours.
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- Written by: Dale
- Category: Weekly Reflections
Set free to serve
Burn-out is a common experience in some long-term missionaries. The reasons for it are fairly obvious. The cure is sometimes less obvious. Burn-out affects Christians at home as well. Not only burn-out caused by work but also burn-out caused by church work.
There are other casualties in the church, not just the burnt-out. Many of us suffer the present effects of a variety of difficult experiences which happened in the past. It may be the distant past or it could be the recent past. Some of these are things we brought upon ourselves. Many are the results of other people’s actions, lack of action, words, expectations, domination, or manipulation.
All of them have made an impact on us. Most of us have coped. But the coping can add to the difficulty. Our coping method may have been the best we could do at the time, but often it continues as an ongoing pattern of life. And results in a way of life that is not really helpful any more.