By: Tania Harris
Two weeks in Turkey recently left me wondering how a land so steeped in Christian history became 98% Muslim. In the first century, this was the area of Asia Minor, famous for Paul’s extraordinary missionary journeys and landmark churches such as Ephesus and Philadelphia. Today Turkish cities are populated with mosques rather than cathedrals and minarets rather than steeples punctuate the skylines.
There are so many wonderful promises in the Bible, but many people miss the greatest every promise of Jesus! I’ll come to the reason why they miss it in a moment. But the greatest promise is this one, from the lips of Jesus himself:
By: Morag Paton
Have you ever got stuck thinking that you need to bring people to church for them to hear about Jesus? While church is a great place to gather, it’s important that we don’t let the mindset creep in that people need to come to church to get to know Jesus.
By: Susan Browning
Worship can’t exist without relationship – when you love something or someone you spend time with them, when you adore someone you lavish love on them. Worship simply means to place value or worth on something or someone. Ways we place worth-ship on someone is through compliments, praise, adoration, affirmation. We can only feel all those things through knowing someone, we can only know someone if we spend time in their presence.
By: Sheridan Voysey
I was once asked to do a radio debate with an atheist. One of the criticisms my counterpart raised was that Christianity had been reduced to a faith that was only interested in getting people to heaven, instead of a faith that changed this life too. While the criticism wasn’t entirely fair (it’s hard to think of an institution today that hasn’t been founded or shaped by the faith), I had to agree that in some cases she was right. Christianity is so much more than getting people ‘up there’, even if some televangelists would have you think otherwise.
By: Anne Rinaudo
Australians really seem to love travelling. Maybe our big country makes us unafraid of long distances.
Many people know about Christianity. Many people have grown up as Christians. But eventually, everyone has to come to the point where having others believe for you isn’t good enough. You have to believe it for yourself.
Let me confess something about myself. I’m not some kind of model Christian. By nature I’m a pessimist and a worrier. Often, little things cause me stress.
Some people ask the question, “Where did life come from?” But the question of where the universe itself came from is an even bigger question.
I’ve often been asked what Jesus meant when he said some of the strange things like we find in Matthew 10:37:
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (NIV).