One week ago, I had never heard of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I decided to read the book while in transit and I finished it in two sittings. As you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about it over the next few days as it opened as the […]

My brother sent me an article from Tony Payne (publishing editor for Matthias Media) that went off like a bomb in my mind. Take five minutes and read it here. Here’s a quote to wet your appetite: But what if our mental image of the congregation was not a network […]

This week I have a question for the hive mind. What is the most powerful description of death that you have read in literature from a Christian perspective? I would love for you to post the quote or the reference in the comment section. Here’s a few to get the […]

Charles Simeon is a fascinating character study in rejection. Six years before Captain Cook sailed into Port Jackson, Simeon was an unloved English minister placed in a church where the people wanted someone else and they weren’t afraid to show it. Over a ten year period the congregation tried various […]

There is no doubt that the posting of the 95 theses on the church door is one of the iconic moments of the Reformation. However, a contemporary reading these words would have trouble predicting the role that Luther would play in the years ahead. Two lesson here: 1) Understanding takes […]

I was listening to a Yale lecture on American history this afternoon and the professor referenced Jonathan Edwards and his most famous sermon “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God.” She took time to read a section from the text so that everyone could get an audible “Jonathan Edwards […]

I enjoyed visiting St. Stephen’s Anglican Church in Newtown (Sydney) on Saturday for a wedding. The church was constructed in the 1870s by Edmond Blacket. You would probably be more familiar with his “other” designs – The University of Sydney and St. Andrews Cathedral. While waiting for the wedding to […]

I attended a Christian school in Sydney for the majority of my K-12 schooling years. Recently, someone asked me to answer this question: “How do you know that you attended a Christian school?” I’ve thought through the question and in relation to my experience at the school I could answer […]

I remember the first time I saw a data projector used in a church service. The unit was the size of a carry-on piece of luggage and it also acted as a convergence device with a built in VCR! Today, you would be hard pressed to find a church without […]

This quote from Tim Keller’s The Reason for God has really challenged my thinking over the past two weeks: A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why […]