Those who have received the May edition of e-news will know that Paul Grimmond, Chaplain at the University of New South Wales and pastor of Unichurch, will be joining us at The Briefing later this year. When Paul comes on board, we will have a re-think of what we want to do with this blog. Suggestions regarding the future of CHN are welcome: please contact us at briefing AT matthiasmedia DOT com DOT au.

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

Recent additions to our online archives:

• The welcoming church by Matthew Pickering (Briefing #84)
• Should we pump it up? by Edward Vaughan (Briefing #121)
• Leadership: Avoiding the pitfalls: A gospel of leadership by Michael Fischer (Briefing #298)
• Leadership: Avoiding the pitfalls: Worldly woes for Christian leaders by Matthew Malcolm (Briefing #298)

The Longing

Stuff that didn't quite make it into The Briefing:

• Nothing in my hand I bring: Ray Galea talks to Peter Hastie.
• Parts 1, 2 and 3 of Stuart Heath's series on ‘Doing good: The shape of the Christian life’:
  • Part 1: Why we don't (Briefing #358/9)
  • Part 2: Why we can
  • Part 3: What it looks like

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

Recent additions to our online archives:

• Did Satan win? by Edward Vaughan (Briefing #61)
• He's out there by Tony Payne (Briefing #189)
• The devil unmasked by JI Packer (Briefing #189)
• The devil you know by Greg Clarke (Briefing #246)
• The living and the dead by Peter Bolt (Briefing #295)

The Longing

Stuff that didn't quite make it into The Briefing:

• Magic by Kirsten Birkett (from the 2005 EQUIP conference).

In addition, parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Total Church dialogue between Simon Flinders, Steve Timmis and Tony Payne are now online:

• Talking about Total Church (Part 1) (Briefing #356)
• Talking about Total Church (Part 2) (Briefing #357)
• Talking about Total Church (Part 3)

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

Men are perishing, and if it be unpolite to tell them so, it can only be so where the devil is the master of the ceremonies.

Out upon your soul-destroying politeness; the Lord give us a little honest love to souls, and this superficial gentility will soon vanish. I could with considerable refreshment to myself pour sarcasm after sarcasm upon religious cowardice. I would cheerfully sharpen my knife and dash it into the heart of this mean vice. There is nothing to be said in its favor.

It is not even humble; it is only pride of too beggarly a sort to own itself.

Well said, brother Spurgeon. The quote is from the Pyromaniacs blog, who in turn got it from an article titled ‘The War-Horse’, published in the May 1866 issue of The Sword and the Trowel.

Too often both the content of our speaking and the manner of our speaking are conditioned by what people would like to hear, or what we believe they should hear on the basis of our personal observation, rather than what they need to hear based on what the Bible reveals. The ideas of hell and judgement are the ones that are particularly likely to suffer when we forget to return to the Bible to shape and form the content of what we say. Similarly, when we move away from Scripture's example, the manner in which we teach will invariably tend in the direction of a sort of florid, learned-sounding blandness. Plain speaking always gets us into trouble, yet that's exactly what the Bible pushes us towards.

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

Recent additions to our online archives:

• How to survive your denomination (Briefing #13)
• The denomination as idol by (Briefing #13)
• The Relationship Between the Testaments: Church (Briefing #58)
• Why, where, and how should Christians meet? (Briefing #116)
• Factotum #1: The Ministry of the Pew by Colin Marshall (Briefing #131)

And, in relation to Briefing #355, more articles on music and church:

• Minor or Major?: The key to church music by John Woodhouse(Briefing #112)
• Choosing Songs by Rob Smith (Briefing #112)
• Are You Ready, Mr Music? by Phillip Jensen (Briefing #53)
• Pop goes the Gospel by David Miles (Briefing #11)

In addition, our new blog The Sola Panel has just been launched. Go on over and take a look!

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

The Queen's Birthday Convention

When: Monday 9 June, 2008 from 10am to 5pm
Where: St Andrew's Cathedral (cnr George St and Bathurst St, Sydney)
Cost: From $15 (including morning and afternoon tea and all day parking). See the website for full details of cost.
Speaker: Phillip Jensen

Phillip will be speaking on Mark 9-16 (the sequel to his talks at the Australia Day Convention where he spoke on Mark 1-8). (Listen to the last talk from the Australia Day Convention.)

For more information and to register, visit www.queensbirthdayconvention.com.

Noticed by Ian Carmichael

Many dioceses have proceeded to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood. Others, such as the Sydney Diocese, have sought to remain faithful to scriptural teaching and the Anglican tradition and have not changed the nature of ordained ministry; others, whilst having no real objections, have not as yet introduced women priests.

Read the full interview.

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

Both families declined to comment on the verdict, but the case officer, Detective Sergeant Cameron Templeton, said of Mr Tamapeau's family: “They are simply the nicest family I have ever encountered.

“They are a deeply religious and loving family who have heard the evidence—who had prayed constantly throughout the trial for not only Mr Hopper, but his family the judge, jury, the legal counsels and police.

“I have never seen anything like this in my career as a police officer. The ability of people to accept and forgive,” he said.

Before leaving the court, Mr Tamapeau's family joined hands in a room and held a collective prayer for Mr Hopper.

I don't know of any other religion in the world, apart from evangelical Christianity, that consistently shows its power in this way.

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

Noticed by Karen Beilharz

Noticed by Ian Carmichael

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:13-14)

Surely here was a case where we might expect that Jesus, Lord of all creation, might exercise his lordship by calling sinners to account. But this is something he categorically refuses to do. The time will come when, by means of the resurrection, he will be able to say that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18; compare with Rom 1:4). But for Jesus, his time has not yet come.

How much more should we (who, unlike Jesus, have not yet been resurrected) imitate his humility and refuse to call people to account when we have no license to do so! Rather,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:5-11)

If we are to be genuinely accountable to God, we should not hold brothers and sisters in Christ to account any more than Jesus did when he walked on earth.

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

A better antidote to this sin is to go back to the Bible and read Paul's exhortations regarding one another in their context, or similar ones by the other New Testament letter writers. Our churches would be healthier if we made this a regular exercise.

By the way, be careful with those links: they were discovered by typing ‘one another’ the highly useful search function for the ESV Bible website. A quick glance at the first ‘one another’ will tell you why these words need to be read and applied with due regard to their context in the passage!

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

Nowhere.

We will certainly be accountable to God on the final day of judgement; the Bible is very clear on this. But is there even a single verse which teaches that Christians are accountable to each other? Verses which teach that we should encourage each other, confess our sins to each other (and so on) come close, but they are not the same.

The demanding of accountability to a human judge is more a feature of state rule (in which case, it is legitimate) or Roman Catholicism (in which case, it is not).

Noticed by Gordon Cheng

Furthermore, writing is such a useful mnemonic tool in our information-saturated age. What's my friend's email address again? I don't remember but my electronic address book does. Was it rice or risoni that I needed to buy from the supermarket? Better check the shopping list. What did I need to do today at work? Good thing I scribbled down a ‘To do’ list before I went to sleep last night.

In addition, writing, even more than speech, is increasingly becoming the format in which we communicate. Email, SMS, blogs, forums, instant messaging programs, Facebook and MMORPGs all rely on text, and are giving rise to a generation who use writing as never before. As Amy Goldwasser writes in Salon.com,

[T]he Internet is only a means of communication, and one that has created a generation, perhaps the first, of writers, activists, storytellers ... When the world worked in hard copy, no parent or teacher ever begrudged teenagers who disappeared into their rooms to write letters to friends—or a movie review, or an editorial for the school paper on the first president they'll vote for. Even 15-year-old boys are sharing some part of their feelings with someone out there.

We're talking about 33 million Americans who are fluent in texting, e-mailing, blogging, IM'ing and constantly amending their profiles on social network sites—which, on average, 30 of their friends will visit every day, hanging out and writing for 20 minutes or so each. They're connected, they're collaborative, they're used to writing about themselves. In fact, they choose to write about themselves, on their own time, rather than its being a forced labor when a paper's due in school. Regularly, often late at night, they're generating a body of intimate written work. They appreciate the value of a good story and the power of a speech that moves: Ninety-seven percent of the teenagers in the Common Core survey connected “I have a dream” with its speaker—they can watch Dr. King deliver it on demand—and eight in 10 knew what “To Kill a Mockingbird” is about. (Source.)

Writing is also the way God has chosen to preserve the knowledge he has given us. “[Writing is] words that stay”, says Jen in The Dark Crystal, and God's words have ‘stayed’ throughout the centuries so that we can still read what the Son of God said to people when he walked the earth 2,000 years ago.

Moreover, writing is one of the ways in which we can disseminate the fragrance of Christ abroad so that those in great darkness might come to know the light of his gospel. How long ago was it that John Chapman penned A Fresh Start? And how many people have been brought to know the living God through perusing its pages? Perhaps we'll never know this side of heaven.

This brings me to The Faithful Writer. The Faithful Writer is a one-day conference for Christians interested in exploring the ministry potential of writing, paid or otherwise. It's for Christians keen to use their words to serve and glorify the one who made words. It's for Christians who are passionate about communicating and communicating well.

This year, the conference is taking place on Saturday 2 August 2008 from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm at New College, University of New South Wales, Kensington (330 Anzac Parade, Kensington).

Mark Tredinnick, Australian poet, essayist, writing teacher and author of The Little Red Writing Book has agreed to be our special guest speaker to train us in the practice of writing.

In addition, Trevor Cairney, Director of the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education (CASE) and master of New College, University of New South Wales, will be speaking on writing for children; Greg Clarke, Director of the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute and Director (with John Dickson) of the Centre for Public Christianity, will be speaking on writing for sceptics; Tony Payne, Publishing Director of Matthias Media, will be speaking on the art of the essay; and I, together with Rebecca Jee, editor of Salt magazine (published by the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students), will be speaking on writers, editors and the relationship between the two.

Join the conference mailing list for updates. Registration costs include lunch, morning and afternoon tea. The earlybird rate if you register before Friday 20 June is $80 ($65 concession for full-time students and pensioners). (Registrations received after the 20 June will be charged $100 [$85 for concession]). There are no part-day registration discounts.

Registrations have now opened, and will close on Friday 25 July 2008. Places are limited so make sure you get in early. Please note: no registrations will be accepted on the day of the conference.

We hope to see you there!

P.S. Want to help us promote the conference? You can do so in three ways:

• Forward the link to this CHN to any friends who may be interested (or point them to http://www.case.edu.au/writer/);
• Download, print and display our A4 poster (PDF 1.79 MB) or email it to a friend;
• Display some of our banners and buttons on your website, your blog, your Facebook profile or in your email signature.

Noticed by Karen Beilharz