Geraint Harries, a technology specialist, for St John the Evangelist in Lancashire, admits that when his parish first started using social media, it didn’t get it quite right.

“At first we didn’t really know what social media meant for the church and fell into the trap of simply chasing the number of likes and followers on our Facebook page,” he says.

But when a parishioner credited the Facebook page for her decision to return to the church, then he felt the strategy had started to work.

Weekly posts on the social media page of the church which simply asked “How can we pray for you today?” resonated with the woman going through a divorce last Christmas.

“Sometimes it can be daunting to turn up in person to a service so connecting online, more anonymously, can make it easier to take that first step into the building which happened here,” he adds.

Read it all.

📲CHURCH OF ENGLAND GOES DIGITAL📲

👨🏼‍💻 The @churchofengland has a major focus on digital engagement

👩‍💻Well done to @adrianharris & the CofE digital team who have already trained 2000 churches with digital best practise

👇What do you think about this?👇https://t.co/Jef4acHkkk

— Matt Hogg (@Mathogg) October 11, 2019

Omotunde, in his sermon entitled, “It Will Get To Your Turn One Day,” stressed that human beings must repent and turn to God before the end comes.

The cleric decried the prevailing moral laxity in the society where many had elevated inordinate acquisition of wealth as a way of life.

“The most unfortunate thing in life is that man does not remember that he will die one day and what are we pursuing in this world?

“Remember how short your days are; whoever that does not remember the day he will die is the most foolish person in life.

“Whatever you are pursuing in this world, you are pursuing vanity because when you die, you cannot take anything away. Why do you continue to live a fake life, an empty life.

“You must repent to escape the wrath of God and the best time to do that is now.

Read it all.

Anglican Bishop cautions Nigerians against living fake lives https://t.co/nvx0V0qnsC #ReadThis pic.twitter.com/8CmsBIdEnH

— P.M. NEWS (@pmnewsnigeria) October 10, 2019

Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Feast of St Philip the Deacon today in @churchofireland sanctoral pic.twitter.com/UppTfm5Yar

— laudablePractice (@cath_cov) October 11, 2014

Lord of all power and might, fill our lives with the joy of thy Word and the courage of thine apostles, that having caught the vision of thy Kingdom we may proclaim it with power and a glad heart, to the salvation of men’s souls and the creation of a better order more conformed to the pattern of thy Kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.

–Psalm 140:13

From here:

“As the leaders all of the main Churches in Northern Ireland, we met in Armagh last evening with the Secretary of State to highlight our strong concerns regarding the continued Stormont impasse. We discussed with him the urgent need for the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly to address issues such as welfare reform mitigations, health and education policy, as well as the urgent economic and wider issues surrounding Brexit. In particular we conveyed our strongly held and shared conviction that the devolved institutions need to be restored before the 21 October to avoid unacceptably wide–ranging abortion legislation being imposed on Northern Ireland. The protection and the dignity of all human life is of vital importance, both women and unborn children – both lives matter.

“We believe that our Northern Ireland political parties have it in their own hands to do something about this. They all need to take risks, especially for the most vulnerable in society, and make the compromises necessary to find an accommodation that will restore the devolved institutions.”

CoI News: Church Leaders meet Secretary of State on Northern Ireland political impasse: The leaders of Ireland’s main Churches met the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Rt Hon Julian Smith MP, in Armagh yesterday evening to express their… https://t.co/fOvZU6LltY pic.twitter.com/yTTzYeJB40

— Church of Ireland (@churchofireland) October 10, 2019

The Rev. Fred Ochieng, Vicar of Emmanuel Church in the Shaurimoyo Parish in the Anglican Diocese of Maseno South, Kisumu-Kenya, invited those present to take steps to form relationships with brothers and sisters in his area. “Pray for us,” he said. “Be our friend. Relationships are more important than anything. Consider coming for a mission. Be a sender. Consider supporting us financially.” Ochieng stressed that while his congregation is seeking to be self-sustaining, they need assistance to move in that direction. He invited attendees to support theological training for their clergy. “Support one of our clergy to go to (the theological training in) Marsabit.”

Thirteen guests spoke that evening including

Bishop Probal Dutta, Bishop of Grace Trust, India
The Rev. John Chol Daau, Episcopal Church of South Sudan
Bishop Daniel Wario Qampicha, Diocese of Marsabit, Kenya
Bishop Stephen Kaziimba, Diocese of Mityana, Uganda
Bishop Seth Ndayirukiye, Bishop of Matana, Burundi
Bishop Francis Matui, Bishop of Makueni, Kenya
The Rev. Bernard Bisoke Balikenga, Provincial Youth Coordinator, Anglican Church of the Congo
Bishop Johnson Gakumba, Diocese of Northern Uganda
The Rev. Fred Ochieng Onyango, Vicar, Emmanuel Church, Shaurimoyo Parish in the Anglican Diocese of Maseno South, Kisumu-Kenya
The Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye, Provost of All Saints Cathedral, Kampala, Uganda
Bishop George Kasangaki, Diocese of Masindi-Kitara, Uganda
Bishop Joseph Kibucwa, Diocese of Kirinyaga, Kenya

“I’ve got to give our bishop credit,” said the Rev. Gary Beson, Rector of St. Timothy’s, Cane Bay, after the evening presentation. “He’s really emphasized ‘Biblical Anglicanism for a Global Age.’ (My wife) Sue and I were having dinner with Fred (the Rev. Fred Ochieng of Kenya ) and Qampicha (The Bishop of the Diocese of Marsabit, Kenya) the other night. They said, ‘There’s not another diocese in the US as interested in what’s going on in the world as you are.’”

Read it all and note that the full audio presentation is available (and do enjoy the pictures).

Right now, the Roman Catholic Church leaders are in the midst of a three-week long meeting discussing the future of their ministry in the Amazon. Among the issues the synod is investigating are how church leaders should respond to chronic priest shortages, the role of women in official church leadership, and environmental degradation.

Under the previous popes, John Paul II and Benedict the XVI, synods—or meetings convening all of the top brass of the Catholic church—were largely symbolic, says Christopher White, the national correspondent for the Catholic publication Crux. Not so with Pope Francis.

“His two synods on the family wrestled with, among other issues, communion. And in the end, after two synods and two years of deliberation, Pope Francis issued a document that allowed for a cautious opening to communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, which did move forward the Church’s pastoral teaching on that particular issue,” said White.

White suggested that the Amazon synod may conclude with similar progress.

“Among the many issues that they’re going to be discussing in Rome over the next three weeks is perhaps relaxing the celibacy requirement for priests because there is such a shortage of priests in the particular region of the Amazon. And they’re grappling with what to do about it,” he said.

White joined digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss the real or symbolic importance of synods, what makes the Amazon region particularly vexing to the Church, and why Protestants should stay abreast of an important Catholic meeting.Read it all.

The Catholic Church is currently meeting to discuss how to better minister in the Amazon region. One of the biggest issues on the table: climate change and environmental degradation https://t.co/jpeVVurGuy

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 10, 2019

What do you think are the major issues in the way that love is (mis)understood in contemporary culture?

Today love has become virtually a religion in the West – an all-embracing belief system that answers questions of ultimate purpose. The reasons behind love’s exaltation are well described German sociologists Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim:

Love is glorified largely because it represents a sort of refuge in the chilly environment of our affluent, impersonal, uncertain society, stripped of its traditions and scarred by all kinds of risk . . . weighed down by expectations and frustrations, ‘love’ is the new centre round which our detraditionalised life revolves.^[1]

So love, in itself becomes what life is all about. The ‘shape’ of that love will tend to be universalist and inclusive, almost a type of liberation theology, freeing people to be themselves. The philosopher Simon May has an incisive analysis of the high expectations that love now carries:

the more individualistic we become the more we expect love to be a secular journey for the soul, a final source of meaning and freedom, a supreme standard of value, a key to the problem of identity, a solace in the face of rootlessness, a desire for the worldly and simultaneously a desire to transcend it, a redemption from suffering, and, a promise of eternity. Or all of these at once.^[2]

A key idea here is the anthropological optimism at the heart of much modern love. By this I mean how love is assumed to be within easy reach of anyone with little cost to the self. Yet this is a recent development and is far removed from how love is understood within Scripture and Christian tradition.

Read it all.

The academic position has been filled by Dr. Patrick Mitchel. He will take up a new role of Lecturer in Theology. pic.twitter.com/9UYRc5iOOI

— IrishBibleInstitute (@IrishbibleInst) April 18, 2016

For example, a few years ago I attended a workshop for Anglicans. At one point in our conversation we were sharing our images of God: how we understand who God is and what he is like. As people chimed in I was struck by one thing in particular: a lack of appeal to Scripture. People were happy to suggest that we can come to know God as we embrace our grandchildren or take a walk by the lake. No one seemed to think, however, that it was important to begin with the Bible—God’s own self-revelation—if we’re going to talk about God.

We hear Saint John say something like, “God is love,” and we assume that God’s love is like whatever our experience of love is. Or, worse yet, we might believe that whatever our experience of love is, is God. That is what I mean by sentimentality — when it comes to a truthful knowledge of God, things like Scripture, reason, and tradition take a back seat to my own feelings and experience.

Stanley Hauerwas, never one for mincing words, once said that the greatest enemy of the Christian religion is not atheism but sentimentality: “You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.” Part of his, no doubt overstated, point here is that bad liturgy leads to bad ethics. Liturgy matters. The hymns we sing, the prayers we pray, the sermons we preach, the language we use, the reverence with which we come to Holy Communion, it all matters. You wouldn’t want to end up murdering your best friend, would you?

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” As I said, we hear a passage like this from Saint John and we are prone to both sentimentality and moralism. Sentimentality because we think we know what love is from our own experience and moralism because we think loving one another comes naturally to us and that we’re already off to a good start.

Both of these ditches lead to our peril. But Saint John makes a way through for us and that way is the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Read it all.

“If we want to understand what Christian love is, we must begin not by talking about ourselves but by talking about the God who loves and whose love looks like Jesus Christ and him crucified for the remission of our sins.”https://t.co/MmRffwN5wk

— Fr Jonathan R Turtle ☩ (@turtology) October 10, 2019

In late June, the leaders of China and the United States announced at the G-20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, that they had reached a détente in their trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that the two sides had set negotiations “back on track.” He put on hold new tariffs on Chinese goods and lifted restrictions preventing U.S. companies from selling to Huawei, the blacklisted Chinese telecommunications giant. Markets rallied, and media reports hailed the move as a “cease-fire.”

That supposed cease-fire was a false dawn, one of many that have marked the on-again, off-again diplomacy between Beijing and Washington. All wasn’t quiet on the trade front; the guns never stopped blazing. In September, after a summer of heated rhetoric, the Trump administration increased tariffs on another $125 billion worth of Chinese imports. China responded by issuing tariffs on an additional $75 billion worth of U.S. goods. The United States might institute further tariffs in December, bringing the total value of Chinese goods subject to punitive tariffs to over half a trillion dollars, covering almost all Chinese imports. China’s retaliation is expected to cover 69 percent of its imports from the United States. If all the threatened hikes are put in place, the average tariff rate on U.S. imports of Chinese goods will be about 24 percent, up from about three percent two years ago, and that on Chinese imports of U.S. goods will be at nearly 26 percent, compared with China’s average tariff rate of 6.7 percent for all other countries.

The parties to this trade war may yet step back from the abyss. There have been over a dozen rounds of high-level negotiations without any real prospect of a settlement. Trump thinks that tariffs will convince China to cave in and change its allegedly unfair trade practices. China may be willing to budge on some issues, such as buying more U.S. goods, opening its market further to U.S. companies, and improving intellectual property protection, in exchange for the removal of all new tariffs, but not to the extent demanded by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, China hopes that its retaliatory actions will cause enough economic pain in the United States to make Washington reconsider its stance.

The numbers suggest that Washington is not winning this trade war. Although China’s economic growth has slowed, the tariffs have hit U.S. consumers harder than their Chinese counterparts. With fears of a recession around the corner, Trump must reckon with the fact that his current approach is imperiling the U.S. economy, posing a threat to the international trading system, and failing to reduce the trade deficit that he loathes.

Read it all.

Instead of narrowing the trade gap, the imposition of tariffs has coincided with a widening of the U.S. trade deficit with China: by nearly 12 percent in 2018 and by about another 8 percent in the first eight months of this year.https://t.co/SOSQ5ipG1d

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) October 9, 2019

You can listen directly here or download it there.

The Woman of Samaria at the Well, c.1560 (oil on c Postcard https://t.co/1Eu2wUIOEW #woman #art #fineart pic.twitter.com/OeHhnlQQyA

— She in Art (@She_in_Art) May 16, 2019

Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is dog heaven. On sunny Saturday mornings, the park’s open green space, Long Meadow, fills with hundreds of canines frolicking during off-leash hours. The dogs’ owners hover nearby like watchful parents who, when playtime ends, head over to the nearby farmers’ market or go out for brunch. Later in the day, they might make time for doggie yoga or the pet bakery before coming home to their pet-friendly apartment buildings, many featuring dog baths and groomers.

Roughly 600,000 dogs live in New York City, along with half a million cats. About half of U.S. households own a pet, which adds up to at least 77 million dogs and 54 million cats. Generationally, millennials are the most enthusiastic pet owners, with some 70 percent boasting of having at least one pet.

What you’re less likely to see, especially in America’s largest cities, are children. Pets are now more common than kids in many U.S. cities. San Francisco, for example, is home to nearly 150,000 dogs but just 115,000 children under age 18. Farther north, Seattle has more households with cats than with kids. Nationwide, pets outnumber children in apartment buildings. In New York neighborhoods like Long Island City and Williamsburg, wealthy singles have the highest number of pooches per capita.

In a recent Atlantic essay, Derek Thompson wrote about how “America’s urban rebirth is missing a key element: births.” Manhattan’s infant population is projected to halve in 30 years. High-density cities are losing families with children over age six, while growing their populations of college-educated residents without children. Indeed, the share of children under 20 living in big cities has been falling for 40 years.

Young professionals’ four-legged friends have replaced those babies.

Read it all.

Are Cities Going to the Dogs? Millennials favor pet ownership over children in America’s increasingly unaffordable cities. https://t.co/WzshhqNff1 via @michael_hendrix pic.twitter.com/BLKXdV7iX2

— City Journal (@CityJournal) October 9, 2019

O Lord, Who hast taught us that the way of man is not in himself, and hast mercifully promised to keep the feet of Thy saints: direct our thoughts and inspire our actions, we humbly pray Thee, to the good of Thy Church and the fulfillment of Thy eternal purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

A beautiful caricature of Joseph Armitage Robinson, vicar of All Saints’, Cambridge 1888-1892. This cartoon featured in Vanity Fair in Dec 1905 under the banner “Men of the Day”. Come in on Saturday and see his church for yourself 10:00-17:00 #HeritageOpenDays #OpenCambridge pic.twitter.com/yX0RLA17Zs

— All Saints Cambridge (@AllSaintsCam) September 10, 2018

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

“To hope is not only to believe in God, but to believe and be certain that He loves us and means well to us; and therefore is a great Christian grace.” pic.twitter.com/ZQowBve6gg

— FrDavid AbernethyCO (@pghoratory) October 9, 2019

Scotland’s role as a global leader in ethical finance is being highlighted at a world summit in Edinburgh.

Senior representatives from more than 200 companies and organisations are attending Ethical Finance 2019.

Speakers include Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The summit aims to “help define and shape the transition to a sustainable financial system where finance delivers positive change”.

The event is being hosted by the Scotland-based Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI).

Read it all.

Edinburgh hosts world summit on ethical finance https://t.co/cEcnvYDH98 pic.twitter.com/XLPDYv7hsI

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) October 8, 2019

Elderly residents of Inez, the tiny seat of Martin County, Kentucky, deep in the heart of Appalachia, can still vividly remember the day the president came to town. Fifty-five years ago, while stooping on a porch, Lyndon Johnson spoke at length to Tom Fletcher (pictured), a white labourer with no job, little education and eight children. “I have called for a national war on poverty,” Johnson announced immediately afterwards. “Our objective: total victory.” That declaration transformed Fletcher and Martin County into the unwitting faces of the nation’s battle, often to the chagrin of local residents who resented the frequent pilgrimages of journalists and photographers. The story never changed much: Fletcher continued to draw disability cheques for decades and never became self-sufficient before his death in 2004. His family continued to struggle with addiction and incarceration.

Today Martin County remains deeply poor—30% of residents live below the official poverty line (an income of less than $25,750 a year for a family of four). Infrastructure is shoddy. The roads up the stunning forested mountains that once thundered with the extraction of coal now lie quiet, cracked to the point of corrugation. Problems with pollution because of leaky pipes mean that some parts of the county are without running water for days. “Our water comes out orange, blue and with dirt chunks in it,” says BarbiAnn Maynard, a resident agitating for repairs. She and her family have not drunk the water from their taps since 2000; it is suitable only for flushing toilets. Some residents gather drinking water from local springs or collect rainwater in inflatable paddling pools.

The ongoing poverty is not for lack of intervention. The federal government has spent trillions of dollars over the past 55 years. Programmes have helped many. But they also remain fixated on the problems of the past, largely the elderly and the working poor, leaving behind non-working adults and children. As a result, America does a worse job than its peers of helping the needy of today. By the official poverty measure, there were 40m poor Americans in 2017, or 12% of the population. This threshold is extremely low: for a family of four, it amounts to $17.64 per person per day. About 18.5m people have only half that amount and are mired in deep poverty. Children are the likeliest age group to experience poverty—there are nearly 13m of them today, or 17.5% of all American children.

Read it all.

Child poverty costs America between $800bn and $1.1trn annually, a new report suggests https://t.co/cmdFOvVwt8

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 5, 2019

German officials called a live-streamed shooting at a synagogue Wednesday in the city of Halle an anti-Semitic attack after the gunman denied the Holocaust and denounced Jews on the stream before embarking.

Two people have been killed and another two are seriously injured, according to Reuters, and a suspect is in custody. The gunman attempted to force his way into the synagogue, but was unsuccessful after finding the gates shut. The man then went on a shooting spree, killing a woman outside and a man in a nearby kabob shop.

Max Privorozki, Halle’s Jewish community chairman, told the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper that approximately 75 people were in the synagogue observing Yom Kippur, known as the Day of Atonement which is the holiest day of the Jewish year and is marked by fasting and solemn prayer.

“We saw via the camera system at our synagogue that a heavily armed perpetrator with a steel helmet and a gun tried to shoot open our doors,” he said. “We barricaded the doors from inside and waited for the police.”

Read it all.

As Augustine put it in a sermon in 404, “he took flesh from the lump of our mortality, yes, and he too took to himself the death which was the penalty for sin, but didn’t take the sin; instead with the merciful intention of delivering us from sin, he handed over that flesh of his to death.” God doesn’t abstractly solve a problem; God condescends to inhabit and absorb the mess we’ve made of the world. God “has not abandoned humanity in its mortal condition.”

This, Augustine encourages his listeners, should serve as a source of hope in the face of fears and sorrows: “So he handed over this flesh to be slain, so that you wouldn’t be afraid of anything that could happen to your flesh. He showed you, in his resurrection after three days, what you ought to be hoping for at the end of this age. So he is leading you along, because he has become your hope.”

The appeal here is not to the greater good, the free choice of the will, or the constitutive nothingness of creation that corrodes the good. Augustine the pastor and preacher avoids such abstractions. Instead, he appeals to the mystery at the heart of the Christian faith: a humble God who endured evil in order to overcome it. The point isn’t that God has a plan; the point is that God wins. We shall overcome because of what the Son has undergone in our stead.

This isn’t an answer to evil; it is a response. Hope is found not in intellectual mastery but in divine solidarity.

Read it all.

Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, died aged 76 on August 28, 430 in Hippo, while the Vandals were besieging his Episcopal city. He wrote about 230 books and treatises. More of Saint Augustine’s words survive than those of any other writer of antiquity.https://t.co/Yn02yu8tV7 pic.twitter.com/pjUHKYdjg5

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) August 28, 2019

If the prophecies concerning the increase of Christ’s kingdom be true, and if what has been advanced, concerning the commission given by him to his disciples being obligatory on us, be just, it must be inferred that all Christians ought heartily to concur with God in promoting his glorious designs, for he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

One of the first, and most important of those duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer. However the influence of the Holy Spirit may be set at nought, and run down by many, it will be found upon trial, that all means which we can use, without it, will be ineffectual. If a temple is raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be by might, nor by power, nor by the authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; “but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” We must therefore be in real earnest in supplicating His blessing upon our labors.

[He employs an obscure passage relating to Jewish repentance after Christ’s return to show the effects of prayer]

The most glorious works of grace that have ever took place, have been in answer to prayer; and it is in this way, we have the greatest reason to suppose, that the glorious outpouring of the Spirit, which we expect at last, will be bestowed.

[He gives examples of the power of prayer]

Read it all.

OTD in 1843 William Carey died at age 72. He had been a missionary to India. His essay, “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens”, led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in England. pic.twitter.com/8xjg8Tq0GZ

— SBC History (@SBCHistory) June 9, 2019

Richard Swinburne is a leading philosopher of religion who has played a major role in making a case for Christian belief. As well as writing academic books on the existence of God, the coherence theism, the atonement and the nature of faith and many other topics he has also written a number of more accessible popular books such Is There a God?, The Resurrection of God Incarnate, and Was Jesus God? A practising member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, he deserves to be hailed as one of the greatest living apologists for Christianity.

The soul has long been of interest to Swinburne. The Evolution of the Soul appeared in 1986 and recently he has written Mind, Brain and Free Will. This new book represents an attempt by Swinburne to present his views on the soul in a more accessible way. It is not always easy going but it is worth the careful attention it demands. Swinburne is a strong advocate of substance dualism, arguing that the soul can exist without the body but the body cannot exist without the soul, and he claims this point of view can appeal to atheists as well as to religious believers.

Discussing religious beliefs, he agrees that it is logically possible a soul could become attached to a new body as in re-incarnation but argues the evidence for this is not strong enough. He alludes to Christian and Islamic belief that souls continue after death and are joined to new or revived bodies but declines to discuss this.

What Swinburne does provide is a robust and slightly modified version of Descartes’ argument and a refutation of the idea that mental events are no more than events in the brain….

Read it all (subscription).

Anglicare Australia called for Centrelink’s Robodebt system to be suspended at a Senate committee hearing today.

“The Robodebt system has no human oversight – and it puts the onus onto ordinary people to correct robotised mistakes,” said Anglicare Australia Executive Director Kasy Chambers.

“The Government has already admitted that the system that has saddled people with tens of millions of dollars in false debt. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Many people are simply paying these false debts instead of challenging them. In other cases, the debts are so old that the records to contradict them no longer exist.”

Read it all.

Merciful God, who didst call William Carey to missionary work in India and didst endue him with a zeal for thy Word that led him to translate Scripture into many local languages and dialects: Give us a heart for the spreading of thy Gospel and a thirst for justice among all the peoples of the world; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who sheds thy light and peace throughout humanity, and who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

OTD in 1785 William Carey was baptized in the River Nene by John Ryland Jr. They were later co-laborers in the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey is known as the Father of modern missions and served decades in India. pic.twitter.com/bNVKTFRFwf

— SBC History (@SBCHistory) October 5, 2019

O GOD our Father,
let us find grace in thy sight
so as to have grace
to serve thee acceptably
with reverence and godly fear,
and further grace
not to receive thy grace in vain,
not to neglect it and fall from it,
but to stir it up and grow in it,
and to persevere in it
unto the end of our lives;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Lancelot Andrews: Prayers that Lift the Mind Up to God https://t.co/y6t4VTyefn pic.twitter.com/4cFVwKHfGq

— D.F.G. Hailson (@dfghailson) March 10, 2017

And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

–Matthew 9:10-13

Five years after the launch of a £2.1-million project, the diocese of Leicester is reporting that one-quarter (26 per cent) of people attending weekly worship do so at a Fresh Expression — up from one in nine in 2011.

It follows similar figures from the diocese of Carlisle (News, 6 September 2019). The research also highlights evolving definitions, the symbiotic relationship between “traditional” churches and fresh expressions, and the growth of unlicensed lay leadership.

Thousands of “fresh expressions of church” have been planted since the launch of the report Mission-shaped Church in 2004, and are defined by the ecumenical charity Fresh Expressions as a “new gathering or network that engages mainly with people who have never been to church”.

Research conducted by Leicester in partnership with the Church Army’s Research Unit (CARU), published this week in a report, God at Work, suggests that the number of fresh expressions has grown by 60 per cent since 2011, from 47 to 75. In total, 2959 people are attending, up from 1811 in 2011.

Read it all.

Research… suggests that the number of fresh expressions has grown by 60 per cent since 2011, from 47 to 75. In total, 2959 people are attending, up from 1811 in 2011https://t.co/qB80Gj8enj

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 7, 2019

Cases of three common sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S. reached a record level in 2018, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gonorrhea and cases of primary and secondary syphilis – the disease’s most infectious stages – both reached their highest levels since 1991 last year. The country’s 115,045 syphilis cases included more than 35,000 cases of primary and secondary syphilis, marking a 14.9% rate uptick from 2017. Meanwhile, there were more than 583,000 cases of gonorrhea, a rate increase of 5% from 2017, and the rate of reported chlamydia cases rose 3% to total more than 1.7 million in 2018 – nearly two-thirds of which were among people 15 to 24 years old, the report shows.

Together, the diseases accounted for more than 2.4 million cases – an all-time high since data on all three conditions was first collected in 1984.

Read it all.

And the hits just keep on coming…https://t.co/WIwecOQt9e

— Lisa Boban 🍑 (@lisaboban) October 8, 2019

1. –Watch over other faith and minority ethnic communities. Hate crimes and crimes against other faiths increased after the 2016 referendum. Reconnect with the mosques, synagogues and gudwaras in your area.
2. –Encourage truthful and honest debate. The renewal of our politics will need to be local as well as national. Plan now to host hustings during the General Election campaign. Don’t be afraid of the political space but step into it with a message of faith, hope and love.
3. –Pray in public worship and private prayer for the healing of our political life, for wisdom for those who lead us, for reconciliation between communities and for stability in our government.

Don’t underestimate what we can achieve if every church, chaplaincy and school does something and if every Christian disciple takes some action, however small.

Don’t take on too much either: loving our neighbour through the Brexit process needs to be woven into everything we do anyway, not simply added into busy lives. Don’t be limited by this checklist – you might have even better ideas. If you do, spread them around.

Read it all.

The Kurdish-controlled area of northeast Syria stretches 300 miles from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border. Approximately 750,000 people live there, including estimates of between 40,000 and 100,000 Christians.

Over 700,000 Christians have fled Syria since 2011. And while some warn of further displacement, others fear a greater threat.

“Turkey aims to kill and destroy us and to finish the genocide against our people,” said a statement issued by the Syriac Military Council, a Christian component of the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), as reported by the Christian Broadcasting Network. “We hope and pray that as we have defended the world against ISIS, the world will not abandon us now.”

The Christian community of Qamishli, on the border with Turkey near Iraq, issued its own statement.

“The Turkish regime is based on armed extremist and radical groups that commit crimes against civilians and humanity,” said Sanharib Barsoum, the co-chair of the Syriac Union Party. “Such threats endanger the life of Syriac people in the region.”

Read it all.

Syrian Christians to US: ‘Don’t Abandon Us Now’ | News & Reporting | Christianity Today/ Praying for these brothers and sisters. https://t.co/ByzWLpeCWn

— Daniel Akin (@DannyAkin) October 8, 2019

At the end of the trial, after the jury had been dismissed, Judge Kemp came down from the bench to offer her condolences to Mr. Jean’s parents, as is her habit when a family has lost a loved one. “I told them that they raised a remarkable son in Botham,” she said.

Next, she said, she stopped by the defense table to offer a word of encouragement to Ms. Guyger. “I said to her, ‘Ms. Guyger, Brandt Jean has forgiven you,’” Judge Kemp recalled, referring to Botham Jean’s brother. “‘Now please forgive yourself so that you can live a productive life when you get out of prison.’”

What followed, she said, was an exchange whose equivalent she could not remember in her decades as a lawyer and her nearly five years on the bench.

“She asked me if I thought her life could have purpose,” Judge Kemp recalled. “I said, ‘I know that it can.’ She said, ‘I don’t know where to start, I don’t have a Bible.’” Judge Kemp said she thought of the Bible in her chambers. “I said, ‘Well, hold on, I’ll get you a Bible.’”

She came back out and, together, they read John 3:16, a passage about redemption.

That is when Ms. Guyger did something that caught the judge off guard: She asked for a hug.

Read it all.

I spoke to Judge Tammy Kemp, who explained what was going through her mind when she gave Amber Guyger a Bible and a hug.

“God says my job is to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly,” she told me. “So how can you refuse this woman a hug?”https://t.co/c4gQGYjmIk

— Sarah Mervosh (@smervosh) October 7, 2019