Thriving churches, Hayward says, ‘are very intentional about what they do. They are very clear in their beliefs’ – particularly about the urgency of accepting Christ, since one’s eternal destiny is at stake. ‘Rather than, “Well, everybody here believes something, and we’re not really sure what, but we can always put on an event and maybe somebody will come along.”’

A week after my visit to the Pentecostals, I attend a service at a United Reformed Church – which is the fastest-declining of any UK-wide church. The service is led by the Moderator of the URC, the Revd Dr Tessa Henry-Robinson, described by her church as ‘a womanist practical theologian’ who has a particular focus on ‘uplifting ethnically-minoritised women and communities’. The URC itself, according to its website, ‘is not rigid in the expression of its beliefs, and embraces a wide variety of opinions’.

The Gospel reading is about forgiveness: a ‘contentious’ subject, Dr Henry-Robinson concedes in her sermon, but ‘we can begin almost immediately by asking forgiveness for how we buy into containing and using God’. Such as? Pronouns, apparently. ‘I am not asking people to be on the same journey, but I am trying to be intentional about not using “he” or “she” or “it” or “they” to identify God… not limiting our language in identifying a God that is limitless.’

The trade-off is that so limitless a God may also be too fuzzy to see clearly. At the back of the Elim church is a cross, a reminder of Jesus’s saving death. At the back of the URC church is a stained-glass depiction of a tree with tongues of fire in it, a general image of life and renewal.

Read it all.

“Thriving churches… ‘are very intentional about what they do. They are very clear in their beliefs’ – particularly about the urgency of accepting Christ, since one’s eternal destiny is at stake.” https://t.co/LKYwQNZPOO

— Fr Chris Phillips (@phillipsc) September 22, 2023

Church of England education officials have welcomed the Government’s new Model Articles of Association, which sit alongside an updated national Memorandum of Understanding, as a recognition of the historic relationship between Church and State in education. They describe it as a move that offers “broad and expansive hope” for the development of church multi-academy trusts (MATs) “in a way that suits the local and regional context”.

But the new model documents, published on Monday, have also raised significant concerns. Writing in the Church Times this week, Howard Dellar, who is senior partner and head of the ecclesiastical and education department at Lee Bolton Monier-Williams, describes some of the changes as “exceedingly unwise”, and warned that the new model articles represent a sea change into “very choppy waters”.

One key change is the removal of Single Academy Trust Clauses to support the growth of MATs. Another is that there is now one consolidated model Article of Association, predicated on a majority governance structure, with flexibility to adapt governance provisions according to diocesan policy; previously, there were two separate models for majority and minority C of E governance, reflecting the difference in context between schools converting from voluntary aided and voluntary controlled status.

Read it all.

"The embedding of the diocesan strategy in these core documents offers a broad and expansive hope for the development of Church of England MATs in a way that suits the local and regional context" https://t.co/vEanFj8C2t

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 22, 2023

I’m grateful for the humor infused into our friendship. But I’m also grateful for the ways Tim Keller encouraged me. One such occurrence was at the conclusion of a conference when I was walking him out of the venue. As we made our way toward the exit, he stopped. When I turned around and walked back to him, this six-foot-five man extended his arm, pulled me in, and said, “You’re doing really good work here.” It was the most awkward, most affirming hug I’d ever received.

Yet, what’s equally important to the humor and the encouragement is the way Tim Keller shaped me as a preacher. Before I encountered him years ago, my messages were heavy on how-tos and performance. Do this. Become that. But in every single sermon I preach today, I strive to direct people to worship Jesus and adore him more as opposed to inspiring them to work harder as Christians.

I believe Tim was quoting D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones when he said, “There ought to come a time in every message where the pen goes down and the eyes go up and you stop saying, ‘Oh my God, look at all the things I have to do for you. And you start saying, ‘Oh my God, look at all the things you’ve done for me.’”

Read it all.

“Before I encountered Tim Keller years ago, my messages were heavy on how-tos and performance,” writes @jdgreear.

“But in every single sermon I preach today, I strive to direct people to worship Jesus and adore him more.”https://t.co/3sqHHvYefP

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 25, 2023

Global warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.

Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.

The New York Times conducted a months-long examination of groundwater depletion, interviewing more than 100 experts, traveling the country and creating a comprehensive database using millions of readings from monitoring sites. The investigation reveals how America’s life-giving resource is being exhausted in much of the country, and in many cases it won’t come back. Huge industrial farms and sprawling cities are draining aquifers that could take centuries or millenniums to replenish themselves if they recover at all.

Read it all.

Readable, emblematic description of problems with water that occur, to different degrees, but with same causes, pretty much everywhere: bad policy, poor enforcement, lack of valuation, sectoral lobbying, poor monitoring, political v hydrological. https://t.co/1bJWE5lykh

— Scott McCready (@scottmccready) September 24, 2023

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Saint Sergius of Radonezh #byzantineorthodoxart #byzantineart #byzantine #icons #paintings #art #history #artwork #artworks pic.twitter.com/wwHdUHFQsb

— Byzantine Orthodox Art (@ArtOrthodox) September 24, 2024

O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Buachaille Etive Mhor. Really looking forward to getting up here again in the next few weeks. pic.twitter.com/XFuMjc2l4p

— YorkshireLass (@MaureenPlatts) September 25, 2023

Already you are filled! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things.

–1 Corinthians 4:8-13

Monday sunrise over the Charleston Harbor! pic.twitter.com/zSaBktL8YD

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) September 25, 2023