Posted by John Roberts | Posted on 01-02-2006
Category : Cell / Sermon notes, Society
A recent post on a Christian Forum which I moderate made me think about my position as 1) a member of staff in the church 2) a moderator of a lively forum 3) a christian in the church family.
The post in question was asking for people who may have DVD’s or Videos which show sporting celebrations, and if you had any could the user borrow them for a project he was doing with the youth one sunday morning – he proposed to copy clips from the DVD’s & Videos and create a montage of celebrations in a 2 minute clip to show the children – he then stated “i know this is illegal but if your ok about this then so am I!”
“nothing wrong with that!” i hear you cry but lets think a bit longer on this – copying from a dvd or video is in breach of copyright – this in itself is breaking the law, then by cracking a dvd to rip it onto a computer to be able to get segments for clips is then not only breaking copyright but also piracy.
this made me think 1st should he openly admit he as a christian is breaking the law? the answer to this is no, but as we are all aware piracy is a fast growing craze with internet peer to peer file sharing programmes readily availible, and CD-RW drives easily accesible from computer shops, is this another law which we as christians turning a blind eye too?
but what was more worring to me was the fact he was doing it for the church sunday school, and as the leader of the sunday school shouldnt he be creating a responsible attitude to the law, and be a good model for the youngsters?
i could provide answers for what i think to these questions but i want to personally challenge you to find the answers for yourself, i can honestly say yes, i have ripped cds and copied them and yes i do have a few pirate dvd’s in my collection, bust since this post came up it challenged me to say is this acceptable behaviour, and after some searching i agreed it wasnt and if i couldnt afford to buy the DVD or CD in question then i will have to wait until i can. if i have been entrusted in a position of responsability as a christian, i should try my hardest to live the life of Jesus and be a respected Model for those who i work with and those who look up to me in my position.
In a society that is becoming more and more liberal how many more laws as christians will we turn our backs on as it becomes more readily acceptable to break them in the society we live in? if we are to show light to the world then these small things will make a difference!
Posted by Rob Borley | Posted on 05-12-2005
Category : Cell / Sermon notes
Last night I was at an event in Portsmouth organised by the churches in the city as a joint evangelism venture. It was called Christmas unwrapped and the well known evangelist J John was the guest speaker.
The evening seem to go well and a number of people gave their lives to Jesus. All broadcast to 97% of the globe (if you believe the spin) courtesy of God TV. Now, it�s not the event itself that I want to talk about, although that may be a subject for future posts, but instead something which J John said to us in the leaders meeting before hand.
He was talking about how everyone should be involved in evangelism but how we are not all evangelists. I have herd this before of course but it has never really made a great deal of sense to me. I have always understood that we are not all evangelists but how do the two go together.
The analogy he used has certainly made things clearer to me so I thought I would share it here.
He likened your average Jo Christian to a witness in a legal case. It is our job to provide evidence of Christ to people around us through what we say and how we live our lives. It is the evangelist�s job to be a lawyer; to bring all the evidence together and to sum up the case.
I really liked this description and am going to explore a little further what affect that might have on me and on the people around me.
Posted by Gareth Matthews | Posted on 18-10-2005
Category : Cell / Sermon notes
A while back at cell group, we got round to discussing some well known characters in the bible. One character intrigued me a fair bit and I started reading through the first eleven chapters of 1 Kings to find out a little more. The character here is David’s son Solomon – who became king after David died. Solomon really impressed God by asking for wisdom rather than riches or long life and Solomon’s life and kingdom was blessed richly by God. However, Solomon had an interesting pastime which is alluded to in chapter 11: Women. The message puts it brilliantly as it opens chapter 11: King Solomon was obsessed with women. In fact, reading on, his obsession with women meant that he had over 1000 women at his beck and call and this eventually led him to worship their god’s instead of the true and living God of Israel.
There are other characters in the bible who are regarded as great and yet have some pretty serious blemishes on their record:
- David, Solomon’s father, was an adultery and was guilty of conspiracy to murder.
- Moses, who led the nation of Israel from captivity in Egypt was a murderer
- Paul, the new testament evangelist was a long-term persecutor of the new Christian church
I could go on…
So why did God choose to use such people in such mighty ways? How would we react to someone with a record like one of the people mentioned above came into our church? It’s a challenging thought – I myself can think of recent thoughts such as “they can’t be that good a Christian if they smoke and drink like that” or “God will never use them until they sort out that issue”. When I take stock of myself I start to understand that what I have infact done is inserted a mile wide plank of stainless steel into my eye it really starts to open my eyes to the way God’s heart works.
And it is the issue of heart that is important, I believe. Solomon’s heart was “Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil.”; David is described in the Word as “a man after God’s heart” and I feel that what God is teaching us here is that He is longing for people who hunger and thirst after His heart and long to live out His will for their lives, no matter what state their lives are currnently in.
Quite recently, I have started to become interested in the music of U2. I quite enjoy most of their music but more than that I have become interested in the writings of their songs and the background that has led them as a band to become what they are. Bono is quite a contraversial character – while he doesn’t openly publiscise his faith, it is pretty clear from his song writing that he has a rock solid belief in God and is a man who is hungering to do God’s will and see God move. Yet I have also heard a lot about “how Bono can’t be a Christian” because of his lifestyle, his choice of language and his enjoyment of cigars. It seems apparent that it doesn’t matter what you do, if you are not perfect in every way possible you cannot possibly be annointed by God to do it.
But that goes against everything we have just learnt from characters like Solomon and David! I really believe God can do things with any person whose heart yearns after God’s. Whilst I can understand the points of view that some people have about the sins in people’s lives – and I am not in anyway condoning the sin – but if God can look past it and work with it, why can’t we? Who are we to judge what is a sin that needs sorting out anyway?
Of course things like accountability have to also come into play here as well – it is so valuable to have people around us that can challenge us on the things going on in our lives. But isn’t it about time we put a bit more effort into living the life God wants us to lead rather than simply leading lives that ensure we are in better shape (in our eyes) than other people around us?
